Positioning Yourself and Your Organization for the Future
"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
- Charles Darwin -
Change is nothing new to you or the people in your organization. The future is nothing like what we anticipated from watching cartoons and movies. Information moves faster, comes from and goes to an increasingly diverse number of sources.
Following are some trends. You might view them as themes that stand a solid chance of influencing and shaping our world, our work and strategies for success and survival.
Skill requirement continue to increase in response to changes in technology and work structure. Basic reading, writing and math ability aren't enough. Employable people need computer literacy, problem solving and interpersonal skills. This means being able to read technical journals and operational manuals and use the data to ensure efficiency and quality of work. It means having the skill to listen and really understand what another person is saying and meaning. It means being able to resolve conflicts and get along with others. Writing reports, documenting facts, creating business correspondence and understanding budget / financial information is becoming part of every position.
The workforce is increasingly diverse, some are becoming more educated while others lack basic competencies or even a high school education. Our workforce is a mix of ages, genders, races, cultures, education levels and expectations. It's a combination of both full-time and part-time employees, temporary and contracted workers. With diversity comes fresh ideas, alternate perspectives, multiple markets and difficulty understanding others due to significantly different life experiences. There's the pull between "remember when we all came from the same place" and "what we need is a new, improved way of looking at things." The challenge is to find the best ways of working and living.
Organizational restructuring will continue to reshape the work environment and working relationships. This trend holds significant challenges as it directly impacts what's done, why it's done, who does it and how it's done. It impacts workplace morale, job security, workforce loyalty and expectations - of employers and employees. People will continue moving from larger organizations to small business or entrepreneurship, while at the same time larger and medium-sized organizations define new rules and expectations for performance.
Rapid and dynamic technological change impacts how we interact and work each day. Information technology and related change are defining and redefining how information is gathered, organized, stored, accessed and used in our daily lives. We've seen a huge change in how we learn, how training is conducted and how we create and build knowledge. A noteworthy addition to this positioning process is the professional and intelligent use of Social Networking applications, such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
Organizations will focus on human performance, systems, learning and improvement for survival and competitive advantage. Hey, we already do that stuff! (For the most part, not really.) This trend is about alignment and people. It's about linking vision and strategy, structure, systems and performance to achieve specific results. This trend is built on leadership, not by a select few, but by the majority of people in the organization. It's about "owning" the success of what you're a part of. It's about sharing in success and failure with a direct link between performance and compensation.
For more information contact LMA Consulting Group at 717.509.8889 / 877.562.2888
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