Leaders need to work diligently to build a culture that embraces constant change, delegates decision making, avoids the unnecessary bureaucracy brought about by hierarchy, trusts people to do the right thing, encourages collaboration, experimentation and creativity. This culture provides psychological safety where there is no negative consequence for ‘having a go’. Experimentation and risk taking is encouraged within provisioned guardrails or principles.

How do leaders bring about that sort of transformational change?

Many organizations now finding themselves in what is being termed the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ are looking to technology to drive the organization forward.

They want to take advantage of technology including machine learning, real-time data analytics, robotics and artificial intelligence.

One would think that with the enabling technologies for things such as artificial intelligence and machine learning being more readily available and affordable there would be a mad rush to embrace these new capabilities.

Which zone are you in? Which zone are your people in?

We need to know our people and recognize the warning signs when they are approaching the terror zone. We need to work with them so they can identify what is in their comfort zone and what could be in their stretch zone.

When leaders are giving up the command and control approach, they don't have to give it all up at once. Giving up can be hard for many. Leaders shouldn’t try to eat the elephant in one go. They should eat it in bite size pieces.

They should look for an initiative or project that is within their scope of control and decide to let go. They give up control, and set clear goals and objectives. They provide guiding principles or guardrails and step back.

I have been asked to consolidate some of my recent blogs into a white paper and make it available to download by my subscribers.

The paper describes what would happen if organisations stopped focusing so much on profit, stakeholder and competition and instead shifted the focus to people.

It is my belief that if we truly focus on the people side of the business, the rest will take care of itself.

At the start of the decade, the typical worker lacked 1.2 of the critical skills needed by an employer to fill a given position. Today, the average worker is missing around 2 of the 18 critical skills that are advertised for a job. 

The old lens of profit, return, competition and efficiency will not get organizations to where they need to be.

This old lens on business will not enable organizations to transform in a way they must in order to not only survive but also thrive.

Organizations will have to reexamine not only how they do business but also how they are led and managed.

What if we focused on our people and realized those ledger items such as profit, return, competitive advantage, operational efficiency etc. as a result?

It is my firm belief that in this era of disruption, a shift in focus is imperative unless organizations want to die a slow and painful death.

The first in a series of reports from The Workforce Institute at Kronos and Future Workplace, that examines attitudes of 3,400 members of generation Z, has just been released. The global survey asked about how education prepared them for the workplace, the gig economy and their views on employers of choice.

We all have people admire because they have great leadership skills.

For me I don't have to go any further than Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp. Despite being born a scouser and a red at the same time, I don't think I am biased!

I believe that leaders (and budding leaders) can learn a lot from Jurgen’s example.