What if We Completely Rethought the Nature of Work? 🤔
This simple thought exercise can transform how we view and design work
A common thought exercise for strategic thinkers is to examine what a company or project would look like if it completely started over from scratch. It’s a great way to reset thinking, especially when you’re too close to a project and can’t see how to improve it. The thought exercise of taking something apart and rebuilding it offers a fresh perspective that can open up entirely new opportunities to explore.
So what if we did that on a bigger scale? What if we engaged this thought exercise to reexamine the nature of work?
A recent example of this thought experiment occurred when I watched an intriguing program on Gaia featuring Michael Tellinger. Hidden Origins presents Tellinger’s theories and research about the world’s history and the nature of money. Whether or not Tellinger’s theories about a moneyless society are feasible in the near future, it presents a fascinating way of thinking about what the world would look like if society had evolved without the current structure of working in exchange for money. (BTW, Gaia is a fantastic platform for exploring consciousness-expanding concepts.)
One issue Tellinger raises is objectively verifiable: the current way we structure work is causing many people to be unhappy, exhausted, and constantly striving just to get by. What if instead of feeling tired, burned out, overworked, overwhelmed, and unheard, work focused on drawing out each person’s unique talents and abilities in a way that empowers and energizes them?
This isn’t some utopic vision; we can create a new way of working by shifting the nature of work. It requires conscious leaders who are willing to chart a new path, fail and iterate quickly, and demonstrate to the world a new way of BE-ing.
In previous newsletters I’ve covered concepts like moving teams to completely remote to increase flexibility for employees, instituting a 20-hour work week, hiring a head wellness leader, and flattening hierarchy to truly empower teams. These are just a few of the ideas more and more employers are exploring to change work as we know it.
Advances in technology will continue to enable these types of innovations. Leaders who capitalize on these technologies for increasing the wellbeing of their teams will be on the cutting edge of the future of work. They will be considered the thought leaders and gurus of tomorrow.
How will you, as a conscious leader, help usher in this new era balancing wellbeing, true team-building, and work? The first step is to continue to work on increasing your level of consciousness through self-development and extending that opportunity to your team as well. The future of work is abundance, opportunity, and happiness for all. It’s the conscious leaders like you who will help create that future.
Work happy. Live happy. BE happy.
Meredith
Meredith’s coaching helps conscious leaders step courageously into the future of work. Contact her to develop your conscious leadership and transform your organization into the workplace of the future.
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