Now that we officially have a vaccine, focus has understandably shifted to how exactly it will be distributed, and by when. We are almost certainly headed back to some version of normal by the back half of 2021.
Which begs the question: what will that new version of normal look like?
Read MoreHappy Labor Day weekend! Speaking of labor, here are a few worthwhile reads about how work is changing:
Seven leadership styles for building organizational resilience ... and one to avoid
New challenges to the concept of working time in the digital reality
The COVID-19 crisis is a chance to do capitalism differently
In a near universal remote work environment, a lot depends on workers being self-starters, managing their own time, and communicating well about their work loads. The biggest hindrance to remote work is collaboration difficulty, so we have to make up the difference with some intentionality.
Some of these skills will be easier than others for certain employees, but all of them are trainable. And over time, they become habits that create a healthy remote work environment.
Read MoreIf you haven’t yet read Derek Thompson’s excellent essay in The Atlantic about “The Religion of Workism,” I highly recommend it. Thompson’s thesis—that in American society we’ve replaced religion with “workism” as a way to find meaning—strikes at the very heart of many occupational ambitions. (Including, if I’m honest, my own.)
“For today’s workists,” Thompson says, “anything short of finding one’s vocational soul mate means a wasted life.”
Read MoreIf burnout is our chronic condition as modern workers, where does it come from, and what is the solution?
Funny enough, studies show burnout doesn’t necessarily come from hard work. It often comes from boredom and monotony.
Read MoreA few weeks ago I re-read an article by the management thinker Peter Drucker from 2001 called “Will the corporation survive?” In it, he talks about his assumptions about the next phase of business. Since the 1970s, the economy had shifted to depend on “knowledge workers” — workers who make meaning out of information — and Drucker saw this shift putting power back into the hands of workers.
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