Dr. Gabriella Rosen Kellerman is the Chief Innovation Officer for BetterUp Labs, as well as the Co-Author of the book Tomorrowmind: Thriving at Work, Now and In an Uncertain Future. As a psychologist, Gabriella has studied the workplace and works each day in her role to help envision and create a better world of work.

During our conversation Gabriella spoke about the history of work back from the hunter-gather days until present day, as well as the challenges that leaders and employees face in navigating a constantly changing and evolving world of work. 

Drawing on the concepts, research, and ideas, from her book as well as from her work at BetterUp Labs, Gabriella provided us with some ideas about the key skills that leaders and managers should both develop in order to lead effectively in today’s world of work, and how they can help their employees navigate the complexities and uncertainties of a constantly changing workplace, ranging from navigating uncertainty, mattering and purpose, and developing social connection regardless of location.

Using the PRISM model, Gabriella also shared five key skills that all employees can develop and use to thrive in today’s world of work so that they can thrive 

Links

• Website: https://www.gabriellarosenkellerman.com/
• Gabriella’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grkellerman/
• Al’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsaldea/
• Book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Tomorrowmind/Gabriella-Rosen-Kellerman/9781982159764 

Kelly Monahan is the Managing Director at Upwork, and leads their Future of Work research efforts. Having conducted and led future of work research efforts at leading organizations, Kelly has been studying the workplace and how it’s changed and evolved over the years, and is currently leading efforts at Upwork to identify Workplace innovators who are truly thinking and working about the workplace and designing organizations.

During our conversation, Kelly spoke about some of her observations about how she has seen the workplace change, and some examples of how companies and leaders have adapted new ways of working and thinking as a result of those changes, ranging from how companies hire, think about work, and design work. 

Kelly also spoke about some of the research she and her team at Upwork have been doing on generative AI, and some of the key insights as well as future opportunities for how Generative AI can help organizations reimagine how they work, and truly work in new ways. 

Links:

• Kelly’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-monahan-ph-d-18879413/
• Kelly's TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23SYB8ZFEEI
• Upwork Research on Gen AI: https://www.upwork.com/blog/generative-ai-disconnect 
• Productivity-Trust Paradox: https://alsnewsletter.substack.com/p/the-productivity-trust-paradox
• David Graeber: https://www.vox.com/2018/5/8/17308744/bullshit-jobs-book-david-graeber-occupy-wall-street-karl-marx
• Slack's Research on Productivity and Trust (Summer 2023): https://slack.com/blog/news/future-of-work-research-summer-2023
• Discretionary Effort: https://hbr.org/2004/12/the-things-they-do-for-love
• Al’s Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsaldea/

Today’s episode is about the opportunity and importance of designing mentoring programs for employees in today’s changing world of work. Joining me is Emily Goligoski is the SVP of Research at Charter. 

Drawing on research that Emily and her team at Charter led to evaluate mentoring in the hybrid workplace, Emily shared some of their key findings from the report, including how mentoring is impacted by work style (hybrid, in-person, and remote) how great mentor-pair relationships work, and some of the key characteristics of well run mentoring programs. 

Emily also shared some of her observations on some of our shortcomings with mentoring programs and how to overcome them, and her ideas for how to build a great mentoring program inside your organization.

Links:

• Emily’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilygoligoski/
• Charter and Qualtrics’ Research: https://www.charterworks.com/charter-research-mentorship-remote-hybrid/
• Like this episode? Let Al know → https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsaldea/ 

Adam Hickman is the Vice President of Learning and Org Development at Partners Federal Credit Union, a Walt Disney Company. In addition to this role, Adam is an author and professor and writes and speaks regularly on topics related to management and leadership.

During our conversation, Adam dove into some of the changes in the workplace and the implications of those changes (ex: technology) for what companies need out of their people managers so that they can have engaged and productive employees. 

Adam also shared some of his team’s strategy and approach at his organization around manager effectiveness, the approaches they are taking in redesign the role of the manager and develop good managers, and his own  to recruit and empower effective managers, and some of his own thoughts on how you can create a better world of work through better managers.

Links:

• Adam’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamghickman/
• Al's Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsaldea/
• https://www.hrdconnect.com/2023/04/25/how-to-evolve-and-equip-your-managers-to-buck-the-disengagement-trend/adam-hickman-on-the-shifting-role-of-the-manager/ 

Note: This is a recording from a LinkedIn Live. Dan Nieves works in Global Executive Engagement at Reality Labs at Meta. Over the course of his career, Dan has worked at the intersection of emerging technology, people and the future of work.

During this conversation, Dan spoke about how technologies including AR/VR (Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality) are reimagining how we think about work, and shared some examples and ideas for how companies can use emerging technology to truly reimagine and rethink the way they work.

Links

• Dan’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dnieves/
• Al’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsaldea/ 

Angela Cheng-Cimini is the Chief Human Resources Officers at Harvard Business Publishing.  As a seasoned HR Leader, Angela is passionate about creating employee experiences that unleash the purpose and potential of each employee.  And critical to that individual employee experience is the role of the manager.  

During our conversation, Angela shared her definition of why in today's evolving workplace,  a new employee experience, or  hyper-personalized employee experience is critical to meeting and exceeding employee expectations. She also shared  a number of critical elements of this experience including employee onboarding, career pathing, and pay transparency. 

Angela also shared why the manager is critical to delivering this employee experience, how she and her team have focused on this at Harvard Business Publishing, and how other leaders can adopt this approach inside their organization.

Links: 

• Angela’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-cheng-cimini-160890a 
• https://www.td.org/talent-development-leader/is-the-new-employee-experience-here-to-stay 
• https://www.harvardbusiness.org/6-experts-on-the-future-of-leadership/
• Like this episode? Let Al know → https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsaldea/ 

Muriel Wilkins is an Executive Coach, Managing Partner at a Leadership and Coaching Firm, and the Host of the HBR Podcast Coaching Real Leaders.

After graduating from Harvard Business School and pursuing a career to become a CMO, Muriel realized she had other aspirations, and through the guidance of an Executive Coach, decided to become an Executive Coach herself. Now, she runs a successful Executive Coaching Practice, and spends her time coaching executives and sharing her learnings on her podcast, Coaching Real Leaders.

During our conversation, Muriel spoke about some of the changes and adaptations she has seen leaders navigate  over the past few years, and how she has seen the desired qualities of leaders change as a result of our changing world of work. She also shared some of her thoughts on what is different about leadership today, why leaders need to embrace complexity, and how we might rethink and reframe leadership for and what we look for from our leaders so that we can create a better world of work. 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/murielwilkins/ 
• Podcast: https://hbr.org/2020/12/podcast-coaching-real-leaders 
• Website: https://paravispartners.com/who-we-are/

Note: This is a recording of a LinkedIn Live.

Stephen Bailey is the CEO and Co-Founder of ExecOnline, a leadership development platform that works to make leadership development accessible to more leaders. In this conversation, Stephen spoke about some of the trends and insights he’s seeing from the companies he speaks to about leadership development, as well as from the insights he and his team are seeing from the completion of programs on their platform. 

As the world of work continues to evolve and change, so too must the way we think of and train our leaders inside of organizations who are responsible for leading it. Stephen spoke what's new and different about leading in today’s workplace, why the it’s important to learn faster than the rate of change, the impact that technology like data, analytics and generative AI has on learning and the world of work and what it means to leaders. 

And finally, Stephen also spoke about why leaders need to also focus on the human skills in order to lead and empower people in the workplace.

Links:

• ExecOnline: https://execonline.com/
• LinkedIn Live Recording: https://www.linkedin.com/events/theedgeofworklive-thefutureofwo7087479409347096577/comments/ 

Christine Cruzvergara is the Chief Strategy & Education Officer at Handshake, a technology platform that connects early career talent with jobs and internships at 650,000+ employers. 

In her role, Christine spends time connecting, advising and listening to employers, students, and Career Development offices on college campuses and has a keen sense of the labor market for early career professionals.

During our conversation, Christine spoke about some of the recent trends in preferences about work, careers, and employers from Gen- Z talent, including:

• What kinds of companies students are interested in (hint: not tech companies!)
• The top elements that Gen Z talent is interested in out of a job and employer
• Why Gen Z views upskilling and reskilling as critical to their first job and their entire career

Links:

• Report: https://joinhandshake.com/network-trends/new-grad-future-of-work/
• Handshake Website: https://joinhandshake.com/
• Article: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/03/new-college-grads-worried-about-being-overworked-in-their-first-jobs.html 
• Christine’s Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinecruzvergara/ 

Emily Field is a Partner at McKinsey & Company, and a Co-Author of the book: Power to The Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work. 

As a Partner in McKinsey’s Talent and Organization Practice, Emily works with companies to implement best in class talent management strategies, and as a Co-Author of this book, has spent a great deal of time researching the state of the manager in today’s workplace, what is challenging, and what needs to change.

During our conversation, we spoke about the challenges of the modern manager today, as well as some of the realities that Emily and her co-authors uncovered in their research, including a time study of how managers spent their time each day.

Emily also shared some strategies for companies who want to fix the role of the manager, why we need to re-think the manager experience like we might revamp a customer experience, as well as sharing some of her thoughts on how in the future of work, empowering the middle manager will be a key lynchpin to success. 

Links:

• Book: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-on-books/power-to-the-middle
• McKinsey Research: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/stop-wasting-your-most-precious-resource-middle-managers 
• Emily’s Profile: https://www.mckinsey.com/our-people/emily-field