Rethinking work: technological innovation, business disruption & leadership willpower

"Hopefully the mindset of our leaders has changed as a result of this crisis” An HR Leader discussing COVID-19.

This is the first in a two-part article on reconceptualizing work through learning from disruption. The first part discusses why disruption is often necessary to significantly change work practices. The second part focuses on traditional assumptions about work that organizations should question as they begin returning to a “new normal”.

There is a lot of talk about how organizations are rethinking work as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. Thinking about the future during a crisis is a healthy part of coping with change as long as it does not detract from supporting those who have urgent needs right now. But why does it take a crisis to spur this type of thinking? 

What inspires companies to significantly change their work practices?

Work practices are defined as the norms and methods used to design organizations, staff positions and manage and develop employees. Three things influence innovation in work practices: technological capability, leadership initiative and business necessity. Technological capability makes it possible to work in ways that are different from how work was done in the past. Leadership initiative reflects the desire of people in the company to do things differently. Business necessity drives changes as a reaction to shifts in the economies and societies where companies operate. Technological capability and leadership initiative tend to create incremental changes in the nature of work. But highly transformative changes to work usually require disruptions tied to business necessity.

Technology changes what is possible to do, but does not change what is actually done

Shortly after I finished graduate school, a senior HR practitioner told me “technology should never define the process”. Just because we can do something with technology does not mean we should do it. Looking back, I realize this advice was misguided. Our understanding of technology fundamentally shapes how we define a process because it defines what we think is possible. And work processes that cannot be supported by existing technology are unscalable and ultimately unsustainable. On the other hand, the fact that something is possible to do with existing technology does not mean companies will do it. Even if it would create significant value for the organization. This is particularly true when it comes to transformational changes to work.

Companies tend to be more interested in using technology to improve established work methods as opposed to using it to radically rethink how work is done. As a result, advances in technology are primarily a reaction to existing issues. Most development in HR technology focuses on improving what is as opposed to creating what could be. Or as I put it, old, familiar wine in newer, fancier bottles. 

Over time, advances in technology do profoundly change what is possible in terms of how work is conducted. But even then, companies fail to take advantage of these advances to rethink work. To illustrate this concept, consider an analogy between common work practices and the QWERTY keyboards most of us use every day. QWERTY refers to how the keys are ordered, starting with the upper left of the keyboard. Have you ever wondered why QWERTY keyboards place the letters a and e so they are typed using the weakest fingers of most people’s non-dominant left hand? These are the most common letters in English. Would it make more sense to have a and e placed under the strongest fingers of our dominant hand? The answer is QWERTY keyboards are designed to slow us down. The QWERTY keyboard was created as a result of a technology constraint. It prevented people from jamming the keys in mechanical typewriters. People who use modern keyboards designed for speed type about 75% faster with much greater accuracy. If computers had been available when keyboards were invented, the QWERTY keyboard would never have been created. We do not use QWERTY keyboards because they make sense with modern technology. We use them because they made sense with the technology available 130 years ago. We use them because they are familiar, not because they are effective. 

The same concept applies to many work practices. For example, I doubt the once a year annual performance review would have been created if we always had social and mobile technology. Yet companies continue to use them even though there are much better alternatives. The same is true about work practices such as organizational charts, daily commuting, classroom based training, or retirement. We do not use these things because they make sense now. They were designed in the past to deal with the technology constraints and work realities of the past. But like QWERTY keyboards, they have become so familiar that we continue using them without questioning their value.

Consider the recent mass move to remote work. While this transition has had its challenges, the fact millions of people switched from on-site to virtual work in under a few weeks shows that companies had ready access to technology needed for remote work but had chosen not to use it. The change also showed that moving to remote work for the most part did not impact workforce productivity and sometimes it even went up, and that most employees like having the option to work remotely. Companies had the technology necessary to support remote work, employees wanted to work remotely, workforce productivity was not impacted by remote work, yet companies never transitioned to remote work until they were forced to do so by business necessity. Technological advances by themselves rarely lead to large scale innovation in work practices. There has to be some sort of triggering event.

Senior leaders do not fear change, but they do fear wasting resources and time

One of the biggest myths about people is they fear change. This is not true. People welcome change provided it occurs in the right conditions. One of these conditions is appreciating the value of putting effort into change. We cling to work habits rooted in outdated technology because we do not understand the value of adopting more effective ones using modern technological capabilities. This tendency to stick with familiar work practices starts with senior leaders.

The reluctance of senior leaders to change work practices is not about their ability to change, but it is related to their seniority. Contrary to what many people think, our ability to change does NOT decline as we get older.[1] Research has shown people’s ability to learn new technology remains fairly constant as we age. What does change is the reasons why people choose to adopt technology. Older workers tend to focus on the value the technology will provide, while younger workers are often more interested in the technology itself. I suspect this is because older workers have seen a lot of technological innovation over their careers and are aware that just because something is new does not mean it is valuable. Leading organizations requires a complex set of skills that are primarily acquired through job experience. Because it takes time to gain this experience, most senior leaders have worked for at least 20 years before achieving executive status. Time spent working provides senior leaders with a lot of business wisdom and insight, but it also allows them to become comfortable with existing work practices.

Younger employees are often frustrated when they encounter work practices based on outdated technology (e.g., work methods that do not utilize mobile technology). But that does not mean using technology to change existing work practices is worth the effort. Older employees may have a better sense of what changes are valuable but may not realize what is possible with modern technology. The result is a disconnect where no one fully considers both what is possible and what makes sense. So rather than invest energy into large scale change, companies creep slowly into the future using technology to make minor changes to existing work methods. They rarely undertake large scale transformations to truly reimagine what work should be given the capabilities of modern technology.   

This problem is compounded by the fact that the people with the greatest capacity to drive change in existing work methods are senior leaders. The behavior of senior leaders largely defines the culture of a company. Because leaders set the culture, they tend to be comfortable with “the way we do things”. They have little incentive to try new work methods. And there may be no one else in the company positioned to drive them to change. As a result, companies persist in doing things the way they’ve always been done simply because its leaders have always done it that way.

Why business disruption is valuable for driving technological innovation in work methods

Large scale business disruption is often more painful than good. It forces organizations to rapidly adapt to changes that they did not create and may not want. It can lead to loss of things we value and can be catastrophic for certain companies and employees. However, business disruption can be valuable because it can get people to seriously question the effectiveness of existing work practices. 

Large scale disruption impacts all employees regardless of age, experience, or leadership level. It can make everyone simultaneously wonder whether the way they have been working is the right way to work. This creates a rare opportunity to re-examine existing work practices. But companies will not benefit from this opportunity unless they consciously seek it out. The past is familiar, and the familiar is comfortable. If company leaders do not challenge themselves to rethink work following disruption, the company will almost certainly return to many of its old ways of working.

It has been said experience is a lousy teacher because it gives the lesson after the test. Experience is also a great teacher because it makes us aware of why we need to change. However, we only gain from experience if we consciously choose to learn the lessons it teaches. This is why it is important for organizations to explicitly take action to learn from disruption. Asking whether current methods of work make sense given the current reality or are simply familiar relics of the past. For a look at some of the existing work methods we should be questioning, please read part 2 of this article. 

Notes

[1] Within normal working years. There can be decrements when we approach the tail end of our life span.