W is for Working Assumptions

(and F is for the new "Flexetariat")

London. Friday 30 September

This brilliant cartoon is already a little out of date (they say a week is a long time in politics and in social media nanosecond world that’s an understatement).

Why was it brilliant? Because it was like the cartoon equivalent of a double entendre.

The double meaning is this.

Firstly, for oldies like me and Brits like me, it spoke to an infamous political advertising campaign with the slogan ‘Labour isn’t Working’ which is generally credited with the beginning of an era of Conservative rule in the UK = an era which currently looks like it is ending.

Secondly, it speaks to the outpouring of love and loss for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the infamous British queue which formed to pay respects to her as she lay in state in the Palace of Westminster.

It is interesting, isn’t it, that when people are sufficiently motivated, they will do things like queue for hours. Which brings me to the real reason this image resonates with me.

‘Working’. That word. That idea.

Because right now, being motivated to work with the old levers is not working, not as it was: epic levels of disaffection, resignation, quiet quitting, threats to leave professions.

There is, I believe, a new kind of emerging professional worker, who will move or commute (or queue) if motivated on their terms - but only on their terms.

Not because they are instructed to RTO - ‘Return To Office’ or because Malcolm Gladwell (Malcolm! You disappoint me!) tells them to get out of pajamas.

F is for Flexetariat

I call this new kind of worker The Flexetariat. And I used my first column for Bloomberg - Working Assumptions - to explore this.

Bloomberg have invited me to be one of the voices in their brand new ‘vertical’ section devoted to the future of work, called Work Shift. Do check it out - it contains a plethora of news, analysis, and yes, my views on the shape-shifting moment we are going through with work.

Coming Up….

Next week I will cross the Atlantic to the US for the second time in a few weeks: I was in Miami recently addressing a senior leadership team of a global tech firm, signing a trolleyload of books (literally) and I head to New York where I will be speaking on 12th October at The Charter Workplace Summit.

In November I will zig zag between London, with events such as a conversation at law firm Mishcon de Reya, and The WorkTech Academy conference (a must for work-watchers) to Vienna, where the annual Global Drucker Forum is always a pleasure: Any management geek has to come (Schnapps on me).

At the Drucker Forum my co-presenter of The Nowhere Office podcast Stefan Stern will be bringing some interviews for series 4. You can listen to series 1,2,3 here. Series 4 - like the 4th industrial revolution - is inevitable and soon!

That is it for now. If you would like my subscription-based newsletter with all the latest to read, think and consider about the workplace for your leadership teams then do contact info@nowhereoffice.info.

Until then, consider this: Richard Donkin wrote in The Future of Work a decade ago that in the near future: “The jobs are where we can still find work and it is still called work, only hardly anyone thinks of it as we used to think of work”.

Hardly anyone thinks of work without thinking of change right now - that’s for sure.

Work well - wherever you are and whatever you do.