The world is changing in many ways.
financial world, environment, retirement age, medicine....and most importantly how we work and will work.
The company Free-Style Bürodesign AG, a successful working environment designer, has started a regular series of lectures in Zurich to show entrepreneurs, CEO's and senior executives monthly changes in the working environment in short lectures and thus help to bring about paradigm shifts in time and thus provide their customers with an information advantage.
Yesterday, a product manager from Microsoft gave a presentation about the changing collaboration in teams, workplace design, working in home offices and other areas. Leadership structures are changing, the young, best talents expect a pleasant creative working atmosphere and new result-oriented remuneration and also lived values. As birth rates have declined, we are registering an increasing shortage of good young talent. There is already talk of a "war of talents".
All this came up in the presentation and how Microsoft takes this into account and shapes it in its own company. If you listened carefully, you could learn a lot and translate the information to your own company.
It was very interesting for me that several entrepreneurs perceived only one piece of information. They saw the focus mainly on the possibility that employees could increasingly work at home through technology and picked out this point to say: "That's not possible in my company. An example, "We're a hotel, everyone has to be there all the time!"
May be true on the surface, but I always heard, "I don't want anything to change. I don' t want to see change."
That's right, you might say, how is homework possible in a hotel? I just agree with you on this point, although accounting and much more could perhaps be done from home in the hotel industry. I'm also getting at something else.
As often is our first reaction, does not apply to us. Can't go with us.
Those who react in this way may then not see where the competition comes from next.
It would be a variant in such a case to ask the speakers, what do you think, how the behavior of young people, the modern technology could affect a hotel?
Then you might find opportunities that you haven't seen before. For example, simply thinking about what changes are needed in the hotel room itself, what Internet speed, what changes the young people in the lobby, business center, check-in and room service area, etc. "need" in the future.
Gosh, what competitive edge could you get if you allow the simple question, in what areas could these changes be important and beneficial to me? (Interesting book on this: PEAK by Chip Conley.)
But what happened once again, the defense of the old view and the old beliefs.
It reminds me a little of a sketch by Karl Valentin:
Liesl Karstadt: The smarter one gives in.
Karl Valentin: Don't give in!
If you are at home near Zurich or if you occasionally drop by there, just write an email to Free-Style AG that you would like to be invited to the next lectures on the working worlds of tomorrow: http://www.free-style.ch/.
Maybe we will see each other there one day.
Look forward to the future, you decide what yours looks like!
Sincerely
Wolfgang Sonnenburg
winning for life
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