Let it go.

The ways we have worked are no longer working

Credit: Canva AI image. Prompt: Letting go of old ideas and ways, as letting something go from one’s hand. A feeling both poignant and optimistic.

I spent the weekend at an event where 200 super-smart people across industries, disciplines, demographics, expertise levels, and lived experiences came together to talk about every topic under the sun. I’ve attended this event many times, and in so doing, I have learned a lesson: During the time slots when I am not speaking in a session myself, I should take advantage of the opportunities presented to me to attend a session about topics in which I am not an expert, and about which I may even know very little. This approach stops me from becoming an obnoxious know-it-all from the cheap seats and saves me from grumbling about people who think their experience is everyone’s experience. Even better, it gives me the opportunity to learn, grow, be curious, see connections, find commonalities, and have mini-epiphanies that come with stepping outside my zone.

This weekend, someone who is exploring the future of education said something very poignant. I know very little about the education of our youth. I don’t have kids, so my only experience dates back many years to my own, and my only expertise (if you’d even call it that) is conversations I’ve had with one of my best friends, a lifelong elementary school teacher. A paraphrase of what was said:

If we truly want to innovate and improve on education for future generations, we need to let go of our experience of the educational system as a student.

I found it poignant because even (and especially) if we had a good experience and were well-served by our educational experiences of the past, letting go means letting go of good memories, of something that made us feel accomplished, something that cemented our self-esteem early in life and created a strong foundation for future success. But even for those of us who may not have vibed with traditional education, that too may have formed part of our origin story. I talk about my transition from mediocre student to accomplished entrepreneur more frequently than you might imagine. It’s even a point of pride…and point of differentiation. Letting go and writing a new narrative is challenging. Scary even.

It’s also what we need to do with work. And we are seeing both the realization of and the resistance to this reality out in the world.

The desire to return to familiar workplace policy and perspective is understandable, and the COVID-19 lockdown definitely accelerated change in the workplace (and the workforce). But many of these changes were already well underway. After all, I’m old enough to remember when Millennials were the new generation in the workforce acting, what was it?, oh yes, entitled and distracted and resistant to hard work…I recall that being the narrative. Today, the exact same criticism and concern is levied at Gen Z, sometimes by elder Millennials!

Looking at it another way, though, we have gone through a phase where new technology opened up new access, a new expectation of 24/7 availability, and a new responsibility for workers, especially younger ones, to have an entire skill set they are not necessarily formally trained on. They’re just expected to be “natives.” We’ve also seen a decades-long transformation to the commitment companies make to workers, e.g. the rise of the gig economy, fairly regular layoffs, fewer private-sector union jobs, almost no private-sector pension plans. Things were already not what they used to be.

We also have more access than ever to what is happening across the world, e.g. insight into how other countries do work and almost immediate awareness of tragedies and dangers all around the world, as just two examples. The river of information can be inspiring and terrifying. It can make your realize life is long, and life is short.

Trade-offs are a natural consequence. Flexibility, optionality, mutuality, multi-hyphenation, risk-mitigation, transparent communication, and a desire for deeper meaning in the place we spend the greatest percentage of our waking hours can all be seen as the trade-offs workers want for the way work works.

The letting go of imagined halcyon days of yore is the first step to building a better now. We can’t go back to less access, information, awareness, and meaning just to get more command and control. Can we?

What have you let go of in #TheNowOfWork? what was hardest about that?

Don’t miss our In the Trenches podcast conversation with plastic surgeon Dr. Aisha White, a rare MD with an MBA. It may not seem like our typical interviewee, but with fewer than 25% of plastic surgeons being women and fewer than 2% being African American, Dr White has valuable things to say about representation, cultural competency, and balancing her perspectives as entrepreneur, doctor, and a woman of purpose.