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my takeaways from Gartner's "The Reset-Ready Organisation" webinar

Once again, I had the pleasure to join a Gartner webinar. This time's topic: Making Work Better: The Reset-Ready Organisation. As with the previous one, a lot of data resonated with what we are observing in the workspace. To find out more, continue to read.

 

The webinar was about how to prepare for strategic change. Gartner identified three likely obstacles in the way of success. In order to be a reset-ready organisation, you need to have these thing:

1. create guided collaboration
2. build collective intelligence
3. drive human- first AI

 

For this post I want to speak about point 1 and 3, since I see point 2 as more of a consequence of point 1 and 3.

 

create guided collaboration

The percentage of 'employees satisfied with collaboration at their organization' decreases continuously since 2021 (from 36% to 29%). Gartner projects that the satisfaction is going to continue to decline (22% in 2027). McCall, the speaker, stresses the difference between connections and collaborations. Only because you foster connections amongst your team, it does not mean that you thereby foster collaboration. - Whereby collaboration is the thing we want. Collaborations means collective intelligence, creating space for innovation and employee wellbeing.

Gartner funnels the data down to a need for guided collaboration. They link it to 'on-the-job' training and propose guided collaboration (on-the-job learning) as a tool to close the skill gap. "57% of all employees aren't getting on-the-job coaching that supports their core job skills." (p. 60) The research team defined two groups of employees: the ones, who have the skills and those, who need it. Bringing those two groups together (collaboration) is more promissing than formal training. Whereas formal training teaches employees how e.g. the system works - when the knowledgable employee shares their skills, the other employee does not only know how the system works, but is also familiar with how the system works in that very company. 

Especially important is this concept, when it comes to new team members and junior staff. A point Matt Beane made and McCall picked up in the presentation was the following: "We are making novices optional right at the time when we need novices to be learning more, better and faster." (p.  63) Here the presentation moves towards the second point - collective intelligence. For this article, I would like to stay at the first point a little longer and introduce the HBR Guide Collaborative Teams (link  to an audio introduction, link to the book). It is a collection of various HBR articles to the topic. Creating a team out of a group and then working as a productive team takes skills and consistant effort. Respectful communication on an eye-to-eye level and a general benefit of the doubt are essential. Any prejudices against boomers and GenZ are not conducive. True team work is going to make the company more resilient, ready for digitalisation and can answer the better-faster-higher demand of the market.

 

drive human first AI

The third point - drive human first AI - also reminds us that in the end we as humans do the work. "Only 14% of HR leaders say employees have a voice in technology decisions." Meaning that... 86% do not involve the people, who then have to work with the chosen IT. Gartner proposes to balance out the following two arguments: prioritize for productivity and implement for humans. Thus, Gartner summarises: 

1. "Prioritize use cases by employee need"
2. "Involve employees in implementation" (p.107)

 

Here the link to Gartner's Presentation.

 

Until then,

Saskia