PARADIGMS
In Working It, we’ll introduce the significant shifting work paradigms that are creating the Brand U. Joel Barker and other futurists believe the New Economy, competitiveness, and technology will accelerate work change and will create new work paradigms. What will our organizations look like? And, what will Brand U work like look like? The challenge: predictions are made on quicksand because once expressed, things change again.
PEOPLE
Remember it’s all about people! Sometimes, it’s forgotten that we make an organization. We make decisions. We develop new products. We service other people. We consume products and services. Without us, there are no killer ideas, no customers, no organizations, and no reason to work for a toxic company. We are in control and that’s why many more of us are in the position to design our Brand U’s.
PRINCIPLES
What do you as Brand U stand for? All companies, humungous or individual Brand U’s, are attempting to define who and what they are. For example, should a business steward its resources for the benefit of future generations, share them with its employees, or maximize immediate financial returns for its shareholders? As an individual Brand U, who should you work for?
So, what’s your fundamental purpose for working? Are your passions and principles aligned with those of your employer, partners, and others? What should you do if there’s little alignment? Or, what should you do when the thrill is gone from a job or career? Accept conditions, move, or start a dot.com? These are all-important Brand U questions.
PRACTICES
There are a number of Brand U practices that spell success in life and at work. We all have to manage customer, time, quality, communications, risk, technology, and performance commitments.
Let’s look at one practice. Technology is both the biggest driver and facilitator of workplace change. Technology created the boundaryless corporation, which resulted in boundaryless careers. Where the traditional career was once a vertical progression in a company, the Brand U career is now the accumulation of resume-eyepopping, value added practices, information, and knowledge gained through diverse work experiences.[i]
PRODUCTS
More of us are evolving into Brand U’s, where each one of us is a professional service provider, offering value-adding products and services to the highest bidder. What’s a Brand U? Bottom line: you are a product and your deliverables are your projects.
PROCESSES
A company’s core processes are how it conducts its business or in other words how it works day in and day out. These core processes are the basic building blocks, competencies, and value adding activities of a business. They may be ‘world class’ activities, policies, systems, people, etc. They differentiate a company from its competition. They provide high customer satisfaction and generate income opportunities.
In much the same way, each Brand U has a bundle of core competencies: value-adding skills and knowledge. All organizations now want to retain, inspire, develop and capitalize on our Brand U core proficiencies. The equation is pretty simple. People generate ideas. Ideas germinate into products. Products and services generate income.
PROJECTS
Brand U work is now organized around projects. Again, no one can express it as well as Tom Peters: “All work that ‘counts’ toward Brand You becomes discrete, client-centric, wow project work. It is the currency of Brand You.”[ii]
Project management is evolving into a critical Brand U activity to ensure the right work is done right on time. A project may involve completing a day’s activities, designing software, responding to a customer request, or developing superior products.
Some believe that 70% or more of the work in an organization may be project oriented. This suits Brand U workers who want quick ‘in and out’ experience and knowledge. Most consulting, engineering, and medicine are already 100% projectized. When customer expectations are sky high and competition is deadly, the conventional wisdom is that highly effective, projectized Brand U teams differentiate winners from losers.
[i]. Bird, Allan, “Careers as Repositories of Knowledge: A New Perspective on Boundaryless Careers,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, July, 1994, pp. 325‑344.
[ii] Peters, Tom, The Brand You 50, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999, p. 85.