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The Future of Work: Awakening the Artist Within

February 29, 2016/Archives /by Ayelet Baron

More people will pick themselves in the 21st century. Choice is abundant and there is simply a multitude of opportunities and possibilities. That is the exciting new path for people in the human-to-human purpose and experience driven era.

Many will no longer wait to be picked for that job, promotion or project. An increasing number of people will start picking themselves and setting their own path as they see life as a daring adventure, where work is just one element of it. LIFEworking will be a way of life.

We will start asking ourselves, what’s my enough? And realizing that we want to set our own path and follow our own journey; not someone else’s story.

Over the next 25 years, people will choose to join organizations with shared purpose that value people. Purpose will become much more important to people than mission statements that hang on corporate walls. Trust, relationships and community will be the currencies that matter more in a world where people will choose to focus on business for good.

This journey has already begun with a wide range of organizations moving in the direction of being powered by purpose. Today, people are becoming much more conscious of the food they consume as more organizations tell us that the food they produce is poison free. Today’s packaging inform the consumer that their food does not contain harmful ingredients.

In the future, more people will question whether working for a certain company will damage their health and wellbeing, as well as whether the company’s practices are good for society and the planet.

Research has shown that the companies that do good in the world return more profits to their shareholders than their counterparts — those who do harm. Staying competitive in today’s socially conscious climate means more than having good products and being profitable.

Not only are people more likely to buy from brands that share their social values, they are willing to spend more on their products, are nearly twice as loyal and employees are more than 50% more engaged and nearly 20% more productive. As Gina Manis-Anderson of Savii Group tells us, “Turns out doing good is good for business.”

Innovation should never be a department. In today’s world, many organizations focus on innovation and yet do not have the systems to allow for true innovation which include experimentation that often leads to the failure that is associated with it.

In the future of work, we will make choices that sustain us and we will not be constrained by internal systems like incentive plans that restrict our ability to experiment and fail. Innovation will be exciting as it will be in the fabric of how we work and collaborate. With shared purpose, people will bring innovation to their day-to-day practices and have the freedom to create.

The artist needs freedom to create. And we are all artists, makers, creators and doers in business.

A call to action. Imagine what could happen if we no longer needed to fight for our lives and we simply lived fully and co-created the world we want to live in where business is a force of good? In the 21st century human-to-human era, anything and everything is possible as we have everything we need to create a healthy and humane world.

Imagine the possibilities, and find the people who want to co-create in living colors. We are waiting for you to join our journey to business common sense. It’s a conscious choice.

A version of this post was first published on 2/2/16 on AyeletBaron.com

Image source: StockSnap.io

#WorkTrends Recap: Forget Work-Life Balance & Start LIFEworking: Pick Yourself in the 21st Century

February 18, 2016/Archives /by Meghan M. Biro

During today’s #WorkTrends show, we discussed the importance of forgetting the old “work-life balance myth” and how to start LIFEworking. #WorkTrends Founder and Host Meghan M. Biro was joined by Tim McDonald and Ayelet Baron, Co-Founders of CreatingIs and LIFEworking.

While we have been led to believe that we can separate our personal and work personas, we are only one person. We don’t need to have this separation and balancing act; it’s more about blending work into our lives.

During the event, we learned more about LIFEworking, is an approach that meshes life and work into an integrated existence. Most importantly, it is a way of living in which the individual and not the organization defines the meaning of success. To achieve LIFEworking, we need to first understand what success really means for us, and then systematically address the fears that stand in the way of change. These fears typically relate to personal anxiety and the social consequences of choice.

It was a lively #WorkTrends podcast and Twitter conversation. Participants had a lot to share about the topic, making for another successful #WorkTrends show.

Want to learn more from today’s event? Listen to the recording and check out the highlights below:

View the story “#WorkTrends Storify: Forget Work-Life Balance & Start LIFEworking: Pick Yourself In The 21st Century” on Storify

Thank you to all the TalentCulture sponsors, partners and supporters!

The TalentCulture #WorkTrends Show is all new on Wednesday, February 24, 2016, from 1-2 pm ET (10-11 am PT). Join TalentCulture #WorkTrends Show Founder and Host Meghan M. Biro as she talks about Leadership Lessons from Superheroes with author and leadership expert David Kahn.

Join our social communities and stay up-to-date! The TalentCulture conversation continues daily. See what’s happening right now on the #WorkTrends Twitter stream, in our LinkedIn group and on our Google+ community. Engage with us anytime on our social networks or stay current with trending World of Work topics on our website or through our weekly email newsletter.

Image credit: StockSnap.io

The Future of Work Is Simple: LIFEworking

February 15, 2016/Archives /by Ayelet Baron

LIFE working is about the adventure that so many souls before us have taken to explore with compassion what is possible for us to live fully. The work for each of us is to go deep inside and discover what’s fuels us: to know who you are and what you want to create. People may try to convince you that they know what’s best for you, but you know better. No one has the answers for you, but you. More and more people every day are waking up and realizing we have a real choice to make about how we live our precious moments. We want to follow our own heartbeat.

More People Will Pick Themselves In The 21st Century

Choice is abundant and there is simply a multitude of opportunities and possibilities. That is the exciting new path for people in the human-to-human purpose and experience driven era. Many will no longer wait to be picked for that job, promotion or project. An increasing number of people will start picking themselves and setting their own path as they see life as a daring adventure, where work is just one element of it. LIFEworking will be a way of life. We will start asking ourselves, what’s my enough? And realizing that we want to set our own path and follow our own journey; not someone else’s story.

Over The Next 25 Years, People Will Choose To Join Organizations With Shared Purpose That Values People

Purpose will become much more important to people than mission statements that hang on corporate walls. Trust, relationships and community will be the currencies that matter more in a world where people will choose to focus on business for good. This journey has already begun with a wide range of organizations moving in the direction of being powered by purpose. Today, people are becoming much more conscious of the food they consume as more organizations tell us that the food they produce is poison free. Today’s packaging informs the consumer that their food does not contain harmful ingredients. In the future, more people will question whether working for a certain company will damage their health and wellbeing, as well as whether the company’s practices are good for society and the planet.

Research Has Shown That The Companies That Do Good In The World Return More Profits To Their Shareholders Than Their Counterparts — Those Who Do Harm

Staying competitive in today’s socially conscious climate means more than having good products and being profitable. Not only are people more likely to buy from brands that share their social values, they are willing to spend more on their products, are nearly twice as loyal and employees are more than 50 percent more engaged and nearly 20 percent more productive. As Gina Manis-Anderson of Savii Group tells us, “Turns out doing good is good for business.”

Innovation Should Never Be a Department

In today’s world, many organizations focus on innovation and yet do not have the systems to allow for true innovation which include experimentation that often leads to the failure that is associated with it. In the future of work, we will make choices that sustain us and we will not be constrained by internal systems like incentive plans that restrict our ability to experiment and fail. Innovation will be exciting as it will be in the fabric of how we work and collaborate. With shared purpose, people will bring innovation to their day-to-day practices and have the freedom to create. The artist needs freedom to create. And we are all artists, makers, creators and doers in business.

A Call To Action

Imagine what could happen if we no longer needed to fight for our lives and we simply lived fully and co-created the world we want to live in where business is a force of good? In the 21st century human-to-human era, anything and everything is possible as we have everything we need to create a healthy and humane world. Imagine the possibilities, and find the people who want to co-create in living colors. We are waiting for you to join our journey to business common sense. It’s a conscious choice.

The future of work and life is as simple or complex as you make it. It is about having the mindset of a creator and artists. We will leave you with these two questions: What are you choosing? What’s the story you writing for your future LIFEwork?

A version of this post originally was published on medium.com on January 26, 2016 as: The Future of Work: Awakening the Artist Within

Image credit : StockSnap.io

5 Reasons To Kill The Work-Life Balance Myth

February 15, 2016/Archives /by Meghan M. Biro

Work or life? Nope. There’s no such thing as either/or. The work-life duality is a fallacy. One way or another, we all know, deep down, that it’s simply not a functional construct, particularly in 2016. Here are five reasons why.

Passion is seamless

If we’re engaged in our work, we’re working from our passion — and passion is a key driver of success. It also means you don’t want to disconnect from what’s on your mind. Imposing a line of demarcation and isolating your work into a compartment can stifle your own creativity, as well as limit connection, opportunities and new ideas. The leaders we admire don’t separate one from the other — they are their work, and their work is who they are. And we expect that.

A different business culture

Unwittingly or not, the culture of business has evolved into a new paradigm — which supports a different human paradigm. Purposeful integration is a vital thru-line; when organizational message, mission and method are integrated, each supports the other and converges into an authentic and transparent company brand. Moreover, an employee brand that does not acknowledge the human-ness of its employees (similarly to a brand that does not acknowledge the lives of its consumers) is not nearly as compelling or engaging — or sticky — as one that does.

Purpose drives performance

We know this: according to the recent Workplace Purpose Index, (by Imperative and New York University), 28% of the workforce is driven by purpose. They know who they are as whole people, not just staffers, and they link their own purpose to the purpose of the organization where they work. This is a model of functional clarity by choice; the opposite of the company-man trope. Purpose-driven folks know the work they want to do in the world; and the study’s revelation uncovered that they outperform the rest of us in terms of money, advancement and competition.

Recruitment is competitive

From an employer’s point of view, if you want the high performers, you’d best get your candidate experience in line. Studies of candidate experience show that even the first active contact with a prospective employer acts as a pivot either towards or away from engagement. Make sure it reflects the organization authentically. Lack of transparency is a sign that an employee’s human-ness is going to be devalued. For someone already clear on their purpose, they’re not going to waste their time with that kind of disconnect.

We’re already past that

The zeitgeist approach is that once an idea takes hold, you can’t turn back — and we’ve reached that point in terms of work and life. There are already a number of different approaches on the issue of life and work. LIFEworking, for instance, affirms that it’s the individual and not the organization that defines what success means — and that boldness of choice, which goes into true innovation — has to do with the fearlessness of being genuinely self-aware. And even if you haven’t yet landed on the phrase that crystallizes it for you, the workforce itself has changed the context already. We are a contingency / consultancy / career not company / culture, assuming professional trajectories that accumulates skills and experience as opposed to jobs. We work in a more blended and disparate workforce than ever before.

If even the mobile, social, global, multigenerational, etcetera environment we live and work in supports this new idea of realistic and optimistic integration, perhaps it’s not as simple as choosing the right app, but it’s close. Flatter organizational structures, recalibrated views of parental leave, multiple platforms — all play a role in debunking the monolithic barrier of work standing in front of our life.

We’ve never been more prepared for the change. The fact is that work and life are seamless. It’s the quality of how they intersect that we have to attend to.

Are you interested in talking more about the “Work-Life Balance” myth? Join us for The TalentCulture #WorkTrends Show on Wednesday, February 17, 2016, from 1-2 pm ET (10-11 am PT).

A version of this post was first published on forbes.com on February 12, 2016

Image credit : StockSnap.io

#WorkTrends Preview: Forget Work-Life Balance & Start LIFEworking: Pick Yourself in the 21st Century

February 12, 2016/Archives /by Meghan M. Biro

The TalentCulture #WorkTrends Show is all new on Wednesday, February 17, 2016, from 1-2 pm ET (10-11 am PT).

While we have been led to believe that we can separate our personal and work personas, we are only one person. We don’t need to have this separation and balancing act in our lives. For many, work has become how we define ourselves and why we need balance is because many of us no longer have a life outside of work.

We can buy into the work-life balance mythology or we can change the story and realize there is only life; no blending or integrating required. We need to become whole as people by figuring out what role work plays in our lives and our own relationship with money and power. Many people of all ages no longer want to live someone else’s stories and are picking themselves instead of waiting to be picked for a job or a promotion.

LIFEworking is an approach that meshes life and work into an integrated existence, but most importantly, it is a way of living in which the individual and not the organization defines the meaning of success. To achieve LIFEworking, we need to first understand what success really means for us, and then systematically address the fears that stand in the way of change. These fears typically relate to personal anxiety and the social consequences of choice.

#WorkTrends Event: Forget Work-Life Balance & Start LIFEworking: Pick Yourself in the 21st Century

Tune in to our LIVE online podcast Wednesday, February 17 — 1 pm ET / 10 am PT

Join TalentCulture #WorkTrends Founder and Host Meghan M. Biro as she talks about Forget Work-Life Balance & Start LIFEworking: Pick Yourself in the 21st Century with Tim McDonald and Ayelet Baron.

#WorkTrends on Twitter — Wednesday, February 17 — 1:30 pm ET / 10:30 am PT

Immediately following the radio show, the team will move to the #WorkTrends Twitter stream to continue the discussion with the entire TalentCulture community. We invite everyone with a Twitter account to participate as we gather for a dynamic live chat, focused on these related questions:

Q1: How can 21st century business encourage people to focus on a shared purpose?#WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Q2: How can organizations thrive when the focus is on individual success?#WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Q3: What’s an example of when you’ve picked yourself vs. waiting to be picked?#WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Until then, we’ll keep the discussion going on the #WorkTrends Twitter feed, our TalentCulture World of Work Community LinkedIn group, and in our TalentCulture G+ community. Feel free to drop by anytime and share your questions, ideas and opinions. See you there!

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