The Future Of Work Podcast With Jacob Morgan | Futurist | Workplace | Careers | Employee Experience & Engagement |

  Don Tapscott is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at the Blockchain Research Institute and bestselling author of 16 books. His most recent book is Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World.    Don has been on the Thinkers50 list 5 times, most recently in 2017 when he was ranked #2 on the list. He also wrote the afterword for my 2012 book, The Collaborative Organization.    At the Blockchain Research Institute, Don and his team study hundreds of cases and stories within 15 industries in order to document the strategic implications of blockchain. Because of this research they are able to help leaders in business and government navigate the blockchain revolution.    Why do we need blockchain? As Don explains up until now we have had intermediaries such as banks, brockers, credit card companies, governments, etc… in order to make sure that assets are safe. But these intermediaries are getting hacked and they sometimes have processes that are outdated

  The world of work is constantly changing. Perhaps one of the biggest changes is how we attract new talent. It used to be that whenever a company had a job to fill, people would line up to interview. They would share all of their qualifications and accomplishments to show the company why they should work there.   Things are different now. Just because a company has a job opening doesn’t mean people are automatically lining up to fill it. When potential job candidates come in, they’re more concerned about making sure the organization is the right fit for them instead of proving why they would be the best new employee. Instead of candidates convincing companies why they should work there, companies now have to convince job candidates why they should work for them.    What makes a potential employee want to work for an organization? They want to feel confident the company is the best fit for their interests, values, and skills. Job candidates want to be convinced in the following areas: Sense of purpose. Poten

Ben Marcus is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Airmap, a company that develops the digital infrastructure, standards, and services for drones to fly safely at scale. Basically they create the digital highways that allow for drones to fly. He grew up near an airport and was always fascinated with aviation.    He became a pilot, a flight instructor and eventually a flight test engineer who certified planes. And it was while he was learning to fly that he began his journey to come up with the idea for AirMap.    Ben says, “When I was a flight instructor flying over Los Angeles, I used to fly every day, and have a student next to me, look down at the freeways, and they're jammed packed with people. These cars are just stopped, and I felt so bad for all these miserable people stuck in traffic and I'm the only one up here in the sky. And I was like, "Why is there not more people in the sky with me?" And so, I've dedicated my life and my career to helping extend the benefits of flight to more and more people in their

When you’re at work, do you spend more time hearing or listening? They may seem similar, but the differences between just hearing and actually listening are astounding. With all the technology and distractions we have today, it’s crucial for us to be able to take a step back and really listen to what’s being said. As automation and AI become more prevalent at work, listening is a distinctly human attribute that sets us apart. Robots and technology can hear, but they can’t truly listen.    How do you move from hearing to really listening? Here are three tips: Practice active listening Most people can tell when someone is actually listening to them and when they’re distracted and not really paying attention. It comes down to active listening. Hearing is a passive action, but really listening is active. To practice active listening, eliminate any distractions. Put your phone down, step away from the computer, or go into a quiet room. Make eye contact with the person speaking and show you’re paying attention an

Chuck Kosal is the Chief Transformation Officer at Deloitte Tax, the tax function of the global firm Deloitte. Deloitte has a total of around 312,000 employees around the world and the tax function is made up of around 12,000 of those employees. They were actually named “Americas Tax Technology Firm of the Year” for the 2nd year in a row by the International Tax Review.    Deloitte’s mission is to create digital innovation that helps its clients adapt to accelerating globalization, increased regulatory and business complexities and other significant transformational changes in the corporate landscape. And in order to accomplish this the organization has to continually evolve to keep up with the needs of their clients.    Part of Chuck’s role is to help the organization navigate change and transformation. This can be a very challenging task because people tend to resist change. Chuck says, “You think in any conversation people always embrace change, they talk about how they want things to be better, how they w

How we work today is drastically different than it was even just a few years ago. It might seem like everything about the world of work is changing, but I narrowed it down to three main areas:   Technology and Connectivity The idea of working without a smartphone or the internet seems crazy, but that was standard practice not too long ago. Technology, especially AI and the Internet of Things, is constantly growing and evolving and bringing with it new opportunities for growth. Technology impacts how we work, where we work, and the type of work we do. Companies best positioned for the future leverage technology to increase productivity and efficiency.    Power to Employees  A power shift has been happening in recent years that puts employees in the driver’s seat. Instead of having to explain to companies why they need to work there, companies now must explain to employees why then need them to work there. With more power comes increased transparency and an openness between organizations and employees. It’s

Blake Morgan is a best-selling author, speaker and futurist who focuses on customer experience. Her new book, The Customer of the Future: Ten Guiding Principles for Winning Tomorrow’s Business, was just released on October 29. Creating great customer experience is critical for organizations looking to get and stay ahead. With all of the technologies we have and use on a daily basis (Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, etc…) as consumers we have come to expect personalized, easy, quick experiences. The problem is so many organizations are not keeping up with technology. Most, if not all, of us have stories about horrible experiences when interacting with insurance companies or cable companies or airlines. Creating great customer experience is intertwined with creating great employee experience, because it is employees who are fulfilled, happy, and engaged who are going to be willing to go above and beyond for the customers. Employees who do not have the resources, tools, and training to do their job correctly are not go

Huge thanks to VMware for sponsoring this episode! If you want a free copy of my upcoming book The Future Leader, go to http://bit.ly/vmwaregiveaways ____________________________________________________ Today’s world is incredibly fast-paced and competitive. How do you stand out and build your career? By developing your personal brand.   Just like each company has a brand, each person also has a brand. It’s what you stand for and what you want people to know about you. Your personal brand could be a subject you are passionate about, a cause you care deeply for, or a message you want to share. A strong personal brand solidifies you as a subject matter expert and makes you more valuable in your company or in your own entrepreneurial endeavors. Building a personal brand takes time and effort. To build a maintain a strong personal brand, you need to focus on three areas: Consistency Choose a brand and stick with it. What are you going to share with people? What do you want them to know about you? Decide on one

Daniel Martinez-Valle is the CEO of Orbia, a global leader in polymers, materials, and infrastructure. Orbia has over 22,000 employees in 41 countries around the world. They are committed to “help the world take shape and create a more livable, lovable planet for everyone”. The company has been undergoing a major transformation, including a recent name change, from Mexichem to Orbia. There are three main components to the transformation they are going through, when explaining them Daniel says, “The first one has to do with articulating a very clear purpose, that people in our organization and our stakeholders can really understand and connect to. The second one, our values, which is very important as we move along, and as people make daily choices within our organization and within our extended organizations. And then the third one is to really transform our company and to become truly, a customer-centric organization.” They are changing to be a more human company, one that cares about the world, the environm

  Every organization has values that showcase what it stands for. In most cases, these are words like innovation, collaboration, or integrity that are used in the company’s mission statement and emblazoned on the walls. As important as many companies think their values are, in reality, most companies have similar values. Nearly every organization emphasizes things like trust, quality work, and authenticity. So if the words themselves aren’t unique, what makes your company different? Employees don’t care as much about the words themselves as they do with how the values come to life. It’s one thing to say your organization values transparency and another thing to actually showcase transparency every day. It should be evident what your company stands for just by looking around the office. Here are five ways to make your company’s values come to life: 1. Do a value audit.  Look around the physical workspace to see if you can find the values in action. Look for employees who are live the values or procedures tha

Pamela McCorduck is an artificial intelligence (AI) expert and author. She has written 10 books, the newest one comes out this month and it is titled: This Could Be Important: My Life and Times with the Artificial Intelligentsia.    Pamela first became interested in AI when she was studying at the University of California, Berkeley. She was an English major, but she had a job typing in the business school, which is where she met some of the “fathers of AI”. Two assistant professors in the business school who she became acquainted with through her job approached her to see if she could help them work on a book. The book was on the topic of AI, something that at that time Pamela knew nothing about.    When she asked one of the assistant professors what AI was he gave her a great definition. He said, “I would define it as machines doing something that if a human did that we would say, 'Oh that's intelligent behavior.” Pamela said that while working on the book in 1960 she fell in love with the field of AI and s

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that the majority of Americans say their job is the biggest cause of stress in their lives. As we push ourselves harder and are constantly connected, stress has started to take an even bigger toll on our lives. Many employees constantly feel burned out and overworked. When you’re stressed, you’re not as good of an employee or manager, and you’re definitely not as good of a friend, spouse, or parent outside of work.  A growing number of organizations have initiatives to promote health and wellness, but it really comes down to each employee taking control of his or her own mental and emotional health and control their stress. Here are four ways to manage your stress at work: Take a stress audit. What causes you stress at work? Is it having to do the work of two people because a co-worker left? Is it being called into meetings at all hours of the day? Is it a client with a bad attitude? Analyze what triggers your stress and try to find solutions to control the trigger or av

Sanjay Poonen is the Chief Operating Officer at VMware, a global leader in cloud infrastructure and digital workspace technology. They are the 5th largest software company and they currently have around 26,000 employees in offices around the world. Sanjay has been with VMware since 2013, prior to that he was President & Corporate Officer — Platform, Applications & Industries at SAP. He started his career as a software engineer at Microsoft followed by Apple. Technology today is advancing more rapidly than ever before, and it’s hard to tell what the world will look like 10–15 years from now. But Sanjay says some things will never change and as we progress we still need to make sure that we are training our children the fundamental principles of science, technology, engineering, math, logic, physics, etc…He also believes storytelling is an important skill for the future. He says, “I think it’s super important that we emphasize storytelling to our kids. And I hope that dinner table conversations are not

Conversations about AI are nearly unavoidable these days. It seems like everyone has an opinion about how AI is taking jobs from humans and how it will impact and transform our work situations. Many of those conversations are full of fear that the machines are taking over and soon employees in all industries will be replaced. Here’s the truth: yes, AI is impacting jobs. But we should let it. That doesn’t mean that machines will soon leave us completely unemployed and take over our world. Instead, it means that AI is augmenting and transforming jobs to make them better. Just because it’s new and unknown doesn’t mean it has to be scary. Here are three reasons you should let AI impact your job. AI removes mundane tasks.  AI is built to do repetitive tasks like data entry, analysis, and scheduling. The best applications for AI are areas where humans don’t typically want to spend their time. AI takes over those boring, mundane tasks and does them faster and more accurately than humans, which gives humans a chance

Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is the Chief Talent Scientist at ManpowerGroup and Professor of Business Psychology at Columbia University and the University College in London. Tomas has written 10 books and over 150 scientific papers on the psychology of talent, leadership, innovation and AI. He has also delivered multiple TED Talks, including one on “The Power of Negative Thinking” and another on “Why do so Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders”.    What is a Chief Talent Scientist? In Tomas’ case it means combining his expertise and background in organizational psychology and analytics & assessments. Tomas says, “If you combine both things, and an interest in understanding human performance, then you get the kind of interface or the main area niche that I specialize. And at Manpower Group, our agreement is to really use all of our data, our tools and expertise to predict performance and understand human potential in a deeper way.”    ManpowerGroup’s main purpose is to “understand where people can be deployed

AI and technology are at the forefront of so many conversations today, but why is that when neither AI or tech are new concepts, they have been around for decades. The reason is there are 4 major elements that are working together to create the perfect storm that is causing AI and tech to progress more quickly than ever before. The 4 elements are: We have more data than ever before The cost of technology is decreasing The speed of technology is increasing Moore’s Law: the number of transistors on a chip doubles every year while the costs are halved. All of these things are coming together to cause AI and technology to progress at a much faster pace than we have ever seen before.

John Jordan is the Head of the Academy at Bank of America, an award-winning employee development organization that trains around 40,000 people per year. As John puts it, The Academy is, “truly an environment where people can practice, where they can learn that goes beyond just the typical sort of learning environment into a really high-touch coaching environment and we've really seen great results so far.”   John has been with Bank of America for about 16 years in a wide variety of roles, all of which have prepared him to lead The Academy.    The Academy is used to onboard new employees, to support and train employees looking to move into a leadership position, to help employees enhance their current skills and more. They use a combination of web-based training and hands on practice. One example of training they have is a client engagement simulator that allows employees to practice using the online systems while having client conversations at the same time. This allows employees to get comfortable interactin

There are a lot of people who feel like they are the lone changemaker in their organization. You may be in that position right now. It can feel extremely frustrating and lonely at times, but that shouldn’t stop you. Changemakers are persistent, resilient, and determined--they have to be.    As a changemaker you will probably get told ‘no’ a lot, you may be rejected, and you may find that people around you have a hard time keeping up. There is a price to pay to be a changemaker, but it is worth it.    Don’t give up! Keep pushing your organization and the people around you. The change will happen, maybe slower than you want, but it will.

Michelle Murphy is the Chief Diversity Officer and VP of Global Talent Acquisition at Ingersoll Rand, a manufacturing and sustainability company that creates products and services for commercial, industrial and residential customers. Some of their products include heating and air conditioning systems, golf carts, and power tools. They were formed in 1905 and today they have 40,000 employees around the world.   Michelle recently wrote an article, titled Truly Effective Diversity Training Can Be Measured in Goosebumps where she opened up about the moment when she realized the importance of diversity and inclusion inside and outside of the workplace. Her experience ignited a passion for creating a safe place to work inside of Ingersoll Rand as well as encouraging others to do the same in organizations around the world.    With the current world of work, where we are all so connected and where we can interact with customers and coworkers from countries all around the world the issue of diversity and inclusion is

One of the most important skills to have for the future of work is learning how to learn, but a major component that goes along with being a perpetual learner is consistently reinventing yourself. It’s not just about learning new things, it’s about how the outside world sees you.   Reinvention is about how you position yourself, it’s about how you market yourself and it is about the brand that you build. This is something that should be taking place consistently, whether it is every 3 years or every 10 years.   So when did you last reinvent yourself? If the answer is never, it’s time to start.