Redesigning Work with Lynda Gratton

Lynda Gratton is a Professor of Management Practice at London Business School and one of the foremost global thought-leaders on the future of work, named by ‘Business Thinkers 50’ as one of the top fifteen business thinkers.

In this interview, we talk about redesigning work and making hybrid work for everyone.

Lynda shares her four-step process for hybrid work which includes:

• Understand the challenges your business is facing
• Reimagine creative, new approaches and processes
• Model and test these within your organization
• Act and create based on contemporary, data-led feedback

Episode highlights

Here are some of the highlights from our conversation:

• The irreversible impact the pandemic had on the way we work and why hybrid work is the future.
• The challenges of organizational change and adult learning.
• Helping leaders embrace a growth mindset and make the right calls through the use of data.
• The Four Principles of redesigning work.
• The three types of tasks and how this categorization can help us design a better hybrid model:
  • High-focus work
  • Coordination tasks
  • Innovative, cooperative tasks.
• Why getting people to talk and listen to each other is even more crucial in a hybrid model.
• Lynda’s creative project and her thoughts on friendship – and more!

“Humans find it very difficult to predict how they’re going to feel about something.”

Listen to the interview in the player below or on iTunes. If you like what you hear, please leave a review, and it may be featured on a future episode.

More about Lynda Gratton

Lynda Gratton was described as a ‘rock star’ teacher, received the ‘teacher of the year’ award and designed and directs ‘the future of work’ elective, one of the school’s most popular electives. Her research on hybrid work was featured as the cover article for Harvard Business Review in May 2021 and she explores issues of work in her MIT Sloan column.

Over a decade ago Lynda founded HSM-Advisory, which has supported more than ninety companies around the world to future-proof their business strategy. Her eleven books, including Redesigning Work and The 100-Year Life, have sold over a million copies and been translated into more than fifteen languages.

Lynda serves as a Fellow of the World Economic Forum and co-chairs the WEF Council on Work, Wages and Job Creation. Lynda has sat on the advisory board of Japan’s Prime Minister Abe and serves on the advisory board of a number of global companies.

Books mentioned in this episode

Redesigning Work – How to Transform Your Organisation and Make Hybrid Work for Everyone by Lynda Gratton

The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity by Lynda Gratton & Andrew Scott

The New Long Life by Lynda Gratton & Andrew Scott

Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks

The Transformation of Intimacy by Anthony Giddens

The Craftsman by Richard Sennett

People mentioned in this episode

Kurt Lewin

Additional resources

What we can learn from the battle over hybrid working (article) by Lynda Gratton

Managers Can’t Do It All (article) by Lynda Gratton and Diane Gherson

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