Teamwork in a Digital Working Environment

00:07 The work environment is changing as a result of digitization.

00:11 Teamwork appears to be very different today than it did many years ago.

00:15 What we'll talk about now is how teamwork will appear in the future.

00:20 People used to have a silo mentality.

00:23 Today, this is shifting more and more to the classic department mindset, which is already somewhat antiquated - together, we are strong.

00:33 In the past, the motto was "divide and conquer," therefore I would divide first if I was confident that doing so would allow me to conquer later.

00:43 Today, this appears to be extremely different; today, I divide to learn.

00:49 That means I can only get smarter and learn through interactions.

00:52 You used to keep the knowledge to yourself, but now you share it to connect it, network it, and truly grasp it.

00:59 That is the difference in a world that is constantly changing, and it is the only way to even generate new ideas.

01:06 At one point, Siemens commented, "If Siemens only knew what Siemens really knows." So you have a large corporation, and somewhere there is knowledge, but we don't know where it is, and the same is true for you.

01:20 If you share your knowledge and collaborate with others, you may one day sit in your living room and think to yourself, "Gosh, if only I had realized that I knew that." More and more organizations can make a certain department's knowledge available to other departments. And it is through this process that these organizations are able to progress from a knowledge organization to an innovative and creative organization.

01:53 Everything is interconnected, and we are producing rather than simply knowing, which is novel and also related to the following debate, which is whether we still need a hierarchy or if the hierarchy has become obsolete.

02:08 And we currently have a very binary debate in which you may say "Yes" or "This is my personal opinion." The truth is somewhere in the center; it is gray, and neither having a hierarchy nor not having a hierarchy is the only option.

02:25 And there is currently an example, a case, that of Daimler AG, the world's largest automobile company. They stated, "Gosh, we need to reevaluate our organization and seek out fresh perspectives on it." And they basically said, "Okay, within five years, 20% of our organization and 20% of our workforce will operate as swarm organizations." That is, there is no traditional hierarchy with the CEO, a department manager, a junior manager, a team leader, and so on.

02:59 This may have a somewhat different name in other companies, but the premise is the same: you have a swarm organization.

03:07 Everyone is on the same level; they speak with one another, coordinate among themselves, and formulate their own plans - they are much faster in smaller units.

03:17 There is no large planning process, but rather flexible control of processes, automatism, and this results in radically different work outputs, and clearly, the manufacture of an E-Class car will still be done hierarchically.

03:32 That is something you say, "This has to be that way," but in other departments - marketing, sales - we're increasingly seeing swarm organizations, and there are examples of how you can respond to this transformation in the digital age.

03:47 This is one example of how agility can be used instead of hierarchy.

03:53 The overarching goal is to become an ambidextrous company, which is a dreadful word that business administration has taught us.

04:03 In a nutshell, the premise is that the economy has been heavily focused on efficiency in recent decades.

04:11 You would save five minutes here, three cents here, and twenty cents there, and that was the goal, and you didn't place too much emphasis on innovation or momentum.

04:23 However, in an ever-changing environment, digitalization as the primary driver must become more innovative.

04:31 At the same time, it must be as efficient and effective in the former areas where you excelled. That means you need to be able to play the piano in some ways - you need ambidexterity at the piano, efficiency and invention, and a 50/50 focus.

04:50 However, the output must be 100 per cent, and this is the major problem - this is what the firms are attempting to achieve through various means.

05:00 Corporations are saying, "Whoa, we're hierarchical, and this whole swarm organization thing is impossible for us." We are also quite efficient, and when it comes to innovation, we buy or invest in start-ups and strive to send miniature speedboats into the oceans to seek new places." Others, on the other hand, are secret champions, world leaders that no one knows about; they are experimenting with collaborations or building small individual enterprises that generate new business models.

05:31 So there are various techniques to becoming an ambidextrous organization.

05:35 Consider what is the best-case scenario for your organization or yourself.

05:52 In this day and age, it's also important to consider how you lead a team, and the command and control world is likely coming to an end.

06:04 This command-and-obey mindset of "you have to do this by tomorrow morning; otherwise, you get the whip" can still be seen occasionally, but not anymore.

06:15 Employees protest, saying, "No, we don't want this." Employees want to be led differently; they want to be regarded as equals, to be given more flexibility, and to have opportunities to be creative and develop.

06:36 That is not what Human Resources is about; it is simply a resource.

06:40 Instead, in today's world, it may be the most valuable resource.

06:44 The individual - the employee - is the emphasis; they are allowed to change, and perhaps even needs to, and when you hear that as a manager, you can argue, "Yes, but that's how it's always been done." And, sure, it is correct, and it is changing.

07:00 And that's what McGregor said almost a half-century ago when he established Theory X Y. He stated that the way we perceive individuals is how we get these people.

07:10 Theory X essentially implies that you have this fundamental premise that individuals or employees are lazy, don't want to work, and only have negative intentions.

07:20 And once you have this basic assumption, you instantly develop laws, sanctions, and punishments - you crack the whip, and the employee simply withdraws.

07:30 They avoid making mistakes and are quite passive.

07:33 They don't take the initiative - they don't take responsibility - which validates my primary assumption.

07:40 Theory Y, on the other hand, has an entirely different perspective on individuals.

07:45 It states that a person wants something -, an employee wants to work, they are good for us, they are creative, and you offer them room to develop; then they may utilize this freedom to evolve, take the initiative, assume responsibility, be creative, and innovative. That is extremely crucial.

08:07 That also reinforces the fundamental assumption, therefore we have a self-fulfilling prophecy.

08:13 This is how I see my employees; that's how I get them, and it's actually a very interesting learning experience.

08:22 The manager of the future may accomplish a great deal.

08:25 They are a coach, a trainer, a mentor, an enabler, and a creator - and the manager is a generalist rather than a specialist who networks across organizational boundaries.

08:36 There is a great deal of empathy, as well as vision and efficiency.

08:41 We could call him the ambidextrous manager.

08:45 And now comes the key question: how do teams function? You could say it is becoming virtual rather than live.

08:53 We all have a smartphone and a laptop - we have modern instruments that allow us to achieve ultra-fast connection, which means we can speak with Japan, Asia, the United States, North and South America - all on a time-delayed basis.

09:08 We have knowledge interchange across countries and real-time issue solutions - everything is becoming international, and language and cultural barriers will be substantially reduced when English becomes the official language for everyone.

09:24 We will interact in English, and if you don't speak it well, the AI will assist you, and we will occasionally converse in two other languages that aren't English or another significant foreign language.

09:37 Instead, someone in India may chat in his own language with someone in South Africa, and the AI would interpret.