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The Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check Wally's Three Star Leadership Letter

Find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.

Find out more about Wally's coaching services.

William Gibson was right. The future is already here. It's just unevenly distributed.

The workplace of the future is already here, too. And it, too, is unevenly distributed.

We can expect changes in the workplace because of the changing nature of work. More and more work is knowledge work. Increasingly what people know and the relationships they've developed have become key sources of competitive advantage.

At the same time more work is collaborative and team-based. The world is moving faster all the time and custom solutions are becoming the norm. The ability to innovate is a critical competency

We can expect changes in the workplace because of changes in where work is done. More workers are on the move than ever. More work from home. More work is being outsourced.

That makes line of sight management impossible. The ability to embed best practices in software often makes it unnecessary.

Trends are not the only drivers of change. Some things just don't work as well as they should.

Current practice with job descriptions and performance evaluations provide a good example. They were a good idea when they were initiated. But, in most companies neither the job descriptions nor the evaluations based on them are up to the challenge of competitive pressure or the nature of the work to be done.

It's time to apply Schumpeter's creative destruction to the workplace. It won't happen all at once, or even by design. Instead, it will emerge from experiments and practice changes in lots of places. And it will evolve over time.

Here are three critical questions to ask about how the workplace of your future should look. There are no easy answers here. But there are intelligent choices.

How will leaders be chosen? Today most business leaders are chosen by leaders above them.

Does having teams choose their leaders make more sense? Do most leadership positions need to be permanent, as they are today? Several companies have self-directing work teams that change the functional leader based on aptitude and willingness according to the task.

How will work be assigned? At WL Gore no worker can be compelled to do anything. Will that work everywhere?

How will decisions be made? There is a tension here. Groups seem to make decisions about allocating resources to opportunity better than hierarchies. But hierarchies seem to do a better job of pulling resources together to make a change.

Our workplaces today are mostly run on models derived from the military and engineering. I think the most effective new models are likely to be drawn from anthropology, network theory, and biology.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.

Request your free copy of "Meeting the Challenges of the Boomer Brain Drain: An integrated approach."

Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.

Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.

Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.