Adam Grant: The key trait future leaders need to succeed - and rethinking the classic workday
Feb 28, 2025
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In this engaging discussion, Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist and best-selling author, explores the vital soft skills needed for future leaders. He argues for a focus on creativity and collaboration in modern workplaces, while also introducing the concept of 'job crafters.' Grant shares insightful lessons from his college job as a magician, emphasizing the importance of engaging skeptics. He also advocates for a 'To-Don’t' list to boost productivity and a four-day work week to enhance innovation in teams.
Organizations must prioritize collaborative abilities and soft skills, shifting focus from individual output to collective success for future effectiveness.
Leaders need to adapt to changing work environments by fostering innovative structures that promote creativity and free idea exchange among employees.
Deep dives
The Importance of Soft Skills in Today’s Workplaces
Many organizations primarily evaluate employees based on individual output, emphasizing metrics like revenue generation or coding efficiency. However, this approach neglects the significance of individuals who uplift and elevate others, which is a crucial aspect of organizational collaboration. Most organizations struggle to measure and develop these soft skills effectively, resulting in a C minus performance in this area. Elevating team success requires a shift in focus towards collaborative abilities that promote collective advancement rather than just individual achievements.
Agility Over Ability: A Shift in Success Metrics
As workplaces evolve, the emphasis is shifting from hiring solely based on ability to prioritizing agility in navigating change. This evolving landscape necessitates leaders who can adapt and manage change effectively, rather than rely on outdated best practices that may no longer apply. The experience at Google, where the fear of becoming stagnant led to innovation, encapsulates this need for evolution. Organizations must move towards cultivating new practices that encourage adaptability and progressive thinking to thrive in a rapidly changing environment.
Rethinking the Corporate Structure
Traditional hierarchical corporate structures may hinder innovation and collaboration, as seen in the innovative practices of companies like WL Gore, which utilize a lattice structure instead. This design enables employees to pitch ideas freely, allowing for more creative input and collaborative project development. The focus should not only be on climbing a corporate ladder but also on flattening hierarchies to foster an environment where all employees can contribute ideas and innovations. By embracing a lattice structure, organizations can capture the agility and creativity of a startup while maintaining the efficiency of a larger organization.
Measuring the Impact of Soft Skills
To nurture and promote soft skills, organizations need effective measurement strategies that evaluate how employees contribute to the success of others, as exemplified by Corning's Fellows program. This program assesses employees not only on their individual achievements, such as patents, but also on their ability to support and uplift colleagues. Measuring collaboration and mentorship can help identify employees who embody the spirit of leadership and teamwork essential for organizational success. By implementing such metrics, companies can promote a culture that values and rewards interpersonal skills as much as individual accomplishments.
Big shifts must happen to ready teams for a work future that requires agile thinking and new forms of collaboration. Organizational psychologist, best-selling author and Wharton professor Adam Grant shares research-backed strategies that help develop leaders and work relationships across an organization as well as help teams practice critical soft skills like analysis and creativity that are often overlooked and undervalued. He explains why future workers will need to become “job crafters,” and the one trait leaders won’t be able to work without. He’ll also share what a college job as a magician taught him about engaging skeptics (and prompting critical thinking) and why he swears by keeping a “To-Don’t” list. This interview was recorded in January 2025 at the Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland About this episode: -Adam grant: YouTube: Podcast: -Future of Jobs Report: Related Podcasts: -How leaders can prepare teams for the future of work: ADP’s Chief Economist: -Upskilling, tapping human talents, and what's really needed for the future of work: Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar:
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