Diane Mulcahy is an advisor to both Fortune 500 companies and startups, is a regular contributor to Forbes and is the author of the bestselling book “The Gig Economy: The Complete Guide to Getting Better Work, Taking More Time Off, and Financing the Life You Want”
Diane was early to the party: When she started teaching MBA students a course on these ideas, some people thought she was talking about Computer Memory. But what made me really want to talk to her was how she decided to go deeper into the topic via teaching - one of the most powerful ways to learn anything! I was also eager to learn more about how she helps organizations work with these trends, rather than against them - I wanted to learn about her approach as a coach and advisor. And you can see, her secret is slowing down conversations.
The future of work is more than gigs on Lyft and Uber or Taskrabbit.
Barbara Soalheiro, of the consultancy Mesa, in our conversation on the podcast back in season three posited that the best and the brightest wouldn’t want a full time job in the future...which is why she’s designed her innovation sprints to be one week - to help brands bring the best brains in for short sprints.
This is why Diane finds tremendous opportunities to coach and advise organizations to adapt to and survive this transition in what people want from work.
Traditional orgs need to put significant effort into shifting their cultures on:
Trust in Management- Facetime isn’t the same as work (ie, Clock and Chair Management doesn’t work in this new world - for more on this, check out Diane’s Forbes article on Trust)
Projects over Jobs - Define clear outcomes and break up jobs into clear projects and deliverables.
Processes and Systems - Internal systems have to adjust to be more nimble and customer-grade.
We talk about the importance of slowing conversations down when there’s internal resistance:
Diane relates her sense that Orgs seem to be saying.
“We know these things are happening. We know we have to respond,"
...but then it turns out, they want to respond without really changing anything. Diane points out that that's not possible.
The way through is patient conversation, and Diane gives me some deep pointers on shifting challenging conversations with silence.
We also reminisce about travel and I try to get her to tell me what her next forward thinking, trend-setting MBA course will be on...which you’ll have to listen to end to learn all about!
Explore all things Diane Mulcahy Dianemulcahy.com where you can find links to her other books (she also writes about venture investing) and to many of her online articles.
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