so how we feeling thank you thank you so
it’s my job after the break to lift you
up right and this whole concept that I’m
going to talk to you about is human
energy about three and a half years ago
I had the pleasure of jumping on stage a
TEDx event in Bucharest and I talked
about the future work because I’m a
little bit obsessed about the future
work
I guess my reason for being is to create
a better future work for all of us but
I’m here today to talk about the now of
work because the future is something we
need to design but I’ll talk to you a
little bit more about there now of work
because I’m a little bit concerned that
there are some crimes against humanity
in the work that we do in pursuit of
profit productivity and production and
I’m going to tell you some stories and
give you a design concept which I hope
is going to help us restore some faith
in what we call work and where if your
study and that’s where you want to take
your knowledge and insight in education
so you recognize this guy on the screen
here it’s Marvin pence gauge union
unfortunately about 34 years ago he left
us for the choir in the sky but you
probably know him for his musical
achievements of which there are numerous
in in the kind of history of the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame etc now what you
may not know about Marvin Gaye’s started
his singing career in a group called the
moonglow’s which was a doo-wop group if
you know what do wop is if you’re too
young to even know that word just have a
look on YouTube and see what goes on
it’s normally sort of four or five
people stood around some flaming embers
just singing a cappella style
that’s what Gaye used to do but he was
fortunate in that he was spotted by
somebody who was trying to shift the
mindsets of all of the people of the
United States of America in the 1960s
through the power of music and that
guy’s Barry Gordy Jr who set up the
Motown Empire so what Barry Gordy Jr did
was he saw gaze potential as a as an
artist and as a performer he brought him
into the Motown stable and the first
things he got him to do was he got in to
write songs he played the drums and he
was a backing vocalist before he started
to let Marvin Gaye loose on the world of
musical appreciation also what Marvin
gay had in his mind was that he wanted
to become the black Frank Sinatra that’s
what he wanted to do he loved the smooth
mellow sound of Swing and he thought
that’s what he wanted to do but Berry
Gordy had a different plan in mind for
Marvin Gaye so so he thought I need to
shift Marvin’s mindset so unbeknownst to
Marvin what Barry Gordy did was he
talked to Norman Whitfield and
holland-dozier-holland who were the
writers and producers of Marvin Gaye’s
recorded material and he got them to
score it an octave higher to make Marvin
strain and reach for those soulful notes
because that’s what Barry Gordy knew
that the white middle class record
listening buying public of America
wanted to hear so Gaye started to sing
in that tone and what we got from that
was can I get a witness you’re all I
need to get by I heard it through the
grapevine classics we now take for
granted all written one octave higher
than Gaye wanted to sing him but Marvin
Gaye had a special quality of being able
to sing in four octave ranges anyway so
to to Marvin it was something he could
do and he grew to love it he grew to
love it what Marvin Gaye also did as it
got towards the end of the sixties into
the 1970s as he saw some changes in the
world and he saw some shifting mindsets
occurring all around him in the
socio-political world and he came across
Obie Benson who was one of the Four Tops
another Motown group who’d written a
song and he joined him in writing that
song and it was a it was a protest song
it was a socio-political song and he
took it to Barry Gordy and he said I
want to record this and Barry Gordy said
no you’re not recording that Motown’s
about pop and enjoyment it isn’t about
socio-political statements so Marvin
Gaye withdrew his energy from the Motown
Empire he went on strike he said no I
want to record this song now history
will tell us that Marvin Gaye won that
battle because what’s going on was the
result of that strike and that record is
one of those defining moments in the
history of contemporary music but Marvin
Gaye had to withdraw his energy from his
employ he had to shift the mindset of
his own boss to create something which
is a landmark in musical heritage so I
guess my conversation to you and my
challenge to you
today I guess is what’s your version of
one octave higher how can you create
your what’s going on moment and
unfortunately because of the terms and
conditions of the way that work is built
we have a struggle to do that pretty
much every day so I’m going to take you
on a bit of a journey through what I
consider to be the energy forces at
playing work
luckily already the today we’ve had some
links to this about energy and it just
popped up quite a lot and I see some
energy in the room and my deliberate
attempt to ask you to shout out loud was
to create some energy between you and me
in our trade of information in exchange
because in this room we probably have
about two kilowatts of energy each human
being has about 20 watts of energy I
could individually power a light bulb so
in this room we could probably power
something like a hundred and fifty light
bulbs but it’s my assertion that when we
come together with more than just that
energy when we’ve got belief and value
systems and creativity bursting through
us we can power a house for a day simply
with the chemical and physical energy
that we have in amongst us and I think
we see a wastage in the world of work
today and unfortunately it looks a lot
like this like neo in the matrix where
actually if you know that were chow ski
brother which a ski Brothers film what
we saw in this was computers had taken
over the world and they used human
beings to kilowatts of energy to power
devices and and create the energy source
that kept that technological world going
and as we know the story in the matrix
Keanu Reeves character neo and plugged
himself from the matrix and he was then
chased by BOTS and drones who were
trying to stop him from breaching their
reality that they had created into the
reality that was really around it and I
see too much of work like that now where
we sign up to a terms and conditions and
we plug into the matrix and we literally
use the energy we have and the matrix
like machine just simply takes it from
us I think we deserve a lot better and
my profession is the HR profession and
unfortunately we’re culpable for
creating that matrix like existence we
proudly display policies and terms and
and employment routines which don’t take
into account your individuality your
desires and your needs and your energy
and I think it’s about time we had a
different form of proposition in the
workplace and that’s what I wanted to
share with you today I think we see this
kind of triangulation of people of
process and of productivity and if you
looked at the world since the 2008
financial crash which clearly impacted
around all the premises that we see
around us here today we’re still not
recovering on the productivity side
it’s a flatlining stubborn thing that
isn’t ticking up how it should be with
economics in a better place than they
were about ten years ago and if we look
at people the salvation for us in the
workplace if you go back to John Maynard
Keynes who has already been mentioned
today in the 1930s he predicted a life
of leisure where we might work 15 hours
a week perhaps the rest of the time
happy days we seem to be working more
than ever so what’s going wrong in that
particular equation we are literally
living a smartphone like existence where
by the end of the day we’re just
depleted of energy and we all know the
anxiety you get when your smartphone’s
running low on power right so there’s
something in the world of work that is
all about depletion and nothing else and
that seems to be one of the crimes
against humanity so we’re not seeing
ourselves in a state where we could be
regenerating and we paper over the
cracks we drink energy drinks we take on
loads of caffeine we even probably
consume illegal substances well in some
parts of the world they may be illegal
but we’ve got synthesized drug problems
we’ve got all sorts of things where
because our energy is too low we rely on
artificial stimulants so we’ve got a
dirty energy source propping us up but
that’s not good in us first long-term
we’ve already heard some statistics
today about mental health and and the
problems that that’s causing the UK
Health and Safety Executive in 2016 2017
surveyed the absences of people in the
workplace due to stress five hundred and
twenty six thousand of us in the UK are
signed off with stress-related absences
44% of us
saying that’s to do with workload hang
on we have technological devices we have
labor-saving things in our homes yet our
workload is causing us to have stress
and we’re off it’s costing us 12.5
million people days per year we could do
a lot with 12.5 million people days so
this is not some trendy plea to go and
work in an office with some fake grass
carpet where we have smoothies and a dog
running around it isn’t that kind of
antidote this is a serious health
problem kake ray Werth is somebody I
admire a lot she’s written a book called
doner economics because what she says
about the economic system were operating
in is it’s all about consumption and
extraction it isn’t about regeneration
and I’m seeing that happen to human
beings in the workplace and that makes
me really sad I’ve been really fortunate
that my work for four thirty years that
I’ve been in the workplace er an endless
journey of discovery and learning and
great people and opportunities has
regenerated me sometimes people say do
you sleep and I do Timo I do sleep
wherever you are so there are some
things about you can construct and
design that kind of working proposition
but not for everybody that saddens me
that we haven’t got enough regenerative
processes because we go to work and we
might as well be in a cage we may as
well be locked inside a pyramid I call
most modern workplaces living museums
they’re quite literally a testament to
the 19th and 20th century constructs of
Industry and machine like propositions
for us yet we only need to shift to
letters to create something different
and this is the concept I have called
the edge and the edge is all about a
place and a mindset and an activity and
a design thing that we can do to change
the nature of workplaces because it’s
all in the design believe it or not we
may have accidentally or purposely
designed workplaces that are causing us
to become sick Stanford professor
Jeffrey Pfeffer
just released a book called dying for a
paycheck it’s gotten that bad and in
Japan there’s a term called karashi
which means you work yourself to death
we’ve designed this people we can
therefore redesign it and so that rests
in people like me in HR but it also
rests in people like you who want to
make the workplace a place where human
beings can flourish the reason I call
this concept the edge is because what I
found when people are breaking away from
being buried inside an organization and
away from the cage they have to go to
the edge of the organization where
experiments can be tried where new
colleagues can be found new clients new
business opportunities new learning new
insight new something new shoes even
help us with a little bit of a lift in
energy so it’s my assertion that we
create too much routine and not enough
newness you may work in a call center
dealing with the same insurance query
our on our on our but that insurance
query for that customer is their first
problem they have to solve with you so
treat it like a new thing don’t use a
script treat them like a human being
talk to them and understand them and
solve their problem like it’s the new
thing you want to create that’s how we
can bring some energy in because I think
we’ve got a nice obsession dawning upon
us with things like emotional
intelligence so EQ is now balanced IQ we
have intellectual quotient now connected
to emotional quotient people are saying
that now actually we need to be
self-aware we need to understand social
intelligence and connections with others
as well as knowledge and facts but I
think we’ve got a third dimension to
bring in and that’s NQ which is energy
quotient we need to think about when do
I get fully charged how can I regenerate
my energy and that of others we’ve all
heard the term mood hoover’s haven’t we
and radiators these are people who
sometimes lift others or drain the
living daylights from other people we
need to understand our impact on others
an energy that we have and I think it
starts in three ways and so I’m going to
take a look at a few people I know who
are both in the regenerative space but
are looking after themselves in a way
that I think you could do best to do the
first one is Siobhan Sheridan she’s the
HR director at the Ministry of Defence
on the civil side she’s also had some of
the toughest HR director roles I know of
like the Defra the Environment and Rural
Affairs when there was a foot and mouth
disease
scandal and the NSPCC one of the
tightest most scrutinized Charities in
the country she volunteers has time for
somebody else she talks to students she
mentors people she gives incessantly and
is an inspiration to me daily
this is Helen Sanderson she runs an
outfit called well-being teams up in the
northwest of England she’s determined to
create a human centered healthcare
organization despite the fact that
everybody wants her to follow a ton of
routines and regulations she does them
but she does them with a humanist spirit
to what she does and this is Barbara
Thompson who’s actually here today so
Barbara’s an artist and a creator who
you can’t put in a box but he’s an
inspiration in terms of how she shares
her insight and information and energy
these are people who bring the game who
changed the mindset and this is Brok
Clemmensen and my wife Teresa
so Brock’s brought our energy from
halfway across the world in Australia to
join me and my wife’s got multiple
sclerosis so we may have to kilowatts
every day when we wake up she’s probably
only got about half a kilowatt at her
disposal so she has to put herself into
an energy situation to manage the flow
of her lifestyle but also she helps me
do what I do so we’re a great team and
we try and energize each other these are
people who understand their own energy
and who helped me with mine
surround yourself with people like
Siobhan Helen Barbara Brock and Mrs T if
you want to my parents are pretty good
too I’ll give them a shout they energize
me collectively there are companies out
there who have an enormous Lee
collective energetic spirit near soft is
a technology company in Mexico that’s
run more like a family than it is a
business competitor recruiter out in
Slovenia who again if you’re brand new
or a partner you have an idea you get
encouraged to fly the idea so
systemically I think we need to make
this change I think we need to look at a
new way of looking at how we get the
best from people and it starts not from
a what skills do you have
it starts from and what energy do you
need and can give and we can give you
back and I think that systemic energy
gives us a chance to for you to ask
where can I find my edge where can I
find new how can I go one octave higher
and how can I make my
of what’s going on I’ll leave you with
that thought and I’ll see you at the edge thank you
it’s my job after the break to lift you
up right and this whole concept that I’m
going to talk to you about is human
energy about three and a half years ago
I had the pleasure of jumping on stage a
TEDx event in Bucharest and I talked
about the future work because I’m a
little bit obsessed about the future
work
I guess my reason for being is to create
a better future work for all of us but
I’m here today to talk about the now of
work because the future is something we
need to design but I’ll talk to you a
little bit more about there now of work
because I’m a little bit concerned that
there are some crimes against humanity
in the work that we do in pursuit of
profit productivity and production and
I’m going to tell you some stories and
give you a design concept which I hope
is going to help us restore some faith
in what we call work and where if your
study and that’s where you want to take
your knowledge and insight in education
so you recognize this guy on the screen
here it’s Marvin pence gauge union
unfortunately about 34 years ago he left
us for the choir in the sky but you
probably know him for his musical
achievements of which there are numerous
in in the kind of history of the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame etc now what you
may not know about Marvin Gaye’s started
his singing career in a group called the
moonglow’s which was a doo-wop group if
you know what do wop is if you’re too
young to even know that word just have a
look on YouTube and see what goes on
it’s normally sort of four or five
people stood around some flaming embers
just singing a cappella style
that’s what Gaye used to do but he was
fortunate in that he was spotted by
somebody who was trying to shift the
mindsets of all of the people of the
United States of America in the 1960s
through the power of music and that
guy’s Barry Gordy Jr who set up the
Motown Empire so what Barry Gordy Jr did
was he saw gaze potential as a as an
artist and as a performer he brought him
into the Motown stable and the first
things he got him to do was he got in to
write songs he played the drums and he
was a backing vocalist before he started
to let Marvin Gaye loose on the world of
musical appreciation also what Marvin
gay had in his mind was that he wanted
to become the black Frank Sinatra that’s
what he wanted to do he loved the smooth
mellow sound of Swing and he thought
that’s what he wanted to do but Berry
Gordy had a different plan in mind for
Marvin Gaye so so he thought I need to
shift Marvin’s mindset so unbeknownst to
Marvin what Barry Gordy did was he
talked to Norman Whitfield and
holland-dozier-holland who were the
writers and producers of Marvin Gaye’s
recorded material and he got them to
score it an octave higher to make Marvin
strain and reach for those soulful notes
because that’s what Barry Gordy knew
that the white middle class record
listening buying public of America
wanted to hear so Gaye started to sing
in that tone and what we got from that
was can I get a witness you’re all I
need to get by I heard it through the
grapevine classics we now take for
granted all written one octave higher
than Gaye wanted to sing him but Marvin
Gaye had a special quality of being able
to sing in four octave ranges anyway so
to to Marvin it was something he could
do and he grew to love it he grew to
love it what Marvin Gaye also did as it
got towards the end of the sixties into
the 1970s as he saw some changes in the
world and he saw some shifting mindsets
occurring all around him in the
socio-political world and he came across
Obie Benson who was one of the Four Tops
another Motown group who’d written a
song and he joined him in writing that
song and it was a it was a protest song
it was a socio-political song and he
took it to Barry Gordy and he said I
want to record this and Barry Gordy said
no you’re not recording that Motown’s
about pop and enjoyment it isn’t about
socio-political statements so Marvin
Gaye withdrew his energy from the Motown
Empire he went on strike he said no I
want to record this song now history
will tell us that Marvin Gaye won that
battle because what’s going on was the
result of that strike and that record is
one of those defining moments in the
history of contemporary music but Marvin
Gaye had to withdraw his energy from his
employ he had to shift the mindset of
his own boss to create something which
is a landmark in musical heritage so I
guess my conversation to you and my
challenge to you
today I guess is what’s your version of
one octave higher how can you create
your what’s going on moment and
unfortunately because of the terms and
conditions of the way that work is built
we have a struggle to do that pretty
much every day so I’m going to take you
on a bit of a journey through what I
consider to be the energy forces at
playing work
luckily already the today we’ve had some
links to this about energy and it just
popped up quite a lot and I see some
energy in the room and my deliberate
attempt to ask you to shout out loud was
to create some energy between you and me
in our trade of information in exchange
because in this room we probably have
about two kilowatts of energy each human
being has about 20 watts of energy I
could individually power a light bulb so
in this room we could probably power
something like a hundred and fifty light
bulbs but it’s my assertion that when we
come together with more than just that
energy when we’ve got belief and value
systems and creativity bursting through
us we can power a house for a day simply
with the chemical and physical energy
that we have in amongst us and I think
we see a wastage in the world of work
today and unfortunately it looks a lot
like this like neo in the matrix where
actually if you know that were chow ski
brother which a ski Brothers film what
we saw in this was computers had taken
over the world and they used human
beings to kilowatts of energy to power
devices and and create the energy source
that kept that technological world going
and as we know the story in the matrix
Keanu Reeves character neo and plugged
himself from the matrix and he was then
chased by BOTS and drones who were
trying to stop him from breaching their
reality that they had created into the
reality that was really around it and I
see too much of work like that now where
we sign up to a terms and conditions and
we plug into the matrix and we literally
use the energy we have and the matrix
like machine just simply takes it from
us I think we deserve a lot better and
my profession is the HR profession and
unfortunately we’re culpable for
creating that matrix like existence we
proudly display policies and terms and
and employment routines which don’t take
into account your individuality your
desires and your needs and your energy
and I think it’s about time we had a
different form of proposition in the
workplace and that’s what I wanted to
share with you today I think we see this
kind of triangulation of people of
process and of productivity and if you
looked at the world since the 2008
financial crash which clearly impacted
around all the premises that we see
around us here today we’re still not
recovering on the productivity side
it’s a flatlining stubborn thing that
isn’t ticking up how it should be with
economics in a better place than they
were about ten years ago and if we look
at people the salvation for us in the
workplace if you go back to John Maynard
Keynes who has already been mentioned
today in the 1930s he predicted a life
of leisure where we might work 15 hours
a week perhaps the rest of the time
happy days we seem to be working more
than ever so what’s going wrong in that
particular equation we are literally
living a smartphone like existence where
by the end of the day we’re just
depleted of energy and we all know the
anxiety you get when your smartphone’s
running low on power right so there’s
something in the world of work that is
all about depletion and nothing else and
that seems to be one of the crimes
against humanity so we’re not seeing
ourselves in a state where we could be
regenerating and we paper over the
cracks we drink energy drinks we take on
loads of caffeine we even probably
consume illegal substances well in some
parts of the world they may be illegal
but we’ve got synthesized drug problems
we’ve got all sorts of things where
because our energy is too low we rely on
artificial stimulants so we’ve got a
dirty energy source propping us up but
that’s not good in us first long-term
we’ve already heard some statistics
today about mental health and and the
problems that that’s causing the UK
Health and Safety Executive in 2016 2017
surveyed the absences of people in the
workplace due to stress five hundred and
twenty six thousand of us in the UK are
signed off with stress-related absences
44% of us
saying that’s to do with workload hang
on we have technological devices we have
labor-saving things in our homes yet our
workload is causing us to have stress
and we’re off it’s costing us 12.5
million people days per year we could do
a lot with 12.5 million people days so
this is not some trendy plea to go and
work in an office with some fake grass
carpet where we have smoothies and a dog
running around it isn’t that kind of
antidote this is a serious health
problem kake ray Werth is somebody I
admire a lot she’s written a book called
doner economics because what she says
about the economic system were operating
in is it’s all about consumption and
extraction it isn’t about regeneration
and I’m seeing that happen to human
beings in the workplace and that makes
me really sad I’ve been really fortunate
that my work for four thirty years that
I’ve been in the workplace er an endless
journey of discovery and learning and
great people and opportunities has
regenerated me sometimes people say do
you sleep and I do Timo I do sleep
wherever you are so there are some
things about you can construct and
design that kind of working proposition
but not for everybody that saddens me
that we haven’t got enough regenerative
processes because we go to work and we
might as well be in a cage we may as
well be locked inside a pyramid I call
most modern workplaces living museums
they’re quite literally a testament to
the 19th and 20th century constructs of
Industry and machine like propositions
for us yet we only need to shift to
letters to create something different
and this is the concept I have called
the edge and the edge is all about a
place and a mindset and an activity and
a design thing that we can do to change
the nature of workplaces because it’s
all in the design believe it or not we
may have accidentally or purposely
designed workplaces that are causing us
to become sick Stanford professor
Jeffrey Pfeffer
just released a book called dying for a
paycheck it’s gotten that bad and in
Japan there’s a term called karashi
which means you work yourself to death
we’ve designed this people we can
therefore redesign it and so that rests
in people like me in HR but it also
rests in people like you who want to
make the workplace a place where human
beings can flourish the reason I call
this concept the edge is because what I
found when people are breaking away from
being buried inside an organization and
away from the cage they have to go to
the edge of the organization where
experiments can be tried where new
colleagues can be found new clients new
business opportunities new learning new
insight new something new shoes even
help us with a little bit of a lift in
energy so it’s my assertion that we
create too much routine and not enough
newness you may work in a call center
dealing with the same insurance query
our on our on our but that insurance
query for that customer is their first
problem they have to solve with you so
treat it like a new thing don’t use a
script treat them like a human being
talk to them and understand them and
solve their problem like it’s the new
thing you want to create that’s how we
can bring some energy in because I think
we’ve got a nice obsession dawning upon
us with things like emotional
intelligence so EQ is now balanced IQ we
have intellectual quotient now connected
to emotional quotient people are saying
that now actually we need to be
self-aware we need to understand social
intelligence and connections with others
as well as knowledge and facts but I
think we’ve got a third dimension to
bring in and that’s NQ which is energy
quotient we need to think about when do
I get fully charged how can I regenerate
my energy and that of others we’ve all
heard the term mood hoover’s haven’t we
and radiators these are people who
sometimes lift others or drain the
living daylights from other people we
need to understand our impact on others
an energy that we have and I think it
starts in three ways and so I’m going to
take a look at a few people I know who
are both in the regenerative space but
are looking after themselves in a way
that I think you could do best to do the
first one is Siobhan Sheridan she’s the
HR director at the Ministry of Defence
on the civil side she’s also had some of
the toughest HR director roles I know of
like the Defra the Environment and Rural
Affairs when there was a foot and mouth
disease
scandal and the NSPCC one of the
tightest most scrutinized Charities in
the country she volunteers has time for
somebody else she talks to students she
mentors people she gives incessantly and
is an inspiration to me daily
this is Helen Sanderson she runs an
outfit called well-being teams up in the
northwest of England she’s determined to
create a human centered healthcare
organization despite the fact that
everybody wants her to follow a ton of
routines and regulations she does them
but she does them with a humanist spirit
to what she does and this is Barbara
Thompson who’s actually here today so
Barbara’s an artist and a creator who
you can’t put in a box but he’s an
inspiration in terms of how she shares
her insight and information and energy
these are people who bring the game who
changed the mindset and this is Brok
Clemmensen and my wife Teresa
so Brock’s brought our energy from
halfway across the world in Australia to
join me and my wife’s got multiple
sclerosis so we may have to kilowatts
every day when we wake up she’s probably
only got about half a kilowatt at her
disposal so she has to put herself into
an energy situation to manage the flow
of her lifestyle but also she helps me
do what I do so we’re a great team and
we try and energize each other these are
people who understand their own energy
and who helped me with mine
surround yourself with people like
Siobhan Helen Barbara Brock and Mrs T if
you want to my parents are pretty good
too I’ll give them a shout they energize
me collectively there are companies out
there who have an enormous Lee
collective energetic spirit near soft is
a technology company in Mexico that’s
run more like a family than it is a
business competitor recruiter out in
Slovenia who again if you’re brand new
or a partner you have an idea you get
encouraged to fly the idea so
systemically I think we need to make
this change I think we need to look at a
new way of looking at how we get the
best from people and it starts not from
a what skills do you have
it starts from and what energy do you
need and can give and we can give you
back and I think that systemic energy
gives us a chance to for you to ask
where can I find my edge where can I
find new how can I go one octave higher
and how can I make my
of what’s going on I’ll leave you with
that thought and I’ll see you at the edge thank you
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