Our Understanding of the Workplace Evolves

Authors recognize human drive for connection, creativity, purpose 

Our vision of what the workplace can be has transformed dramatically in the 21st Century. Advances in technology and neuroscience, plus careful observation of what works and what does not, have remade the image of the organization.

No longer is it seen simply as a gray monolith where faceless employees and managers toil in isolation. Sadly, such places still exist but more and more the workplace is viewed as a web of relationships that addresses the needs of individuals within the organization as much as the needs of the organization itself.

As employees grow the organization grows. Where we work fosters authentic connections. It supports professional and creative growth. The best organizations and leaders get it.

We salute them as well as leader-authors who step out and go beyond personal development platitudes to give us thought-provoking ways to elevate the status quo.

At Callibrain, our content team produces a video review of a popular business book every month. We recently highlighted the Top 5 that have received the most views to date. Today we call out a few others for writing thoughtful, people-focused books that redefine our relationship with “work” as a process of adaptation and creativity.

Leading by Influence

At least two of these books drill down into the essence of leadership, showing how influence is far more important than authority. Both Seth Godin, in “Linchpin,” and Jeb Blount, in “People Follow You,” illustrate how influence works and, more importantly, how it can be developed.

Priorities and Productivity

Productivity far from a 21st Century obsession but the digital age has gifted us with more distractions. We so frantically try to get “everything” done that we forget we have choices. In “Essentialism,” Greg McKeown provides a framework for turning off autopilot and deciding what really matters. “Manage Your Day-to-Day,” by the wise collective at 99U, assembles truly practical tips that can make a difference. Right now.

Employee Engagement and Workplace Culture

More than buzzwords, “employee engagement” and “workplace culture” are shorthand for efforts to build organizations where people love to work. Employees are viewed as “internal customers” whose treatment mirrors and informs an organization’s interactions with customers and clients. Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh of Zappos covers that idea and more. “The Power of Full Engagement,” by Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr, reframes the engagement discussion as one of managing energy rather than time as the key to higher performance.

In coming months Callibrain will have video reviews of “Creativity, Inc.,” by Ed Catmull; “The Power of Habit,” by Charles Duhigg; and “Start With Why,” by Simon Sinek, among others.

The work clearly resonates. Subscriptions to our YouTube Channel just topped 3,600. Leadership and the evolving workplace are important topics for everyone, and our goal in taking a different look at these popular books is simple:

Let's keep the conversation going.

Sameer Bhargava has led and turned around IT organizations in multi-billion dollar companies and created world-class R&D teams at startups. He is CIO of Onlife Health and founder of Callibrain, a cloud-based software platform that drives higher performance by strengthening alignment, communication, collaboration and employee engagement across an organization. The views, opinions and positions expressed are the author’s alone and should not be attributed to Onlife Health or anyone within the organization.