More Seriously
The other blog posts are a less serious look at work place characters, behaviours, practices and trends. Below are some real and actual emerging trends that you may deploy in your future business strategy.
Allyship
Allyship refers to the actions, behaviours, and practices that individuals take to support, and advocate with others, especially with people who don’t belong to the same social identity groups as themselves. Allyship is continuous, with a focus on other people, not on yourself. To embrace allyship, you need to understand your power, privilege, and access available to you as an individual, as a result of the different identity groups to which you belong. Allyship is about creating the conditions that makes your identity group inclusive to your ally – a crude example is that you are not speaking for your ally, but you are creating the conditions that your ally can speak (and be heard) for themselves.
Circular Economy
The Circular Economy refers to an economic system based on the reuse and regeneration of materials or products, especially as a means of continuing production in an environmentally friendly way. It is based on three principles, driven by design:
Eliminate waste and pollution
Circulate products and materials (at their highest value)
Regenerate nature.
It is a resilient system that is good for business, people, and the environment. The main benefit of a circular economy is the creation of a closed-loop, self-sustaining system, which reduces the need for inputs and generates less waste. This can reduce costs, improve resource efficiency and reduce environmental impacts. It supports a more sustainable approach to resource management, which can help businesses and organisations to reduce their carbon footprint and support a shift to a low-carbon economy.
Echo Chamber
In Greek mythology, Echo was a mountain nymph whose ability to speak was cursed, leaving her able only to repeat the last words spoken to her. In corporations an echo chambre is an environment where there are no original ideas or thoughts being presented, just rehashing and paraphrasing of the existing narrative. Existing views are circulated and recirculated without opposition, potentially causing confirmation bias. Echo Chambers are not conducive to original thinking, creativity or innovation. They do not foster open communication, or different voices.
Fractional Support
Fractional Support is essentially the practice of bringing in specialised resources on a part-time or project basis, rather than hiring a full-time resource. Like freelance or contract work, people sell pieces of their time or their specialised skills to meet a specific need within a company. A Fractional Employees is a person not dedicated to a single employer, they will divide their work time among multiple employers.
GReenwashing
Greenwashing is a word smash of Green and Whitewashing. It is using Green as in ecologically and environmentally sound and Whitewashing as deliberately attempt to conceal unpleasant or incriminating facts. It can also be called green sheen, it is an advertising or marketing spin that deceptively uses green credentials and green marketing to persuade the public that an organization's products, goals, or policies are environmentally friendly.
Natural Attrition
Natural Attrition has come to mean the natural process by which employees leave the workforce – for example, through retirement, or resignation for personal reasons. But attrition means wearing down or rubbing down use. It comes from the Latin word terere – to rub away.
Privy Council
The Privy Council is an inner circle within the power structure, and it comes from the court of the Norman kings, which met in private - hence the description "privy". The king would surround himself with his most trusted high officials and they were party to all his thoughts and ideas and were often used to circumvent law or parliament. To ensure the safety of the King these officials accompanied him everywhere even when he carried out his most personal and private functions, where he would have believed to have been very vulnerable!
Regenerative Business
Regenerative Businesses focus on regenerating people, places and the planet. They acknowledge their place within the ecosystem where they operate – their community, their industry, their resources – and they use that knowledge of interdependence in their strategic decision-making. Regenerative businesses are proactive guardians of the planet, fostering an environmentally conscious future for all, through: Holistic thinking: Recognising the interconnectedness of environmental, social, and economic systems. Net positive impact: Regenerative businesses aim to leave the planet and communities in a better condition than they found it.
Virtual Assistant
A Virtual Assistant is an administrative assistant who works remotely. For example, they can perform tasks, such as accounting, bookkeeping, social media management, email monitoring. Also emerging are online automated Virtual Assistants such as calendar and booking management. Engaging a virtual assistant, whether a human or an online one, saves you time and energy, it also gives you the space to focus on your core, purpose driven activities that are central to the progress of your business. A Virtual Assistant can be a powerful assistance in a new business or a growing business.
VUCA
VUCA is an acronym based on the leadership theories of Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus, to describe or to reflect on the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of general conditions and situations. The US Army War College introduced the concept of VUCA in 1987, to describe a more complex multilateral world perceived as resulting from the end of the Cold War. It has subsequently spread to strategic leadership in organisations.