Future of Work : 2016 The Year the Workforce Awakens

The future of work is here now – is 2016 the year that the workforce awakens?

Star Wars – The Force Awakens has surpassed the one billion dollar mark in twelve days of release. Whether you are a fan or not there has definitely been an ‘awakening’ of fans flocking to the film.

We went and saw it a few days ago and as I sat there watching I had the thought that the ‘force’ is also awakening in leaders and that 2016 could very well be the year that the workforce awakens.

Now before I lose you here stay with me – I have written and spoken before about the need for leaders and companies to shift to creating places to work that inspire employees. By inspire I mean creating a culture where everyone is a leader, where everyone values diversity of thought, where everyone sees that gain for others is gain for self and therefore ‘sharing’ and collaborating are natural daily occurrences.

I have also introduced programs based on the power of harnessing ‘energy’ through Epstein Technologies and energy is the same as the force. I have keynotes and training programs for progressive companies ready to invest in helping leaders and teams to bring ‘energetic intelligence’ to the workplace – an intelligence that helps to unleash creativity, time and progress in a more effortless and impactful way.

I do believe that 2016 is the year where work forces can awaken to the power of the ‘force’ here’s how:

1. The force in the movie is described as the ‘glue that holds the entire universe’ and the force is the same as ‘energy’ – energy is the ‘boss’ (as Dr. Donald Epstein says) of all things. For a workplace to awaken to the force the leaders must honor and recognize that by focusing on the ‘energy’ of the company (is it doing good for its customers, employees, environment, the world?) the workforce can evolve beyond its current level of success.
2. A workforce that is awakening would have leaders whose main focus is to build other great leaders – by focusing on helping everyone to be a leader the ‘force’ awakens to one of empowerment, sharing of power, and a focus on ‘gain for all’.
3. The next level beyond helping ‘everyone to be a leader’ is to connect everyone with his or her ‘heroes journey’- when everyone within the workforce is connected to his or her mission and can relate his or her individual mission to the workforce mission you have an awakened workforce committed to the same vision and goals.
4. Yoda says in the movie that fear leads to greed and greed leads to darkness we could relate that to the work force in that fear creates a workforce where information is withheld, where people protect self and where ideas and progress gets stifled. With the ‘force’ awakening people are strong, self aware, inner powered and see the connection between what one does for others one gains for self. Creating a culture of support, growth and learning mitigates fear.
5. Technology is a force that can be used for good (social media bringing awareness and donations to troubled areas of the world) or for evil (social media used to bully, destroy and build hatred) –  in an awakened workforce all areas of communication can be leveraged to engage the ‘force’ for good for everyone. Customers, employees and suppliers.

The workforce can only ‘awaken’ when leaders see that there is a ‘energy focused’  way of running business, that people are longing for meaning and purpose and feeling connected. The solution is for each and every one of us to take personal responsibility for ‘awakening’ the force within ourselves and then sharing what we have learned generously with others.