The Next Rules of Work

Picture this: You're sitting in a meeting room filled with talented people, yet the energy feels flat. Despite having all the right credentials and experience, your team struggles to adapt to constant change. Sound familiar? You're not alone. Across industries and continents, organizations are discovering that the traditional playbook for work—the one built on industrial-age thinking—is failing us in an era of exponential change.

The reality is stark yet hopeful. While technology advances at breakneck speed and entire industries transform overnight, we have an unprecedented opportunity to reimagine how work actually works. The future doesn't have to be about humans versus machines, or about leaving people behind as change accelerates. Instead, we can create workplaces where every person thrives, where human potential is maximized, and where organizations become platforms for channeling human energy toward meaningful impact. The path forward requires us to embrace entirely new rules—rules designed not for the industrial age, but for the human age.

At its core, work is fundamentally about one thing: solving problems. Whether you're assembling components on a production line, developing strategy for market expansion, or helping someone navigate complex social challenges, you're applying human skills to tasks in order to solve problems and create value for stakeholders. This isn't just mechanical—it's deeply human, and it's the foundation of thriving in uncertainty.

Your brain is remarkably equipped for this challenge. With 86 billion neurons working in concert, your mind follows a predictable pattern when encountering new problems: collect information, process and organize it, abstract patterns and develop hypotheses, then apply solutions in the real world. The key insight is that problem-solving is both a mindset and a skillset that can be developed and optimized.

Consider the story of Matthew Corcoran Anders, a 16-year-old who transformed his summer job experience through problem-solving thinking. Initially placed answering angry customer service calls at a pest control business, Matthew could have simply endured the stressful work. Instead, when he observed an IT consultant performing routine computer fixes, Matthew declared himself "the IT guy" for the office. Not knowing what VoIP systems were, he went home, researched online, learned through forums and manuals, and successfully migrated the office to new systems while installing their phone infrastructure. By summer's end, he had written a guidebook for the staff and made himself indispensable—all through approaching challenges with a problem-solver's mindset.

The transformation begins with embracing what cognitive experts call the four phases of problem-solving. First, decide to engage with the problem rather than avoiding it. Second, collect relevant information from multiple sources while checking your memory banks for similar challenges. Third, process and abstract this information, looking for patterns and developing testable hypotheses. Finally, apply your learning in real-world situations and iterate based on results. Remember that this isn't linear—you'll cycle between phases as problems evolve.

The problem-solving mindset isn't just individual—it's contagious and essential for teams navigating exponential change. When everyone approaches challenges with curiosity rather than fear, when making new mistakes becomes celebrated rather than punished, and when the focus shifts from having all the answers to asking better questions, organizations become genuinely adaptive and resilient.

The future belongs to workers who can be problem-solvers while remaining Adaptive and Creative, with Empathy—what we call PACE skills. These aren't just nice-to-have soft skills; they're the essential building blocks for thriving in uncertainty. Unlike technical knowledge that can become obsolete, PACE skills transfer across industries, roles, and challenges throughout your career.

Adaptability means thinking flexibly, rapidly iterating, and taking manageable risks with a growth mindset that embraces continuous learning. Creativity involves envisioning novel solutions, integrating problem-solving strategies from different domains, and designing new approaches that humans excel at beyond what software can replicate. Empathy—our uniquely human ability to understand others' lived experiences—becomes critical whether you're understanding customer needs, collaborating with diverse teammates, or addressing societal challenges.

The technology company Catalyte demonstrates PACE in action through their integrated approach to developing programming talent. Rather than requiring computer science degrees, they use challenging quizzes to evaluate cognitive agility and perseverance—flex skills like determination matter more than getting 80% of technical questions right. Once accepted, apprentices learn through real-world problem-solving from day one, developing skills just-in-time and just-in-context. Throughout training and beyond, workers receive continuous supportive feedback that helps them grow, while project management software keeps distributed teams synchronized on goals and deliverables. The result: they can train programmers to four-year degree proficiency in just six months.

Building PACE skills requires shifting from individual excellence to collective capability. Start by identifying your superpowers—the intersection of skills you love using and excel at using. Then practice rapid prototyping with your team, where the cycle time between idea and test is measured in minutes rather than months. Embrace psychological safety where people feel secure taking risks and being vulnerable. Most importantly, ensure psychological diversity by including people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences in your problem-solving processes.

The magic happens when PACE becomes a team sport. High-functioning teams dynamically bind around problems, with members whose interdependence requires coordination while holding each other mutually accountable. They adapt continuously, use collective creativity to make work more effective and engaging, and approach challenges with genuine empathy for all stakeholders they serve.

Digital transformation isn't really about technology—it's about empowering humans to solve problems more effectively. The most successful organizations focus on tools that augment human capabilities rather than simply automating them away. This means designing techniques and technologies that help workers understand their own skills, learn more rapidly, collaborate more effectively, and solve increasingly complex challenges for stakeholders.

The key is following what we can call the Starling Principle, inspired by how thousands of birds move in perfect coordination by following simple rules: watch neighbors and match their speed and direction, avoid crowding, and move toward the group when drifting away. Effective organizational tools must embody simplicity (easy to learn without being simplistic), synchrony (helping people stay aligned), speed (enabling rapid response without knee-jerk reactions), and scale (working across the entire organization).

Tom Chi, formerly employee number six at Google X, exemplifies human-centric tool design through his approach to real-time prototyping. When his team envisioned computer displays embedded in glasses, rather than spending weeks on traditional design processes, Tom jury-rigged a prototype in hours that let Google co-founder Sergey Brin test assumptions immediately. Later, working with a client designing high-end product packaging, Tom sent interview teams to multiple cities simultaneously, testing designs on tablets with customers outside target stores. As customers suggested changes, designers at headquarters incorporated feedback in real-time, pushing new iterations to tablets within minutes. After several hours of this rapid cycle, they had both a successful design and actual pre-orders from customers.

The most powerful tools address the four core organizational needs simultaneously. Growth tools help every person continuously maximize human potential through personalized learning paths and AI-driven coaching systems. Effectiveness tools like Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) create clear alignment between individual work and organizational strategy while reducing bureaucratic overhead. Involvement tools enable inclusive hiring, development, and promotion while eliminating bias through software that identifies problematic requirements and language. Alignment tools help distributed humans stay coordinated through agile project management practices and continuous communication systems.

Remember that the goal is empowering workers and teams to continually solve problems and create value for stakeholders. The right tools make people more effective than they were a year ago, keep them on personal and group growth paths, ensure they're using their superpowers, and maintain alignment with organizational vision and strategy.

Organizations at their best function as platforms for channeling human energy to solve problems and create value for all stakeholders—not just shareholders, but workers, customers, partners, suppliers, communities, and the planet. This requires fundamentally reimagining the purpose and structure of how humans collaborate to create value in the world.

The transformation starts with recognizing that your workforce is actually a worknet—a dynamic ecosystem of talent that includes not just traditional employees, but contractors, gig workers, apprentices, consultants, partners, and even customers who help co-create value. Kelley Steven-Waiss, former Chief Human Resources Officer of HERE Technologies, discovered that organizations typically see only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to human potential. Most companies have little knowledge of workers' full range of skills, experiences, hobbies, and interests, meaning they can't optimize the match between problems and capabilities.

Novartis exemplifies this transformation through their "unbossing" initiative across 110,000 employees. Rather than traditional performance ratings, they focus on learning journeys and personal growth, with every employee establishing annual learning development plans supported by what they call the "partnership of three"—employee, company, and manager working together. Their "Choice with Responsibility" flexibility policy shifts decision-making from "manager-approved" to "manager-informed," empowering workers to choose how, where, and when they work while remaining aligned with organizational goals.

Creating inclusive organizations requires intentional design around four core practices. First, involve diverse voices in every significant decision, from hiring processes to product development, ensuring that psychological diversity drives innovation rather than groupthink. Second, enable growth by treating every human as multifaceted, supporting their physical, mental, emotional, financial, and spiritual well-being rather than seeing them only through the narrow lens of their work role. Third, empower effectiveness by eliminating bureaucratic barriers and giving workers agency to solve problems without micromanagement. Finally, encourage alignment through clear communication of purpose, regular feedback loops, and systems that help distributed teams coordinate seamlessly.

The result is organizations where people feel they can bring their whole selves to work, where talent flows dynamically to the most important problems, and where human potential is continuously maximized. This isn't just good for people—it's excellent business, as engaged workers create more value for customers and other stakeholders.

The ultimate goal isn't just transforming individual organizations, but co-creating work systems where everyone can thrive. This requires addressing the power imbalances that leave too many people behind while channeling human energy toward challenges that benefit society and the planet. The good news is that virtually every problem in our work economies has already been solved somewhere—we just need to scale and adapt these solutions.

Consider the contrast between how different countries handled pandemic-related unemployment. While official US unemployment tripled from 5% to nearly 15% in just three months, Germany's unemployment barely moved, rising only from 5% to 6.4%. The difference wasn't luck—it was systematic design. Germany's Hartz labor reforms created incentives to keep people employed, discourage mass layoffs, and retrain workers when job changes are unavoidable. Same storm, different boats, because different societies made different choices about how to structure their work economies.

The path forward requires action across four interconnected domains. Individuals need access to meaningful, well-paid, stable work with equal opportunities for economic mobility regardless of their starting point. Organizations must become purpose-driven platforms that create value for all stakeholders while ensuring they have the talented workers needed to solve problems today and tomorrow. Communities should function as ecosystems where all constituents can thrive, with organizations taking responsibility for their complete footprint rather than externalizing costs onto society. Countries need inclusive economies with policies that balance power between workers and organizations while encouraging innovation and growth.

The most promising approaches blend business success with social impact. Companies like Quiktrip, with over 800 stores and $11 billion in annual sales, demonstrate that treating workers as stakeholders drives exceptional performance—their sales per square foot beat industry averages by 50% and profit per store is double the industry average, precisely because well-compensated workers provide outstanding customer service. Meanwhile, organizations like the Family Independence Initiative prove that trusting families and communities with resources and decision-making power creates better outcomes than traditional top-down programs.

The transformation is already happening through what we might call "hacking capitalism for good"—using market mechanisms to drive positive change at scale. From the explosive growth of impact investing to benefit corporations that legally commit to social and environmental goals, we're seeing proof that markets can be redesigned to serve broader stakeholder interests while remaining profitable and innovative.

The future of work isn't something that happens to us—it's something we create together. As we face accelerating change and increasing uncertainty, we have a choice: cling to industrial-age rules that leave too many people behind, or embrace new approaches that help every human thrive while solving the world's most pressing challenges. The path forward requires courage, collaboration, and an unwavering commitment to the principle that guides everything: no human left behind.

The organizations and communities that will flourish are those that see exponential change not as a threat, but as an unprecedented opportunity to unleash human potential at scale. By mastering problem-solving mindsets, building adaptive capabilities, designing human-centric tools, creating inclusive organizations, and transforming work systems for shared prosperity, we can build economies where meaningful work is available to all who seek it.

Start where you are, with what you have. Whether you're helping one person develop new skills, encouraging your team to embrace psychological safety, or advocating for more inclusive practices in your organization, every action matters. The future we all want—where humans and technology collaborate to solve problems and create value for all stakeholders—begins with the next choice you make about how to channel your own human energy toward positive change.