Workforce Ecosystems: Reaching Strategic Goals, with People, Partners, and Technologies
Elizabeth J. Altman, David Kiron, Jeff Schwartz and Robin Jones
MIT Press (April 2023)
The power and value of integrating shareholder contributions throughout the given enterprise
Years ago, one of Albert Einstein’s faculty colleagues at Princeton gently chided him for asking the asking the same questions every year on his final examinations. “Quite right. Guilty as charged. Every year, the answers are different.” I was reminded again of that response as I worked my way through this book.
Elizabeth Altman, David Kiron, Jeff Schwartz and Robin Jones make brilliant use of questions that enable their reader to interact with the material. A set of “Action Questions” concludes each of Chapters 1-11. They also use questions throughout their lively as well as eloquent narrative. For example, In Chapter 3(Page 49), they suggest three questions to initiate a conversation around the degree of comprehensiveness in a workforce ecosystem. Replace “your” with “our” and you are well-prepared to engage associates in productive conversations whose purpose is to answer an especially difficult question or solve an especially serious problem.
I also commend Altman, Kiron, Schwartz, and Jones on their selection and insertion of observations from dozens of relevant sources. For example, here is a passage from Edward Schein’s classic work, Organizational Culture and Leadership (1985): “The purpose of this book is, first of all, to clarify the concept of ‘organizational culture’ and second, to show how the problems of 0organizational leadership and organizational culture are basically intertwined. I hope to demonstrate that organizational culture helps to explain many organizational phenomena. that culture can aid or hinder organizational effectiveness, and that leadership is the fundamental process by which organizational cultures are formed and changed.”
I presume to insert here that, in Leading Change (1995), James O’Toole suggests that resistance to change tends to be cultural in nature, the result of what he so aptly characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom.”
Altman, Kiron, Schwartz, and Jones provide an abundance of valuable information, insights, and counsel that can help C-level executives (or their equivalent) in almost any organization — whatever its size and nature may be — to achieve strategic objectives. What is a workforce ecosystem?
“We define it this way: [begin italics] A workforce ecosystem is a structure that encompasses actors, from within the organization and beyond, working to create value for an organization. Within the ecosystem, actors work toward individual and collective goals with interdependencies and complementarities among the participants. [end italics]”
o Develop and strengthen an extended workforce
o Establish and nourish a workplace culture within which internal and external stakeholders create maximum value
o Develop and execute a strategy to achieve an ecosystem that is comprehensive, cohesive, and coordinated with high impact
o Create, install, and orchestrate a framework for collective responses to leadership and management challenges
o Focus on key topics that will guide and inform leadership development at all levels and in all areas
o Integrate workforce ecosystems while nourishing cooperation, and collaboration between and among those involved
o Take full advantage of enabling technologies in shaping, supporting, and participating in workplace ecosystems
o Evaluate possible management practice shifts for workforce ecosystems. Their focus is on learning and development, career planning, coaching performance, and alignment interests with workforce ecosystem participants.
o Examine several ethical challenges in workforce ecosystems such as advancing DE&I for employees and other workers.
o Examine the nature and extent of workforce ecosystems’ impact on public policy and social safety.
These are among the other passages of greatest interest and value to me, also listed to suggest the scope of Altman, Kiron, Schwartz, and Jones’s coverage:
o Three mini-case studies: Novartis, Walmart, and Applause (Pages 19-26)
o Dimensions and functions of workforce ecosystems (34-40)
o Perspectives on strategy and workforce ecosystems (44-47)
o An Orchestration Framework for Workforce Ecosystems(61-65)
o Relinquishing Direct Control (69-73)
o Leading Across Organization Boundaries (73-77)
o Organizational Culture and Workforce Ecosystems(78-81)
o Challenges of Managing Culture in Workforce Ecosystems (84-85)
o Decentralized Integration Architectures (89-95)
o Building Integration Architectures in Workforce Ecosystems (95-99)
o Pulling Together Different Systems to Enable Workforce Ecosystems (106-109)
o Table 7.1: Summary of technology enablers for workforce ecosystems (115)
o Technology-Driven Organizational Change (118-119)
o Attracting Many Types of Contributors: Revising Workforce Planning (124-126)
o The Employee Life Cycle in Contrext (131-133)
o Providing Growth Opportunities for Workforce Ecosystem Participants (138-140)
o From Performance Management to Coaching Performance (144-146)
o Table 9.1: Management practices shifts: Developing growth opportunities and aligning interests (150-151)
o Ethics in Workforce Ecosystems (all of Chapter 10, 155-169)
o Addressing the Challenges (174-176)
I commend Altman, Kiron, Schwartz, and Jones on their brilliant use of various reader-friendly devices such as checklists, bullet points, mini-case studies, Tables, and especially their inclusion of a set of aforementioned “Action Questions” at the conclusion of each chapter (1-11) before they conclude with “Perspectives on the Future of Workforce Ecosystems” in Chapter 12. I highly recommend this book, one that I am certain will — over time — become a “classic.” The value of its contributions to knowledge leadership is incalculable.
These are among their concluding thoughts: “A workforce ecosystem perspective allows leaders to take a much richer and more nuanced view of organizations along with the people, partners, and technologies on which they rely to capture value. As Leaders consider how to reach bold strategic goals, workforce ecosystems offer the ability to effectively work with people, partners, and technologies to innovative and effective ways. Orchestrating workforce ecosystems provides a new way to create new strategic visions and bring them to reality.” ”
I presume to add two suggestions: Highlight key passages, and, keep a lined notebook near at hand while reading Workforce Ecosystems in which you record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), page references as well as your responses to the aforementioned “Action Questions” and to lessons you have learned. It would also be a good idea to record what are for you the key points made in each of the twelve chapters. These simple tactics will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.