Andrew Curry is, amongst other things, the Director of Futures at the School of International Futures (SOIF) in London. He shares some of his valuable insights regularly on his Substack account, Just Two Things, which we follow with keen interest.
Last week, Andrew posted a piece about the ongoing Return To Office mandates (RTO) that are sparking some debate in some circles, which is well worth the time to read (especially if you are currently intellectually toying with potentially ordering staff back to their desks).
As we have repeatedly lamented on this site, simply ordering staff back to the office doesn’t necessarily solve the productivity challenge that it is supposedly meant to be addressing; so the post certainly resonated along the same lines as our own sentiment on the matter.
Further to this, however, Curry’s post includes numerous links to other research on the matter that strengthens the argument that outperformance is not indicated by a simple bums-on-seats metric.
So if bums-on-seats isn’t necessarily a leading indicator of outperformance, what then does create the conditions under which its emergence is possible?
Outperformance is achieved through the continuous creation of unique value. High-value outputs are created by high-value work done by valued people and sold to people who appreciate and value that value.
As an example of this kind of renewed commitment to value creation, there is the case study of the turnaround of the British ceramics industry (yes…think of your Mum’s old collection of Royal Dalton stuff) that at one point was close to collapsing.
Since 2008, however, the industry has staged a remarkable comeback.
When collectors pay high prices for sought-after British ceramics, they’re not just buying a cup and saucer set that’s decorated with pleasing pictures. They’ve buying a unique, high value artefact that is created by authentic provenance and craftsmanship. Quite simply, the industry got it’s mojo back by realising what business they were in – the business of crafting and marketing high-value British provenance.
At its core, high value is created through high-value work.
In the concluding remarks of a 2014 report (The High Value Work Agenda) created by The Futures Company in partnership with the Association for Finnish Work, it is suggested that to start designing an approach that creates high-value outputs, the best places to begin re-examining your ‘ways of being/doing’ would include:
- Re-imagining service: taking a fuller look at the world of your customers and their relationship with your product or service.
- Re-structuring resource use: taking a wider look at your supply chain and your value chain.
- Re-defining meaning: through authenticity, taking a deeper look at your relationship with place, workforce, suppliers and stakeholders, and;
- Re-configuring knowledge: taking a fresh look at what you know and how that translates into value.
Innovation seldom transpires thanks to a chance conversation amongst employees while taking a break (from doing ‘real work’) around a water cooler at the office. Innovative companies innovate (and deliver outperformance thanks to a continuous stream of new high-value outputs) because that is what they are created to do.
RTO mandates are a distraction and part of a tiresome template of blame increasingly relied on by management, which makes for catchy headlines, but may cause more harm than value.
