TWELVE

Personal Choices

How You Can Navigate Office Shock

Imagine a world

in which you—and most desk workers—have a better chance to find work paths with purpose, success, and fulfillment. Purpose-driven people will be happier, healthier, and will live longer. Purpose-driven companies will perform better. Rigid career tracking will yield to multiple paths and mixes that blend work and private life—with intention, flexibility, and choice.

To write your own story for offices and officing, we suggest you follow the four steps of the Quick Start Guide:

Step 1: Find Your Future Self.

Step 2: What Future?

Step 3: What Next?

Step 4: What Now?

With your Future Self as an individual, and a preferred future for yourself, place the mixing board in front of you. Looking at the seven spectrums, consider each spectrum as an individual office worker.

Here in chapter 12, we focus on choices for individual workers. This chapter is written for office workers, gig workers, workers in cooperatives, and others who do knowledge work. We are particularly interested in those individuals who are or want to be part of distributed organizations.

To inspire your story, spark your choices with the following provocations and critical success factors:

The Spectrum of Purpose for Individuals

I will be “in good company” when I get to work with people who share my purpose and sense of well-being. Office shock is an opportunity for me to move up the traditional hierarchy of needs and add more purpose and meaning to my work, maybe even more transcendence.

What might you do next to develop yourself on the Spectrum of Purpose?

   Meet a broader range of your own personal needs—I intend to ensure that my safety and needs are stable, so I can concentrate on my personal growth and purpose.

   Commit to continuous learning—I intend to grow and adapt by stimulating my brain while seeking a better future through my search for purpose.

   Look for ways you can improve social injustice—I intend to live in a future with greater prosperity for people and greater social justice for my community and society.

The Spectrum of Outcomes for Individuals

COVID-19 was the tipping point for office shock, but the aftershocks of social injustice and economic inequality continue to reverberate. As part of the Great Opportunity, I want to pursue broader social good—even though the current corporate economic system prioritizes profit. I want to seek out new organization models that offer new opportunities for more equitable ownership and greater prosperity for more people.

What might you do next to develop yourself on the Spectrum of Outcomes?

   Explore and evaluate new models of ownership—As new models of ownership are introduced and tried out in other organizations, I intend to have a stake in the game by questioning traditional approaches and embracing more equitable enterprise models.

   Try out ways to make employees true stakeholders—I intend to be a leader in creating an environment where our workers see themselves as members of our organization, not just people receiving payment for work done.

   Explore ways to become a more equitable enterprise—I intend to learn how to think full spectrum about how to accelerate the shift toward more prosperity and community benefit.

The Spectrum of Climate Impacts for Individuals

I am willing to cut back on my own consumption. I want to be part of an organization that produces with circularity and regenerates the planet. I understand that we will need circularity across the entire product life cycle, including extending the life of our possessions through repair, reuse, donation, and recycling. I want to be part of a regenerative economy that promotes care rather than carelessness, cooperation rather than competition, creating abundance rather than depleting resources.

What might you do to develop yourself on the Spectrum of Climate Impacts?

   Make conscious choices about consumption—This will be painful since we have grown up in a world of flagrant consuming and disposing. But I intend to change my behavior—both personally and in how I office—to curb my consumption and critically examine my choices.

   Adjust to lifetime ownership—I intend to think about the things I purchase as “forever goods” for which I have an urgent need and will help me make better choices and embrace the circular economy model.

   Regenerate communities—I recognize that climate change is a systemic problem that is threatening my entire community. I intend to work with my office and living communities to end careless consumption and adopt cooperation on climate response.

The Spectrum of Belonging for Individuals

Office shock will provide an opportunity for me to seek out, accept, and reward full-spectrum diversity that moves beyond simplistic labels, categories, and buckets. I will nurture a sense of inclusion and belonging in the organizations where I work. I will contribute to vibrant communities. I will accept differences in language, appearance, and behavior so that I can engage with people who come from different roots or routes.

What might you do next to develop yourself on the Spectrum of Belonging?

   Know my roots—I have studied and learned from my ancestral lineage. While roots are important in shaping us as individuals, I intend not to put people into old boxes but be open to their talents and contributions.

   Know my routes—I have learned from the roads I have traveled to get to where I am now. I intend to be a person who recognizes routes that I and others have taken, what we have learned, and what pain we have endured.

   Embrace diversity—I intend to be a leader who mixes and matches the dynamic talents of all my coworkers to contribute to valuable solutions to our increasingly complex problems. I will work to increase a sense of belonging for everyone in our organization.

The Spectrum of Augmentation for Individuals

I understand that I will need to be augmented to address the systemic problems and dilemmas of climate change, social injustice, and economic inequality. Solving our systemic challenges will require me to collaborate with others, to learn how to use advanced technology. I need to become a supermind—an augmented human working with others.

What might you do next to further develop yourself on the Spectrum of Augmentation?

   Become a supermind—The opportunity to augment my intelligence is highly attractive, so I intend to understand how to best achieve this while protecting my core humanity.

   Synchronize through stories—I intend to develop my own stories about what humans do best and how humans—including me—can be augmented to make a better life.

   Augment decision-making—I intend to use technology to handle the complexity and leave the craft of making the best decisions to me. The combination of technology doing the heavy lifting and my experience will make me smarter and more successful.

The Spectrum of Place and Time for Individuals

Imagine a world in which it is easy to move between in-person and virtual experiences. In this future world, we will always be online and enhanced, unless we choose to be offline. While the goal of virtual meetings used to be to approximate face-to-face meetings, the new mantra will be to create ways of working that are better than in-person offices alone. I want better ways of working, better ways of living, better ways of making the future. Hybrid work was only an incremental step toward the officeverse—a nested network of networks.

What might you do next to develop yourself on the Spectrum of Place and Time?

   Redraw your boundaries—The COVID-19 pandemic meant that the boundaries between office and home were broken down. The waves of office shock will allow us to redraw those boundaries. I intend to choose where and when I work, understanding that I need to be highly productive whatever I choose.

   Embrace the officeverse—The officeverse will require me to learn new ways of working, learn how to use new media, and figure out how to develop trusting relationships with people I’ve never met in person. I will prepare for working in the officeverse.

   Create your avatar—We will all need identities in the officeverse. I understand that means I need at least one avatar. I intend to embrace this need and become comfortable with it.

The Spectrum of Agility for Individuals

I will embody flexive intent in the ways that I work. Intent is a commitment to a desired outcome. Flexive means being adaptive—not rigid or brittle—to achieve desired outcomes. The traditional office was hierarchical and centralized, but that’s not what I want. In the future officeverse, everything and everyone that can be distributed will be distributed. I want to work in the officeverse.

What might you do next to develop yourself on the Spectrum of Agility?

   Organize for agility—I intend to be part of a shape-shifting organization in which decisions will be made by whomever is in the best position to make that decision, regardless of hierarchy. I will endeavor to be a leader who is strong and humble at the same time.

   Train for your own personal agility—As I hone my own full-spectrum thinking, I intend to use augmented intelligence and agility to improve more dynamic decision making.

   Be a gamer to improve your own agility—I will use gaming to prepare me for unwelcome surprises, so I can practice my leadership in low-risk ways. I will use the art of prototyping to enhance my brain’s neuroplasticity and develop an agile mindset.

At this point in your personal story, you are ready to formulate action items to propel you toward the better future of working and living:

1. How can you use the UN Sustainable Development Goals for guidance about your own navigational star?

2. As you work through each of the seven spectrums, create a list of factors that will help you envision what success means in your future.

3. With the image of success in your mind, how can you begin to plan a path toward the future that is clear, but not certain?

Now that you have thought about your future self across the Seven Spectrums of Choice, you are ready to engage your organization in a similar exercise. Your choices will reveal the levels of synchronization between yourself and the organizational aspirations of those with whom you work.¹