Reworking The Future Of Work: Keith A. Leitner Of Leitner Consulting Group On How Employers and Employees Are Reworking Work Together
When it comes to designing the future of work, one size fits none. Discovering success isn’t about a hybrid model or offering remote work options. Individuals and organizations are looking for more freedom. The freedom to choose the work model that makes the most sense. The freedom to choose their own values. And the freedom to pursue what matters most. We reached out to successful leaders and thought leaders across all industries to glean their insights and predictions about how to create a future that works.
As a part of our interview series called “How Employers and Employees are Reworking Work Together,” we had the pleasure of interviewing Keith A. Leitner.
Keith A. Leitner is the president and founder of Leitner Consulting Group and serves on the faculty of the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee and the College of Business at the University of Louisville. With more than 30 years of experience, he has guided organizations across manufacturing, aerospace, defense, and healthcare in designing and sustaining high-performance Lean operations, uniquely integrating Lean and Theory of Constraints to unlock capacity, profitability, and growth. He is the author of The Journey: A Guide to Lean Transformation Success and is widely recognized for his people-focused approach to building cultures where continuous improvement becomes a way of life.
Thank you for making time to visit with us. Our readers would like to get to know you a bit better. Can you please tell us about one or two life experiences that most shaped who you are today?
Following my ten years of retail work (beginning in high school), I joined a very large manufacturing company as an area manager. I had studied leadership and had held leadership positions within retail, but I had absolutely no clue how to manage the intricacies of manufacturing. Initially, I was overwhelmed. However, I quickly learned that I did not need to know how manufacturing worked because my employees already knew it well. All I really needed to do was be open to learning from them as they were the experts. And if I could work with them and their understanding to identify the issues that were causing us trouble and then help them help me devise solutions to those issues, we could make manufacturing less complicated and more productive (which also made it easier for them).
Conveniently, this revelation was coming to me at the same time that I was learning the framework for operational improvement known as Lean. This framework, once explained to my employees, allowed us to see our challenges from a different lens and jointly develop solutions that were innovative, ground-breaking, and powerful.
This life lesson — understanding that all the knowledge necessary to dramatically improve any operation exists within the employees working within that operation — has helped me at every point of my career and has allowed me to successfully work in any industry.
Let’s zoom out. What do you predict will be the same about work, the workforce and the workplace 10–15 years from now?
My prediction is that regardless of advances in AI, robotics and technology, the importance of an engaged, empowered, active and involved human workforce will only grow for organizations. Throughout history, all companies and organizations have been human entities and that will not change. If anything, the importance of a strong, capable and talented workforce will only grow as we realize these advances in technology.
What do you predict will be different?
I predict that the movement of the last 10 years to moving work to virtual wherever possible will morph to more virtual communications, while physical work will revert more to in-person co-located workspaces. In other words, while the benefits of meetings of the minds may remain virtual, the actual actioning spaces will morph back to being in the same locations. In other words, team-based activities where employees from different areas are working together to create, modify, devise, or openly discuss issues, opportunities or plans for the organization moving forward will move away from virtual and back to physical co-location. I believe organizations have learned that attempting to do these types of activities virtually have led to less than desirable outcomes.
Largely due to COVID and its impact on the workplace, organizations moved as much work as possible to virtual spaces. Co-located offices, meeting spaces, and workspaces were disbanded as much as possible to allow for human spacing. However, while we learned that this move was seamless for much of what had been previously done together (meetings and quite a bit of communication), the process of creating and taking advantage of different strengths of the workforce was diminished. The power of “teaming” to create was greatly diminished during this transition to virtual work.
The power of bringing people with different talents, approaches, expertise and education together to create something new and innovative has always been the wild card deployed by successful organizations. Many organizations have learned that attempting to conduct this work virtually has led to sub-par results. I predict there will be an emphasis over the next 10–20 years to critically look at what is and should remain virtual, while taking steps to bring back together much of the actual “thought work” and cross-functional creative work.
What advice would you offer to employers who want to future-proof their organizations? What do you predict will be the biggest gaps between what employers are willing to offer and what employees expect as we move forward?
One of my favorite business quotes is from Peter Drucker when he said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” Here is some of the realities facing organizations today:
The work methods you are currently using will someday become obsolete;
The customer’s desire for your products will evolve;
You will always face strong competition, and it will only get stronger if the players within an industry get weaker; and,
Every industry is a growth industry if you are paying close enough attention to your customers.
Darwin did not say that the strongest or fittest survive…he said that survival is achieved by those most adaptive to change. Each of the “realities” I listed above will challenge the status quo for all organizations. Therefore, the best way to future-proof your organization is to abandon strategies for stability, standardization and routine and, instead, embrace the power of a learning, growing, changing and evolving organization. Stability is only desirable as the launching platform for the next change, improvement or innovation. So then, the successful organizations of the future will learn to change, lock down the improved processes and then launch into the next improvement iteration — and those that can work through those steps the fastest within any industry hold the winning hand (Darwin’s most adaptive to change).
In many ways I believe the biggest gap between what employers and employees want will be somewhat aligned as this future-proofing reality becomes more apparent. Generally, employers and employees want some level of consistency in their day-to-day lives. Employers and employees have always wanted some level of predictability within their work lives. This predictability is mostly comforting and remains so until it becomes mundane. However, this predictability flies in the face of the realities all organizations are facing and will continue to face in the future. The biggest challenge then will be to replace predictability with purpose and routine with excitement.
And what strategies would you offer about how to reconcile those gaps?
For organizations recognizing this new reality, the challenge (again) is to energize excitement within the workforce (both employers and employees). How do we develop systems that encourage and reward innovation, improvement and positive change? In many ways, the guidelines within my book — The Journey, A Guide to Lean Transformation Success — are designed to do exactly that.
The first step is to determine the area of greatest need. Employers must strategically evaluate where they need to be in the next 5–10 years and then determine where they have the greatest performance gap in meeting that need.
Second, employers must create a positive vision of the organization meeting or exceeding that need. The vision should be in the spirit of “Wouldn’t it be amazing if…” and this vision needs to be openly and obviously linked to the mission of the organization.
Third, a clear set of metrics needs to be established or gathered and communicated such that all employees at all levels know where the organization currently stands with regard to realization of that vision.
The remaining five guidelines from The Journey are geared toward the steps necessary to begin moving toward that vision (closing the gap), while developing your employees and positioning yourself for the next gap to be overcome.
A few years ago, we simultaneously joined a global experiment together during COVID called “Working From Home.” How will this experience influence the future of work?
To reiterate my further point, I believe the organizations that have looked critically at what was learned from the COVID “Working from Home” experience is that there have been successes and failures from the transition. We learned that we can successfully meet and communicate effectively in a virtual environment in many areas. Routine meetings and discussions like status updates, general company communications, and general sharing of information probably works better in a virtual environment (less lost time due to travel and other movement related wastes). However, I believe organizations have also learned that work that requires “teaming” — different skillsets coming together to problem solve complex challenges — does not work well (or at all) in a virtual environment. Based on that, and the challenges I listed above for organizations as they “future-proof” their workplaces, I believe there will need to be some portions of the work that need to be cohabitated. My guess is that we will see more organizations morphing to more of a hybrid approach with required amounts of time to be physically located together and other amounts of time where work can be conducted from anywhere.
What societal changes do you foresee as necessary to support a future of work that works for everyone?
Over the years we have seen periods where organizations and schools (both technical and academic) partner to ensure the curriculum being taught meets the needs of the workplace. This approach also has the desirable effect of helping students determine potential career paths that match their strengths, wants, and needs professionally. The growth of AI and robotics will significantly increase the need for technical skills in many areas; as well as organizational and operational change initiative leadership in virtually every industry. Therefore, a great business strategy is to ensure that future employees get early exposure to the work requirements in both of these areas. Typically, technical and academic schools develop programs of instruction based on previously identified needs or programs. However, with the pace of change quickening due to AI, businesses need to partner with these educational institutions to try to be very current or possibly anticipatory. I believe we are entering into one of those periods, and I foresee this one being the most robust ever.
What is your greatest source of optimism about the future of work?
The greatest source of energy in the universe comes from growth and expansion. I believe every industry is a growth industry if those within the industry choose to see it as such, and my book outlines a recipe for anyone who wants to embrace the positive changes that surround all of us. My greatest source of optimism about the future of work comes from seeing on a daily basis how inspiring and adopting a vision of growth creates positive growth energy within the entire workforce and turns work into purpose and daily effort into mission realization.
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What innovative strategies do you see employers offering to help improve and optimize their employee’s mental health and wellbeing?
I don’t know if this is innovative as an idea as much in current scarcity of use, but organizations can and must create environments where employees feel they are working purposefully and actively contributing to the mission of the workplace. Today’s employees do not want to simply clock in and put in their time. They want to be involved. They want to know they are important to their organization. They want to feel a part of something larger than themselves. Organizations that understand this will ensure that each and every employee has the opportunity to shape their work such that it helps better deliver the organizational mission.
For a while it seemed like there was a new headline every day. ‘The Great Resignation’. ‘The Great Reconfiguration’. And now the ‘Great Reevaluation’. What are the most important messages leaders need to hear from these headlines?
Each of those could be rewritten as “The Great Change,” because that was what all of them were. Again, it’s not the strongest or the fittest that survives, it is the organism most adaptive to change. The most important message leaders need to hear from these headlines is that you and your organization need to become the best changing, most agile organization within your industry. The beauty is that doing so in the fashion prescribed in The Journey will also make you the most enjoyable organization to work for within your industry.
How do company cultures need to evolve?
My favorite way to answer this question is to say that cultures are created and evolve one decision at a time. An organization’s culture is not what they say, it is what they repeatedly do. And every hour of every day a decision is being made somewhere within the organization that is shaping the culture. For leadership then to set and evolve the culture they desire, they need to work very hard to ensure that decisions at all levels are being consistently guided in the direction they want their culture to reflect. That is best accomplished by following the prescriptive guidelines I espouse in my book. A positive mission centric vision is the best first step in establishing the framework for decisions. The proper decisions are rewarded if there is a clear and consistent measurement process and system put in place to monitor progress toward that positive vision. All of this will drive consistent communication throughout the organization which should, in turn, influence the framework where decisions are made.
Let’s get more specific. What are your “Top 5 Trends To Track In the Future of Work?” (Please share a story or example for each.)
1. The return of manufacturing back into the United States.
Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s much of the US manufacturing locations and jobs were moved overseas as organizations chased cheap labor. This movement was maintained or slightly increased in the decades since. As a result, the emphasis on US manufacturing jobs has waned significantly. Interestingly though, during the same time periods, Lean Leader organizations like Toyota were moving manufacturing jobs into the US so they could be closer to their customers. With the advent of AI, the political push to move more of these types of jobs into the US, and the challenges facing global shipping, I believe more and more companies will be following Toyota’s lead.
2. Greater connection between organizations and education (both technical and academic).
Some of the more successful educational institutions have moved portions of their “research” to applications research dealing with current needs. To do this, they need access to and involvement with non-academic institutions and organizations. Given the breadth and increasing pace of needed change to adapt to these new technical trends, I believe we will see these partnerships grow both in amount of research as well as in breadth of applications.
3. Organizational leadership at all levels.
I believe the changes mentioned above will bring more and more uncertainty into the workplace. Traditional organizational management (establishing and maintaining rules and standards) will need to morph more to organizational leadership at all levels. Rules and standards will be treated as the launching pad for incorporation of an ever-changing work environment. In other words, the current methodology or standards will be scrutinized such that the new, changing needs of the organization are adapted — leading to new methodologies and standards that will become the launching pad for the next change.
4. Workplaces will become less hierarchical and more team based.
As management becomes more leadership, workplaces will become less hierarchical and more team based. These teaming structures will promote group learning and evolution and will challenge current workplace design as well as employee compensation and reward. Team based compensation and reward will become more of the norm and the ability to creatively lead these teams will become more prized (leading to promotion and growth within the organization).
5. The deemphasis on working virtually.
Virtual work is best when work is singular and interaction with other employees can be reduced to information or data sharing. Teaming as discussed in the fourth trend has been shown to not work well in a virtual setting. Therefore, I believe we will see even more organizations moving their workforce back into physical co-location — at least for the majority of their workweek. The challenge they will face is how to intelligently allow for virtual work to continue partially within their workforce (as this is still seen as desirable by much of the new workforce). Therefore, the trend to watch will be the portion of the workforce and the percentage of their workweek that will remain virtual.
With AI and automation reshaping industries, what role do reskilling and upskilling play in preparing employees for the future? What can companies do to help their workers transition into new roles created by AI?
The best way for companies to assist with worker transition with AI is to help them help AI in the design of the new roles. Initially, AI could potentially be a sounding board for possible changes to the workplace, whereby leaders then learn from the results of the trials of the workplace changes. As such, AI could potentially be a “test lab” for potential changes proposed by the workers.
As AI takes on more administrative or operational tasks, what will the role of managers look like in the future?
AI will not replace human employees — it will only change the types of tasks they perform and, maybe, how they perform them. Therefore, the organization of the future will have employees who need management just as they do today. As has been discussed above, these managers will need to do more team building and facilitating as employees get much more involved in designing their workplace and helping deliver on mission needs.
How can leadership evolve to focus more on innovation, emotional intelligence, and strategic vision?
The strategies laid out within my eight guiding principles outline exactly how to do this. Leadership only needs to follow the prescriptions of the book to have great success driving innovation, emotional intelligence and strategic vision.
With AI streamlining many processes, do you think employees will have more freedom and flexibility to achieve a better work-life balance?
I not only believe employees will have more freedom and flexibility with the design of their workplace (and their work-life balance as a component of that), but this will be a “must” for organizations to be successful in the future.
How can companies leverage AI to support employee well-being in new ways?
Employees want to be involved in and have ownership in their daily work life. AI has the ability to assist teams as they design new workplace methods and practices. As AI learns from their efforts, it could possibly be used to simulate possible workplace method and practice changes before trialing them in real life.
I keep quotes on my desk and on scraps of paper to stay inspired. What’s your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”?
“People don’t resist change…people resist being changed.” And I am pretty sure that is a Keith A. Leitner quote.
And how has this quote shaped your perspective?
In every work situation throughout my career, I have worked very hard to ensure that those affected by any change are involved in and part of the development of the change itself. This may seem to slow the change process as it takes much more time on the front end. However, it ultimately takes much less time because this approach leads to greater solutions, greater buy-in, and even ownership of the solution or change.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He, she, or they might just see this if we tag them.
I have always been a fan of Michael Jordan. We are of a similar age and both grew up in North Carolina — so I have followed his career most of my life. I have always been impressed with his drive and commitment to excellence in everything he has done — both as an athlete and business owner/leader. I’d be honored to meet him in the real world.
Our readers often like to continue the conversation with our featured interviewees. How can they best connect with you and stay current on what you’re discovering?
I will be posting monthly articles and videos at my website www.leitnercg.com and readers can also email me with questions at leitnercg@aol.com
Thank you for sharing these insights!