Sometimes we end up repeating the same questions because we struggle to recognize a response, even if it’s a simple one. Maybe that’s exactly why we do it. It happens when we talk about leadership, contrasting old and new models. There’s an old model that never goes out of style. It’s formed most of the way we work and are measured today, the so-called “command and control”. We’ve adopted it for so many years, it’s become familiar and secure. But it has it’s limits too. We know that in a fast-paced and interconnected world, like the one we live in, it’s unsustainable to give a select few this responsibility. They’ll never know enough or act fast enough to “save us all”. So the potential for the independence and efficacy of a better-distributed leadership is there, based on radically new foundations. One of these foundations is relationships: the quality of relationships, raising others as we grow ourselves.
But relationships can only be managed up until a certain point. They hardly ever go straight from point A to point B. That’s perhaps the reason why we struggle to see them as a key part of leadership. It would mean tolerating lots of things being undefined and lying outside the shared map. So how can we lead in this way? How can we guide others while leaning on the mobile ground that is human relationships?
A recent Forbes article delves further into this topic. In order to create an empathetic connection between people, to help them feel free to grow, to give them independence and the ability to express themselves, the ability to do more – we need to be present. So far, these concepts are almost spiritual, touching mindfulness and profound connection. This type of relationship seems like a luxury in the frenetic nature of our office work. But Forbes suggests the opposite. It translates being present into a dialogue between managers and employees. Here are 3 ways that we can put empathetic leadership into action:
1) don’t get distracted. When you’re with someone else, be with them. Don’t look at your email, take off your WhatsApp notifications, don’t look at your phone. Be there. There’s a reason we say “pay attention”. Attention is a currency when it comes to relationships: it costs more and is worth more than time. 5 minutes of attention are much better than 30 of half-hearted attention. In fact, half-hearted attention doesn’t exists: for our brains, you’re either there or you’re not.
2) Be prepared. Aristotele said: Liberty comes through discipline. If you prepare for your meeting, you’ll not waste time trying to understand it during the meeting and you’ll have more space to think.
When you’re prepared, you can fully listen to the other person. You don’t have to waste part of your listening ability trying to keep up with the thinking processes that are going on in the background.
3) Park your agenda. This is perhaps the most difficult one. It means avoiding going into a 1:1 with the aim of bringing something out of it.
If you show up with an agenda, you’re not there to guide the person, but rather to manage their tasks. Present leaders know how to ask questions and feel comfortable with the silence that follows.
If you don’t have an agenda, you can be curious. Curiosity has the same route as the word care. Recent research shows that practising curiosity can help you make less mistakes and make better decisions, with less conflict and more open communication. The result? A higher team performance.
Paying attention, being prepared, being curious. They might seem at odds with the pace of our ways of working. Yet we “know how to do it”. When we use these skills at work, our colleagues and clients will transform us into empathetic leaders that know how to make others feel better and activate better resources.
This article was originally written by Riccarda Zezza and published on the Il Sole 24 Ore blog, Alley Oop. To read the original article (in Italian), please click here.
In an increasingly competitive market, engagement, retention and wellbeing gain strategic relevance for companies. Having said that, it’s not always easy for teams to understand how they can achieve results in these areas. According to Harvard Business Review, most companies offer to increase salaries, financial or training benefits and welfare offers to retain their employees.
There’s no doubt that these elements are important, but research shows that it’s the working environment that’s most likely to keep an employee happy in their role. The first element to help businesses stay competitive is recognising their employees identity dimensions. Not just as professionals, but also (and most importantly) as people.
Employees that differ from the majority of their colleagues in terms of religion, gender, socio-economic background or age are often hiding important aspects of their identity for fear of being judged negatively. It makes it difficult for companies to attract their talent, as it directly affects their reputation, productivity and competitive advantage. For employees, it’s quite impossible for them to feel connected to the company that they work for. The key to inclusion is understanding who the employees really are.
Lots of organisations carry out engagement and pulse surveys. But many fail to carry out a deep analysis of this data by truly listening to their people. And as a result, they lose out on opportunities to identify any problems that are hindering the Diversity&Inclusion strategy.
That’s why Diversity enriches us, but only if it’s managed. Otherwise, it can actually conflict with other objectives and initiatives. It adds value to teams when they are aware of it. Companies can no longer afford to respond with gender and work-life balance.
It’s not enough to include different profiles within the organization. Simply employing more women or people from different ethnic backgrounds won’t enrich the company in itself. D&I needs to be constantly worked on. Otherwise it becomes a passing trend that no longer stimulates research or questions, becoming a check-box exercise. That’s why it’s key for companies to invest in valuing their differences. It all starts with training managers in caring leadership models and working on recognising their employees’ transferable skills, starting with those gained through their life experiences.
DISCOVER HOW TO UNLOCK YOUR PEOPLE’S POTENTIAL
All we have to do is think about the paradox that our CVs (curriculum vitae) have become. The name literally means an ‘account of life’, but nowadays it only contains details of a person’s working experiences. LinkedIn noticed this too, after young mother Heather Bolan alerted them to the fact that she couldn’t choose anything other than pre-selected professions to add to her profile. This meant that people who had ‘taken a break’ from work, perhaps to travel, support a family member or recover from an illness, found themselves with an embarrassing ‘gap’ on their CV. This lead to suspicion and probing questions from recruiters.
But it’s through life transitions and caregiving experiences that we learn the most soft skills. These same skills can be valued in professional terms too. Even LinkedIn has become more flexible and allowed users to detail their life experiences that have boosted their professional profiles, even if they weren’t directly linked to a professional role.
Recognising and valuing diversity is the key to enriching the company. For this to happen, we need to be able to read the data that the company collects. We need to learn to ask the right questions, addressing people in their entirety, to avoid generalising. People Analytics shouldn’t just look at the tip of the iceberg. Rather, they must look at all of a person’s dimensions.
Alongside so-called Big Data ), we can dive into an exploration of Small Data. People’s self-narration can help us see the parts of the iceberg that lie beneath the surface. To do so, managers need to be trained in order to listen to people ‘while’ they are learning.
Discover the Mondelez International Case Study
Diversity is innovative if companies are able to highlight the diversity that lies in all of us, and show how it can be positively used through thinking outside the box, creativity and action.
Even feedback needs to consider all the elements that make up the person in front of you. Otherwise, this rating system won’t stimulate improvement, but rather negatively impact employee productivity, as well as the brand reputation. It all starts within the company.
Listening requires dedication. It’s tiring. But it’s also an investment. The time that managers dedicate to listening to their employees will unlock future benefits. They won’t be afraid of the changes that evolve within the company: every transition – whether at home or at work – can enrich us if it’s managed correctly. We just need to learn how to do so.
Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) isn’t something that’s just for management and HR teams. It’s about transforming the society that we live in. Building an inclusive company means contributing to a more inclusive society. It’s about being aware of the fact that we’re all different, and that everyone can bring their own unique contribution to this collective mission.
The pandemic has had an impact on corporate D&I strategy. In times of crisis, they’re called to care for their employees. So how have companies kept their commitment throughout the Covid crisis and changing priorities? Which initiatives have they launched? It’s something we talked about at the online workshop Promoting diversity in the new normal organised by Comunicazione Italiana in collaboration with Lifeed.
First of all, it’s important to consider the approach that companies have towards D&I. “To evaluate the differences, we need to see them. We need to recognise the things that make each person unique, their experiences and changing roles in every life dimension, both personal and professional“, explains Chiara Bacilieri, Head of Data at Lifeed. Diversity is about valuing the characteristics within a team that “can become more effective if people know how to learn from each others differences”.
It translates into people’s “role enrichment” as they transfer soft skills between their roles and life experiences (parenthood, caregiving, pandemics, a divorce, moving house, a professional change). Furthermore, Lifeed’s recent analysis on emotions and desires linked to our life roles revealed the key values that people share and hope for the future. These values also cover new ways of working and an improved work-life balance: respect, inclusion and valuing each individual. These indications are essential to consider when building a D&I strategy.
DISCOVER LIFEED’S D&I SOLUTIONS
D&I can be considered “an ingredient in the recipe’ for organisational wellbeing”, suggests Alessandra Benevolo, HR Director Italy & HR Cluster Head South Europe at Ipsen, a pharmaceutical company that’s certified by the Winning Women Institute and the meritocracy forum. When we consider the whole employee, without making distinctions between their personal and working lives, it’s important to remember that “everyone has a talent for bringing added value to the business”. According to Benevolo, “we need to know how to effectively speak to them about Diversity and Inclusion”. It’s not about gender politics and quotas, but rather integrating diversity into our everyday practice.
The pandemic has accelerated D&I initiatives at work. Lina Donnarumma, Human Capital and Organization Manager at the Italian Institute of Technology, believes that inclusion over the past year has translated into the “ability to keep engagement alive even when people are physically distant, when they’ve expressed the need to feel involved”. The company therefore built its D&I strategy on four pillars: wellbeing (caring for people, also through psychological support); gender equality (gender equality plan, salary equality, wellbeing); D&I culture as added value (putting the individual’s authenticity at the centre); social impact of local country policies.
Listening to people as part of an inclusion strategy was a concept highlighted by Lavinia Lenti, HR Director at Sace. According to Lenti, “team cohesion is fundamental in reaching objectives”. In fact, D&I is also a performance element: “If people feel listened to, they work better”. Aside from numbers and KPIs, the company has focused on D&I to get managers used to D&I topics and collaboration between different generations. They’ve done so by activating a reverse mentoring project between junior and senior members of the team, as well as a project supporting parenthood, in collaboration with Lifeed.
In a certain sense, the pandemic has ‘helped’ managers to better understand their people’s needs, as highlighted by Raffaella Maderna, People & Communication Director at Lundbeck Italia. She’s seen gender diversity backed up by numbers, with women making up 58% of the corporate population. “We’re working to promote virtuous behaviours when it comes to topics such as violence against women and mental health. Through the crisis, we’ve accelerated our People Care initiatives to better understand people’s problems and support their mental health. People need to be listened to and understood”.
Gessica Perego, Global HRBP Information Services & Regional HR Director South Europe, Middle East & Africa at Coface Assicurazioni also believes that listening is a key part of D&I strategy. “D&I shouldn’t be divided into ‘silos’, it’s about listening to people’s needs more”. Perego talked about multiculturalism: “We work with lots of different cultures, and through the pandemic and period of remote working, we learnt to listen to people more. For example, we understood whether in certain cultures people preferred to work from the office instead of from home”. Respecting other cultures and ways of thinking is a key part of implementing D&I strategy too.
The pandemic and smart working have broken down some traditional barriers, such as the gender division of roles in the family sphere. According to Luca Miglierina, HR Business Partner and D&I Lead at Sanofi, “the emergency has also stimulated new initiatives and increased inclusion”. Within the pharmaceutical company, this means focusing on four main areas: gender balance, disability, LGBT, Ageing. “At a global level, we’ve launched the ‘All in’ strategy based on 3 pillars : reflect on the diversity within the areas we work in; unleash our employees’ potential; transform society in a positive way”.
Finally, we can ask ourselves whether we need to implement ad hoc D&I initiatives. It’s something that Antonella Zaghini, Responsabile CSR, Peace Manager at Guna asked: “We haven’t needed policies, we don’t live Diversity because we’re always trying to put people at the centre, without having to balance different D&I components, such as gender or salary equality. Through the pandemic we’ve helped those working from home both with psychological and organisational support. Internally, we’ve favoured the use of portable devices to boost inclusion even when we’re working remotely. Ethics are at the heart of what we do”.
Companies are increasingly active in promoting their Diversity & Inclusion initiatives. Such initiatives benefit both the individuals within the company, as well as the business itself.
“Inclusion” refers to closing in on a defined space. But following the aftermath of the pandemic, we’re increasingly aware of just how many identity dimensions we all have. This multidimensionality has broken down the boundaries of space and time. It’s also broken down office and house walls as many of us have been working from home. That’s why it’s time to substitute the word “inclusion” with “opening”.
Through self-discovery and sharing reflections with others, as well as breaking down past taboos, people become more aware of their identity dimensions and characteristics. This makes them more effective at work, as well as more engaged and happier. And companies can have larger maps available to them. By looking at the bigger picture of diversity and complexity, companies can benefit from this “opening” at both in terms of individual and collective performance.
It’s what Riccarda Zezza, CEO at Lifeed, talked about in the round table Organizations for people and people for organizations? It was held in honour of the 50th AIDP National Congress. A number of executives took part, including Michele Viale, General Director at Alstom Italy and Switzerland, Marco Piccolo CEO at Reynaldi, CSR Delegate at Confindustria Piemonte and Elena Caffarena Senior Partner at Praxi.
During the session, it became evident that people’s and companies’ interests have collided. That’s why the organizational structures and the people that make them up are so important. By revealing the differences between people (and changing our behaviour as intermediaries) we can achieve better results.
On the other hand, the Taylor model no longer makes sense in our society. Time spent at work needs to be valued within the context of life. Companies are called to take responsibility for their territory, supporting people and seeing them for all they are, aside from their working roles. In other words: with humanity.
The initial phase of the pandemic created a sense of uncertainty and disorientation among people. Today, companies have the opportunity to start a new chapter. In this context, leaders are concentrating on finding suitable strategies to favour the gradual return to the office for their employees.
Now more than ever, people need to believe in the future and that they can contribute to it directly. During transitional phases, it’s possible to do so when HR managers innovate with attentive listening. It’s a simple action that can leverage organizational wellbeing, productivity and valuing talent.
Recent data emerging from Lifeed programs suggests that 62% of people feel anxious about the idea of “going back to normal”. 69% of employees expect their company to make space for their thoughts and feelings, to favour their return to the office. What’s more, 68% of Lifeed participants believe that the ideal manager should be a ritiene che il manager ideale debba avere la dote dell’ascolto.
In particolare, ci sono 5 comportamenti manageriali che possono facilitare il passaggio dal senso di smarrimento al nuovo inizio.
The pandemic has triggered a working revolution, undermining managerial practices that had become static over the years. Today’s leaders have emerged from this time with new questions. How can we manage this transition and save the business, without forgetting about our people’s needs?
This was just one of the questions that was discussed at the recent HRC event: New flexibility and its impact on leadership. How can we guide teams through uncertainty and which priorities will help us to adapt to change? Managers and HR directors from various companies took part in the discussion.
Once the pandemic hit, companies found themselves living through a period of forced change at work. They were searching for answers, without being able to fall back on predefined stereotypes. Recent Lifeed research shows that employees within the individual context developed self-awareness, problem solving and other skills relating to themselves. When they were working with others, they developed skills relating to team work. “On the other hand, we’ve seen that collaboration, supporting others and delegation are the skills that people develop most in their private lives”, explains Emanuela Vignotti, Chief Revenue Officer at Lifeed. “That’s because life transitions – including the pandemic – play a key part in developing people’s skills”.
The biggest thing that tomorrow’s leaders will have to face is “being flexible and continuing to facilitate people working productively in different ways. They’ll have to leverage the soft skills that they have developed in their private proprio lives”. We can’t forget that people are at the heart of business. When companies truly know their employees and value their skills, they will be more likely to be able to reach corporate objectives in the ‘new normal’.
Leaders walk a delicate line, now more than ever. “The main priorities are empathy, the need to listen and to build relationships based on trust. It’s about going beyond the dimension of control” says Francesca Fraulini at The Kraft Heinz Company. So what are the characteristics of a good leader? Fraulini believes they need to know how to inspire their team and create external connections.
HR managers have found themselves facing unexpected situations through the pandemic. They’ve felt the need to adapt to change as it’s happening, supported by their value systems and corporate cultures. Gianpaolo Corti at The Kraft Heinz Company says that they “need a system of soft skills through informal networks to change the traditional ‘command and control’ approach. Many companies still use this approach, but nowadays it’s no longer the most suitable leadership model”.
Change must move in line with the corporate identity too. Antonio Guarrera at Aboca underlined that tomorrow’s leaders need to have three characteristics: skills (technical preparation), virtue (be a good example) and care. Or rather serving others “because the company is like a living organism where trust is key”.
For Stefania Capelli at Cisco, although the pandemic has been tiring, it’s also given us lots of opportunities to “evolve managerial culture”. New dimensions that have encouraged Capelli to think about an “open source” future. A future where true leaders focus on inclusion to reach their objectives. It’s a change to make space for people’s creativity and initiatives, because “trust always wins the day”.
Flexibility and trust. They’re two concepts at the heart of a new leadership style. According to Fabio Comba at KPMG, “networks are cornerstones for team leaders. We need to create conditions where people can perform but also have fun. Every investment in corporate wellbeing essentially boosts client satisfaction”.
An energetic and welcoming leadership doesn’t just enhance performance, it also helps everyone feel “part of the team, regardless of where they choose to work”. Massimiliano Sacco at Electronic Arts highlights the importance of finding balance through this hybrid phase, where some working processes are more challenging to complete entirely remotely. Leaders will have to calibrate these phases to value and strengthen teams in order to hit targets.
Ugo Venier at Snam puts the focus on leaders being aware of how to manage their teams and listen. It’s “key for leadership in uncertain times, because if they listen to people and understand their needs, they’ll find everyone is more effective”.
Leadership has been put to the test over the past year. But new opportunities to change our work-life balance have emerged. Monica Chiari di Cameo highlighted how tomorrow’s leaders “unfold within change. Leaders must care more about relationships than performance. People that lead are no longer controlling the situation, but rather guiding people in the right direction and building trust”.
Transformative leadership redefines values that respond to new needs. Maurizio Audizi at Ania “because context has led us to focus on things that were previously regarded as less relevant”.
Lots of keywords emerged from the session, painting a picture of tomorrow’s leaders. Trust was a recurring theme. Trust in team behaviours, in corporate values and in building a new leadership for a better future.
All life events can enrich our CVs. So why is it that life experiences are usually seen as “career breaks” in our professional careers? Take these for example: the birth of a child (20% of Italian women resign after maternity leave) and time dedicated to caregiving (28% of caregivers say that there’s a stigma surrounding this responsibility). But these life experiences activate 63 skills! It’s time to radically change our culture and consider these experiences as feeding our education. Experiences that are worthy of putting on our CVs.
That’s why we’ve created #MyRealCv. It’s our digital campaign designed to increase our awareness of skills trained through life experiences (such as becoming a parent, caring for a dependent relative, going through a divorce, a house move, a change in role). When we recognize that their complexity is enriching our CVs, we’ll be able to boost our work-life synergy too.
#MyRealCv has been created by Lifeed, the social impact EdTech company that transforms life events into learning experiences and involves their companies as agents for change.
The campaign, created in collaboration with communications agency Cookies & Partners, wants to encourage cultural change by involving the community on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. In September, the initiative will grow as selected influencers will get involved to show how important work-life synergy is and how life events can help with that.
“It’s called ‘curriculum vitae’ (or rather an account of life), but we often forget about the life part. This means that we’re wasting resources that could be put to use at work and in society. Riccarda Zezza, Lifeed CEO said – With this campaign, we’re proposing a change to the paradigm that makes everyone more aware of the fact that life events generate skills that deserve to be valued in our professional lives, because they “work” there too.
The campaign is playful and open to all. It’s a simple test that asks users questions to identify the main changes that people are going through. It invites people to choose which skills they most identify with. The person then receives a report with the skills that they’ve developed so that they can then update them in their CV.
Lifeed has an innovative approach to the workplace, and is the first Italian company to be selected by the Unreasonable Group. This international network brings together disruptive innovators and entrepreneurs to co-create the future of work.
The world of work is unbalanced, and it’s not sustainable. Even more so, because it’s invisible: it flows in the background and is ignored by most. We’re talking about the way that we (don’t) talk about the responsibility that employees have towards their managers. If we plug in the keywords “employee”, “responsibility” and “manager” into a search engine, the only connection that emerges is the responsibility that managers have towards their employees. There’s nothing that goes in the opposite direction.
It’s true, managers can do a lot in terms of enabling the people that work with them. We know that workers’ wellbeing often depends on the quality of their relationships with their “superiors”, and that’s where the focus tends to be. We look at their ability to foster a productive working relationship. Managers are trained to coordinate, understand and guide their employees, staying grounded in difficult times and able to give clear answers. Managers are trained to improve their empathy skills, while “caring” leadership also requires them to be close to others and to pay attention. But the responsibility all seems to be on the managers’ side.
The word “responsible” could potentially be a synonym for the word “boss”: maybe that’s why we find it hard to understand why responsibility should cascade down the levels. So employees can’t feel responsible? They are definitely responsible for their own work and results: employees responsibilities towards their employer are outlined in their contracts. But for everything else, many relational responsibilities aren’t given to them, and they are treated more like teenagers than responsible adults. A managerial dynamic that seems to mirror paternity in the 20th century.
Even though we often talk about horizontal and diffused leadership, the direction and overall decisions seem to move from the top down, while requests and waiting for direction seem to come from the bottom up. Yes, people are waiting, and this attitude aids people removing themselves from responsibility in a “command and control” model, much like old-fashion leadership forms. People avoid thinking when they’re in this context, believing that the solution is in the hands of the leader. That’s just not the case. Or maybe, it is, but only temporarily while we establish a new culture?
When change gains momentum, it’s essential to move together. It’s a way of keeping our work productive and alive. So why are workers not being asked to care for their managers? Why are managers not being listened to? Employees aren’t children, but even children grow up to ask their children to form a different relationship, rather than constantly telling them what to do. It touches a nerve: at least in Italy where children stay at home longer than they do in other European countries. Children are still “dependent” and parents struggle to see them as fully fledged adults. So to suggest equality means giving up a part of the control, but it’s also a way to gain alliances. The same thing is true at work.
We’re teaching managers to recognize their vulnerability, to ask for help and to admit that they don’t always have all the answers. But at the same time, we’re also asking employees to fill the spaces that emerge: space to take risks, to show themselves that they are strong, to reveal new skills and able to put them to the test? Which corporate training program teaches them to cultivate a relationship with their manager, involving them and feeling that you can both contribute equally? It goes beyond “giving each other feedback”. Feedback is about giving something back because you’ve received, not having the responsibility to give anyway.
“We need to stop treating our employees like children“, said professor Isaac Getz, author of “Freedom inc”. What would happen if we moved the focus to our employees, starting to treat them as adults: people able to care for their managers, to lower their expectations and to contribute more?
This article was originally written by Riccarda Zezza and published on the Il Sole 24 Ore blog, Alley Oop. To read the original article (in Italian), please click here.
We’ve been working remotely over the past year, but it’s not been your usual remote working by any stretch of the imagination. We’d be better describing it as emergency working. Working remotely from home with an intense amount of technology. So it’s important that we don’t think of this as a new way of working moving forward. It’s time to ask ourselves what the future of work will look like.
We were able to keep going at work. For a moment there we risked stopping production lines: we’ve been through – and are still going through – a global pandemic. Everything that made us feel safe and the ability to stay together has been put into question. It’s shaken our individual and collective identities. Over 3.3 million people have died all over the world, and unfortunately the crisis isn’t over yet. We could have stopped what we were doing, but we kept on going. We found refuge in that sense of belonging to a company and to our professions.
Gallup’s recent research calls it “the wellbeing-engagement paradox”. People’s wellbeing got worse, but it didn’t affect their involvement with their companies. It’s the opposite of what happened in the pre-covid world. The science of transitions explains it well. When we go through a transition, our identity dimensions change and we try to orientate ourselves, finding points of reference in the moment. We look for the things that can’t change when we’re in the middle of the tempest. Our work became one of these points of reference. That’s why work doesn’t just give us financial security, but rather it shapes our identity and citizenship too. It makes work a right for all. The right to express who we are and to contribute to something that’s bigger than ourselves.
The word “work” comes from the latin word labor, that means fatigue. Figuratively, it means guiding our wants, desires and intent, or undertaking or obtaining something. So we can define work as fatigue, but it’s also an opportunity to undertake something, create something, to grab hold of something. Grab hold of…what?
Transitions offer us a unique opportunity to go back to the roots of words and definitions. They allow us to ask questions that other people have asked in the past, but that perhaps nobody has ever asked us. Because the only obstacle for change is that which already exists. Simply by existing, it stops us imagining something new. The things that already exist – our pre-pandemic ways of working – respond to questions that were asked before we were even born. But today, we’re the ones asking the questions. We are new people – we were before as well, with our multiple roles in life and the numerous changes that shape our stories. We have the opportunity to access information and interests that haven’t been possible before this point in our history. It’s even more true now, as we’ve seen that everything can change in an instant. There’s not a lot that we have to keep from our old ways of working. We have all the technology we need to change our behaviors and make space for new maps that are able to plot where we really find ourselves.
But it might not happen. Work might continue in the same way it always has. Because to work smart, technology isn’t enough.
“It’s not technology, it’s a way of seeing the world”
That’s what neuroscientist Beau Lotto said in his book “Deviate. The creative power of changing your perception”. Humans’ ability to imagine just can’t be replicated with technology, even if we’ve invested a lot of time and money in it over the past year. That’s why the way that we work needs to capitalize on our imaginations, instead of staying within the constraints of technology. It becomes pretty clear just 15 minutes into a conference call: our computer screens abilitate us, but they don’t confine us. There’s so much more behind the screen. We can start there, from the things that we’ve understood about ourselves. Those things that the frames of the past were unable to show. The way we frame things needs to avoid those limitations. Maybe they are bigger, maybe we need to design them from scratch. Maybe we need to put people at the centre with everything they know. Technology will follow us, adapting and opening doors: is that not why we invented it?
This article was originally written by Riccarda Zezza and published on the Il Sole 24 Ore blog, Alley Oop. To read the original article (in Italian), please click here.
Lifeed’s innovation reached another milestone this month. The EdTech company founded by Riccarda Zezza is the first and only Italian company amongst 16 disruptive and innovative fast-growing companies selected by the Unreasonable group. We’ve been invited to join the Unreasonable future international program, created by Fossil Foundation, Pearson and Accenture to co-create the future of work.
The selected companies are able to truly impact the future of the world of work. They offer innovative solutions, present and growing in the marketing. They are inclusive companies, able to break down stereotypes and change society for the better.
Unreasonable Future is a fellowship program that’s been running for the past three years. It brings together innovators and entrepreneurs to co-create the future. A future where people and technology work side by side to create a more sustainable and balanced future for everyone. The first two editions included 30 companies, reaching 17 million people in 180 countries. Up until now, the companies involved in Unreasonable Future have raised over 260 million dollars in investment. What’s more, the initiative has generated over 74 million visualizations on social media.
Lifeed training was named by McKinsey & Company as one of the 10 most innovative employee reskilling solutions in the world. Today, it’s used by over 20,000 people across 70 companies.
Riccarda Zezza said “Unreasonable Future represents a huge opportunity for Lifeed to diffuse innovative and democratic learning methods. It’s able to change people’s lives and redefine organizational models. We want to contribute to upskilling and empowering millions of workers, building a world of work where everyone can reach their true potential. We want to transform life experiences into professional skills“.
Unreasonable Future provides opportunities for discussion and growth for fast-growing, innovative companies. Entrepreneurs and partners are involved in workshops guided by experts, braintrust, global events and tailored immersive meetings. It’s a network of over 1000 mentors and specialists that support business growth. By maximizing relationships with trusts, foundations and consultancy businesses, Unreasonable Future is able to encourage considered investments for their selected initiatives through fundraising and their direct involvement.
