Page 42 - Managing the Mobile Workforce

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▶ChApter two

discovering a new

workforce paradigm

Check your Assumptions about
the Future at the Virtual door

A paradigm is a set of rules and regulations (written or unwritten) that
does two things:
it establishes or defines boundaries; and
it tells you how to behave inside the boundaries in order to be successful.
—Joel Barker, Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future, p. 32

The work itself should determine the best method, time, and place for
its accomplishment. You wouldn’t ask a farmer to come in to the office
from eight to five to get his or her work done. Cattle need to be fed
and crops need to be harvested where they are and in their own time.
Our beliefs about these matters are based upon an industrial model
that is out of date. It’s time to go forward by thinking back—perhaps
to the world of the craftsperson, who works where she chooses to
work, with the tools she picks to shape her creation, and at a pace that

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