I’ve been here for two years writ­ing a PhD dis­ser­ta­tion on the Fu­ture of Work. Specif­i­cal­ly, it fo­cus­es on how HR is changing ­in ag­ile or­gan­i­sa­tions. My work is a close examination of two fu­ture-ori­ent­ed or­gan­i­sa­tions in Switzer­land and New Zealand, so I’m def­i­nite­ly not sealed off in an aca­d­e­m­ic bub­ble. I’ve stayed on as an employee of TBF while working on my PhD, albeit with reduced hours and from a remote set-up. My work with TBF is associated with HR, man­age­ment and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al is­sues – most­ly in­ter­nal, though also for ex­ter­nal cus­tomers from time to time. Being actively engaged with both the­o­ry and prac­tice is huge­ly im­por­tant to me, as it en­ables me to find the sweet spot be­tween ideas and action. Lead­er­ship (in­clud­ing self-lead­er­ship) and em­pow­er­ment are two ar­eas that I’m fo­cus­ing on, and I myself am a guinea pig in terms of putting them into prac­tice.

I have be­come very aware of how im­por­tant it is to link all ar­eas of my life. This does not explicitly mean having a work/life bal­ance, as this im­plies that work isn’t properly a part of your life, but rather building links be­tween liv­ing, learn­ing and work­ing that create a coherent life plan. I’ve def­i­nite­ly discovered more about my­self since be­ing here. Not hav­ing a com­fort zone or a safe­ty net au­to­mat­i­cal­ly makes you aware of your own short­com­ings. This can be sobering at times, but it en­cour­ages you to keep learn­ing. For ex­am­ple, I have broken away from need­ing every­thing or­gan­ised in the nor­mal sense. A lit­tle cre­ative chaos is es­sen­tial and it’s im­por­tant to ac­cept com­plex­i­ty rather than fight it. I’ve adopted this mindset because it makes me un­com­fort­able if things are too clear and or­dered. In­stead, I’ve begun sep­a­rat­ing ur­gent mat­ters from im­por­tant ones as part of my daily routine. Living amongst Kiwis has taught me to be prag­mat­ic and calm – two qual­i­ties that can some­times be dif­fi­cult to de­vel­op in Switzer­land with our packed dai­ly rou­tines.

I consider it a great priv­i­lege that I can continue to help shape TBF while pur­su­ing my dream of do­ing my dis­ser­ta­tion here. The things you need when attempting ‘extreme remote working’ are trust and a will­ing­ness to ex­per­i­ment ̶ we had no idea whether or exactly how this would work. My supervisors and I had a shared belief that I am a valuable asset to TBF thanks to my skills and ex­pe­ri­ence, which made this leap into the un­known worth the risk. Thank­ful­ly, the de­ci­sion has paid off – and con­tin­ues to do so. Essentially, I’m a part-time em­ploy­ee who has max­i­mum flex­i­bil­i­ty with regards to location and scheduling. And what’s the ben­e­fit of that? Now each work­ing day sud­den­ly has 24 hours! Because my time in New Zealand, we have happily adopted a system of sending tasks around the world. This flex­i­bil­i­ty, which was ini­tial­ly a risk, has turned into a win-win sit­u­a­tion for us. Be­ing able to of­fer a sharpened ex­ter­nal per­spec­tive on things has been an asset. It’s clear to us that phys­i­cal work­places are be­com­ing less and less im­por­tant. While this is true, we still need sta­ble re­la­tion­ships for con­fig­u­ra­tions like this to work. Once you know some­one, con­nec­tion is no longer nec­es­sar­i­ly tied to your phys­i­cal lo­ca­tion. Of course, I still ben­e­fit from re­turn­ing to Switzer­land every six months and be­ing able to speak with con­tacts face to face. I like to see peo­ple and be in touch with an or­gan­i­sa­tion dur­ing a nor­mal work­ing day, and with my current arrangement I’m more conscious of the opportunities to do this when they’re there.

Erich Käst­ner said: ‘Paths are cre­at­ed by walk­ing them’. My mantra is: I go where I can learn the most. I be­lieve in us­ing your strengths as the ba­sis for per­son­al de­vel­op­ment. There are a very limited number of cases where this results in a tra­di­tion­al, lin­ear ca­reer path. It has become increasingly apparent to me that a consistent alignment of one's own activities with those of the customers and the organization is the only way to quickly an­tic­i­pate changes with­in our net­work. These personal, customer, and organization variables are be­com­ing much less set in stone. They are be­com­ing more in­di­vid­ual, more flu­id. Of course, you need in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary skills (e.g. com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the abil­i­ty to make de­ci­sions, etc.), and these don’t just ap­pear overnight. To de­vel­op them, you need guid­ance and cat­a­lysts. I’m also notic­ing that cen­tralised HR si­los are be­ing bro­ken down in favour of coach­ing or men­tor­ing guilds that that can be tapped as a decentralised resource (e.g. for team de­vel­op­ment, learn­ing process sup­port and work­shop fa­cil­i­ta­tion at cus­tomer sites). This concept of a support system with self-organization is something that we are putting into practice.