New Ways of Working
Not Just Another Buzzword – It's a Necessity
The business world loves to dismiss "New Work" as just another buzzword. On LinkedIn, I even observe consultants proudly declaring that, as "New Work Experts," they focus on "performance" rather than fluffy and overused concepts like "purpose." The implication is clear: New Work is just feel-good that distracts from the real business of making money.
But here's the thing – no one needs reminding that work is about performance. If anything, our ruthless focus on traditional metrics of performance is precisely what's breaking our current system.
Broken Measures of Success
Gross Domestic Product, our most fundamental measure of economic success, fails to capture the true well-being of a nation or its people. Take the recent U.S. elections as an example: While some trumpet that "the economy is doing better than four years ago," - which is a fact, this rings hollow for families working multiple shifts just to put food on the table, barely seeing their children in the process. The truth of lower income classes was overlooked - with dire consequences.
GDP reduces human life to market transactions while ignoring the environmental and social costs of endless growth. And it doesn’t measure "work" or value creation as a whole, and excludes valuable contributions to our society such as care work from the payroll. It is a very narrow and not holistic perspective of what we consider value creation.
Our economic system might pay off for the top but not for the rest. And "the rest" is becoming a bigger mass as the social gap becomes bigger. Our economical is built on the shoulders of weaker parts of the society, and this has to stop, if we want to ensure a future for democracies.
As early as 1948, economist John Hicks proposed alternative metrics like the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), which considers economic, environmental, and social factors. Yet decades later, we still remain fixated on the same narrow measures of success. How is this even possible? Because we are not trained to think long term?
Reclaiming Meaning: The Paradox of our Priorities
Individuals face an impossible dilemma: focus on career advancement at the expense of relationships, or prioritise personal connections or personal growth while sacrificing financial security.
The cruel irony? Most people say that relationships, family, and personal well-being are their highest priorities. Yet our economic system forces us to live in direct contradiction to these values. We're contributing to GDP growth while neglecting what matters most. And we don’t even dare to question our behavior, altough we pay a high price that is becoming impossible to ignore.
If we take a more holistic view of labour, we can see that it is not labour but action that is the central activity of what makes us human. Meaningful action and the full realisation of potential are only possible when people can contribute constructively in all their diversity, i.e. when they can help to make the world a better place.
The Hidden Costs of Our Current System
Burnout rates are skyrocketing, mental health services are overwhelmed and the mindfulness industry is booming. And therapy and coaching practices can barely keep up with demand.
And while Mindfulness and Inner Work are of inestimable value to me, they shouldn’t replace identifying the root problems we keep feeding. We're treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease.
As activist Zandashé Brown powerfully puts it: "I dream of never being called resilient again in my life. I'm exhausted by strength. I want support. I want softness. I want ease. I want to be amongst kin. Not patted on the back for how well I take a hit. Or for how many.1"
The Urgency of Change
The recent global pandemic served as a stark wake-up call, forcing many to question fundamental assumptions about work, time, and prosperity. The "Great Resignation" wasn't primarily about money – it was a mass rejection of toxic corporate cultures and dehumanising management styles. If nothing was secure any more, why should we keep spinning in that wheel?
“New Work” is not ‘new’ any more than modernity is still modern today. What is more than contemporary, however, are the problems that Frithjof Bergmann tried to solve back in the 1970s with “New Work” and which are rolling towards us like tsunamis (reference) with ever-increasing force:
The widening wealth gap
The accelerating depletion of natural resources
Climate change
Cultural erosion
Beyond Polarisation
Perhaps most troubling is how polarised our discussions about work have become. Instead of collaborating on solutions, we're stuck in ideological corners, more interested in collecting "likes" than making progress.
The World Economic Forum's 2023 Global Risk Report ranks social polarisation as the third most serious global risk we face. This polarisation is evident in politics, the loss of democracies, as well as in debates about the future of work. Critics dismiss New Work as unrealistic idealism, while proponents sometimes retreat into vague platitudes about purpose and meaning. Both positions miss the point entirely.
New Work: Not New, but Necessary
It's not about choosing between performance and purpose, or between profit and people. It's about recognising that sustainable success – for individuals, organisations, and society – requires both.
Consider this: We spend roughly a third of our lives at work. That's too significant a portion of our existence to waste on anything that doesn’t create real value. For us, for our loved ones, for our communities, and our planet. Yes, for many people, work is primarily a means to survive. That's a legitimate reality, especially for those facing genuine economic hardship.
But acknowledging these economic realities doesn't mean we should accept the status quo. Even those of us speaking from positions of relative privilege face legitimate fears and struggles within the current system. The challenge is to imagine and create alternatives that work better for everyone.
What’s Next…
You know me by now, I won’t let you hang in there without any actionable frameworks and tools.
This is the first in a series of articles exploring how we might actually do that. In the coming weeks, we'll examine practical applications of New Work philosophy at both individual and organisational levels.
My goal isn't to promote an utopian vision of work, but to provide helpful tools to show you how change is possible. Because one thing is clear: the old ways aren't working anymore. It's time to build something better.
Zandashé Brown quoted by Elly Oldenbourg in Workshift