Recently I sat down with Eric Termuende and heard about a new way of talking about work, attracting and retaining talent, as well as optimizing culture.
An author, speaker, and entrepreneur, Eric is co-founder of NoW Innovations, and Lead Content Strategist for True Calling Canada. In 2015, Eric was recognized as a Top 100 Emerging Innovators under 35 globally by American Express. His new book, Rethink Work is now a Top 5 Amazon bestseller in management. He’s passionate about making people realize their full potential-making sure they are the best fit and not overstretching what they are doing in the workplace. He is extremely entranced by the human condition and interested in what makes all kinds of people tick.
Eric advocates for optimized culture vs universal culture. Optimized culture is when the people in an organization are at harmony with the environment that’s established for them. He addresses that by and large, there isn’t one universal company culture or “cool” office environment that works for everyone- and that is okay. Office moral can improve and the employees can get their best work done if companies can attract the correct talent based on the employee’s needs. And that looks vastly different across industry, across sector, across different organizations.
Eric says that in order to understand what type of environment you work best in, ask yourself:
- Whether you work best in a team or individual.
- Work best in an open concept — communal, or quiet.
- Frequency of feedback from leadership.
- Flexibility of work hours.
Eric argues that this optimization is why we’re seeing tech start-ups, or even just start-ups in general, having vibrant cultures; because they’re not recreating, they’re just creating. When a company attracts the right talent, they focus less on fitting into a mold, and more on their unique creativity. Creative freedom leads to happiness and increased productivity. Creative freedom also leads to empathetic curiosity, promoting a diverse sharing of opinions throughout the workplace. Eric says that new success is defined by working the job that affords you to live the life you want to live and that you don’t have to work somewhere you don’t love.
As we look to the future, Eric says that the thing to fear most is ourselves. In this digital, disconnected world that we live in, people are becoming less authentically connected. Remote workplace and co-working are the rave of the future; however, we have still have the choice to disconnect, and support authentic human connection.
I share his vision. I see a world where we’re as happy at work as we are away from work. I see a world where empathy, imagination, adventure, and conversation are all part of the global workforce. I support Eric on his mission, will you?
Please check out more of his thoughts and contact him for more about the future of the workplace.
Hope ya’ll are having a phenomenal day on Earth, It’s Your World Go Explore.
With Love and Pasta Sauce,
Chris Schembra
Originally published at medium.com