"The Crisis is a Time to Stop and Think", Sylvain Newton, Head of the New Work Model, Allianz Group

The nineteenth episode of the Future of Leadership Podcast is
about rethinking the way we do business, the roll of the office
space and the potential of location agnostic work. Joining
Sebastian Morgner is therefore Sylvain Newton, author, strategic
adviser and program director at the Columbia Business School in
New York and Head of the New Work Model at the Allianz Group.


The conversation starts by discussing the issue of Covid-19 and
how societal and individual circumstances are responsible for the
subsequent diversity in reactions seen all over the world. In his
opinion, while issues like the lockdown required us to distance
on a physical level in our day to day lives, the workplace saw a
tremendous increase in communication and empathy. With the crisis
acting as an accelerator, he agrees with Barry Schwartz in
believing that our individual technological capabilities will see
a dramatic increase in the coming years. Further he states that
while one can find many companies that were successful in
transitioning their employees to home office, there is much more
potential to be utilized if companies would redesign the work
load to explicitly fit the demands of a home office concept.
Therefore, he and his team at the Allianz Group are currently
developing “The New Work Model”, which aims to redefine the way
employees go about their routines. With the goal of implementing
as many of the positive learnings from the past few month the
taskforce concerns itself with important questions, like what is
the actual reason for individuals to be at an office and what are
key abilities and characteristics leaders of tomorrow must
possess. Their hope for the future is to create a more flexible,
agile and resilient environment for individuals and teams to
flourish.
As an advice for the listeners, Mr. Newton shares, that when
contemplating about a place to work at, one should always take
into consideration two things. Firstly, if there is a cultural
fit with the organisation, and secondly, if one can have an
impact in that company.