E130 – The Inside Gig (W Dr. Edie Goldberg)

and James. music. Hello. This is James, and this is Jane, and here

we are again today with another episode of a world of work podcast. We are heading out to California. Jane, who are we speaking to? And what are we speaking about?

I just probably need to point out that, tragically, we're not actually heading out to California. We're only going digitally, which makes me sad. But yes, we are heading to talk to Dr Edie Goldberg. She is founder of El Goldberg associates. She is a board member of the SHRM Foundation, and she is the author of the book The inside gig. And we're going to be talking all to her, all about some of the ideas she covers in her book brilliant. Okay, well, let's get into that conversation. You question.

So here we are in the main body of today's podcast, and we're really pleased to be joined by Dr Edie Goldberg, all the way from Silicon Valley. She's the founder of E L Goldberg associates. She's a board member of the SHRM Foundation, and most importantly for us today, she's the author of a book called The inside gig. And we're going to be spending most of today speaking about the ideas in a book and in the book. And in the book, she's kind of exploring new ways to look at managing talent within organizations, specifically trying to look at some ideas that come out of concepts like the gig economy, and trying to bring those inside of organizations and improve the way that we manage people in organizations through those insights. Before we get into all about it, could you introduce yourself to the audience and say a bit more about yourself and your background? Yourself and your background and what

you're working on? Well, wonderful. Thank you, James and Jane, for having me on here, and thanks everybody for listening. So the DR Edie Goldberg is because I have a PhD in industrial organizational psychology, and for my clients, I don't usually introduce myself that way, but, but it is a fact. I am a somewhat oddly, I think, a career consultant. So I started, after I got my PhD, I started off working in a boutique management consulting firm that focused on assessment and development, and then I went to go work for a large, global management consulting firm and the human capital management practice. And there I was the firm's global thought leader in career management, succession planning, learning and development, and the West Region lead in performance management. I was also our Asia Pacific liaison for the human capital management practice, but that was a while ago. I started my own practice, over 20 years ago where I simply I help companies to attract, engage, develop and retain their talent. So my passion really lies in helping to bring out the best in both employees and in organizations, kind of as a whole, and what's kind of relevant to our conversation today. For about four years, from like 2015 to 2018 I worked on a collaborative project. This was not a paid project. This was a passion project with what ended out to be kind of over 70 chief HR officers and several other kind of HR thought leaders, academics, highly experienced practitioners such as myself, and we're really looking and thinking deeply about the changing nature of work, right? The future of work. We've all been talking about the future of work and how HR needed to change to meet the needs of the companies that we serve. And that led to some of my more recent consulting endeavors around the future of work and helping companies to kind of anticipate and change and develop new strategies to optimize the talent that they have. In fact, the outcome of that little work project that we did ended up being a book. It's free on Amazon if you're interested. It's called black holes and white spaces, reimagining the future of work and HR with the Create Project. So I only mentioned it because it's free, so I'm not I'm not soliciting anything here. So in addition to kind of a writing and and speaking on a wide variety of talent management related topics, I also advise several companies in kind of the internal talent mobility or performance management space. So I. Battle here and there.

That's a brilliant background, and it's great to see that academic practitioner crossover. I mean, we really like that space of theory and practice being combined. So I think there's some lovely stuff in there. And the the free book sounds like a fantastic thing as well. So we will share a link to that later on, if we start at the beginning, or I guess some of the basics in relation to the inside gig and the work that you've been doing there, and the things that you've been speaking about, you're very much focusing on talent management. And I guess if we start at the beginning, it'd be good to explore a little bit about how talent management works traditionally, or how you'd sort of summarize talent management in a medium to large size organization, and maybe how it could be better. Why? Why? Why is it now a time to look to challenge and re explore ways to do this better?

I love that question. So talent management really refers to kind of a collective set of practices that help companies to attract, engage, develop, retain their talent, right? So you get hired for a specific job that in that job, we all have the lovely performance management process that we adore or hate, I don't know love to hate. And then so performance management as part of it, then you seek out development right for your career and and that might make you, you know, eligible for different or higher level roles in the company. So some sort of learning and development or career management that's part of talent management, and then companies are looking to identify high potential talent that might that they might be able to identify who can become a future leader in the company. So leadership development and succession planning are all part of this talent management suite of processes for a company, but I would say all of those processes today focus on a job, a whole job, a job that we get handcuffed to, that we think of people as only as their job title, but everybody's so much more than that and and so I think that when we start looking at the future of work, people may have seen, there have been a lot of publications recently about it's becoming the skills economy. And so I think some of our traditional models and how we thought about how work works may not be agile enough for today's business environment.

One of the things that I hear and see spoken about fairly often is the fact that a lot of our work is to some extent replicating our approach to education, where we'll go into longer chunks of education, and we'll maybe do something like, you know, a four year degree in a specific subject, at least outside of the US we tend to have, you know, select earlier on the focus of a degree, and we'll do something like four years in a degree, and a lot of a commentary. I see people saying it's like, you know, nowadays, we probably won't be in in a specific role or in a specific job for four years. Of a way that we need to learn should reflect the way that we work. What do you think about that sort of interaction between our education and the way that we learn in the workplace? Well, I've developed the mantra always be learning.

Because today, you know, there's a lot of research that says that the half life of skills is only five years, so half of everything that you learned in college will only be relevant for five years. And that's really having to do a lot with how technology is changing, the way we work, what's possible, and so people have to be developing new skills and learning and pivoting. And this idea that there was this classic career ladder, and that you would just kind of climb up that career ladder, and your your job, your career, would be very linear. Um, that's just not really the way things happen today, because new opportunities happen right and left. And I tell everyone, keep your eyes open, because the next coolest opportunity for you may be right or left, not up. And so I think everything is changing, and I think there's a lot of value in a four year degree. Obviously, I did eight years in that so pretty, pretty value, valuable in terms of setting up. You know, how you problem solve, how you think, how you research, those are really super valuable skill sets. But don't think that that's all you're going to have to ever know. Yeah,

I love that exploration of the sort of a career traverse, and moving left and right, and exploring and gaining as you sort of build that toolkit, but can serve you more later in life. Certainly here in the UK, there used to be the sort of sense that jobs and promotions would go to the people who've served the time or they're right. Place and and, you know, there's this orderly progression through that career, and it definitely feels like that's that's no longer the case. If we, if we think about the gig economy, then your books obviously called the inside gig so talking about bringing stuff into organizations from this. But if we talk about the gig economy, how would you describe a gig economy? Whatever sort of basics of a gig economy we need to understand, to really explore the inside gig.

So, you know, it's for better for worse. When everyone thinks about the gig economy, y'all think about Uber driver. But the gig economy is so much more than that. The term gig originally actually came from the music industry, right? A musician, a really talented, highly specialized musician, would get hired by some sort of lead musician person, and they would go perform a gig or a show. So it's a short term project for somebody with highly specialized skills in the corporate world. Most of those gigs are, you know, we talk about companies hiring a freelancer or an independent consultant. Those people are all gig workers too. And there are all kinds of platforms out there today, like Upwork or guru and I um,

FiVER, right, where people can hire gig workers, right, people who work on short term projects for a very specific need. So think about the gig economy as a marketplace where individuals post their their skills and their profiles and the types of work that they love to do, and then people who want to get projects done either post their projects to, you know, let people opt in, or they search for This database of people who have certain skills that they need. And so it's a talent marketplace where there are people with skills on one side and hiring people with specific projects with specific skills that they need on the other side.

And when we think about the gig economy, you obviously go in, you look in the book about what we can look at in the traditional sense of the gig economy, and what the lessons are out there, and how that might help us shape or think about how we manage talent in the future. What for you, what are the key lessons that you think organizations could be learning that maybe they don't know at the moment?

That's a great question, because that is really where I started thinking deeply about what's going on with a gig economy, and why is it that so many people are are interested in working this way? And so I looked at a lot of the the research around why people choose to freelance, right? So of course, everybody thinks, you know, they choose to work this way because they want to have more control over their work lives, and that's true, and that is a primary reason why people do it, but the secondary reason why people choose to do to work in the gig economy is because they want diversity and choice in the work that they do. And we learned that freelancers are really likely to take on projects for the explicit purpose of learning a new skill or growing a skill that they already have. So they're very active in their own learning experience. And we already talked about how skills are changing, and people need to always be learning, right? So I thought, Well, why can't we take this concept from the gig economy and bring it inside of a company to give people more diversity and choice in the work that they do, and help them to learn in the flow of work?

So I'm just thinking about that, and it feels to me like that could be one potential way of addressing some of the criticisms of the gig economy generally, because you're effectively correct me if I'm wrong. But are you thinking like as it's almost kind of like a retainer system, where you've got your solid single role with an organization, but the projects that you're deployed to and the way that which the organization gets the most out of you, allows you to be moved, changed, adapted to the appropriate needs of the organization, whilst also using your skills to the best of the abilities. Is that, is that how you envisage it?

Yes. So there are two sides to this. One is that it can really help an organization to optimize the talent that they have by not boxing people into a job and saying, you know, this is the only thing that you can do, and allowing them to leverage the skills that they have. Up their passions, their interests, into other opportunities. But, you know, kind of like the gig economy, this idea of diversity and choice in the work that I do, I like the idea that I can choose to opt in to a project because that fits my personal needs, whether it's, you know, for a career development purpose, or whether it's just something I'm super passionate about, or, let's face it, a lot of us have skills that we don't use in our day to day job, that we could use, maybe that we'd like to use, that we want to keep fresh, and if you could opt into a project and your workplace to have impact within the organization, but outside of the bounds of your day to day job, then can't we create those opportunities, which I believe will create kind of more engagement and excitement and development for employees? Okay?

And that makes, like, I totally get that. That's, that's a really, I think that's a really interesting thought, and certainly it challenges what is quite a un creative way of managing sort of people and resources at the moment, is how I would describe it a lot of organizations. How? So how talk to me about how you envisage this in practice. How do these lessons get actually brought into the talent management process?

So I think the ideas is pretty simple, right? So you create an internal marketplace, rather than this external marketplace, where managers can post the projects that they need to get completed and the skills that are required for those projects, and then employees can share all the skills that they have, not just the ones they're using in their day to day job, but all their past experiences, skills that they have that they don't use today, their passions, their interests. And then with technology today, all of a sudden, we have this ability to let artificial intelligence help us to match people to projects so that advances, there's a very traditional idea of of internal talent mobility, right? It's about moving people to a new role for the purpose of learning experience, and that's great, except for managers, really resist it because they don't want to lose their talent, certainly afraid that they won't ever get to fill that spot again. But you know, that person's really important to their department, so, you know, I'm thinking about making this concept of internal talent mobility much more fluid and flexible. So rather than leaving your job to go have an experience that enhances your career, what if managers and employees kind of work together to identify how to shift work around or stop doing something that's not really important, and find 10, 20% of your time that you where you could opt in to go work on a project that's of interest to you, not to your manager, per se. And so it's about making room for other opportunities where employees have the choice to opt into those experiences.

And we know from you know, all the good stuff around self determination theory and all the other things, that when you give people choice, when you give them but still a sense of connectedness to stuff and when they get to deploy their skills, then they're going to be, you know, they're going to be happier, which you you're going to argue is hopefully going to have a positive impact on turnover. So, yeah,

in the book, we talk about the fact that, you know, you're probably leaving like, 40 to 60% of productivity on the table, because we don't tap into people's passions and their interests, and when people are truly engaged, they get much more focused and really, really productive. And you know, so if we can create those opportunities for for people, I'm not saying, you know, we're asking people to work harder and more hours. But the truth of the matter is, if somebody's doing something that they're super passionate about, that they're doing because they choose to do it, you're going to get that energy, that focus, that enthusiasm, and you will be able to utilize essentially, more of their brain capacity.

Yeah, and that like it's a it's a logical process that would make sense of how we do it. And certainly, what you're talking about is an issue that we see, you know, consistently in big and small organizations. I guess it does make a slightly different topic, and I'm in danger of dragging us totally. Off topic, but it does, then throw a fascinating question around, how do you recruit instead to, instead of recruiting to a role, how do you extend the idea of competency measurement when you're recruiting so that you actually just get these amazing sort of set of skills and values, if you like, from a person, and then, then, you know, give yourself the best chance of deploying them in a different way, but also keep that person happier, which I think challenges the whole recruitment world phenomenally, if it goes down that road. But I realize that's a slightly different topic. So let me

just provide one insight on that, because I get asked this question all the time because of my background, but I think that companies need to not just hire for a specific role, but to hire for learning agility, because our world of work is changing so quickly, if people aren't learning agile, they won't be able to change and to develop the skills that they Need to move the company forward. So I think that's a simple answer to probably a much more complex, deeper subject. Yeah.

And I think, I think one of the Well, it's interesting, isn't it, because it is a deeper subject. But at the same time, one of the challenges I think, that the recruitment world faces is that sometimes they're asked relatively simple answers, but it it feels like it's a long way from the sort of minds that you have to win over, the hearts and minds you need to win over in order to make changes, like not recruiting for role, but recruiting for a wider, wider skill set, or specific areas. You talk, I want to talk a little bit more about, uh, about the book. And you talk in the book about six core principles for the inside would, could you just share a little bit with the audience about what those are? And why you think they're so important?

Sure. Okay, so everyone, bear with me a little. I'm gonna try and be quick about this. So principle number one is called you get what you give, and it refers to how talent sharing across organization boundaries is a better way to optimize the resources in your company, principle number two is know what you have. So in order to share talent across boundaries, you need to know what you have. And so each company needs an accurate inventory of the talent that they have available to them. We talked about, you know, thinking about HR as a talent supply chain managers, similar to supply chain management of inventory within a company, principle number three is create a learning organization. So just as we were talking about it with the rapid advancement of new technologies and the changing business environment. Half Life of skills being five years at best, it is a business imperative for organizations to become a learning organization, and learning through experience is one of the best ways to embed new skills in the company. Principle number four is a little bit more complicated. It's called democratize the work. And this, I think, is real core of what we talk about here. It goes back to what I said before about giving employees diversity and choice in their work. And while in the past, really, you know, employers have held all the power and control in in the employment relationship today, there really is more of an equal balance of power, because, you know, we it's certainly all just experienced having technology that allows us to work from anywhere, and the current skill shortage that we have Globally puts more negotiating power in the hands of individuals, so the ability to choose some of the work that we do democratizes our work experience. Principle number five is create an agile organization so we meet. Need to move from this traditional hierarchical organization structure to more nimble, agile project based work structures, so that employees can can add value where it's needed, rather than this idea of boxing people into a role or a job, the pandemic was a perfect example of how we need to tap into the hidden talent that we have within our organization and shift people to those critical projects to get people through a crisis. We saw a lot of that happen during the pandemic. And then finally, the last principle is bust the functional silos, which somewhat of a continuing thought. From create an agile organization by collaborating with people across organizational boundaries, you build more business acumen with each of those employees who are learning to think about their issues from another perspective. Of and but you also improve the solutions that you develop for your customers by thinking in this more cross boundary way, so you can the bust the functional silos in your company by inviting people to join projects based on the skills and experiences that they have, regardless of kind of what their current job is, what department or team they're in today?

Yeah, those are some some great principles, and I love that finishing at the end with the busting of a functional silos. I personally think there's a huge amount of power in interdisciplinary or intersectional thought for our ability to create and innovate and do new things, even if it's our ways of working, if not product development and things like that. So, so I think that's that's excellent, and a lot of the things that you speak about build into to creating that, that fluidity of thinking and idea generation and dissemination that's so helpful and rewarding for individuals as well as and creating better outcomes for organizations. Um, if we, if we think about the role of a traditional manager in the old workplace, we kind of maybe somebody works out what our job descriptions are. We have a job description. We recruit for people, we manage them in that context. I know this is, you know, fairly, fairly old school, but that's, that's kind of the role of a manager is to support the people in your teams, to to deliver the objectives of your team. How does that change in this model? I mean, what does this mean for managers? What's the impact on them?

I actually, in the book, we talk about the kind of evolving role of managers, and if you're working in more of a project based organization, you're going to have more project managers who are managing the work, right? So I argue thinking about managers in a new way. Think about project managers, and then career managers. A lot of our managers, you know, they don't do a very good job of managing people because they focus on doing their work, right? They you know, managing people having performance conversations is the bane of their existence. You know, they don't want to do it. They don't make time for it. Why don't we just choose people to be those kind of career and people development managers, and choose the right people to do that kind of work, and people who will kind of invest in that skill set and invest in, you know, understanding their people, and then let project managers manage their work, and they might, you know, feed input to a career manager or People manager. But I think the idea of how we have set managers up today, it just doesn't work that well. Some people are really great at it, but they're fewer and further between, and some, you know, some people are passionate about being people managers, and that's great, and those are the kinds of people we want in those roles. But I think in the project based world, thinking about those as two separate things, managing the work versus managing the people is a better way to leverage the right skills in the right ways.

Yeah, I've, I know of a few organizations that are moving down that delineation of role, which seems like such a good thing for the way we're working at the minute, if we think a little bit about some of the things that you've spoken here, I've got a question that's maybe less relevant than to maybe those, but I'm curious, how do you see this type of way of working relating to traditional progression routes that we have in organizations. So in the majority of organizations I've been part of and work within, there is a primary traditional progression route, which is through stepping into management, leading, ultimately larger and larger teams. And then there tends to be a much smaller, maybe technical specialist route, which doesn't involve people management, but is much narrower and harder to progress in. How do you see that that sort of delineation split work in this type of organization? Does it give space for more about technical expertise, or do you still need leadership of others to progress in a space? Or is that irrelevant to this approach? Yeah. I

mean, you know, I really think what I see is, you know, traditional structures like what we have today will kind of exist more for governance purposes, right? And then, then we'll have a greater focus. I think it's somewhat similar to, if you think about the technical route, right? Those are the people who are developing the capabilities that you need in a company to execute on the vision, right on you know what the company's strategy is. And so I think that technical expertise is really important, and you really need the people who are kind of leaders in their field to be developing that. Optimizing it, you know, understanding when you need to build more capability or capacity in the company for that kind of work. So I think that that maybe gets even more important, you know, separating out the management track from the technical track, because so much of what we're doing is really more going in that technical arena.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. That makes sense. Thank you. Um, I've got a thought on this. When you were speaking about that split between the people managers and the sort of task management, or, sorry, project management approach to this, it got me thinking a little bit about self management within teams. Do you see this as a part way stage towards fully self managed teams? Is that the sort of end maybe not the desired end state, but if we moved all the way along this direction, would it become a bit about self managed space? I mean, how do you see self management fitting into this? If at all?

Well, I certainly think that teams need to have more authority, appropriate authority to be able to do the work that they need to do without having to go up the food chain, if you will, to management to get everything approved. So we need to put more power and control within those teams to be able to truly do their work, make the right connections across the organization, so that they're collaborating appropriately. But I do believe a bit more in that self managed team, putting more decision making appropriately decision making within each of those teams. So yes, I guess I would answer that question,

cool. And I guess last question from me for the minute, is there anyone that's doing this really well at the minute, is anyone sort of living this and role modeling it in a

good way? Yes, but there this is really new, right? So, so those examples are fewer and further between, but we've seen some, really, you know, publicly shared examples. I share one of the very first company that I worked with doing this, which is a company called here technologies. They're a global location platform company, and they were looking to, you know, think, you know, how do I better manage the talent that I have? So how do I put project teams together more quickly so that we can improve the speed that we get work done? How can we be more agile as a company? Right? Business needs are shifting and changing all the time. How do we be able to pivot and move our teams more quickly. And then, importantly, how do we manage costs? Because all this, you know, hiring those freelancers to come in and help us, you know, with specific projects that gets expensive over time in their first year, of them operating in this new way, with this new talent operating model, and we share this case study in the book, um, they were able to engage the equivalent, equivalent of 111 full time employees in one year with the amount of project work that was done on the platform that's outside people's day to day jobs, the equivalent of 111 full time employees. So if you kind of math, it out based on, you know, kind of average salaries, etc, they estimated they saved, like $14 million in additional expenses where they would have either hired somebody or brought on a contractor to do that kind of work. But that's, you know, that's not the end of the story, right? So they, they increased employee engagement during that time. Was it strictly due to this way of working? You know, there are probably other things that were going on in the company at the same time, but they did increase employee engagement at the time. They also, I think what was really fascinating is when you looked at how those project teams were put together, they were global, meaning people working in different countries were working on projects together, and they were really cross boundary. So people from different functions opting in to work on a project together, and so just think about the innovation that happens within the company when you kind of unleash the talent in that way. Another company that has been really touted for doing this is Unilever, and their CEO has spoken out about how this new approach to internal talent mobility has helped them be more agile as a company, and it's unlocked, you know, 1000s of hours of time of how employees have contributed so multiple different kinds of industries. Because multiple big companies, some smaller companies, have been very successful at this, but it's still really a new concept. So there aren't a ton of companies out there that have done this, but there are some real bright, shining lights. Of the examples, I've not yet heard a failure, but there's some really bright shining examples

that's, uh, yeah, that's a lot of bright shining examples that's quite exciting. So we, we get a lot, a lot of people who listen to the podcast are keen to sort of start thinking about how, uh, how they might be able to introduce some of the ideas we talk about, or what they should be looking at. And I guess that kind of leads me to ask the question about preconditions or conditions for success, and what you see as needing to be in place within an organization for them to be able to consider moving something like this and being successful at it.

Okay? I think the general concept can be applied within any of the organizations. I think you know anybody who kind of picks up the book and looks at these, you know the six core principles, I think there are elements that any company can apply if you really want to make the give, get concept work. I think that larger organizations, let's say kind of over 500 people, can really optimize the use of that, of the matching of talent across the organization, and really using that well. But smaller organizations can do that, and probably don't need really sophisticated technology to do it, but culture and leadership behaviors are key. If you work in a really hierarchical organization where authority is much more important than capability, you're going to face a lot of resistance in doing something like this. And if you're not kind of open and transparent with your talent decisions, you might have some problems kind of implementing this approach so leadership behaviors that value collaboration, developing others, fostering inclusion, being flexible, those kinds of things are really key.

Yeah, those, those, it's always a joy to hear those things that we're always really passionate about as important from a workforce point of view. Also, you know, turns out that they're quite useful for achieving some of the performance improvements that we see, as in the world that are possible. And, you know, this is a great example of how that one example of how that might work. I guess last question from me would be, there will be, without question, some business leaders listening to this who are maybe in medium sized organizations, maybe a little bit smaller than we've been talking about before. So maybe, you know, from from small teams through to 300 people, and they might be thinking, Do you know what I'd love? I'd just like to I think we should have, you know, I think this could work for us. Where do you think they should start?

So if you really want to adopt this new way of working, I think there are two things. One is you have to, kind of, you have to manage the change, because this is a really fundamentally different approach to work. This idea of talent sharing across organizational boundaries kind of blows up a lot of how we operate. So I think that, you know, building the business case for why this is the right thing to do for your organization is absolutely, you know, the first thing you have to get management bought in, and then really understand how ready is your organization and where might be the points of resistance and and develop a change management plan to work on that. You know, I think we always underestimate change in organizations, and so planning for that ahead of time will really help things be be easier, but you need to figure out how you're going to manage this process, right? So either you're going to purchase one of and this is just crazy, because since I since we wrote the book, there has been this explosion of talent marketplace technologies that are available in the marketplace. So so purchasing, you know, kind of one of those, or figuring out how your current internal systems can be, you know, put together to manage this new approach to work is important, but you have to really think about, what are the new ways of working? What are the rules of the road for how we're going to operate as a company? We talk about it as your new talent operating model. You know, how do you work and letting people. Kind of know what's different now than how we operated before. And most importantly is, you know, who gets to opt into gigs, and how much time can they spend in a gig outside of their day job? And everybody gets really scared about that concept and thinking, Oh, they're not going to do their job. We expect people to do their job. And I've yet to hear a company who's implemented this, who said people just totally slacked off on their day to day job responsibilities and went off to do a whole bunch of projects. That's not how people operate, but doing small projects that enhance my career is something that works both for the company and for the employee.

Brilliant. Thank you. I have one final question I want to ask, because for where you describe these roles, feels so rewarding from from that perspective of somebody who likes to learn and to explore and to experience new things in the workplace. It's something that that I would have really valued more opportunity to do in my career. If we think about people who are out there in maybe smaller organizations, is there anything they can do to sort of do a bit of grassroots up push on this, or to bring a little bit more of this variety into their day to day roles?

I love this. I think this is so interesting and a great way of working. I think if we start talking to people outside of our team, maybe outside of our function, find out what works going on elsewhere in the company, and then often there are project team is being pulled together to do something that's really critical, I mean, and certainly in the pandemic, there has just been a flush full of opportunities, of areas that the company had to pivot to, because the business changed as Our social fabric of our world has changed, and I think raising your hand opting in to something that that fits your passion, that fits your interests. Don't worry that it's not in my day to day job and work with your manager. Talk to your manager about, you know, is there something that you do where you know you've done it 5000 times, and you could do it in your sleep, but maybe be really great learning opportunity for somebody else in the company, and that would give you some extra space to opt in in a project elsewhere. Or is there just something you're super passionate about you have some skills, and you could loan your skills to another team or department, because you're really interested in doing that. So open your eyes. Look for other places. Develop relationships with people outside of your team. To You know, seek ways to add value.

Yeah, that's brilliant. I really like the offering up of the things that you're comfortable with yourself as an opportunity for others, and then starting the engagement that way. That seems like such a good way to do it. Okay, brilliant. So unfortunately, we're out of time, so I'm going to draw things to a closer. I just want to say a huge thanks. That's been brilliant. Before we really wrap up. Is there anything that people can do to learn more about you or the work that you're involved in, or to find your book

Sure. Well, anyone can follow me on LinkedIn. I frequently post ideas and information that can help us all lead in the future of work. You can also check out my website, www.el goldberg.com, or reach out to me directly at E, D, E, D, I, E at El goldberg.com and anyone Amazon carries our book, as well as pretty much any major book outlet that you happen to frequent, you can find The inside gig, both in ebook form and hard copy. So it's pretty easy to find we're just we're pretty excited because we just got a the Nautilus Book Award. It was a silver level Book Award that our book was recognized as a leading book in the business and leadership field. So I think that helps a lot of people to carry it. Yeah, brilliant.

Well, that's fantastic, and it's an excellent subject. So thank you so much for spending your time with us. It's been a really interesting episode. Thank you, yeah, and thank you for me. Thank you, James

and Jane, okay, that was our conversation with Dr Edie, and you are back in the room with us. Great conversation. Jen, really topical, really interesting, anything that you want to reflect

on? Well, I'm having thoughts. I'm having quite a lot of thoughts about that conversation, and I'm still really I'm picking them all. But I guess the one that really sticks with me is what she said about the kind of organizations that it's going to work well in, and what, I guess my. Think my thought would be around that is, I think she talked about, you know, organizations where there's low levels of hierarchy, where there's high levels of autonomy and trust. And I think, I guess that that made me think, yeah, that that makes really good sense. But also it did just spark the question of, what happens if it's tried in organizations that don't have that like, what does that failure look like? Because I think lots of organizations think they are low hierarchy, high autonomy, high trust, but I would question how true that is for some of the organizations I'm thinking of.

Yeah, I can imagine organizations where leaders think that's what they are, but maybe other people have a different view. It would be great to see that as an unsuccessful experiment in into most places. One of the things that stood out for me, which I think maybe came across when I was speaking about it, is I love that variety in the workplace. So personally and obviously a sample of one is all you need for this stuff. That variety and that learning agility and that constant redevelopment and insight and exploration is something that is so rewarding, and I really think that if we can bring more of that into roles, then at least for people like me, we can create these, these enriching environments that really do lead to better output. And so whatever method we use to create that enrichment and that continual learning and that continual growth and development, I think, must lead to better, more fulfilling worked experiences, working experiences, and more output and productivity with it as well. So that's really an anchor to me that draws me towards trying to create more of this for others in the world of work, right?

And if you did it and it was successful, maybe some of the people who traditionally freelance because they're motivated to have that flexibility and to try different things, would be able to go back and work in organizations, and have, you know, be able to lose some of the things that aren't so appealing to some people about freelancing, like not having a steady income, like having to drum up their own work. And it feels like a, I mean, in some in some senses, this is going to sound awful. It feels like an internal Airbnb, right where you've got a project, and then you can browse, browse the internal availability of staff, and pick and choose and put together your holiday and it's your project team. And I think, I think if I was, if I had, if I felt like I had control over the what I was giving up and what I chose to work on, then I think it sounds fabulous. Yeah, absolutely

brilliant. Okay, well, let's leave it there. So thank you guys for listening. It's goodbye from me, and