Guessing the future is impossible, but looking around, noticing trends and listening to expert insights is a good way to not be autonomous. In partnership with MCI, the Presidents’ Club 2022 had an unprecedented format. The meeting took place, on November 22, on the mezzanine floor of the Transamérica Expo Center, within the HSM+ event, the largest in management and innovation in Latin America. We had the privilege of attending a talk by Gary Bolles, one of the main speakers at the event, who gave a private presentation to our associates and spoke about a subject he has studied for a long time: “The Future of Work”. The meeting brought together CEOs of the main Swiss companies, in addition to the Consul General of Switzerland, Pierre Hagmann.
SWISSCAM’s President, Flávio Silva, opened the event and spoke about the pleasure of organizing the first in-person Presidents’ Club after a two-year hiatus. He also highlighted this new format of “an event within an event”, which offered associates the opportunity to attend other lectures at the HSM+ fair, thanks to a golden pass of free access, offered by MCI.
The pandemic brought questions
Gary Bolles is the Future of Work leader at Singularity University and bestselling author of “The Next Rules of Work: The Mindset, Skillset, and Toolset to Lead Your Organization Through Uncertainty.” Bolles has more than 1 million students on LinkedIn Learning, where he teaches courses in “Learning Mindset”, “Learning Agility” and “Leading Change”. With this incredible curriculum, the speaker made us reflect on old corporate rules and habits, which were only broken with the advent of the pandemic. After all, who said working 5 days a week is ideal? Who said that 40 hours a week of work is the most productive? Who says that sharing an office with a lot of people is the best way to work?
The American expert stated that flexibility is here to stay, but recalled that not everyone can opt for hybrid work. “In Brazil, as in the United States, 2/3 of jobs cannot be done at home.” Flexibility was also accompanied by distrust, however, Gary Bolles was emphatic when he said that one of the skills of current managers is precisely to trust their team.
What is it like to be a leader?
The expert also spoke about resignifying the role of the leader within companies. “Today’s leader doesn’t need to have answers for everything. The leader is the one who knows how to encourage interaction between team members. In fact, who has the answers is the team. That is why it is so important to promote diversity in companies, in order to bring together talents with different skills.” Then, Gary Bolles issued a challenge to the executives in the audience: “Take a quick test, approach some employees in the hallway of your company and ask – What are the three main objectives of this company? – it is very likely that the answers will be different and that some people do not even know what to answer. If everyone on the team answers the same thing, congratulations, your company is on the right track.”
New behaviors and new generations
In the post-pandemic world, more and more people are wondering if their jobs bring any meaning to their lives. “Today, people care more about the company’s culture, they want to be recognized and see some purpose in what they do. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the behavior of employees and see if it is necessary to promote internal changes.”
Another taboo point is the coexistence between employees of different ages. Baby Boomers, generation X, Y and now gen Z work together and conflicts may arise, but from Bolles’ point of view, this coexistence is actually another opportunity to exchange experiences. “If today’s young people are primarily purpose-seeking, older contributors can help with that connection. Usually, older people value the place where they work better and can pass on to young people that feeling of rooting and belonging. On the other hand, if the older ones are more resistant to change, the younger ones are more open and can teach them how to live in a world full of uncertainties like ours today.”
After the talk, lunch was served.
We were happy to be able to provide a rich exchange environment like this, where people from the United States, Brazil and Switzerland were present.
We thank the guests for their participation, the companies Curaprox and Lindt for the gifts and Igor Tobias, General Director of MCI and Director of Events at SWISSCAM, for mediating the meeting.
This event could not have taken place without the support of our gold members: ABB, Clariant, Zurich, MSC, Curaprox, Atlas Schindler, Syngenta, Philip Morris Brasil, MCI, Nestlé, Roche and Novartis.
Photos: Carol Luz
