How can I build a brighter future of work? 3
This is the question that prompted me to start Firefly Advising in the fall of last year. It’s not a small question, and it was very quickly followed by another one:
Where do I start?
I began taking on coaching clients who were at transition points in their careers; I had lots of conversations with execs, founders, people ops leaders, and VCs about the problems they were facing; I’ve read and wrote and thought A LOT about our current state of work and how we got here.
Coming out on the other side of this period of pondering, I believe there are three levels where change is needed, if we’re going to be successful in building a brighter future of work.
1. At the individual level, we each need to think critically about what we want and need from work. Not what society tells us we should want, but what feeds our brains and fuels our lifestyle. Once we know what we want, we need to get better at asking for it, at holding our boundaries, and stepping into our power as competent, effective, sought-after professionals.
2. At the company level, leaders need to back up well-meaning gestures with meaningful actions. Policies and practices need to change, sure, but so do the words and actions of the people at the top, as well as the trust they put in their employees.
3. At the societal/cultural level, we need to rethink our collective relationship with work, our glorification of hustle culture, the pride we feel in being “booked and busy,” the “rise & grind” of it all. It doesn’t have to be this way.
I believe change is needed at every level, and that no one level is more important. But I also know I can’t tackle everything at once, so… Where do I start? How do I know what to focus on?
For me, getting to the answer required and asking a different question
“Where do I start? How do I know what to focus on?”
I began taking on coaching clients who were at transition points in their careers; I had lots of conversations with execs, founders, people ops leaders, and VCs about the problems they were facing; I’ve read and wrote and thought A LOT about our current state of work and how we got here.
Coming out on the other side of this period of pondering, I believe there are three levels where change is needed, if we’re going to be successful in building a brighter future of work.