Ravin Jesuthasan - Work without Jobs: How to Reboot Your Organization’s Work Operating System (Management on the Cutting Edge)

Robert J. Holland Jr., series editor

Published in cooperation with MIT Sloan Management Review

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Work without Jobs: How to Reboot Your Organizations Work Operating System

Ravin Jesuthasan and John W. Boudreau

How to Reboot Your Organizations Work Operating System

Ravin Jesuthasan and John W. Boudreau

The MIT Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts

London, England

2022 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

The MIT Press would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers who provided comments on drafts of this book. The generous work of academic experts is essential for establishing the authority and quality of our publications. We acknowledge with gratitude the contributions of these otherwise uncredited readers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Jesuthasan, Ravin, 1968 author. | Boudreau, John W., author.

Title: Work without jobs : how to reboot your organizations work operating system / Ravin Jesuthasan and John W. Boudreau.

Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, 2022. | Series: Management on the cutting edge | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021031217 | ISBN 9780262046411 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Organizational change. | Work--Technological innovations. | Personnel management--Technological innovations. | Flexible work arrangements. | Automation.

Classification: LCC HD58.8 .J478 2022 | DDC 658.4/02--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031217

d_r0

. Genentech task/activity-level continuums

. Genentech example personas

. Genentech work options by persona

. Matching the deconstructed worker to the work

. Career pathing and skill progression

. Integrating tasks into broader organization systems

. Total cost of work

. Unilevers Framework for the Future of Work

The world does not lack for management ideas. Thousands of researchers, practitioners, and other experts produce tens of thousands of articles, books, papers, posts, and podcasts each year. But only a scant few promise to truly move the needle on practice, and fewer still dare to reach into the future of what management will become. It is this rare breed of ideameaningful to practice, grounded in evidence, and built for the futurethat we seek to present in this series.

Robert J. Holland Jr.

Managing Director

MIT Sloan Management Review

Heres a brainteaser: you are given a candle, a box of tacks, and a book of matches. How do you attach the candle to a wall so that it can be lit without dripping wax onto the floor below? The solution is to deconstruct the box of tacks into its parts (box, tacks), attach the box to the wall with the tacks, and attach the candle to the bottom of the box. In experiments, people who get the tacks inside the box cant solve the problem, but those given a pile of tacks beside the box solve it easily.

Typically, work is constructed into job descriptions similar to the box of tacks; the descriptions become a repository of competencies, performance indicators, and reward packages. This obscures powerful opportunities to optimize your workforces productivity, alignment, and engagement. Tapping those opportunities requires deconstruction and reconstruction, a vital emerging capability for organizations. Deconstruction means reconsidering jobs to see the underlying components such as tasks, projects, and so on, and it means reconsidering jobholders in terms of their capabilities and skills. Reconstruction means reassembling the components differently, into new and more optimal combinations that are not limited only to new jobs and jobholders. Its like the brainteaser. The box and the tacks are reassembled into a more useful combination than the original box that contains tacks. In the new work operating system, this deconstruction and reconstruction happens perpetually, offering organizations, leaders, and workers far more options. It also requires fundamentally rethinking concepts like work, leadership, culture, and organization.

In the dynamic work environments of the future, organization dilemmas closely resemble the candle puzzle. Its time to take the tacks out of the box.

Understanding and effectively responding to the future of work will increasingly require this kind of deconstruction and reconstruction. You can already see this when work automation (such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robots) and alternative work arrangements (such as gigs) present opportunities that are not easily solved with the existing job definitions. Only at the work elements level can you uncover the key building blocks to understanding and optimizing this future work world.

This book describes why and how the future of work will increasingly rest on the granular or deconstructed elements of jobs (tasks, projects, etc.) and workers (skills, capabilities, etc.). We call this the new work operating system.

Think of an operating system on a computer, tablet, or mobile phone. The operating system is the software that communicates with the hardware and allows other programs to run. Within the operating system are fundamental choices about the protocols and connecting elements. Think of how differently devices running Apples iOS system function compared to devices running Microsofts Windows OS. On one device you swipe and on the other you click. These protocols eventually fade into the background and are hardly noticed or questioned. Yet they become glaringly obvious when external software programs are not compatible with both operating systems, requiring two different versions, one for each device.