Poets & Thinkers
Poets & Thinkers explores the humanistic future of business leadership through deep, unscripted conversations with visionary minds – from best-selling authors and inspiring artists to leading academic experts and seasoned executives.
Hosted by tech executive, advisor, and Princeton entrepreneurship & design fellow Ben Lehnert, this podcast challenges conventional MBA wisdom, blending creative leadership, liberal arts, and innovation to reimagine what it means to lead in the AI era.
If you believe leadership is both an art and a responsibility, this is your space to listen, reflect, and evolve.
Poets & Thinkers
The Optimization Lie: Will AI finally give us the freedom “new work” promised us? – with journalist and author Markus Albers
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Digitalization promised us a brave “new work” world. But instead we ended up with more meetings and “fake work”. What’s next and how do we transform our obsession with productivity tools and endless meetings into meaningful work and real innovation?
In this episode of Poets & Thinkers, we explore the future of work with Markus Albers, a Berlin-based journalist, author, and entrepreneur whose insights have consistently anticipated major shifts in how we work. From his prescient 2008 book predicting remote work to his latest exploration of “the optimization lie,” Markus reveals how our relationship with work has evolved – and why the promised freedom of digital tools has instead chained us to our screens.
Markus takes us on a journey through the changing landscape of work, explaining how the initial promise of technology to free us from our desks has instead created an “always on” culture where work seeps into every aspect of our lives. He shares alarming research showing knowledge workers now spend 60% of their time in meetings and collaboration rather than doing creative work – and how this leads to widespread dissatisfaction and disengagement. And the effects on innovation in businesses around the world are fatal. Yet through his research with companies like Bayer, he also uncovers promising models for a more fluid, fulfilling future of work powered by AI and skill-based platforms.
Throughout our conversation, Markus challenges conventional management approaches that prioritize control over creation, arguing that leaders need to rediscover their own creative capacities and build organizations where people can actually finish their days feeling they’ve accomplished something meaningful. His vision for the future of work emphasizes fluidity, cross-organizational collaboration, and technology that serves human needs rather than extracting maximum productivity.
In this inspiring discussion, we explore:
- Why the initial promise of technology to make us more productive and happier hasn’t materialized
- How managers’ fear of losing control has led to calendar overload and measurement obsession
- The identity crisis facing managers as AI threatens to replace routine work
- What organizations like Bayer are doing to create more fluid, skill-based work models
- How leaders can fight for freedom from constant work in an AI-powered future
This episode is an invitation to reimagine our relationship with work—to move beyond optimization for its own sake and create environments where people can truly create, ship, and find fulfillment.
Topics
02:30 - Markus’s journey from journalist to author and entrepreneur
04:00 - The Meconomy book and its early vision of the digital revolution
07:30 - The evolution of the "future of work" from liberation to digital exhaustion
09:10 - How we freed ourselves from desk chains but chained ourselves to screens instead
11:30 - Leaders’ fear of losing control in hybrid work environments
12:30 - The need to rediscover our capacity to create and ship meaningful work
14:30 - Microsoft research showing knowledge workers spend 60% of time on collaboration
16:00 - The leadership challenge of reconfiguring how work is done
17:00 - The importance of asynchronous communication skills for leaders
18:40 - The growing debate about “bullshit jobs” and management bureaucracy
20:20 - Why design leadership provides a model for skill-based contributions
25:40 - The dangers of believing every narrative from tech companies
28:00 - How productivity gains from AI are often filled with even more meetings
30:00 - “The Optimization Lie” - Markus’s new book on the broken promise of technology
33:00 - The need for more fluid concepts of work beyond single full-tim
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Introduction to Marcus Albers
Speaker 1Welcome to Poets and Thinkers , the podcast where we explore the future of humanistic business leadership . I'm your host , ben , and today I'm speaking with Marcus Albers . Many years ago , when Marcus wrote his first book , meconomy , he and I had no idea that , more than a decade later , we'd be friends . He also had no idea that his book found me as a young designer at just the right time to ignite a fire for me to become an entrepreneur . Marcus is a journalist , author and entrepreneur based in Berlin , germany .
Speaker 2As a writer and speaker .
Speaker 1Marcus focuses on the changing nature of work . As a writer and speaker , marcus focuses on the changing nature of work . His brand new book , the Optimization Lie , challenges how tools and processes have taken over much of our workday , making us less productive , less creative and unhappy . Marcus's career as a journalist includes editorial and management roles at Vanity Fair , monaco , brandeis , just to name a few . He was co-founder and managing partner at Rethink , as well as an executive director at C3 , working with clients such as Lufthansa , volkswagen , microsoft , google , deutsche Telekom and many others .
Speaker 2Marcus is also a member of the .
Speaker 1International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences and a guest lecturer at ESCP .
Speaker 2Business School , where he teaches a course on the future of work .
Speaker 1I admire Marcus's exceptional talent to observe and analyze big moments of change at the intersection of technology and society , through which he has become one of the world's experts on the future of work . As such , he and I have had many conversations over the years on where we see the world going and how we can shape the future of work Me from the perspective of tech and he from the perspective of society and culture , so I'm incredibly excited to share today's conversations , where Marcus and I are diving into some of the more radical ideas he has uncovered in the writing of his new book , the Optimization Lie . We'll talk about all the failed promises of technology over the last decades fake work in middle management , his new concept of fluid organizations in the AI era and more .
Speaker 2If you like the show .
Speaker 1Make sure you like , subscribe and share this podcast . Now let's get started . Markus , where does this podcast find you ?
Speaker 2Hi , ben , thanks for having me . So I'm in Berlin , berlin Mitte actually , and I'm in one of the I guess three or four places where I tend to work , so either at home or in a cafe or bar . But today I'm in an office , actually in one of my clients offices in berlin mid .
Speaker 1I'm so glad we get to talk . You are and I'm going to read off a list of words that describe you . Um , in essence , you're are an entrepreneur , you're a journalist , you're an author . You're a journalist , you're an author , and you recently also started a new venture called Opaque . In fact , in German it's Opaque . Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself , who you are , what you do , and then we'll take it from there ?
Speaker 2I've been spending quite a big part of my life being a journalist after university and I worked for various well , well , let's say , magazines , mostly so . For example , I was Berlin correspondent of Monaco magazine and I've been writing for for many German publications , such as Brandeis , and then , after 10 years , I wrote a book called Mekonomy and I argued that it that today it's as easy as never before to actually start a company , start your own venture . You only need a good idea at the laptop . So I felt I wanted to do that and I became a founder and entrepreneur and I founded my own company , a digital communications agency content marketing based in Berlin , together with two friends , and it still exists . It's called Rethink , and I exited from that last year , and now I'm doing my next venture , again , as you mentioned , it's called Opaque .
Speaker 1It seems like the entrepreneurship has not left you and in fact you know one after the next idea made it into being an actual company . You know , you mentioned the economy , which is probably the way that we got to know each other , although I think I first got to know you through your writing .
Speaker 1Actually , I found the book to be incredibly inspiring when it first came out , because it was really at the very , very beginning of this digital revolution , not just in the sense of access to the internet and apps and all of that , but really internet economy and for those who are listening outside of Germany and Europe at a time when there was no technology startup ecosystem , there were barely any digital agencies . Really , it was very , very early and certainly I think your book was a real inspiration for me personally , for my personal journey .
Speaker 1And then , eventually , we ended up having coffee in Berlin and got to know each other and became friends . That book was definitely almost ahead of its time , but certainly at the very , very beginning of this big transformation that put Berlin on the map . It put Germany and Europe on the map in terms of digital businesses and entrepreneurship . It put Germany and Europe on the map in terms of digital businesses and entrepreneurship . And then , over the years , you've written multiple other books that always felt like they were at the forefront of what the next wave would be , because I remember when you interviewed me for one of your following books , which I think was published in 2017 , and it talks about digital exhaustion .
Speaker 1So we came from economy all the way to digital exhaustion , and now you have also written another book . How do you manage to stay at the pulse of the time ? Because it's really interesting . Your writing is always at the intersection of technology and society , so I would love to hear a little bit more about how you examine where we are in the world , where society is at , and how do you make sense of all of those things .
Speaker 2Well , I believe , as a writer and I've always been a writer , as a journalist it's a huge privilege and a luxury to be able to say , hey , this is something that interests me personally right now , it bothers me or it makes me happy . I often , in writing my books , I often come from that very personal place where I think , hey , this is not okay , why is it this way ? And then I apply a very journalistic method to that , basically , talking to you know , experts reading lots of stuff and trying to find out whether that notion I have is just . You know experts reading lots of stuff and trying to find out whether that notion I have is just , you know , just my serendipity , or whether it's an actual topic that could be interesting for others . And well , yeah , I guess in the realm of talking about work and how work is changing , that worked really well in a way .
Speaker 2In 2008 , I published my first book saying that , hey , we don't have to go to the office every day . You know we can work from anywhere , having technology now . So why is it that we spend most of our waking time inside the office ? That was 2008 . That was pretty early , Mm-hmm , and I guess I became kind of obsessed with that question of how work changes and how our life changes through work and , as you mentioned , my perspective on the topic has become somewhat more critical over the years .
Speaker 1I want to go a little bit into that , because you are one of the people I love to talk the most about the future of work , because of how you do examine it through different lenses also , especially a critical lens , always a human lens . So if you go , maybe from that moment where you wrote your first book and observation there to where you think we are now and the spaces in between , I would love to hear your thoughts on , you know how has the future of work evolved ?
Speaker 1Where are we ? What is the best case scenario , but also what are the real pitfalls that might be ahead ?
Speaker 2So I mean looking back at , let's say , 2008 , 2010, . Even before COVID , for the first time , we had the opportunity of using technology to do at least knowledge work from anywhere you know , from wherever and whenever we felt was best for us , and that freed
Journey from Journalist to Entrepreneur
Speaker 2us from the chains to the desk , as people said at that time . And there was this huge narrative , and I was part of that narrative . I , I guess , saying this will make us more productive , more creative , it will make us happier , and the thing is it just didn't materialize . This is not the world we live in today and I guess everybody can relate to that .
Speaker 2Yes , we did free ourselves from from those chains to the desk , but we ch chained ourselves to the screens , you know , and work is seeping into every part of our lives . We are , you know , always constantly distracted . The calendars are always full , there's one call after the other , and this , I believe , is the opposite of being more productive , more creative and happier and , frankly , this is a disaster and it's a wasted chance . And I believe we still have the chance to make that better . But we have to think about work differently to do that and we probably have to go back to that initial narrative . That was a very positive one and a very , I guess , empowering one .
Speaker 1Is part of the problem that you experience in what you're saying . There is part of the problem . The very kind of system that we place work into where and I've had this . Now this question came up plenty of times in some of the conversations that I've already had with previous guests . Is it that we are not clear on what the actual purpose of ?
Speaker 1work is right , Because we could put work in the context of a very exploitative system , which is really to maximize capitalistic gain for often corporations and companies . The question of what is there beyond extracting more productivity is simply not answered , even if it's asked . Is that one of the biggest issues that we have not yet come up with ? A better narrative that creates more balance ?
Speaker 2Well , I guess , even before you start thinking about purpose and those topics on a more fundamental level , what we I guess see after COVID is that the rise of hybrid work and all of us using more technology to collaborate which is a good thing , I guess has led especially , I guess , management and leaders , to yearn for more control . So , I guess , you know , leaders feel they are losing control . So what do they do ? They fill your calendar with even more meetings and they implement new tools to you know , to measure , new KPIs , et cetera , et cetera , so they don't lose this control .
Speaker 2But for me , this is an illusion , obviously , but still , this is , I guess , the world we live in now . I strongly believe what we have to rediscover is our capacity to create things and to ship things and to actually finish our days saying , okay , I have accomplished something , something I have not just spent my whole day in meetings talking about work . I actually did the work and you know what I found find super so depressing , but also interesting , is that even microsoft , in their work trend index I think they call it it's global uh global research they do every year , they found that , uh , that knowledge workers spend 60 percent of their working time now with collaboration .
Speaker 2So people only have like 40 percent to do creative work , to do strategic work , and people are unhappy with that . They just don't know how to change that . So I believe , yeah , talking about purpose and all these things is important , but before we can do that , we actually have to kind of free ourselves from all those tools and processes and bureaucracy .
Speaker 1And , as you said , that's actually first and foremost a leadership challenge and task to reconfigure , I would assume reconfigure the way work is done , the expectations and how you measure or how you reward actual work , rather than the illusion , as you said , of work , which is being in a meeting or a marathon of meetings every day , and really start looking at the outcome and the things that are actually being produced .
Speaker 1And I know that you write a lot about your observations on the topic of leadership and how to manage in this new world that we live in . I wanted to talk a little bit with you about , let's say , we go down this path . We have the technology . Clearly we have the insight to help people actually create more , be truly more productive , instead of just experiencing the illusion of of productivity what do you think are the ? Ingredients to get there to make that happen . How do we need to reconfigure ?
Speaker 2right . So I guess , on a on a very fundamental level and I I often say that when I talk to clients in Germany , organizations in Germany , I often say that leaders , managers , need to learn new communication skills , internal communication skills , because they are so bad , often so bad , at asynchronous communication . They still want to , you know , see everybody in the same room or in the same call , so they fill up your calendar with , with calls . So more asynchronous communication skills would , I guess , on a fundamental level , be good for leaders . That's very technical , isn't it ?
Speaker 2So I guess the other thing is that quite often and I hear this a lot these days managers skin themselves or are being what are you actually here for ? You know , there's lots of discussions and I believe in the US as well about bullshit jobs , about fake work , and CEOs are saying , okay , it's just having eight levels between me and the customer is too much , so we have to get rid of all this bureaucracy . So they are getting rid of management . So that's a huge identity crisis , I believe , for many managers out there saying , whoa , especially if AI is coming in and taking over all those routine jobs , maybe I am not needed that much . And I guess one answer to the question what are you there for is to look at it from a skill perspective . Is there anything that you actually can do to contribute to a product ? And , ben , I'm a huge fan of your design leadership angle because that answers the question . As a design leader , there is a skill that you contribute to any project and that's design .
Speaker 1Yeah , one of the things that I obviously spend a lot of time thinking about in the context of how do we shape the future of leadership in business is , and it was interesting to hear you , you know , talk about this , this fake work , and , on the other hand , you said earlier how we need to reconfigure organizations so that they focus on creating and shipping first .
Speaker 1I wonder if there is an inherent skill that we don't teach leaders of all disciplines , and that is the ability to create even if or when you run large-scale organizations right , that we equip these leaders with , overall , the skills that are required to create a creative environment , because it's very different from leading or managing a business the kind of classic way based on the models of the industrial revolution , where you know you have your KPIs , you have , you know , your very kind of standard processes .
Speaker 1It's a very different type of organization than in the world that we live in now , where we need to create the environment that brings out the best creative ideas and is actually able to make them a reality . Which brings me to some of the articles that I've read that you published just recently , over the last few months , and it's interesting because you hover in this space where you talk about empathy , you talk about creativity . You talk at the same time , though , also about how to work together with your non-human colleagues and how to use generative AI , and could that be the future of work ? How do all of these things fit together , or how do you envision we get to that place , and what does this place look like , and how do we not fall into the trap that we fell in with all these other big waves of technological promise ?
Speaker 1As you said earlier , they didn't necessarily always materialize in the best way , so I know it was a very big question , but I would love to hear your thoughts on that . I know , ben , I'm a journalist by training .
Speaker 2So I tend to not want to have all the answers , tend to want to ask good questions , but still , let's talk about what we see out there . So I guess , on the one hand , we said that we have this huge debate about fake work , about bullshit jobs and about bureaucracy , and we see in many organizations less and less admin jobs , and this will obviously increase because of AI taking over routine jobs , et cetera , et cetera . So the big question would be for leaders and for everybody else , I guess how does a good and fulfilling work look like for me in the future ? And you just mentioned , ben , that sometimes it's good to get your hands dirty , you know , roll up your sleeves and actually do something .
Speaker 2Managers , leaders , don't do that anymore , and I've been there , I've been there . You are just in meetings and you just tell other people what you expect of them . Okay , let's have the next meeting in three days and then I'm going to look at your work again . And I , you know , I didn't write anything myself anymore . I didn't actually create anything anymore and , to be honest , it made me unhappy , and I think this is something that many , many , I hope many leaders can relate to . For example , writing , I mean , not everybody can write , but let's say , a little writing on the side can help you focus , can help you figure out what you actually think about certain topics . So I guess , yes , creating something and not just steering the project would be , I believe , a better future for many leaders , if only because the project management will be done by AI anyway .
Speaker 1Yes , I think that's a question that I have for you . It's great that it's kind of naturally coming up , because you mentioned very early in the conversation about AI , mentioned very early in the conversation about AI and I know also in some of your articles you wrote about generative AI and how it can really support potentially support a lot of this kind of busy work and the managerial side of things which brings me then to the question .
Speaker 1Okay , well if that's the case and we already know that there's a lot of this fake work , you know happening , especially on the managerial level ?
Speaker 2do we need to really seriously ?
Speaker 1think about how we develop skills for business leaders in the future , and I know that you also teach at a business school , actually , and you spend time with your students talking about the future of work .
Speaker 2In the context of all of that , you know there's a reskilling part , and then there's an , of course preparing the next generation .
Speaker 1There's a reskilling part and then there is , of course , preparing the next generation . I want to first focus on the reskilling part , because you do consult and advise a lot of C-suite executives , and especially in Germany and Central Europe I think there's a huge need of reskilling . What are some of those skills that you think are critical for top managers , top executives , to ? Really reshape their organizations to be ready for that new future of work , because that's seemingly something that is already way underway and you know we need to step up and accelerate that transformation .
Speaker 2I mean , I guess we're creating something , leading by example , by being able to also create something . I guess that will be a leadership skill in the future . It will probably also make you happier as a leader because you can then outsource many of the peer management tasks to technology . I guess that would be one skill that leaders in the future need , if only because there will be much fewer leaders in organizations . You know , we see all this self-organization , we see platforms where people can skill-based , find their own projects , supported by AI , so there is much less need for the classical management role . I believe in the future . So what would help , I guess , is leaders who can actually say hey , I know what you're doing there , I've done it and you know what I'm going to do it . Now I'm going to help you do it , I'm going to be part of that team , and I know that sounds
Failed Promises of Technology
Speaker 2unrealistic in big corporations , but I would nevertheless try that .
Speaker 1I wonder if , especially because it sounds unrealistic for big corporations if that is in fact the impulse that is needed , because I think the natural instinct is , because of the complexity of a large corporation , we believe that our best approach is to abstract it and to build layers and layers and processes around it , basically . But because of that I wonder if that is actually the right impulse and leaning into that discomfort will produce the kind of organization that is actually needed , because it is not just potentially necessary , as there's going to be less leaders , but also probably the thing that actually motivates the rest of the team to do their truly best work right Now .
Speaker 1This is like third or fourth time that I hear you mentioning happiness , which is also seemingly something that is incredibly important , especially in creative knowledge work . Right Is to create an environment where you feel fulfilled and happy most of the time as you're doing the work . What are the reasons why it shouldn't work , or why we've had conversations over a decade now .
Speaker 2Every time there's a new big technological wave .
Speaker 1we as society get really excited by the big promise , but then oftentimes , as you said earlier , the promise falls short . What do you see as some of the potential hurdles and how you know how might we overcome those hurdles ?
Speaker 2Okay . So I guess we have to be super careful not to believe every narrative that's being told by tech companies . Obviously Because they want to sell their products , right ? So if Microsoft tells us that people spend too much time in Outlook and Teams , you think why would they do that ? It's their product , after all . Well , of course they do it because they want to sell you Copilot . Because Copilot ?
Speaker 1can then ?
Speaker 2help you spend less time in Teams . That's , I guess , an upselling strategy strategy which does not mean that it's wrong , right , I mean , just because it's it's , it's a , it's a sales pitch could also be true and and I think this is where leaders and management have to be really careful um , but also have a potential huge upside , because if you implement AI tools in the right way now , you can , you know , make your teams happier but also more productive , et cetera , because you can then actually free people from being chained to this calendar and having one geofix call after the other and in the evening asking themselves what have I actually accomplished ?
Speaker 2So there is this huge chance , I believe , with AI , the danger being , I mean , from the book . I spoke with many experts all around the world , so there was this one guy who is the futurist at Atlassian , a smart guy , and he said that he recently spoke to a client and they managed to get productivity gains by introducing co-pilot of I don't know 30% , and then they filled all this time with extra meetings again .
Speaker 2So you should not do that , I guess , but still the chance is there and I want to believe that using AI tools in a clever way can help us being happier , actually as human beings .
Speaker 1So I would love for you to talk a little bit about the new book and maybe some of the core theses that you're exploring and , as you mentioned , you always take the time to talk to a lot of experts from various fields to explore a topic from many different angles , which I think is incredibly valuable because there is a lot of one-sided especially tech forward narrative out there . So I would love to learn a little bit more about the book and some of the core themes you've explored .
Speaker 2So the book is called the Optimization Lie in German die Optimierungslüge and deal in this book mainly with a notion we talked about before , that we all had this dream of technology making us work in a better way , in a more flexible way , being able to , you know , do the work of eight hours and four and then spend time at the beach or with our loved ones . And , as we all can see , this did not happen . The opposite happened . We are all working all the time , which is , I believe , a disaster , and it's probably only the start of even worse to come .
Speaker 2If you imagine I don't know , if you imagine having a permanent digital layer between you and reality , be it glasses , be it voice , then I believe work would never stop . Then I believe work would never stop . So we have to prepare ourselves for these technological shifts and we have to fight for our freedom to not always work . And yeah , so I believe one of the reasons why we are in the situation we are in right now that's not good is because lots of organizations , after COVID , embraced collaboration tools and KPIs to measure , so they try to optimize work and to maintain control over work . That has become more fluid , and I believe that is a mistake that we have to correct .
Speaker 1So the optimization lie . When I first saw the title I thought was so pointed , because I think there's two parts to it . Right , there's the optimization part , which we briefly touched on at the very beginning , where optimizing for what is the question right ? So often for efficiency gains , productivity gains , to extract maximum capitalistic gain is typically what's being optimized for . And then the lie part is interesting , and I would love to ask you a little bit about that , because that's the human consequence of it all . Right , it's packed into that , and because there's a false promise there and I wonder if it goes beyond . Just hey , you were promised that you would have four out of eight hours to go be at the beach . Is there something that's deeper than that ? What do you think ?
Speaker 2Well , I mean , if you look at younger people today , most of them they don't have only one job . Instead , they have , you know , many projects and it seems to it would be a better way , probably , to spend your working life . You can be a yoga teacher and you can still have a side hustle besides having your own job . So if this is one way of structuring your work life and I was not raised that way necessarily , you know , I'm a bit older For me , you would have one job in your life If this is a better way to structure your work life , then why not make this possible ?
Speaker 2I believe we need a more fluid concept of how we can organize work . Fluid meaning that it is not only accepted but also possible to have different roles , to have different projects while still being a professional . Now , this is the exact opposite of most jobs today where , as we said , you have your whole calendar full of calls and meetings all day long . So I believe that here AI can play a role , because having a more fluid concept of work needs probably a new operational operating system in the background that helps you organize that , so people from freelancers and employees can still work together on one project from different parts of the world , and technology today does not really help doing that . Not enough . I believe that most tools we see today still mimic the old analog world . You know , the calendar is a calendar . Teams is like a meeting room . If we try to think more creatively about what AI could do to make our working life more fluid and more personal , I think there are lots of things that tech companies could come up with .
Speaker 1That's really fascinating and really interesting to think about because , you know , it makes me immediately think about the leadership challenges you mentioned earlier .
Speaker 1When you talk to people as you were writing the book and researching for the book , did you find support or interest in reshaping ? Because it really requires you to reshape everything that a company does and how it operates to actually make something like this a reality . Are there any companies out there that are exploring these very , very different fluid setups AI-first setups ? I had read a LinkedIn post
The Problem of Fake Work
Speaker 1or an article by Scott Belsky , who used to be at Adobe , about what I think he calls Cockney Co , so companies that are built around AI as the operating system . But have you found any companies or any experts and what did you hear ? One example from ?
Speaker 2Germany and I've just been visiting this company for an article I'm writing is Bayer . You know big , big big chemical company . They have been in a not so good situation economically because they took over Monsanto . Lots of lawsuits , et cetera , et cetera . So they had to reinvent themselves . And then , you see , he is one of those guys I mentioned earlier who said I can't have eight levels between me and my customer , I don't need all this bureaucracy , I don't need all this management . So actually , well , he fired quite a lot of them . But the interesting question is what ? What came instead ?
Speaker 2right , yes , so here's an example that I found interesting they they established a skill-based platform where people can go search for new projects , but also this this digital platform suggests projects for you based on your skills . So it's not your boss anymore telling you , hey , you're going to do this next for I don't know eight weeks , but instead you can find out yourself and you can be found by other people . Fascinating , yeah , and I believe those kinds of platforms they have been tried before in the past . But what's different here ? I believe ? One it is for everyone there's 100,000 people working for Bayer worldwide . It's for everyone . And two , it's AI-based , so it actually does the searching for you and it suggests projects for you based on your LinkedIn profile , etc . So that sounds pretty smart , I guess and I talk to young people working- there and they just love it because they say it's so much easier .
Speaker 2Yeah , you know , it feels so much more natural . And , just talking to you , know people in Japan who say they want me on their project .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's probably more motivating too , right . So , to your point about happier and more fulfilled , it's probably more motivating and exciting when you get the chance to work on interesting projects with different people that challenge you , that have you grow , and you're not bound to one location . You're not bound to maybe one department or one specific product line , you know what I think .
Speaker 2that's actually how freelancers work all the time , and that has been a topic I've been thinking about a lot over you know , basically my whole career . Why can't we have both ? Why can't we have the flexibility of freelancers who hop from one exciting project to the next while still doing high-level work that you often only can do as an employee ?
Speaker 1Yeah , I think it's one of those ideas and it's great to hear that it's actually being implemented at scale , because I think it's one of the big arguments you often hear is well , you know , this is a great idea , but this company is 50 years old , 100 years old and 100,000 people plus . We cannot do this here , but it's great to hear that they are already exampled , and we just at the very beginning . The next thought that I had after that was how would this work if it's outside of the context of one particular company ? Is there a place for a platform operating system that does this but does it independent of a specific company ?
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Great question or across different companies .
Speaker 2I asked them that , okay , great . So I spoke to the guy who you know implemented the platform within Bayer , this company , and I said , well , that's cool , now you could also add freelancers and subcontractors to that . And he said , well , I mean , that's probably a bit difficult giving German laws , you know that could be not so easy in Germany . But he said what could be and he would love to see that . What could be interesting is to have APIs of this buyer platform talking to another company's platform and lots of other companies , fluid platforms , so that people can , you know , in a fluid way , go look for other projects , probably even other jobs , at a different company . So for him this is technically totally feasible and it would make a lot of sense .
Speaker 2It's not yet here , so , ben Ben , you can invent that .
AI's Role in Future Work
Speaker 1It's one of those things where I have so many questions that that brings to mind , because it's really exciting to think about , from leadership questions , or how do you self-identify now as a leader that actually , also within this context , is continuously wanted and required and suggested to be the right leader for a project . Right , because , if it applies to everyone- it applies to everyone no matter their title or level or seniority .
Speaker 1So that's one thing that's really interesting . And the other thing is , you know , companies and big corporations put a lot of emphasis on not only intellectual property in the sense of patents , but also in terms of the knowledge that's within the organization and having top experts move from one company to another is not necessarily incentivized in the current system we live in . So I'm wondering how that could work .
Speaker 1On the flip side , there are probably other areas and other markets in which that is very normal . One of the analogies that comes to mind for me are sports teams . Certainly professional athletes , right , but how do you think about that , or have you , have you researched some of that ?
Speaker 2movie production would be another example , right where experts right together for a certain time and produce something that is you know that is hopefully successful , but in any case made very , produce something that is you know that is hopefully successful , but in any case made very professionally , and then they just , you know , go go the different ways . So lots of companies I'm talking to in my , in my job as a consultant today think about collaborations . Collaborations seems to be a big thing , like , can we collaborate with another brand to do something interesting ? And they all look at fashion brands , for example , you know Raph Simmons and Fred Perry , or Jel Zonga and Uniqlo you know there are those cool collaborations happening or music , so many big corporations , this is fascinating , but they don't really know how to do that . So I guess , there you are right , there are lots of problems that that have to be discussed . But there's also a pull , I guess , a pull to be more collaborative , even between organizations and companies .
Speaker 2And yeah , I mean I'm coming back to this buyer example . I mean I thought there must have been a thousand problems there . So I spoke to this young lady who was 29 and she could work on an AI project that was not in her team or somewhere else , but it was made possible by this platform and I said , hey , but what did your boss say ? You know , know , talking about leadership , it seems to not have been a problem . So I think , yeah , that is coming back to your question . What does that mean for leadership ?
Speaker 1probably means that you have to , you know , let let people go and and be more flexible , um , and not hoard talent in your team yeah , I mean it puts the focus really on your job as a leader to grow the person and and their , their impact and enable that and be supportive of that . More like you know you talk about professional sports teams . More like you know what a coach would be interested in and by what a coach would be incentivized by , or you know movie production what's interesting .
Speaker 1You know , when you mentioned movie production and we talked about fashion , my first thought was oh , you know , those are all creative disciplines , those are all the creative industries . But the buyer example is great because it's this a very traditional , as you said chemical pharmaceutical conglomerate , very , very much so what you would say a poster child of the industrialized , at least certainly Western , corporation . So that's really , really fascinating to hear as an example , because it shows that there are already really interesting models that are not widely distributed .
Speaker 1Interestingly enough also not even applied by any of the big tech companies , from certainly everything that I've seen and been part of . So that's really fascinating . We're almost at the top of our hour and I would love to continue , and we will certainly after the recording , but I want to circle back to what's certainly one of the core themes that I tried to explore with the podcast , and that is the humanistic future of business leadership , and I already briefly talked about your work as an educator and teaching at the ESCP Business School .
Speaker 1How do you prepare your students for the future of work ? What are the skills and frameworks that you think they need to acquire to not just kind of live in this new world , but be the leaders of tomorrow and thrive in that future ?
Speaker 2What do you think are some of those core skills ? So , with my students at ESCP Business School , I tend to use the framework of Briggs , bites and Behaviors . So , briggs , we look at how the physical workspace is evolving , the office , if you want . By it , we talk about the
The Optimization Lie Book Insights
Speaker 2tools and obviously we talk a lot about ai there and behavior , which you know , which probably is the most important one the culture . What can you do as a leader to create a good culture ? You know the sustainable work culture , but you , you know what Ben , I mean . Of course I'm teaching there , but for me it's more the opposite . I'm learning so much from the students because they come from all over the world . Many come from India , Some come from China , france , so you have all those smart young people from all over the world sitting there and saying man , I'm just asking questions all the time .
Speaker 2I'm just saying how is that in the ? How is that in the X-ray ? I mean , do you ? Does still everybody want to have their corner office ? Probably not anymore . So it's , yeah , it's . I guess it's a teaching process , but I also learn a lot .
Speaker 1So curiosity certainly , and I think what you said already earlier seems to be also a theme , and that is that the motivations of and I see this with my students too the motivations of the next generation of leaders are very , very different in terms of what they expect of their work , the impact that they can have , the way work is done , the way they relate to other people is very different their relationship with technology is very different .
Speaker 1Actually , in the generation of students , I have currently more skeptical even around certain parts of technology . So that's you know , almost you know certainly very hopeful , but also in a way that we need to , in fact , probably rethink a lot of the models anyway , because we will have a generation of employees and then leaders that will have a very different understanding of you know what fulfillment looks like .
Speaker 2Apparently . I mean two years ago maybe , when I taught that course , I had to explain this concept of digital exhaustion and say that , hey , come on , don't you probably all know this ? But today students tell me but it's obvious , markus . I mean , don't you probably all know this ? And ? But today students tell me but that's obvious , markus . I mean , obviously we are all digitally exhausted . That's where's the news , right ? So it's much easier to talk about solutions with them .
Speaker 1And with that hopeful notion we'll wrap for today . We will make sure that we link to your new book in the show notes and thank you so much for a really inspiring conversation , as always . Thank you so much for all . Right , that's a wrap for this week's show . Thank you for listening to poets and thinkers . If you like this episode , make sure you hit follow and subscribe to get the latest episodes wherever you listen to your podcasts .
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