A common theme this year in our work is equipping teams/businesses for the challenges the Fourth Industrial Revolution brings. To future proof both employees and their businesses, we roll out campaigns around a culture of continuous learning, adopting new ways of working such as bottom up mentorship where Seniors ask Millennials questions freely… and of course, it all starts with embedding the right mindset.
While researching to write an animation script on mindset, we came across ‘The effort paradox’, which WeForum describes as:
“Outcomes can be more rewarding if we apply more, rather than less, effort to achieve them.”
Dubbed the ‘IKEA Effect’, they found that consumers will be prepared to pay more for objects they’ve effortfully built, compared to identical objects that someone else built for them.
The human condition is one that seeks to avoid or minimise effort wherever possible (hence our automation). But understanding effort is costly, but importantly that it equals reward and value, really impacts mindset.
As society changes, often roles require more effort; cognitive effort, since automation has taken care of many manual tasks. It’s not without challenges and we need to achieve balance. With greater workloads comes the need to find smart ways to work and that’s where the beauty of our digital world and all its Apps and gadgets comes to the fore.
So here’s to an effortful day. May you deliver value for you and your organisation and relish working hard to achieve goals.