Embracing Progress

Book excerpt: ENGAGEMENT, PERSONALIZATION, INTEGRATION AND CHOICE. These four Priorities are core themes for any Future-of-Work transformation. Embrace them as you take the next steps to achieve a future-proofed, talent-focused, and progressive working environment. PROGRESS is at the heart of the American Dream and the significant ongoing workforce and workplace changes. Technological advances are enabling new ways of working that are long overdue--responding to decades of societal evolution and new understanding about what actually engages workers and increases productivity. Sophie Wade is an authority on the Future of Work, and in Embracing Progress she shares her expertise and insights to explain the current and project work environment. She outlines how you can take the new steps to transform your company successfully, applying first principles to develop your unique plan for progress. You will learn about the four Priorities and six Pillars to focus on and evolve and how to achieve as smooth a transition as possible. Embracing Progress will give you the tools you need to develop and execute a viable strategic plan to tackle ongoing workplace changes, allowing your company to flourish in the years ahead. "The way we work is going through a profound transformation. With Embracing Progress, Sophie Wade provides an essential guide for businesses of all sizes to create a more flexible, empathetic, purpose-driven, and human workplace that can meet the challenges and embrace the opportunities of this new era." --ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, founder and CEO, Thrive Global "Sophie Wade brings a thoughtful and refreshing perspective to the critical topic of the Future of Work. She has spent much time and energy assessing how we can achieve better performance, engagement, and career satisfaction in the workplace. Embracing Progress is full of good ideas that can help us all think more creatively about how we work. It couldn't come at a more important time." --MATT BREITFELDER, Chief Talent Officer, BlackRock "Sophie Wade brings to readers fresh ideas and terrific strategies aimed at helping them to succeed in today's and tomorrow's dynamic work environment, with experience from her own career that has been latticed and diverse." --Julie Silver, MD, Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Strategic Initiatives, Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School -Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital "Sophie Wade tackles the Future of Work with a compelling big-picture vision and a smart understanding of its details. Her path of learning, questioning, and refining ideas delivers real-world approaches employers can use to help employees perform at their best. Whether dealing with the emerging understanding of creativity, the power of purpose, or the relationship between individuals and groups, Sophie understands the desire for fully-coherent workplaces that best empower the workforce of today and tomorrow." --Greg Parsons, Senior Vice President and Creative Director, Work, Herman Miller, Inc Sophie Wade has been deeply immersed in the Future of Work for several years, starting with her focus on workplace flexibility. She shares many brilliant insights about the changing demands of the workforce and explains how the workplace is being radically altered forever. Her approach is organic, continually absorbing and developing new perspectives illuminating the evolution of the Future of Work. The applications are so helpful supporting companies' adaptions to this very new way of working. You can't go forward without it --Faith Popcorn, CEO Faith Popcorn's BrainReserve Sophie Wade is a prime example that the most imaginative and insightful ideas come from those few among us comfortable traversing traditionally siloed fields and cross pollinating great ideas. Just as Steve Jobs turned his fascination with calligraphy into an unlikely, differentiating cornerstone of the early Apple experience, Wade delivers countless insights premised on her abili