Today we will be exploring the world ‘ from a distance’ .
With me is Ruud Rikhof who has been an HR executive for many many years in companies with progressive HR practices, like IBM, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis and UBS, where he held global roles and supported client populations of up to 20.000 employees.
Later he stepped into the field of entrepreneurship where he has founded the highly succesful Search and HR consultancy firm KennedyFitch.
He has written many articles and publications challenging the status quo and offering new perspectives on the way we organise and lead our organisations, you can find a selection of them below.
Ruud is a true community builder and networker. Walking with him through Zurich means you are getting to know the inner crowd right away. And he is not even from Zurich!
Ruud has a deep understanding of organisational design and transformations. Specialised in HR but I dare to say Ruud is somebody who has been positioning HR in the heart of business strategy long before this was ‘ the norm’ .
Ruud is bold and corougeaus and blame it on his Dutch roots, tells you the truth and nothing but the truth. Doing that in a charming and respectful manner of course
Ruud Lived and worked from the Netherlands, Austria, UK, Germany and Switzerland and I think he can be considered as a modern gypsy, enjoying the freedom of not having 1 single place to stay. He is married and you should see his face lit up when he is starting to talk about his children or grandson!
Ruud is a thought leader in the topic of the future of work , based on his expertise and deep understanding of the corporate world he offers unique guidance, inspires innovation and influences others
With Ruud you know for sure you will learn, you will be challenged and you will re-think what you thought was true. And so happened also during this conversation!
The main take-aways:
Technology will be more and more a driver instead of (only) an enabler and this will make it possible that we will wrap work around life instead of life around work
In the future we will organise work as a match between tasks and capabilities. With the use of technology this is already possible and it will fundamentally change the way we organise (ourselves around) work if not ends the organisations as we know them today
The only thing Leadership should be about is the question : How can I best help you?
We get very practical when he explains what the consequences are if you apply his principles and beliefs about leadership and organising work in his own organisation.
You can find some of Ruud's work below
Three long reads published between 2018 and 2021 about the new world of work and HR
A shorter article around the big trends in HR , also from 2020
And for those interested in the work around Employee Experience, you can find a good overview here
Ruud also shared who and what he is following, reading and watching. Please find an overview below and expand your own thinking!
Azeem Azhar , he also published an interesting book
Abundance 360 they also have a newsletter and Peter Diamandis’ book is called “the future is faster than you think”
The institute of the future ; a rich resource
Gary Bolles, he is very well informed about the future of work
The third industrial revolution: A radical new sharing economy. This is a long, but one of the best video’s about how the word is shifting
All interviews/ TedTalks/ Youtubes with Ray Kurzweil
You can find the show on all podcast platforms or here below.
See you next week!
Barbara