Community. From online communities to community solar projects, with the interconnectedness we now have thanks to the Internet, we can do more together.
When it comes to designing the future of work, one size fits none. Discovering success isn’t about a hybrid model or offering remote work options. Individuals and organizations are looking for more freedom. The freedom to choose the work model that makes the most sense. The freedom to choose their own values. And the freedom to pursue what matters most. We reached out to successful leaders and thought leaders across all industries to glean their insights and predictions about how to create a future that works.
As a part of our interview series called “How Employers and Employees are Reworking Work Together,” we had the pleasure to interview Nick Thorsch.
Nick Thorsch has spent his career in search of a meaningful harmonious blend of work that is purposeful, passionate, and profitable. After having worked at Intel, Microsoft, an Inc 5000 solar company and a 675M dollars AI/ML company, while seeing the world around us go up in flames or smothered by snowstorms, he knew something was missing in the market. An organization was needed to be built to solve climate change at the speed and scale we need, to unite and empower environmentally-friendly Ecopreneurs around our world, so he started Share2Seed.org.
Thank you for making time to visit with us about the topic of our time. Our readers would like to get to know you a bit better. Can you please tell us about one or two life experiences that most shaped who you are today.
Freedom is so important to me. Employment can truly be a double edged sword. On one hand, it pays the bills. On the other hand, you’re giving up your freedom to a boss. Between working hours, they’re the puppet master, and you’re the puppet. It’s very uncomfortable. Especially when I have so much talent, skills, experience, ideas, desires, passions, etc that I’d like to bring forth to add value that haven’t been done before and would revolutionize the company! Instead, we are stuck with business as usual, minimizing costs to maximize profits. I, like Steve Jobs and Walt Disney, enjoy bringing magic to life. When I’ve had the opportunity to do so, amazing results happen, like a company I recently grew by 300% in 18 months and the employee count by 10x.
Let’s zoom out. What do you predict will be the same about work, the workforce and the workplace 10–15 years from now? What do you predict will be different?
The same: we’ve surprisingly seen little change during the Internet era, where only Covid prompted more of an ability to work from home. With Amazon building HQ2, corporate work will still be in an office high rise building, warehouses and warehouse workers will still be rapidly delivering products, and paychecks every two weeks will go out.
A lot will be different, for better or worse. Elon is already replacing multiple smaller robots with much larger giga-bots like the gigapress.
Customer service automation to minimize it will continue to rise, as leaders still see it as a cost center, which it’s not. Customer service is meant to be a service center, and feedback loop for the entire company.
What we see leaders often do is trying to minimize costs, rather than maximize growth opportunities. I think we’ll see more female leaders who get this level of intimacy and humility with customers, and show us better ways.
Clearly the big trends are around AI/Ml, data connections with 5G and satellite, Meta, and content ubiquity. It’ll be quite overwhelming. In reality, the direction we need to go is to be more connected with nature, both to save ourselves and our planet.
What advice would you offer to employers who want to future-proof their organizations?
The magic secrets are 360 degree feedback loops. Treat your employees as a caring team, not as a cost.
What do you predict will be the biggest gaps between what employers are willing to offer and what employees expect as we move forward? And what strategies would you offer about how to reconcile those gaps?
Employers are stuck in an old mindset and employees expect employers to be ahead of the curve instead, in all areas: addressing issues, caring culture, expanding opportunities, better training to hire ramps, etc.
We simultaneously joined a global experiment together last year called “Working From Home.” How will this experience influence the future of work?
It’s a different environment to be working from home, than in an office collaborating, but even in office, people can still be sheltering in place: in an office or cubicle, and not even have the conversations they need and want to be having. We’ve simultaneously seen a rise in communication channels, like Zoom, Slack, email and text, so that may have actually enabled more communication than some office cultures had.
We’ve all read the headlines about how the pandemic reshaped the workforce. What societal changes do you foresee as necessary to support a future of work that works for everyone?
More and more people will join online organizations like I’ve started, Share2Seed.org.
What is your greatest source of optimism about the future of work?
It’ll play right into my strengths, which is building businesses online for the betterment of our world.
Our collective mental health and wellbeing are now considered collateral as we consider the future of work. What innovative strategies do you see employers offering to help improve and optimize their employee’s mental health and wellbeing?
Lunch catering, not only to on-site employees, but also virtual/off-site employees too, is one way for an employer to show employees they were thinking of them and care. Also having virtual team meetings, where even on-site meetings are broadcasted out by video.
It seems like there’s a new headline every day. ‘The Great Resignation’. ‘The Great Reconfiguration’. And now the ‘Great Reevaluation’. What are the most important messages leaders need to hear from these headlines? How do company cultures need to evolve?
Leaders aren’t listening. They haven’t been listening to anyone: customers, employees, etc. Their playbook has all been the same: ignore the “noise”, pump stock price. Look at Facebook. Congressional inquiry, followed by stock boosting name change to Meta. Never addressed the actual issues adequately. Company cultures need to become more caring, not more distant.
Let’s get more specific. What are your “Top 5 Trends To Track In the Future of Work?” (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Automation. Business leaders know that automation equals efficiency, less to deal with, and lower costs. From bots that make cars to drones that deliver packages, all of this will take off.
- Influencers. Joe Rogan’s big deal to switch from YouTube to Spotify inspired a whole industry to take notice and follow the trend. For example, lots of people are launching podcasts now.
- Digital Finance. Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies & NFTs are making possible new opportunities for work.
- Compassion. People are waking up to what matters most to them and our world, and want to support good companies and causes.
- Community. From online communities to community solar projects, with the interconnectedness we now have thanks to the Internet, we can do more together.
I keep quotes on my desk and on scraps of paper to stay inspired. What’s your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? And how has this quote shaped your perspective?
Today’s quote in my Momentum dashboard in Chrome says: “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” Pablo Picasso.
Entrepreneurs are rule-breakers in a sense, they create innovative disruption in the marketplace. For it to be sustainable and grow, it has to provide more benefit to our society, whereby rules may be updated to accommodate the new business model, like Uber/Lyft vs. Traditional Taxis.
My first entrepreneurial venture was gathering golf balls from the bushes and lakes of the golf course we lived on in Australia, then I’d sell them back to the golfers on the weekend.
Many bushes, at least, were outside the fence lines of the golf course, so that’s the supply side. For the demand side, the golfers would drive their golf carts between two holes across the public road, so we’d set up shop on the public road and ask them if they’d like to buy our high-end, clean, and cheap golf balls, for just 1 dollar each. They’d buy ’em up!
Now, what I’m focused on and why that’s relevant to me now in my life, is there are very weak rules regarding who can pollute in our shared atmosphere we breathe from, and that bothers me deeply, as well as many others. I would like to breathe fresh, clean air, without worrying what pollutants, or viruses, may be in it.
Conversely, there’s very weak rules regarding the logging and planting of trees in our forests too. There’s also good and bad examples. So the artist side comes in and says “What would be the beauty we’d like to see?” To me, that’s healthy forests, healthy air, beautiful skies, and news of things getting better in our world.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He, she, or they might just see this if we tag them.
Elon Musk is making the most innovation happen right now in the most important areas, to accelerate the adoption of clean energy. Yet still only 2% of the market owns an EV or solar. For as hard, as fast, and as long as he’s been at it, and to be as happy as he is, is quite a successful accomplishment. I’d love to discuss ways in which we can accelerate adoption with the other 98% of the market, and buy us more time to solve such hard problems, with simple solutions to turn the tide with climate-warming, disaster-causing, carbon dioxide emissions.
Our readers often like to continue the conversation with our featured interviewees. How can they best connect with you and stay current on what you’re discovering?
You can become empowered as an Ecopreneur like Elon at https://Share2Seed.org.
Thank you for sharing your insights and predictions. We appreciate the gift of your time and wish you continued success and good health.