More info on the podcast website: Why is the bold new breed important?

"Thank you for giving me an identity."

The Bold New Breed of employee is driven by the gig mindset. The gig mindset is a way of thinking and behaving like freelancers and independent gig workers. Except, the gig mindsetters are employees inside organizations.

They are a NEW Breed because they work differently from traditional workers.

They are a BOLD new breed, because they come up against management resistance.

When I talked about gig mindsetters in conference keynotes, I had these reactions from people in the audience:

Why these reactions?

Gig mindsetters make management nervous, and feel threatened. They trigger strong reactions including getting sidelined or reprimanded. Three underlying issues:

• Gigmindsetters are here to stay. They make up a bottom-up movement emerging slowly in organizations around the world.
• They network intensively, cross boundaries and constantly scan the horizon. They detect early signs of change, take initiatives, operate with high autonomy and work to solve problems when they see them.
• But management behaviors have been stuck in a control and command mindset over several years.

More information on the podcast website: The gig mindset and internal civil disobedience

Peaceful protest in a large organization

This episode is about peaceful protests in a context where people want to change the way they work inside a very large organization.

I talked with an engineer who works in a global industrial enterprise headquartered in Europe. He and his colleagues wanted to find a way to bring visibility to new ways of working and emphasize the importance of flexibility and not getting fixed on one method or another method they’d put into place, a large social network, and people were talking about their projects.

Two mindsets: Where do you stand?

I’ll tell you about the two mindsets – traditional and gig – to the background of a beautiful waltz and a dynamic boogie.

For more information on the podcast website: Willful blindness: what and why?

Ignore, resist or embrace?

When people come across something new, they ignore it, resist it, or embrace it. How do we get to the 3rd stage?

The gig mindset is often resisted by management, but not only. In order to combat it, we need to start with first understanding what's going on.

Living in the past and living in fear are two underlying reasons.

People are blinded by:

• Pride in past success.
• Faith in best practices and benchmarking.
• Fear of losing power.
• Fear of speed.
• A false sense of safety in silos.
• Filter bubbles.

Positive deviance: a totally different perception

Gig mindset behaviors threaten the past and have little fear! Although they are often perceived as deviant, they are in reality positive deviance.