Olivia: A recent study found that 74% of executive team members actively avoid conflict. Jackson: Wait, three-quarters of the people running major companies are just... nodding along to avoid an argument? That explains... a lot. And it's exactly the kind of broken system our book today wants to demolish. Olivia: It really does. We're diving into Competing in the New World of Work: How Radical Adaptability Separates the Best from the Rest by Keith Ferrazzi, Kian Gohar, and Noel Weyrich. Jackson: And Ferrazzi isn't new to this. He's been a leading voice on collaboration for decades, even wrote the bestseller Never Eat Alone. He’s been a consultant to the C-suites of the world’s biggest companies for years. Olivia: Exactly. This book feels like the culmination of his work, written in the crucible of the pandemic, which he calls a "crystallizing crisis" that forced us all to change. He argues we can't go back. And he starts with a truly wild analogy to prove his point. Jackson: I’m intrigued. Let’s hear it.

Olivia: He compares the ideal, radically adaptable organization to... Burning Man. Jackson: Burning Man? The giant art party in the Nevada desert? So the future of work is... dust and pyromaniacs? I'm not sure my HR department would approve. Olivia: (Laughs) Stick with me. Ferrazzi’s point is brilliant. Think about Burning Man. You have thousands of people—tech elites, artists, business execs, anarchists—in a brutal environment. Extreme heat, dust storms, no money allowed. Nothing should work. Jackson: Right, it sounds like a recipe for disaster. Olivia: But it not only works, it thrives. A temporary city emerges, filled with incredible art and collaboration. And Ferrazzi asks, why? Because of a concept he borrows from the festival's founder: "Communities grow out of a shared struggle." The harshness of the desert forces everyone to rely on each other, to collaborate, to innovate just to survive. Jackson: Ah, so the 'shared struggle' is the key. The pandemic was our Black Rock Desert. Suddenly, it didn't matter what your title was or which department you were in. Everyone was just trying to figure out how to keep the lights on from their kitchen table. Olivia: Precisely. The book is packed with examples of this. Take General Motors. During the pandemic, they had to improvise constantly. Cathy Clegg, a leader there, said the crisis forced them to slash red tape and delegate decision-making down to the teams on the ground. People became more candid, more direct. The silos just melted away because there was no time for "that's not my job." Jackson: That’s fascinating. It’s like the emergency created a temporary utopia of efficiency. Olivia: It did! Or look at Whirlpool. Their R&D labs shut down. How do you test new washing machine parts? Well, their engineers turned their home garages into makeshift labs. They were literally meeting up on the side of interstate highways to exchange parts for testing. Jackson: That is incredible. It’s like a spy movie, but with appliance components. But it proves the point—when the old system breaks, human ingenuity finds a way. Olivia: And that’s the core of Radical Adaptability. It’s not just about surviving a crisis. It’s about taking the lessons from that shared struggle—the speed, the collaboration, the lack of bureaucracy—and making them the new normal. The book argues that companies that try to go "back to normal" will be left behind by those who learned to operate like they're at Burning Man all the time. Jackson: Okay, so shared struggle forces us to adapt. But you can't just manufacture a crisis every quarter to keep the innovation flowing. That sounds exhausting. How do you make this intentional? What are the actual tools?

Olivia: That's the perfect question, and it leads right to the book's practical toolkit. Ferrazzi argues you have to install new "high-return practices." The first one is a concept he calls "Co-elevation." Jackson: Co-elevation. That sounds a bit... new-agey. Isn't it just teamwork? Olivia: It's a specific kind of teamwork. Think of it this way: traditional teamwork is about everyone doing their part to achieve a common goal. Co-elevation is about team members taking shared accountability for each other's success and growth. You're not just on a mission together; you're committed to going higher, together. Jackson: So you’re going to bat for your colleagues, not just for the project. Olivia: Exactly. And a key part of this is another practice called "Teaming Out." This means breaking through the organizational chart. The book gives a fantastic example from the insurance company Aflac. Their call center was getting swamped with calls from their own sales agents who couldn't find information. The two departments were totally siloed. Jackson: I can picture it. The call center people are frustrated, the sales people are frustrated, and the customer is stuck in the middle. Olivia: Totally. So, instead of a top-down fix, they "teamed out." They took fifteen of their most digitally savvy sales reps and gave them a new mission: transform the call center. These reps started coaching their peers, creating video tutorials, and building new tools. They cocreated the solution. Jackson: So they empowered the people who were feeling the pain to fix the problem. What happened? Olivia: The results were staggering. Call and chat volume dropped by 40 percent. The company estimated it would save millions annually. It was a huge win, all because they broke down a wall and let the teams co-elevate. Jackson: That makes so much sense. But what about bigger, slower processes? Like launching a whole new product line? That’s where bureaucracy really shines. Olivia: That’s where the next tool comes in: "Enterprise Agile." And again, let’s make this real with a story. In 2017, Target was struggling. They set an audacious goal: launch thirty new in-house brands in two and a half years. Historically, their process took eighteen months to launch just one. Jackson: So they needed to do something that was, by their old standards, impossible. Olivia: Impossible. So the brand design and legal teams—two groups not known for their speed—threw out the old playbook. They switched to an agile process. Instead of a long, linear approval chain, they worked in small, cross-functional teams in short, two-week "sprints." They had daily stand-up meetings to solve problems on the fly. Jackson: It’s less like building a skyscraper from a fixed blueprint, and more like building with Legos—you can test, pivot, and change direction quickly. Olivia: That’s a perfect analogy. And by doing this, they achieved their goal. They launched the new brands, which helped turn the company around. The Chief Information Security Officer at Target said that in this model, "silos cannot exist," because everyone is dependent on each other to deliver. Jackson: And that ability to pivot is useless if you don't see the turn coming. It feels like there's a missing piece here. Olivia: You're right. That brings us to the final piece: future-proofing.

Jackson: Future-proofing. I feel like every company wants to do that, but it sounds more like science fiction than a real business strategy. Olivia: Well, Ferrazzi argues it's a learnable skill he calls "Active Foresight." And the story he uses to illustrate it is just jaw-dropping. It's about Lockheed Martin Space. In December 2019, the head of the division, Rick Ambrose, started picking up faint signals about a new virus in China. Jackson: This is before it was on anyone's radar in the West. Olivia: Months before. While most leaders were ignoring it, he felt something was wrong. He told his head of operations to pay "150 percent attention" to it. They started scenario planning. They talked to hospital administrators. They even started ordering thousands of extra computer monitors for employees to take home. Jackson: Wow. So when the lockdowns hit in March 2020... Olivia: They were ready. They didn't miss a beat. They had ten successful satellite launches that year and a major asteroid rendezvous, all on schedule. Their division thrived while others scrambled. That is Active Foresight in action. It’s systematically looking for weak signals and having the courage to act on them before they become a full-blown crisis. Jackson: That's some next-level thinking. It's not just reacting, it's pre-acting! But foresight is only half the battle. You need a team that can actually execute on your vision of the future. Olivia: And that's where the book's final big idea comes in: building a "Lego Block Workforce." Jackson: A Lego Block Workforce. I love that metaphor. It's so visual. Olivia: It's the idea that your workforce shouldn't be a rigid, unchangeable structure. It should be a collection of skills, talents, and roles—like Lego blocks—that you can reconfigure and reassemble to meet new challenges. Jackson: This sounds great, but it also sounds like a recipe for instability. How do you do this without making employees feel like disposable parts? Olivia: That's the critical question. And the book's answer is that it's about empowerment, not disposability. The best example is Patagonia. When the pandemic closed their retail stores, they didn't just furlough their staff. They saw a huge spike in online customer service requests. Jackson: So they had a new problem and a workforce with no work. Olivia: Exactly. So they reskilled their in-store sales staff to become online customer service experts, working from home. They turned their retail associates into a flexible, multi-talented team. Now, those employees have two career paths within the company. Patagonia built a more resilient, agile workforce by investing in its people, not replacing them. That's the Lego philosophy. It’s about seeing the potential in each piece to be used in new and creative ways.

Jackson: So when you put it all together... the Burning Man mindset, the tools like co-elevation, the foresight of Lockheed, and the flexibility of Patagonia's Lego workforce... it seems the big idea is that the future of work isn't about a specific model—remote, hybrid, whatever. It's about building an organizational metabolism that can handle constant change. It's about being adaptable from the inside out. Olivia: Exactly. And Ferrazzi's point is that this starts with leaders. It’s not a memo you send out. It’s a culture you build, one action at a time. The one concrete thing a leader can do tomorrow is ask their team: 'What's one piece of red tape we can cut right now to move faster?' It's a small act that starts building that agile muscle. Jackson: It’s about giving people permission to be brilliant, which is what happened in all these stories. We'd love to hear from you. What's the most 'radically adaptable' thing your team did during the pandemic that you wish had stuck around? Let us know on our socials. We read every comment. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.