Lead the Work

The traditional concept of a stable, full-time job is dissolving. Work is increasingly done by a global ecosystem of free agents, alliance partners, and on-demand talent sourced through powerful online platforms. In 'Lead the Work,' Boudreau, Jesuthasan, and Creelman provide a crucial guide for navigating this new reality. They argue that leaders must move beyond simply 'managing employees' and learn to 'lead the work' itself. The book introduces a powerful and practical decision framework centered on three key 'dials' leaders can turn: the Assignment (how work is deconstructed, dispersed, and detached from employment), the Organization (how permeable, interlinked, and flexible its boundaries are), and the Reward (how motivation is crafted to be short-term, individualized, and imaginative). Through compelling examples from innovative companies like IBM, Topcoder, and Tongal, this book provides the essential mental model for orchestrating talent, driving innovation, and achieving strategic agility in the boundaryless workplace of the future.

What it argues

Lead the Work

Key ideas it contributes

• Work Assignment Design — The strategic configuration of work, reflecting leadership choices about the extent to which it is broken down into smaller components (deconstruction), can be performed independent of a specific time or place (dispersion), and is disconnected from a traditional employment relationship (detachment).
• Organizational Design (PICF) — The structure and boundaries of the organization, reflecting choices about how easily work and talent flow across its boundaries (Permeable), the extent of its connections to external entities (Interlinked), the nature of those relationships (Collaborative), and its ability to reshape itself (Flexible).
• Reward System Design — The composition and delivery of incentives for work, reflecting choices about the degree to which rewards are tied to short-term deliverables, are customized for individuals or groups, and incorporate imaginative, non-monetary elements like reputation, purpose, and autonomy.
• Talent Sourcing Optimization — The organization's ability to efficiently and effectively access the best-suited talent for a given piece of work, considering quality, cost, speed, and availability from a global and diverse ecosystem of internal and external sources.
• Workforce Agility — The capacity to rapidly scale the workforce up or down, reconfigure skills, and redeploy talent to different tasks or projects in response to changing strategic priorities and market demands.
• Organizational Performance — The effectiveness and efficiency of the organization in achieving its objectives, encompassing dimensions such as innovation, speed to market, quality of output, and overall cost-effectiveness.
• Strategic Advantage — The organization's sustained ability to outperform competitors by leveraging a superior model for getting work done, which allows it to be more innovative, responsive, and efficient in its market.