CIFFA Forwarder Magazine

26 THE FORWARDER | WINTER 2025 The book discusses a reshaping of the world of work where skills become paramount and “job descriptions” get eliminated. How well accepted do you see this principle being and what factors will speed it up? Acceptance is uneven because job descriptions are welded to compensation, compliance, and managerial comfort. Yet the evidence in the book is clear: skills are fast becoming the new employee operating system. Where organizations adopt a common skills language, build an internal marketplace for projects and roles, and link learning pathways to visible opportunity and pay, talent flows. Novartis is a case in point. Where leaders cling to “bench strength” and time-served promotions, people stall. Momentum follows four visible choices: publish the skills ontology, stand up the marketplace, pay for progression by demonstrated capability, and use collaboration so decisions are explainable and transferrable. Do that, and the shift speeds up. What would you say/advise to someone who, perhaps for a significant time period, has not felt that they are in a “blooming” period at work or in life, and how to get unstuck from that? Check the garden soil before blaming the flower. Start by diagnosing the tightest constraints or inhibitors across the twelve work-life factors. Locate yourself with the four personas as a snapshot (are you budding, stunted, or in renewal), and then self-assess where the real constraints sits. For example, if your Well-being is depleted, ask yourself why and what can you do about it? If Agency is low—where you don’t have any sense of direction or answers— figure our what is getting in the way of taking control of your decisions. If Relationships and Belonging have become thin, push yourself to get re-engaged with your core group of colleagues and friends. We should all expect seasons—you won’t always be Blooming. People can cycle between Renewal and Stunted and Budding to Blooming based on how those work-life factors are treating you. It’s okay! When a flower does not bloom, try to address the environment in which it grows, not the flower itself. What about huge disruptors like AI? This is for sure not the first disruptor-many sea changes have hit the work worlds over time-what are your observations about how people react to fear of change? People have cycled through alarm, avoidance, and adaptation for years. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is another one of those supposed ‘game changers.’ Alas, there is a wee bit of difference with AI that is its potential for more nefarious outcomes by senior leaders. For example, if a leader publicly points out that AI will save costs, improve efficiencies, and eliminate jobs, how is that going to help anyone to Bloom at work? Trust rises when the why is explicit and the boundaries are clear, yet the intent is humanistic. Agency rises when teams have safe-to-try experiments, not macabre theatres of redundancies and job displacements. Skills rise when learning is tied to real work and visible outcomes, not the implementation of AI to get rid of the humans. Pair human strengths—judgement, context, relationships—with new tools like AI, sure, but the real equation to me is OI + AI = EI, and in that order. (Original Intelligence + Artificial Intelligence = Enhanced Intelligence.) When people can see themselves in the future—and have a hand in building it—fear gives way to a more wilful sort of participation. SeaRates ERP Become a DFA Member today for free df-alliance.com Take control of your costs and streamline your operations with: End-to-End Integration Enhanced CRM Automated Processes Customs Filing 2025 EGD Sponsor Slide_240122.pdf 1 12/03/2025 9:17 AM