How leaders can help teams thrive by combining technology with emotional intelligence

The old boundaries between work and life are collapsing.

Today, we network on LinkedIn while on the train, collaborate on presentations with colleagues on the other side of the world, meet friends for lunch between office meetings – then order dinner on an app while on a Teams call.

How we create, collaborate, interact and communicate have all changed beyond recognition – not just over the past 50 years, but the last five.

For leaders, this creates new challenges. How do you equip your team for this new culture of work? Are your teams inspired to be creative? Do they feel connected to your organisation’s mission, even when working remotely as nearly half of all workers soon will? How do you ensure productivity doesn’t boil over into stress and burnout?

The School of Life

These questions are on the mind of every business leader. That’s why Microsoft has partnered with The School of Life, a global organisation dedicated to developing emotional intelligence, to create an all new kind of whitepaper. For the first time, The School of Life have applied their unique thinking on emotional skills and human dynamics to the changing world of work.

Drawing on life lessons from unexpected places – including War and Peace, Charles Darwin and the philosopher Socrates – The School of Life examine the trends transforming the workplace as only they can:

“It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”

Charles Darwin

In this new report, Microsoft and The School of Life explore:

• How technology is transforming work and why this requires a culture that values emotional skills to help people adapt and thrive.
• How leaders can help build emotional skills to help teams thrive in times of change.
• How the right leadership can help teams adapt to new modes of collaboration, creativity and influence.

The whitepaper is essential reading for leaders who want to nurture a workforce that feels inspired, empowered and confident – and who want to meet the expectations of a new generation of workers, while ensuring modern technology empowers teams to bring their best selves to everything they do.