SWARM is excited to be sponsoring season 3 of the podcast Cut Your Learning Curve, a podcast about learning and the intersection of work and technology. In this season Nate Cooper, managing partner at SWARM is joined by Eve MacKnight, Director of Learning to discuss topics pertinent to life and work in our digital age.

As massive change occurs in the workplace, so too have the concepts of “leadership” and “management” continued to evolve to adapt to the modern day.  Leadership is commonly understood as the big broad strokes that paint the vision of the organization, while management is responsible for executing this vision in the day-to-day. As Eve’s former CEO described to her, the leader announces “there’s the hill we must climb,” and the managers figure out how to get there and ascend to new heights. 

All of this has implications in the field of education. A company like Nokia is a cautionary tale of how even successful, entrenched companies are vulnerable due to the accelerating speed of change in technology and consumer preferences.  MBA programs focus on developing leadership skills in the fast moving digital world, and how to effectively pivot the small army that is a mid to large size organization in a new direction. 

At the same time, effective management has become an interesting dance: of adapting to high team turnover, open offices (some with even shared desks) and continuing shifts in strategy, while at the same time ensuring consistency, accountability, fairness and support to employees to help them, and in turn the organization, succeed.  It is a play on an old song, now at a much faster cadence for today’s world. 

Eve is an educator and trainer in project management nationwide, what she see’s is very little curriculum covering the fundamentals of effective management at either the K-12 or post-secondary level. Yet as the remote and freelance economies continue to rise, and as small independent businesses continue to blossom, the need for even a basic understanding of how to manage – how to set expectations and then ensure they are met – will only become more critical as work teams form and re-form with greater fluidity across the globe.

To hear more of Nate and Eve’s thoughts on Leadership vs Management, and the role they play in the future of work, check out this week’s podcast.

Check out the Cut Your Learning Curve podcast:

Subscribe on iTunes

Subscribe on Spotify