Future of Work: The most important word for businesses to know

I’m bang in the middle of writing my new book. And I’m writing a lot of words. Some good, some bad, and some downright ugly. Most of these words are about the future of work. It struck me at some point during a recent dark, late night – the ones that writers supposedly get used to – that one word supersedes them all.

That word is ‘with’.

It’s not good enough for most of us anymore to work ‘for’ someone or ‘for’ an organisation. We don’t want to be seen as subservient to a hierarchy of leaders. We want to work with people, with organisations. We want to work with our suppliers, our partners, not against them.

If you look at relatively recent US statistics, 72.2 million people are doing independent work, with 27.7 million pursuing independent work (working for themselves) full-time, according to MBO Partners’ newly released State of Independence report, an annual research study on independent workers conducted by Emergent Research. At an EU level, approximately 15% of professionals are self-employed, with this number expected to increase to approximately 20% by 2030 (Eurostat). These are not small numbers. People working independently – or those working for themselves – are now a key segment of the working population.

Collaboration is now essential

And in reality, we can no longer solve many of our organisational challenges by ourselves anymore. We have to work with sectors, communities and societies to create sustainable and environmental change beyond our four walls.

We need to work with multiple generations to solve talent and skills challenges. We hear more and more about hyper-efficiency with the onset of the true growth phase of AI, but we need to start talking about and harnessing hyper-collaboration.

Hyper-collaboration often only happens due to the advent of a crisis or a disaster. The increased collaboration of the EU in recent months in response to American tariff challenges is a case in point.

Mindset shift

I’m constantly asked what the most important skill is for the future of work, and I always say mindset, but that mindset is based on an evolved sense of self and the power of deeply democratic and inclusive collaboration and its power to transform.

And yet, many leaders still see their teams as working for them. More than 30% of us will leave an organisation due to toxic, overbearing leadership, according to Future of Work Institute research (Changing Expectations of Work & Life 2025, over 1,600 people surveyed).

Our greatest competition can often be our own colleagues and other teams, and many will push servant-master relationships when it comes to their most important suppliers, and yet still seek innovation.

Questions to ask yourself

Think about this personally for a moment. Are you truly working with a person who needs an ally? Have you really listened to and taken input from that coworker that you can’t seem to take seriously because they seem so different to you?

How much time have you or your team had a genuine, no-holds-barred conversation about your levels of actual collaboration? I suggest most of us are working ‘with’ using a very small ‘w’. In this polarising world, it is often simpler and easier to keep it that way. But never before have we needed big ‘W’ withs.

Competitive stances will always seem more powerful, more forceful. But hyper-collaboration can slay all comers. It can defeat small-mindedness, drive inclusion, generate the deepest levels of innovation possible, and find new paths forward for us all. Forget about the next competitive advantage for some. I’m interested in the next collaborative advantage for us all.

Barry Winkless is CSO of Cpl, one of the largest talent and workforce organisations in Europe, and head of the Future of Work Institute, an advisory and research group focused on people-centric, strategic change and innovation. He has over 25 years’ experience working nationally and globally for and with some of the world’s most respected brands and businesses. He was recently named as one of the top 50 global influencers on the Future of Work.

Read more from the Future of Work Institute here.