Future Work World with Barry Winkless

In this episode of the Inside Learning Podcast from the Learnovate Centre, Aidan McCullen speaks with Barry Winkless, Chief Strategy Officer at Cpl, Head of the Future of Work Institute, and author of Future Work World: How Leaders Can Create Destinations for Talent that Excite, Entice, and Engage.

 

Barry argues that future-of-work conversations must begin with mindset. Before leaders redesign work, talent, teams or technology, they need a new language and a new way of seeing. He introduces three leadership roles from the book: the Destination Designer, the Societal Whisperer, and the Systems Architect.

 

The conversation explores the structure of Future Work World, including Barry’s four-part journey through mindset, “meta waves”, the “mixing desk” of 16 areas for work innovation, and the use of immersive storytelling to move people emotionally. Barry also shares how music, science fiction, and fictional near-future stories shaped the book’s distinctive style.

 

Aidan and Barry discuss the idea of “work type salads”, where organisations blend permanent employees, contractors, consultants, gig workers, temporary talent, and specialist networks to create strategic advantage. They also explore the concept of organisational “wisdom worlds”, using AI inference, immersive learning, and tacit knowledge capture to build deeper capability over time.

 

The episode closes with a reflection on the shift from mono careers to poly careers, where individuals increasingly become the hero of their own working lives and organisations become part of their journey rather than the whole journey.

 

Episode Timeline

 

00:00 Podcast intro and guest
01:10 Why this book now
01:58 Music and storytelling
04:47 Mindset comes first
11:25 Mixing desk equalizers
14:46 Meta waves and work type salad
18:39 Building a wisdom world
22:37 The new hero journey at work
27:06 Where to find Barry
27:57 Closing credits