7 questions CIOs must ask about the office of the future

Futurist Bob Johansen is a distinguished fellow with Silicon Valley-based think tank Institute for the Future (IFTF) and the author or co-author of 12 books, including Leaders Make the Future, The New Leadership Literacies: Thriving in a Future of Extreme Disruption and Distributed Everything and Full-Spectrum Thinking. His next book, Office Shock: Creating Better Futures for Living and Working, tackles a subject every CIO I talk with is grappling with today: the office upheaval created by COVID-19. As Johansen points out, the upending of the traditional office has created opportunities to reimagine how and where office work can and should be done. It also opens new possibilities for human connection in more meaningful ways. Even in a highly uncertain future, we can make smart choices to create better ways of living and working, he says. But first, we’ll need to reboot our expectations about where, how, and why we work.