Duration: 47:23

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Speakers:
Ed Doran, Senior Director, Microsoft Research  Redmond
Nancy Baym, Senior Principal Research Manager, Microsoft Research  New England
Jonathan Larson, Principal Data Architect, Microsoft Research  Redmond
Constance Hadley, Organizational Psychologist and Lecturer, Boston University 

First, Nancy Baym gives an over of the six principles of thriving organizations. Organizations of all kinds are seeking new footing as their assumptions about how they can and must function have been disrupted over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. While this is undoubtedly a time of trauma and threat, it also opens the door to reimagining a future in which organizations find new ways of being that allow them, those who work in and with them, and their communities at large to flourish. While we do not yet know what new models of organizations will emerge in the near future, nor how emerging models of hybrid work may change what we should foreground and measure when we consider “thriving,” many streams of research point to some evergreen lessons. In this talk, Nancy Baym, Senior Principal Research Manager at Microsoft Research, draws on research from multiple disciplines and recent work from the Microsoft New Future of Work Initiative to identify six principles that characterize a thriving organization, offering insights and research provocations for practitioners and scholars. This talk will address how organizations act as communication-driven systems and can foster safe, productive, and pleasurable environments for all, and it will also explore challenges in measuring and assessing organizational thriving.

Next, Ed Doran leads a panel discussion with Nancy Baym, Jonathan Larson, and Constance Hadley on the characteristics, learnings, and challenges of thriving organizations. The last year has been extraordinarily challenging for every person, community, and organization. We have adapted to not just a new normal, but also a constantly changing set of conditions. Along the way we have learned valuable lessons, made unexpected mistakes, and discovered crucial strengths. Now we are asking the question, what can we learn from the existing research as well as new studies on thriving organizations that will help us succeed in a changing and challenging new world? This session is a multi-disciplinary exploration of thriving organizations, including core principles defined by research on thriving organizations and key research questions for characterizing and evolving your organization. The researchers will explore how to identify and measure key characteristics of thriving, how organizations evolve in a changing environment, how individuals within an organization can contribute to or limit its ability to thrive, and where efforts should be focused moving forward.

Learn more about the 2021 Microsoft Research Summit: https://Aka.ms/researchsummit