Future Work World with Barry Winkless

In this episode of the Inside Learning Podcast from the Learnovate Centre, Aidan McCullen speaks with Barry Winkless, author of Future Work World, Chief Strategy Officer at Cpl, and Head of the Future of Work Institute.

Barry explores how leaders can create organisations that attract, retain and empower talent while balancing the need for hyper-efficiency with the reality that organisations are also living systems.

He explains why future-of-work change must begin with mindset, introducing three leadership roles from the book: the Destination Designer, the Societal Whisperer, and the Systems Architect. These mindsets help leaders build a shared language before they redesign work, talent, culture or technology.

The conversation also explores the four-part journey of Future Work World: mindset, “meta waves”, the “mixing desk” of 16 innovation areas, and “move”, where immersive storytelling helps people emotionally connect with change. Barry shares how music, science fiction and nine fictional near-future vignettes shaped the book’s style.

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

The episode closes with Barry’s view of the shift from mono careers to poly careers, where individuals increasingly become the heroes of their own working lives and organisations become part of their journey.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

00:58 Why Write This Book

01:36 Music and Storytelling Style

04:36 Mindset Comes First

05:34 Three Leadership Mindsets