About
Hi, I'm Bill Fox, and welcome to Forward Thinking Workplaces.
I'm Bill Fox, the Founder, and Editor at Forward Thinking Workplaces.
Forward Thinking Workplaces is a global narrative that’s uncovering exciting new perspectives to help you succeed and be a forward-thinking leader and workplace in the 21st century.
In this forum, I host a new type of conversation for the 21st century that's discovering the people, insights, and strategies that lead to Forward Thinking teams, leaders, and workplaces of the future — today.
In our ongoing conversation with pioneering global business and thought leaders, we challenge each leader with the following six questions:
- How can we create workplaces where every voice matters, everyone thrives and finds meaning, and change and innovation happen naturally?
- What does it take to get an employee's full attention and best performance?
- What do people really lack and long for at work?
- What is the most important question leaders should ask employees?
- What is the most important question employees should ask leaders?
- What is the most important question we should ask ourselves?
How It Started
After witnessing and experiencing so many heartbreaking and unsuccessful organizational change initiatives over my career, I looked for a better way to transform and improve organizations. But how?
To make it real, I interviewed leading change practitioners and other experts in a conversation I called 5 Minutes to Process Improvement Success. I asked, “What is your best improvement strategy?”
Remarkably, I rarely got an answer about process improvement. People didn’t talk about Agile, CMMI, Lean, Six Sigma, or the latest silver-bullet solution. Instead, they talked about something deeper: trust, reflection, new questions, new leadership, understanding the status quo, and much more. People shared fascinating and surprising new questions, strategies, and insights with me.
After 50 interviews, I discontinued the 5 Minutes to Process Improvement series because it wasn’t about process improvement. Something else seemed to happen, and I needed time to reflect on it.
In fact, conducting those 50 interviews was so powerful that it triggered my own inner transformation. My mind became noticeably quieter. I became a better listener. I was less reactive to my circumstances. I also realized there was enormous power in my intentions — and in the questions, those intentions led me to ask.
A New Conversation
These inner changes allowed me to have a new conversation. As I became less judgmental, more open and a better listener, people seemed to feel freer and safer, and they shared deeper insights with me.
Because of the deep and pervasive need for transformation in most workplaces—along with the changes occurring within me and the kinds of insights people were now eager to share—I came up with a new series of interview questions.
With that, the Exploring Forward-Thinking Workplaces interview series was underway, which led to my most recent books, The Future of the Workplace and Space Beyond Boundaries.
My work will help you see new pathways, make better decisions, and be the Forward Thinking leader in the room.
Please join me on this fascinating journey and support this work by subscribing and becoming a member.
I invite you to learn more about me and my work at billfox.co.
To your forward-thinking life & success!
— Bill
Bill Fox, Author of The Future of the Workplace, and Founder at Forward Thinking Workplaces