This document discusses the concept of "H2NW" or "Het Nieuwe Werken", which refers to work flexibility and the ability to work with whom you want. It argues that professionals should have more control over where, when, what, and with whom they work. A platform called Thinkin is proposed that would allow professionals to choose who they work with on different projects and tasks, in order to get the best answers and make the most of their talents. This is framed as the next level of work flexibility called "H2NW" that benefits everyone by integrating trends around flexibility and spreading these ideas.

1. .eu
H2NW
or What if you can work with whom you want?

2. Work-flexibility, or HNW as it is called where I am from1 , is making good progress.
Sure, there is always room for improvements but the trend is irreversible.
So far we have modelled HNW round two of the questions: who, what, where, when
and how, namely where and when.
Where we work is often no longer an issue thanks to the rise of technology.
Also the when has been brought under some form of control now that professionals
are increasingly output driven. As long as they have finished their tasks on deadline.
So, what to do with “what”, “whom” and “how”?
The Dutch, have dubbed “the new way of working” or simply work-flexibility: HNW.
The Dutch acronym HNW stands for “Het Nieuwe Werken” or “the new working”.

3. What
The tackling of this question started even before we had the “new ways of working“-
technology available.
Which is not surprising since it is a slightly different kind of question.
In an organisation we have What’s at all kinds of levels.
Take a look at “what” from a CEO perspective:
"What is our business? And what should it be?“ (Peter Drucker)
At lower levels this leads to the question what should be done to create that business
in terms of markets, products/services.
The professionals that subsequently make this happen are the ones who answer the
lowest level what, the level where we find the “for want of a nail…”.
Most importantly all these what’s matter and all are best decided at the right level.

4. Whom
If, as we just saw, each what is the domain of a specific group or person, then who
should best determine the with whom-question?
Exactly, those with the responsibility to answer it.
If a CEO wants to hire an outside consultant that’s her call.
If a Marketing Director wants to hire a coach, that’s his call.
But do we allow professionals to work with whom they would like to get their what
answered. (Or their how for that matter).
Let’s have a closer look.

5. Why allocate
So why don’t so many organisations let you do this? Create ad hoc coalitions to do your
work? Rather than having to work with a preconfigured set of people. Every time.
And if you don’t choose, than who does?
This might be the core-issue here: allocation-mechanisms.
Which basic mechanisms for allocation do we have?
1. Planned allocation, one person decides for the rest
2. Market-driven allocation, people decide amongst themselves
Think a little about this one: if there was only abundance, we would not have an
allocation issue. You would not have to choose, since you can have it all.
Yet the term “war-on-talent” is a way to say: we don’t have abundance, we have to
choose. And there is not much to choose from. We have to allocate wisely.

6. Or, do we actually NOT have a war-on-talent, than?
Outside an organisation we use the market-driven allocation and call it competition,
While we for some reason use a planned allocation inside the organisation?
So we go great lengths to win the war on talent outside, which at the moment seems to
be the best thing to do.
And then we have these talented people, and then we tell them whom to work with? And
what to work on. Effectively often not using serious chunks of their talents.
Is that really clever?
But than how to do things differently?
Let me ask you a couple of questions to see what you think.

7. Questions
1. Would you be better at achieving your goals if you could chose with whom to work?
2. Would they be the same for everything you do, or would it vary per goal?
3. Would you prefer all your self-chosen co-workers to contribute to the content?
4. Would you like them to perform at their best?
5. Would you like them to help with every aspect or just the ones they know most
about?
6. Would you trust experts to rank contributions in their respective fields?
7. Would you like to receive an integrated answer based on these top-5 contributions?
With a list of runners-up added-on?

8. Answer: .....
Let me guess, there were more yeses, than no-s, right?
Since we anticipated there would be, we designed a platform around that.
.....Thinkin.
A platform where you choose with whom you work. Where you offer others a chance to
learn, and do things they know about and like.
While at the same time you get the best “what” possible.
And you test your network. As well as grow your network.
As a professional you can then build the coalitions to take the answers to the next
phase, work on them.
Get the most out of your talents.
Now let’s go back to this HNW.

9. H2NW
We take people serious.
We let them decide when to work and where.
We just looked at how they should also decide on with whom to create the best what.
Let’s take work-flexibility to a second level by integrating these trends and spread them.
Like it was a beneficial virus.
And like any good virus it should have a name. Let’s think of this 2nd level and call it:
H2NW, it’s good for everyone.

10. Thinkin is that allocation mechanism where you select your ad hoc work-partners.
It brings together the network members you chose per occasion.
They in turn may suggest other trusted members from their own network that you can
then invite too. Natural growth, so to speak.
Everyone concentrates on content rather than anything distracting from that. In total
honesty, without undue interference from non-content considerations.
Everyone learns from each other and together craft the best possible answer. Which
gets reported to you in actionable form, ranked and all: new knowledge specific to
your situation.
Get your H2NW, visit Thinkin.eu .