Teams

In: Leadership, Teams, Virtual Teams

Managing your team in these difficult and confusing times requires leaders to communicate effectively in ways that measures, motivates and inspires. Your team is looking to you for guidance here are seven ways to rally the troops (and they all start with R) Realistic – Be open and honest about the current complexities. It may be uncomfortable especially communicating when next steps are unclear or not decided, but honesty demonstrates respect. Real – Be your self, be vulnerable, we are all in this together. Rapid – you know we all need to be kept in the loop and that rumours fill a vacuum. So communicate with clarity about what you know now, and what you don’t it will stop people making up the rest. Responsive – Don’t wait to get back to people, don’t wait to communicate, be proactive and responsive. Repetitive – Just because you said it once doesn’tContinue Reading

In: Leadership, Teams

Synopsis of an article from The Startup by Mathilde Collin, Published 3rd May 2019 This story is about software startup – ‘FRONT‘ which is an email and collaboration platform but what they do is less important to the article, which is about the culture of the organisation. Written before CoVID this article talks to the importance of having quality one-on-one meetings. The goal is to ensure that people are working on the right things and that they properly understand the business priorities. The result very high employee engagement (NPS 97) and retention. Preparation The regular 1:1 meetings have a clear cadence, they are weekly, monthly and six monthly. And the key is to have a clear agenda that is shared with both participants before the meeting (so they can prepare appropriately) and either party can put items on the agenda at any time. Weekly meetings is focused on work; reportingContinue Reading

Best_Practices

In: Collaboration, Teams

Synopsis of an article from The Heart of Innovation by Mitch Ditkoff published 26th June 2020 In this article Mitch outlines 10 reasons why Best Practices are often not shared. Why don’t people like to share what works and the best ways to get things done. Command and controlThe hierarchy of organisations often stops sharing; because ideas shared freely and widely have potential to change the status quo. Sharing and applying those learnings from another part of the business can see credit going to a competitor, the perception of new work or re-work. Lack of a clear or compelling vision for successKeeping teams aligned and working effectively is a critical to a teams effectiveness, with out a strong impetus for change most people will stay with the traditional practices and not seek to learn or grow. Lack of a sense of interdependenceA common reason people don’t share best practices isContinue Reading

In: Culture, Leadership, Resilience, Teams, Trust

Synopsis of an article published in Root by Jim Haudan on June 22, 2020 Global communications firm Edelman produce a regular report on Trust in Institutions, Edelman Trust Barometer. The Spring 2020 update, shared results of a survey taken by people in 11 countries from April 15‒23. What is interesting is that the survey was conducted during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and government trust rose 11% to 65% (this is an all time high in the 20 years the study has been run). But only 38% of people believe business is doing well or very well at putting people before profits and only 39% believe that business is doing well or very well at protecting employees financial wellbeing. Only 29% believed that CEOs were doing an outstanding job dealing with the pandemic. So Jim Haudan asks how do you build that trust in a crisis? Re-prioritize and liveContinue Reading

In: Change, Culture, Teams, Working From Home

Article from Gallup by Jim Harter, published 1st May 2020 This article focuses on three key areas In three weeks, the percentage of US remote workers jumped from 31% to 62% Returning employees will be influenced by many factors Your remote work policies and decisions will affect employee engagement A key Gallup Research finding has been that more than half those surveyed would prefer to continue working remotely as much as possible once restrictions are lifted. There is a complex relationship between ‘remote work’ and ’employee engagement’. Employers with remote work options have the highest employee engagement. “This does not mean that high or low engagement is guaranteed in any situation. The right approach to performance development is key to optimising the employee experience, performance and wellbeing, in all situations.” https://www.gallup.com/workplace/309620/coronavirus-change-next-normal-workplace.aspxContinue Reading

fear to return to the office

In: Leadership, Teams, Working From Home

No matter what governments might think, you cannot just open the economy by press release and policy. Citizens need to feel safe in going about their usual day to day activities and its possible that many people including your employees are not there yet. In this article from Inc.com Magazine Managing Editor, Lindsay Blake talks to Peter Newell (CEO of Innovation and Problem Solving company BMNT) about how leaders might tackle this challenge. You can’t manage people’s fears but you can support them. Everyone’s situation and individual concerns and fears are different. Go deep on what returning to work looks like and all of its ramifications. Understand how people get to work including the implications of public transport. How will your company handle face to face meetings? What about employees with children that need to be monitored for home schooling? Directly address the stress your employees are going through. HaveContinue Reading

return to the office

In: Change, Leadership, Teams, Working From Home

There are lots of people starting to talk about the new normal, how they are planning to return to the workplace and reach the new normal safely. They talk about the planning, the series of steps required to reach the stable operating model. Many of these people are also looking to return to some relatable version of the past working environment. Others are seeking to balance the clear gains achieved with a remote workforce, many have seen a productivity shift that they don’t want to lose. Given all this the next step for business is not a phase at all, it will be open ended rather than a fixed plan. A better mental model is to think about developing a new “muscle”: an enterprise wide ability to absorb uncertainty and incorporate lessons into the operating model quickly. Read more of this excellent article from McKinsey and written by Mihir Mysore, BobContinue Reading

Personal Space

In: Teams, Working From Home

Vy Luu explores how different personal space is when we are all working from home. It requires a kind of boundary setting, learning the skills to respect boundaries across remote teams and a different kind of collaboration. She outlines four concepts1. Personal Space Zones2. Protecting our Space Virtually3. How to ask for Online Personal Space4. How to show respect for Virtual Space of Others at work You can (and you should) read the whole article here on Medium in the ‘Better Humans’ blog. https://medium.com/better-humans/navigating-personal-space-in-todays-virtual-environment-9dcd62028456Continue Reading