How can you create an inclusive strategic plan in a remote work environment?

Setting clear expectations is crucial at the start of strategic planning. Define the plan's purpose, scope, timeline, roles, and responsibilities. Clarify communication, collaboration, and decision-making methods. Utilize tools like Zoom, Google Docs, Miro, or Trello for meetings, brainstorming, and project management -- a communication plan outlining interaction frequency, modes, and agendas is also essential for streamlined and effective planning.

Steve Jobs once argued, "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do." As an admin, I embrace this philosophy from the outset, initiating the process with new talent as early as the first interview. For instance, during onboarding at Dopple Labs, we pose a critical question to all new hires: "What is one growth strategy you would implement if you were us as a lean startup?" Notably, many of these suggestions have been put into practice immediately, with compelling results. When I consider the proportion of knowledge I acquire from different sources, one of the main fonts of insight is that of my employees and team members.

Strategic planning involves team engagement, drawing from management principles of participation and continuous improvement. Inclusive feedback mechanisms and open communication practices foster a motivated workforce, aligning with effective leadership and teamwork principles, and contribute to a stronger, more successful strategic plan execution.

"Inclusion" of all team members for sharing the ideas, inviting for brainstorming sessions, survey, Polls etc. is the way to feel the team members to make them comfortable to share the ideas, feedback, opinions on different subjects. This will definitely help to execute the strategic plan successfully.

A base de qualquer planejamento assertivo é ouvir a equipe, pois assim será possível ter uma ótica de todos os angulos, gerando maior eficiência nos resultados. Um bom líder n?o é aquele que decide tudo, mas o que garante boas decis?es.

My favorite analogy about diversity and inclusion is, "Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance." When dealing with a remote workforce, it's even more important to be intentional about both. Out of sight, out of mind is all to common at some companies. This can impact things since remote workers tend to be a more diverse population than those that spend more time in the office. Make the effort to actively include your remote workforce to ensure everyone is represented.

Diversity in demographics when hiring for your company is crucial and well-proven. This is because a diversity of perspectives is invaluable when it comes to problem-solving. Therefore, when recruiting new talent, we ought to be assessing one's perspective to see if their unique insight could present new approaches and new thinking. At Dopple Labs, we take this to heart and have created interview questions, designed to identify anomalous perspectives. For potential new prompt engineers, we ask them to devise a ChatGPT prompt for: You are working on an LLM used for generating creative writing prompts. Current prompts are too repetitive and lack diversity. How would you employ prompt engineering techniques to address this issue?

Monitoring employee satisfaction and retention metrics, both objective and subjective feedback, is highly pertinent for a remote work environment because you can't rely on your direct in-person experience and intuition. Although, we do employ feedback surveys for employees and while they are helpful in painting a picture with a broad brush, I have found that the best method is to meet face-to-face on Zoom or Google Meets and ask open-ended questions. Open-ended questions, such as "What do you see when you think of your future career?" inspire the person to insert as much of their self as possible, shedding light on their true feelings.

In a remote work environment, communication can easily be misconstrued. Be clear, transparent and consistent in your messaging. Use multiple communication channels - emails, video meetings, instant messaging - to cater to different communication styles. On the other hand, it's a continuous process that requires commitment and action from everyone in the organization. You need to create an inclusive strategic plan that respects and values the unique contributions of all team members, no matter where they're located.