Ready for 'Hybrid Working'?

How are you intending to work as a team over the next six months, and beyond?

As workplaces start to open up again, it's a question on everyone's lips. Regardless of your experience over the last year working remotely, change is coming (again). How are you feeling about this?

On the one hand, we have David Solomon, the Goldman Sachs chief exec, looking to correct the ‘aberration’ of home work ‘as quickly as possible.’ On the other, we have everyone else (as far as I can tell), for whom the idea of five days a week in the office has become almost inconceivable.

An opportunity for redesign

This next phase presents a compelling opportunity. Never before has this working population experienced a disruption of this scale. As challenging as it's been, it now presents an invitation to rethink and redesign the way we work together.

We're being asked a long overdue question: How would you like to work?

One thing's for sure - we need to be incredibly careful to not slip back to old ways that didn't work, simply because they were the old ways. Before the pandemic, many of the standard working practices for individuals, teams and businesses were far from optimal (I do have some insight here; I’ve spent the last ten years helping teams and businesses work more effectively).

As we navigate this imminent next phase, we need to do so consciously and deliberately, and design our future experience, and the rules of engagement with work, based on what we think will be optimal for everyone.

It's not just individual productivity and team collaboration we need to consider, it's also people's emotional well-being. Recent years have seen employee well-being rise up the corporate agenda, but the last twelve months have made it paramount. As a recent article in the New York Times highlights, many people are anxious about the prospect of returning to work. We need to be highly sensitive to people's mental health and emotional well-being, as we consider the expectations we can have on our teams and colleagues.

The solution (and the hope)

The answers here will of course vary from one team to the next. But to have any chance of success, it will require a deep desire to understand the wants and needs of others, ongoing and collaborative consultation, and leadership that is more empathic and compassionate than ever (David Solomon, take note).

If we can introduce greater compassion into our leadership styles, and ultimately into our business models, perhaps this pandemic will have had some silver linings after all.

Reflective Questions

For now, I would encourage a bit of personal and team reflection (before it’s too late).

Here are three simple questions to help you and your team create a future that serves as an evolutionary upgrade.

• Q1: What are the changes in your experience (at work or otherwise) that have happened over the past 12 months you want to KEEP HOLD OF?

For me, I have come to appreciate less international travel for work, less time commuting, workshops facilitated over Zoom as the default (this surprises me), the blissfully easy hangouts with friends and colleagues distributed all over the world, my daily walks in Victoria park, my daily lunches with my partner…There’s no doubt these things have improved my productivity and my well-being, and I’ll fight to keep them.

• Q2: What are the things that have been absent (at work or otherwise) that you would like to REINTRODUCE?

A long 'personal' list, for sure - for me, hugging my parents, seeing friends, laughing with strangers, live music (live anything), loud music, surfing, exploring other countries, restaurants, pubs, spontaneity...

And for my work, there's facilitating leadership off-sites (actually off-site), running workshops in a room together (occasionally), getting together with the clients that are friends. A pretty small list, it turns out.

• Q3: What else would you like to Start / Stop / Do More / Do Less?

This is a question I ask every quarter anyway, and I'd encourage you (and your team) to do the same.

Brainstorm all four categories (Start, Stop, More, Less). Prioritise 1-3 changes. Implement, then review again in a month.

Ongoing iteration

Successfully designing and implementing a new way of working, that works for everyone, will not be done at the first attempt. It will need iteration over time, and this will need to be operationalised - for example, monthly manager 'labs': facilitated sessions, collaborating to assess what's going on, then working strategically to improve the system. Aim for marginal gains and enhancement over time: a process of cumulative adaptation.

Final words

The coming months will continue to be emotional, and the words we use may have more of an impact than we realise.

• 'Returning to work'? - No thanks
• 'Back to normal'? - Oof, really?
• 'Back' to anything? - Can't we go forward instead?

Here's to moving forward together, with greater intention and more compassion.

See you in the pub ??

Phil, BrainWorkshops

I help teams transform their performance and productivity, develop their creative thinking and build their resilience through the application of neuroscience and psychological research.