Working from Anywhere Morocco - 2nd edition

...An occasion series?on the modern workplace?from a hard-working consultant...

Working from Anywhere Morocco - second edition

I tried "Working from Anywhere" again this summer and thought I would share my experience and learnings. Here goes..

Background:

Many knowledge worker experts believe that remote and hybrid work are going to be an enduring part of the workplace that will have radical impacts on the workforce. I agree and I think most of the impacts have not shown yet but will unfold over the next 3-5 years. There are so many elements of this new equation to expand upon. However, I think it is useful to document some of the basic experiences to help leaders and teams think about some of the challenges and rewards of this one element.

Last year's installment: Working from Anywhere - Part 1 2021

For my second adventure, we returned to a seaside villa in Rabat Morocco. The plan was to work part of the time and vacation part of the time. From last year lessons learned, I had the basics in place: a. "Office" with a door, b. desk, c. reliable internet access, d. plan for your work. Or so I thought...

Given travel there and back on mid-week, I tried to blend work and vacation a little more seamlessly to take advantage of weekends. Big mistake and lesson learned. I struggled "turning on and turning off" work. Ended up checking email and letting meetings get scheduled for several of my days off. I have always said that you feel truly unplugged and rejuvenated if you can take 9 consecutive days away (a workweek plus the surrounding weekends. It takes a couple of days to unwind and then you typically begin thinking about work a day or two before you return. In this trip, I didn't fully unplug for a long-enough time to get that refresh/reset that I craved.

Lesson 1: Recommend if you are going to be away for an extended period that you bunch all of your vacation up at once (beginning or end of travel period may not matter). This way, you will reduce the risk of being "on" all of the time and not unwinding as much as you might need.

Travel Interlude in Chefchaoun: One of the new places we visited in Morocco was the 550 year old city Chefchaoun built into the side of the hill. It's Andalusian history and involvement with resisting both Portuguese and Spanish colonization are fascinating. Wikipedia Quite a rich history! I love the varied textures and blues. Legend supposes that citizens painted their walls blue to chase the mosquitos away. As with all Mediterranean cities, cats enjoy a special place in society neither being "owned" nor disregarded.

Chefchaoun more recently was known as a counter culture retreat and has hosted many modern day hippies and wonderers.

Back to the WFA experience: In preparation for my WFA time, I tried to delegate much of the day-to-day work to my exceptional Team of Leaders (you rock #CentricBostonOperations . !!!). Given our focus on Distributed Leadership over the past two years, this was not much of a stretch for them and they handled the additional workload with ease.... thanks so much. We are deepening our teams skills to handle growth and to allow for my succession. This "extended absence" is also a great way to encourage growth and independent decision-making on their parts.

Lesson 2: Take the WFA opportunity to challenge your leaders by delegating work to them that might be new or a stretch. This "delegation" will gives you more time to focus on strategy and them more time to expand their influence and skills.

Travel interlude #2

Below on the right, another view of the intense palate of blues that you see throughout the "medina" (old city). After 550 years, installing electricity, water, sewer and cable must have been quite a retrofit. This is evidenced by all of the access boxes outside this home. One thing I love about visiting old cities is witnessing the ingenuity of updating the old with the new. And of course the cat sleeping in the planter box so decoratively appointed. :)

Back to the WFA experience:

My intention while away was to spend quite a bit of time on "deep work". This tends to be the strategy and envisioning work that you really never make time for during the normal work week. I think I made some progress. As our Boston office goes from $15M to $30M revenue over the next four years (God willing), we will undoubtedly have a new set of challenges for our team. Some freespace/time to think about this, to draw some funky pictures in my notebook, to write down what that future state feels like; all of that was quite refreshing and worthwhile on my part. (As an aside, I ended up with two key themes that we need to focus on next year: deepening our skills and practice in Account Management and aligning our business and technology service offering leaders to grow influence and impact to our customers. Special thanks to my business partner Dima Nabokin for helping to clarify 1 and 2...) All in all, this "deep work" time was very beneficial and is helping to prepare us for our next chapter. GREAT STUFF!

Lesson 3: If you are going to do some "deep work" while away from the day-to-day, clearly define your objective before you go, produce a "deliverable" on the way back, and then engage your team to challenge you to shape and take action...

To summarize, I recommend the following for your WFA experience:

1. Bunch your vacation up at the beginning or end of your time away.
2. Challenge your next-in-line leaders to take on some of your responsibilities while away. Give them a chance to grow and finally
3. Work on something strategic while away. You rarely get such a chance...

Best wishes to all for a productive Fall season and with your next set of adventures!