✅📝 Working Together In Action
The time to remake the world of work into something that works for more of us than some of us is here.
Everywhere we turn, people are talking about or taking part in the Great Resignation after realizing they do not want to return to the office to do work they’ve done from home for the past two years.
It’s not that COVID destroyed the world of work, but it did spark a thought in people’s heads - “Can this be better?”
It’s a question I ask myself constantly: How can we work better together?
How can we reduce or eliminate the things that make traditional work environments so terrible?
Is the answer to remove as much of human bias as possible?
Or is it to double down on the traditional in-person or hybrid work environment?
I don’t think anyone has the answers to those questions, and when we do have the “answers,” I think it will vary significantly by industry, job, and company.
I plan to explore this each week as I…you guessed it…reboot this newsletter.
I hope you stick around as I try to work through what “working together” looks like in person, virtually, and in the metaverse.
🎬 Weekly Action
Quick hits on how each of us, regardless of our role, can start working better together:
🦸🏻♀️ Leaders:
There is nothing better than the feeling of accomplishment after a long day. How can you facilitate that feeling on your team? One of the easiest ways is to remove the barriers to high-impact work. many things get in the way of high-impact work - email & Slack pings, phone calls, and useless meetings, to name a few.
You can’t solve all of those in one sitting, but you can start with one. How about useless meetings? Some questions to consider:
Do you have team meetings in addition to project meetings? Do you need to?
Do you have meetings to provide status updates?
Do your meetings have agendas?
Freeing up even an hour a week is the time your team can re-dedicate to high-impact work.
🗣 Individual Contributors:
Assume the best. No one gets up in the morning deciding to make your day terrible. Instead of assuming that your co-worker in accounting is trying to ruin your life by asking questions, assume that she’s trying to deliver accurate financial results and needs your help.
🎧 What I’m Listening To, Reading, Watching This Week
The United States has 5% of the global population but 25% of the world’s incarcerated population. The majority of those incarcerated leave prison and struggle to find a job. Looking for a potential labor pool that has a high retention rate? Look at the formerly incarcerated.
Check out this podcast “When They Become Us” for more information.
When you assume negative intent, you’re angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response.
- Indra Nooyi