The Prime Minister of England is not a great fan of working from home. We know this, because in a recent interview, he said so. Boris Johnson said, “My experience of working from home is you spend an awful lot of time walking very slowly to the fridge, hacking off a small piece of cheese, then walking very slowly back to your laptop.” While the “workers don’t get anything … [Read more...]
Are Too Many Meetings Killing Your Productivity?
Maybe the most commonly stated paradox in remote work involves meetings. A paradox is defined as, “A situation, person, or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities.” So. what’s the paradox when it comes to meetings in a team of any type? The contradictory ideas at play here are: Meetings (in-person, online, or blended) are an important way of … [Read more...]
Displaying Empathy While Maintaining Standards
A few weeks back, I was leading a class on How Leaders Create and Manage Remote and Hybrid Teams. Two of the participants got into a heated exchange that was very instructive. It raised a good question: When does empathy towards your team members get in the way of managing performance? One of the participants said how much he liked seeing people when they worked from home … [Read more...]
Two Sides to the Work Flexibility Coin
by Kevin Eikenberry Recently LinkedIn was abuzz about a post from Carly Martinetti, the co-founder of PR firm Notably, as she announced the organization would not be instituting a Return to Office policy. There is plenty to cheer about and agree with in this post. And as a remote leader of a largely remote team who has written, coached, trained, and spoken widely on … [Read more...]
Is Social Time Wasted Time?
It’s NCAA Tournament time again, which means nothing to 90% of the civilized world. But here in the US it means three weeks of drama, gambling, and well-intentioned foolishness. It’s also a good time to examine the role of creatively "wasting" time with social activities at work. First, we’ll start with the supposedly bad news. According to lots of studies done every year … [Read more...]