The five key ingredients of a thriving remote team

[Music]

the work from anywhere revolution has

begun

but it isn’t about where or when you

work

it’s about so much more about a decade

ago i learned that from my 11 year old

daughter

amy she was on school holidays and she

was

bored like any good pre-teen she tried

to make that my problem

and not hers i’ve worked from home all

my life so

there’s always work to do and admin that

can be done even by an 11 year old in

the business so i asked amy

if she’d like to help me with my job she

was so excited

i settled her down in front of the

computer made sure she could do the work

and left the room or at least i tried to

as i got to the door

i heard a little voice saying oh dad

we haven’t discussed payment yet

i thought i’d got away with that she

might have done it for love

but she was right we needed to negotiate

it was a decade ago and we were living

in london so i said amy

uh how about two pounds per hour how

does that sound to you

amy thought about it for a moment and

said okay dad that sounds fair

but would you mind if i worked

really slowly

how is it that an 11 year old a decade

ago has worked out something that most

companies have failed to understand

even now we shouldn’t be measuring

people by the hours that they work

or where they work we should be

measuring their

outputs that’s always been true

but covert proved that beyond a doubt

during covert a lot of managers were

asking how do i measure my team’s

productivity

i think what they really meant by that

was how can i measure

my team’s hours how can i make sure

they’re working

the hours they’re supposed to be working

how can i make sure they’re not being

lazy and being

sucked in by the three dangers of

working from home

the bed the tv and the fridge

well this is what the revolution is

about

it’s about shifting that mindset from

not measuring

where people sit when they work or how

many

hours they work for but rather by

measuring their contribution

amy was right i needed to change

back then we

need to change now some people might

think

that that’s just millennials gen z

whatever you’d like to call them they

they’re so entitled you know if they get

into the real world of work

they’ll discover what the world is

really like and then they won’t think

that way anymore

maybe other people might think this

output-based mindset

is something that was just due to covet

you know because we were working from

home during covert

that was a historical exception and it

won’t happen again and as soon as people

were able to get back to the office

they’re rushed back to the office

well i don’t think so there might be

some people who say that it’s not for

everybody

and they’re right not everybody can

choose where and when they want to work

some people have to work at a certain

space at a certain time

but i think that almost everybody can be

measured

on their outputs rather than their

inputs

and some people might just choose to

ignore the

myriad technology advances that are

rushing hurtling our way that allow us

to be more flexible and mobile than

we’ve ever been before

there are so many trends all

pointing in the same direction and

they’re

pointing at a very different workplace

a work from anywhere revolution

we we might want to call it the work

from home revolution i think it’s the

work from

anywhere revolution and it is here

and it is now it’s a fundamental shift

that i’m talking about yeah that’s why

i’m using the word revolution

it isn’t just a simple shift in

how we measure time sheets or how we

manage people it’s a fundamental

management

mind shift if we don’t do this

we have the potential of ending up in

the worst of all possible worlds

stuck at home pretending to be at the

office

and not getting the benefits of being in

either place in fact the only benefit i

can think of that kind of world

is that you wouldn’t have rush hour

traffic i mean rush hour traffic

really must be one of the dumbest things

we’ve ever done

as human beings since the invention of

the light bulb

why we thought we had to all rushed to

the office as soon as the sun came up

and then all rush home again just before

it went down

all of us at the same time

rush hour is truly stupid

but then so is measuring your employees

contribution

by the hours that they work what’s even

worse

is that over the next decade we are

going to see

an explosion of globalization

as amy and her friends

start to look for their first jobs

they’re not going to be restricted by

geography

they know for sure that they don’t have

to live in the same city

as their job in fact to be honest they

don’t even have to live in the same

time zone they don’t even have to live

in the same hemisphere

as their jobs and so they are going to

search the world

over for their job and

companies the world over are going to

look for them

if you don’t understand this you might

really

battle to find the talents that you need

so what do we do how do we respond then

to this work from anywhere revolution

well sadly there isn’t a silver bullet

there isn’t a magic

formula but the companies that i work

for and work with who are getting this

right

i think they do five things

they use all sorts of different models

uh models of motivation and team

dynamics

they use even psychological frameworks

like

the circle of courage that was designed

for at-risk

youth to bring them into a sense of

community

so there’s a lot of different things

that they do but i think that there are

five

things that they all do in common five

pillars

on which to build your work from

anywhere

workforce the first of those pillars is

belonging

this is a fairly obvious place to start

we’ve got to create a sense

of identity of team of tribe if you like

in the physical workspace that just

often comes by being in the same space

as other people

on a daily basis in a more remote

environment you’ve got to be

more deliberate about building that

belonging and you can’t just do what you

did in the physical space online you

can’t just have a

monday morning zoom meeting and think

you’ve created belonging we’ve got to

build

rituals and and rhythms that really

create a sense of belonging

even in a geographically distant world

but a sense of belonging is a good place

to start

the second pillar is mastery mastery

is about our competence and our

confidence to contribute to what the

team needs to do

and about our ability to know that we

are getting better and better all

the time this is about us and what we

give to the team and what we contribute

and again in a remote and virtual

environment

leaders might have to think about people

people who

maybe are very masterful in the way they

were doing things but now maybe don’t

have the technology skills maybe they

don’t even have the technologies

itself to be able to contribute properly

virtually that’s your task as a leader

to

build that sense of mastery

the third pillar is the pillar of

autonomy

now this is kind of the heart of the

model because this is about

letting people just get on with it and

doing

what needs to be done agreeing what

needs to be done when it needs to be

done by

what success looks like and then just

letting them

do it but it isn’t about leaving them

alone

there’s a balance that you have to find

between

giving people a sense of autonomy a

sense of agency

but then also making sure that that

sense of belonging and mastery

is integrated it’s not

every person for themself because

the fourth pillar is about generosity

and that’s about

helping others being there for others

showing

empathy and care for each other and for

the team

and extending beyond just your team

and looking at society and the community

as a whole

and having a sense of are we generous

and

impacting society around us so a sense

of generosity is the fourth pillar

and that leads to the fifth purpose

a sense of purpose now by purpose i

don’t mean

vision mission values purpose the you

know that stuff that’s on the poster in

the ceo’s office

uh what what’s on those posters again

it’s trust respect integrity

and what’s oh customer service

every company is the same it’s not those

things

by purpose i really mean a sense of

making a difference in the world the

sense of

contributing to society now of course

not every job changes the world

but maybe in this remote working

environment

you can at least give each individual in

your team a sense that

their world has a sense of purpose to

it you want to be able to give that

autonomy and mastery and be

generous in the way that you engage

people

such that they know that they can

manage their work around their lives

rather than the other way around which

is managing our lives around

our work whatever these five things

mean for you and your team in your

context

you’re gonna have to work that out for

yourself it’s different

in different places it was a little bit

easier for me i suppose

10 years ago with amy because well

she’s a member of my family and back

then she was a child

so we could do these five things with

her but now that she’s in her twenties

and she’s looking

for her first real job in the real world

those five things are still important to

her

and they’re important to all your people

we need to build a sense of belonging

a sense of mastery a sense of

autonomy a sense of generosity

and a genuine sense of purpose into

everything that we do

if we fail to do this we will discover

that the work from anywhere revolution

really really does hurt us in fact

if you don’t take the steps that are

necessary

to build these into your business

you might discover that the work from

anywhere revolution

is about where

people work from because your people

might choose to go and work somewhere

else

you