Virtual Remote and Hybrid Checklist
Transcriber: Anna Huynh
Reviewer: Hani Eldalees
People trust and connection are at
the heart of exceptional work
and high performance in today’s workspace.
What’s going to help you thrive in
the virtual and remote world?
Hi, my name’s Jennifer Britton.
And today I want to share with you
a three part checklist that’s been
6205 days in the making.
A typical workday finds me
heading down the long road to my office.
Usually it’s dark and the sun’s
going to be up in a few hours.
I flick on the light, look to my laptop
and run through my connectivity checklist.
As I power up, up comes the familiar
photo and the bings and I’m online.
As I go to start my call, I wave
and say, “Hi, how are you?”
“Oh, I think you’re on mute.”
We can all relate, can’t we,
while on March 2020
billions of people went digital
overnight, by the end of that month,
the BBC estimated that over
a 100 countries had instituted either
a full or partial lockdown.
At the same time, it’s essential that we
reconnect people in the work space.
And it’s not just because
Zoom fatigue is real.
It’s not just because the impact of
loneliness has an equal health impact
as smoking half a pack
of cigarettes a day.
But it’s because we need each
other to be in dialogue for
the conversations that can create change.
I’ve been on a mission for the last three
decades to connect people with
the conversations that matter and the
conversations that will create change.
And it really hasn’t been that long since
we were able to connect with people
half a world away at the
click of a button.
So I want to take you back to a time
when I was a young leader,
when in those days I was leading
a team from the capital of
a South American country.
Every day we’d head down from our home
and get into our office and the first
thing we turn on was a two way radio.
That two way radio was the
lifeline of connection to
the teams that we supported in the field.
Those teams were undertaking
important work,
whether it was building a school
or undertaking health research
or undertaking environmental
research as well.
And that two way radio was
a technological lifeline,
connecting them with the resources
and tools they needed.
It was also what created exceptional
performance, grounded in trust.
So you might think, well, that was years
ago. How do we create that today?
How do we create those pivotal and vital
conversations in today’s three hundred
and sixty degree, three hundred
and sixty five day world?
Well, it’s all about connection.
So I want to take you through
a three part connectivity checklist
that’s been years in the making.
And first on my checklist is
number one people first.
It’s all about the conversation.
It’s all about bringing people
together for dialogue.
And dialogue comes from the Greek words
Dhiya analagous meaning between
or within. We need to bring
people together for
the conversations that matter,
and we need to use all the tools
that are available to us.
My guess is that you’ve been on a
lot of virtual calls recently.
Some stand out and many others
really fade away.
For those that stand out, they probably
activated what I like to call
the engagement levers. So think about how
you use polling and chat, whiteboards
and annotation and my favorite breakouts.
We can bring people’s voice into the room,
which is so critical in the remote
and hybrid world by activating
these five engagement levers.
So that takes us to number
two on the checklist,
fostering trust and safety.
We know that teams and organizations that
excel have high levels of trust
and safety, where people feel that
they can bring the real issues to
the table without fear of retribution.
When we’re in a hybrid space,
things get magnified and it’s even more
critical that we take time to connect
people to make sure that people do
feel that they know each other.
Trust is built through actions
and actions are
so much harder to see be seen
through the screen.
So what are you doing
to foster that trust
and safety while bringing all
voices into the room?
And that takes us to a future story.
I want to take you away from
the roads that used to take five days of
travel forward to another team that
I was leading. And I want to flash
forward to 2003.
When I was leading a team of exceptional
professionals for an agency of
the United Nations, we would get
a chance to connect once a year.
Those professionals who were
medical professionals and educators
and engineers. We’re working on building
or rebuilding countries.
Several of them post natural disaster.
The work was world changing.
It was very important. And so our
time together using technology
or our time together in person, which
was only a day and a half of a year,
was critical in coming together so we
could collaborate and synergize
so that we could get to know each other
and see where that overlap was.
Well, it was great
and it was great work.
And unfortunately, one day I woke up
and I felt something in my eye.
At first I didn’t really think much of it.
But then two days later, I
found myself in front of
a retinal specialist who turned
to me and said, Jennifer,
I want you to sit down. Your body has
two days to react to this medication
or you may lose your eye.
Up to that point,
I had felt that every issue
had a solution,
and like the billions of people who
had to go digital overnight,
I too had to figure out how I would thrive
in a remote space long term.
As I thought back to the many,
many hours of conversation,
what became clear was that the things that
I loved always involve technology
and the things that always had impact
usually involve very clear results
and exceptional result relationships.
We need both results and relationships.
And that takes me to item number three
on this connectivity checklist.
It’s all about the layers and it’s all
about the connection.
in the virtual space,
It’s not just one layer of connection.
We have multiple layers
And as you go on to any calls
that you have upcoming,
I want you to think about how you’re
connecting in on multiple layers.
First of all, how are you connecting
in with the topic at hand?
Next, think about how you’re connecting
people together for that dialogue,
using all the tools available.
Of course, we want to connect to the
person who’s leading the call,
but we also want to think about how
this call connects to our context.
In a hybrid world, each one of
our contexts is different.
One workspace is not the next workspace,
and it’s critical that we intentionally
design ways of working,
terms of engagement
and build that strong team culture.
As we connect we also want to think
about how we connect in with technology.
So as you go to your upcoming calls,
think about what you could be doing
to activate.
This next phase of the world of work
is going to be different.
And 78% of CEOs surveyed by BWC
agree that remote collaboration
is here to stay.
So how do we do that?
Well, we need to activate skills
like listening and questioning.
We need to build in more pause so that
we can come together for dialogue.
And we also want to figure out
how do we come together and synergize.
like I’ve shared today,
it’s about putting people first.
It’s also about ensuring that there
is the trust and safety available.
And of course,
it’s about relationships and results.
So next time, as you go to
lead your own calls,
as you think about your virtual
and hybrid work,
think about these three
fundamental principles.
Number one, people first,
it’s all about the conversation.
Number two, we need the trust and safety
to have the most important conversations
for the moment. And in order to do that,
we need to bring all voices into the
room using all the tools available.
And number three, it’s all
about the connection.
This next phase of the world of
work is going to be different.
Disconnection is not an option,
as Ray Wang says,
digital Darwinism is unkind to those
who wait as parents and students,
as business owners and leaders,
we owe it to ourselves and we owe it to
the next generation to find ways to create
more engaging digital dialogue
for learning results and relationships.
And that’s what true connectivity is.
Technology only helps us to deliver.
So whether you’re remote by choice
or hybrid by chance,
we all need to be part
of the conversation.
And I want to ask you, just like
I did at the beginning,
what will your remote and hybrid
checklist look like? Thank you.