Heard in the hallways next to the water cooler (huh?): “I wish we could just get past all this bullshit of politics and meetings and everyone running around being polite while covering their ass.”
The future of work is a place where going to work doesn’t suck. And “going to work” doesn’t always involve driving to “the office.” The attitude and skills needed to master remote management and lead highly productive virtual teams are very effective at eliminating BS at work. They build trust through communication. Let’s take a look …
Start with meetings. How much money are you losing in meetings? To stop the waste, hold meetings to make decisions because then you’re focused on the future and not on “bringing everyone up to speed.” They know how to read (supposedly). Send them a link to a document before the meeting, so they’re already prepared with the background information.
Now on to emails. Start with a short sentence that states the decision or action you desire. Add some bullets and, maybe, append a document for details. But remember today, there is almost no reason to attach a document – links to shared locations and collaboration pages do just fine.
“People don’t talk like that.” Skip the business jargon and get to the point. Don’t “reach out” – just write or talk to them.
For time management, spend most of your time on the top one, two or three priorities that really matter. Use the time left over to do something fun.
Regarding work hours, force your team to take time off. Pick one day during the week where everyone works from home, and no virtual meetings are allowed. You’d be surprised at the amount of work that gets done when your team is not stuck in meeting after meeting and isn’t interrupted constantly in the cubicle forest. After all, how many people would say, “the office is the place where I go when I really need to get something done.” ?
Your presentations should tell a story. Don’t bore everyone with tons of information. Use images to create an engaging experience.
Treat the work your team does as a set of tactics you can measure and not as “it’s strategic, so we can’t measure it.” Yes, this applies to Marketing, too. ROI is becoming more and more important in marketing, and the tools available are getting better and better.
And the last point highlights the fact that people don’t work at your company for your reasons. They do it for theirs. Today everyone is a freelancer, so you need to lead by selling yourself and your vision constantly. A video from oDesk provides insight into “The Future of Work.” Let me know what you think about where the workforce is heading …