The Clue in the Puzzle

The Clue in the Puzzle

Over the holidays, I hung out with one of my most inspirational friends from my adolescence. We spent many hours together reliving her many escapades (and the ways in which she inspired me to ride along on her adventures), even though I will never be as brave as she is. We even giggled about her hairdos and fashions. Don’t worry, we were socially distant the whole time—Nancy Drew was safely ensconced in the covers of her mysteries that made up this year’s holiday puzzle.  

Unlike last year’s ridiculous puzzle undertaking, this year’s was not frustrating—it was fun. While no one else in my family helped, many other things did help with this puzzle. Intimately knowing the artwork of many of these covers, the ability to discern the difference between fashion across the decades, and then of course, an eye for fonts.   

At some point in the endeavor, I was struck by a thought that differed from last year’s insight.  It was at the point when you have done enough of the hard work that you notice a piece, recognize the color scheme or font, and remark, “Oh, I know where this belongs.” I started thinking about the types of Aha! moments that only come from long hours and deep thinking—a shortcut won’t get you there. It is only from studying something and understanding its nature, from having the patience to get to that point, that you can make a break-through. My mind immediately went to the scientists who developed the Covid vaccines in record time. They have spent careers doing the equivalent of 20,000 piece jigsaw puzzles. Their knowledge base far exceeded color schemes and fonts, but at the core of the development, patience.

So, I spent the rest of my time with Nancy pondering patience. What in our lives today (pre-Covid) fosters patience? In an age when many kids grow up with knowledge, entertainment, and transportation, amongst other things, at the tip of their fingers, how do we impart the value and lessons of patience to them?

We should all be extremely grateful to all the scientists who developed the Covid-19 vaccines in record time. Their patience and deep thinking was the key to solving the world’s biggest challenge.

Winning Communication

Winning Communication

Photo by Christina Morillo, from Pexels

Back in February of 2018, our blog highlighted some best in class recruiting practices. We noted that companies like Microsoft had adapted their screening and selection processes to capture the needed talent of those candidates on the autism spectrum. In so doing, they were actually employing a more robust way of screening all candidates and predicting success within a role and a company culture.

As we all continue to navigate remote working, especially in a certain Midwestern city that has had really low level clouds for several days, what if you heard that there was a place to work where you started your morning with two questions:

  • How “interactive” do you feel today?
  • What’s your energy level today?

What if you also heard that this same company listed everyone’s preferred communication and feedback preferences? Versus, you know, waiting two days for a call back and then learning someone NEVER checks their voicemail?

A recent article focused the spotlight on Ultranauts, a tech company that has engineered itself not only for remote working, but for the diverse needs of its employees—many of whom are on the autism spectrum. This company’s practices are valuable for all of us right now. Not only because they allow the workforce to absorb information in the ways that they
prefer—but because it practices the key components of good employee communications:

1. Tell them what you are going to tell them
2. Tell them
3. Tell them what you told them

AND with technology to take notes, so that no one gets stuck being the scribe!

While Ultranauts developed this culture to accommodate the sensory-overload that many on the autism spectrum experience on a daily basis, in this current environment, these practices offer a great deal to all of us who are on so many different sorts of overloads and prioritizes employee-first communications, so that all succeed—no matter what. 

525,600 Minutes … how will you measure this year? AND the ones that follow?

525,600 Minutes … how will you measure this year? AND the ones that follow?

Our last blog shared insights on what activities will drive the workplace of the future. That concept of a workplace poses a huge challenge for many managers out there.

A recent podcast by GBH’s Innovation Lab addressed what organizations must build as they are dismantling cube space: management skills, competency assessments, and performance reviews to match the new workplace. Leaders having trouble coping with remote working will benefit from this program’s insights offered by experts, Professor Nicholas Bloom of Stanford and Liz Fosslein, head of content at Humu. Each organization will need to study and then tailor a return to work hybrid model that fits their organization.

Quite often when we start work on a compensation project, one of the first questions we ask is the state of the performance management program. Too often we get guilty looks followed by hemming and hawing. As Covid-19 began to shut down the world, CHRC probably had a better understanding than most as to why the majority of managers in the US would be very uncomfortable with a remote workplace. The reason many leaders fall back on MBWA (management by walking around) is either because their organization does not have a robust performance management system and/or they have never been trained to manage in the first place. 

At the end of the day, remote work is here to stay, and even when it is safe enough to return to large office buildings, hybrid remote and in-office work policies must be developed thoughtfully, in conjunction with robust performance management systems, versus being allowed to regress back to the routines of the MBWA practitioners. For those who thrive working remotely, if the majority of their coworkers return to the office, it could be detrimental to their career and could have a disparate impact on certain groups of employees who gravitate towards working from home. Professor Bloom is emphatic that organizations be prescriptive about “days the senior management are at home,” to ensure that people can be in the office to truly collaborate and innovate, not merely to posture and curry favor with the boss, and “to prevent a promotional advantage and stress everyone out.”

Office of the Future? One size does NOT fit all

Office of the Future? One size does NOT fit all

This past year has turned our idea of the workplace inside out, upside down, and cattywampus. While many look at this year as productivity lost or teamwork put on pause, there’s also much to be gained from rethinking the idea of the workplace. Are people really most productive while sitting in their cubicle all day—sans distractions? Distractions happen wherever you are. Distractions used to be colleagues talking about fantasy football picks, latest cat photos, or extended group lunches. Now distractions are crying babies, Instacart deliveries, or unstable Zoom connections. There is no evidence that productivity suffers if not in the office. 

Workplace should mean just that, the place in which you do your work. It shouldn’t matter if it’s a cubicle, your kid’s room that has the best Wi-Fi, a Starbucks patio, or on a conference call in line for a COVID-19 test.  The pandemic has forced most of us to figure out where we get our BEST work done. 

As this fantastic article mentions, organizations must shift from “who” should be in an office to “what” should happen in a shared space. Client phone calls, creative brainstorming, cold calling, brief writing, Excel spreadsheeting—as we reimagine what the workplace is, let’s focus more on the quality of work and less on where the work is being done. Technology has allowed us to rewrite the entire premise of the office. As we move into a new year—and a continuously morphing workplace—management skills, competency assessments, and performance reviews must evolve to match.

Finding a way out of the childcare desert

Finding a way out of the childcare desert

Everyone predicted it back in the spring. We even addressed some of the childcare issues that concerned people back in May on our blog.

But, we’re still here. Summer is ending, some schools have started (even if only virtually), and the picture isn’t any prettier. Are you willing to lose one of your best workers over two hours a day? Have you ever had someone resign when their mother died? Well, get ready…

An executive was stunned by the number of times that female employees resigned when their mother died. He couldn’t figure it out. Fortunately, other females connected the dots for him:  their mothers had provided essential childcare; without mom/grandma, they could no longer work. This executive then connected other dots too. Leaving children at home, with no way to get to and from school, or no way to get to after school activities, was worth losing income and childcare.  

And all of this was Pre-Covid.

This article from HR Executive provides some ways to start thinking differently, so that you and your company might be able to be as prepared as possible, and put all those agile thinking skills to use when your star performer comes in ready to quit. Read More Here

Summer Reruns

Summer Reruns

Photo Credit: ©Jeremy Stenuit

For those of us old enough to remember when there were just three networks, summer TV meant reruns. If you had missed an episode, or had a favorite one, you didn’t mind reruns. 

In the case of our blog, we are rerunning one from January 22. We are not sure if you missed it or it was a favorite; but in retrospect, it is downright eerie. When I composed the first paragraph, it was merely an intro to an interesting article we had seen about how to make the workplace healthier and more immune from the common winter cold. We could not have imagined how life would change here in Chicago a mere seven weeks later. Now, walking around Chicago, I see more masks than I ever did when living in Tokyo.

In the early 1990s, I lived in Japan, and was taken aback the first few times I saw people get on the subway, and go about their daily business wearing surgical-type masks whenever they were sick. Over time, I started to realize what a smart practice this was. This time of year, I wish my fellow Americans would put medical masks on as they sneeze and cough spreading their germs all around. Read More Here