SUMMARY:
What is the current state of working together? How can leaders compassionately and effectively help their employees work at a more sane—and effective—pace? As people start to return to a physical office space, leaders need tools to help employees thrive and establish healthier work cultures. In this episode, author and productivity expert, Juliet Funt, talks with Jason Jaggard about breaking out of the cycle of complacency and rewriting norms around waste, burnout and communication.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
EMPLOYEES ARE TIRED: The last season of working from home has pushed employees to exhaustion. Businesses need to find ways to help people recuperate.
SYMPTOMS OF BURNOUT: We start out wanting to be stellar workers, but when the sprint becomes a marathon, you can get stuck at the pace at which you’re working, and you may need help to “un-write” the “new normal”.
LEADERSHIP ANXIETY: It’s easy for leaders to become suspicious that remote people aren’t working enough. Actually, the problem isn’t that they’re not working; it’s that they aren’t living.
RETURNING TO THE OFFICE: Leaders will need to think carefully about integrating people who work from home and those who work from the office.
CYCLE OF COMPLACENCY: A typical company wastes $1 million for every 50 people in an organization. Companies need to hit some kind of “rock bottom” before they choose to address systems (email, meetings, etc.) that encourage waste.
PRO TIP–THE “YELLOW LIST”: When you have an urge to communicate with a person, you write the subject down on your yellow list for a particular person. When you have a few items on that list, you send items on the list to that person, speeding up email communication and making it more efficient.
THE “FLEX TIME TRAP”: It’s not enough to just give people “flex time” (or flexible hours); the other half of flex time is stopping to recuperate.
SYNCHRONIZED WORK, SYNCHRONIZED REST: Organizationally make agreements in your company for when people can be “off”.
TRAP YOURSELF IN A PROMISE. When you want work to be over, tell someone out loud, “Well, I’m done for the day.”
TIPS ABOUT RETURNING TO WORK:
- Take “White Space” between every meeting
- Use the W.A.I.T. technique for email (Whose Action Is This?)
PHONE NARRATION: If you must pick up your phone in a meeting, don’t just “drift” into your phone. Tell people where you’ve gone and when you’ll be back. “This is what I’m doing, and this is how long it will take.”
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RELATED LINKS:
A Minute to Think: Reclaim Creativity, Conquer Busyness, and Do Your Best Work
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