Agile teams are built on the core principle that flexibility — to find the most effective configuration of resources and capabilities — can provide an important competitive advantage. Agile work is built on a few key principles: Teams are small to enable fast decision-making and high productivity; teams use quick experiments to capture feedback from internal or external customers and then make decisions; and team members meet daily.

The Agile Team

The premise of agile teams is based on the collaborators all being in the same physical location. In fact, the document that introduced and codified the concept.  The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.The belief is that face-to-face communication makes teams more agile because it eliminates confusion and overhead often caused by documentation. Face-to-face conversation has been seen as the gold standard that can resolve misunderstandings on the spot in real time.

Works Great In Face-To-Face Setting In The Same Physical Location

To maintain the short and efficient meeting processes that agile approaches require, just send out a simple agenda prior to virtual meetings or ask team members to reflect on key items before convening.Asking team members to jot down thoughts on a shared platform prior to group brainstorming is an important shift to make in remote agile collaboration. As an initial step in proposing ideas, a team could use any asynchronous form of communication that it may be accustomed to.When the team convenes, members can immediately start appraising the ideas jotted down before.

Remote Agile Teams: Prepare Alone but End in Sync

Using asynchronous collaboration tools, such as Google Docs, allows the team to constantly iterate without the guardrails or boundaries of a conventional in-person workday. Team members can make comments or suggestions in a shared document whenever a thought comes to them on their own time, rather than waiting to broach the subject with colleagues in the office during scheduled meetings or when a colleague doesn’t appear to be busy.Shared documents can be a particularly useful way to socialize an idea and get a team to make a quick decision on it.

Brainstorm in Shared Documents

For in-person teams, it is customary to have someone present their work in the stand-up and people chime in directly on each piece of work. This hardly works in virtual meetings.Remote work requires new customs for these daily stand-up meetings, and a little more orchestration is needed. One option is to give each person a dedicated time to speak without interruption before handing the virtual baton to the next person. This approach eliminates the problem of people unintentionally talking over one another or waiting to read a virtual room that is not readable.

Streamline Huddles

One challenge that larger agile teams of up to 10 people encounter when working virtually is providing easy input without interrupting or speaking simultaneously. Reducing the number of people involved in a virtual huddle in the early stages of a project can help focus communication. Holding meetings with a small, cross-functional group to include, for example, one engineer, one project manager, and one designer can accelerate decision-making as well. Once the smaller group has reached some preliminaries, more people can be brought in.

Less Number Of People In A Huddle

Remote teams should establish norms that identify which digital communication platforms are most appropriate for certain forms of correspondence. Email may be most suitable for formal but non-urgent requests, while instant mobile messaging may be more appropriate for informal but urgent requests.Phone calls can be used for quick check-ins. Working remotely, using one’s mobile phone to call a team member becomes a replacement for the quick cubicle check-in, with slower and more laborious texting relegated to matters requiring little to no back-and-forth discussion.

Set Clear Digital Norms

Because virtual communication can occur at any hour of the day or night, whereas face-to-face interaction at an office is bounded by more standardized work hours, it’s important for managers to establish guidelines on when to communicate — and more importantly, when not to communicate — to preserve the boundaries between work and non-work responsibilities.

Setting Boundaries In Global Remote Teams

Team members talk with one another rather than directing comments upstream to a supervisor or manager. The agile process has retrospective reviews built into the end of each work segment — or “sprints” — during which team members put up anonymous Post-it notes on an office wall stating what they liked about the experience, what they didn’t like, ideas sparked and things to celebrate.However, honesty, trust and candid communication are not always easy to maintain for intimate, in-person teams and can be even more difficult for agile teams that are remote, large, numerous (or all three).

Solicit Anonymous Feedback

Yes, virtual collaboration can be just as creative and productive as in-person collaboration! Just follow this advice from hybrid and remote work expert Tsedal Neeley PhD.

communication

Communication

teamwork

Teamwork

5 practices to help remote teams minimize confusion and maximize innovation

The know-it-all. Almost every office has (at least) one. You know, someone who thinks they are an expert in all things, from the annual company report to canine dental hygiene, it’s apparently within their wheelhouse. And as such, you have to know how to deal with a know-it-all.

That Know-it-all- Person

You need to keep your aggravation in check. As soon as you see the know-it-all co-worker’s mouth open, resist the urge to roll your eyes into the back of your head. Instead, try to find some common ground. Focusing on what you both agree on, it’ll make it easier for you to hear the other person out.This also helps to clear away any negative emotions and lets you listen without an agenda, putting you in a position to learn why the know-it-all chooses to constantly self-promote.By understanding what triggers the know-it-all response, you’ll know how to avoid tripping that wire.

Empathize with The Know-It-All

Contrary to what the know-it-all might think, she doesn’t, in fact, know everything. But if she’s working alongside you, she (hopefully) has strong skill sets, which earned her a seat at the table. Suggest that she be in charge of one branch of a project (budget, contracts, etc.), so that she can flex her muscles without infringing on others’ responsibilities. This gives them a sense of ownership and authority in this particular area, which can make them more amenable to other people’s leadership in other areas.

Utilize Their Strengths

Address the elephant in the conference room. When you know you’re going to have to work with an office know-it-all on a project (and are totally dreading it), have an honest conversation about working together.Being very direct can be a big help. Don’t argue or look to butt heads, as that will only frustrate both of you. Offer your ideas in team meetings, but don’t make it your goal to rebut their ideas. Simply state another possibility or alternate perspective of the issue, without making it competitive.

Strive for Collaboration—Not Competition

The know-it-all—every office has one. You know, someone who thinks they’re an expert in all things. And as such, you have to know how to deal with a know-it-all.

career

Career

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

How to Deal with a Know-It-All at Work

Many leaders know that employee perspectives are vital for retention and innovation, but they struggle to create a culture where employees can voice their ideas and see them through. There are several tactics leaders and their teams can use to ensure good ideas are implemented.

Many leaders feel stuck

Good intentions are not enough when it comes to implementing employees' ideas. People are encouraged to share ideas, but leaders often find many reasons for rejecting them. Research shows that asking people to share ideas that don't go anywhere can discourage employees and even cause them to quit. Lower-power team members can have their voiced ideas reach implementation with the help of a collective, social process named voice cultivation. Five tactics can resuscitate initially rejected ideas: Amplifying, developing, legitimizing, exemplifying and issue-raising.

Voice cultivation

Publicly repeating someone else's good idea can help push an idea forward. This is particularly true for those trying to influence authority figures. For example, a nurse shared how overwhelmed she was with clinic calls that limited her in-clinic nursing work. The doctor thanked her for her proposed strategies but rejected her idea because the problem was too big and "couldn't be fixed." The idea lingered and other team members kept bringing up the nurses' idea. Eventually, they started experimenting with different strategies.

Amplifying

Sometimes giving an idea the benefit of the doubt is enough. Asking clarifying questions can help team members and others better understand the ideas. The difficulties and opportunities posed by an idea that stands out to some team members may be invisible to others. Developing one another’s ideas helps make them understandable across the team.

Developing

Vouching for ideas you believe is essential for success. Team members can keep ideas alive by sharing examples of a similar personal experience, sharing how a similar idea worked at a competitor, or by describing how the idea could be beneficial to their organisation.

Legitimizing

An idea that was previously rejected can be revived by showing preliminary evidence that the idea is feasible and important. If you're lower in the organisational hierarchy, take the initiative to demonstrate in small ways how an idea can work in practice or collect data that can prompt discussions to keep an idea alive.

Exemplifying

Supporting an idea does not mean unconditional support. Publicly mentioning the weaknesses associated with an idea can also keep it alive by giving allies the chance to openly create solutions and address concerns directly. Issue-raising is about acknowledging that an idea might take time and work to find its footing.

Issue-raising

To ensure employees' good ideas get a better chance at implementation, leaders can introduce voice cultivation to their teams. <ul><li>Set the tone so that team members can build each other up.</li><li>Promote teamwork rather than competition by rewarding team members when they develop other's good ideas.</li><li>Provide practical behaviours the team can engage in</li><li>Create accountability structures outside of the leaders’ good intentions.</li><li>Give meaning to critical issues that others may lack the language to articulate.</li><li>Voice cultivating tactics are most powerful when employees know why an idea was initially rejected.</li></ul>

Promoting voice cultivation

Many leaders feel stuck. They know that employee perspectives are crucial for retention and innovation, but they struggle to single-handedly create a culture where employees are empowered both to speak up with ideas and to see them through — where it’s the good idea that matters, rather than the role or status of the person who initially raises it. Based on their research on “voice cultivation” — the collective, social process through which employees help lower-power team members’ voiced ideas reach implementation — the authors have identified several tactics leaders and their teams can use to help ensure good ideas make it to implementation: amplifying, developing, legitimizing, exemplifying, and issue-raising.

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

How the Best Teams Keep Good Ideas Alive

If you're chasing the startup dragon, one of the most important decisions to make will be choosing the right co-founder(s). Here are some extremely valuable lessons that I wish I would've known years ago: Co-founder dating and finding success by partnering with the right people.

Co-Founder Dating

<ul><li>Increase awareness and attract more potential co-founders.</li><li>Reach out to your existing network.</li><li>LinkedIn, former colleagues, existing advisors, etc.</li><li>Join related communities - the more niche the better - and engage with people.</li><li>Explore accelerator, incubator, and startup programs.</li><li>Consideration.</li></ul>

Awareness

<ul><li>Open up your DMs and prep your calendars.</li><li>The main goal of this phase is to get a feel for each other and to ensure that you're aligned on what I refer to as hard constraints.</li><li>A hard constraint is a factor which is a must-have for you to work together.</li><li>Soft constraints are factors which are nice to have but not deal breakers.</li></ul>

Consideration

Only want to partner with co-founders who have a strong intrinsic motivation to work on the same problem, space, and target audience. Ask the following questions:<ul><li>How much equity are you both expecting?</li><li>Are you looking to raise VC or bootstrap? </li><li>What's your timeline? What are your expectations on full-time vs part-time? </li><li>Are you open to joining an accelerator / incubator? </li><li>What type of company do you want to build in 5 years?</li><li>Would this person make a great employee or an advisor or co-founder, etc.?</li><li>Does this person have a solid understanding of how the game works?</li></ul>

Alignment: Vision And Expectations

<ul><li>You need to trust this person to have your back no matter what.</li><li>Would I be excited to hang out with this person outside of work?</li><li>Does this person have an ego? Is this person genuinely interested in getting to know you? Is there a conflict of interest?</li></ul>

Vibe, Trust, and Culture Fit

<ul><li>Soft constraints that are not deal-breakers.</li><li>complementary skillsets.</li><li>good background on paper.</li><li>solid network access to funding.</li><li>geographical location.</li></ul>Don’t deviate too far from these broad strokes.Remember that joining hands as co-founders is an important decision.

Nice To Have In The Deal

<ul><li>Put together and share some initial thoughts & research ahead of time.</li><li>Immediately stand out from any other networking meetings they're having.</li><li>Set the tone upfront that you know what you're talking about, that you care about this space, and that you value their time.</li></ul>

Pro Tips

The main goal of this phase is to get a feel for how well you work together in practice, what your respective roles might end up being, and whether you like spending time with this person.Scoping out a few time-boxed project ideas will give you a sense of the other person's proactiveness. You can ask yourself:Is this person proactive or are you leading the way?

Collaboration

<ul><li>The final stage of the co-founder dating process is actually joining together as partners.</li><li>You make a commitment to building a company together.</li></ul>Are you confident that you can trust them to have your back when nobody else does?If you can answer this question in the positive then you can take a leap of faith and make a go of things together.

The Final Decision

If you’re chasing the startup dragon, one of the most important decisions to make will be choosing the right co-founder(s). Every potential co-founder relationship is different, but after going…

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

startup

Startups

A Guide to Finding Awesome Co-Founders

History has shown that cooperation is reliable under the right conditions and with the right people, even under the most trying circumstances. However, the capacity to cooperate is not universal, nor is it easy to put into practice.

Cooperative efforts are short-lived

Research shows it is nearly impossible to support reliable cooperation. We can encourage better cooperation by turning our attention to the possibility of new alliances. It encourages us to recognize the collective identity and efforts. Creative activities with others make us better equipped for the uncertain future. Our new friends and allies will work with us to ensure a positive outcome.

Making Cooperation More Reliable

It is vital to approach cooperation as a potentially transformative encounter, not as a sacrifice. There are three motivations behind our willingness to meaningfully cooperate:<ol><li>A moral motivation that is tied to our values.</li><li>A relational motivation to start and maintain a satisfying personal relationship with somebody.</li><li>An economic motivation to enrich or avoid loss.</li></ol>

Understanding What Motivates


When morally motivated, we cooperate based on how well the situation aligns with our personal values. However, when relationally motivated, we cooperate because we want and expect to maintain a satisfying personal relationship. We want to ensure that our relationship will grow stronger. This means that our perceived obligations to others can override our value systems.

Pals or Principles

Cooperation often has a short shelf-life. Understanding what motivates us in social exchanges can help us cooperate better with one another in our professional and personal lives.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

How Cooperation Becomes Transformative

Researchers predict 73% of teams will include remote workers by 2028, but few companies make building and maintaining their culture with all workers – including virtual ones – a priority. Companies with remote teams should proactively create a connected culture. When you create a positive company culture, you do more than make work more enjoyable – you gain a big competitive advantage. Companies with cultures that foster employee engagement see nearly 60% more revenue per worker than average.

Remote Work: The Premise

<ul><li>Building a strong virtual culture hinges on trusting your workers.</li><li>Align your virtual culture with your core values and operating philosophy.</li><li>Invest time in screening new hires to make sure they fit your culture.</li><li>Create a training program to spread your culture, and appoint cultural ambassadors.</li><li>Encourage vulnerability to strengthen virtual relationships.</li><li>Use internal and external feedback to assess your corporate culture.</li><li>Enhance your virtual culture by investing in a collaboration tool.</li><li>Become a better virtual worker by adopting healthy habits.</li></ul>

Key Takeaways

Culture is the personality of a company. It defines the environment in which employees work and includes both the spoken and unspoken rules for how things get done in a company.A positive virtual culture requires trust. Employers may worry that their remote workers will underperform, but, in reality, remote workers often work harder than office workers. You don’t need to micromanage employees who work from their homes. Instead, check on their progress regularly so you discover any problems early.

Defining Company Culture

Treat remote workers as responsible adults, giving them autonomy and flexibility.This policy will contribute to their happiness and, in turn, they will feel a greater sense of loyalty to your company, thus building the foundations of a positive culture. Companies that have cultures rooted in trust see several benefits, including a 50% decrease in turnover rates, better stock market performance, and increased worker productivity, innovation and engagement.

Building a Strong Virtual Culture Hinges on Trusting Your Workers

The culture you create reflects the rules – both official and unspoken – that your company embraces. Before you create a virtual culture, reflect on your current culture. Ask why you provide the services or products you offer and what core values inform the decisions people make at your company. Examine your traditions – which can encompass anything from how you celebrate wins to what leisure activities team members enjoy together. All these things reinforce your culture and values.

Align Your Virtual Culture with Your Core Values and Operating Philosophy

After you identify and redefine your culture, start adding in virtual components. Everything your company does, from the way you conduct sales calls to the collaboration tools you use, should align with your core culture. Try to be flexible. Understand that remote workers will have different distractions – children interrupting, doorbells ringing – than office workers. Prioritize moments of human connection among your remote workers. For example, you might create space for informal chats before virtual meetings and encourage – but not require – people to turn on their videos.

Adding Virtual Components

Consider which aspects of your virtual and core cultures you can and can’t teach, then hire people who already possess the cultural aspects you value but couldn't teach, the intrinsic aspects of your culture. For example, teaching someone to be kind isn’t easy, so if you and your culture value this trait, screen potential hires to make sure they act with kindness. The teachable aspects of your culture, by contrast, might include certain skills and a core of knowledge about work-related topics, such as delivering projects to clients or working from home more efficiently.

Invest Time in Screening New Hires to Make Sure They Fit Your Culture

Few businesses train workers in their culture – more than 60% of companies don’t mention their culture when onboarding new employees. If you want your workers to embody your culture, teach them about it. Consider creating a culture curriculum highlighting the cultural traits you prioritize, such as diversity or collaboration. If you want a great culture, you have to actually tell your employees what your culture is and what it means to live up to it.

Create a Training Program to Spread Your Culture, and Appoint Cultural Ambassadors

<ul><li>Make both in-person and virtual learning methods available to workers, since people have different learning styles – some may prefer learning at home, while others prefer learning in a group. </li><li>Hire leaders who embrace your cultural values in their own lives to serve as role models. </li><li>Consider investing in mentorship programs for new leaders to guide them as they learn to adapt to your culture.</li></ul>

Tailor To Different Learning Styles

<ul><li>Enable employees to share your culture by inviting a select group of people from varying career levels to serve as cultural ambassadors and share your company culture. </li><li>Make ambassadors responsible for identifying charities your company can support, organizing internal events such as hackathons and providing feedback on decisions that could affect your culture. </li></ul>

Culture Sharing

Virtual relationships can develop into strong connections, just as in-person relationships do in the office, but remote connections may require extra effort. Create strong relationships by making an effort to be vulnerable and encouraging team members to do the same. When people display vulnerability, it triggers oxytocin production in those around them, increasing cooperation and feelings of empathy and trust.

Encourage Vulnerability to Strengthen Virtual Relationships

Consider bringing more of your personality to work: Perhaps you could craft a clever auto-reply or share small details about your life to help your colleagues feel a greater connection with you. Leave time for people to chat about non-work topics before virtual meetings to encourage distant team members to get to know one another. For example, the virtual call’s facilitator could spur conversation by asking a lighthearted question that prompts people to share details about themselves before the meeting.

Bring Your Personality To Work

Vulnerability is the secret ingredient and shortest route to building any strong, collaborative relationship, whether your relationship is strictly virtual or in person.

Be mindful that misunderstandings can cause conflicts during remote meetings since people have more difficulty interpreting one another’s tone of voice or body language in virtual communication settings. <ul><li>Proactively manage conflict by taking extra time to connect with people. </li><li>If you suspect that someone is upset, check-in via video chat or phone call.  </li><li>Decide how often you’d like your team to meet in person – if doing so is feasible. </li><li>If you don’t have a physical office space, consider cost-effective free spaces, such as coffee shops or restaurants.</li></ul>

Virtual Misunderstandings

Use all available metrics to measure your corporate culture. Figure out how frequently you’ll gather feedback on your culture and which sources you’ll draw from to make sure you have at least one quantifiable metric you can study over time. External sources – such as web platforms like Glassdoor that allow people to rate their employers – as well as internal feedback systems that use anonymous employee surveys are potent forms of data.

Use Internal and External Feedback to Assess Your Corporate Culture

Take time to enhance your culture by finding the best collaboration tool(Slack, Teams etc.) to facilitate internal communication and cooperation in your organization. Employees can become frustrated if they lack effective methods for connecting with one another and streamlining their workflow.The right collaboration platform builds your virtual culture, creates community, connects new hires to your culture, breaks down silos, facilitates multigenerational collaboration, creates greater transparency, improves employee engagement and collects data on how people collaborate.

Enhance Your Virtual Culture by Investing in A Collaboration Tool

Establish boundaries – Contrary to popular belief, many remote workers work too much.Choose your workspace carefully – Work somewhere with minimal distractions. Schedule time for breaks – Take time for activities, such as exercising at midday.Create your own schedule – Figure out the times of day when you are most productive.Don’t isolate yourself – Take time to connect with your co-workers, either virtually or in person.Stay present and focused – Don’t try to multitask during conference calls.Build relationships – Get to know your teammates virtually.

Become a Better Virtual Worker by Adopting Healthy Habits

The lifting of pandemic-era restrictions paves the way for millions of workers to return to their offices. For many employees, however, this is not an attractive prospect. And considering that talent is scarce, employers must think twice about ordering people back full-time.

Virtual work isn't the model of the future-it's here now. But many companies struggle with setting their employees free from the office without sacrificing culture. Centric Consulting president Larry English is here to guide the way. Twenty years ago, Larry and his friends weren't happy in their consulting jobs. The long hours took a serious toll on their personal lives. So they built their own company where employees could work virtually and the culture would contribute to both the business's success and employee happiness. Since then, Centric Consulting has expanded to over 1,000 team members with operations in 12 US cities and India-and everyone works remotely some or most of the time. As Larry unpacks everything he's discovered about creating and sustaining a culture of collaborative teams, you'll learn: How and why you need to cultivate an atmosphere of trust in a virtual environment How to recruit and hire team members for remote work How to build strong relationships with people you don't see every day How to scale your virtual company without sacrificing culture How the right software tools can help build culture How to be a great virtual team member Sprinkled with funny, insightful stories from Larry and other Centric employees, Office Optional: How to Build a Connected Culture with Virtual Teams is the ultimate guidebook to remote work and a successful virtual culture.

remotework

Remote Work

books

Books

Virtual work isn't the model of the future-it's here now. But many companies struggle with setting their employees free from the office without sacrificing culture. Centric Consulting president Larry English is here to guide the way. Twenty years ago, Larry and his friends weren't happy in their consulting jobs. The long hours took a serious toll on their personal lives. So they built their own company where employees could work virtually and the culture would contribute to both the business's success and employee happiness. Since then, Centric Consulting has expanded to over 1,000 team members with operations in 12 US cities and India-and everyone works remotely some or most of the time. As Larry unpacks everything he's discovered about creating and sustaining a culture of collaborative teams, you'll learn: How and why you need to cultivate an atmosphere of trust in a virtual environmentHow to recruit and hire team members for remote workHow to build strong relationships with people you don't see every dayHow to scale your virtual company without sacrificing cultureHow the right software tools can help build cultureHow to be a great virtual team member Sprinkled with funny, insightful stories from Larry and other Centric employees, Office Optional: How to Build a Connected Culture with Virtual Teams is the ultimate guidebook to remote work and a successful virtual culture.

Larry English

Office Optional

During the last 20 years, the agile movement that originated from the Agile Manifesto has gained momentum, even outside of software development.
Most organizations report that their agile efforts have paid off in terms of speed, quality, value, and long-term growth. However, about half of organizations that undertake agile transformations fail in their attempts.
If your team has yet to reap the rewards of agile, you need to understand what’s preventing you from delivering fast, frictionless and scalable solutions.

Successful agile teams

While agile processes and tools provide support, the primary mechanism is how team members interact.
Can team members interact with conflicting ideas, talk and listen, give and take, question and answer, analyse and solve? Or do they censor one another and end up withdrawing themselves?
If you drop agile tools and processes into a legacy culture where individuals are criticised, embarrassed, discouraged, or intimidated, they stop being agile.

Processes and tools are scaffolding

When organisations implement agile, they often revert to technical processes and tools because cultural considerations are difficult to put into practice. It's easier only to pay lip service to the human side and then move to processes with measurable and observable indicators that give the illusion of agile.
Start by framing agile as a cultural rather than a technical or mechanical implementation. Be careful not to approach culture as the completion of tasks. Culture can't be completed.

Frame agile as a cultural implementation

Meet with your team to identify vulnerable behaviours they think are vital to success. For example, asking questions, giving feedback or expressing different viewpoints. Then, identify positive response patterns for each behaviour, such as thanking someone for pointing out vulnerable behaviour. Document the behaviour and response pairing and display them in your meeting room. Create a printed job aid of the list that team members can carry with them.

Develop, document, and display vulnerable behavior/response pairings.

When you've jointly created a list of vulnerable behaviour/response pairings, pick one to practice. If a gap appears between the vulnerable behaviour, the response it should receive and the team leader's own behaviour, the dissonance will breed cynicism and lessen credibility. If a leader tries to model the behaviours and publicly acknowledges mistakes, the team will make progress.

Focus on one behavior and practice cultural accountability

Set time aside in a meeting to review what went well and what could be improved. <ul><li>Discuss the quality of the team's interactions.</li><li>Identify potential threats to openness.</li><li>Ask if they felt included in the process.</li><li>What was the most vulnerable behaviour they engaged in?</li><li>How did the team react to it?</li><li>Did you hold back on anything because you didn't feel safe?</li></ul>

Formally evaluate your dialogic process

Scrum meetings are daily coordination meetings where team members review the backlog, identify problems, and prioritize tasks. They are short meetings used for reflection.
For example, if a team faces a complex issue, they pose a question about the problem and ask the team to come prepared to the next scrum meeting to discuss it. This allows the team to clarify their thoughts and encourages divergent thinking.

Conclude your scrum with a “question/reflection"

Want to build a high-performing team? Start with creating a safer work evironment

problemsolving

Problem Solving

Fostering Psychological Safety In The Workplace

Scrums and kanbans can’t help you if you’ve got a legacy culture that punishes vulnerability.

Agile Doesn’t Work Without Psychological Safety

Alignment is “a state of agreement or cooperation among persons or groups with a common cause or viewpoint.” When your organization nails it, all employees—from entry-level to your leadership team—share and act on your vision.Organizational alignment is the glue to performance excellence. It’s the absolute compatibility between paths, both strategic (goals, objectives, and activities) and cultural (values, practices, and behaviors).

Organizational Alignment

Organizational alignment requires communication and leadership. If that’s done well then employees don’t need to be in an office together from 9-to-5, Monday to Friday, to maintain that alignment. People want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. If an organization shares its vision broadly, and managers distill down to individual contributor level how their actions contribute to that vision, employees’ location shouldn’t matter.

Organizational Alignment Is Changing With Hybrid/Remote Teams

The keys to success in a remote world:<ul><li>Have a great culture of collaboration and teamwork</li><li>Be open and transparent with your team</li><li>Hire people who care about doing great work and are value-aligned</li><li>Keep your team engaged</li><li>Provide the tools and systems to make it work.</li></ul>

Remote Controlling

Excellent leadership and management are essential for employees to be connected to an organization in remote and hybrid times. Communication for connection is key and managers who are empathetic and understanding—as well as solid communicators—will be the anchors for future success. Leaders needed to step up to create and keep the continuity of the connection.

The Need For Great Management

Flexibility is the new currency in the workplace between employees and employers. The result is a more balanced, happier employee who can focus on the needs of the business versus hours worked. Employees would have flexibility in framing their work, so long as they complete the tasks deliver the results expected of them.  For the model to be a success, the high levels of trust that have been established between employees and employers during the pandemic must continue.The ultimate goal of providing flexibility and instilling high levels of trust is to impact the well-being of employees.

The Future is Hybrid

How aligned is your organization? As a leader, you know that strategy, organizational capability, and resources matter, but do you know how to ensure they’re aligned?

Organizational Alignment: How to Get it Right

These bumps in the road are a normal part of work, but if you manage them poorly, they can reduce your level of trustworthiness and damage your reputation.
As we start heading back into the office and figuring out what our “new normal” will be, the likelihood of miscommunications and mistakes is high. With everything in a state of flux, you are almost guaranteed to encounter moments of misalignment.

Everyone makes mistakes at work

Once you are aware of the mistake you have made, try to get in front of the situation before it spirals.
Being proactive about addressing whatever took place demonstrates your awareness of the problem and relieves others from the potential discomfort of bringing it to your attention.

Be proactive

Offer a genuine and humble apology, acknowledging your error and the harm you caused to the other person, team, or the business.
Don’t be defensive or make your apology about yourself. What other people care about is your impact, not your intent.
For example, don’t respond by saying, "I am sorry if you feel that way." Using the word “if” in your apology implies the other person is being irrational or overly sensitive. It does not show any ownership of your wrongdoing.

Offer an apology

While it is an act of integrity and accountability to admit and apologize for your error, you will only rebuild trust if you correct the behavior or issue.
Share what you learned, how it’s going to be different, and commit to doing better. You may need to work hard to change your behavior and correct the situation. But without the correction, any apology is worthless, and people will only grow more cynical.

Make amends with those impacted

Unfortunately, the negatives outweigh the positives in our minds, meaning people remember your faults more than your strengths. This negativity bias means it’s essential to take action and not shrink back after making a mistake.
Find ways to position yourself in front of people and demonstrate progress on the issue to rebuild trust and shift perceptions.

Show your progress

How to regain trust, minimize damage, and mend the situation.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

You Made a Big Mistake at Work. What Should You Do?

We take common sense for granted, but this uniquely human trait is difficult to emulate artificially, as it relies on a variety of powerful abilities of our mind.
Common sense is a broad trait, which includes spatial intelligence, reasoning, managing expectations, knowledge of abstract concepts and social abilities.

The Superpower Of Common Sense

"Common sense is a wild thing, savage, and beyond rules."

<ul><li>Computers have mastered many games involving strategy and logic(like GO and Chess), but common sense learning is a dream.</li><li>AI(artificial intelligence) may be great at algorithmic computations but falls flat when tackling real-world complexities.</li><li>Modern AI can handle specific problems, but common sense is hard to master as it is vague and does not come with a predefined set of rules.</li></ul>

Common Sense Is Hard For Computers

Machine learning of common sense is now considered a moonshot problem, requiring intensive collaborative efforts from different institutions and organizations.  Understanding natural language and answering simple questions are the first steps towards building common sense in machines. To learn common sense, machines would have to master sociology, psychology, planning and execution, emotions, threat detection, background knowledge, and many abstract concepts.

The Moonshot AI Problem

Common sense includes background knowledge of abstract notions, such as time, space, and events. This knowledge allows people to plan and organize without having to be too exact, whereas AI deals in exact notions and numbers. Modern AI is built to deal with highly specific problems, making uncertainty its biggest hurdle. Learn more here.

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Mohamed Byrne