Transformation Beyond The Crisis
As a team, we have been gathering insights on strategy for your 2021 planning, along with advice for long term remote collaboration, and transforming your company beyond the crisis from our network of founders, executives, and project managers.
First, in the initial stages of the pandemic, as many found themselves navigating new technologies and ways of working, leaders demonstrated increased attention on their people, focusing on everyone’s safety and well-being, and then moved to incorporating remote tools into their team’s skillset in order to enable effective remote work and collaboration.
It is vital you adopt the same approach as a leader and double down on increasing the attention you give your team, as only “people-first” organizations will experience success at this moment in time. Lead with compassion – allow your team to socialize before you get down to business and provide them with the engagement that they have lost in isolation – let them feel a real sense of belonging and connection to one another. In doing so, each individual will understand that they are a vital part of a greater cause, and with that knowledge, dive into their work with increased energy.
In your planning, its important to adopt an expansive strategy by defining a north star and investing in growth towards a target on the horizon. This will allow for immense organizational transformation as you move into 2021 because it will ignite your team with purpose. Right now, people will be coming into 2021 in a state of existential questioning, wondering: why am I doing what I do? How am I and the organization I work for–improving the world? Why does my work matter? Companies need to lean into their purpose going into 2021, so that their teams have a real sense of why the work that they are doing matters. Before 2021, have a meeting centered around your values, focus in on and define the values you would like to have going into the new year, and show your team the impact that they have on the world around them through living and embodying these values in your behaviors, thoughts, and actions.
On top of this, coming into 2021, it will be important build and enforce the digital remote work muscle by retooling and upskilling – getting teams familiar with a variety of remote working tools such a Trello, Slack, and whiteboard brainstorming tools like Mural. When integrating these tools into your remote culture, start by putting all the executives and senior leaders through their own digital upskilling regimen. Then, pick the particularly effective individuals within your team– the high performers–to lead by example in getting behind and fired up about using these new tools. Your most effective individuals and leaders understand the culture, and inviting them to contribute to the upskilling process will serve as a powerful motivator across your entire team. Show your team how technology can be used for their well-being to support high quality connection in the distributed environment. Lead from the heart, with compassion, and witness the transformation of your team and company as they find a purpose to put themselves behind, and values to live by as they understand their sense of belonging to the company, and begin to be able to answer for themselves, why their work matters.