Finding your way with the new

Copying someone else’s way of working might just work. 

And it might not. 

While there are methods, techniques and new habits to start, sometimes the best thing to do is simply try them out. 

No strings attached. 

Try it on. How does it feel? What do you like about it? How might it work for you? 

As businesses change to new and agile ways of working, there can be a little too much ‘don’t mess it up’ and not enough ‘let’s try it out’. 

I’ve been working with leaders and their teams as they try tools, techniques and methods like 
- visual management 
- timeboxing for tasks and meetings 
- backlogs of tasks to be done
- co-creating with customers 
- running experiments 
... and 30+ more ways of working. 

This is no switch to flip overnight. 

It’s an opportunity to learn, experiment and experience... over time. You might even bring some of the greatest detractors into the experience. 

‘This was so much better than I thought it would be’, said a participant at a Better Ways of Working virtual workshop recently. 

Safe. Experimental. Collaborative. Supportive. Experiential. 

There’s no other way to make these transitions to newer ways of working, but to help people find their way. 

How are you managing the ‘blend’

Our work can often blend a little too much into home life in these times of remote working and working from home. 

Some people call it ‘living where you work’ or ‘working where you live’ !

Here are 4 things to try to keep a harder line between them : 

1. Establish a work area
2. Change your clothes 
3. Create a fake commute
4. Use a different page for work/home apps

Read more in this article from psychotherapist Amy Morin in Business Insider.

Face to face ➡️ Online How did you change

As many face to face workshops and meetings shifted online over the past year, it’s curious to look back: What did you change? 

If you’d planned an agenda, how did things need to adapt? 
Did you change the duration? 
Or the time between breaks, or length or number of breaks? 

Did you change what was planned?
What about group activities and collaboration? 

Did you accelerate and make things faster? Or did you need more time, multiple meetings instead of one? 

Many meetings and workshops that went online, only changed mode: sadly, they remained as disengaing and unproductive as ever!

But now as more hybrid arrangements begin - some people are online, some people are mobile or onsite - we need to consider, adapt and change things again. 

How did you first adapt meetings and workshops that moved online? 

Better ways for who

Imagine if your team started trying some newer ways of doing things... 

How might it impact customers? What additional value might you all bring? 
How might some frustrating customer problems get solved? 

The dramatic value that can be delivered to the customer, member, patient, user, client, can get forgotten. 

Perhaps it gets drowned out because the changes WE have to make are tricky and challenging for us. You know ... change!! *Groan* “It’s hard...”

Every team that tries some new ways of working gets a boost : 
🔅productively
🔅collaboratively
🔅effectively
🔅creatively.

And customers get a boost too!

Services become easier to use, sooner. 
Products get into their hands quicker. 
Interacting with the business becomes less frustrating or complicated... and things generally make more sense and work better. 

Better ways are available to us in how we go about:
🔆Thinking
🔆Understanding 
🔆Acting...
everyday. 

It’s not about using a new app or trying a new tool. There are new ways available at all levels of how we think about work, why we do it and how we do it. 

This is why adopting new and better ways is a cultural shift. 

Yes, it might take awhile. But your customers are waiting on you. 

Deciding what to do ... next

I’ve been thinking, reading, researching and writing about overwhelm and overload. 

A big something that can lead us to greater overwhelm and overload is getting stuck with what to do next. 

There’s often no shortage of options of what to do ... but it’s the what to do NEXT that can make us grind to a halt under a flood of possibilities. 

Hesitation at the wall of unmade decisions is not reserved for individuals in their own business!

It’s in teams in companies too. 

➡️ Are we waiting for someone to tell us what to do? This was the challenge faced by a former full time employee in the first few weeks of running their own business. 

➡️ Are we wondering which to choose from a list of alternatives - like the overwhelm of a menu?

➡️ Are we wondering which is the ‘right’ or the ‘best’ decision to make?

We can lose time, confidence and opportunities while we’re waiting in the overwhelm of hesitation. 

Decisiveness helps us get more things into action, to see some return on our effort, and to see how things turn out. 

Of course, not every decision can be made quicker or sooner. 

But a swift decision can often lead us to greater insight, confidence and of course... the magic of momentum.