The FUTURE of Remote Work
The Challenge of Building Trust
Taken from someone who’s run a virtual company for over a decade um trying to build trust without any kind of uh human contact is way more difficult and i think one of the big mistakes that a lot of organizations have made is because we’ve adapted reasonably well to teleworking we’re missing the fact that many of the relationships pre-existed you know we’re we know these people good luck building trust with somebody who’s entirely new to the team and has never met anyone
Trust Happens Between Meetings
That’s very different because remember you know we build trust between the meetings isaac stern said music uh happens between the notes well trust happens between the meetings you build trust when you’re walking in and you’re a little early and you’re making small talk you build trust as you’re walking out and you’re still talking about the meeting as you’re walking out you build trust when you bump into somebody in a hallway and you go oh i’ve been meaning to talk to you you build trust when you knock on someone’s door and you say you got a minute you build trust when you say you want to meet you want to have lunch and it’s these social interactions over and over and over again no one of them does it but but like brushing your teeth you know brushing your teeth for two minutes there’s nothing do it twice a day every day it keeps your teeth clean right
The Difficulty of Virtual Interaction
One of those things does nothing but the consistency in the of the that human interaction over time builds this thing called trust and it’s way more difficult to do not impossible to do but way more difficult to do virtually because now you actually have to schedule that time because there is no such thing as between the meeting you show up for the call and that’s it you have the call and when the call is done you all get enough there’s no human interaction
Scheduling Personal Interactions
So the way you do it is is you have to schedule times for for personal stuff like you actually have team huddles where you get on a monday and you say what’s on your heart and mind and here’s a fun or poignant question to answer let’s go around the room and you do not talk shop at all you don’t talk about what the schedule is you don’t talk about results you don’t talk about the work you give people an opportunity to share what’s on their heart and mind
Importance of In-Person Meetings
You know you have virtual lunches with people where you log on and just have a lunch and even then even on virtual teams you still want to meet at least once a year as a group uh to solidify those bonds and by the way brainstorming sessions anything to do with ideas oh my god they’re impossible to do virtually you just don’t have the same flow of ideas you can’t interrupt each other easily you know interrupting each other virtually is rude and disruptive interrupting each other you know in a meeting where there’s of us is easy it’s no big deal you can have four people talking at the same time and it’s fun um because we’re all in the same flow and in the idea generation
The Future of Work
so i think we have to accept that yes the ability to tell a work means that we can keep these organizations functional and moving during these pandemic times and for companies that think they never need to go back to the office they’re in for a shock i think what will happen and i think if you asked me to envision the future of work is especially in the military you didn’t realize you had this component until you were forced to
Embracing Flexibility
um and i think what will happen both in military and in private sector is things will become a little more fluid where people actually have the option to telework when they can and when they need to so it’s not like hey you know next thursday do you mind if it’ll happen where somebody just emails in the morning saying i’m working from home today and it’s fine it just becomes a fluid part of our work day and way more socially acceptable um people working a half day in the office people working a half day from home because they got to deal with something they don’t need to take a day off you know it just becomes a lot more uh more flexible i think that’s more likely some sort of balanced
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