The last week something amazing happened. For maybe the 100th time ever, an employee gamed a very well-designed HR policy in place at my friend’s company. As I witnessed her navigate the tightrope between wanting to penalize the employee and thanking him for bringing the loophole to light, I recalled yet another of my favorite … Continue reading Chaos Monkey
We’ve been discussing the question of ‘where work gets done’ for over two years now. Over this period, I’ve come across at least a dozen brilliant answers, yet they’ve all come apart at the time of implementation. They either get critically examined and shut down early in the process or are so far diluted by … Continue reading Velocity via modularity
If you’ve been around a while, you’ve probably noticed that the posts are getting fewer, Twitter more neglected and that the March (and now April) edition of the podcast never emerged despite me promising that it’ll all pick up pace. If there was ever a time to blame languishing, it would be now. But that … Continue reading Activating Purpose
There are four months left in the year and, as incredulous as it feels, it is time to think of what work would look like in 2022. As organizations continue planning to ‘return to work’ for what’s likely the 13th month running, the evidence on burnout is overwhelming. A study by the University of Chicago … Continue reading The case for eliminating (most) meetings & how
TheSoul Publishing adopted a ‘no meeting’ policy at their company. They literally took the meme that said–this meeting could have been an email and turned it into reality; or attempted to. For an organization that has over 80% of its employees working remotely and across time-zones, this space was ripe for experimentation. Yet, it didn’t … Continue reading Don’t cancel that meeting
Last week, I wrote about discovering the word for how most of us have been feeling for a while now and accepting the fact that it may be the dominant feeling through the year. Yet, humans being humans are born to fight the status quo and hence the quest to ‘not languish’ continues. Adam Grant … Continue reading We’re languishing, now what?
This is going to be short and sweet but it would be amiss to not mention what happened after. There are times when one wonders if some events and organizations should receive the airtime that they do or if I should let it go. After all, Basecamp is but 57 employees. Over the past month, … Continue reading Back to Basecamp
Townhall, All Hands–call them as you like, they exist in every organization in the world or at least I hope they do. Taught in every leadership and communication 101, these large scale meetings are considered basic hygiene. We have been doing them for years yet not everyone gets it right. One would assume that a … Continue reading Back to Basics: Designing Townhall meetings
It has been one year since the world changed due to the pandemic. One complete trip around the sun with a virus piggybacking on us, and we survived. It has been undoubtedly a journey we never imagined embarking on and a difficult one at that. Now, as we make plans for a new future, there are … Continue reading Reinventing Employee Experience and Workplace Culture Post COVID-19
Economists have long known that GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is an inaccurate reflection of a country’s economic progress. First the experts debated over why the GDP growth has been miniscule in developed nations and the secret sauce for growth. When efforts in finding an answer to growth failed, debates sparked on whether GDP accurately captured … Continue reading The Better Work Index
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