Business
A More Sustainable Supply Chain (via Harvard Business Review)
Supply chains are complex in multi-national corporations (MNCs), and often the lowest tiers have poor social, environmental, or worker safety records. The article offers some best practices companies can adopt to make such bad actors less likely to get work, thus making them raise the bar.
Career
3 Tips to Avoid WFH Burnout (via Harvard Business Review)
- Maintain physical and social boundaries from work and home
- Maintain boundaries on how you use your time
- Focus on your most important work (not just busy work)
How to Transition Between Work Time and Personal Time (via Harvard Business Review)
- Have a starting work routine
- Plan out your day
- Prioritize your personal and work communication
- Set a wrap-up routine
Communication
How to Elevate Your Presence in a Virtual Meeting (via Harvard Business Review)
- Talk to your camera; your colleagues will perceive this as good eye contact
- Maintain a strong voice (conveys authority, credibility, confidence)
- Make sure you’re framed well in the video (not too far back, top of your head not cut off)
- Be present and mindful by avoiding distractions like checking email; you are always visible, so treat it as if you were in a physical meeting
- Don’t become your own distraction; mute when not speaking, turn off video if something distracting is going on in your environment
- Use chat to supplement the conversation (e.g., share links)
All-Remote Meetings (via Kathy Benitez)
A colleague of mine posted this thorough collection of tips/tricks for remote meetings after I shared the HBR post about virtual meetings (above). Although I don’t agree 100%, there are solid recommendations around being prompt, documenting everything, sharing agendas and materials in advance, and recording meetings.
3 Ways to Make Your Writing Clearer (via Harvard Business Review)
- Get right to the point
- Have the first sentence of your paragraphs (topic sentence) make a claim (e.g., “We met with Bob on Thursday and we need to change our strategy.” vs. “We met with Bob on Thursday.”).
- Include actors in your sentences (e.g., “All managers must approve reports by Friday.” vs. “All reports must be approved by Friday.”).
Building trust through effective communication (via Software Lead Weekly)
- Have a positive attitude
- Be mentally present
- Check the temper
- Don’t just say “yes”
- Reject the victim mentality
- Be wise, not right
- Treat others with compassion
- Be articulate
- Apologize with actions
Culture
Build a Culture That Aligns with People’s Values (via Harvard Business Review)
- Let people work on things their most passionate about and what they feel will be most valuable to the company
- Establish connections and build relationships with your coworkers
- Connect roles to purpose
Leadership
Real Leaders Are Forged in Crisis (via Harvard Business Review)
- Acknowledge people’s fears, then encourage resolve. Your job is to be brutally honest and give hope that you and your people have the resources to persevere.
- Give people a role and a purpose. People want to feel useful and need tasks to keep them from ruminating.
- Emphasize experimentation and learning.
- Tend to energy and emotion — yours and theirs. Take care of yourself, as others are looking to you.
To Build an Agile Team, Commit to Organizational Stability (via Harvard Business Review)
- Sharpen focus — set the priorities of health/safety, and then what things are critical to keep things moving
- Break down communication barriers — provide alternative tools should one fail, post videos for people to watch later
- Optimize failure — learn, don’t blame
- Build optimism — you don’t need to sugarcoat, but leaders are “dealers in hope” (Napoleon)
- Reassure people — don’t overpromise, but affirm people’s discomfort; share positive information
- Harmonize resources — now is not the time for “do more with less” as people are already weary; see how you can do more with what you have
- Plan for recovery — you may not know specifics, but share examples of what recovery could look like
Social Distancing Doesn’t Have to Disrupt Mentorship (via Harvard Business Review)
- “In ordinary circumstances, many mentors focus on the career functions of mentoring. Although those remain important, the psychosocial functions — acceptance, affirmation, friendship, emotional support, reassurance — are especially valuable in uncertain times.”
- Communicate, but don’t assume you understand their situations
- Make adjustments to established norms
- Be authentic, and welcome reciprocity
- Show care and compassion
- Address concerns through coping and mastery skills
How to Manage Coronavirus Layoffs with Compassion (via Harvard Business Review)
- Are layoffs your only option?
- Gather information from HR about how to handle questions people will have (e.g., when is my last paycheck)
- Set the right tone with empathy; this is not about you
- Be direct and human (e.g., “I’m sorry, but at the end of next week we are terminating your job. This is not your fault; it’s about a global circumstance none of us created.”)
- Offer assistance, but don’t overpromise
- Be transparent
- Find someone you can vent to, as this will be stressful
- Focus on your own wellbeing
Our book club discussed migrations, re-orgs, controls, career narratives, media interaction, and model/document/share.
How to Keep Your Team Motivated, Remotely (via Harvard Business Review)
The author’s research shows that remote workers are slightly less motivated, and were at their worst when given no choice but to work remotely. It’s easy to focus on tactical work instead of more open-ended learning work. Give people meaningful work for the week, check in daily, and reflect at the end of the week.
How to Be an Inclusive Leader Through a Crisis (via Harvard Business Review)
- Ensure that all employees have equal access to technology for remote work.
- Make virtual meetings equitable by turning on closed captioning, sending documents, and collecting input in advance.
- Begin meetings with acknowledging everyone in the room, not just those with high status or privilege.
- Understand how gender bias may show up.
- Check in with employees who may be disproportionately impacted by this crisis.
- Above all, show compassion.
Process
Bring Product Thinking to Non-Product Teams (via Harvard Business Review)
Although I don’t agree with the capitalist mindset of having a product to sell, I agree with the idea that anyone’s work (product) is successful if it delivers value. The example in the article was excellent: Instead of “launch a learning management system”, frame it as “make our people more successful.” It’s almost like a user story… “As an organization, I want people to learn new skills so that we can leverage those skills to improve execution and retain talent.”
Productivity Skills to Help You Gain Time Back (via Harvard Business Review)
- Automate
- Delegate
- Use asynchronous communication (e.g., shared documentation vs. a long meeting with many people in it to gather said information)
- Don’t treat every decision as a big decision
- Bundle tasks (e.g., I bundle movement, listening to a book, and picking up litter)
How to Manage Your Stress When the Sky Is Falling (via Harvard Business Review)
- Breathe. Take eight minutes to focus on your breathing (something you can control).
- Eat and sleep well. Eat a variety of foods, stay hydrated, and wake up and go to bed at the same time each day.
- Create connection with others.
- Find purpose.
How to Make Things High-Quality (via Software Lead Weekly)
When you care about quality and you care about shipping ask, “If we knew it would take this long to ship with a certain level of quality, would we have done it in the first place?”