The Week As It Should Be

Monday

I wake up excited as I am looking forward to the challenge I have this week. Last Friday, I had my weekly catch-up with my boss and she asked me to put together a draft plan to revise the departmental structure to increase our efficiencies, for discussion at our next one-on-one meeting next Friday morning. She also wants me to present it for feedback at our team meeting on Friday afternoon.

I did not set the alarm this morning as I knew I did not have a meeting until 10:30 so there was no need to jump out of bed alarmed by the alarm!

My boss doesn’t count the hours we work. She determines our performance based on the outcomes we deliver. She knows that our performance cannot be measured by hours spent at a desk.

I jump onto my computer at 09:00 and check my emails. Nothing of a priority to respond to so I start to plan my approach to the task at hand.

My first task is to reach out to others who may have undertaken a similar task and I can leverage their learning and experience. I put a callout on our collaboration channel. It is a long time since the days when we operated in team silos. Intentional cross-functional collaboration is our dominant way of working.

I start to plan for the collaboration session and will invite those who respond to my callout. We will meet virtually as everyone works remotely these days. We even call what used to be “the office” as just another workplace of choice. We dropped the term office because everywhere can be an office. Work is what we do, not where we go. So, we talk about city, home, café, library, co-working space, hotel, hub, if we should ever need to reference where we are located. But we rarely do because it is somewhat irrelevant.

I clear out the emails that I have not yet responded to and check what is coming up in my calendar for the rest of the week. I will be going into the city on Wednesday as we have a high-energy team innovation session, and I am hoping to schedule the collaboration session on the same day so that those who will be attending both sessions only have to make one commute.

Its 4pm and I am signing out from work now to go and do my daily workout on the treadmill

Tuesday

This morning I am up and about early as I am going to Post Office to pick up a parcel and want to go before they get too busy. I have a meeting at 09:00 so will be back in time for that.

We can all fit our professional lives around our personal lives, rather than the other way around. We can take time out as we need to go to medical appointments, undertake caregiving activities, pick-up and drop-offs, etc. I have my monthly hair appointment on a weekday. It doesn’t matter when I go if I deliver on my outcomes. As I mentioned yesterday, it is not about the hours we work, but about the outcomes we produce.

My 09:00 was productive and I am now scheduling the collaboration session for Wednesday in the city. I have received a good number of responses to my call out and many of the respondents will be in the city for the innovation session as well. So, some of us will be co-located and others will join in virtually from various locations.

When my boss decided we needed an innovation session, we decided as a team that it would be more productive to do it at a workplace of choice that would allow us to co-locate and connect virtually with those that were unable to be there in person. Location is an individual preference, team preference, and cohort preference. We call our working model “Preference First.”

We dropped the term “hybrid” about 18 months ago when it became clear that we all had more than just two options regarding where we work. A few of my team work mostly out of the city as that is their preference. They have less distractions than they have at home, and they enjoy the variety of workspaces at their disposal.

Most of us move between several locations. I predominately work from my home office but on occasion I also work out of my local café mainly for a change of scenery and the buzz of the clientele stimulates my creativity. I work out of the city when it makes sense to do so, and the outcome warrants the commute.

When we decided on our working model, our leadership team did it in conjunction with employees like me. We co-created the model and I believe that is why it works so well. We all have skin in the game. We also know that it will continue to evolve over time, and we are all encouraged to continually provide feedback on what is working well and what can be improved. Which reminds me, I must provide the working group with my feedback on the well-being platform that we are currently trialling called “The Resiliator.” There is a big push to ensure that my organisation always has employee wellbeing as the priority.

Treadmill calls

Wednesday

Today, I have travelled into the city as that is the workplace of choice for the innovation session with the rest of my team and a collaboration session with those who offered to share their learnings and experiences undertaking a departmental structural change to increase efficiencies.

We choose where we work based on where we will perform at our best. My organisation adopted a true remote working model which we called “Preference First.” It allows everyone the flexibility and autonomy to work where they want, when they want, and how they want. We work out when we should physically co-locate as a team and when we can be more productive working remotely.

I have friends who must go into their old “office” 3 days a week. I ask them why and they don’t know. It has just been mandated. I ask them “Is it worth the commute?” to which the answer is predominately “No.”

Our old “office” has not just been turned into a collaboration space but rather a true activity-based working space. Whilst we will use the “innovation lab” this morning for the team innovation session, and we will also use it this afternoon for our collaboration session, as it can connect everyone wherever they are located, there are many other spaces that will be utilised between these sessions.

The innovation lab is an interactive and open space that encourages curiosity, experimentation, and collaboration. It inspires new thinking. It provides opportunities for individual and group collaboration across time zones. If fosters a culture of innovation through the creation, sharing and testing of ideas.

I know that between the sessions I will need some quiet time to decompress and prepare for the next session. I have booked myself a place in the contemplative space where I can go to do that. It is a quiet space where I can unwind, relax and recentre myself. It will allow me to lounge whilst also enabling me to be creative.

Courtesy: https://www.ie-uk.com/blog/contemplative-spaces-for-wellbeing-at-work

Others may need to do some focused work and book themselves a quiet space. This is a workspace that removes people from distractions, noise, and interruptions. It supports their ability to tackle specific work – the kind that requires focus and concentration. This gives them dedicated time and place for thinking and problem solving.

Courtesy: https://www.ctiwe.com/our-blog/workspace-matters-designing-for-focus-work

Both sessions were a great success. My boss is very happy as the team came up with many great ideas that we will now explore. My collaboration session has given me plenty of ideas about how to build my draft plan that will enable us to review our departmental structure and identify any areas for increased efficiencies.

 At the end of my day, as I head for my train and the journey home, I know that today was worth the commute.

I will do my treadmill session when I get home and wrap up the day.

Thursday

Woke up early this morning full of energy and motivated to start on my draft plan. Whilst I had my coffee, I reflected on the innovation session we had on Wednesday morning. Everyone contributed ideas. No idea was dismissed or belittled. Everyone was heard and everyone felt safe to come up with new ideas, challenges, questions, and alternative opinions. I know this is because my boss works continually to maintain an environment of psychological safety. It certainly didn’t happen overnight.  

She started by removing any concept of failure. In the past people were afraid to speak up. They worried that their idea was a bad one, that their opinion would be wrong, that their idea would be seen as ridiculous. She encouraged everyone to speak up and ensured that we all operated in a mutual environment of trust and respect. She taught us to trust that we were safe to contribute and that we would be treated with respect and our voices would be heard.

She made it safe to everyone to say they had had a setback. She removed the word failure from our vocabulary. We knew that if we did not try new things, we would just have inertia. If we experiment and try new things, we will have setbacks. That is what experimentation is about but the different mindset she instilled was a learning one. Setbacks were seen as learning opportunities

I love this team!

I start work on my draft plan and whilst I am determined for it to be the best it can be, I know that I will not be reprimanded or suffer reprisal if it isn’t quite right.

I have one sticking point and really want to talk it through with my boss about it before tomorrow. I message her asking if she would have 10 minutes to chat with me. I know it will be a rare occasion if she says “no.”

Our bosses are not only available to us but also accessible. My boss makes sure she is available by having time locked away in her day for her team should they need it. Nothing removes that time from her calendar except an emergency and she will let everyone know what has happened. She is also accessible. By that I mean I know she will listen – really listen – to what I have to say. We can have open and honest discussion. We can question and challenge without fear of negative consequences.

My boss tells me to video-call her in 30 minutes and she has put aside 15 minutes for our call. She listens to my dilemma and encourages me to suggest solutions. We work through them and with her advice and guidance we come up with the best one. I love it that she treats these situations as learning opportunities and does not just present me with a solution. She encourages me to think of all the possible solutions. She inspires me to think differently and frame the challenge through different perspectives. I leave the call owning the solution.

I work diligently the rest of the day until I have the plan I am happy with and ready to discuss it with my boss at my one-on-one tomorrow.

Speed up that treadmill – I am on a roll.

Friday

In past jobs I used to hate one-on-one sessions with my boss. Apart from being irregular and infrequent, they did not really accomplish much. The boss would provide feedback, always in a sandwich which layered the negative around praise. I did not find it constructive. Often the feedback was about activities that happened some time ago and therefore it was hard to recall the specific situation they were referring to.

My boss now is awesome. We have a one-on-one session every week. She does not reschedule or cancel unless there is something of extreme urgency to be dealt with. She treats our scheduled time together as sacrosanct. She always starts the session by checking in on how I am feeling.

She takes a coaching approach to our session and rather than telling me what she thinks, she asks me how things are going. She asks me what I have achieved and what I perceive as setbacks. She asks me what I will do to build on the success and the setbacks.

She helps me recognise the positives as I tend to focus on the negatives. She will offer advice and guidance and learning feedback, but often I have already come up with the learnings myself.

My one-on-one meeting goes well. My boss is happy with the work I have done on the draft plan and has made a couple of suggestions for updates before calling together departmental heads for a review of the draft. What is really comforting is knowing that at the departmental heads meeting, decisions will be made. In the dark distant past a plan like the one I have created would have to go up layers and layers of hierarchy before approval could be sought. It felt as if no-one wanted to make the decision and deferred to other levels of management.

Accountability is something that is paramount in our culture today in every area of the organisation. We hold ourselves and each other accountable for delivering on business goals. We worked hard to embed that in our culture but by doing so found it increased trust amongst us all and enhanced our working relationships.

In the afternoon team meeting, I share my draft plan with the team, and I get a great response. My boss recognises my effort and contribution and shares this with the rest of the team. Recognition and appreciation are also part of our culture now and it makes us feel valued as employees.

4pm approaching and my treadmill calls to be followed by a glass of white wine to toast what has been another great week.

Summary

What can I say? I am looking forward to next week. I am engaged and motivated. I feel valued. I know I am learning and growing.

Creating a working environment such as what I have described takes hard work and dedication, but the rewards are immense. Employee turnover is at an all-time high now that many employees have a choice of employer that is not limited by geographical boundaries. Unless you are an employer of choice and create a working environment as the one described here, you will not retain your talent and you certainly not attract it.

Need help? You know where I am.