In a hybrid world, leaders must be willing to make themselves available to their team members in fundamentally different ways. Employees need to be able to reach out for support and advice whenever they need it. They cannot see if the virtual office door is open or closed.

Leaders at every level of your organisation have to be visible. Not all employees are passing your leaders desks or offices as they navigate the office corridors. They need to see who is steering the ship regardless of where they are located.

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The new challenge facing many leaders leading hybrid teams, is how to engage those working locally and those working remotely in an equitable manner.

The spontaneous face-to-face interactions and conversation that happen in an office are not available to those who are remote.

Remote workers may not have an opportunity to contribute to the conversation or listen in.

This can impact morale as remote workers feel they are being left out of decision-making discussions.

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OCM is a top 5 priority for the CIO according to Info-Tech Research Group.

Priority number 3 for the CIO in 2021 is to strengthen the organisational change management capability to help maximise technology investments.

As CIOs look ahead, helping to combat change fatigue and foster change resilience amongst staff should be a key leadership priority.

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Most managers have never led hybrid teams before. Their approach to setting objectives and managing performance have to fundamentally change.

This is uncharted territory so let’s chart it here.

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Capability invisibility is term coined via Deloitte to mean that when capability is not visible, employees can be given tasks they are ill-equipped for or their useful skills are not fully utilised.

The visibility of employee capability is a power tool for hybrid teams and increases connection, collaboration and engagement.

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Good leaders make such that everyone feels included and valued regardless of where they work.

Psychological safety is an environment in which everyone is comfortable expressing themselves. People are comfortable to ask questions, challenge ideas and basically be themselves.

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Employees should be given autonomy and empowered to deliver the desired outcomes as they see best.

As a leader of hybrid teams you have to trust your employees to do the right thing, and with the right leadership, they will.

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The mirrors, signal, manoeuvre is a safe driving routine used to avoid dangerous or potentially dangerous situations. Changing lanes on a fast-moving highway without checking the mirrors and signalling intent could have fatal implications.

Unfortunately, the routine often gets ignored or used incorrectly.

Just as on the road, in business the routine does not get used resulting in loss of competitive advantage.

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You cannot manage what you don’t know. So how can you ‘manage’ unprecedented change?

That makes ‘change management’ an oxymoron.

I argue that you can’t. You can only ‘adapt’ to it.

Organizations that embed adaptability to change into the essence of their being are the ones that will not only survive, but thrive in the face of whatever is thrown at them.

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Superteams can give organizations the opportunity to re-architect work in more human ways, leveraging technology to elevate teams’ ability to learn, create, and perform in new ways to achieve better outcomes.

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We are waking up to the reality that work is what we do, not where we go.

Whilst leaders of multinational organisations may have been leading hybrid teams for many years, for most of our leaders they have never done this before.

This is a new challenge facing many of our leaders and the reality is that most are not equipped to deal with it.

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Leaders have to give employees more freedom – autonomy – to choose how to shape their work environment in ways that allow them to perform at their best.

When you align employee passion and interest with organizational needs will improve performance at the individual, team and organizational level.

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Making the shift from“survive’ to “thrive” depends on an organization becoming distinctly human at its core - a different way of being that approaches every question, every issue, and every decision from a human angle first.

Organisations committed to looking after the mental well-being of their people create an ecosystem of information, instruction, interactions, interventions and integrations - the five I’s - that are not bolted on to work as an after thought, but embedded into the fabric of the organisation through both intentional and thoughtful design.

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As we start 2021, none the wiser of what it will look like as we did at the start of 2020, I thought I would take a look at the LinkedIn articles I wrote during last year which grabbed people’s attention.

I have listed the top 5 based on the number of reactions the articles received rather than the number of views. That is, I have counted the ones readers took the time out to like, celebrate, support, love, found insightful or made you curious.

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Dear 2020,

Today is the 30th December 2020 and I wanted to write this letter to you before the year closes out and we welcome in your successor 2021.

We talked endlessly about resilience in the face of constant, unprecedented and uncertain change, but did little about it.

Before you go, can you have a word in 2021’s ear about that last point and ask 2021 to have a word with me before f**king it all up like you did?

Yours, Karen

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At the start of this year, I was engaged to undertake organisational change management (OCM) on a significant project for a very large organisation in Australia.

The first physical meeting with the project sponsor was on 2nd January 2020. It was also the last!

The entire organisation change has been conducted virtually and was a resounding success.

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The CIO has to whisper about the trends and technology that are reshaping the industry in which they operate, and how the organisation can leverage these trends to grow market share and gain competitive advantage. They have to whisper about how technology will drive the business strategy and increase performance.

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A recent McKinsey and Company article by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Leanne Williams entitled “Mental Health in the Workplace: The Coming Revolution” contained some disturbing statistics.

COVID-19 has only served to exacerbate the mental health issues experienced by employees.

Based on analysis by McKinsey, COVID-19 could result in potential 50% increase in the prevalence of behavioural health conditions.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many organisations to seriously reconsider and/or revise their employee working arrangements.

Whilst the question of whether everyone needed to be in an office location had been endlessly discussed, the 2020 pandemic answered the question loud and clear. No.

Individuals and organisations have realised the benefits that could be gained from a WFX arrangement. This is a great time of organisational change.

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I have no problem with organizations investing in providing employees with access to Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Officers. My issue is that doing that alone, does not cut it.

Firstly, we need to prevent mental health issues from happening - not try and fix it after the event. Secondly, without removing the stigma of mental health in the workplace the initiative will have little or no positive impact.

There is no band-aid solution.

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