Cultural Cohesion

Everything starts with a belief, which then shifts our perception.

Diversity can be both a benefit and a challenge to virtual teams, especially those which are global. The authors unpack their recent research on how diversity works in remote teams, concluding that benefits and drawbacks can be explained by how teams manage the two facets of diversity: personal and contextual.

Even if your organization doesn’t have a “blinding” policy for hiring and other people evaluations, it’s possible to reap some of the benefits.

Organizations that correctly design and implement their flexibility policy will not “lose” anything. On the contrary, they have much to gain. Perhaps a silver lining of the pandemic will be that corporate leaders have overcome their fears of offering flexibility to their workforce, and will now understand how flexibility can benefit their recruitment and retention efforts — not to mention productivity and profitability.

A self-managing consultancy and future-of-work laboratory

A closer look at the qualities and behaviors emerging as essential elements to better equip leaders to contribute to solutions on a global scale.

It takes a surprising amount of bravery for employees to point out ways organizations can learn and improve. Leaders can make it easier for people to speak up.

Do you value stability in your workplace? Do you expect to settle into a comfortable routine, and climb the ranks of seniority on a predictable upward trajectory? If so, you should not work at Netflix.

Work is now digital and mobile, creating new challenges for teams working digitally across boundaries and locations. How can organizations create a supportive digital workplace that drives team productivity?

As the pandemic eases and we resume gathering in person, hybrid meetings will become a permanent part of how organizations function. These meetings bring added complexity at the same time that our collective Covid-driven year of meeting virtually raised expectations for remote participation. Drawing from their combined half-century of experience designing and facilitating meetings for executive teams and boards, the authors share eight best practices to help make your hybrid meetings more effective.

You’ve probably resolved to lose weight, make more money, or finally start that creative project you’ve been putting off for years. When drowning your sorrows in champagne on New Year’s Eve or nursing a hangover on New Year’s Day, you may not realize that changing your behavior leads better results than setting goals.

Much like a corporate mission statement, a thoughtful, well-written personal mission statement becomes your individual definition of success—and the compass that navigates you toward your deepest motivations. 

The great work-from-home (WFH) experiment of the past year has given us all an opportunity to revisit how we work and redesign it for the better. While some newly remote organizations are simply recreating the office online, managers should take this chance to change some unproductive workplace dynamics.

This chestnut of the business world overlooks the importance of, and the challenge of creating, a clear strategy.

As every organization returns to the office at different times, we will have both virtual and hybrid meetings for the foreseeable future. The author offers three tips to speaking up in a virtual meeting, and three warnings for when to hold back.

Small periods of recovery time will improve performance.

As organizations shift toward more distributed, asynchronous workforces, the traditional role of a middle manager — monitoring productivity, optimizing individual performance, etc. — is becoming increasingly redundant. Instead of simply routing information between different groups, middle managers of the future will be tasked with leveraging digital tools optimized for tracking remote and hybrid workforces, and then focusing their own energy on building teams and developing talent.

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” — Michael Jordan

With mental agility, we can adapt to change and find opportunities even in unpredictable times