5-second summary Feeling connected to your colleagues isn’t about high-fives at the office. It’s about being able to be your real, authentic self at work. Teams with strong personal relationships tend to produce better results. Making time to talk about things such as your shared purpose as a team, what you expect from one another, and what “fills your cup” when you’re not at work go a long way toward building deep rapport. Subscribe to Work Life Get stories like this in your inbox Subscribe Every organization is built on a foundation of human connection. And you don’t have to be a stru ..read more

5-second summary Contrary to popular belief, in person interactions don’t breed creativity. Time, autonomy, and diversity do. Company leaders can lay the foundation for more creativity by embracing flexibility around when and where their employees work, which reduces stress and allows creative juices to flow. For individuals, relying more on documents and less on real-time brainstorming can result in more creativity (as counter-intuitive as that might sound). As companies in many (though not all) areas of the world reassess the role of office spaces, remote work detractors have sprung into ..read more

Subscribe to Work Life Get stories like this in your inbox Subscribe Is your remote team collaborating like a well-oiled machine and getting projects across the finish line? That’s a good sign that they’re engaged in the work they’re doing. But if your team-wide Slack channels have gone silent and checking off tasks has started to feel like pulling teeth, engagement levels could be slipping.  With so many teams working remotely, engagement is more important than ever. Engaged employees do better work because they feel more motivated to contribute – and the results are quantifiable. Gall ..read more

5-second summary An ownership mindset means taking responsibility for outcomes and being empowered to make the decisions that will lead to those outcomes. To cultivate an ownership mindset on your team, focus on transparency, autonomy, and customer empathy. Meanwhile, your job as a leader is to determine strategy and set your team up for success. What are the stakes when an organization doesn’t cultivate an ownership mindset within its teams? Ask the folks who worked at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant before its epic meltdown. Here’s how it all unfolded. In the early hours of April 26th ..read more

5-second summary Innovation doesn’t always involve a brand new invention. If you’re using existing technologies or components in a novel way, you’re innovating. Creating a company-wide culture of innovation has more to do with autonomy, alignment, and diversity than with mugs or posters plastered with the word “innovate.” Atlassian encourages innovative thinking through regularly-scheduled rituals at the company level and ad-hoc opportunities at the team level. Subscribe to Work Life Get stories like this in your inbox Subscribe Innovation is a lot like obscenity: hard to define, but yo ..read more

Teamwork is amazing. But it’s also challenging, and it takes hard work to get right. It’s definitely not summed up by tired platitudes like, “Teamwork makes the dream work.” Um, no. How can we think about teamwork differently? How can we honor the challenge that working with others provides, and celebrate the powerful opportunity of working together? Here’s a list of teamwork quotes that we hope will help you think deeply about the work you’re doing with your team, and inspire you about the possibilities presented by working with others. Subscribe to Work Life Get articles like this in your i ..read more

5-second summary Cross-cultural collaboration presents unique challenges, but if done right, can increase creativity and improve profitability. Building awareness, adjusting communication strategies, and practicing active listening can boost collaboration efforts at the individual, team, and organizational levels. Your team might not be heading to space anytime soon, but NASA serves as a fitting example of what can happen when cultural idiosyncrasies get the best of you.  Subscribe to Work Life Get stories like this in your inbox Subscribe In the late 1990s, NASA launched the  ..read more

Subscribe to Work Life Get stories like this in your inbox Subscribe 5-second summary During the height of Covid, customer-service staffers in the cruise industry were under incredible pressure to reassure and help customers, while also navigating massive changes in their own lives. Royal Caribbean Group turned to Atlassian’s Team Playbook to help create an empathy-centered customer service experience.   Playbook exercises also helped the team build strong bonds with each other during a tumultuous time. Let’s be blunt: of all the businesses damaged by the coronavirus pandemic ..read more

Subscribe to Work Life Get stories like this in your inbox Subscribe 5-second summary Workplace culture is the system of shared beliefs and behaviors that determine how an organization’s members interact and make decisions. Research shows that a toxic workplace culture can have a negative impact on productivity. The pandemic tended to amplify existing cultural issues. Symptoms of burnout and change fatigue may be confused with those of a toxic work environment. Take our quiz to learn if there’s deeper cause to any feelings of dissatisfaction. Workplace culture has a profound effect on t ..read more