You are not part of the first company nor the last to try and solve the post-pandemic ‘how do we really work now?’ problem of 2022 and beyond. Here are three recent articles on how different companies manage (or not) the transition (or not): 1) Bloomberg – Employees are returning to the office, just to sit on Zoom calls 2) Axios – Remote work may not be working anymore 3) DealBook (via The New York Times) – The Office Monsters Are Trying to Claw Their Way Back to 2019 Are you satisfied with the approach your company (or your manager) takes to the new office? Will ..read more

At the start of the year, we referenced starting and ending your meeting/s on time as your number one habit of 2022. There are a host of measured psychological reasons to not start late, including these: “groups in the lateness condition showed substantially less solution-focused communication overall, less idea elaboration, less in-depth problem descriptions, and fewer socioemotional support statements than groups who started on time.” Today we want you to also consider the financial impac ..read more

Could you reduce your meetings to zero meetings per week? Could that outweigh the perceived benefits of social interaction and cohesion? And how about productivity and stress? Determining these outcomes was the objective of a recent study published in MIT Sloan. In it, they surveyed 76 companies with operations in more than 50 countries that had introduced from one to five no-meeting days per week in the past year. The optimal workweek appears to contain three meetingless days. If you can’t fathom the idea of three days without meetings, taking the initiative in your ..read more

95% of meetings need agendas, period. The science on this is clear. Unfortunately, too often we see the opposite to be true, namely, that on average, just 5% of meetings have agendas for the average meeting attendee (or organizer). While disheartening, it’s not necessarily surprising that so few meetings have a clearly defined purpose, goal, or agenda. There are no undergraduate courses on meeting effectiveness. In fact, there are no MBA programs in the United States that teach meeting effectiveness protocols either, which is eerily disconnected from the other part of the financial ledger of h ..read more

Daniel Pink, the best-selling author of the newly released The Power of Regret, published another New York Times best-selling book in 2018 titled When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. In that book, he reveals, through meticulous research, that, among other things, our cognitive ability doesn’t remain the same over the course of a day. We each have a peak, a trough, and a recovery. This is why, for example, it makes the most sense to have decision-oriented meetings in the morning and discussion/brainstorming meetings in the afternoon. He also demonstrates that break science today is w ..read more

According to a new report from the Pew Research Foundation, more (American) workers prefer to work from home and will continue to do so if given the choice. Among the report’s highlights: Most (64%) of those who are now working from home at least some of the time but rarely or never did before the pandemic say it’s easier now for them to balance work with their personal life Many (44%) say working from home has made it easier for them to get their work done and meet deadlines Most (72%) say working from home hasn’t affected their ability to advance in their job Most (60%) say they feel less c ..read more

Feeling overworked, irritable, and unfocused? Chances are high that you might suffer from work burnout. In fact, in a 2021 survey of 1,500 U.S. workers, over 50% said they were feeling burned out as a result of their job demands. Via The New York Times Future of Work issue, “burnout, as it is defined, is not a medical condition — it’s ‘a manifestation of chronic unmitigated stress,’ explained Dr. Lotte Dyrbye, a physician scientist who studies burnout at the Mayo Clinic.” What are the signs and what can you do about it? “Despite popular culture coverage of the issue, burnout can’t be ‘fixed’ w ..read more

On the heels of the massive UK experiment in the four-day workweek, Belgium takes the concept a step further, provisionally approving measures to not only offer four-day weeks to employees, but also giving employees the right to ignore their bosses and devices after hours without reprisals. All Belgian workers, including those in the private sector, will receive the ‘right to disconnect,’ meaning that they will not have to respond to emails or be on devices after normal business hours. Regarding the four-day week, they’ll be able to start a six month trial, after which they can choose to conti ..read more

Today’s management tongue-twister (say it 10x fast): will the 4-day work week work? In the UK, approximately 30 companies will take part in a 6-month trial of a true 4-day work week. Researchers from Cambridge University, Oxford University, and Boston College will measure whether productivity increases, decreases, or remains the same over a 4-day period (vs. five) and whether that productivity will be sustainable over time. Already, we’ve seen some promise from companies like Microsoft Japan using four-day weeks in 2019 with comparable productivity gains vs. prior years. In ..read more

“Why am I so busy?” (or are you really?) Dorie Clark is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Long Game, Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You and Stand Out, which was named the #1 Leadership Book of the year by Inc. magazine. She also teaches at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and Columbia Business School. In this short (< 8 minutes) TEDx talk recorded in December, you’ll learn why uncertainty could be a root cause of faux busyness. Could busyness be a status s ..read more