Photograph by Ray Massey
I recently participated in an online open innovation session on the future of work hosted by Everything Omni, a UK-based group aiming to “future-proof work and the workplace for the uncertainty of today.” I was quickly in over my head. Not because of the content. That was provocative yet approachable. I found myself overwhelmed by the collaboration tools, namely the virtual whiteboard. People were moving ideas in, out, up, and down while I was still trying to make sense of the dashboard. I was suddenly a stranger in a strange land.
Sure, a big part of me was longing for face-to-face interaction and the tactile comfort of sticky notes and erasable markers. But the uncomfortable experience made me reflect on the innumerable models, methods, and tools introduced in recent years to revolutionize the way we work. To wit: one problem facing organizations is the lack of organizational alignment around why these new technological innovations are so mission-critical. Unclear purpose and the lack of comfort and expertise with the what, where, when, and why of work can cause slowdowns, misunderstandings, redundant work, and one-off work-arounds. These and other frictions can add distraction, inefficiency, and unpleasantness to the work experience—and may contribute to burnout as well.
As we debate grand philosophical questions around the future of work, perhaps it’s also time to devote rigor to the fundamentals of organizational life, whether in the office, fully remote, or something in between. Agreeing on well-defined and widely practiced norms that mitigate unnecessary complication and conflict is essential for a desirable and productive workplace. Before expecting whizbang technology to create workplace nirvana, organizations must explore the cultural norms and core operating principles and practices that foster or confound productivity.
In my experience, misalignment and dysfunction arise when three fundamental building blocks of organized activity are not taken seriously: teams, meetings, and communication. Each element is interrelated and highly complementary. For example, a high-functioning team is inherently better at communication and more productive during meetings. In other words, deficiency in one area can derail the others.
Teams
I have never encountered an organization without teams. Some see them as a cure-all. Yet, a recent Harvard Business Review article by organizational psychologist Constance Noonan Hadley and organizational behavior professor Mark Mortensen points out the historically poor performance of teams. The authors note that while teams have long struggled to fulfill their promise as an organizational form, they face especially high hurdles today, in part because organizations keep forming teams without a clear idea of their purpose, how they should be structured and governed, and what expectations members should have for their individual and collective roles and responsibilities. For their part, Hadley and Mortensen propose “co-acting groups,” an alternative team concept in which participants share a goal and work independently but gather occasionally. (Think coders, writers, and designers who contribute to a website redesign without the formality of a rigid team structure and meetings.)
Before expecting whiz-bang technology to create workplace nirvana, organizations must explore the cultural norms and core operating principles and practices that foster or confound productivity.
Whatever your organization’s preference for team building, it should be carefully selected from a range of options, and it should be clear to everyone why the firm chose one particular structure over another and what’s expected of everyone participating. Start with desired outcomes and cultural norms, then articulate principles to empower action, and, finally, provide the skills and tools needed for success.
For example, I encountered one organization that committed to creating and formalizing a high-quality team culture. In the model they created, a cross-functional team required a charge, a charter, and a champion. The charge precisely defined the challenge the team would tackle. The charter outlined membership, expected duration, time commitments, decision-making authority, and other governance issues. The champion was a person with sufficient positional power to do something with the team’s work product. Though initially cumbersome, the requirements ensured clarity of mission and the rules of the road, along with some assurance that the work would not be a performative exercise with little impact. When it worked, it was the embodiment of the adage “slow is smooth and smooth is fast,” which is another way of saying that doing the hard work on the front end ensures smooth functioning later on and ultimately gets you to your destination faster.
