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Karin, with our new work-from-home policy, and flexible work arrangements, I have some of my team working from home most of the time. And, other team members are choosing to come into the office (as am I). How do I ensure I don’t give preferential treatment to the people I see most often? How do I prevent this thing called proximity bias #AskingforaFriend.

1. Talk about proximity bias WITH your team.

You could start the proximity bias conversation like this.

“We want to create an inclusive work environment where we respect, value, and support every team member no matter where they choose to work. What’s working now? What’s getting in the way?”

2. Be thoughtful and deliberate in your one-on-ones

There’s no better way to know what’s really on your employees’ hearts and minds than a truly great approach to one-on-ones.  Take time for creating clarity and removing roadblocks, building genuine connection, and proactively asking them for their ideas.

3. Lead your meetings from both sides of the hybrid table to avoid proximity bias

If you primarily lead meetings from a physical office with remote members dialing in, try leading your meeting from a remote location from time to time while others are still gathered in the conference room.

Giving yourself the experience of remote participation will also help you be mindful of creating a common, shared experience (eg: avoiding side-bar conversations or inside jokes that don’t include everyone – this is one reason many hybrid team leaders move to a “one screen-one face” approach, even for those in person.)

4. Be purposeful with your time together

If it’s feasible to bring your team together in person, consider the most important work to accomplish during that time (e.g. strategic planning, raising ideas, sharing concerns, building trust, gaining exposure to executives, navigating tough performance conversations). And if you require in-person days, ask your team what would make that time most worth the commute.

5. Measure it

If you’re serious about overcoming proximity bias, you need to know when it’s happening. Just like other unconscious biases, it’s important to measure behavior.

One easy way to do this is to keep a list of each member of your team and track your interactions. For example, you might track the time and duration of one-on-ones, informal conversations, and other meetings. Then, look or the patterns.

Read more here for deeper insights into overcoming proximity bias

How to Overcome Proximity Bias for a Better Hybrid Team

The post How Do I Create More Inclusion on Hybrid Team? (Avoid Proximity Bias) [VIDEO] appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Like most forms of accidental discrimination, proximity bias is tricky. Human-centered managers don’t set out to treat remote workers differently. And yet, it’s easy to screw up in subtle, often unconscious ways.

Sure, there will always be old-school managers like Elon Musk, whose bias towards in-person work is deliberate and vocal—requiring employees to spend “a minimum of forty hours in a physical office a week.”

And certainly, if you’re running the company, it’s your prerogative to define your culture and make the rules. You’ll attract and retain the employees who resonate with your approach and deal with the fallout. And everyone also has the choice of whether to work in a particular culture or go elsewhere.

But let’s be real. Until recently, Musk’s approach would not be so shocking or controversial. Many big companies, including Verizon where I (Karin) worked for two decades, were quite clear that being in-person mattered—a lot.

To be promoted past a certain level you had to relocate to headquarters. In fact, our 9 box talent review forms had a defining check mark about relocation. During the years I worked remotely, I obtained lifetime Titanium status at my favorite hotel brand. Just like many of my peers.

Showing up in person was expected and noted. Everyone knew if you couldn’t pull that off, you were slow-tracking your career.

Not today. Most companies with similar histories are proactively undoing their explicit proximity bias—making a complete 180-degree shift on such policies. They know that attracting and retaining the best talent requires flexibility.

The New Challenge for Hybrid Teams

And it’s tricky. Because those policies and attitudes were there for a reason— proximity bias is real and it’s challenging to overcome.

We both have life-long friendships with people we worked with years ago. It’s hard to imagine that level of trust without all the shared meals, experiences, and impromptu mishaps and adventures.

Most people will bond better over a real lunch than even the best virtual taco party. It’s human nature to turn to the co-worker in the cube next door when you need help or advice. It takes effort to remember all that your co-worker three time zones away brings to the table. Without a proactive approach to managing proximity bias, inertia wins, and your out-of-arms-distance team members can feel (and be) excluded.

Of course, they might not share their concerns about proximity bias. Or even know to call it that. They stay silent for fear their complaints will be met with a call to spend more time in person.

What is Proximity Bias?

Proximity bias is giving intentional or unintentional disparate treatment to the people closest to you in geography or time zone. Proximity bias, like all biases, is an instinctual and often unconscious response when making decisions. It’s a tendency to collaborate more with people we trust, without stopping to consider why we trust them more than others. It can happen from leader to team member when a manager favors those they’re physically around. And, less frequently discussed or challenged is the proximity bias that happens among team members who have a less formal obligation for inclusion.

Examples of Proximity Bias

So, how does proximity bias show up in hybrid teams? Here are a few examples.

• You need to make a decision quickly so you call a quick huddle in the office to get a few ideas. You don’t circle back to include your remote team members.
• You’re running a meeting with two-thirds of the team in person and a few people on zoom. You’ve shared the slides on the screen, so now the zoom attendees are tiny little squares so it’s difficult to read their facial expressions. After a while, your remote team members just turn off their cameras— because, why bother?
• Your boss flies in for an executive visit. You do a great job hosting a town hall meeting and a Q&A that includes your remote team members. That evening the in-person team goes out for a few beers and that’s where the conversation starts to get real.
• You give the special project to the people you trust the most, without considering what’s underneath that deeper relationship.
• When you go on vacation, you default to an in-person team member acting for you, because it’s “easier to navigate” the politics in person if something comes up.
• Your in-office team stays after your hybrid meeting to brainstorm ideas.

Practical Approaches to Being More Inclusive in Your Hybrid Team

Just like the other work you’re doing on diversity, equity and inclusion, overcoming proximity bias takes deliberate focus and practical, tactical approaches.

1. Talk about proximity bias with your team
2. Be thoughtful and deliberate in your one-on-ones
3. Lead your meetings from both sides of the hybrid table
4. Be purposeful with your time together
5. Measure it

1. Talk about proximity bias WITH your team.

Yes, your corporate policies and resources matter. Technology matters. We applaud all the important time and effort being invested to find systemic ways to overcome proximity bias. What happens at a team level also matters. One of the best things you can do to eliminate proximity bias is to help your managers have these conversations well with their teams.

For example, you could start the conversation like this.

“We want to create an inclusive work environment where we respect, value, and support every team member no matter where they choose to work. What’s working now? What’s getting in the way?”

Spend time communicating about how you communicate. Our free 6 Habits of Highly Effective Hybrid and Virtual Teams assessment can be a useful way to start this conversation. During this conversation, asking your remote team members (with sincere, open curiosity) about their experiences, challenges, and what’s missing will help you surface opportunities you wouldn’t be aware of otherwise. The Own the U.G.L.Y. framework is one way you can structure these conversations.

2. Be thoughtful and deliberate in your one-on-ones

There’s no better way to know what’s really on your employees’ hearts and minds than a truly great approach to one-on-ones, taking time for creating clarity and removing roadblocks, building genuine connection, and proactively asking them for their ideas.

With that said, one trap that’s easy to fall into in hybrid teams is to have too much of the conversation flow through you, and not enough collaboration among the team. Look for ways to have your hybrid team members work together on special projects, brainstorm ideas, or solve problems—be deliberate to pair up people who work in different locations.

One of the very best ways to build shared history, trust, and connection is by collaborating on work that matters.

3. Lead your meetings from both sides of the hybrid table

If you primarily lead meetings from a physical office with remote members dialing in, try leading your meeting from a remote location from time to time while others are still gathered in the conference room.

This was such an important experiment for us as we were refining our hybrid team leadership programs (where some participants were in person with us and others were dialing in). We quickly learned how important subtle issues were like camera and mic position, how you take notes, and what happens when you share slides to breakout rooms (note; that can make it very hard to see the people and can diminish connection).

It’s important to experience the frustrations that your team members may be afraid to speak up and mention. 

It can also help to rotate responsibility for facilitating your meetings to a different member of your team each time and equipping all your team members with the basics of remote team facilitation.

Giving yourself the experience of remote participation will also help you be mindful of creating a common, shared experience (eg: avoiding side-bar conversations or inside jokes that don’t include everyone – this is one reason many hybrid team leaders move to a “one screen-one face” approach, even for those in person.)

4. Be purposeful with your time together

Whether you are gathering in person from time to time or planning a hybrid special event, be deliberate about designing your time for maximum ROI. Being in back-to-back virtual meetings is exhausting. And remotely participating in a poorly designed virtual event can feel like you’re just watching bad TV.

If it’s feasible to bring your team together in person, consider the most important work to accomplish during that time (e.g. strategic planning, raising ideas, sharing concerns, building trust, gaining exposure to executives, navigating tough performance conversations). And if you require in-person days, ask your team what would make that time most worth the commute.

Another proximity bias to consider is the proximity of time zones.

We’ve been working with some global teams that only have a two-hour window when any of their schedules can reasonably overlap. They’ve learned to use that time deliberately for their most important synchronous communication, and then establish careful norms and response time expectations for their asynchronous interaction.

5. Measure it

If you’re serious about overcoming proximity bias, you need to know when it’s happening. Just like other unconscious biases, it’s important to measure behavior.

One easy way to do this is to keep a list of each member of your team and track your interactions. For example, you might track the time and duration of one-on-ones, informal conversations, and other meetings. Then, look or the patterns.

If you’re a senior HR or operations leader, you can also track as part of your DE&I measures. For example, comparing data about promotions, compensation, or special projects of employees working in a physical office and those working from home.

Building highly effective virtual and hybrid teams takes time. You’re going to learn what works best by staying close to your team and iterating along the way. If a team member raises concerns about proximity bias take that conversation seriously. Talk about practical ways to remedy the situation.

Share your ideas and keep the conversation going.

The post How to Overcome Proximity Bias for a Better Hybrid Team appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

The best hybrid and virtual teams don’t leave connection and communication to chance. They’re consistently asking “How can we do this better?” They spend time communicating about how they communicate AND make an extra effort to build psychological safety, trust and connection.

And, they focus on the fundamentals.

It’s interesting how often people will come to us to ask us to help train their leaders on leading virtual teams, when mostly what they need is help leading teams who just happen to be working remotely.

So if your virtual or hybrid team is struggling, be sure you are clearly defining what success looks like, creating a cadence of accountability, and building deep trust and leading with compassion.

6 Habits of Highly Effective Hybrid and Virtual Teams

In this week’s Asking for a Friend, David and I share six habits of highly effective hybrid and virtual teams. If you haven’t seen our FREE virtual and hybrid team assessment you can download that for FREE here.

If you’ve missed these articles, they’re also a good way to infuse some fresh energy on your virtual team.

3 Leadership Values to Nurture in Every Member of Your Team

VIrtual One on One Meetings: How to Build Better Connection 

How to Take Charge of your Virtual Meetings

The post What Do Highly Successful Virtual Teams Do Differently? (Video) appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

If you’re serious about becoming a better remote leader, you’re going to want to become a master in the art of remote team communication.

Key initiatives, motivation, strategic priorities, updates, celebrations–there is so much to communicate with your team.

But here’s the big question.

How do you know your messages aren’t getting lost in the background noise of competing priorities, digital distraction, and hazy sameness of emails and instant messages?

Communicating What Matters Most

It’s no exaggeration to say that every time you or your team form a memory, your brain changes. You literally build new connections (or strengthen existing connections) between neurons.

We also know quite a bit about how people build memories and retain information. As a leader focused on remote team communication, four of the most important principles are recency, repetition, recall, and emotion.

Recency

One way to spark memory is through recent experience. You probably remember what you had for breakfast today … but lunch three weeks ago is likely fuzzier.

Repetition

It’s easier to remember what you encounter more often. Hear a song once and you might say “that’s a nice song.” Hear that song ten times and it might not leave your mind for a week–whether or not you want it to.

Recall

One way we strengthen memories and retain information is by accessing it. When you have to recall the information to answer a question or do your work, you are more likely to retain it.

Emotion

Emotion has a powerful effect on memory. If you reflect back on a time you experienced a strong emotion, you probably remember more about your surroundings. For example, I’ve been in many high school auditoriums, but I still remember details of the auditorium where I learned I’d won my first multi-state high school debate tournament.

Bringing it All Together: The Power of 5×5 Remote Team Communication

Effective leaders don’t leave these memory enhancers to chance. You can build processes and plan your remote team communication strategies to leverage these characteristics of memory.

One technique to help you do this is our 5 x 5 Communication Planner.

5 x 5 refers to communicating key messages five times, five different ways. “Five times” achieve repetition and recency. Five different ways can help with recall and emotion–particularly when you engage your team and get creative.

The first two or three elements of your 5 x 5 communication plan will be the standard ways you use consistently and people come to rely on. These might include team meetings, emails, project management software, and message threads.

When you extend beyond these and do something differently, that creates positive emotion: “Oh, wow, this is different and fun. This is important.”

It can feel challenging to get creative and mix up your communication strategies when you’re busy and tired. So, we made it easier.

Mixing it Up: 101 Remote Team Communication Techniques

We’ve been working with remote leaders around the globe to help them communicate clearly and ensure they and their teams align around what matters most. We’ve also asked them what’s working and how they vary remote team communication to help keep everyone on the same page. Here’s what they said:

Visual Reinforcement

1. Scrolling banners
2. Virtual backgrounds for MS Teams, Zoom, etc.
3. Items on shelf/credenza in the virtual background
4. Login messages on laptops
5. Splash screens when logging onto the company website
6. Physical whiteboard, chalkboard, or poster placed next to, or behind, you in a video call
7. Screen savers
8. Pop-ups on internal websites
9. Email signatures
10. A second monitor in your background scrolling the message or with a related image
11. Banner or ad on an internal website
12. Polls
13. Virtual desk drops
14. Quick recorded video message

Creating memories with a bit of fun

15. Client or customer presents to the team
16. Internal wikis
17. Music video
18. Riddles at the end of emails or agendas related to the topic
19. Have another leader recognize one of your team members or team for performance related to the topic
20. Temporary tattoos
21. Dress up in costumes to emphasize the message
22. #Hashtags
23. Video text messages
24. Gamification
25. Memes or fun graphics
26. An inspiration speaker related to the message
27. Animated GIFs
28. Songs
29. Write a poem
30. Cameo app (where a celebrity delivers the message)
31. Play a game related to the message
32. A humorous presentation or sketch
33. Telephone game–pass the message in a loop through the team
34. Text-based Games that Reveal the Message (eg Wheel of Fortune)
35. Games that reinforce the message (eg Jeopardy or Trivia-style with related content)
36. Theme music
37. Named group-chats or text threads
38. eCards
39. Internal competitions
40. Cross-team presentations related to the message or theme

Messages on (or with) Stuff

41. Send flowers or plants with the message.
42. Sending food (many leaders were very specific about the kind of foods including: pizza, pastries, cupcakes, frosted cookies, muffins, healthy snacks, goodie bags, meal-delivery services, coffee, and tea). Messages are either printed on or included with the food.
43. Send a book that emphasizes the message or has it written on the front cover
44. Bookmarks
45. Swag gifts (Tchotchkes with key messages)
46. Personalized/inscribed beverage bottles with a message
47. Send a balloon with a deliverable or key message inside the balloon
48. Clothing with message printed on it (eg: hats, tee shirts, sweaters, jackets)
49. Print it on mugs or cups that are used in virtual meetings
50. Message in a bottle
51. Yard signs

Meetings

52. Rotate team members sharing the message in a meeting
53. Team members presenting to one another on key message / topic
54. Have a respected peer, colleague, or another leader share the message
55. Virtual coffee chats (supply the coffee/tea and invite to change camera view to something more casual.)
56. Virtual lunches
57. Meeting notes / summaries
58. Meeting agendas
59. Calendar invitations with key messages
60. Meeting pre-reading materials
61. One-on-one meetings 
62. Skip level meetings
63. All-hands meetings
64. Virtual walk and talks
65. Demonstrations

Old School Tried and True

66. A positive, encouraging start-the-day message from leader (recorded or written)
67. Email
68. MS Teams & Zoom Meetings & Messaging
69. Project management software (eg: Asana, Trello, Basecamp, Slack)
70. Phone calls
71. Text messages
72. Cell phone notifications
73. Voice message
74. Powerpoint
75. Physical mail–letters, greeting cards, postcards
76. Newsletters
77. Surveys
78. Thank-you notes (handwritten)
79. Recognition and celebration
80. Check for understanding
81. Press release
82. Vary the timing and context of routine messages
83. Acronyms related to the message (if you’ve read any of our books, you know this is one of our go-to favorites)
84. Tag lines to make it memorable

Social Media

85. LinkedIn (articles, posts, features, video)
86. TikTok videos (and ultimately, all social media channels were mentioned)
87. Online paid ads
88. Write and/or share articles related to the subject
89. Internal blog
90. Internal podcast
91. Social media spotlights celebrating related behaviors and accomplishments

Project Tracking

92. Action trackers
93. Project plans
94. Open issues lists
95. Storyboards
96. Calendar invitations
97. Micro-learning software
98. Shared documents
99. Status settings in collaboration software
100. Annual or project kickoffs
101. Post-project celebrations

Your Turn

There’s a starting list of remote team communication techniques. To improve your remote team communication, work on one or two items from the list that add variety and break up preoccupation.

We’d love to hear from you–what would you add to help leaders master this critical skill?

The post 101 Remote Team Communication Approaches for Stronger Teams appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

As we shared in 6 habits of highly effective hybrid and virtual teams, the best hybrid and virtual teams have this in common— they work at it. They don’t take their virtual team communication for granted. It’s an ongoing, proactive conversation about expectations, what’s working well, and what’s not.

And, they talk through any frustrations before they’ve had too much time to simmer. 

Because even well-intentioned, high-urgency, human-centered teammates can have widely varied opinions about what successful team communication looks like.

Perhaps you can identify with a disconnect like this:

• “If they knew this was important, why didn’t they send me an email with IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED in the header?”
• “Why would they let this sit in an email, and not just Slack message me? I always respond immediately on Slack.”
• “I turn off my Slack notifications when I’m doing deep work. They should know that if something is really important, they should send me a text.”
• “Ugh. This was important. Why didn’t they just pick up the phone? How hard is that?”
• “This is ridiculous. This was an in-office day. And, I’m IN THE OFFICE. If this was that important, why wouldn’t they just come by my cube?”
• “I get that this is important, but I’m working from halfway around the world. I was asleep when the email came and by the time I could contribute my input, the decision had already been made.”

Everyone AGREES this was a highly urgent conversation. And yet, there’s a whole lot of frustration going on about why THEY communicated it THAT WAY.

Establishing Norms and Expectations Around Virtual Team Communication

The idea is to use this tool to support a conversation about how you agree to communicate during different circumstances. And then, translate that into agreed team communication norms.

Let’s Grow Leaders Communication Matrix

click the virtual team communication matrix image to download a PDF of the matrix to use with your team

HOW to use the tool

An easy way to start the conversation is to provide the tool to each member of your team and give them time to reflect on what kinds of communication work best for various kinds of topics, discussions, or information, with a focus on whether you’re in a synchronous or asynchronous environment.

For example, your team may decide that if we’re working at the same time in the same location and there’s an important decision to be made quickly, we’re going to pull up for a quick team huddle.

You may agree, in that scenario, you’re not going to spend a lot of time on email threads or Slack channels. You’re going to get together, make the decision, and follow up with an email summary.

Or, you may agree that even if you are all in the office, you’re not going to interrupt one another with less urgent matters. Those will be handled via your Slack channel.

This conversation is particularly critical for virtual team communication across time zones.

If your team is in different locations at different times, and you have an important decision to make, you may agree that all the information will be communicated in a Slack thread so that everyone can weigh in and share their views during a 24 hour period, before making the final decision (for more about “who owns the decision” see our Manager’s Guide to Better Decision Making.)

This tool is just the start to get the conversation going about communication preferences, what’s working, and opportunities for streamlining communication and making it more accessible. From there, you can create norms for your hybrid and virtual team communication as you continue your growth as a high-performing hybrid or virtual team.

See Also: 5 Communication Mistakes Screwing Up Teamwork

The post How to Improve Your Hybrid or Virtual Team Communication appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

In this week’s Asking For a Friend, I share best practices I see continually being performed by high-performing virtual teams.

Highlights from the Building High-Performing Virtual Teams Conversation

0:54 High-performing teams invest in the people they are working with as genuine human beings. They’re deliberate about making a human connection and learning about one another.

1:20 They have a clear definition of what success looks like. Team members work hard to align their most important strategic priorities and discuss when these priorities conflict. They have clearly defined strategic initiatives that support these priorities, as well as know the daily behaviors necessary to achieve them.

1:47 They spend time communicating about how they communicate—and have a cadence of great one-on-one meetings.

Also, they don’t wait on the manager to initiate the communication. Team members reach out and collaborate with one another without waiting for an invitation to do so.

2:30 These teams design team meetings to be truly inclusive—and check-in with one another to talk about how the meetings are working.

3:23  Most importantly, they are constantly looking for ways to improve.

Your turn.

What are some of the consistent habits that you see from high-performing virtual teams?

Looking For More Team Building Resources?

Don’t miss our more detailed article on leading hybrid and virtual teams or our virtual teams’ assessment. 

And you can learn more about our live-online leadership training here. 

The post Best Practices of High Performing Virtual Teams (Video) appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

How do you “land in the and” to support your team without burning out

7 Ways to Maintain Productivity as I Return to the Office #AskingForaFriend

7 Tips for staying productive as you return to the office (or move to hybrid work.)

In today’s episode of Asking For a Friend, I offer 7 tips for keeping productive while supporting your team.

1. Inventory what made your work from home time so productive.
2. Talk with your team and make a plan to support one another.
3. Leverage your commute.
4. Be deliberate about what work you do where.
5. Consider quiet hours for focused work.
6. Invest in strategic relationships.
7. Learn, iterate and adjust.

For a deeper dive, on this topic, you won’t want to miss our feature articles:

How to Stay Productive as You Return to the Office,

Productivity at Work: How to Lead Highly Productive Teams

The post How Do I Maintain Productivity as I Return to the Office? (Video) appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

You’ve learned a lot about how you work and what makes you most productive over the last year. You had more choices on how to structure your day, when (and with whom) to engage. You figured out what worked best for you. The return to the office can feel as overwhelming as that initial, emergency pivot to working from home.

7 Tips for staying productive as you return to the office (or move to hybrid work.)

1. 1. Inventory what made your work from home time so productive.
   2. Talk with your team and make a plan to support one another.
   3. Leverage your commute.
   4. Be deliberate about what work you do where.
   5. Consider quiet hours for focused work.
   6. Invest in strategic relationships.
   7. Learn, iterate and adjust.

How to Build Your Return to the Office Plan

1. Inventory what made your work from home time so productive.

Our guess is you weren’t radically more productive the first few weeks you suddenly had to work from home. But you figured it out. The trick here is to learn from your learning. How did you structure your day? How did you communicate with your team during the pandemic?  Did you get up earlier? Take more frequent breaks? Did you take time out for a walk at lunchtime to just refresh and think?

A return to the office does not necessarily mean you need to go back to all your old patterns and habits. Figure out what works best for you and your team, and then determine how you can incorporate some of that into your new routine.

2. Talk with your team and make a plan to support one another.

Here’s the good news. Everyone is thinking about how they can return to the office without adding hours to their day. No one on your team wants to be less productive.

This is the perfect time to communicate with your team (even if you’re not the boss) about what is working and how to work even more effectively and efficiently with one another.

We’ve built a FREE hybrid and virtual teams assessment to help you get the conversation going.

3. Leverage your commute.

When the pandemic first started, many managers we spoke with shared how much they missed the “time to think” or listen to a podcast.

Yes, commute time can be a huge time suck, but it can also be focused time to invest well. Consider how you might leverage your commute through value-added activities to work on your personal development, make a few calls (safely) to catch up with colleagues or friends, or even just have the white space to think quietly about the day and week ahead.

4. Be deliberate about what work you do where.

If you’re spending some time in the office, and other days at home, work to be deliberate in your time blocking. The news is full of examples of frustrating employees talking about quitting their jobs because a return to the office mandate feels like a frustrating waste of time.

Of course, your return to in-person work will be frustrating if you head to your cube and join a Zoom call with the people sitting in the cube next door.

Talk with your manager and co-workers about how you can best leverage the time you do have in the office for deeper collaboration and innovation. Then, do what you can to plan your deeper thinking or individual project work for the time you have at home.

5. Consider quiet hours (or open-office hours) to focus your work.

A best practice we are seeing with our clients planning their return to the office strategy is carving out “quiet hours” with no meetings and/or open-office hours where employees can “drop by” virtually or in-person to share ideas, brainstorm, or even get a quick response to a problem.

This time use of time blocking can help overcome the biggest fear we’re hearing from so many managers who are contemplating a return to the office: the fear of perpetual drop-by disruptions on non-urgent matters.

6. Invest in strategic relationships.

Even with a focused, deliberate effort to build trust and establish strategic relationships, most managers tell us they really miss the deeper conversations and spontaneous relationship-building that comes from in-person work.

Leverage your in-person time to work on a few key relationships. This is a great time to find (or become a mentor). Or to work on your relationship with a challenging boss.

And, of course, if you’ve ever taken one of our leadership training programs, you know how passionate we are about building strong, collaborative peer relationships. Consider how you might leverage your in-person time, to invest in your relationship with others as you build your return to the office strategy.

7. Learn, iterate and adjust.

Just like it took a minute to figure out how to be productive working from home, with the kids playing the ukelele in the next room with their virtual school on mute, your return to the office plan will take time to get right.

Talk with your manager and your human resources partners about what is working and what support you most need.

Try some of these suggestions. Figure out what works best for you and your team. Keep the conversation going. Iterate, and adjust.

Your turn.

We would love to hear from you. What best practices are you finding work well as you return to the office?

Note: If you prefer a video version of this article to share with your team check out this Asking For a Friend on Staying Productive. 

The post How to Stay Productive as You Return to the Office appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

If you want to take your virtual or hybrid team to the next level, use this virtual team-building tool to get your team talking about what’s working and identify areas for continued improvement.

What makes a highly successful virtual or hybrid team?

Highly successful hybrid and virtual teams have one thing in common. They work at it.

Each team member commits to working on the team while working on the work.

Everything is deliberate.

They’re strategic in how they communicate, how they connect, and how they ask for help. They dedicate time to think about “How we do things around here” and talk about what’s working and what’s not. They understand the importance of psychological safety and are deliberate in helping others feel included.

And, when it’s not working, they slow down and fix it.

We’ve both worked in highly successful hybrid and virtual teams for decades. And, we now lead a company of hybrid and virtual teams. In our experience, and in our work with clients during and emerging out of the pandemic, there are six habits we consistently see lead to high performance in hybrid and virtual teams.

They …

1. Regularly invest in getting to know one another as human beings.
2. Have a clear definition of what success looks like.
3. Dedicate time to discuss how they communicate.
4. Collaborate with one another informally.
5. Carefully design virtual meetings so they are the best use of everyone’s time.
6. Consistently look for ways to improve.

(Read more in our 6 Habits Of Highly Successful Hybrid and Virtual Teams.)

How’s your team doing in this regard? Why not ask the team with this easy virtual team-building tool?

Virtual Team Building Tool: An Easy Way to Get Your Team Talking

You can download this virtual team-building assessment tool for free here.

click image to download PDF of the team builder assessment

1: Download the virtual team-building assessment and distribute it to your team.

2: Ask each member to rate how they candidly feel the team is doing in each of the areas.

3: For each of the categories invite your team members to share how they rated the team and why.

4: Celebrate strengths and what’s working, then identify opportunities for improvement.

5: Pick one area to work on, invite I.D.E.A.s to improve, and make a plan.

6: Schedule the finish (determine who will do what, by when, and how will you know it’s finished) AND pick a time to talk about how things are going.

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