For the first time in human history, two-thirds of our daily work communication and a growing amount of our interpersonal and social communication is being done in writing. Texts, e-mails, and collaboration tools are asynchronous and ubiquitous. How you respond to this probably depends on how old you are. Is this good news, since electronic

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Over the last few months, there’s been a shift in the way people talk about work. The new buzzword is “hybrid.” No doubt You’ve heard people say, “we’re coming back, but it will be a hybrid of people in the office and working flexibly.” That sounds great, but is it really a new way of

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When we talk to the leaders in organizations about what work will look like in the future, we hear a lot of similar concerns.  They worry about the culture of their organization, and how remote and hybrid work will change things. There’s some concern—although far less than at the beginning of the pandemic—about task completion.

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For years, the conversation about remote work has centered on the differences between working remotely (often from home) and the way we always worked in co-located situations. But what if that comparison is outdated? Specifically, how do you train and on-board new workers who don’t have that frame of reference. In short, you can’t compare

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One of the big challenges we hear about hybrid and remote work is that “collaboration is difficult.” One CEO I spoke to said, “My people just come up with better answers when they can work together physically.” That led to an interesting discussion: What does it mean to come up with the best, or right,

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More teams are working in hybrid ways than ever before. That creates opportunities and challenges, none more obvious than for people joining a hybrid team right now. The COVID pandemic has certainly impacted some teams more than others. We work with clients who have kept their team intact for the last 20 months with productivity

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Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard to get a message through to your remote and hybrid team members? “I told them.” “I put it in an email last week.” “I know this meeting could have been an email. But nobody reads the darned emails! Then we have to have the meeting anyway.” It

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When we think about remote and hybrid teams, there are a lot of things that can go wrong. First of all, everything that negatively impacts a traditional team can cause havoc. Things like a lack of alignment, or micromanagement, or unclear objectives create problems no matter where people work. But there’s one factor that’s lethal

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When you think about what makes a high-functioning team (whether in person, remote or hybrid) really click, several factors come to mind. In our research for The Long-Distance Teammate,  we discovered one of the most important things that contribute to a really solid, trusting, team culture: a constant flow of feedback from and to our

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If you have your Business Buzzword Bingo card handy, get ready to put another phrase on it. The hottest topic in remote and hybrid work is “culture.” Specifically, creating a “one-team” culture as we move to more hybrid work. The idea of “one team” is important. The phrase recognizes that hybrid work contains the seeds

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