21st Century Work Life

In today's podcast, Lisette and Pilar try to figure out best practice in meetings in hybrid teams.  Introduction Leila's post: How to Give Feedback that Really Hurts. http://virtualnotdistant.com/feedback-hurts/ Pilar recommend the platform MeetingSift for hybrid meetings. New podcast coming soon, you can subscribe here for email updates: https://managementcafepodcast.com/ Mentoring Group for managers and leaders of virtual teams, starts September. http://virtualnotdistant.com/virtual-not-distant-mentoring-group/ New course on running workshops online: Flipping the Online Classroom. (Also starts in September!)     Thanks to Saros Research for sponsoring this podcast. If you would like to share your opinions on products and get paid for it and you are based in the UK or Ireland, follow this link https://www.sarosresearch.com/participate/join-saros-research/?id=100243 Virtual Coffee with Lisette: Hybrid Teams 06:31 mins Our updates The peanut butter conversation. Lisette's ELMO moments... The importance of buffer time in virtual meetings. Here's the ELMO card and a link to Leila using the Supercards! http://virtualnotdistant.com/greatmeetings/ Pilar's been working with Sam and Yoris from Happy Melly One on a feedback system, using a Trello board based on the Learning 3.0 Canvas. Problems/Issues Possible Roadblocks Expected Results - what do we want to see? Stories/Experiences Options and Considerations Ideas What should we try immediately?   19:35 mins Our Conversation A few more reflections on the Audacious Salon at Agile 2016. (You can hear all about it in Episode 85.) http://virtualnotdistant.com/audacious-salon/ Lisette's 100th episode! http://www.collaborationsuperpowers.com/100-greatest-hits-volume-2/ Bear in mind noisy rooms - if you're in an open office, bear in mind that your ambient noise will go straight into somebody's ears. Permission to speak for remote team members during a meeting. You can read people in an office space or if everyone is virtual, you learn to read each other. How are we going to structure the discussion so that we know when we want to speak or when we need to move on? Think about how you're going to keep the conversation going and open with the technology you've got. When one person is remote... we have to redefine how we work together. "When one person is remote, the whole team is remote" is really about putting everyone on an equal footing. What are the problems in the real time meeting in a hybrid team? When should we have hybrid meetings? Try not to make the remote participant as if they were in the room, they are not, and therefore your process needs to change. Use online tools to capture ideas - you can then carry on the discussion asynchronously with your online records. Find a new rhythm and revisit how you work. Find a new way of operating together which involves adapting your practices. Breaking down your current ones and deciding whether it's going to be useful in the new context. Think about how you're allocating tasks. Decide whether you want cross-over between collocated and remote or separate tasks and projects to remote teams and collocated ones. Link to blog post on Sococo blog: https://www.sococo.com/blog/use-cases/agile/the-audacious-salon-at-agile-2016-distributed-agile-delusion-or-evolution/ Why does the agile community seem resistant to adopting working in distributed teams? The agile practices are perfect for this way of working!

In today's episode, Pilar talks to Mandy Ross from Sococo about how the tool is helping team members stay connected through technology. Introduction Link to episode on Coworking in Sococo: http://virtualnotdistant.com/online-coworking/ Pilar recommend the Kellogg Insight podcast episode on Managing Conflict in Virtual Teams because it focuses on multicultural teams, though they also take a broader view. http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/podcast-tips-for-managing-conflict-at-work Check out the Mentoring Group http://training-for-virtual-teams.teachable.com/courses/mentoring-group   Thank you to Saros Research for sponsoring our podcast! If you would like to give your opinion on products and get paid for it, use this link to register with Saros: https://www.sarosresearch.com/participate/join-saros-research/?id=100243   The Conversation with Mandy Ross from Sococo   Sococo, what it is, what it looks like, what it was designed for. How this workspace works. "At a certain point after you work all the time in Sococo, the technology  disappears and all that's left is the relationships between the people that are there." The history of Sococo. How the Cloud presented a threat and an opportunity... The mindshift when going opensource. Let Mandy know if you want to test out the mobile version of Sococo. @SococoMandy The importance of a fan base when you want to make an important change to your product. (Shout out to AgileBillKrebs) The early adoption system on mobile app stores. Mandy's job: Director of Marketing and Agile Coach Mandy's work history. Sococo in Japan. What kind of companies are using Sococo and in what ways - agencies working with freelancers, customer services, HR, dev-ops.

Pilar reports back straight after her experience as a remote participant in the Audacious Salon. Part of the Agile 2016 conference, the session was an experiment with a very important aim: finding the right questions to ask about distributed agile. This episode is not really a summary of the session (we will talk about that in episode 87) but a reminder of some of the things we should look out for when collocated and virtual people meet in real time. For more on remote agile, visit remotelyagile.info

In today's episode, Pilar and Lisette talk about what factors affect motivation in virtual teams - and indeed most teams.    Introduction It's a short one today. Maybe this mentoring group for managers of virtual teams is for you...  http://virtualnotdistant.com/virtual-not-distant-mentoring-group/ Would you like to join Virtual Team Talk? And, of course, many thanks to Saros Research. If you'd like to share your opinion and get paid for it (and you're based in the UK or Ireland), follow this link. https://www.sarosresearch.com/participate/join-saros-research/?id=100243   Virtual Coffee with Lisette: Motivation in Virtual Teams 07:00 mins Our Updates Lisette is going to be on Entrepreneur on Fire!!!! (Yes, you read right!) Meanwhile, Pilar is getting ready to launch two podcasts in August: En clave de podcast with Craig Wealand and 21st Century Management Some stuff that's happening in the Virtual Team Talk Group. (Wink to Mark Kilby and the Sketchtogether guys.) Lisette mentions this popular interview on her Collaboration Superpowers podcast: Leslie Truex's interview on Be a Work at Home Success 27:40 mins Our Conversation This is the article by Liz Ryan (@humanworkplace on Twitter) that inspired today's episode: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-kill-your-teams-motivation-without-really-trying-liz-ryan "Management should be a profession, not a promotion." Should managers be responsible for motivating their team members or should they just get out of the way? You need to know the individual. Self-determination theory and Daniel Pink's adaptation of it. What is at the heart of what motivates us to do a good job? "Motivation is a function of your environment." Technology plays an important part in motivation, as it is a key component of your environment. The role of leadership and management in being visible. Our own relationship with hierarchy. Managers beware... If you want to find out more about Dan Ariely's work on motivation. https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_what_makes_us_feel_good_about_our_work?language=en Visibility of our work in organisations. Barriers to making decisions and how to ask others for help.

In this episode, Pilar talks to Alex Hillman, founder of Indy Hall, "a community of people who choose to work together, more productively, to make our work, our lives, our cities and communities better".   Introduction Thanks to Mark and Bernie for their feedback on the Brexit episode. If you would like more info on the Mentoring Group for managers and leaders of virtual teams, check this out: http://virtualnotdistant.com/virtual-not-distant-mentoring-group/ Listen to this episode on The Coworking Weekly Show, where Alex Hillman, today's guest, reflects on how the coworking spirit can be adapted to make the broader way of work a better place. http://listen.coworkingweekly.com/episodes/27649-ep20-ten-questions-about-the-future-of-work If you enjoy giving your feedback on products and would like to get paid for your opinions, register with our sponsor, Saros Research. https://www.sarosresearch.com/participate/join-saros-research/?id=100243 11:50mins The Conversation with Alex Hillman from Indy Hall Thanks to Bernie J Mitchell for introducing us! Indy Hall - the story... http://www.indyhall.org/ Coworking - the verb, not the physical space. Finding opportunities to be around each other. First steps in coworking... Finding like-minded people. Coworking that goes beyond the building. And what is the role of the person/s in charge? "Organisations have many examples of when people need to be working together in order to accomplish their goals, but they don't work together and in some cases, they work against each other [...] Then you have examples in coworking places when people don't need to work together, but they do." The role of trust in the workplace. Opportunities / successes and trends happening worldwide in the world of coworking. "Coworking" can mean different things to different people. Do photos of your coworking space have people in them? Where are the shared spaces for non-start up organisations or artists? "Real estate is straight forward because it's concrete. Community is complicated because it is not." The People at Work Summit. Would you like more of Alex? These are his two podcasts: The Coworking Weekly Show: http://listen.coworkingweekly.com/ Stacking Briks https://stackingbricks.simplecast.fm/ And his reversed audiobook: https://theindyhallway.com/ten/ More from Alex: @alexhillman on Twitter dangerouslyawesome.com coworkingweekly.com

In this episode Pilar and Lisette talk about what they enjoyed most and learned from "Work Rules" and "The Year Without Pants".  A short introduction today with some housekeeping and a big thanks to Saros Research! If you want to give your opinions on products and get paid for it, follow this link: https://www.sarosresearch.com/participate/join-saros-research/?id=100243   Virtual Coffee with Lisette: "Work Rules" and "The Year Without Pants". 04:50mins Lisette tells us about her terrible morning commute. Pilar talks a little bit (just a little bit) about post-Brexit and a little bit about the last Spanish elections. (You can listen to Pilar's rant about Brexit here: http://wlpodcast.libsyn.com/yes-i-too-am-talking-brexit) 17:58mins We start to talk about "Work Rules" and "The Year Without Pants". (Please note these are amazon affiliate links.) "One of the nobler aspirations of a workplace should be that it's a place of refuge where people are free to create, build and grow." Laszlo Bock in 'Work Rules' "There's nothing wrong with tradition until you want progress. Progress demands change and change demands reevaluation of what the traditions are and how they're practiced." Scott Berkun in "The Year Without Pants" "Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins." Zechariah Chafee Jr "The key to balancing individual freedom with overall direction is to be transparent." Laszlo Bock in 'Work Rules' When is an idea a good idea? Separate development conversations from appraisal conversations. The difficulty in getting feedback when you are remote. And the big question: can you be as great a company when you operate remotely as when you are co-located? The jury is still out.  

visit www.virtualnotdistant.com Hello and welcome to this extra episode of the 21st Century Work Life podcast, I’m Pilar Orti. If you’re a regular listener and managed to listen to last week’s episode, you might know that I was not going to release an episode this week, as I needed to catch up with myself and also, I’m in Madrid at the moment, where my set up is not ideal for working and also, not great for recording, so excuse the audio quality of this impromptu podcast. So today it’s Monday and I never release an episode on Mondays and this week I wasn’t suppose to release any anyway. But, Brexit happened and, almost against my reserved nature, as in, I’m very careful with what I release on social media, and a podcast is considered social media, almost against my reserved nature I do want to share my reflections on this whole… let’s say, situation. But I’m not just talking about Brexit, also about the political situation in Spain and also about the importance, more now than ever as the political class is crumbling, the importance of creating a world of work that makes people’s lives better.   As I said, three parts to this episode and the first is Brexit. On 23rd June, 52% of 71% of the UK’s British nationals aged 18 and over – and you do the math, voted for the UK to leave the European Union. So, the first thing I’d like to say is, if you’re British and are ashamed of being British right now, of which there are many, I’ve heard it first hand and second hand, don’t be. Because 48% of the population voted remain. Not just that, I was actually incredibly touched by how much people, in my circles, put themselves out there showing support for the Remain vote and even asking others to do the same. And remember, foreigners residing in Britain like myself, couldn’t vote. So these were British people making it very clear that they wanted to remain in the European Union. More about that later. In contrast to the couple of posts I saw during the campaign by foreign residents in the UK saying they didn’t feel welcome, I’ve been really touched by people speaking against the xenophobic vote. And hang on, I’m not saying that everyone who voted to leave was xenophobic, but there was a proportion of the vote that certainly was. So, I’m not angry at the fact that people voted Brexit. In fact, pretty much like the lovely Bernie who writes a newsletter every Sunday (as opposed to myself who is just incapable of doing one every month) I was actually very surprised at the amount of people who turned up to vote – 72%! Considering that the turnout for the last set of local elections was under 40% and I think the same for the last general elections, not bad at all. So, I’m not angry at that. I’ll tell you what I’m angry at. Two things in fact. This morning on Spanish radio I heard one of the journalists say, “ There’s something I don’t understand. David Cameron calls a referendum to see if people want to leave Europe. And then he campaigns to stay. So why did he call it then?” Ah, of course what this very insightful Spanish journalist didn’t know was the context in which the referendum was promised. The UK Independent Party was promising to do quite well in the last general elections, until Mr Cameron and friends, because I very much doubt that Cameron has been ruling the country on his own, they decided that they couldn’t let their votes go to UKIP. UKIP had done really well in the European Elections, when their flagship promise in their manifesto was to get out of Europe. So, as the Tory votes, and politicians, started to migrate (ha ha, I thought I’d use that word), as the Tory votes began to migrate to UKIP, Cameron needed to do something drastic. And that something was promising a referendum. I need to say here too, that a few years ago, I heard Cameron say on Radio4 that Britain would never leave Europe. It wasn’t a reporter summarizing what he’d said, it wasn’t even a soundbyte. I heard the interview live on Radio4. Liar.   So I’m angry at that. At the fact that someone or someones wanted to be in power so badly that they promised something they knew would throw the country and our relationship with the European Union down the drain. The other thing I’m angry about of course, is that I’ve lived 26 years in London. (And yes, only London, which is an entity in itself). I’ve lived 26 years in London and yet I couldn’t vote in a referendum which, let’s face it, is going to affect me more than it’s going to affect many people who could vote. And no, I didn’t ask for a British passport in 26 years. What for? Didn’t need one. Now we shall see. Everyone is asking me, what will you do? Will you become British? I don’t know. We’ll see what the options are and then we’ll see. In all honesty, if I could become a Londoner, I’d do it tomorrow. Which brings to me to a couple of other reflections from the past few days. If you’re in Europe, you might have heard that there’s been a petition on the internet for London to become independent. That’s nice. Whereas I understand the anger of Londoners, which is probably the place in the UK where there are indeed more Europeans and the numbers were more or less 70% in favour of remaining, whereas I understand that I also say, come on… Think about it, what would happen if London left England? (And I’m saying England, because if we did move towards making London independent, it would be more or less at the same time as Scotland and northern Ireland left, yes, they’re pretty angry too…) But if London left England, the rest of the country would probably not do so well. So really? Do you really want London to be independent? Well, maybe you do, it depends on how pissed off you are… And there’s of course that other petition asking for a new referendum if either vote won by less than 60%... Over a million signatures in like 24 hours… a lot of which were fake…. If you believe the Twitter stream of the Petitions Committee, about 20,000 came from North Korea and about 40k from the Vatican. What a laugh. Not just that – I came across the petition on Facebook , by the way, everyone in my stream was so angry with the result…, anyway, I came across the petition, went to the website and of course the website was down. When I finally was able to read it properly, I thought, 60%... say this petition went ahead, how are we going to get form 48% to 60%? Say there’s another referendum, then Remain wins, by 55% to 45% and then… well, you need another referendum, because we didn’t get to 60%... and meanwhile, no one is paying attention to the nhs, to education, to Syria, Turkey, the threat from Isis and oh, immigration. Oh, and Donald Trump. OMG. So I didn’t sign the petition because I thought, well, we’d never get to 60% remain. But, oh, was I wrong. Was I wrong because I thought people had brains. And here’s the third thing that’s getting me angry. Well, not really angry because there’s no point in getting angry. So today I came across a new word: Bregret, what people who voted Brexit are now feeling. I’ll give you some anecdotal examples. On Facebook, when I made the point about the petition putting us in perpetum referendum, someone said, well, four of my very informed friends had voted Brexit but they never thought it would really count if the majority was so near 50%. Well, you should have informed yourself a bit better, didn’t you. Or another one, Oh, I only voted Brexit because I wanted to scare off Cameron. Well guess what, a vote is not a suggestion that you are behind something, a vote counts people. And now the Bregret is also increasing as you know, and you’ll be surprised at this, apparently the Leave campaigners were lying. According to an article in El Mundo, which I think has been taken from the Independent, Johnson and Farage were lying about what Brexit would mean for the NHS and immigration. Yes, my friends, this is the problem with democracy, An informed vote counts as much as an uninformed vote. And this goes too for parents of expats in Europe wanting to vote Brexit and children of immigrants in Britain voting Brexit.   Aside from all this, and the other repercussions like the mess that Labour is now in, Scotland and Northern Ireland now threatening with having referendums themselves to leave the UK.   While I’ve mentioned Labour, I know that Jeremy Corbyn has been given a really hard time about not backing Remain earlier or more vigorously but, you know what, his words after the results were the most sensible. This result reflects the divide in society in the UK. It reflects inequality. It reflects a system that focuses on the short terms and doesn’t look at the long term consequences. In one way, it’s no wonder that most of London voted to stay. Those that have been pushed out of London because of the housing prices are probably not that happy. Luxury flats continue to pop up all over London in all sorts of areas. Why are we obsessed with having luxury flats? How can normal people afford to live in London??? And that’s just a small example. In a way, I can’t even blame some of the British for being scared of uncontrolled immigration – did you know that you can get the leaflets that come through your door from Hammersmith and Fulham in, I seem to remember, 17 languages? And you can choose to have the website translated into over 20 languages? Another anecdote, a friend of my husband’s went to take the UK citizenship test and apparently, you had access to a translator. What? In the Netherlands you need to pass a Dutch test if you want to become a national. I know I’m privileged and have never had problems with the language but, you really don’t want immigration without integration, because this is what you get. The UK has always been so tolerant, so welcoming and so afraid of being intolerant that they’ve gone too far in that direction, forgetting that unless you have integration of all the different nationalities, you can’t live as one. So I’m with Corbyn and many others, thinking that this Brexit mess is unfortunately a symptom of a lot of what’s going on, on many levels and in many different places. Some of it is completely irrational (like those people voting Brexit without knowing it would have consequences like, oh, leaving the EU…) but others, well, there’s a lot that the UK and the European Union need to be looking at, before the whole thing crumbles.   Now before I move onto Spain, where does the world of work come into this? Ok, pause and disclaimer. I can only talk about this form my point of view. From a knowledge worker, middle class European. (Ha ha, I’ll say that again) European. In fact Western European, because the differences between West and East are still quite noticeable. The political class seems pretty much rotten. I’m not saying that they horrible individuals but they’re a little bit out of their depth, some more than others. They’ve got challenges they never thought they’d come across. A flood of immigrants running for their lives, kids who feel like foreigners in their countries of birth but who are looked as foreigners also in their countries of ethnic, who finally find a place to belong to under the wings of terrorists. And economically, let’s face it, we’re not doing that well… So, ok, I’ll speak for myself. I don’t feel like I can do much about who’s governing the country I live in. We seem to be constantly let down by every political party. So where can we gain a bit of control? Well, I think at work. It’s no coincidence (even though I know it’s not the direct result) but it’s no coincidence that the whole rise in self-management is happening now. Maybe finding more autonomy at work is really what we need. I’m not going to go as far as saying that we have to have a purpose (although some of you will say that that is important), but that at least, we have some sort of control over our destiny. This is where I bring back the world of work. I feel like we need to think of companies and organisations as places where we can belong to; places which we can shape through our actions. It will need a change of mindset, but to me, it seems the only way forwards for now. Make a difference at work and through work, because making a difference in society seems to be getting harder and harder. But work is connected to society, who makes up the world of work if not?   This was the end of the script, I adlibbed after that. I talked about how people looked miserable in Spain in the voting queue on Sunday and how many of my friends just didn’t know who to vote for. Wherever YOU are, whatever you’re doing, please enjoy.

In today's episode, Pilar talks to Richard A MacKinnon from the Future Work Centre, about the World of Work model and taking an evidence-based approach to making changes in our organisations.   Introduction Pilar talks about her experience in in-person conferences (she gets very tired...). How proxemics inform our online communication - see Sococo screenshot. Changing the Context of communication in virtual teams, to allow for different people to engage. If you want to join us in Virtual Team Talk, fill in this form. https://markkilby.typeform.com/to/l9kVcd   Today's episode is kindly sponsored by Saros Research! Click this link to register: https://www.sarosresearch.com/participate/join-saros-research/?id=100243   The Conversation with Richard A. MacKinnon from The Future Work Centre 19:40mins What does The Future Work Centre do? Pilar met Richard at the E-Resilience Conference. Hear more about this in a previous episode. http://virtualnotdistant.com/eresilience-conference/ The problem with 'top tips'. "The public has a real appetite for science." Think Like a Scientist! http://www.futureworkcentre.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Lies_damn_lies_and_statistics.pdf The World of Work Model: http://www.futureworkcentre.com/who-we-are/world-of-work/ "People don't get up in the morning with the goal of making bad decisions." On employee engagement: http://www.futureworkcentre.com/2016/04/employee-engagement-emperors-new-clothes/ Next seminar on 22 Sept 2016, London: http://www.futureworkcentre.com/events/evidence-matters/employee-engagement/ Insight into Action events: http://www.futureworkcentre.com/events/insight-into-action/ Beware of 'confirmation bias' and 'action bias'. Annual performance reviews: what's the evidence to say they don't work? Events at the Future of Work Centre New research area: Management and Leadership   Get in touch with Richard: info [at] futureworkcentre.com Follow on Twitter @fw_centre Website: http://www.futureworkcentre.com/

Pilar and Lisette talk about the farewell process in a virtual team. 48:27mins Introduction Pilar had a full on day, which she shares with you... Nothing incredibly exciting, but very varied! Thanks to Saros Research for sponsoring the 21st Century Work Life podcast!   Click on this link to register with Saros: https://www.sarosresearch.com/participate/join-saros-research/?id=100243    Virtual Coffee with Lisette: Exit Interviews or Farewell Chats 08:45 mins. Lisette and Pilar talk about the Virtual Team Talk Internal Affair - our first shared experience as a community. What need to happen when someone leaves your team? What do you do with the information you gather from the chat? When might be the best time to have the exit interview? Pilar makes reference to this article Making Exit Interviews Count HBR April 2016  

Short Introduction For more information on the mentoring group for managers and leaders of virtual teams, check out the Virtual not Distant Academy. Today's episode is sponsored by Saros Research! If you want to give your opinions and get paid for it, and you're based in the UK or Ireland, follow this link: https://www.sarosresearch.com/participate/join-saros-research/?id=100243   The Conversation with Steffan Sudrek   Helping organisations develop capacity in teams to that change can be sustainable. Teams can't just self-organise, they need to be ready. Steffan shares his process helping build capacity in teams. Taking responsibility in teams - how can we build that capacity? Steffan mentions the Integral Facilitator Programme. Integral coaching - Steffan gives us his definition. Systemic coaching. Why Steffan got involved with "A Practical Guide to Distributed Scrum”, which he wrote in collaboration with the IBM Scrum Community. Steffan's Webs: www.provokingleadership.com/ www.surdek.ca Twitter: @ssurdek