Hi Folks,
On April 27, Hubertus Heil, Germany’s labor and social affairs minister, announced that he wants to pass a bill that would make working from home a right. Wow! So is virtual work the new normal?
Working virtually and working too much!
Last week at the (virtual) Design Thinking meet-up, the group was confronted with the extreme polarity of these Corona times. There were those literally drowning in daily 8-hour virtual meeting marathons burdens with kids to attend to and no school, on the one side and on the other, the free-lancers and Kurzarbeiter, spinning their wheels and doing online courses until the market opens up.
Fascinating how the pandemic has opened up new ways of working in all organizations. Some of those very companies that previously rejected home-office working are planning to allow it on a regular basis. Now collaboration tools are accepted without lengthy formal procedures. Of course, there are disadvantages of virtual work. Equally numerous are the benefits of remote team collaboration. Especially when care is taken to create a healthy balance between working agreements and informality that we humans crave.
While the COVID-19 crisis is by no means over, businesses in Germany and around the world are starting to prepare for a post-pandemic world that inevitably will involve more people working from home.
Let’s recalibrate and get a better handle on virtual work. The input below should help you do just that.
Thanks for reading, keep moving, keep safe!
Cheers and sunny summer wishes,
Karla
Remote Legal Teamwork
Everyone is working remotely. This means disruption in the Legal sector too. It’s time for a specific focus on what’s different about Remote Legal Teamwork. Together with Liquid Legal Institute, where this project is showcased (and others!) I’m happy to present our essay written by a remote team.
Feeling zoomed out? Here’s how to boost your motivation
Dopamine is more than just the feel-good neurotransmitter and it’s actually more closely related to motivation than you might think. An interesting blog post from Medium via Trello.
Anxiety free news
Instead of watching the Covid-19 graphs slide up and down. Try this Instagram app for news that will boost your mood and help you to see the bright side for a while.
RemoteWorkLifePodcast
“I don’t ever want an office again!” In this special RemoteWorkLife Podcast, CEO Matthew Stibbe offers surprisingly candid views on his journey to becoming an early champion of remote team work and what it takes to grow and evolve as a remote self-organizing team.
Book of the month
“A More Beautiful Question” by Warren Berger
The power of Inquiry sparks breakthrough innovative ideas!
Powerful questions are a stable element in agile coaching and appreciative inquiry. Exploring the “question space” before moving too quickly to find solutions is paramount in the Design Thinking process as well. Berger shows that questioning is one of the most convincing forces for igniting change in our lives and in the business world. I couldn’t agree more.
Do you know this quote attributed to Albert Einstein?
“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes determining the right questions to ask and five minutes thinking about solutions.”
Einstein believed the quality of the solution we generate is in direct proportion to our ability to ask the right questions and identify the problem.
Reach out for virtual support on remote agile team alignment, scrum teams, product development with Design Thinking or Design Sprints.