Brian Elliott

Trust is built in drops, lost in buckets. Trust requires two-way delivery of what we say we're going to do, but also understanding of intent and the logic behind decisions that impact teams. Start local: building trust in your own team happens through open sharing of not just status updates, but making it safe (even welcome) for people to ask for help. Invest in tools that help people get to know each other, like personal user manuals -- and if you're the leader, go first and be open, set the tone. See link below. And share information publicly, in as broad a channel as possible. Transparency drives engagement and builds trust. Hoarding information shuts it down. https://futureforum.com/2022/07/15/personal-user-manual/

It's basic, but managers need to know the importance of regular 1:1s and how to lead them. Weekly 30 minute or biweekly 45 minute sessions that review past work, discuss priorities and escalate roadblocks develop practices that make "performance reviews" routine. Status updates should not be meetings. Build a common process and have a clear set of tools across an organization to compile and share status publicly and allow for interaction to build alignment and trust. Last, leverage staff meetings to build connections. Just because you're dialed in doesn't mean it can't be fun. Start with a social icebreaker.

Be clear about what tools to use for what purpose. Leverage them to help improve communication flow while reducing unnecessary meetings. Meetings should be about debates, decisions and development -- of people and teams. Have common practices that make them more effective (content shared ahead or reading time at start; allow cameras off for people that know each other; leverage AI to publish outcomes and notes). For everything else, experiment as a team to see what works but build patterns that allow information to be shared asynchronously and commented upon. Everything from video of the all-hands and quick updates to collaborative documents. Experiment with new practices and tools as well - brainwriting before brainstorming

The vast majority of teams in big companies are now distributed across locations; it's not just "hybrid" it's how do we work together both synchronously and asynchronously. One of the best places to start is by building a team-level agreement. Common components: 1) When do we come together, and more importantly why? 2) How do we use time: how do we ensure common in-sync hours ("core collaboration hours"), protect focus time and ensure boundaries? 3) What tools do we use, for what purposes? Plenty of examples out there, we provided a guide here: https://futureforum.com/2022/06/23/team-level-agreements/

Get clear as a team about which tools you use for the basics of comms and collaboration before you tackle more specialized tasks and tools. One, and only one, is your teams “home” tool. The better your team is at using a few tools deeply (esp Slack or Teams) the easier it is to explore new tools. When you’re ready, make sure those tools integrate easily into the one you’re already using. We often enough tools. We don’t have enough clarity on how we can use them best.

Support your teammates in building boundaries: work needs to not be a 24x7 event. At the team level, get specific about three things: 1) When people are expected to be available for meetings, calls and chats. For example, set Core Collaboration Hours for 10am-2pm, Monday through Thursday. 2) What gets escalated outside of those hours. What's a truly urgent issue that requires attention outside of your core collaboration hours -- an outage, change in plans for tomorrow, etc.? 3) How you'll communicate outside of core hours -- is it Slack, Teams, email or a text message? Turn off notifications outside of those hours and that one tool, and get back some focus time and, better yet, some balance in your life!