TO MAKE BETTER, EASIER PROGRESS, GO ‘ASYNC’ MORE OFTEN

Source: Image by storyset on Freepix

BY LYNNE CAZALY

ASYNCHRONOUS WORK ALLOWS PEOPLE TO WORK AT TIMES THAT SUIT THEM BEST

How we work continues to evolve from remote and hybrid work to even more flexible arrangements.

But that doesn’t mean we should expect that slower progress or worse outcomes will be the result.

Many businesses are discovering in these times of changing work, that old ways of doing things have to keep being reviewed and reconsidered. They’re learning there could be a newer way of completing a task, collaborating or communicating that’s easier, causes less stress and reduces rework, or the more wasteful, overwork.

This is certainly the situation with asynchronous work. Many teams and businesses default to predominantly synchronous work - where they have people come together to do work at the same time. Think of meetings, catch ups, interviews and workshops. Either in person or online, it’s where people gather in sync, at the same time.

While there are important benefits to synchronous work, like connection, communication and conversation – it’s not perfect and can be an extremely wasteful use of our time.

As remote work continues to be in favour for many employees – and a growing number of employers – getting everyone together at the same time, live, in sync on an online call or in a meeting room, is a contributing factor to waste, distraction, stress and burnout.

Are meetings really that bad?

You might not think the workplace meeting deserves such negative talk. But who hasn’t been in a meeting that feels like it should have been an email? There’s a reason why that’s a popular meme on social media. Or perhaps you’ve sat in a meeting in ‘listen-only’ mode, not contributing anything. Other meetings take up time by being grandstanding debates between only a couple of voices that do little to make decisions or advance the work that really matters.

If we look at our calendar for the day and see barely a break between back-to-back meetings, we know we’ve been defaulting to synchronous work. At the end of the day, you can wonder how you’ll achieve your ‘real work’, the work you’re employed for, the outcomes and results you’re contracted to achieve… particularly if you’ve spent the day in meetings. Of course, not every meeting is wasteful; but we’ve all been in meetings that are slow, boring and time wasting, and we can wonder if there’s a better way.

Passive Observation or Active Participation

Check your level of participation to determine if there’s an opportunity for a better way. Scan the room or the online meeting. How many people are there? And how long is the meeting going for? When you do these simple calculations, you begin to realize how expensive meetings can be. The meeting could be of 8 people, for 2 hours. That’s the equivalent of two days’ work. Or say, 14 people, for an hour. That’s equivalent of another day. Having a meeting might seem like a good idea initially, but so much time in meetings is down-time, wasted with what I call passive observation mode. Sitting. Listening. Watching.

Meetings of higher value instead aim to involve people via active participation mode; they’re doing something valuable, contributing, conversing, resolving, deciding, synthesising and advancing the work.

If it’s a passive observation mode kind of meeting – like an announcement or presentation, people can catch up on this kind of work at another time by:

• watching a recording/video • listening to an audio • reading the presentation document or • reviewing and reading/scanning through a meeting transcript. There are plenty of other ways of receiving information than having to be there live when it’s first shared, delivered or presented. This is one of the key reasons why meetings are becoming the primary target for reform and change in forward thinking workplaces. Employers are keen to release blocks of dead and unproductive time from people’s schedules and help them reclaim some power and autonomy over their day.

Poorly led meetings are potentially the greatest waste of synchronous work effort in the workplace today.

Time to combat the waste

Teams making successful changes to more asynchronous ways of working have introduced meeting free blocks of time during the week, like meeting free days. The results from research on ‘The Surprising Impact of Meeting-Free Days’, in MIT Sloan Management Review showed that 75 companies who introduced between 1 and 5 meeting-free days a week, gained improvements in communication, engagement, satisfaction and autonomy. And problems like micromanagement and stress reduced.

Deleting meetings doesn’t make things worse; it makes things better.

So what do you do instead of meeting, synchronously?

In the place of those dull meetings, people are collaborating, contributing and participating more and better via asynchronous tools. These include things like:

• Task boards • Shared documents • Online visual collaboration platforms like

Jamboard, Mural and Miro • Email and messaging • Voice, video and visual tools.

Asynchronous work is allowing people to work on tasks and projects at times and in ways that suit them best - which means employers are getting the best out of their people, at times and in ways that work for the individual.

Additionally, our asynchronous contributions usually take less time than being in a long meeting, and the work can be done at times and in ways that suit us best. For example, we might group or ‘batch’ similar task types like creativity and contributing ideas, or reading and commenting, or voting and prioritising. The increasing shift to more asynchronous work means we don’t have to try as hard as we do to ‘find a time’ that everyone can meet and we don’t have to wait until ‘everyone’s available’. This is particularly the case when people might be on leave, working on other priorities or simply can’t be in two places or two meetings at once. The sight of a leader wearing two sets of headphones trying to be in two meetings at once was real; they were on one online meeting, listening… and trying to be in another meeting at the same time, on a different device.

Enough! We’ve got to change our thinking and beliefs that we have to get everyone sitting in on the same meeting; it’s just not a sensible way to work when so many people are drowning in workloads and struggling to take breaks, achieve results and complete key tasks of their role.

Making a more deliberate switch

Here’s what to look out for to make a more deliberate switch to async work:

1. Notice your default. Notice when you default to thinking you need to call a meeting. Do you say, ‘let’s connect on this’ or ‘can I grab you for a minute’ or ‘let’s get everyone together’. We may do this without even thinking so it’s a sign your first thought is ‘we have to meet’. But we don’t always have to. 2. Outcome first. What is the meeting for?

Consider how else you can achieve that outcome without everyone meeting sync.

If it’s to make a decision, why not send the deciding parties an email with a ‘yes/ no/maybe/not yet’ checklist for them to highlight or tick off. 3. Hunt and gather. Gather contributions and inputs from people in other ways.

Don’t wait for a meeting to be held if you need to get people’s ideas. You can still get ideas via a shared document link, a survey, a brief email with a request or a short video or audio message explaining what you need. And they’ll be better ideas than when people are put on the spot. 4. High value experiences only. When you do meet, ensure it’s a high value high outcome meeting. The opposite are the low value low outcome meetings, which are the time-wasting sync experiences people are tired of, don’t have time for and they’re more likely to decline the invite to the meeting in the first place. 5. More choices, all types. Provide more choices for people to participate and contribute beyond just attending a meeting. As greater and more inclusive experiences filter through to all sectors and industries, every workplace needs to consider how they can make participating and contributing at work easier and more inclusive for everyone.

When you provide more opportunities for asynchronous work, you’ll find that support begins to grow rapidly for this way of working. Opportunities to provide ideas expand and people contribute in ways they may have missed out on previously. Resist these changing ways of work at your peril or you could be hosting a meeting of one! New ways of leading, working and achieving are continuing to evolve and we need to keep adapting the way we do things. It’s the main way we will keep ahead of the pressures of change and be sure we keep the best talent on our team.

LYNNE CAZALY

Lynne Cazaly is a work futurist and an expert in new ways of working. She is an international keynote speaker and award-winning author with her ideas and thoughts published in 10 books.

Source: Image by storyset on Freepix

NEW MANAGER SURVIVAL GUIDE

5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW WHEN STEPPING UP

BY DR. DOMINIC MCLOUGHLIN

YOU HAVE COMPLETE POWER OVER HOW TO BECOME A BETTER MANAGER

New managers have often achieved their success through working long hours to get things done, which can make time for planning and reflection appear to be ‘wasting time’. However, it is vital for new managers to take the time to adjust to the differences in the new role. Existing managers within the organisation can assist by their advice and their example. It is now much more about the success of the team, rather than a new manager’s personal performance. Organisations can help the development of new managers, which in turn will help employee engagement and retention. Existing managers have a key role to play in helping develop a culture where every people manager is trying to be a better manager. In an environment where organisational culture is becoming ever more important, the best way to improve may actually be to focus on a deeper level than skills. It may be that we can best help our organisations to be better, by helping new managers to be better people. Five key areas form the basis of being a better manager, and they are all within the control of each manager: Mindset, Vulnerability, Trust, Availability and Communication. These areas can be developed by aspiring managers too, with mentoring from existing managers. 1 Mindset

New managers need to make time to think about where the team needs to be in 12 months, and consider how best to get there. Take time to plan ahead and to be clear about the team’s priorities and goals. Not doing so means that a new manager is unable to respond effectively to queries from team members. Lack of clarity, and goals that are not achievable, are two common reasons why people leave their jobs. Existing managers can help prepare future managers by demonstrating and communicating this approach. New managers also need to focus much more on how the team work together, on the outcomes, not micromanaging the work of each team member. This can be a challenge because it is often the new manager’s expertise that got them their promotion. Their new role of facilitating the work of the team needs a new focus to the previous role - helping to make others successful. Existing managers can best demonstrate this through their own example.

2 Vulnerability

3 Trust 4 Availability

5 Communication

One key mistake for new managers to avoid is the idea that because they are now a manager, they have to have all the answers, that they have to be perfect. In reality, having all the answers is not really possible, and striving to do so can easily lead to burnout. Existing managers can demonstrate this approach by saying ‘I’m not sure, but I will find out’. In fact, when managers are prepared to admit that they don’t know, it gives their team and aspiring managers permission to acknowledge their own areas of weakness. The alternative is that team members fear revealing any ignorance or error, worried that it will be used against them in some way. A perfectionist culture like this is sure to demotivate.

Because everyone makes some mistakes, seeing them as an opportunity for continuous improvement is very powerful. Similarly, errors can be a source of valuable information, if time is taken to understand what went wrong and why it went wrong. Then the processes and communication can improve. There are so many elements to consider when something goes wrong and that can be a chance to review ‘the way things are done’ and see if there are better alternatives.

The long-term success of a team is built on trust. One of the key goals to keep in mind is building trust, because trust is essential for initiating and maintaining social relationships at work (Dirks and de Jong, 2022). If a manager can increase the amount of trust that their team have in them, the team will be much happier, more productive and more willing to contribute ideas for improving things. New managers can learn this through seeing their own managers: taking feedback on board, reprimanding team members in private (not in front of others) and treating people fairly. Similarly, helping out when the workload is unusually high is a great way to lead by example.

DR. DOMINIC MCLOUGHLIN

Dr. Dominic Mcloughlin is a People Management Specialist and author of the new book, Be A Better Manager in 5 Minutes a Day. Dominic has 20 years’ experience in Leadership and People Management helping thousands to be better at managing their people. It is easy for new managers to be overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done. They often fall into the trap of dealing with the urgent, instead of the important. Once appointed as a manager, it can be easy to lose sight of the long-term goal of personal growth, for themselves and each team member. Team members need to know that they are supported in achieving their own goals, as well as the organisation’s goals.

When a manager is concerned about each person in their team, they take the time to understand each person’s goals. They are available as a ‘sounding board’ and a mentor tgo their team and to aspiring mangers in particular. All of this requires having short chats with each team member (one to one) on a regular basis. These informal chats are also an excellent way for new managers to learn what has worked well for the team in the past, and hear what has not worked so well. There could also be the opportunity to identify major obstacles that the team are encountering. Resolving these can give a new manager an early win that boosts their confidence and develops team loyalty.

The best managers are available for team members to access whenever needed, they are approachable, easy to talk to and calm. When something goes wrong, these managers are able to control their emotions and maintain good relationships throughout their interactions. At the same time good managers are open to suggestions, valuing the contributions of all team members. Similarly, the best managers give their team as much information as they can about what is happening in the wider organisation and explain the reasons for decisions. Good communication builds excellent motivation and team morale. This approach to communication helps build an open workplace culture where new managers are able to thrive.

When organisations help new managers to take the time to understand how their new role is different, some of the classic mistakes can be avoided. This in turn enables new managers to put their time and energy into those things that will deliver long term success, for themselves and the organisation.

14 October 2022: MyInnovation Community Programme Launching Ceremony at Leadership Institute of Sarawak Civil Service.

The Programme is organised to provide 2-day Information and Communication Technology (ICT) knowledge and computer skills classes for the Kampung Jawa, Semenggok Community. The Leadership Institute Innovation Month is in conjunction with the State Civil Service Innovation Month 2022. The theme this year is “Innovation for Sustainability”.

18 October 2022: Waste Management Innovation Campaign Launching Ceremony: Innovation for Sustainability.

Launched by Acting Chief Executive Officer, Mr Fang Tze Chiang the Institute’s employees were given the awareness and knowledge in waste management through 3 sharing sessions by the Kuching North City Hall (DBKU) by Mr. Dibasron bin Didi, Trienekens (Sarawak) Sdn. Bhd. by Mr Julian anak Gabriel Bain and Demonstration of Bokashi Bin by Madam Tay Tsai Yun from Koru Bulk Store. Upcoming activities throughout the Waste Management Campaign include Paperless Day on 19 Oct and No Plastic Day on 20 Oct.

14 - 16 October 2022 18 - 20 October 2022

Building Leaders to Make a Difference to our Society and State

LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE OF SARAWAK CIVIL SERVICE KM20, JALAN KUCHING SERIAN,SEMENGGOK, 93250 KUCHING, SARAWAK.

082-625166 082-625766 info@leadinstitute.com.my www.leadinstitute.com.my