Issue #14: Take a hike
Atlassian (the large tech company known best for its JIRA project management platform) released a new study on the "State of Teams": an analysis of what makes teams truly thrive in the long-run.
Here are a few interesting takeaways:
Team location doesn't matter (for now)
The relative 'health' of teams was not negatively impacted by being outside of the office. In fact, fully remote & hybrid teams scored slightly higher than fully in-office teams on team health.
In fact, putting so much focus on returning to office can be a detractor, since it distracts from focusing on the more important factors of team cohesion.
Says Dr. Mahreen Khan, the Quantitative Researcher at Atlassian. “We’re so distracted figuring out where teams should be working that we’re missing the bigger picture on team health. Factors such as burnout, team and organizational culture, and the team’s ways of working are so much more important than whether a team is remote, co-located, or hybrid.”
So what does matter?
Organizational culture matters a lot. And a strong org culture is driven by such factors as:
Transparent decision-making
Respect for diverse viewpoints
Well-defined roles
Clear goals and strategies
Coordination in and outside the team
Psychological safety
The 3 biggest challenges that team struggled with are:
So what should leaders focus on improving?
3 themes surfaced to the top:
Create organizational values that empower employees such as by pushing decision making down where possible
Create an equitable, humane team climate where diverse viewpoints can be shared and the experience of your employees is taken into account when it comes to changing structure and process
Support innovation, by carving out time for your team to explore new ideas and by creating a culture where failure can be learned from
This is their first study of this type, so whether these trends and insights are reinforced or reverse course in 6-12 months remains to be seen! Check out the full report here.
In the News & Around the Web
Workers won't go without a fight! More than 300 employees at Hearst’s magazine division signed a petition objecting to the company’s plan to have them return to the office, and their union has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. Read the full story here.
What do executives think about remote work? The New York Times took a deep dive, with some interesting (and some not so surprising) findings:
'We are working on some borrowed time, in terms of working on memories of the relationships you have and the connections you have,' Sundar Pichai [the CEO of Google] said. 'It’s taking a toll.'
Read the full story here.
Tips & Recommendations
Want to step up your video quality game? It's all about the lighting baby! Check out this blog post from Tech Smith on how to get the perfect lighting for video.
...and one more thing
In case you didn't hear, an 83-year-old man known by the trail name "Nimblewill Nomad" became the oldest hiker to complete the almost 2200 mile Appalachian Trail last week.
If that's not motivating, I don't know what is! What do you think, next year do a little WFAT (Work From Appalachian Trail)?
