The following information is a sneak peek from our upcoming Hybrid Work Guide. 

Stay home, go back to the office, or combine both for a hybrid work environment? This is the loaded question currently floating around the business world. Hybridity is the hottest topic–a flexible workplace model that combines in-person and virtual work by allowing workplace flexibility and prioritizing connection.

As companies adjust to the possibility of being back in person again, the possibilities of a hybrid workplace have also opened the exploration of hybrid meetings and hybrid events. It’s important to note that “hybrid” has several distinctions: there is a hybrid workplace–where workers spend their time doing work (remote or in the office); hybrid meetings–how we design meetings that occur with a blended audience (some people in person, some participating remotely); and hybrid events–when meetings become large and specialized, the needs from a standard hybrid meeting shift. Also, note that the hybrid landscape is still evolving. It’s an ongoing and dynamic situation. Therefore, there is no single way to approach it because there are copious factors that influence different variations of what it can look like (and even those can change). 

In this article, we will talk specifically about the possibilities of hybrid events. Experimenting with running hybrid events is a great way to dip your toes into returning to in-person work. You don’t have to take a stance on hybrid permanently; you can use hybrid events as a transition if you so choose. They can also be their own type of event post-transition back to the office.

Let’s take a look at the benefits of hybrid events and how to prepare for them, so you can decide if they’re the right fit for your organization. 

Benefits of Hybrid Events

Just like virtual events, hybrid events have the expanded possibility to bring more people together than the restrictions of in-person alone. Remote work has shown us the power of connecting with people from around the world with a single click of a button. People who may not be able to make an event in-person or who want to save time and money traveling can still attend a hybrid event as a remote attendee. It is also a more comfortable option for people who do not yet feel ready to be back with others in person. 

How to Prepare for Hybrid Events

Planning hybrid events will require much more prep work than remote or in-person events to get everyone organized and set up all necessary tools; there is must more to consider. First, you must decide on the appropriate virtual event platform that supports your specific event’s needs. This includes:

• Live streaming support
• Integrations that offer the highest production quality
• Networking capabilities that allow easy attendee engagement
• Management capacity to run the event smoothly behind the scenes

Then, consider the setting from which you’ll run the event:

• Will you be on a stage with cameras to capture the experience?
• Will you be in an office and operate more like a typical video conferencing call?
• Decide the best scenario that supports the event–from the background to the props that will appear in the frame–then gather the materials you need to bring it to life. 

It’s vitally important to properly set up all attendees (in-person and remote) beforehand so that everyone is equally prepared. This may include:

• In-person walkthroughs to set the scene and ready cameras
• Lighting and other production gear
• Virtual walkthroughs on the virtual event platform to teach remote attendees how to navigate the space

Will the event require attendees to have certain materials? If so, send event packages to distributed attendees beforehand. Make sure everyone is on the same page and has what they need to participate before the event begins.

Keep in mind that hybrid events will have many different models: 1-to-1, 1-to-many, and many-to-many. Therefore, they will require variances in the structure around how they are clustered and organized.

• Are there cohorts that are together and how does that impact design?
• How many facilitators are needed and how will they work together? (More on this in Hybrid Facilitation).
• Similar to hybrid meetings, how will you bring people together when some are together and some are dispersed? 

Map out your event so you can consider the attendee experience. As you experiment with different event structure variations, be mindful of the trap to cater events to the in-person experience and unwittingly neglect the remote experience. We have to custom-design events for the type of collective interactions and equanimity we want to create. To do this, we must keep social norms top of mind. For example, we can’t throw all in-person attendees in a bar and expect them to go across the room to the camera in the corner and engage with remote people. It just doesn’t work. If we design against social norms, we fight against them. Instead, use them to your advantage.

Consider offering different tiers for your event with different expectations. What is your version of “exit through the giftshop”– a practice used by museums to force all guests through the gift shop?  Here are some examples:

• Implement a fun game that requires in-person attendees to find answers or engage with other attendees upon arrival in order to make it past registration. Some of these people might be online, some may be in person. Individuals must interact with one another and the tools–think finding the person’s video on Zoom + their designated spot in the event MURAL board (or some other point of engagement)–to find the answers to unlock access.
• Pair each event attendee with someone, or multiple people, that they have to locate and connect with throughout the event. Pair folks who might have things in common, or might be well suited to work together or learn from one another. Design in moments of interaction where they might discuss prompts or share experiences and reflections.  

Start Experimenting

If a hybrid event speaks to you and your organization, give it a try! Remember, there is no one size fits all way to do it. Even within an organization, different teams work differently. This article is merely meant to offer suggestions about things you can do to run your own hybrid event. Choose what works best for you. 

Hybrid is always changing, it’s about exploring options that exist now and even the ones that don’t exist yet. Stay curious and keep the needs of your organization top of mind. Hybrid events could end up being an asset in a permanent hybrid work environment or as their own entity within your organization. 

Want to learn more about hybrid?

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The idea of a “normal” office workplace is now something of the past. Remote work and work from home are a new norm. There is another shift in the workplace occurring as offices are starting to plan their reopening. The idea of a hybrid workplace is becoming more critical and attractive as employers and employees revisit recent learnings and their needs moving forward. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, believes the hybrid workplace is “here to stay” as the productivity of working from home will remain vital during this time. 

A hybrid workplace is a flexible workplace model that is designed to support a distributed workforce of both in-office and remote workers. The hybrid workplace isn’t a completely new idea, with many companies (especially in the tech and start up worlds) allowing flexible work from home policies or remote hires. However, there are nownew ways of working across the board – businesses have been forced to rethink what it means to have a physical workplace. 

The global shift to remote work was drastic at first, but opportunities quickly presented themselves. The virtual business landscape brought many positives that most people didn’t even think about before. For example, virtual workshops and conferences allow hundreds of people across the globe to connect without the cost of travel or timing limitations. Cost savings in general for both employees and employers emerged. Time was also saved across the board – instead of needing to plan for a busy commute, parking, elevator ride up to the office, setting up a conference room, etc., joining a meeting became as quick and easy as clicking “Join a Meeting” on Zoom. The Voltage Control team has always been remote (outside of our in-person workshops and events) so this shift wasn’t new to us – we’ve documented best practices for remote teams, and even assembled a toolkit that allows our remote team to facilitate virtual meetings that are as effective, if not more effective, than traditional face-to-face interactions.

More and more companies are making the decision to offer permanent remote work options for their employees, including Twitter, JP Morgan, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Dell. Other large employers like Google and Facebook have extended work-from-home options for employees through the end of this year. Remote work, when directed by effective systems and processes, works.

Employees have demonstrated the ability to work productively and successfully, in large part due to available tools and technology (discussed in more detail below). However, many also can’t wait to get back to the office. Being in person with other colleagues provides a sense of collaboration and inclusiveness that isn’t easily replicated, especially if used to it before. Working from home also has its own set of distractions, especially for those with families, spouses, roommates, and pets. 

As more and more companies and offices are planning their re-openings keeping all this in mind, we predict both remote work and in-office presence will co-exist. Therefore the workforce will need to approach this hybrid model strategically, leading us into 5 best practices of a hybrid workplace:

1. Remember the importance of technology + tools

These tools played an obvious role when the majority of office workers were forced to be remote. However, as some employees return to the physical office and some remain remote, they will continue to be critical to keep everyone aligned and organized as the virtual + in-person worlds merge into a hybrid workplace:

• Zoom – Videoconferencing platform with breakout room capabilities
• Trello –  A place for assigning work and tracking work progress using a Kanban-style list-making application. Assign individuals to cards to create clear to-do lists and organize priorities.
• Google Docs – Smart editing and styling tools support joint teamwork to flow smoothly and easily and keep ideas in one place. Teams can work on different pages or in different docs accordingly. 
• Google Slides – Interactive work templates with multiple pages to allow individual and collective work.
• Google Sheets – Collaborative spreadsheets to organize and update tasks and information. 
• Google Drive or other cloud storage – Drop all assets and work content into a shared space for easy access for all team members. Use different folders to organize information. 
• Basecamp – Real-time communication tool to keep track of everything you’re working on in a shared space. 
• Focus To-Do – Pomodoro time and task management app that helps you perform tasks efficiently. 
• Process Street – Make checklists for your team to help you remember and keep track of all of your to-do’s. 
• SessionLab – Dynamically design, organize and share workshops and training content.
• Slack – Team messaging platform that is a smart alternative to email. It allows the team to have a shared view of work progress and purpose
• Loom – Screen recorder that allows you to capture video screen messages instead of sending long emails. It’s also helpful for sending team members visual directions if you cannot screen share in real-time.
• Doodle – Calendar scheduling system for time management and to easily coordinate one-on-one and team meetings. 
• World Time Buddy – World clock, time zone converter, and online meeting scheduler to coordinate and plan across different time zones.

2. Take Care of Your People

Your employees are your most important asset. Ask them what they actually want – don’t assume everyone wants the same thing when it comes to remote vs. in-person work presence. This is a benefit of the hybrid workplace – it allows flexibility depending on employee comfort level, schedules, and physical location. Consider offering your employees options of working at your company, for example:

• Remote First: Primarily working from home
• In-Office First: Primarily working from the physical office
• Something in between: Splitting time relatively evenly between working from home and from the office

Also, try to maintain company culture for everyone in the hybrid workplace, regardless of what they choose. Just because someone is not in the office does not mean they should be overlooked. Hold informal online meet ups, virtual town halls, and ensure they’re included in any perks that those in the office receive (for example, if food or coffee is provided to office employees, consider giving remote employees a snack stipend or coffee subscription).

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3. Make Your Job Listings Remote

If you are offering existing employees the option to work remotely, include this hybrid workplace strategy in your recruitment efforts. Wherever you can, make new job listings remote. This may also allow businesses to unlock talent that may have been inaccessible previously. Perhaps the best candidate for a job opening lives in another state. With remote hiring options, you are not bound to proximity to get the best for your team.

4. Communication is Key

Ensure communication flows between in-office and remote staff. This is increasingly important as workers become more spread across different time zones and locations. Consider daily standup updates on Slack, end-of-day status emails, all hands/town halls, check-ins with direct reports, and video meetings to include everyone on the team. It will take extra effort to ensure all employees feel connected and can communicate effectively, but it is what will make your team successful.

5. Be Adaptable

Experiment with different workflows and processes to discover what works best, and be open to change. This idea of the hybrid workplace becoming the “norm” is new to many – there will be a learning curve so employees and employers should remain patient and flexible. It will definitely take some time to get used to, but testing new and different processes will allow for more improvement and better solutions moving forward.

Employees increasingly value flexibility in the workplace, according to a survey by Salesforce, resulting in the rise of the hybrid workplace. For employers, the hybrid workplace can offer better and more diverse talent when location isn’t a constraint. Companies may also see a positive impact in other areas, such as employee satisfaction, productivity, and cost savings. Changing the way a business runs will no doubt have its challenges – but it’s clear the hybrid workplace is here to stay, and embracing the opportunities it offers will likely be well worth it.

Here at Voltage Control, we are exercising and sharing the best tools and techniques needed for teams to thrive in the hybrid workplace, through productive meetings (in-person and virtual), remote work team collaboration, considerations for return to work, facilitation skills, virtual events, meeting culture, Magical Meetings, and design sprints.

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A return to work is around the corner, but what will that look like? For many businesses, that will not mean “business as usual”. The adjustment to remote work has many people considering a hybrid workplace. However, hybrid work has become a blanket term used to meekly describe the dynamic that the future of work suggests. Hybridity in the workplace is much more than the location and time we work; it’s not that simple. The merging of in-person and virtual work will mean the emergence of completely new a paradigm for all workers. Just like we had to shift to different processes and systems for remote work in the virtual landscape, we must consider the full picture of what hybrid roles and hybrid workers will look like in order to be successful in a new kind of work environment.

First of all, returning to work in person is a question of who is comfortable doing so. While some people are eager to be back in a collaborative office space, others aren’t so ready for various reasons–be it health concerns, a preference for remote work, or a resistance to getting back into an in-person work routine. Make no mistake, getting back together face-to-face is going to be a transition. It won’t immediately revert back to how it used to be because too much has happened since then. We’ll have to readjust our schedules–like organizing care for kids and adding a commuting routine back in–and get reacquainted with social norms and behaviors that come with an in-person work environment. From seemingly little things like questioning, “Do I shake my co-workers’ hands?” to larger concerns about whether employees will start back full or part-time, returning to work will mean ironing out kinks and getting readjusted. You’ll also need to consider the configuration for your hybrid environment–will there be multiple offices? What does hybrid mean to your organization–does it mean Mondays and Fridays in the office and every other day remote? This transition will take time. 

As employees begin to reestablish patterns and norms, they will be faced with new and potentially unexpected thoughts and feelings. They may find this process difficult and unsettling. Make sure to listen to their needs and give them time to adapt. While many may be excited to rush back, we’ll need to support those that need more time. We also don’t want to rush into hasty decisions that don’t sere our long-term needs and unnecessarily alienate team members.

It is our responsibility as leaders to establish clear expectations and “new norms” while also holding space for team members’ needs so that everyone can transition as painlessly as possible. 

I was recently chatting with some of the facilitators in our community and they declared that there is no such thing as a hybrid workshop. Their point was that if you are seeking full and equal participation from everyone we need to ensure that the interface for everyone’s ideas has consistent and equal bandwidth. In order to do that, all of your in-person attendees need to join the virtual session individually, making them all virtual participants as well. 

There is currently no software specifically made for hybrid work; software that exists assumes for remote work. We will need tools and processes that not only seamlessly support the merging of productive in-person and virtual work, but that also make connection a priority. Perhaps the greatest challenge for remote teams is genuine connection. It’s the essential missing element of in-person connection that cannot be replaced by technology–no matter how innovative. There is no substitute for human interaction. That’s why many businesses are prioritizing physical togetherness for their employees even if they have the choice to remain fully remote. The value for connection–however you create and maintain it–is paramount to do meaningful work together. 

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The word of hybrid also ushers in new concerns around co-location and who is actually in the room. Many workers have relocated during the pandemic and may no longer be near an office. What are the lines of collaboration that have been severed locally? Co-location will impact our design choices and skew our perspective. For example: When designing hybrid meetings, workshops, and other gatherings, there will be a natural pull to group co-located individuals during breakout sessions. While this may work out sometimes, we certainly shouldn’t take it for granted.

Do you see room for hybrid work within your organization? If so, how are you preparing for the shift in the workplace? If you decide to support a hybrid workplace, how will meetings work with some team members in a physical room and others dialing in virtually? What will you need to do to encourage equal connection amongst dispersed and in-person team members? How will hybrid work change talent acquisition? Will in-person team members have advantages or disadvantages that virtual workers won’t and visa versa? What technology needs to exist to fully support an effective hybrid work environment? The intricacies of a hybrid workplace are vast, but it’s a puzzle that can create a full, functional picture. 

If you are considering a hybrid work environment, keep this in mind: at the center of productive work is the people who make it happen. Keenly focusing on your team members and what they need to thrive is essential, especially in a hybrid environment. There is definitely no one-size-fits-all approach to getting the best performance from individuals and creating the best experience for them to succeed in. Learn your team members’ strengths and create opportunities for them to utilize them. One person may work best in person, while others may soar when they’re able to buckle down and hone in on their duties alone in their chosen workspace. It may seem like a game of Tetris at first, but leaning into the specific needs and preferences of your team, paralleled with how everyone can work best together, will create the most effective and inspiring work environment for all. 

It’s important to remember that we are entering a new age of experimentation. While it may seem familiar, this is new territory, so everyone will have a different perspective and approach. We must find what works best for our teams while also merging with the methods and preferences of other companies and people we work with. For example, I’ve recently been asked to facilitate a session where I’m remote and everyone else is in person. Each experience we have in the hybrid workspace will be a prototype to help us build new and innovative ways of collaborating. 

This transition will be interesting and we’ll all have to decide for ourselves and for the betterment of our teams which approaches, systems, and processes create the most advantageous results. Stay curious and stay safe.

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The world is beginning to see glimpses of life transitioning back to “normal”; but what does the new normal look like? The forced work from home adjustments we’ve all been navigating has led to some interesting and exciting developments in how we operate in the business landscape. Everyone has come close to the realities of virtual work. We have all been pushed to examine possibilities that would have been dismissed previously. And the result has included substantial remote work success across industries. So much so that a recent survey revealed 74% of 317 polled CFOs and financial leaders reported that they intend to shift some employees to remote work permanently. Success has certainly been found in this period of forced virtual work. 

At Voltage Control, we have identified that the new virtual business landscape is ripe with opportunities for partnership and teamwork that wasn’t possible before. Now, you can connect with hundreds of people from across the globe in an interactive virtual workshop, attend an important conference, or productively collaborate with your team all from your home office (maybe even while wearing p.j. bottoms). This is without the cost of travel and renting event room space, and provides more possibility to bring people together who would otherwise be unable to attend. It may not have been realistic or physically possible to schedule yourself to attend certain events and meetings before the pandemic (think the cost and time commitment of traveling to various cities), but now connection and meaningful work are possible with internet access and the click of a button.

Yes, we have been isolated at home, but the bandwidth for connection has vastly increased. Greater diversity in collaboration is another resulting benefit. We have the power to solve problems and create collectively at a higher level than ever before. This capability and the resulting possibilities are truly incredible. So how do we effectively combine these methods with the integration of in-person interactions? We address the possibilities of the future of work and the essential role of facilitation to guide them below.

#WFH is Here to Stay

More and more companies are making the decision to offer permanent remote work options for their employees. Among them: Twitter, JP Morgan, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Dell. Other big companies like Google and Facebook have permitted extended work-from-home options for employees through the end of this year. The proof is in the pudding. Remote work, when directed by effective systems and processes, works.

If this time has taught the business world anything, it’s that we need each other.

Teamwork has proven to be more essential than ever during The Great Pause. The emergence of helpful tools and processes to enable and heighten remote work collaboration is remarkable. At Voltage Control, we’ve spent countless hours exploring the craft of virtual collaboration, as a new business landscape calls for a new set of practices. From methods to foster human connection remotely to the best interactive tools to support virtual meetings and workshops, we have curated a detailed Virtual Work Guide with our findings thus far. This universal toolkit is what we use with our remote team and clients, and it can be applied to any remote team. The guide instructs you on how to set up and facilitate productive virtual meetings to make them just as purposeful and successful as in-person meetings. To do this, it is crucial to practice methods that encourage human connection. The absence of human connection can have a grave impact on team communication and productivity if the proper processes are not in place.

You can find these tools and processes, along with remote Design Sprints and virtual workshop tools and processes, in our Virtual Work Guide. Combining these tools and skillsets with standard in-person meeting methods will set you and your team up for future work success.  

In-person Integration

It is important to note that while remote work has profound benefits, screen time can never replace face-to-face interactions. Humans are built for connection, and the ability to work in the same space as others is irreplaceable. The future of work will undoubtedly be a merging of virtual work tactics and in-person interactions. While many of us are itching to interact face-to-face with each other again, remote work capabilities and benefits have proven themselves worthy to stick around.

Remote work opportunities plus human collaboration in physical space sum to an interesting equation for business success.

There is opportunity to have a hybrid of old fashioned and new age meeting tactics.  

Facilitation is needed to help businesses navigate this merging of landscapes and smoothly transition to the future of work. The key is to lean more on teamwork. The more things become automated, the more we need sound systems and operations to help our teams authentically connect and work together. It is also important to realize the power of “Making vs. Talking” and incorporate the concept in future work. This is one of our meeting mantras at Voltage Control. It is a practice that focuses on doing work in the meeting, not after.

Now is the time to get meeting structures right. Most people have it backward: they meet and then do “the work” after the meeting. They’re so busy talking about the work they need to do when they could be rolling up our sleeves and getting to work in the session itself. Doing so increases productivity and engagement and saves time, money, and let’s be honest people’s sanity.

Teams need a well-groomed meeting system to support the influx of required crowdsourcing and loosely-coupled nodes that will be working together to solve problems in the new business landscape. 

Future Work Preparation

Some things haven’t changed. Like the recipe for effective meetings: 

1. Clearly identified purpose
2. Strategically planned/closely followed agenda
3. Holding space for attendee well-being and participation
4. Debriefing with a defined call to action

This structure applies to in-person and virtual meetings alike. And it echoes what is at the core of all successful work and collaboration: genuine connection, focused strategy, and defined systems. The future work landscape may be unknown, but facilitation can help guide businesses through the uncertainty with a combination of in-person and virtual techniques and tools.

At Voltage Control, we are preparing for the future of work by first being witnesses. We are actively listening to people’s needs, concerns, and challenges, in order to effectively help them adapt to the business landscape and do meaningful work; for each situation and business is unique and must be approached as such.

We are continuously observing the dynamics of the ever-changing business landscape, both its potential and restrictions, to identify best business practices and opportunities to expand them.

We are also fearlessly experimenting, as we are experts in innovation and transformation, and we understand and value the prototype and testing processes essential to investigating change. And lastly, we are practicing. We are exercising and sharing the best tools and techniques needed for teams to have productive meetings (in-person and virtual), remote work team collaboration, innovation acceleration, team alignment, cultural transitions, virtual events, meeting culture design, liberated structures, design sprints, and facilitation summits. 

The future of work looks bright and exciting from where we stand. And we look forward to helping teams get their footing in the new business landscape and create meaningful, impactful work. 

Need help preparing for the future of work? Bring in a professional facilitator from Voltage Control.

Voltage Control designs and facilitates innovation training, Design Sprints, and design thinking workshops, both in-person and virtual. Please reach out to us at hello@voltagecontrol.com if you want to talk.

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With the current, and growing, socioeconomic changes and technological trends, how will the future of work impact your business?

It is estimated that automation could replace 45% of current human-operated activities, but only 5% of jobs could be completely technologically automated, according to a study by McKinsey.

The future of work will inevitably change several core dimensions of organizations, including the work (the who), the workforce (the what), and the workplace (the where). So what can we do to be adequately prepared for its arrival? The answer is in finding innovative solutions.

How to use facilitation to discover creative solutions

We can actively be in service of preparing for the future of work to set ourselves up for optimum success. Because the majority of work in the future will be influenced by automation and the disruption of the status quo, we must find more and more innovative solutions. Facilitation is the vehicle that will help teams tap into the real power of humans–creativity–to do so.

The following four innovation strategies can help you make the necessary preparations for your business in light of upcoming change:

1. More productive meetings

One aspect that is sure to impact work in the future is productivity needs. They will alter the everyday meeting from a time waste to an essential part of getting the work done. In a survey of 1,900 business leaders, 72% of responders reported they spent more time in meetings than they did five years ago; 49% said they expected time in meetings to increase in the future. This excessive meeting time is time (and therefore money) wasted, especially when a large percentage of meetings are unproductive: 37% of meetings are considered to add no value to organizations.

How do we combat this madness? We are forging the way with our meeting mantras, the guidelines we closely follow for productive and effective meetings. One of our mantras is: “no purpose, no meeting.” This means in order to have a productive meeting, you must first and foremost have a clearly defined purpose. Otherwise, you do not have a goal to work toward, and efforts are scattered and inefficient, which wastes precious time.

Another mantra is: “do the work in the meeting, not after.” We believe the time carved out for a meeting should be used to do work, not just talk about it. Identifying an objective is the first step, followed by preparing a tangible prototype or a clear idea that is ready to be explored in-depth. The meeting then serves as a space to actively work through the idea to produce creative solutions.

When we value meetings and what they can offer by running them efficiently, we can make the most of them. Practicing this now will help you to have even more successful meetings in the future.

2. Foster creativity

Creativity is the competitive advantage humans have over technology. Human-centered design methods will be highly valuable to maintain a competitive edge, and innovation will be the top priority. This is outlined in the five phases of design thinking methodology: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. The foundation of human-centered design is empathy.

“We spend a lot time designing the bridge, but not enough time thinking about the people who are crossing it.” — Dr. Prabhjot Singh, Director of Systems Design at the Earth Institute

You must first be able to understand the feelings and desires of the people you are creating for. Then, imagination takes flight as you generate as many ideas as possible to meet those needs in a way that is new and exciting, and eventually, build and test prototypes to bring prospected solutions to life. Design thinking workshops are built to help foster creativity within your team and your company at large.

3. Diverse collaboration

Studies show that diversity of various kinds in the workplace makes for a more successful business: profitability and long-term valuation increase dramatically when teams are diverse. Why? Because a more diverse team means more opportunities to approach a problem with varying perspectives, i.e. more creative solutions. It also means your business is more likely to have team members that represent the vast range of customers you are trying to reach, which increases understanding of how to successfully serve your audience.

As the workplace continues to diversify, creativity and innovation are needed to help diverse teams work together. Enter: professionals in innovation. Facilitators with the necessary skills to help unify individuals of all backgrounds are needed to encourage each team member’s best work and ensure their voices are heard. Facilitation methods provide a framework for collaboration, co-creation, and participatory decision making, all crucial components needed to be sharpened in order to properly prepare for the future of work.

“When we listen and celebrate what is both common and different, we become wiser, more inclusive, and better as an organization.” — Pat Wadors

4. Adapt communication

As hierarchical structures fade away in the face of more successful innovation structures, organizations must develop new communication channels and decision-making frameworks to accommodate self-managing, cross-functional teams. Self-managing teams wildly outperform companies with Industrial Age hierarchies. And while they are becoming more popular, it’s unfortunately still more common to find cross-functional teams that don’t work. That’s due in part to a lack of effective communication and collaboration culture.

“Cross-functional teams often fail because the organization lacks a systemic approach. Teams are hurt by unclear governance, by a lack of accountability, by goals that lack specificity, and by organizations’ failure to prioritize the success of cross-functional projects.” — Benham Tabrizi, Stanford University

75% of cross-functional teams are dysfunctional, as found in 95 teams of 25 leading corporations in a study by the Harvard Business Review. So how do you avoid this? Establish clear and consistent communication company-wide to create a culture of innovation that is matured for the innovation process. This includes keeping employees in the loop with up-to-date information and check-ins to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Also, determine a prescribed set of rules and processes for everyone to adhere to that gives every team member the power to use their voice to innovate, make decisions, and instigate changes. The better your company and all of its moving parts communicate, the better it will function and perform as a whole.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” — George Bernard Shaw

These practical innovation strategies can help you prepare for the ever-evolving future of work and meet it fluidly. The best way to ready your business is to start small, but start now.

Skill-building takes time and effort and you want your team to get used to the adjustments. It is important to continually adapt and build the skills needed to embrace change as it comes.

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