How the Future Works

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Brian Elliott. How the Future Works

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Guide

Pages

Praise for How the Future Works: The 7 Steps to Getting There

HOW THE FUTURE WORKS. LEADING FLEXIBLE TEAMS TO DO THE BEST WORK OF THEIR LIVES

Foreword

Introduction: The 9-To-5 Just Doesn’t Work for Us Anymore (And Maybe Never Did)

Why the 9-to-5 Mentality Needs to Go

What Is Future Forum, Anyway?

Seven Steps to the Future of Work

Notes

Why Flexible Work Works

What We Mean by Flexible Work

The Competitive Advantage

1) Win the Battle for Talent

2) Engage Employees

3) Build Better Results

What's Getting in the Way

At a Glance: The Benefits of Flexible Work

The What: Digital-First

Digital-First: n

The How: Flexibility within a Framework

Notes

Step 1: Stand for Something: Agree on Purpose and Principles

Your Flexible Work Purpose: What's Your Why?

Flexible Work Purpose: n

Flexible Work Principles: n

Your Flexible Work Principles: How Can You Support Your Purpose?

Examples of Flexible Work Principles

The Process: How Leaders Can Start to Create Alignment

Start with the Right Orientation

The Change Must Be Leader Driven

Check Your Assumptions

Think Differently

Dedicate Resources

Involve Your People Early

Lead with Transparency

Keep a “More to Learn” Mindset

Checklist for Step 1: Stand for Something

Notes

Step 2: Level the Playing Field: Create Guardrails for Behavior

What Are Guardrails?

Guardrails: n

Leadership Guardrails

Lead by Example

Take Symbolic Actions

Show Vulnerability

The IBM “Work From Home Pledge”

Workplace Guardrails

Shared Space Is for Teamwork First

Keep a Level Playing Field

Rethink the Role of Offsites

Culture Guardrails

Move beyond Meeting-driven Culture

Challenge the Role of the Brainstorm

Challenge Your Own Thinking

Why Guardrails Really Matter

Checklist for Step 2: Level the Playing Field

Notes

Step 3: Commit to How You'll Work: Develop Team-Level Agreements

What Are Team-Level Agreements?

Where to Start

What Team-Level Agreements Are, and What They Are Not. What Team-Level Agreements are:

What Team-Level Agreements are not:

A Reminder Before You Get Started

Values: What Do We Value in Our Working Environment as a Team?

Schedules and Meetings: How Will We Collaborate?

Schedules

Meetings

Accountability: How Do We Hold Each Other Accountable?

Relationships: Coming Together as a Team

Checking-in: Evolving Our Team Agreements Over Time

The Process: How to Use Our Starter Template to Get Agreement

Customize Our Starter Template for Your Organization

Create Early Champions for Change by Piloting with a Few Teams

Disseminate to Additional Teams with Context and Guidance

Create a Way for Teams to Give Feedback and Share Best Practices

Guidance for Your Team Leaders

Checklist for Step 3: Commit to How You'll Work

Notes

Step 4: Experiment, Experiment, Experiment: Normalize a Culture of Learning

Build Momentum for Change

Find Early Champions and Change Advocates

Prototype the Path

Encourage Experimentation

Bring Managers Along for the Ride

Ask Rather Than Tell

Build the Case

Always Lead with Why

Storytelling Our Why: Digital-First Post to All of Slack. Why the Future Is Digital-First

Don't Just Talk to People—Engage Them

Meeting Hygiene: Do We Need to Meet?

Do We Really Need to Meet?

Transparency and Humility

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Checklist for Step 4: Experiment, Experiment, Experiment

Notes

Step 5: Create a Culture of Connection from Anywhere: Reimagine Your Headquarters

The Importance of Connection and Belonging

Meetings

Lunchrooms

Happy Hours

What Really Builds Connection

Acknowledge the Challenge

Look at What People Actually Want

Make Digital Your New Headquarters (and Give It the Same Intentionality)

Rethink the Role of Shared Space

Give Teams the Freedom to Decide (Because One-Size Does Not Fit All)

Support Teams with Options and Tools

Set the Tone from the Top

Checklist for Step 5: Create a Culture of Connection from Anywhere

Notes

Step 6: Train Your Leaders to Make It Work: “Soft” Skills Matter More than Ever

Redefine the Role of Managers

Inspire Trust by Reskilling Managers to Create Psychological Safety

Building Trust through Transparency

Leading with Empathy

Levi Strauss & Co.: Lead with Empathy and Learn Together

Create Clarity

Offer Regular Feedback (But the Right Kind!)

Accept and Own Mistakes

Unlock Potential by Building Equity into Processes and Policies

Bring All Your People In

Provide Jump Balls for Talent

Avoid Burnout by Reskilling Managers to Enable Boundaries

Permission to Say “No”

Redesign Career Tracks

Invest in Reskilling Your Managers to Inspire Trust, Create Clarity, and Unlock Potential

Checklist for Step 6: Train Your Leaders to Make It Work

Notes

Step 7: Focus on the Outcomes: Avoid the Doom Loop and Embrace the Boom Loop

What's Wrong with the Old Way?

Abandon the “Monitoring” Mentality

Adopt a Better Way: Outcomes Over Activity

Measuring Outcomes on Individual and Team Levels: Moving from Doom to Boom

Continually Reassess Your Measures

Building Company Success = Business + People

Checklist for Step 7: Focus on the Outcomes

Notes

Conclusion: Making a Difference

Resources: Your Future of Work Toolkit

Step 1 Tool: A Simple Framework for Creating Your Flexible Work Purpose and Principles

Step 2 Tool: A Simple Framework for Creating Guardrails

Step 2 Tool: Do We Need a Meeting?

Framework for assessing meeting types

Step 3 Tool: Team-Level Agreements Starter Template. What Is This Document?

Keep in Mind …

Team-Level Agreements Template. Values: What Do We Value in Our Working Environment as a Team?

Schedules & Meetings: How Will We Collaborate?

Accountability: How Do We Hold Each Other Accountable?

Relationships: Coming together as a team

Checking-in and evolving our team agreements over time

Step 4 Tool: Applying Design Thinking to Flexible Work Challenges

Step 5 Tool: Creating Meetings that Matter

Step 6 Tool: Tips to Inspire Trust, Create Clarity, and Unlock Potential on Your Team

Inspire Trust: Build a Culture of Psychological Safety

With Your Team:

As a Leader:

Create Clarity: Make Feedback the Norm

Unlock Potential: Build Equitable Policies and Practices

Step 6 Tool: Personal Operating Manual (POM) Worksheet. What Is It?

Why Do It?

How to Make One?

POM: Brainstorm

Step 1: How to best describe me (my work style, what people misunderstand about me)

What other characteristics would describe/not describe you:

Step 2: My catchphrase (how to best communicate with me, how to help me)

What other phrases would describe/not describe my catchphrase:

Step 3: My Values (what I value, what I don't have patience for)

What other words or phrases would describe/not describe my values:

POM: Prompts—Reference Questions and Details

POM Template

Step 7 Tool: Measuring Outcomes

Individual Level

Team Level Performance and Team Dynamics

Employee Engagement

Business Outcomes

Step 7 Tool: Management Leadership for Tomorrow’s 3-Question Prompt

Step 7 Tool: BCG's Team Success Survey

Note

Acknowledgments

Brian:

Sheela:

Helen:

Cast of Experts. Executives

Academics and Thought Leaders

About the Authors. Brian Elliott

Sheela Subramanian

Helen Kupp

Index

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We have arrived at a moment where we can backslide into the status quo or transform society for generations to come. How the Future Works makes the latter possible -- providing us with a blueprint to deeply consider the future of work. It is a must-read for today's leaders.

Indra Nooyi, former CEO, PepsiCo and author of My Life in Full

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Out of that context, Future Forum was born, a consortium focused on redesigning work for all types of people. We guide executives to build workplaces that are flexible, inclusive, connected, and ultimately more effective for the world we're living in today. We conduct original research and engage thousands of executives from a wide variety of industries in order to learn from one another, experiment with new concepts, and ultimately push our thinking about what the future can hold.

The upsides of flexible work have been a welcome surprise, of course, but it hasn't all been a rosy picture—and our research has looked at that, too. It quickly became clear that we have created an inequitable system where benefits are not distributed evenly across the board. There was massive unemployment in some sectors, for example, especially where it wasn't possible to shift to different ways of working. And for those working from home, caregiving responsibilities paired with school closures often made work more difficult, if not impossible. These inequities have disproportionately affected women, especially women of color, but flexible work has provided an upside for many historically disadvantaged groups as well. Women and people of color are among the groups who say they want flexibility the most, for reasons we will discuss in later chapters. In fact, now that so many have experienced what flexible work can do for them, the vast majority of knowledge workers say they want more of it. Our research shows that flexibility is the most important driver of job satisfaction behind compensation.

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