Remote Work Is No Longer a “We Can Get to It Later” Option
For many teams and organizations, going remote has been optional: something that they can do later, that they can do partially/as needed, or that they’ve been meaning to explore or prioritize. COVID-19 has made that someday/maybe possibility into a TODAY priority.
But the shift to remote work also doesn’t have to be absurdly painful, disruptive, or a “best of bad options” scenario. A surprising outcome for many of my clients that I’ve worked with over the last decade is that having a remote-centric team has actually improved performance, productivity, profitability, morale, and retention. They often don’t want to go back to location-centric!
The most common reason teams and organizations struggle with transitioning to remote is that they place their full focus on changing people when what really needs to change are their workways. At their simplest, workways are ways members of teams or organizations get their work done. They are the patterns of behavior – like muscle memory – that underly the culture, values, and mission of the team, group, or organization.
The Five Categories of Workways You Need to Shift
For your team to work remotely in this new VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Chaotic, and Ambiguous) environment, you’ll need to shift your prioritization, planning, meeting, communication, and collaboration workways stat. We can help you figure out which areas to focus on now and how to do it quickly.
Our approach focuses on enabling everyone to influence and change their team’s workways, rather than placing all of the burden on managers and senior leaders. Putting the weight on managers and senior leaders doesn’t work well in the best of times – it surely won’t work now.
Since going remote is no longer optional but critical to your team’s continued functioning, let’s embrace the challenge and boosts our team’s performance and morale no matter how we end up working in the future.
Our Service Offerings
Our plug-and-play services allow us to meet your exact needs. While we have a breadth of modalities, the following are great starting points to consider:
- A “Critical Pivots in a New Environment” virtual training that’s tailored to your particular team’s context
- Virtual training that focuses on re-engineering your workways around prioritization, meetings, communication, collaboration, and belonging
- Remote Working Office Hours where I’ll coach and consult teammates on how to make the transition from in-person to remote-exclusive
- Group coaching for executives, managers, and key players
- One-on-one executive coaching
Don’t see what you’re looking for? Reach out. We probably have a service that fits your goals and situation.
In case you’re curious, we’ve been serving our clients remotely for 14 years and my military service was remote-centric (since Army logistics is remote-centric), so this working with our clients remotely is a core competency we already have.
About Productive Flourishing
While it takes a team to serve our clients, Charlie Gilkey acts as the lead consultant, coach, and strategist.
More about Charlie: I have about 20 years of fieldwork that incorporates systems thinking, strategy execution, leadership and organizational development, practical innovation, and communication. Besides the technical expertise, I possess a drive to build services that support entrepreneurs, creatives, teams, and other individuals and entities, and help them achieve more than they could have ever imagined. Here’s a high-level summary of what I’ve been up to:
- I’m a veteran and spent eight years in the Army building, training, and leading high-performance teams in joint-force logistics. During my command tenure, I was responsible for 219 soldiers and about $20M worth of equipment. I exited as a Captain.
- I’ve spent the last 14 years guiding founders, executives, and leaders on how to shift from personality-centric groups to systems-centric and scalable teams in order to lead in their market sectors. I’ve worked across multiple industries, ranging from military, academic, and non-profit to small business and corporate.
- I’m a best-selling and award-winning author and frequently sought out for interviews. In addition, my website, Productive Flourishing, is one of the world’s top websites for its category.
- The Productive Flourishing team currently consists of six full-time staff and a handful of independent contractors. I get what you’re doing because I’m doing it as well.
- I serve on nonprofit boards and recently chaired one board. I also serve on several of the nonprofits’ strategy committees since that’s often where the work of translating strategy into execution happens.
- I’m a PhD candidate in Philosophy. I specialize in ethics and political philosophy, with my primary research interests focused on the political and social arrangements that lead to individual and collective thriving.
Some would call my history “unusual.” But it’s my unique amalgam of expertise, perspective, and experience that helps people and companies grow. If you work with me, I’ll ask the unasked questions and develop seemingly unconventional strategies that solve problems and identify opportunities for growth.
Would You Like to Know More?
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