Below are some ideas I have heard recently that I thought may of interest. Some of the ideas are big. Some of the ideas are small. All are being used by real leaders just like you.

  1. Take a walk with your direct reports. This leader drives to meet his employees and either goes for a walk with them in their neighborhood or meets them at a local park.
  2. Re-contract with your team. Re-contracting means restating how you want to show up as a team (which may not necessarily be how you are showing up now) and reaffirm the new commitment.
  3. Use a “democratic budgeting” process. Each quarter, senior leadership gets together and reviews what they really need for the upcoming quarter (and not what they have historically needed).
  4. Review concept of blanket policies versus need for individual accommodation in light of many families having to take on burden of children’s education and the like.
  5. Use virtual to your advantage and put more people on your “team.” This means expanding the notion that your team is just direct reports or just internal and may include bringing in outside experts and suppliers to meetings even if in small increments of time.
  6. Develop programs and bring in resources to help employees in all areas of their life: mental health, physical health, movement, cooking, how to educate children, personal budgeting & finance, and the like.
  7. End all meeting 5-10 minutes before the scheduled ending to allow for transition time. This leader also encourages everyone to do a group stretch at the end of the calls together.
  8. Form peer learning groups inside the organization.
  9. “Over-invest in people and innovation.” >>>THIS SOUNDS SELF-SERVING AND IT IS, BUT I HAVE HEARD THAT FROM SEVERAL LEADERS WHO ARE NOT MY CLIENTS….GC
  10. Take the money that was not spent on tradeshows and travel and use it for people development.
  11. Use video for everyone if everyone cannot be together in one room. Meaning one face per screen to make people feel equal in the conversation.
  12. Educate everyone on the ever-rising threat of IT security attacks. They are up 5X from pre-pandemic levels, which were already high.
  13. Use the rooms and breakout function of video conferencing liberally with groups of 2-3 people to generate quality discussion and participation.

Things will not return to what they used to be, but will be a blend of new and old approaches. I am curious what you are doing differently that you have found valuable. Feel free to drop me a line.