Networking in a Hybrid Workplace

One of the unintended consequences I’m observing with the hybrid-remote workplace is that people are increasingly being reduced to their work. Interactions have become overwhelmingly transactional. Meetings begin with agenda items and end with action items. Slack messages are requests. Emails are tasks. Calendars are packed. What is increasingly absent is the human conversation that once happened before meetings, in hallways, over lunch, or while walking between offices. People don’t know each other all and lack the broader context in which our colleagues live and work. We don’t know what they’re struggling with, what excites them, what they care about, or even what is happening in their lives outside of work. As a result, work feels mechanical. Transactional. And, interestingly, the work struggles as a result. The strongest organizations are not merely collections of talented individuals. They are communities of people who know one another, care about one another, and understand the broader context in which the work happens. We all need to be more intentional about restoring that human connection. Pausing to ask a personal question before diving into the agenda. Taking an extra five minutes at the beginning of a meeting to check in with someone about how they are doing. Calling instead of emailing. Learning about someone’s family, aspirations, challenges, or interests. Letting people know they are valued not only for what they do, but for who they are. The future of work may be hybrid. But the future of leadership must remain deeply human.

What if the opposite of addiction is connection? That raises an uncomfortable question about how we work now. Johann Hari uses the “Rat Park” experiment to make the point. Rats kept alone in empty cages repeatedly chose drug-laced water. But when researchers moved them into a richer space, their behaviour changed. They had more room, things to do and, most importantly, other rats around them. Hari’s point is simple: Maybe addiction isn’t only about the drug. Maybe the environment matters too. That made me think about work: Remote teams. Colleagues spread across time zones. AI handling more tasks. Slack messages instead of conversations. Tickets instead of talking things through. Dashboards instead of judgement. Someone can spend a full day “working with a team” without having one meaningful conversation. When people feel cut off, the result can be: → distraction → disengagement → endless scrolling between meetings → burnout → simply caring less And when that happens, leaders often try to fix performance: Add another tool. Track work more closely. Schedule another check-in. Start a performance plan. But tighter management and more software won’t solve a human problem. Here are 5 ways to build real connection: 1. Make some conversations task-free ↳ Give people time to talk about something other than work. ↳ That’s often where trust starts. 2. Call when messages get complicated ↳ Text can hide tone, humour, concern and uncertainty. → Five minutes of conversation can fix what 30 messages make worse. 3. Make regular time for informal contact A weekly coffee between two colleagues. A short team check-in that isn’t about progress. A regular conversation across departments. ↳ People build connection through regular contact, not grand gestures. 4. Notice when someone goes quiet If someone who usually contributes becomes quieter, get curious. Don’t start with: “Why has your performance dropped?” Try: “You seem quieter than usual. How are things?” → The second question may tell you far more. 5. Help people understand why their work matters ↳ Who are they helping? ↳ Why does the work matter? ↳ Where do they fit? → A shared purpose can make distance feel smaller. AI can make businesses faster. Automation can remove routine work. Remote work can give people flexibility. None of them removes our need to belong. ⇒ One of the biggest leadership jobs now is making sure efficiency does not leave people feeling isolated. This week, pick one of the five and use it with your team. 📹©️ Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong - Johann Hari (TED2015), Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Why don’t people want to come back to workplaces? Leaders keep asking. Employees keep resisting. HR is stuck in the middle—forced to explain what neither side has words for. And every argument collapses on the same missing piece: WIIFM—What’s In It For Me. Leaders say: “Culture. Collaboration. Innovation.” Employees say: “Commute. Balance. Productivity.” Both sound right. Both are incomplete. Because what changed isn’t people. It’s context. Think back. ⇢ 50s and 60s: Townships. HAL. Railways. Army Cantonments. Families lived together. Work and life blurred. Your boss was also your neighbour. Festivals weren’t “events”, they were community. ⇢ 80s and 90s: Ten hours a day in office. You ate together. Fought together. Celebrated together. The office wasn’t just a place—it was a rhythm. Culture wasn’t taught. It was absorbed. ⇢ Even pre-Covid: A cafeteria birthday. A corridor chat. A quick smile that softened a rough day. Belonging happened in the margins. Then Covid shattered it. Now? You log into Zoom. Talk for an hour. Disappear into your silo. That ambient belonging? Gone. And without it, culture feels thin. Diluted. Fragile. So here’s the question no one is asking: When people come to the office today… what are they really coming for? To work? They’re already doing that at home. To sit in cubicles? That’s not worth a two-hour commute. We need to redefine the office. When I spoke to Biju Dominic on the Career Shifts Podcast a few weeks ago, he said something to me that stayed. “Look at organized religion.” It brings people together for just 90 minutes a week. And yet it builds the strongest communities in the world. How? Ritual. Repetition. Shared symbols. Politicians know this too. They build loyalty so deep, people give everything, even their lives—for the cause. Organizations? We’ve forgotten. We’re stuck debating rules. Two days, three days, hybrid, while missing the deeper truth: People will only come back if the office feels like a place of meaning. Ritual. Community. If you want people back, make it worth it. Not with free snacks. Not with surveillance. But with: → Rituals that anchor culture → Disciplines that build habits → Shared experiences no Zoom call can replicate Because the return to office was never about desks and chairs. It’s about belonging. And belonging doesn’t come from logic. It comes from context. From rituals. From acts repeated with meaning until they become culture. Until leaders see this, the RTO debate will stay stuck in the wrong fight. So maybe the real question isn’t “Should we come back?” It’s: “What can only happen when we are together?” Answer that, and the return will take care of itself. #careershifts #workplaceshifts

We're building connection wrong. After years of forcing people back to offices for "water cooler moments," I quizzed Atlassian's Chief People Officer Avani Solanki Prabhakar on How I Work about what she discovered actually creates workplace connection – and it's not what most leaders think. They call it "Intentional Togetherness" (ITG). And this what Avani told me: sporadic office attendance doesn't build connection. You can't manufacture connection by hoping people bump into each other at the coffee machine. **What actually works** Every quarter, bring cross-functional teams together with one rule: they must solve a real strategic problem. Not your hierarchical teams. Not a fun team-building exercise. The actual humans who need to crack a specific challenge. Give them: - A meaty problem that matters - Time to work through it together - Permission to get stuck, struggle, and figure it out The magic isn't in the solution. It's in the struggle. Think about your strongest work relationships. I bet they weren't forged over casual Friday drinks. They were built when you were both knee-deep in a project that felt impossible, working late, cursing the complexity, but figuring it out together. "Remember when we were doing that project together and it was so shitty?" That's the phrase that signals real connection. Shared struggle creates stronger bonds than a thousand coffee chats. **Here's what this means for you** Stop trying to engineer serendipity. Start engineering challenges. If you're mandating office days hoping for magical collaboration, you're wasting everyone's time. Instead, identify your biggest strategic challenges and bring together the people who can solve them. Make it quarterly. Make it intentional. Make it matter. Listen to the full chat on How I Work: https://lnkd.in/gMtw_Ecp And tell me in the comments: how does your team approach building togetherness? What works? What doesn't? #WorkplaceCulture #Leadership #OrganisationalPsychology #RemoteWork #FutureOfWork

🛰️ Claudia thought hybrid-working schedules would save her: Two days at home for deep work and the invisible care work, wherever she could breathe. One day on-site to be seen. Although she kept over-delivering. She was seen less and remembered less. The promotions went to people whose jokes landed in hallways, not Slack. Her work traveled by email; their faces traveled by elevator. 🌓 Here’s the trap: working from home is both blessing and curse for women. The blessing is focus and flexibility for the invisible labor we carry. The curse is that we avoid the spotlight. We’d rather deliver quietly and trust merit to carry us, and we get passed over by people who were seen. 🧠 The truth is that people remember who they see, not just what they read. Being in a few key rooms still moves careers, even if it shouldn’t. The 9–6 badge-swipe culture punishes anyone doing school pickups, elder care, or real life. So don’t swing to either extreme, always on-site or always invisible online. Design your visibility like a workflow: pick the two moments each month when decisions get made, show your face there, and cover the rest with tight written receipts and short live updates. 🔧 So, how to design this now: 1. 🎯 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗼𝘄𝘀 𝗮 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗻𝗼𝗻-𝗻𝗲𝗴𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀.    Forecast week and exec reviews.    Walk three specific people who need to know your work before the meeting with a one-minute “here’s the impact, here’s the ask.”     2. 🧾 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗶𝗽𝘁𝘀 𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹.    For every major deliverable, ship a 6-sentence note: problem → action → business result → risk removed → next bet → what I need from you. CC two people not in the room. If it isn’t written and witnessed, it isn’t yours.     3. 🗓️ 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆.    Publish your office rhythm: “Tuesdays I’m in for decisions; Thursdays I’m in for cross-team syncs; other days async, 2–4pm live window.” Leaders invest in what they can reliably find.     4. 🔁 𝗥𝘂𝗻 𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘅𝘆 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗽 𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗲.    Pre-brief an in-room ally with your two lines and your ask;    Post-brief them for the echoes.    Rotate proxies so you’re not indebted and return the favor when you’re on-site.     🚀 Today Uma and I are running a 90-minute working session, “𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗕𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗼𝗿��.” Last chance to join us live and get the exact scripts, pre-wiring moves, and the one-page receipts template: https://lnkd.in/gte3PVrM 👊 Because remote can do the work, but only designed presence gets you the credit, the mic, and the raise.

🌱 Set Up UX Office Hours To Scale Up Your UX Impact (https://lnkd.in/eevRpdng), a neat idea to scale up UX impact when PM and Engineering teams outnumber designers — to help product teams that might not have direct access to design expertise and spread the value of UX across the entire organization. Neatly put together by Raquel Piqueras Herrero from Microsoft. 🤔 Designers are often outnumbered by PMs and engineers. 🚫 Non-designers across teams have little to no exposure to UX. 🚫 The outcome: poor, fragile end-to-end UX of siloed products. ✅ With UX office hours, we make UX available to other teams. ✅ It’s consultations for products without dedicated UX support. ✅ Set up 1h weekly meetings: recurrent, time-protected slots. ✅ Allow teams to book 20 mins to get feedback and UX support. ✅ Schedule meetings mid-week to allow for issues to emerge. ✅ Send a “how-it-works” email with sample topics/questions. ↳ E.g. accessibility, checkbox vs. radio, design system, mobile. 🚫 Some requests are full-feature work → you’ll need to pre-approve. ✅ Ask for product name, feature, PM, desired feedback, docs, links. ✅ In Jira, delegate small consults to UX office hours with tags/flags. ✅ Keep an archive of requests and solutions in a single Figma file. ✅ Keep tabs on similar patterns or issues emerging across teams. As designers, we are often reluctant to invite engineers or PMs to design meetings because they don’t really “get” UX. But nobody wants to create a poor UX intentionally. It happens because UX never gets a chance to be a part of a conversation. And too often there is no established line of communication to early flag critical design mistakes before they reach production. But just like designers need technical feedback to avoid late implementation challenges, engineers need UX feedback to avoid complaints and regressions. They want to optimize user efficiency and customer satisfaction, just like they want to optimize code quality and team workflow. Instead of building walls, invite teams to build bridges. But what if you set up UX hours — and absolutely nothing happens? I would try to move the needle by sprinkling a bit of UX within the QA process. For consistency, efficiency and compliance. Embed accessibility and usability as a part of the testing suite to reduce maintenance work and drive efficiency. As Raquel Piqueras Herrero noted, “typically there is a clear need for clarity and a strong appetite for quality work.” I can only wholeheartedly agree with it. I’m yet to try out UX Office Hours, but you shouldn’t be surprised if, once set up, your UX office hours will be fully booked before you even blink. Useful resources: The Power Of Office Hours, by Alex Jones https://lnkd.in/eQCSdikV [continues in comments ↓]

During the pandemic, one of the most powerful things we did in healthcare had nothing to do with ventilators, PPE, or protocols. It was the simple act of looking each other in the eye, whether in person or on a Zoom screen, and asking: "Is everybody okay?" Not “How’s the project?” or “Are we on schedule?” But “Is everyone’s mother okay? Are you okay?” We checked in on each other as human beings first, professionals second. And for a time, that human connection became the invisible infrastructure that held our teams together through the most intense period the healthcare workforce has ever seen. But somewhere along the way, as the crisis faded, so did that habit, we drifted back to business as usual, and with it, we lost something important. In Never Lead Alone, I talk about resilience as a team practice, something we build together, deliberately. One of the simplest ways to bring it back is a practice I now teach to leaders across industries: The Monthly Energy Check. Here’s how it works: Once a month, go around the team and have each person share: On a scale from 0 to 5, my energy right now is __. What’s been bringing it down is __. It could be a parent’s illness. A child struggling in school. A brutal workload. Even something as simple as poor sleep or burnout from too many back-to-back meetings. The point is that people share. And when people share, the team knows where the low points are and can lift each other up. Three weeks later, someone remembers to check in: "Hey Brad, how did your wife’s procedure go?" That’s when you know the culture has shifted, when care for each other is no longer a leadership initiative, it’s just who you are as a team. The “old school” definition of a great leader was someone who kept everyone’s energy high on their own. But in today’s world, that’s impossible. What is possible, and far more sustainable, is a team where everyone takes responsibility for each other’s energy.

Loneliness at work is on the rise, even in busy offices and “connected” hybrid teams. In the latest episode of my Lancefield on the Line podcast, I’m joined by Connie Noonan Hadley. Have a listen (and/or watch) here: https://lnkd.in/eAk535KH She's a leading organisational psychologist, founder of the Institute for Life at Work, and one of the world’s leading experts on workplace loneliness and social connection. I bet many of us have felt - or still feel - lonely at work. I have (and do, sometimes). Connie distinguishes this from being alone; it's about missing the connections we need. It's not some trivial issue either. It has a negative impact on our energy, motivation, creativity, and overall performance. In the conversation, we explore: 1. Why return-to-office mandates often don’t solve the real issue 2. What loneliness really looks like at work. 3. Her UNITE framework for reducing loneliness through small, practical shifts 4. Why connection is a performance driver, and what leaders can do without becoming therapists. 5. How AI may reshape human connection at work (in ways worth paying attention to). If you lead a team or you’re struggling with loneliness yourself, this conversation will give you a new lens on the topic, and practical actions you can try this week. Yes, strategy every day, in small moments.

Every founder knows the feeling. Your go-to person, the one who always goes above and beyond, seems to have lost their usual spark. Your gut says to fix it, but hold up. This isn't just about work - it's about a person. Here's how to navigate this delicate situation and help your star shine bright again. ☕️Casual Chat Outside the Office Step away from the work environment. Suggest a relaxed meetup at a nearby café or pub. The goal is to connect on a personal level. Ask about their life outside work - hobbies, interests, or recent experiences. Listen attentively. Often, what's not said speaks volumes. 💎Reinforce Their Value Without referencing current challenges, emphasize their importance to the team. Share a recent positive impact they've had on the company. Reassure them that they're a crucial part of your vision for the company's future. Be specific about their unique contributions. 🎉Celebrate Past Wins Take a moment to recall their greatest hits. Bring up specific instances where their work made a significant difference. Reliving these moments can reignite their confidence and passion. Focus on the impact of their actions, not just the actions themselves. ☺️Show Genuine Concern Express authentic interest in their well-being. Approach the conversation with empathy and openness. Make it clear that your concern is about them as a person, not just as an employee. Create a safe space for them to share if they choose to. 💪🏼Offer Support, Not Critiques Instead of focusing on any perceived gaps, ask how you can better support them. They might need a new challenge, some mentoring, or just encouragement. Your job is to help them rediscover their mojo, not to point out shortcomings. 🤫Ensure Confidentiality Build trust by assuring them that your conversations remain private. Let them know it's okay to be vulnerable and that their position isn't in question. Sometimes, just having a safe space to express concerns can be incredibly relieving. 😁Paint an Exciting Future Share your vision for the company and highlight the crucial role you see them playing in it. Sometimes, reconnecting with the bigger picture can reignite passion. Seek their input on where they see themselves making the biggest impact as the company grows. Remember, in the startup world, your team isn't just a group of employees - it's more like family. When one member is struggling, it affects everyone. By focusing on rekindling their passion and reminding them of their value, you're not just addressing a temporary dip - you're reinforcing the foundation of your company culture. Taking the time to genuinely connect with your team members and help them rediscover their spark pays off enormously. It's not just about maintaining performance - it's about nurturing the talent that will drive your company's future success.

One of the most powerful ways to manage workday interruptions is learning how to work with them, rather than trying to avoid them. Especially for leaders, small unplanned interactions aren't keeping you from the work, they often are the work of leadership. And there are three simple things you can do to make every interaction count, even when you're very busy. 1. Listen Intently. Effective listening is often hailed as the holy grail of exemplary leadership. But few people get it right. That’s because it takes practice and focus to connect with others, detect nuances, figure out whose issue it is, and determine what kind of help people need to do their best. Giving the other person the space to be heard does not mean being passive. So do a little digging. Be radically curious. Ask for the evidence and take the time you need (within reason) to fully grasp the issue. When you feel confident that you’ve wrapped your head around what’s going on, take a moment to briefly summarize to ensure you have it right. 2. Frame the Issue. Once you understand the issue, you’re ready to frame it in a way that will provide clarity. To be a skilled framer, determine whether the other party needs greater clarity, confidence, or commitment, and adjust your approach accordingly. If it’s clarity they need, you may have to roll up your sleeves and dig into some data with them, or provide some context to explain the competitive landscape.  If it’s confidence or commitment that is required, show them how their strengths make them uniquely suited to handle it. Anchor the issue in whatever drives them and use the opportunity to let people know why their contribution matters. 3. Advance the Agenda. Now's the time to have a bias for action. People came to you to make tangible progress. And you're in a unique position to help. You listened. You framed the issue. Now you can push the problem or issue forward. Maybe you need to help them make a decision. Maybe you need to take the reins and make a call. If you need to connect the people involved with a crucial third party—do it. Make a phone call, send an email, write a memo. Get things moving in whichever way is necessary. This is your chance to provide people with the tools and/or insights necessary to help people meet and exceed their goals. At the end of the day, all any of us can do is consider the information available to us at the moment, make the best decision we can, and resolve to do a little bit better each time. This three-step triad provides a framework for you to build relationships and make and support decisions. In every moment. And, the more you do it, the better and more efficient you will become. Give this triad a try and let me know what you think: Listen, Frame, Advance. Let's go. #leadership #listening #LIPostingDayJune