Weeknote #675: Adopting new habits at work
As these extraordinary times keep disrupting our habitual routines, we need to start reshaping the way we work during COVID-19 era.
This week majority of Nordkappians have returned from their summer vacations and in full speed orienting towards (a hopefully) busy fall. The start looks promising as there are numerous new cases won and multiple promising pitches in the oven.
However, there are dark clouds on the horizon. Despite we took the necessary and drastic measures to prevent and cope with the spread of COVID-19 during this spring, the second wave is gaining momentum in Finland. What we hoped to be temporary is now becoming part of our everyday lives. This requires we acknowledge the change and start actively creating new habits and ways to work remotely without agony.
Adopting new facilitation practices
In the past (and still today) face-to-face collaboration is seen as the most efficient way to engage, share, and create new knowledge between people. As the nature and success of our work are highly dependent on this [ability], we have started to adopt new techniques that enable us to facilitate collaboration and workshops efficiently remotely.
The techniques are based on the experiences we experimented during the spring COVID-19 isolation while we continued delivering projects and our internal strategy development initiatives remotely. Having the best tools and practices ensure we can continue delivering the best quality for our clients also in the future. However, when we move from physical to digital, are we witnessing the death of post-its, too?
What else happened this week?
In addition to adopting new tools and ways of working, our team is busy helping our clients over these challenging times.
After accidentally learning to swim, Valeria is enjoying the last bits of summer and somewhat warm water.
Topias is back from holidays, working remotely at least this week.
Mika L has been getting back to full speed by supporting our client to get a new direction for their digital strategy and helping the rest of the Nordkappians with a couple of new pitches.
Matti has been kicking off a new project with Joni and Kaitsu where they are exploring new business opportunities enabled by a digital platformisation in a traditional healthcare industry context! Alongside the project work, Matti has been busy with business development both in Finland and Amsterdam — looks like busy autumn ahead!
Liam’s enjoying the close collaboration with Satu, Sami, and Juhani as they iteratively design Nordkapp’s renewed website.
Sami has had a dive to the proverbial deep end of things: running several workshops in hybrid mode spanning f2f and virtual participants over several locations. Yes, this works and gets better by every run. I still miss the thrill and intensity of leading a group of people in the same room but meanwhile, we’re in this transition state, this will do. Also happy to work with driven people wanting to change things for the better. It’s a blessing that makes everything and everyone better. Onwards!
Shakti’s mostly had a work-from-home week and gravel riding evenings. It’s been a good week to reflect and prepare for upcoming autumn challenges.
Five things we read this week:
- How systems thinking is evolving from Twitter by @ruthmalan — A collection of insights on systems thinking stating that not all possible futures represent opportunities or have potential.
- Emerging from the Crisis from Harvard Business Review— The article explains how companies who want to make effective strategy in the face of uncertainty, need to set up a process of constant exploration that allows top managers to build permanent but flexible bridges between their actions in the present and their thinking about the future.
- These delivery robots make it easier to do contact-free deliveries to at-risk quarantiners from Fast Company — Fascinating story about our client Starship Technologies and how their delivery robot technology is well-suited for the era of social distancing.
- Speaking to Customers in Uncertain Times from MIT Sloan— This article has a good point that now when face time is minimized and physically distanced, and dialogue with customers is moving towards digital channels, it’s critical to consider how we are speaking to customers. By paying attention to language and tone, we can reduce customer anxiety and build trust in these challenging times.
- COVID-19: Implications for business from McKinsey— This publication has a great collection of short executive briefings, providing insights at the implications of COVID-19 to business across to the world.
Weeknotes are what happened at our studio this week. This week’s weeknote was curated by Mika Lindstedt.
Mika is an organization and strategic business design lead at Nordkapp, who loves to produce electronic music in his spare time.
