Wade Burgess is the chief revenue officer at Velocity Global, which enables businesses and talent to work with anyone, anywhere, anyhow.
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When I'm asked what will determine continued success for companies in our current climate, my mind turns to wrestling. I grew up in the sport, eventually wrestling at the University of Nebraska. Recently my sons were watching videos of the top Olympic and World level wrestlers from my era. When comparing them to the athletes of today, we noticed big differences in how they approached the sport, and it prompted some thoughts about how business has changed as well.
When I was wrestling, the focus was on strength, form and positioning. We would spend hours drilling specific techniques over and over again. Today, there's a tremendous focus on flexibility, speed and scrambling out of uncomfortable situations without giving up a point or advantage.
I see the world of work in a similar way. Technique and fundamentals continue to be necessary, but agility, flexibility and handling challenging situations are key to continued success. I see time and time again that those who are determined to double down and resist change will be outmatched by those who are well-versed in agile thinking.
As companies try to corral their employees back into the office, struggle to find talent and state a higher turnover rate than normal, I wonder if we're asking the right questions.
I've spent the last 15 years helping companies expand in international markets, all without a permanent desk or office. I've been an ex-pat (moving my family to London without ever having visited Europe before), a million miler on multiple airlines, a tenured video conferencing native and a multitasking home officer. I've tried it all.
Perhaps surprisingly, I am decidedly in favor of in-person work—on my own terms. But that doesn't mean I prescribe that for everyone, least of all my own team.
The discussion shouldn't be about whether remote or in-office is better, but instead, how we can integrate flexibility across our entire workflow, embracing agility in order to adapt and grow.
Talent is global, and our teams should be too.
When Covid ran its course, we realized how much we could do from home. Teams on every continent were servicing other continents. Any remaining doubt about the tactical efficacy of remote work has been all but eliminated. At the same time, we've seen how isolation, loneliness and mental health concerns are rising.
The good news is that building a global team can help us strike the right balance between greater flexibility and employee well-being.
Without a mandate for a physical presence in any specific building, you have the freedom to choose candidates that live in the same area as your clients and prioritize face-to-face meetings with them. If your product isn't service-based, client proximity might not be a priority, but perhaps cultural context is. As humans, we tend to value connection, and it's wonderfully ironic that a distributed workforce is one way to create that connection with your partners, clients, vendors and employees.
Self-reflection and experimentation are essential.
Designing teams outside of the norm isn't for the faint of heart. For flexibility and customization to work, self-reflection and feedback loops must become part of your organization's DNA.
Employees should reflect on their productivity, discover their work style and understand what works for them. Managers, in turn, should provide environments where this experimentation is encouraged and supported and where accountability and responsibility are crystal clear.
Employees are responsible for their own success, but being flexible and open allows them to create the environment that propels them toward their full potential.
Flexibility doesn't just mean remote.
We already assess individual needs when building different teams. Developers require different equipment than marketing professionals, and sales teams traditionally spend more time outside the office than their accounting colleagues. We all need different things to stay productive, engaged and creatively challenged, so why would we try to fit everyone into the same working box?
For example, I don't sit in one place well. So in virtual meetings, I'll often switch from sitting to standing, move locations or turn the video off so I can finish the conversation while on a walk. If you function best by working out at 2 p.m., build your day around that and crush your overall responsibilities. Prefer to get a lot of your work done early in the morning before the kids wake up? You can make that work. Increasingly, professionals need the right to choose their own level of accomplishment without constraints.
Clients want flexibility too.
As someone who spends much of my time client-facing, I'd be remiss to leave out customer choice in my argument for a more flexible approach.
At the grocery store, some of us want to go through self-checkout, while others want to talk to someone at the register. The store knows this and gives us both options. Once you open yourself up to a more flexible and dynamic team-building approach, you can start thinking more creatively about everything else, from operations to product delivery. You may discover that you can offer service variation to your customers depending on their preferences or uncover gaps you otherwise overlooked when trying to funnel clients towards specific products.
Embracing A More Flexible Approach
Like many things, creativity feeds off itself, and once you start thinking outside of the box, you'll only gather more momentum. Being flexible isn't just about letting people do what they want for the sake of it. By designing a workflow that actually works for your team, you'll see greater experimentation, increased productivity and efficiency and an overall increase in happiness. Allowing your clients to choose their service style will give you valuable industry insights and lead to less friction and pain points. To me, that's worth the extra stretching.
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