Weekly Pulse by William Meller | Week 20, 2023

The Weekly Pulse is my content curation and my highlights from readings, books, podcasts, insights, and everything I discovered during the week.
The Weekly Pulse is my content curation and my highlights from readings, books, podcasts, insights, and everything I discovered during the week.

So, let’s go with some discoveries from the week!

#1 – Redesigning the Post-Pandemic Workplace
#2 – Why Agility Pays
#3 – How to Retrain Your Frazzled Brain and Find Your Focus Again


Redesigning the Post-Pandemic Workplace

Source: MIT Sloan Management Review
Author: Gerald C. Kane, Rich Nanda, Anh Phillips, and Jonathan Copulsky

Summary: The world has experienced widespread disruption over the past year as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the successful development and distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine, the timeline for when the so-called next normal will arrive is clearer. Work as we know it is forever changed by COVID-19. Now is the time for managers to envision the office that employees will return to.

3 Highlights:

“… If people have the option to work from home, it seems likely that they will use this time to engage either in individual-focused work or in remote meetings. When employees decide to make the effort to come into the office, it will be to engage in the types of tasks that require in-person interactions…”

“… Rethinking the workplace also opens up new opportunities for rethinking the workforce and, ultimately, work itself. When your organization is not limited to a colocated workplace, the idea of whom you can include in the workforce expands…”

“… While digital tools create opportunities to work in new ways, organizations should also look further into the future and consider how these tools might be applied to support changes in employee behavior as work is automated. Managers also must continue to rethink how they manage performance as more employees adopt a hybrid model with both remote and colocated work…”

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Why Agility Pays

Source: McKinsey
Author: Michael Bazigos, Aaron De Smet, and Chris Gagnon

Summary: New research shows that the trick for companies is to combine speed with stability. Agile organizations appear to be powerful machines for innovation and learning. Their performance stands out in three of the four management practices — top-down innovation, capturing external ideas, and knowledge sharing — associated with that outcome.

3 Highlights:

“… The speed that had been its hallmark began to wane as management focused on the constant renegotiations between the two parties. These unhealthy levels of internal competition caused leaders to lose sight of external threats….”

“… Agile organizations appear to be powerful machines for innovation and learning…”

“… Agile companies seem to be strong at motivation…”

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How to Retrain Your Frazzled Brain and Find Your Focus Again

Source: The Guardian
Author: Eleanor Morgan

Summary: This article is for you that find it harder than ever to concentrate during the pandemic, where the focus just makes it impossible to concentrate on just one thing, like a book, your work, cleaning, or even cooking something. Eleanor Morgan suggests some exercises to help your brain come back to reality.

3 Highlights:

“… We can learn to focus better, but we need to think about attention differently. It is not something we can just choose to do. We have to train the brain as a muscle. Specifically, with short bursts of daily exercises…”

“… Stress is one of the biggest obstacles to focusing, says Dr Amishi Jha. In a high-alert state, we often start ruminating and catastrophizing. We get stuck in “loops of doom” or imagined scenarios. This mode impacts our working memory…”

“… After a fortnight of doing the exercises, I notice that being able to carve a little sliver of space between myself and the contents of my mind means I am able to divert my attention back to what I need to do more easily…”

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