30572_Kao Data Critical Careers_Pages - Flipbook - Page 79
Making
Work Better
I
’ve always been ambitious. I wanted a family, a good life and I wanted to have
a successful thriving career, so I set out to create my own experiment on how to
create an entirely 昀氀exible team delivering outstanding work.
Just because people have different family responsibilities or life circumstances that
make working in a 9-to-5 corporate environment challenging, doesn’t mean they
aren’t smart, brilliant, and capable of producing highly impactful work.
I’ve always valued 昀氀exibility and have worked somewhat remotely for about 18
years. This helped shape my approach to building my own team where we have a
fully remote, 昀氀exible environment. This setup, though uncommon, has proven to
be highly effective with a team that produces a large volume of very high quality,
impactful work.
The key to our success comes from roles designed around our strengths, clear
expectations and robust peer accountability. Each team member knows what’s
expected of them. We have expressed operating principles that drive behaviours
that make it crystal clear what we value. They understand they’re accountable not
just to me, but far more importantly to each other. We have core hours and non
negotiables, yet we maintain 昀氀exibility around these core hours to accommodate
different lifestyles and responsibilities.
We also focus on understanding and respecting personal boundaries and life cycles
in a way that supports not only our teams but the business to thrive. Recognising that
not everyone is in a constant state of growth and that people have periods where
they need to maintain rather than expand their responsibilities has been crucial.
We’ve created an environment where team members can ask for help and support
each other, making it possible to deliver excellent work outside of the
traditional structure.
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