Create Workplace Flexibility
Flexibility is a mindset, a way of life, and it starts with a perspective shift.
It’s more than ‘Hawaiian Shirt Fridays’ and working from home once a month. It’s about knowing as precisely as possible what you need to do your best work and asking for it, whether that means telecommuting more, working fewer days for more hours, or some other creative construct.
Some organizations get that providing their employees with flexibility is critical to keeping their energy, health and creativity flowing. However, Radical Flexibility has not yet widely taken root.
Radical Flexibility happens when everyone from CEO’s to front-line staff take full responsibility for nurturing their own energy and productivity, along with that of their colleagues. It’s one part managing yourself and one part finding the best ways (time, space, technology) to support and grow your colleagues’ energy.
- Flexibility is critical because it allows us to live and work as integrated, whole individuals, in tune with our authentic natures. It takes into account that each of us has unique rhythms for when, where and how we are most creative, motivated, and productive.
- Become an expert on your energy right now! Take notes over the course of a week and notice the natural ebb and flow of your energy. What you are doing at those times? What were you doing just before? What did you create when you implemented flexibility? How do your productivity and innovation patterns change depending upon what you’ve eaten, your exercise, and the people and places you’re surrounded by? What’s your creativity ‘special sauce’?
- It’s your job to advocate for the implications of your time and energy. Be bold in requesting flexibility for yourself and your staff. See it as one of the easiest (and cheapest) changes that you and/or your organization can make. Identify allies among your colleagues and management and make the case respectfully, but clearly. If it doesn’t work the first time, keep honing your message. Remind yourself and your organization that flexibility results in real change on a shoestring budget so it can be unusually immediate and powerful.
