Following are the tools and templates referenced in this book. You can also go to FutureForum.com/Book to find these and additional resources online.

Step 1:	A Simple Framework for Creating Flexible Work Purpose and Principles
Step 2:	A Simple Framework for Creating Guardrails Do We Need a Meeting?
Step 3:	Team-Level Agreements Starter Template
Step 4:	Applying Design Thinking to Flexible Work Challenges
Step 5:	Creating Meetings that Matter
Step 6:	Tips to Inspire Trust, Create Clarity, and Unlock Potential on Your Team Personal Operating Manual
Step 7:	Measuring Outcomes Management Leadership for Tomorrow's 3-Question Prompt BCG's Team Success Survey

Step 1 Tool: A Simple Framework for Creating Your Flexible Work Purpose and Principles

While each company's principles will vary somewhat in sentiment and words in order to resonate with that company's culture and beliefs, we have found that they cover three main categories. Use this simple framework to ensure that your company's flexible work principles provide your people with the guidance they need to shift to a new way of working.

Step 2 Tool: A Simple Framework for Creating Guardrails

Step 2 Tool: Do We Need a Meeting?

No one grew up dreaming of back-to-back, 9-to-5 meetings, whether virtual or in-person. Flexibility in when people work makes them more engaged and productive, and that requires developing new muscles around blending synchronous “bursts” of work together with individual “maker” time. The first step toward making space for focus time is to reduce the number of meetings we are collectively in. Always start with: “Do we really need to meet?”

Do we really need to meet? Some best practices:

• Push status updates to in-channel and instead use the /remind function or a Workflow to send regular prompts to the team for status updates.
• Similarly, use a channel to share information (presentations, documents, etc.) where you're speaking one to many, and instead consider using Stories or a recorded Zoom video to do voiceover for the content.
• Err on the side of canceling recurring meetings, or at minimum ask to cancel if there is no agenda prior to the meeting.
• Think about what parts of a meeting can be done async beforehand to make the time together more productive (e.g. pre-read, feedback in advance, come up with a set of ideas to bring to the discussion, etc.).
• Be intentional about the meetings that do get created to ensure you're making the most of the time you have together.

Framework for assessing meeting types

Step 3 Tool: Team-Level Agreements Starter Template

What Is This Document?

This template is for teams to create and document team-level agreements. Team-level agreements (sometimes called “Team Norms,” “Team Working Agreements,” or “Team Operating Manuals”) are a set of guidelines that establish a working environment and allow teammates to understand how to work with one another. The goal of this document is to inspire trust, create clarity, and unlock performance on teams.

This template is designed to be flexible; please modify the template or add sections to meet your needs. Be mindful to share the document with all team members, and keep your agreements updated by soliciting feedback from new members who join your team.

Keep in Mind …

In our Digital-First world, the most successful teams are flexible, connected, and inclusive. Your team norms should accommodate a wide range of situations, including team members who:

Joined the company recently and …

• Hope to join office culture.
• Plan to work remotely.
• Plan to work from home some days and the office some days.
• Aren't sure yet what they want to do.

Were remote workers and …

• Hope to join office culture going forward.
• Plan to remain remote.
• Plan to work from home some days and the office some days.
• Aren't sure yet what they want to do.

Were office workers and …

• Hope to continue going forward.
• Plan to work remotely.
• Plan to work from home some days and the office some days
• Aren't sure yet what they want to do.

Team-Level Agreements Template

Schedules & Meetings: How Will We Collaborate?

As a team, we have the following norms around our schedules …

• Core collaboration hours: We expect team members to be available for in-sync work between the hours of 10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m. PT, Mondays through Thursdays
• Dedicated focus time: We prioritize and dedicate 2-hour focus time blocks from 1:00–3:00 p.m. PT, every weekday
• Notifications: We default to notifications off during non-core collaboration hours or focus time
• Response time: We set clear expectations for who needs to respond and when, and we reserve off-hours escalations for truly urgent issues, via text or phone call

As a team, we have the following norms around our meetings and communication expectations …

• One dials in, all dial in to a meeting to ensure that everyone is participating on an equal playing field
• We commit to creating agendas at least 24 hours in advance for all live (or synchronous) meetings
• Notes from meetings are always documented and shared back to the team
• More than two of us invited to another internal team's meeting? Others should feel free to decline

Accountability: How Do We Hold Each Other Accountable?

As a team, we want to set expectations and hold each other accountable in the following ways …

• We clearly define work and deliverable requirements from the beginning, including a primary owner (also known as a “DRI—directly responsible individual”)
• We commit to making it clear when we need feedback (from whom and when)
• Every major project will have retrospective meetings to reflect on what went well, what could've been better, and what we've learned

Relationships: Coming together as a team

As a team, we want to build our relationships with each other in the following ways …

• When it comes to bringing ourselves to work, we embrace vulnerability with boundaries. We operate from a place of trust—we can speak openly about our lives outside of work.
• We commit to celebrating one another's successes both publicly and within the team.
• We commit to being open and honest about when we are overloaded or need support, both personally and professionally.

Checking-in and evolving our team agreements over time

As a team, we want to check in on how things are going by …

• Spending part of our team meeting every month discussing our team-level agreements and getting feedback on what is and isn't working
• Creating a quarterly poll to get anonymous feedback across our department on our team-level agreements, and suggestions for improvement

Step 4 Tool: Applying Design Thinking to Flexible Work Challenges

Complex problems like creating flexibility for people, teams, and organizations require understanding the needs of the people involved, engaging them in generating ideas, and taking a hands-on approach to prototyping and testing those ideas.

There are six core stages, but it's also not a linear process, nor are you ever “done.” This process requires a continuous-improvement approach.

Design Thinking can be applied to large-scale issues, like “how do we provide greater schedule flexibility,” or to narrower issues, like the challenges faced by people attending so-called “hybrid meetings” (meetings where some of the team is in an office and others are dialing in).

Here's an example:

Step 5 Tool: Creating Meetings that Matter

Adapted from advice provided by facilitator, strategic advisor, and podcast host, Parker, who is the author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters.¹

First, ask yourself: Do we really need a meeting?

Refer back to the tool for Step 2 to ensure, first and foremost, that a meeting is necessary and that you're not just taking up time in people's schedules.

Second, start with the basics: What is the purpose of the meeting? Who needs to be there? And who decides?

“The biggest mistake we make when we gather is we assume the purpose of the gathering is shared and obvious,” says Parker. It's common to skip over basic questions like:

• What is the purpose of meeting?
• Who needs to be there?
• Who gets to decide?

These may seem like simple questions, but Parker contends they're complex—even profound. Asking them presents teams with an opportunity for positive growth and change.

Parker recommends holding listening sessions with your team to facilitate open discussions around prompts like:

• During the last 20 months of disruption and change, what did we miss most about not being able to be in the office?
• What did we not miss—what are we ready to discard?
• What did we invent during the pandemic that we want to carry forward?
• What new practices do we want to create now?

“Debate it. Discern it,” says Parker. “And then run a series of experiments.”

Third, every gathering is a social contract. Your role as host is to help participants understand what is expected of them.

“Yes, gathering is about connection, but it's also about power,” says Parker. “Pretending power dynamics don't exist will make you a less artful gatherer.” As a leader, it's on you to deliberately design an environment that levels power inequities and invites people to contribute by doing the following:

• Understand ahead of time the different contexts people bring. “If I'm at home and my child is napping in another room and my colleagues are in the office chit-chatting and drinking coffee together before the meeting starts, that is an unequal power dynamic.”
• Acknowledge the challenges. For example: “Hybrid gatherings aren't one gathering—they're three,” she says. “There's the experience of the people in the room together. There's the virtual experience. And then there's the mix of those people interacting. You need to acknowledge that people are living in different realities.”
• Assign a meeting facilitator, and, for larger, hybrid gatherings, up to three distinct facilitators—a host to facilitate on the ground, a second host to consider the needs of virtual attendees, and a third dedicated to fostering the mix between the two.
• Make the rules clear and public. Being explicit about the rules—such as when and how to ask questions, when is casual conversation encouraged, when to keep your video on, and when it's ok to turn it off—overrides unspoken cultural norms, gives everyone clarity on what is expected, and leads to greater psychological safety.

Fourth, for transformation to occur, you must have some element of risk.

“I'm most interested in transformative gatherings, when people come in one way and leave slightly altered by their experience,” says Parker. But true transformation requires some healthy controversy. “Unhealthy peace is as damaging as unhealthy conflict,” Parker contends.

To encourage teams to display what she calls “generous heat” or “generous controversy,” Parker recommends asking the following questions, devised by experience designer, Ida Benedetto. Before a team gathering, ask yourself:

• What is this group avoiding?
• What is the gift in helping them face it?
• Is the gift worth the risk?
• Can I help the team confront this with care?

Step 6 Tool: Tips to Inspire Trust, Create Clarity, and Unlock Potential on Your Team

Most managers are not trained to lead distributed teams and need hands-on training to shift from gatekeeper to coach. The three core tenants of the “Manager as Coach” are:

Ultimately, you know your team best, so we expect you to leverage your knowledge of your team dynamics and individual working styles to support your employees in the way that makes most sense for you. Below are a few tips for inspiring trust, creating clarity, and unlocking potential on your team.

Inspire Trust: Build a Culture of Psychological Safety

Tips to Try Today to Model and Encourage Vulnerability

Create Clarity: Make Feedback the Norm

Tips to Try Today to Normalize Feedback

• Schedule weekly feedback meetings with your reports: This might feel like overkill at first, but even taking the first 5–10 minutes of your weekly 1:1s to provide feedback can help your team members stay on track and be productive and building this habit makes it easier over time. You can always solicit feedback by asking: What can I do to be a better manager to you and the team? And you can always give feedback on: Here's one thing you can focus on this week.
• Model healthy conflict: Remote work can make employees even more conflict-avoidant but harmony doesn't force us to think outside the box or innovate. Researchers argue that avoiding confrontation leads to “conflict debt” that stalls productivity. If a disagreement comes up in a meeting, don't shy away from it by “taking it offline” or discussing it later. Let people respectfully share their opinions giving both parties the space and opportunity to share their sides and moderate the conversation by remaining calm and acknowledging both perspectives.
• Leverage “IRL” conversations. If a thread or discussion is getting out of hand (things are becoming increasingly unclear, emotions are escalating, the right people aren't looped into the conversation), call a “time out” on the conversation and move it to a call or videoconference. Or bring up the topic at your next in-person offsite.
• Schedule Stay Interviews. Schedule longer 1:1s with team members who are at higher risk of attrition, with an emphasis on discovery and inquiry. Pose direct questions to gather feedback on what's working and what's not: What do you like about your job? What gives you energy? What saps your energy? If you could change something about your job, what would it be? What would make your job more satisfying? What opportunities will help you stretch and grow? How might I, as your manager, help you get there?

Unlock Potential: Build Equitable Policies and Practices

Tips to Try Today to Set Boundaries

• Create a meeting policy document to keep focus: Sometimes the temptation to respond quickly to something creeps up during meetings. Make it clear that multitasking on calls isn't OK. Digital-First communication, like in-person communication, requires everyone on a call to be mentally present and engaged. Write down your rules in your Team Level Agreement.
• Experiment with timing: Meeting lengths tend to be arbitrarily chosen in increments of 30 minutes and we tend to expand our meetings to fill up the time allotted. Try reducing one hour meetings by 10 minutes, or stick to a strict agenda and end the meeting when agenda items are complete.
• Post your schedule: Be open and honest about what your new schedule looks like and your availability throughout the day. Your reports will appreciate the transparency and be more thoughtful about their own schedules.
• Turn the video off: Sometimes a simple phone call can do the trick and fight the video fatigue. Encourage your teammates to take walking phone calls as a way to break up the day.

Step 6 Tool: Personal Operating Manual (POM) Worksheet

POM: Brainstorm

Before creating your user manual, spend a few minutes working through the steps below to identify some of the words, concepts, and values that define you.

Step 1: How to best describe me (my work style, what people misunderstand about me)

Circle or highlight all the phrases which apply to you.

What other characteristics would describe/not describe you:

Step 2: My catchphrase (how to best communicate with me, how to help me)

Circle or highlight all the phrases which apply to you.

What other phrases would describe/not describe my catchphrase:

Step 3: My Values (what I value, what I don't have patience for)

Circle or highlight all the phrases which apply to you.

What other words or phrases would describe/not describe my values:

Step 7 Tool: Measuring Outcomes

We need to help managers move away from measuring performance based on inputs (hours logged, presenteeism) and outputs (tickets closed, calls made) and instead to outcomes that impact your customers, employees, and business goals. What follows are some examples of methods companies are using to help managers move to an outcomes-driven way of ensuring success in a world of flexible work.

Step 7 Tool: Management Leadership for Tomorrow’s 3-Question Prompt

While the employee engagement section above shows how you can measure employee reaction to new, flexible policies, those metrics are only a rear-view mirror. Designed by Management Leadership for Tomorrow to get a quick read on how likely an employee is to stay at your company, these quick-and-easy questions can be answered true or false:

• I feel like the organization invests in my development and advancement.
• I feel like I can succeed in my organization.
• I feel like I'm being positioned for long term career success.

Step 7 Tool: BCG's Team Success Survey

BCG project teams do either a weekly or biweekly survey of each team on key success metrics. The success metrics have to do with company culture as well as with the individual's sense of accomplishment and value to the organization, their ability to learn and develop, and the degree of psychological safety they feel with their managers and team members: Each person is asked to respond on a 1 to 4 scale where 1 = agree, 2 = tend to agree, 3 = tend to disagree, and 4 = disagree.

• I am having an overall positive experience on this project.
• In this team, we focus on outcomes and deliver client value.
• I am satisfied with my personal growth and learning.
• My skillset and contributions are valued by the team.
• In this team, I feel we behave with integrity and make decisions in line with BCG values.
• I feel comfortable speaking up in the team.
• I am doing the things I need to enable myself to thrive.
• My team exhibits care for each other.
• My team provides a supportive and inclusive environment.
• My team works together efficiently and effectively.
• My team has a clear, common understanding of our roles, priorities, and goals.
• The workload was sustainable for me this past week(s).
• I feel I have predictability in the way I work that allows me to stick to personal plans and key performance indicators.
• The senior executive responsible for the work and the full partnership team are engaged in ensuring a positive experience.
• My team regularly reviews our working model and travel cadence to ensure that it is intentional, provides value to our client, and encourages our team's collaboration.
• I can have open discussions with my team about travel and colocation plans, which make me feel supported.