Service design places users squarely at the center of its practice, and fulfilling customer needs is the focus of organizations large and small. What happens though, to the people inside the organization, especially at times when efforts are mostly focused on efficiency, simplification and cost reduction?

How do organizations change effectively, and organize their people and the work to support change that isn’t merely cosmetic and that results in tangible outcomes, both internal and external? 

Vision, willingness to depart from management models that are still firmly rooted in the industrial revolution era, and understanding of that culture cannot be superimposed, but is the direct result of the conditions of the system in which it develops, are among the elements that contribute to the solution.

If the last year has taught us anything, it’s that the way we think about, well… everything has to change, including the way we think about work and leadership.

In this session, we will present the results of a research study conducted among global leaders, and explore how the pandemic has impacted the way we look after our teams, the differences between remote and in-person leadership, challenges and opportunities created by physical distance, and how to prevent it from also becoming emotional and intellectual distance.

We start from a set of questions we’ve asked ourselves both in the past and more recently:

• How do you create and maintain connection and trust when you cannot look someone in the eye or walk by their desk?
• How do you oversee work, advice, mentor and help people grow at a distance?
• How does a team that can’t get together, stay together?
• What kind of additional or different support does your team (and you) need?
• And more…