How the Future Works

Step 7: Focus on the Outcomes: Avoid the Doom Loop and Embrace the Boom Loop

“How will we know if people are really working?”

It's an all-too-common question that comes up about flexible work. Executives, managers, and even some employees wonder how to tell if team members are actually doing their work if you can't just look over at them to see.

One software company executive developed a standard answer to this question: “How did you know they were working when they were in the office?”

Attendance. Hours logged. Speed of response. These are some of the things that leaders have looked at in the past to measure individual performance. But in a flexible work environment, they simply don't work. (In fact, there's good evidence to suggest they never really worked that well—a subject we'll tackle in this step.) Companies that are successful in adopting flexible work strategies are also implementing new strategies for measuring how it's working.

At Boston Consulting Group (BCG), people tend to work on dynamic teams that frequently shift in composition, which can make measuring team success difficult. Still, Managing Director and Senior Partner, Debbie Lovich, says that for them, it comes down to asking: “Is the team delivering value to the client?… and are they delivering that value in a skill-building, rewarding, and sustainable way?—with the latter measured by cultural factors that promote predictability, learning, recognition, and psychological safety.”

The focus on learning, sense ...