Brian Elliott is a veteran executive leader, advisor, speaker, and best-selling co-author of “How the Future Works: Leading Flexible Teams to the Best Work of Their Lives”. After several years in leadership at Slack, he co-founded and was the Executive Leader of the Future-of-Work think tank Future Forum. Brian shares wide-ranging insights including: executive/employee trust issues, how executives feel disconnected if not engaging in the (virtual) spaces where their teams are, how productivity can be gamed, the disease of meetings(!), building for the future based on where we are now, and the need to create constraints to channel new ways of working.     KEY TAKEAWAYS   [02:38] Brian explores his desire to be a professor doing research and analytics as a case writer at HBS.   [05:02] Brian likes to put himself in situations where he has to learn and grow.   [05:41] Brian gets great feedback which helps him evolve and improve as a manager.   [07:25] Survival depended on culturally aligning people from different disciplines and backgrounds, sharing understanding of problems and solving them.   [08:35] Being transparent about the P&L was critical and treating people like adults.   [09:10] Getting to know each other was essential, regularly breaking bread together.   [10:33] Brian's resume redemption move—transitioning to Google doing product development.   [12:10] The first issue to address was mending culture—dysfunction across a diverse team.   [13:40] Establishing (early) protocols, enabling distributed teams to have effective meetings.   [14:50] Brian moves to Slack to help integrate a variety of partners.   [15:42] The origin story of Slack as a communications backbone.   [16:27] The impact of Brian’s team being 9 to 5 office-based but not co-located at HQ.   [17:49] Three things came together during the pandemic to create Future Forum.   [19:49] Brian repeatedly builds teams/departments and then moves on to something smaller.   [20:52] Brian leans into his experiences in external facing communications.   [23:15] Henry Ford experimented with five, six, seven, and even four day work weeks!   [24:17] We haven’t revisited our inherited systems of work, when offices initially did “factory” work.   [25:21] Why do we perpetuate past habits thinking they continue to be the “recipe for success”?   [26:40] Trust is the core issue, which wasn't questioned when we had to get through the pandemic.   [27:45] Trust is being questioned as executives to return to empty offices and they aren't where the conversations are happening.   [30:26] Disconnected communications across spaces are resulting in pushes to return to the office.   [33:35] Disparity in perceptions about transparency lead to discord, while planning without employees’ inputs.   [34:09] A consensus driven approach to decision making and anecdotal storytelling driving policy.   [34:40] Gen Z's are looking for a balanced approach—not all in the office or at home.   [36:07] If we get frustrated, we can't go backwards.   [36:37] Intentional design—who does the current office design actually work for?   [39:09] Feedback and the mediocre management problem.   [40:00] Productivity is easy to game.   [42:40] What date are we building from for our futures? Are we redesigning forward?   [43:54] Why returning to the office full-time is illogical and counterproductive.   [46:10] How to develop guardrails and prevent extremes.   [48:16] The “disease” called meetings which hinders offering flexible hours.   [49:22] Top reasons behind having too many meetings—including obligation and FOMO.   [50:54] Brian describes the need to put constraints in place to create new work habits.   [53:35] What worked for Brian at Future Forum for optimal teamwork.   [54:43] Brian’s hope for his children as we move further into the Future of Work.    [56:54] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Figure out what problem you are trying to solve, engage directly with a trusted group of your employee population, and listen to the