Welcome to The Workback
A new magazine on the future of leadership, featuring original reporting, analysis, and interviews exploring fresh and bold insights, sponsored by Asana.
Words by Nick Lucchesi
Illustration by Jordan Bogash
At Asana, we use workback plans a lot. The planning process starts with the big questions — “What’s our goal? How do we make our way there from this room, in this moment?”—and we work back from there.
It’s a thought exercise that helps teams chart a course. When we’re headed into the unknown, it’s useful to ask tough questions before departure. (A few more: “What are our shared goals and our metrics of success? Is there an opportunity to do something new and positive?”)
The Workback, Asana’s new magazine, explores this connection between idea and execution. With the Collaboration Issue, we’re launching The Workback with a special collection of stories united by that always-evolving concept.
Asana’s mission is to help humanity thrive by enabling the world’s teams to work together effortlessly. The editorial mission of The Workback is to report on those teams, the strategies and leaders guiding them, and where they are headed next.
The Workback is for leaders who seek specific data, tangible insights, and authentic stories that are as useful as they are enjoyable to read.
You’ll find original reporting on collaboration, innovation, strategy, and scientific research. Stories about breakthroughs in the science of work, tales of achievement over adversity by some of the world’s most exciting companies, conversations with leading thinkers, and original stories from revered business leaders populate our pages.
We apply the rigor of journalistic reporting—fact-checking, digging for primary sources of information, asking questions we don’t know the answers to, and attempting to contextualize the events experienced by our readers so they feel more informed about their world.
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Subscribe for freeAnd if we can pontificate for 38 words: The Workback is for leaders who seek specific data, tangible insights, and authentic stories that are as useful as they are enjoyable to read. We don’t think there’s another magazine committed to focusing on the future of leadership.
We’ll occasionally widen the scope of topics beyond collaboration, innovation, strategy, and the science of work. Still, those are the lenses through which we see the greatest capacity for positive change.
Work is constantly changing, and so are the questions about it. There’s uncertainty in the market. There are macro forces that few can control. Goals can remain a North Star for companies in these times. We believe achieving those goals, sometimes with a workback plan, will be easier with The Workback.
Don’t hesitate to click around if you’re curious to learn more about our mission and ethics or how to contact us. You can also subscribe to our email for free.
Below is our launch slate of stories, plus a few from the archives we think align with our new mission. We hope you find these stories entertaining, memorable, and useful as you lead your teams to achieve their goals.
On the Power of Smart Collaboration
February 24, 2023
How collaboration can connect relationships to revenue
Collaboration is broken: Here are 39 ways to fix it.
February 24, 2023
The Triggers of Innovation
February 24, 2023
How to solve a major problem of hypergrowth: Information silos.
Breakthroughs in the Science of Work
Want to do more with less? Try some humility.
June 15, 2022
How to reduce video meeting stress with science
July 11, 2022
The Future of Leadership
Is your team “time-poor”? Here’s how to upgrade everyone’s workday.
February 24, 2023
The future of work depends on our “digital” body language
February 24, 2023
Driving Clarity Across Teams
February 24, 2023
Does your company have a community? Here’s why they’re magic.
How Mural pulled off a dramatic reinvention
August 16, 2022