Adaptability and Execution in Global Remote Teams with Enrico Menichetti

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Wayne Turmel
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to.

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Enrico Menichetti
Walking Distance later. Well, I guess if you've never been here before, you can't be back. But welcome to the long distance later. This is the podcast designed to help people thrive, survive, generally make sense of the world of remote and hybrid work and the changing 21st century workplace. My name is Wayne Turmel. I am the remote work and evolving workplace subject matter expert for the Kevin Eikenberry Group.

00;00;40;14 - 00;01;13;00
Enrico Menichetti
If you're new to the podcast, you don't know that about half of the shows I co-host with my friend and colleague Marisa, she is not here today. What that means is we have a really cool interview with a very smart person. And today, that person is Enrico mana. Katie. And we are going to talk about, leading international remote teams, but also remote work in Latin America and all kinds of interesting topics.

00;01;13;07 - 00;01;22;10
Enrico Menichetti
And it would be far more interesting if he was talking about it instead of me. So, Enrico, welcome to the long distance work life.

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Wayne Turmel
Oh my brain, thank you so much for having me.

00;01;25;25 - 00;01;41;00
Enrico Menichetti
Well, thank you for being had you. We have a true North American show because I am a Canadian living in Las Vegas, and you are in Mexico City. So we pretty much have North America covered us.

00;01;41;03 - 00;01;42;03
Wayne Turmel
Yeah.

00;01;42;06 - 00;01;52;01
Enrico Menichetti
But most of your work isn't in North America. Tell us a little bit about VFS global and then what you do and we'll start drilling down into the good stuff.

00;01;52;06 - 00;02;21;23
Wayne Turmel
Sure, sure. Yeah. For having me as excited for me to talk about this topic. So yeah, DFS global we serve as government. We serve as governments, mainly, embassies or missions that, across the globe. And, we do that and we are placing most of the, countries in the world where we kind of like, service them to a sort of outsourced model, all the non value work, let's say, of the missions.

00;02;21;25 - 00;02;45;17
Wayne Turmel
We will take that on to ensure that the mission itself can focus on the most important task. And that's getting the approvals, for example, of the visas or, or the passports to their own diaspora. So that's, that's VFS focus areas. Currently I am the head of Latin America and the Caribbean, where, I'm in charge of the business itself.

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Wayne Turmel
Both, both the development, but also the delivery of the operations.

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Enrico Menichetti
Excellent. So let's start with big picture. And, you know, we focus a lot on remote work and unintentionally, but not surprisingly, we have mostly focused on either Canada, the U.S or Western Europe. There is a big world out there. So can you kind of give me a very quick state of the state of the world? In Latin America is remote work, accepted?

00;03;23;27 - 00;03;29;15
Enrico Menichetti
Is it growing? Is it suspected? What's what? What do you see?

00;03;29;18 - 00;03;54;14
Wayne Turmel
So, the rethinking it back times. When I started working, there wasn't really, where where I had the privilege to be. You very quickly become an expert and working in Eastern Europe. And then I moved my way all the way to Asia, in the Philippines, coming back to Dubai and now ending up in Latin America. I think what I've seen is the trend of working remotely for sure is increasing.

00;03;54;16 - 00;04;23;15
Wayne Turmel
I think it's that flexibility that people are looking for, very much and, specifically in Latin America, I would say very similar, very similar to the other regions. The challenges that I have seen, that also create opportunities are very much into the cultural nuances and the differences that you find. Often people, don't realize how big this continent really is, where you have a Brazil, and in Latin America it is a continent on itself.

00;04;23;20 - 00;04;44;29
Wayne Turmel
It's not a country, right? It has states that are bigger than most of the countries that we know of. So, so a lot of the challenges, I think often we think about timezone differences or we think about, maybe the language barriers. But I would say the biggest challenge is always the cultural, the cultural, and how to bridge that gap.

00;04;44;29 - 00;05;14;02
Wayne Turmel
I would say in Latin America as well, dealing with 35 different countries, including the Caribbean, I think is very important in my view, that, leaders that are wanting to create high performing teams in a region like this are not just knowing the culture, but they are really immersed into the culture. Right? It's important that people feel that the, the leaders that are directing them are really understanding them, right?

00;05;14;02 - 00;05;37;02
Wayne Turmel
That there's this real curiosity as a leader. So, so that that that I would say it's an interesting aspect, how to maneuver through that. One way I can say that is also a very constant is how does the leader create a lot of self-awareness? In a, in a, in a, in a region like this with so many different cultures, the language is different.

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Wayne Turmel
Spanish and Portuguese mainly, very little English.

00;05;40;12 - 00;05;51;28
Enrico Menichetti
And I as, as somebody who is married to a woman who is half, Puerto Rican and half Mexican, even speaking Spanish is no guarantee that you speak the same language.

00;05;52;04 - 00;06;14;06
Wayne Turmel
Exactly, exactly that I wasn't Dominican Republic just yesterday. And, although my Spanish is not too bad, but I had to do an effort to follow the speed of that Spanish, so it wasn't it wasn't very easy. But I think self-awareness is something that I very early on in my career, I started investing a lot of time, a lot of efforts, because it's a constant work, it's a constant development.

00;06;14;06 - 00;06;40;01
Wayne Turmel
And why is that? Is because if we really want to lead people in any culture, in any language, in any place in the world, the best way you can do that is to understand yourself first. Very well. And if you understand yourself building on those blocks and trying to then to, create curiosity, understand and the other cultures, I think that creates a very good base for a leader to, to develop.

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Enrico Menichetti
You said something that really resonated with me, and it's not something we hear a lot here in the places that think we run the world. One of the things you said is that it's important that the leader adapt to the culture of where they're working. And I think a lot of us, particularly North Americans, spend a lot of time trying to get everybody to get with the program and adapt to us.

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Enrico Menichetti
Tell me a little bit about that.

00;07;15;05 - 00;07;43;08
Wayne Turmel
Yes, exactly. And I feel if we I mean, managing people is always about people, no matter if you can virtually remotely face to face. Right. So the, the, the student aspect that will always come back, for example, the how to how to show empathy, how to show genuine interest in people creating genuine connections. So for that, very early on, making mistakes myself, I realized that there's no one fit for.

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Wayne Turmel
All right. You need to adapt. And often in the Western world, even in Europe, where I grew up, we we take that for granted. We think that the whole world operates in a certain way. The way of thinking is the same. And I have a very specific example when I move to Romania. Plus, in Europe, in Eastern Europe, I arrived there as a very young guy.

00;08;05;20 - 00;08;22;09
Wayne Turmel
I was 24 or 25, in charge of the scheme, and I had this person that I hired. The manager came to my office one day, sat down in front of me and looked at me and said, I don't think I can trust you, says the person. And I was taken back by that. And I said, can you tell me more?

00;08;22;09 - 00;08;42;18
Wayne Turmel
Right. What what was driving that? Or because in the time you came here, you've been understanding, you've been helping us. When issues arise, you're working on it together, as a person. And I don't think that can be real. That's not the real you. Right. So that that and the person basically left my office by me saying, look, time will tell.

00;08;42;21 - 00;09;12;27
Wayne Turmel
There's not much I can say right now, but let's see in a couple of months. And the person came back eventually and said to me, look, I was wrong, right? It's possible to do it differently as well. But that directed being so direct, I wasn't really familiar with that. Right. That culture of like just saying what they think versus then moving to the Philippines where it was the opposite, where people are so great, graceful, very, very, very friendly, and they will never tell you what, what's really wrong?

00;09;12;27 - 00;09;36;05
Wayne Turmel
Because they, they work very much in an environment of, collaboration and, and being nice to each other. And that was another aspect that I have to learn as well, so that that differentiation, I think it's a learning curve. But yeah, it's an important aspect of a leader. Again, to, to embrace and to understand that it can be done differently.

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Wayne Turmel
Yeah.

00;09;36;26 - 00;10;04;21
Enrico Menichetti
Yeah. In that little bit of international work that I've done, it seems like how we address conflict is such a powerful thing, because there are cultures that have no problem going head on and you don't do it that way. You are weak, or you don't know what you're doing or you don't have confidence. Versus harmony is important, and that is the most important thing.

00;10;04;21 - 00;10;08;04
Enrico Menichetti
And neither is 100% constructive.

00;10;08;07 - 00;10;27;16
Wayne Turmel
And that's that's the key a very, very good point because how you bring that all together, because often when you are managing international news, you have all these different cultures on one call at the same time, right? How do you manage that? And and that really goes back to the point of trying to create is genuine connects. Right.

00;10;27;18 - 00;10;46;22
Wayne Turmel
Often, I think the example of the bad, bad habits that we sometimes create of like calling somebody off or being in a call and saying, oh, just a quick one. Just a quick one. And I will be very quick. But actually what that does, it takes away the connection. It takes away the trust. It's just like, I need something from you very quick.

00;10;46;22 - 00;11;15;09
Wayne Turmel
Give it to me now. And I think working if you know the person face to face every day, you can get away with that. But if you have an international team that you don't see often or seldom, it's they're very dangerous things to do where instead of connecting, first create a connect, have a proper intro, create curiosity with the person you're talking with a team you're talking, and then you create as harmony again of, of, of different, differences that are, as a culture and a call.

00;11;15;12 - 00;11;44;26
Enrico Menichetti
You're saying so many things that are resonating with me. And that sound kind of counterintuitive. And one of the things you just said is this notion of shorthand, this notion of quick communication. It can work very effectively if the relationship is there, if the trust is there, if there's history. But you need to start long and taking time and work to short and you can't start there.

00;11;44;28 - 00;12;14;07
Wayne Turmel
Because if you create like connection, you create that a genuine a genuine connection with your people. That also, again, is the base also build your own culture. And as a leader, we all have different cultures of of how we develop a high performing team or a high performing group. Right. And I'm going to that goes back to the aspect of as a leader, then you can really having your self-awareness start investing and understanding the person.

00;12;14;12 - 00;12;37;01
Wayne Turmel
What what drives them. What how can I get the best out of this individual? And so you basically go beyond that, that barrier of different culture and language now. And I'll certainly understand the person because I have created a bridge already and, and and then and then you're building a culture in my, my, my culture, as people know me, is very much driven by getting things done right.

00;12;37;02 - 00;12;59;07
Wayne Turmel
Execution. So I'm going to embrace that as a culture. There's this book of, of of of, Larry. Larry who? I forgot the last name right now, but who is the art of execution? And it's a book that I have been giving to a lot of my leaders all the time because they're like, we can do a lot of talks, we can have great ideas.

00;12;59;07 - 00;13;19;29
Wayne Turmel
We can, but our culture should be that we get stuff done. Right. And and I think that's also core to people that are living from in different places, or a team that is spread across the globe is how you build that culture, that getting things done, because it doesn't matter which time zone I am or what needs to happen, my mindset is I want to get this task done.

00;13;19;29 - 00;13;32;10
Wayne Turmel
So I will make sure that it gets done. I'm not going to wait until my 5 to 8 happens in my time zone. I will work with the group to really, deliver the project, to deliver and execute.

00;13;32;12 - 00;13;51;24
Enrico Menichetti
Can you give us a couple of very concrete day one kind of things that you do when bringing a team, especially a disparate, international team together to help jumpstart those connections?

00;13;51;26 - 00;14;19;05
Wayne Turmel
I would say in a, in a virtual world, the first and foremost thing, excuse me, is cameras on, have your cameras on, see each other. It would be very basic, but I think often that's being, overlooked. People are connecting quickly again over zoom or over and over the different tools that we have. But the least we can do as we are not in person is let's look at each other and let's, let's just have a have a face to face.

00;14;19;08 - 00;14;42;27
Wayne Turmel
I'll say that's the first thing. The second thing is also we need to create again that culture of let's, let's give everybody an opportunity to speak up as well. And, you know, we are we all have different cultures. We all have different, approaches to the issues. Some people, some cultures are more respectful and they will wait until somebody finished talking.

00;14;43;00 - 00;15;07;19
Wayne Turmel
Other ones actually is almost like more respectful to start talking while somebody is almost finishing, because then I agree with his points. And so and all of that needs to be understood and not changed with how do we adapt to that space, how do we adapt so and slowly setting the tone right, I will I go back to the fact of the self-awareness and also the order of execution.

00;15;07;22 - 00;15;24;17
Wayne Turmel
That's another aspect as well. So these are the, I would say, the four things I would list as, things that that a team really or a leader needs to focus on to, to start building, let's say a unified team globally.

00;15;24;20 - 00;15;38;19
Enrico Menichetti
I'm really interested in your experience because at I mean, I left the country and came to another country, but that was baby steps, right? Canada to the US is not exactly a world. World.

00;15;38;21 - 00;15;40;25
Wayne Turmel
No, it's not still a change.

00;15;41;01 - 00;16;10;00
Enrico Menichetti
It is a change. And it's not Italy to Romania. It's not, you know, the Dominican Republic to the Philippines. How do you what is what goes on in your mind when you find yourself in a new environment and you're not breaking bread and you're not sitting right next to the person, that how do you get yourself in that mindset?

00;16;10;02 - 00;16;37;04
Wayne Turmel
So what privilege I had is that I was raised by an immigrant family, Italian family, and I was raised in Belgium in a group where, our community was any kind of nationality except Belgians or most. So growing up way, I must be very honest. I created a little bit identity crisis for myself because I never fit anywhere else.

00;16;37;09 - 00;16;59;09
Wayne Turmel
I'm not Italian because I wasn't born in Italy, but at home we are Italian. But I was not Belgian. And when I travel, people always ask me where I'm from. I could never place myself. It's only later on that I realized that that that experience that I did, being that, having it like I thought it was like normal for me to be in between different cultures.

00;16;59;12 - 00;17;30;03
Wayne Turmel
Different mentalities, different languages. I think that was really the basis of, of me kind of like that able to adapt quicker and faster. So what I would say is that with that, for most people, often we see our, some of the aspects of our upbringing or development or our challenges as a issues as problems. But I will always try to see the golden nugget in those things that I have learned later on as well.

00;17;30;05 - 00;17;52;08
Wayne Turmel
And I think that's that's really if I now have to go to the Dominican Republic or the Philippines or I'm sitting in, in Eastern Europe, somewhere in Romania, for example, I don't, I don't really think anymore about how how I want, how I want to be treated. It's about how do I adapt to the local customs there.

00;17;52;11 - 00;18;17;20
Wayne Turmel
I think that's that's a very important. I have seen a lot of expats or friends, colleagues very successful as well. But I had a little bit of a challenge, like even even moving to Dubai wasn't very comfortable for them because getting out of the routines. So jumping into the unknown, sometimes is, is a good thing. Not everything has to be laid out because only when we jump in unknown unknowns, sometimes we can find what's was beyond that.

00;18;17;20 - 00;18;27;02
Wayne Turmel
Right? What? What else can I do? How far can I go? So getting a little out of the comfort zone, I would say it's important. Accepting that fact.

00;18;27;05 - 00;18;37;24
Enrico Menichetti
And, you know, being humble without feeling inferior is an interesting balance. But but love, humility does.

00;18;37;27 - 00;18;54;04
Wayne Turmel
Something as a leader that needs to, gain the respect of their team as well. It's a very fair point, right? They get humbleness adapting. But also, yes, having a assertiveness in terms of how you want to lead. Yeah.

00;18;54;07 - 00;19;14;19
Enrico Menichetti
Enrico, this has been terrific. And as we knew what happened, the time has flown. Is there one thing that as a leader in your experience, is unique? I mean, not everybody has has lived your life, to be sure. Is there one thing that you want to leave our audience with?

00;19;14;22 - 00;19;41;13
Wayne Turmel
I think one, do a lot of things, as you can see, I can speak about. But the one thing, if it's now if you're aspiring to become a leader within your country, where you are or abroad, no matter what your aspirations are, I always take the quote of Richard Branson very close to my heart. And that's like when somebody asks you to do something, say yes and then figure it out afterwards.

00;19;41;16 - 00;20;07;10
Wayne Turmel
Right? And it is not about being always a yes man, but this is about accepting challenges, right? My life, if it brought me to where I am today, is because sometimes I take also, calculated risks, knowing in the back of my mind that that's where the challenge sits. That's where I want to, find development for myself and learn new things and and eventually be successful.

00;20;07;13 - 00;20;33;12
Enrico Menichetti
Well, rather than that's how a lot of us got here. So. Yeah, I take that motto to heart myself. Enrico, thank you so much for being with us. I am going to remove you from the video for a moment. This means nothing to the people listening on audio. If you want to know more about Enrico, we will have links to him on LinkedIn, then to VFS and to his work.

00;20;33;15 - 00;21;04;09
Enrico Menichetti
On our homepage, which is long distance work life.com. If you are interested in our new book, which is really our old book, The Long Distance Leader Revised Rules for Remarkable Remote and Hybrid Leadership. The second edition. It is out now. We are very excited about that. You can learn how to buy multiple copies, how to get all kinds of free offers at Kevin eikenberry.com/ldl.

00;21;04;11 - 00;21;36;24
Enrico Menichetti
As podcast listeners, you know how this works. We rely on word of mouth and you telling others. So please, please, please, like and subscribe. We have over 120, episodes now for you to take advantage of conversations with really, really cool people like Enrico. The other half are really cool conversations, too, but they are, with Marisa and I, darn it.

00;21;36;24 - 00;22;02;29
Enrico Menichetti
And Marisa and I are interested in your questions, your thoughts, your comments. If you have an idea for a guest, if you have a topic that you'd like us to cover, please, please, please let us know. We are both on LinkedIn. Wayne Turmel, Marisa Eikenberry or Wayne at Kevin eikenberry.com or Marisa at Kevin eikenberry.com. And darn it, that's it for another week.

00;22;02;29 - 00;22;16;00
Enrico Menichetti
Thank you so much. Thank you to Enrico for being with us. We really enjoyed bringing the show to you. My name is Wayne Turmel. And don't let the weasels get you down.