Marisa Eikenberry, Author at The Long-Distance Worklife

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Author: Marisa Eikenberry

Ask Wayne Anything, Technology

Remote Work Rants: To Fake or Not to Fake Your Zoom Background

Marisa Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel delve into the nuanced world of remote work environments, particularly focusing on the use of fake Zoom backgrounds. They explore various perspectives on authenticity and professionalism in remote settings, discussing the impact of virtual backgrounds on connection and communication. They also share tips on choosing appropriate backgrounds and the technical aspects of using them effectively.

Key Takeaways

1. Evaluate the Impact of Virtual Backgrounds: Reflect on how your choice of Zoom background affects perceptions of authenticity and professionalism in your remote work environment.
2. Master the Technical Aspects: Familiarize yourself with the technical setup for virtual backgrounds to ensure smooth and professional visuals in your meetings.
3. Contextual Background Selection: Consider the context of your meetings and choose your Zoom background accordingly to maintain a balance between professionalism and personal expression.
4. Embrace Authenticity and Connection: Use your background choices as a tool to express your personality and build connections with your team, while maintaining a professional standard.
5. Stay Informed and Adaptive: Keep abreast of evolving norms and preferences regarding virtual backgrounds within your team and broader professional community.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
00:46 The Listener's Query: Fake Zoom Backgrounds
01:38 Technical Issues with Virtual Backgrounds
02:03 Authenticity vs. Professionalism in Remote Work
03:10 When to Use and Avoid Virtual Backgrounds
04:08 Cultural and Geographical Considerations
06:18 Technical Tips for Effective Background Usage
07:45 Personalizing Backgrounds for Connection
10:27 Corporate Standards and Individual Expression
13:24 Achieving Authenticity in Remote Interactions
14:26 Professionalism and Context in Background Choice
17:24 Concluding Thoughts and Episode Wrap-up

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

Remote leadership experts, Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, help leaders navigate the new world of remote and hybrid teams to design the culture they desire for their teams and organizations in their new book!

Order

Guests, Surviving Remote Work, Working Remotely

Global Office, Family Home: Remote Work Lessons from a Digital Nomad Family with Chris Stroud

Join Wayne Turmel in a fascinating conversation with Chris Stroud, an e-commerce growth consultant who juggles traveling the world with his seven kids while maintaining a successful remote work lifestyle. Discover Chris’s unique strategies for effective communication without video calls, his approach to managing time and tasks, and how he integrates work with his adventurous family life. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone striving to balance their professional and personal life in a remote work setting.

Key Takeaways

1. Develop a Routine for Remote Work and Travel: Establish a consistent daily routine that balances work tasks and family time, especially while traveling.
2. Enhance Non-Video Communication Skills: Focus on improving written and audio communication skills for remote work, reducing reliance on video calls.
3. Set Clear Work-Life Boundaries: Create distinct boundaries between work hours and family time, ensuring quality attention to both.
4. Build Strong Client Relationships Remotely: Develop strategies to nurture client relationships without face-to-face meetings, leveraging email and messaging platforms.
5. Optimize Remote Work Processes: Implement efficient remote work processes, utilizing tools like Slack for team coordination and task management.

Timestamps

00:30 Introduction of Chris Stroud and his unique lifestyle
01:10 Chris's role and approach in e-commerce consulting
01:56 The logistics of managing a remote team
04:31 Chris's travel experiences and family life
05:10 Key rules and strategies for remote work
08:33 Building client relationships without video calls
11:23 Effective internal business processes for remote work
14:42 Utilizing Slack and email management techniques
19:00 Chris's take on work-life balance and personal growth
21:37 Closing remarks and episode wrap-up

Featured Guest

Name: Chris Stroud

About Chris: Chris Stroud is a dynamic figure in the digital nomad and e-commerce space. He successfully balances the challenges of traveling the world with five kids while running a thriving business. Chris is known for his expertise in handling the complexities of remote work across different time zones and maintaining client satisfaction. His experiences have made him a valuable resource for insights into the digital nomad lifestyle, offering practical tips and advice for others aspiring to blend travel and work. His journey is not just about business success; it's also about creating unforgettable family memories and building a lifestyle that integrates work, travel, and family in a harmonious way.

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

Order

Ask Wayne Anything, Technology

A Hands-On Look at Zoom’s AI Features

In this episode of the Long-Distance Worklife podcast, we delve into Wayne's firsthand experience with the newly introduced AI features in Zoom. After our initial discussion about the theoretical capabilities of these AI tools, Wayne now brings practical insights from his real-world usage. We explore how these features enhance virtual meetings, their impact on remote communication, and whether they live up to the hype. Join us as we dissect the advantages, limitations, and overall effectiveness of AI in transforming the remote work experience, providing valuable takeaways for remote and hybrid teams.

Key Takeaways

1. Experiment with AI captioning for better communication inclusivity.

2. Utilize meeting summaries for efficient recall and note-taking.

3. Stay aware of the ethical implications of AI tools like eye contact manipulation.

4. Regularly update and explore new technological features for team efficiency.

5. Understand the psychological impact of AI's "uncanny valley" in virtual meetings.

6. Strategically integrate new technologies while considering practicality and team dynamics.

View Full Transcript

00:00:07:22 - 00:00:18:22
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to Long-Distance Worklife where we help you lead, work, and thrive on remote and hybrid teams. I'm Marisa Eikenberry, fellow remote worker, and joining me is my co-host and remote work expert Wayne Turmel. Hi, Wayne.

00:00:19:00 - 00:00:23:20
Wayne Turmel
And it is indeed a lovely day. Hi, Marisa.

00:00:23:21 - 00:00:32:23
Marisa Eikenberry
So today we're going back into even more pet peeves. We still have a bunch that you guys have sent us. And please keep sending us these.

00:00:33:01 - 00:00:37:07
Wayne Turmel
Can I tell you how much I enjoy hearing what makes people crazy?

00:00:37:09 - 00:00:38:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00:00:38:12 - 00:00:44:03
Wayne Turmel
It just gives me such joy because there's a part of it that goes. It's not just me.

00:00:44:05 - 00:01:06:04
Marisa Eikenberry
100%. 100%. So we're going to talk about those today. And the first one that I want to start with we actually got from LinkedIn, from Maya Middlemiss, who said taking a video meeting in an unsuitable environment because look at me and my work from anywhere lifestyle. Meanwhile, terrible background noise or they're making you seasick while apparently on a trampoline.

00:01:06:06 - 00:01:13:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Respect the rest of the room. Pay attention to the AV hygiene and UX of the whole call. So Wayne, does this bother you when people are.

00:01:13:07 - 00:01:15:19
Wayne Turmel
AV hygiene and UX oh my!

00:01:15:19 - 00:01:17:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:01:17:04 - 00:01:47:19
Wayne Turmel
Basically what she's saying is try not to be annoying. This is a problem. This is a problem that actually goes back to the invention of the cell phone. Okay. And here's what I mean by that. Those of us who are old enough to remember when we could take conference calls on cell phones for the first time, which means we weren't tied to this big clunky desk phone and we could walk around or take a call in the car.

00:01:48:01 - 00:01:54:13
Wayne Turmel
And more than one conference call had been interrupted by a flushing sound.

00:01:54:16 - 00:01:56:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I would think that.

00:01:56:03 - 00:02:05:05
Wayne Turmel
Various and sundry noises they told us perhaps the person on the line wasn't fully engaged with the call.

00:02:05:07 - 00:02:06:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:02:06:12 - 00:02:32:21
Wayne Turmel
So this is a problem that's been going on for a while. It certainly is an issue. And now the way Maya said that tells me that there are two parts to this. One is the actual functional thing of it's annoying. I have a class that I teach for a university, and more than once my co teacher has turned her video on and I am looking at her cats.

00:02:32:21 - 00:02:55:02
Wayne Turmel
But literally at her cats. But because the cat is walking across the keyboard and she just turns the camera on and I'm like, this is not the view I'm looking for, right? And it can be a little distracting. So some of it is is is there a level of professionalism here? Of course. Right. And respect for your peers.

00:02:55:07 - 00:03:23:16
Wayne Turmel
Some of it is also, hey, I slipped into the office. I'm wearing big boy clothes. I'm doing this. And you're you know, on the couch with your lap desk doing, you know, doing yoga while trying to take this call. It's just annoying. So there's a respect thing, to be sure. The AC hygiene thing is very real. Certainly, people have taken meetings while they're out of the office that, of course, happens.

00:03:23:19 - 00:03:31:09
Wayne Turmel
Does that necessarily then have to be a face time? Nobody wants to watch you bounce up and down on a walk. Right.

00:03:31:13 - 00:03:32:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:03:32:17 - 00:03:55:23
Wayne Turmel
And so there's just a and we don't do this enough as human beings, I might add, which is what is the impact of my behavior or my actions on the other person? Yes, I'm here. I'm responsive. I'm taking your call. I'm not in the office. But by golly, I will help you. Maybe that doesn't have to be a video call.

00:03:56:01 - 00:04:17:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I know. Like, for me personally, like, I get motion sick pretty easily. So when people are, like, walking their dog and they're on video call or I had one the other day, it wasn't too bad. But like, she was in the car, she was not driving. She was in the car and like on this. And it was like, you probably didn't have to have your video on at that point and probably shouldn't.

00:04:17:12 - 00:04:18:12
Wayne Turmel
Not for nothing.

00:04:18:13 - 00:04:29:21
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I mean, she was a passenger, but still like it was just for me. It was distracting. I couldn't pay attention to the other two people in the hall because she's constantly moving. Right. Right. And.

00:04:29:23 - 00:04:41:12
Wayne Turmel
You know, as we've said so many times, I am all about seeing somebody's face when the call starts. But once the call actually begins, what value are you adding?

00:04:41:14 - 00:04:43:00
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah, it depends on what kind of.

00:04:43:01 - 00:05:00:23
Wayne Turmel
Perhaps detracting from everybody else's experience. So it's just, you know, give some thought to what is going on. I also have this conversation a lot with people who are at home so they don't use headsets.

00:05:01:03 - 00:05:03:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Oh, my God, drives me crazy.

00:05:03:07 - 00:05:26:22
Wayne Turmel
And there are beeps and bloops and there's noises even in an empty house. There's the dogs go crazy at the neighbors or, you know, somebody lets a leaf blower go insane or something is going on and you get an echo. It's you wear them partly so you can hear I mean, of course, you know, I want to be able to hear what's going on.

00:05:27:01 - 00:05:45:18
Wayne Turmel
But also you do that so that you are being respectful of the other people on the call. And it is a fair accusation that people who are not in an office environment sometimes become oblivious.

00:05:45:20 - 00:05:53:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes, we've talked about this before, too. Or you used to be in an office, but then you went home for three years and so now you forget what it's like.

00:05:53:16 - 00:06:02:03
Wayne Turmel
Well, in your reveling in your freedom and, you know, I won't even tell you what I have on my feet right now because it's irrelevant to this conversation.

00:06:02:05 - 00:06:03:01
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:06:03:03 - 00:06:07:01
Wayne Turmel
Right. I will tell you, it's not something I would wear in the office.

00:06:07:03 - 00:06:09:03
Marisa Eikenberry
And that's okay.

00:06:09:05 - 00:06:15:08
Wayne Turmel
But it's irrelevant to the conversation and it's not distracting, except now everybody's wondering what that is wearing.

00:06:15:10 - 00:06:16:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Obviously, it's funny slippers. It's fine.

00:06:16:23 - 00:06:18:09
Wayne Turmel
No, it's not funny slippers.

00:06:18:11 - 00:06:19:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Secret's safe with us.

00:06:19:12 - 00:06:50:09
Wayne Turmel
Really ugly mariachi sandals. But it's. It's Las Vegas in May. And, you know, I got to run around, take the dog out and do stuff, and it's easy, but it doesn't impact what people are seeing and hearing. So really, it's when you are going to take one of these calls, you need to stop and think what how do my actions impact my teammate?

00:06:50:15 - 00:07:06:03
Wayne Turmel
How do I add value to the meeting? How do I distract and be open to feedback, something that you think might not be a big deal might really bother somebody. I am not a big fan of cats, but.

00:07:06:05 - 00:07:09:11
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm not sure that many people are.

00:07:09:13 - 00:07:20:17
Wayne Turmel
There are people who don't care. We've talked before about people's unnatural affection for their animals on video calls. The assumption that everybody finds it as adorable as they do.

00:07:20:19 - 00:07:24:03
Marisa Eikenberry
Without realizing it's distracted and really not professional in the moment.

00:07:24:03 - 00:07:26:06
Wayne Turmel
And really not professional. Exactly.

00:07:26:09 - 00:07:50:14
Marisa Eikenberry
So. Well, and with that, too, I would also like because, like, you know, we keep talking about video a lot also, but like, you know, there's a background noise thing, too. If you're somewhere that like there's a lot of, you know, you're in a car and the windows open. Well, first of all, if you can maybe put up the window, but like I know we've been on calls before where we've had to tell somebody to mute because we can hear the window and we can't hear anyone else.

00:07:50:16 - 00:08:12:18
Wayne Turmel
Well, I'm a full disclosure. I do not keep my phone live. You know, I don't get rings and announcements. Yeah, but I do have it on Buzz. And there have been times when we've been on calls, there have been times when we've been recording this podcast where my phone goes off and I can ignore it. It's buzzing, it's in the background.

00:08:12:22 - 00:08:23:22
Wayne Turmel
It doesn't bother me what might bother somebody else. Right? Right. Okay. Wayne needs to be better about that. It's just respect and like being a good person and stuff.

00:08:24:03 - 00:08:27:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Amazing, right? The simple things.

00:08:28:01 - 00:08:36:19
Wayne Turmel
The fact that we have to talk to you people about this. Were you raised by wolves? What?

00:08:36:21 - 00:09:00:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Tell us in the comments. But moving on from this, I want to go to Mallory Glassner who said people who constantly watch and or talk about their teammates status colors. Now, I remember when I saw this comment on the post slide put and I was like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What do people do this? What is this? Is this really a thing?

00:09:00:07 - 00:09:22:07
Marisa Eikenberry
And she responded, Oh, yes, it's a thing. So much so that someone actually invented a dongle that makes you stay green. Now, we've actually kind of talked about this concept of always looking like you're online in a previous episode where, you know, I saw somebody put peanut butter on their mouse so that way their dog would look like the mouse.

00:09:22:07 - 00:09:29:21
Marisa Eikenberry
So that would look like you're on line. Like, I don't understand this obsession with weather. Okay, well, fine.

00:09:29:23 - 00:09:57:05
Wayne Turmel
There are two parts to this. Yes. I suspect this is me trying not to just freak out at human behavior. I always assume that even the worst behavior happens for a reason that is logical to the person doing it. Okay, so there are two parts to this. First of all, as the person who's being looked at, am I being responsible with my status updates and things like that?

00:09:57:05 - 00:10:23:11
Wayne Turmel
And why does it matter? Well, it matters because people want to know that I hope it's less that you are working, but that you are available to answer questions or to be a resource or something like that. Is this person available? I have a question. Can I ask Marisa? And if I do ask Marisa, can I expect immediate answer or is it going to come later?

00:10:23:11 - 00:10:42:14
Wayne Turmel
Because she's obviously busy. You and I are situated. I don't have a problem sending you a question. If you say you're not being disturbed or you're not getting your your messages. Cool. I've asked my question. It's off my plate. It's out of my way. And she is a responsible person and she will answer me when she can.

00:10:42:16 - 00:11:03:01
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, and I can't speak for other platforms, but like, you know, sometimes even that that green icon is green icon or lack of it is deceiving. Right. Like, I think slack. If you haven't opened up Slack in 30 minutes, it will show you as offline. I might still be sitting at my computer. I just haven't opened up slack in 30 minutes because I've been on deep work with something.

00:11:03:07 - 00:11:28:11
Wayne Turmel
All right. So here's the thing. Part of it is, as the the person who's been am I being mature and grown up and responsible, like if I'm not going to be at my desk, do I tell people I'm not going to be? Of course. Very often I say I'm out of the office for an hour, but I have my phone with me or I'm out of the office and I cannot be reached until such and such a time.

00:11:28:13 - 00:11:40:14
Wayne Turmel
I'm being respectful of you, my teammates, so that you can do that and you're not waiting for something that's not going to happen. The flip side of her statement, though, is really interesting.

00:11:40:18 - 00:11:41:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:11:41:10 - 00:11:44:14
Wayne Turmel
Which is why do you care so much?

00:11:44:16 - 00:12:01:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, She actually gave us an example about at a previous organization. She used to hear people say all the time, so-and-so is always yellow and never working. Well, first of all, you don't know that there was another one. Well, so-and-so was green at 2 a.m. Well, if you know that so-and-so was green at 2 a.m. that means you were also looking at two.

00:12:01:13 - 00:12:05:11
Marisa Eikenberry
I am like not going to work life balance.

00:12:05:13 - 00:12:35:15
Wayne Turmel
Position here by yourself. Yes. Yeah, Absolute. And so what that says is there is a huge level of mistrust going on. Does that come from and we just talked about in the last episode, do I know what's going on or am I making assumptions? And if this is they continuing pattern, am I going to be a responsible adult and ask somebody about it?

00:12:35:17 - 00:12:43:21
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Well, in some cases it's none of your business. Like you're not a manager of that person and you know, like.

00:12:43:22 - 00:12:55:04
Wayne Turmel
You're not your business. It is your business in so far as good teammates offer feedback to each other, fair. And if this is becoming a thing.

00:12:55:06 - 00:12:55:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:12:55:20 - 00:13:04:23
Wayne Turmel
I might say to you, you know, Marisa, you might want to log off. I do not always log off my computer. At the end of the day, I just don't.

00:13:05:01 - 00:13:05:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, which.

00:13:05:15 - 00:13:09:22
Wayne Turmel
Means, yeah, it could look like I'm online at two in the morning. I'm sure it does.

00:13:10:00 - 00:13:27:21
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. I was going to say, I don't always, since my desktop is both for work and for personal stuff, like, you know, I sometimes leave Slack open but it's still in do not disturb mode. So. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Thankfully, I've never gotten a message that was like, Why are you up at 10 p.m.? And I'm like, Because I'm actually playing the sentence.

00:13:27:23 - 00:13:36:16
Wayne Turmel
Exactly. You know, you know? So why are you so concerned about this? Other person's behavior becomes the question.

00:13:36:18 - 00:13:37:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00:13:37:07 - 00:13:52:16
Wayne Turmel
And if they are missing deadlines, if they are not responding, if they are not participating in meetings, if I am that person's manager, that becomes a performance management issue.

00:13:52:18 - 00:13:53:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Of course.

00:13:53:11 - 00:14:12:06
Wayne Turmel
They need to be coached as a team, have you had conversations about what is appropriate behavior and inappropriate behavior? When What does it mean when we see somebody is yellow? What does it mean when somebody is on? Do not disturb all day?

00:14:12:11 - 00:14:19:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Do they have a status saying that like they're in deep work mode or did they just put it in Do not disturb and you have no context at all.

00:14:19:10 - 00:14:40:03
Wayne Turmel
And did you put it on? Do not disturb and forget to turn it back on. I mean anything is possible, but that is the part of that that fascinates me is the people that are annoyed. Yes, that tells me more about the team dynamic than people forget to change their status.

00:14:40:05 - 00:14:58:20
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes. Because it doesn't sound like I mean, I might be wrong. And obviously, you know, I we don't have Mallory on right now to confirm or deny this, but it sounds like it's a little bit more of like peer to peer, you know, Oh, my God, Like so-and-so is on at two in the morning than it is like a manager saying, Wow, like you were on at two in the morning.

00:14:58:21 - 00:15:00:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Like, is everything okay?

00:15:00:15 - 00:15:05:16
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, no, this is peer to peer. This is, this is gossipy, mean girl behavior.

00:15:05:18 - 00:15:07:11
Marisa Eikenberry
100%.

00:15:07:13 - 00:15:16:23
Wayne Turmel
This is this is is now getting petty and silly and whatever. And now I don't know you. I'm not meaning to call you a mean girl.

00:15:17:01 - 00:15:24:03
Marisa Eikenberry
But she was reporting that this happened in a previous organization she used to work for. Not that she was the one asking.

00:15:24:03 - 00:15:31:09
Wayne Turmel
Okay. Okay. That's that's good, because otherwise, Mallory, we would have to chat.

00:15:31:11 - 00:15:46:04
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, anyway, we don't have time for any more of these today, but thank you so much for going through these too. And thank you to Mallory and Maya for sending these to us. I enjoy going through these months, a month. I don't know about you, Wade, but like, I.

00:15:46:09 - 00:16:05:14
Wayne Turmel
Love listening to people vent. It makes me so happy. So, yes, we want your pet peeves. Not just about meetings and webcams, but anything having to do with remote and hybrid work and just being better and saving our sanity and being less snarky with each other. I'm good with all of that.

00:16:05:16 - 00:16:26:19
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Well, and you know, and we've talked about this in previous episodes, that's like, you know, we work on a remote team. We've been working on a remote team for a long time. We teach people how to do this. And some of these pet peeves are also ones that we have too. So it's kind of fun to like see it from other perspectives and be like, Oh yes, this is not just this is not just an that's fine.

00:16:26:21 - 00:16:37:22
Wayne Turmel
You know, I realized a long time ago that one of the things that make me feel best in the world is when I realize it's not just me.

00:16:38:00 - 00:16:39:09
Marisa Eikenberry
100%.

00:16:39:15 - 00:16:47:23
Wayne Turmel
I am not the only one who feels this way. I am not the only one who gets frustrated with this. That actually makes me feel better.

00:16:48:01 - 00:16:52:21
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, isn't there like a whole thing about, like, you have a common enemy and, like, it creates this camaraderie?

00:16:52:23 - 00:16:57:15
Wayne Turmel
Well, we'll just. We'll just team up with Maya against whoever leaves their light on yellow.

00:16:57:15 - 00:17:07:18
Marisa Eikenberry
That's what that was. Mallory But yes, Maya will go after the people who are walking her dog. Weather video.

00:17:07:20 - 00:17:10:06
Wayne Turmel
All right, that's it. We're out of here.

00:17:10:08 - 00:17:29:04
Marisa Eikenberry
But listeners, thank you so much for listening to the longest work life for show notes, transcripts and other resources, Make sure to visit Long-Distance Work life dot com. If you haven't yet subscribe to the podcast, you almost any future episodes including pet peeve episodes just like this and while you're there be sure to like and review. This helps us know what you love about our show.

00:17:29:06 - 00:17:46:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Feel free to contact us by email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes and let us know you listen to this episode or even suggest a topic for Wayne tonight to tack on a future episode, including these pet peeves. If you'd like to learn more about remote teams order Wayne and Kevin Barry's new book, The Long Distance Team, you can learn more about the book at LongDistanceTeamBook.com.

00:17:47:02 - 00:17:49:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Thanks for joining us. As Wayne likes to say don't let the weasels get you down.

Timestamps

00:08 Introduction
00:19 Zoom's New AI Features Discussion
01:28 AI Captioning: Usefulness and Limitations
03:49 Meeting Summary Feature and Its Utility
05:17 Accuracy and Thoroughness of AI Summaries
06:40 Future AI Features and Searchable Recordings
07:37 Smart Clips in Meetings
09:28 Ethical Considerations of AI Features
10:08 The Uncanny Valley in AI
11:38 Adopting AI Innovations: A Practical Approach
13:41 Empowering Early Adopters in Teams
14:30 Technology Adoption Among Teams
16:11 Using AI for Meeting Efficiency
17:01 Conclusion

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Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

Order

Guests, Leadership, Surviving Remote Work, Working Remotely

Technology and Trust: Key Pillars of Remote Work with Terry Isner

Terry Isner, owner and CEO of Jaffe, a remote marketing and PR agency for law firms, discusses the evolution of remote work and the challenges and benefits it brings. He shares how Jaffe transitioned to remote work 35 years ago and how technology has played a crucial role in their success. Isner emphasizes the importance of trust, empathy, and effective communication in a remote work environment. He also highlights the need for leaders to adapt and let go of traditional office norms to fully embrace the remote work revolution.

Featured Guest

Name: Terry M. Isner

Bio: A marketing philosopher, brand consultant and dynamic speaker for the professional services industry, Terry M. Isner is known as “the empathy man” because of his humanistic approach to business strategy.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
00:54 History of Remote Work
01:42 Evolution of Remote Work
02:28 Formation of Jaffe
03:21 Challenges of Remote Work
04:26 Benefits of Remote Work
05:11 Importance of Intention in Remote Work
06:24 Impact of COVID-19 on Remote Work
07:08 Accountability and Security of Remote Work
08:36 Success of Remote Work During COVID-19
11:28 Managing Money and Competitiveness in Retail
12:16 Importance of Empathy and Trust in Virtual Leadership
13:07 Using Technology to Establish Accountability in Remote Work
14:21 Challenges of Hiring and Ensuring Productivity in Remote Teams
16:17 Overcoming Communication Barriers in Remote Work
17:16 Fear and Barriers to Embracing Remote Work
19:00 Negative Impact of Early Technology Adoption in Remote Work
20:05 Generational Differences in Adapting to Remote Work
21:02 Trust the Process and Embrace the Humanity Revolution
21:27 Closing

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

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Ask Wayne Anything, Leadership, Surviving Remote Work, Working Remotely

Remote Work Rants: Making Sense of Remote Onboarding

Join Marisa Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel as they navigate the lively world of remote onboarding. In this episode they reveal some clever strategies for creating a welcoming remote culture and ensuring new team members feel connected from the start. They dive into practical tips like engaging webcam chats, clear task delegation, and the importance of a user-friendly employee handbook, all spiced up with their trademark humor and expertise.

Key Takeaways

1. Remote onboarding is a critical business problem, as remote workers are statistically more likely to leave if they don't feel a sense of belonging.
2. Onboarding should include webcam conversations with team members to build rapport and connections.
3. Remote employees should be given meaningful tasks and responsibilities from the start to demonstrate their value and contribute to the team.
4. Online employee handbooks and resources should be searchable and logically organized to help new employees navigate company-specific terminology and processes.

View Full Transcript

00;00;08;02 - 00;00;18;29
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to the Long-Distance Work Life, where we help you lead, work and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I'm Marisa Eikenberry, a fellow remote worker. And joining me is my co-host and remote work expert Wayne Turmel. Hi.

00;00;19;01 - 00;00;23;25
Wayne Turmel
Hi. That's me. And also a remote worker, as it turns out.

00;00;23;28 - 00;00;37;27
Marisa Eikenberry
That is also true. It's what part of what makes you an expert? So today we are talking about more pet peeves. And first of all, thank you for to so many of you who have been sending us these, we've had so much fun doing them over the last several months.

00;00;38;00 - 00;00;42;09
Wayne Turmel
And I love listening to people whine. That makes me so happy.

00;00;42;12 - 00;00;49;03
Marisa Eikenberry
And the funny part is some of our listeners have said they enjoy hearing you rant about things. So it's a perfect match, right?

00;00;49;05 - 00;00;54;04
Wayne Turmel
It's a good it's a good thing, right? Tell me what you want me to rant about, Brady.

00;00;54;07 - 00;01;13;15
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, today we're going to rant about onboarding and specifically about remote onboarding. So I heard from Katrina on Facebook about onboarding as a fully remote worker into an existing, fully remote team is rough. She did it before COVID, before it was fashionable, and it took 4 to 6 weeks before she felt like she didn't just take up space.

00;01;13;18 - 00;01;37;27
Marisa Eikenberry
She's also had two peers and one supervisor who were all onboarded during COVID. They had a tough time with it and all have since left. And three direct reports, onboarded as a mostly remote experience. But they had complicated processes for getting access to technology and things of that nature. So far, all three direct reports are still here. But as a team, we have to and do work very, very hard to build cohesion and rapport.

00;01;38;00 - 00;01;51;21
Marisa Eikenberry
We actually had somebody else, Rachel, also on Facebook, who had said that onboarding new team members was very tricky for them and it was hard to form new and genuine connections. So there are people that are having issues onboarding remotely so.

00;01;51;23 - 00;02;24;26
Wayne Turmel
Well, they are. And I am going to be that guy again and remind people that this is not just, gee, it's really hard and gosh, I'd like to have gotten it. There is a business cost here if people do not deal within the first five days. A sense of belonging they are statistically more likely to leave. And remote workers, as we have talked about many times on this show, have no barriers to leaving.

00;02;24;28 - 00;02;29;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah, they can start the next day in a completely different job. They just have.

00;02;29;20 - 00;02;30;09
Wayne Turmel
Literally.

00;02;30;09 - 00;02;31;20
Marisa Eikenberry
The only thing that.

00;02;31;22 - 00;03;00;29
Wayne Turmel
Literally the only thing they need to do is get a new password. Yeah. So this is a business problem. It's not just a gosh, wouldn't it be nice to feel more connected to my people problem? It's a legit business problem. And I think the experience I mean, if it takes 40 days to become onboarded and be onboarded, I'm going to guess they mean doing the productive work for which you were hired.

00;03;01;02 - 00;03;04;17
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Feeling like they belong there. They're not here.

00;03;04;19 - 00;03;10;26
Wayne Turmel
And probably two parts, right? Feeling like they belong and actually doing the work that you were hired to do.

00;03;11;04 - 00;03;11;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;03;11;28 - 00;03;31;28
Wayne Turmel
Right. That you're not just doing busy work, that you're not just I mean, one of the things that makes me crazy about traditional onboarding and this is true of in-person as well, is why do we spend the first three days that we are hired filling out paperwork?

00;03;32;03 - 00;03;32;29
Marisa Eikenberry
That's fair.

00;03;33;01 - 00;03;45;04
Wayne Turmel
Right. I have to fill out the paperwork so that by the end of the week, hopefully I have my computer and my logging access and all of that stuff. Why isn't that waiting for me? Day one.

00;03;45;07 - 00;03;48;12
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Or even potentially filled out before then, if you're able.

00;03;48;13 - 00;04;25;26
Wayne Turmel
Well, this is what I'm saying is, you know, I know that I start work Monday. How about I get you the paperwork before then? Yeah. And I know that there are issues. If I'm filling out paperwork, I'm technically working and I should be paid, and there's stuff, but come on. Yeah. The fact that we spend so much of the onboarding process and when we're in the office and we're dealing with people and we're sitting in the cube farm and we're kind of kibitzing with people and meeting people and putting faces to names, it's not entirely wasted time.

00;04;25;28 - 00;04;30;00
Wayne Turmel
Right. But then how do you do that?

00;04;30;02 - 00;04;30;12
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00;04;30;12 - 00;04;52;16
Wayne Turmel
So how do you replicate that experience when you aren't in the office? Right. And I think that is it's an important question. I think it depends on where you are relative to the office. Right. If you can go in for a couple of days, your first couple of days, I think that is an optimum experience.

00;04;52;20 - 00;04;53;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely.

00;04;53;29 - 00;04;56;20
Wayne Turmel
If you are in Guam.

00;04;56;22 - 00;04;57;25
Marisa Eikenberry
You're not going be able to do that.

00;04;57;28 - 00;05;20;23
Wayne Turmel
You're not going to be able to do that in a way that makes sense. So how do you do it? Now, we have and if you have heard us talk about this, forgive me, dear listener, but this is a best practice that we do that I think is really, really critical. When somebody joins our organization, their first assignment, this is an assignment.

00;05;20;24 - 00;05;43;27
Wayne Turmel
This is stuff they are expected to do. Day 1 to 3 is to set up a half hour webcam conversation with every member of the team, whether they're going to work with that person all the time or not. Right. They may very rarely work with Lisa in payables or Angie behind the scenes, but a half hour webcam conversation.

00;05;43;29 - 00;05;46;20
Wayne Turmel
And it starts with what's your job? What do you do here?

00;05;46;20 - 00;05;47;10
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00;05;47;13 - 00;05;55;01
Wayne Turmel
Right. But it turns into where you go to school and do you have kids and what's on that shelf behind you and you know.

00;05;55;01 - 00;06;08;03
Marisa Eikenberry
It to not be mostly work. I mean, yeah, you're going to talk a little bit about that, but it's really meant to be. I'm trying to get to know you as a person. I'm trying to find commonalities so that way we can build rapport.

00;06;08;05 - 00;06;27;15
Wayne Turmel
And these conversations should happen spontaneously if you are in the office with people. Now, to be fair, they honestly don't, right? A lot of us are introverts or we don't want to bother somebody and we're not going to schedule time with somebody at the next desk to say, Give me a half hour and let me pick your brain.

00;06;27;15 - 00;06;55;28
Wayne Turmel
Right? Right. But that's a best practice because it doesn't matter where those people are. You're not just hanging out in the lunchroom with people in the office. Right. So that is a very and it needs to happen right away, like the first couple of days. Right. First of all, what else are you doing anyway? Yeah. You haven't really been trained to do anything yet, but make that useful time.

00;06;56;00 - 00;07;24;22
Wayne Turmel
The other thing that people report with onboarding remotely is there's a lot of time. The minute I meet with my manager, your manager does their best to have one on ones and give them lots of time and stuff, but they're not always available. They are doing other things and helping other employees and whatever. And so the amount of wasted time.

00;07;24;24 - 00;07;25;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;07;25;21 - 00;07;39;12
Wayne Turmel
Those first few days is really frustrating to people. They want to do work. They don't want to. Well, I had a call with my boss at one and I've got training at three and what do I do in the meantime?

00;07;39;14 - 00;07;59;19
Marisa Eikenberry
So on that same lines, I know that recently we had an episode where we talk a lot about asynchronous video and we talk about that in the context of meetings. But you know, to your point about this whole scheduling time and all that. Would you recommend asynchronous video on board in at least for part of the process?

00;07;59;21 - 00;08;20;15
Wayne Turmel
I think where it makes sense, I think that's absolutely true. And, you know, we a lot of organizations have training, right. E-learning and stuff. It doesn't have to be that formal. So it's great when you can do that, right? When you have all the schmancy e-learning and.

00;08;20;17 - 00;08;22;29
Marisa Eikenberry
And your I.T. department has time to build it for you.

00;08;23;02 - 00;08;45;20
Wayne Turmel
And the department has time to build that for you and all that stuff. I think that short asynchronous messages, you know, just to start the day. Hey, Marisa, today I want you doing this right. And it's not an email. It's just, Hey, how you doing? Hope you had a great night. Listen, today we're going to work on this.

00;08;45;27 - 00;08;59;06
Wayne Turmel
I want you to contact Alice this morning, and I want you to talk to so-and-so this afternoon and talk to them about this function or get them to show you how they do X.

00;08;59;10 - 00;09;00;28
Marisa Eikenberry
That all make sense.

00;09;01;00 - 00;09;12;25
Wayne Turmel
It's informal, it's casual, it's useful. Right? It's. You're still getting some degree of face and voice time with the person. And it's personalized.

00;09;12;27 - 00;09;15;17
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Yeah. It's way better than just a slack message.

00;09;15;20 - 00;09;52;22
Wayne Turmel
And I think if we think about the way we've traditionally onboarded, it doesn't really work anyway. I mean, think about the way we used to start jobs, especially at big companies. It's your first day and so you go to bootcamp and you and eight other new hires fly to wherever the headquarters is and you're in class all day and then you go out for dinner at night and you do that lather, rinse, repeat, and it's at least four days and sometimes two weeks, and the amount that you remember is zero.

00;09;52;25 - 00;09;59;06
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I was I will admit I've never had that experience. And now I'm very thankful that I have not.

00;09;59;08 - 00;10;31;06
Wayne Turmel
If you are if you join an organization as a new salesperson, especially straight out of school or new in your career, odds are that you have had to go to bootcamp. And the fact of the matter is, the human brain doesn't absorb information that way. Yes, you socialize, right? First of all, you you create a cohort with your fellow learners and those relationships can very often last throughout your time at the company.

00;10;31;11 - 00;10;33;02
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. And those are very important.

00;10;33;04 - 00;10;39;27
Wayne Turmel
There are no atheists in foxholes. And, you know, you bond in times of extreme stress.

00;10;39;27 - 00;10;41;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;10;41;10 - 00;11;03;28
Wayne Turmel
But in terms of two weeks of constant training, training, training, here's your handbook. Turn to page eight. You actually retain very little and at least in the old days, you used to get a binder and you could go back and refer to the document in the binder and find, How do I do that? Again, we don't get binders anymore.

00;11;03;28 - 00;11;04;27
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay, So we.

00;11;04;27 - 00;11;06;22
Wayne Turmel
Have that one.

00;11;06;27 - 00;11;20;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. So I know that, like you said, we don't we don't do the binder thing anymore, but I know that there are some companies that they've created online employee handbooks or user guides or whatever you want to call it.

00;11;20;26 - 00;11;23;20
Wayne Turmel
And they are usually impossible to navigate.

00;11;23;23 - 00;11;24;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00;11;24;21 - 00;11;32;14
Wayne Turmel
The information, this is where I, he says, referring to an early conversation that we had. This is where II becomes helpful.

00;11;32;19 - 00;11;33;05
Marisa Eikenberry
That makes sense.

00;11;33;05 - 00;12;06;29
Wayne Turmel
Because at least in a binder, I can lift my finger and start flipping pages to find what I need online. If I don't know exactly what that thing is called, I am scrolling forever. Whereas if the A, I can say, Hey, show me how to do X boom, there it is and you're good. So if you're going to have online onboarding, if you're going to have employee handbooks electronically, they need to be searchable and they need to make some sort of logical sense.

00;12;07;01 - 00;12;14;17
Marisa Eikenberry
And that makes sense. I know that there are some companies they use notion for this. Some of them create a wiki or things like that. So I mean, even.

00;12;14;17 - 00;12;36;23
Wayne Turmel
One can be incredibly, incredibly helpful. But the other thing is it's just this two weeks of whatever and there's this lovely thing that I've talked about for years, but I don't think we've ever talked about on the show, which is the Maryland okay, which is the term. It's a big rabbit hole, literally, because it's stolen from the book Watership Down.

00;12;36;26 - 00;12;44;05
Wayne Turmel
But basically the horror element is how much you can take into your brain before it's full.

00;12;44;07 - 00;12;44;20
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;12;44;26 - 00;13;12;19
Wayne Turmel
And you can't. And you know, if you've ever been to a training class, this is usually about 11:00 on day one. You have absorbed all the stuff you can absorb. And it's not that you don't want to be a good soldier and you don't want to learn it. You just don't get a chance to use it and process it and move it from short term memory to long term memory to make room for more stuff, let alone a week or two weeks of this nonsense.

00;13;12;19 - 00;13;17;27
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, you'll remember the first things you learned in the last things you learned and you won't remember a lot of the in between.

00;13;18;00 - 00;13;38;11
Wayne Turmel
Exactly right. And so one of the things that we are learning about onboarding is, yes, some things are best done in the office. Well, if you're going to be in a hybrid environment, be prepared to space in the office. You know, even if you're mostly going to be working from home, suck it up, take a day, two days, do what you need to do.

00;13;38;14 - 00;14;05;21
Wayne Turmel
But a lot of it can be learned in chunks and it can be learned in chunks from different sources. Traditionally at onboarding, Marisa's been here forever. I'm going to bolt the new person to Marisa, and she's going to follow her around like a little duckling and imprint on her. And that's how she's going to learn. And she's going to learn all of Marisa's good habits, and she's going to pick up all of Marisa's bad habits.

00;14;05;24 - 00;14;08;11
Wayne Turmel
And Marisa is not going to get a darn thing done.

00;14;08;13 - 00;14;09;03
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;14;09;05 - 00;14;16;06
Wayne Turmel
While this is going on, but helpful for knowing where the bathroom is and who's responsible for the coffee and, you know.

00;14;16;07 - 00;14;18;01
Marisa Eikenberry
And having a buddy in the office like that.

00;14;18;01 - 00;14;47;06
Wayne Turmel
So having somebody that you're assigned to online virtual team collaboration and onboarding should be the same. But you can pick different people for different functions so that you're not. Marisa isn't the only human in the world that person knows right? Right. Alison's our resident expert, expert on Excel, and Bob has been here a really long time. And you know what?

00;14;47;13 - 00;15;03;24
Wayne Turmel
I want you to take an hour with Bob and just get the history of the company. Look up what you know, What did he know? What does he know about the culture? That seems like a strange thing to assign. It's the kind of thing that we think happens organically in person.

00;15;03;24 - 00;15;04;26
Marisa Eikenberry
And it does not.

00;15;04;29 - 00;15;13;26
Wayne Turmel
But it does not. And if you wait for it to happen organically, you know it's not going to happen as quickly or perhaps as well.

00;15;14;01 - 00;15;39;09
Marisa Eikenberry
So going along the same lines of, you know, there's a point where there's too much information for us to grasp. And, you know, maybe employee handbooks aren't the right thing or user guides or I know for us and I'm sure this is true for many companies, you know, we have acronyms, acronyms and initial isms. And we have these words that nobody uses except for us, like, how do you how do you onboard somebody into that?

00;15;39;09 - 00;15;59;29
Marisa Eikenberry
How do you help them find that? I know that we as a company, we we keep realizing we've had two people who onboarded two years ago now and, you know, they've been with us and everything's great. And every now and then they ask a question that for us we think, Well, duh, it's X, Y, Z. And then we have to remember they don't know this or they never asked.

00;15;59;29 - 00;16;02;18
Marisa Eikenberry
So it never came up again.

00;16;02;21 - 00;16;18;21
Wayne Turmel
I would be a beautiful thing right there on a meeting. And we're all talking about the LDL series and blah, blah, blah, and they can go on and go, what in the name of everything that's holy is the LDL series. Right. And they can get the answer without looking like idiots.

00;16;18;28 - 00;16;19;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay, There.

00;16;20;00 - 00;16;49;03
Wayne Turmel
This is this is where now. So some of this is information gap. Right. But the other thing is, are there tasks that they can and should be doing that they can't do their entire job, but they can start to go through their lead list. They can start to compile a list of there are things that they can do so that as soon as possible they are doing some valuable work and adding value to the team.

00;16;49;04 - 00;17;07;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, and it sounds like, too, there's there's a responsibility for the people who have been working there for a while to inform the new people about things. And there's a responsibility of the new person. Ask questions, too. Now, granted, I realize if they can't ask what they don't know, but there's also stuff they can't ask.

00;17;08;02 - 00;17;36;16
Wayne Turmel
But there is. It's funny when you talk about company culture and company handbooks and that kind of thing, there's explicit knowledge and there's tacit knowledge. Okay. Explicit knowledge is stuff that's on the page. If you want to know how to do X, go to this website, turn to this page. There is a process for this, right? If I'm working and I have a question, well, everybody knows Alice is the Excel wizard.

00;17;36;21 - 00;17;49;04
Wayne Turmel
Where does it say that we should say, If I have an Excel question, I have to go to Alice because I'm going to Marisa because she's the only person I know. And Marisa is completely useless when it comes to excel.

00;17;49;06 - 00;17;56;03
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Well, which also means that I need to be really good about saying I'm not the Excel expert. Alice It.

00;17;56;05 - 00;18;21;19
Wayne Turmel
Exactly right. So one of the things that's helpful is if you have people with specific knowledge or skill sets, get them involved early, particularly if they are remote from each other because I might be unwilling to reach out to Marisa with a question. But that's Marisa's job, right? Marisa knows that I am.

00;18;21;21 - 00;18;25;17
Marisa Eikenberry
I am the keeper of the email. You have to talk to me at some point, right?

00;18;25;20 - 00;18;47;22
Wayne Turmel
Two things are going to happen. One is that I feel less resistance to reaching out to Marisa because I know that. And the other thing is Marisa might be a little more proactive about checking in with me, about how I'm doing with that thing, because that's the piece of knowledge that Marisa is responsible for.

00;18;47;24 - 00;18;48;21
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;18;48;23 - 00;19;12;07
Wayne Turmel
Right. And this all sounds very complicated, but it really is critical to getting people on board. I mean, we talk about, well, people need to be comfortable and how well, how do they do that exposure to the people on their team getting to know them socially, developing trust very quickly, doing meaningful work and demonstrating that you can do meaningful work.

00;19;12;07 - 00;19;19;07
Wayne Turmel
Right. Maybe what this person needs is to be invited to a couple of meetings that they are completely unqualified to be in.

00;19;19;11 - 00;19;20;03
Marisa Eikenberry
That's fair.

00;19;20;06 - 00;19;45;09
Wayne Turmel
But they might have an idea, right? Hey, at my old company we did that and they'll hear the acronyms flying around and they'll hear how we work together. So parceling out their day and figuring out when they do actual work, when can other people be involved in this so that we are creating the social networks and the bonds and the relationships?

00;19;45;12 - 00;20;06;19
Wayne Turmel
And then what useless work can we eliminate? Right, Right. So they're not spending five days filling out forms before they even talk to another human being. That will go a long way to making the onboarding process more pleasant, more useful and more consistent with the way we're working.

00;20;06;26 - 00;20;26;04
Marisa Eikenberry
That totally makes sense. And unfortunately, we are out of time. I know that we could probably continue to talk about this for much longer than this, but I want to thank Katrina and Rachel for sending in your suggestion about talking about onboarding, because I think this was a really important conversation, and I'm sure this is not the only time that we're going to talk about onboarding in the future.

00;20;26;06 - 00;20;42;13
Marisa Eikenberry
And thank you so much for listening to the longest work life for Shownotes Transcripts and other resources make sure to visit long distance work like that. Tom If you haven't yet subscribe to the podcast, you won't miss any future episodes while you're there. Be sure to like and review. This helps us know what you love about our show.

00;20;42;15 - 00;20;57;27
Marisa Eikenberry
Feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes and let us know you listen to this episode or suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode. We'd love to hear from you if you'd like to learn more about remote teams. Order Wayne and Kevin Eisenberg's new book, The Long Distance Team.

00;20;57;29 - 00;21;04;09
Marisa Eikenberry
You can learn more about the book at Long Distance Team Book Tor.com. Thanks for joining us. And as Wayne likes to say, don't let the weasels get too down.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro to Remote Onboarding
01:13 Challenges & Turnover in Onboarding
02:24 Addressing Remote Onboarding
03:11 Traditional vs. Remote Onboarding
04:25 Replicating In-Person Onboarding
05:20 Webcam Conversations Best Practices
06:08 Building Remote Rapport
06:56 Tackling Time Wastage in Onboarding
07:39 Overcoming Onboarding Delays
07:59 Asynchronous Video for Onboarding
08:45 Short Messages for Daily Tasks
09:12 Traditional Methods & Retention
10:31 Building Relationships in Onboarding
11:06 Searchable Online Handbooks
13:38 Hybrid Onboarding Strategies
14:05 Diverse Roles in Onboarding
15:39 Navigating Company Jargon
16:18 Encouraging Questions from New Hires
16:49 Engaging New Hires in Valuable Tasks
17:36 Sharing Explicit and Tacit Knowledge
18:21 Involving Skilled Team Members
19:12 Building Trust and Exposure
19:45 Creating Social Networks
20:06 Streamlining the Onboarding Process
20:26 Closing

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Guests, Leadership, Working Remotely

Voices of Diversity: Embracing Accents in the Workplace with Heather Hansen

Heather Hansen, founder of the Global Speech Academy, discusses the issue of accent bias in the workplace and the importance of effective communication in a globalized world. She challenges the notion of "good" and "bad" English, emphasizing that successful communication is about getting the message across, regardless of accent. Heather highlights the need for leaders to understand and address accent bias, as well as the cultural differences that impact communication. She also emphasizes the importance of listening and valuing diverse perspectives. Overall, Heather advocates for a shift in mindset and a more inclusive approach to communication.

Key Takeaways

1. Accent bias exists in the workplace and can hinder effective communication.
2. Communication is not a skills problem but involves cultural intelligence and active listening.
3. Non-native English speakers face challenges in a global economy dominated by English speakers.
4. Organizations need to create a culture of acceptance and understanding for diverse communication styles.
5. Accent bias is not limited to non-native speakers and can affect individuals with regional accents within the same country.

View Full Transcript

00;00;07;27 - 00;00;40;04
Wayne Turmel
Hello everyone, and welcome once again to the Long Distance Work WorkLife, the podcast where we try to make sense of remote and hybrid work in people not being in the same place at the same time and helping people thrive through all of that. My name is Wayne Turmel. My usual co-host, Marisa is not here today. It's an interview show and I'm very, very happy and fortunate to be talking to Heather Hansen.

00;00;40;06 - 00;00;53;15
Wayne Turmel
And we're going to be talking about accents and working across languages and all kinds of good stuff, and she knows of which she speaks because she is joining us from Singapore. Hi Heather.

00;00;53;17 - 00;00;56;18
Heather Hansen
I Wayne great to be here. Thanks for having me.

00;00;56;21 - 00;01;06;01
Wayne Turmel
Well, as always, thank you for being had. Tell me, what does the Global Speech Academy do?

00;01;06;03 - 00;01;27;01
Heather Hansen
We are a global communication training company working with Multination is primarily headquartered here in Singapore, in the region, but working internationally. So we focus on everything from presentation skills to cross-cultural communication to articulation, training and clear speech, anything that can help us be better communicators in global environments.

00;01;27;03 - 00;01;54;01
Wayne Turmel
Well, that sounds like worthy work and important stuff. Now you are a little bit of a disturber because I see that. I see that with great affection. As somebody who has been accused of disturbing more than my share of stuff. You're in a talk recently called How to Speak Bad English, perfectly in which calm.

00;01;54;03 - 00;02;23;06
Heather Hansen
Yeah, people don't like hearing that. They don't want to hear, Well, why would you want to speak bad English? The whole point of that talk is the fact that there is no such thing as good or bad English. There's only communication that works. So either you get your message across successfully or you don't. And I it just pains me that so many people come to me and say, Oh, my English is so bad, my pronunciation is so bad, and we're having a full on conversation in actually fully grammatical English.

00;02;23;06 - 00;02;53;23
Heather Hansen
And I'm thinking, Who made you think that you don't speak well? What kind of perfectionism are you searching for and looking for? Because as far as I can tell, you speak just fine. But there's so much bias, so much negativity. We use power. We use language as a power for maintaining privilege in the world. And so as as native English speakers, it's very easy to maintain our privilege and power in the global economy by focusing on how bad people speak English.

00;02;53;23 - 00;03;35;21
Wayne Turmel
And well, this is all part of that. You know, you need to lighten your skin and not cover your mouth when you laugh and and make all of that cultural stuff that that goes with being and all of that imperialist that's going to go, Yeah, yeah. But one of the things that I know that you feel very passionate about is besides all of those other things, this notion of having to eliminate accents and the idea of accent bias, tell us what that looks like right in the workplace and then why does that make you so crazy?

00;03;35;24 - 00;04;00;29
Heather Hansen
Yeah. So we'll never eliminate accents so it's not so much that it's more of a bias against them, Right? Because first of all, we have to understand every single person in the world has an accent. I mean, I grew up in central California believing I didn't have an accent. It was everyone else with an accent. Right. And those of us who think that way have actually never experienced the bias that is there for people who sound different than the culturally accepted, prestigious norm.

00;04;00;29 - 00;04;22;13
Heather Hansen
So I hit the lottery, right? Being born into this variety of English that's globally recognized, seen as educated and eloquent. And I've based the whole business off of it, and I've been very successful due to the fact that I speak a type of English that people recognize and and believe is prestigious. And now it's not like that for everyone.

00;04;22;13 - 00;04;43;10
Heather Hansen
When when I went abroad, I first started learning about accent bias because I was living in German speaking society and Danish speaking. I'm fluent in both languages. My German is very rusty now, my Danish. I'm married to a Dane, so we speak it daily. And living in Denmark, for example, speaking fluent Danish, I'd be stopped in the middle of business meetings like, Oh, how are your accent?

00;04;43;10 - 00;05;05;21
Heather Hansen
So cute. Oh, more. Oh, I love you and your accent. It's like we're in a business meeting. Why aren't you listening to what I say and taking me seriously? You would never say that to me if we were speaking English right now. Right. But that shows the privilege that I have because I would say we can do this in English if you want, you know, and then like, Oh, no, no, no, it's okay, it's okay, because that would give me my power back, my respect back.

00;05;05;23 - 00;05;44;03
Heather Hansen
But what about the people who speak Mandarin or Tamil or Malay or Indonesian or languages that aren't global languages? They don't have that option. They're dealing with this every single day, day in and day out, trying to compete in a world that is dominated and run by English speakers. So that's what fuels all of my work. It's how can I help these people to better compete, to feel just as confident and to get the rest of the world to actually start listening to what they are saying and accepting them for who they are instead of constantly thinking about, Oh, that's funny the way they said that, Oh, their English is so bad and oh, why

00;05;44;03 - 00;05;53;04
Heather Hansen
don't they speak better? And oh, you've lived in America 40 years. Why do you still have an accent? All of these kinds of biases that come to the surface.

00;05;53;06 - 00;06;10;29
Wayne Turmel
And I know I'm not trying to steal your thunder, but one of the things that occurs to me is with the rise of asynchronous work, you know, you encounter a little bit less of that because as you know, in cyberspace, no. One, you don't type with an ex.

00;06;11;02 - 00;06;47;20
Heather Hansen
Yes and no. Right? Because the type of English is spoken globally. There are there isn't just one global English. And that's one of the problems. Singapore English has its own rules, its own grammatical structures, its own vocabulary. Indian English has many different varieties, English spoken in the Philippines, slightly different, and some are more British English, some are more American based, depending on who colonized them first and so even in the writing, when you when you write with someone from India, the terminology they use, maybe some of the different grammar markers that you find will be different.

00;06;47;22 - 00;07;13;14
Heather Hansen
And so if you think of it that way, there's is almost a written accent as well where we're thinking, Oh, why can they never put an F on the third person singular key works. Not he work like, Oh, their English is so annoying. It comes up both in writing and in and in speech. I mean, just look at the comments section of any social media site and the way people will will break down the writing of what someone said, usually because they have no real argument.

00;07;13;14 - 00;07;31;25
Heather Hansen
So they go to the language as the way to make themselves superior. So the grammar police I'm talking to you, it's that is not necessary because if you understood the message, then communication happens and that's where we have to start approaching all of our communication, especially in the working world.

00;07;31;28 - 00;07;45;13
Wayne Turmel
Well, and I love that you are not trying to educate the individual workers so much as the leaders and the organizations who.

00;07;45;16 - 00;08;11;07
Heather Hansen
It really does start from the top. It needs to the leaders need to fully understand this in order to make it quite clear that, listen, we're accepting of everyone. Now, the problem in organizations is that we talk about everything. And I from age to race to gender, to sexuality, Abel is an all of these things, but language is never discussed, and it's the foundation for all of them.

00;08;11;07 - 00;08;33;10
Heather Hansen
When you hear of someone on the phone, you're immediately categorizing. You're giving them the gender you believe they have, not how they identify you are deciding what race they probably are. You are deciding their education levels, probably where in the world they're from. You have decided all this information and created a vision of that person without even seeing them, without knowing them.

00;08;33;13 - 00;08;53;21
Heather Hansen
And and this is not discussed in the workplace. It's not included in the policy. It's not protected by law unless you can link accent, bias and discrimination to national origin. So that means, okay, if you're a foreign language speaker in America and someone is discriminating against you and saying, Oh, you can't speak English, go back where you're from.

00;08;53;23 - 00;09;17;08
Heather Hansen
Well, that's an easy link to national origin and you have a court case. But what about the the white American man from Alabama who is going up to work on Wall Street and is being made fun of because of his accent or isn't taken seriously? What kind of national origin clause can he fall back on? So this is not only a native non-native foreign speaker.

00;09;17;08 - 00;09;34;04
Heather Hansen
We experience this within the United States. And if I say, you know, the South, New York, New Jersey, Boston, California, Valley Girl, Florida, we have immediate ideas of what these accents sound like and what the characteristics for those groups of people are.

00;09;34;05 - 00;09;36;28
Wayne Turmel
Right. And the humans attached to them.

00;09;37;01 - 00;09;50;09
Heather Hansen
Yeah. And so this is this is an issue for everyone. It isn't only a native non-Native, although we see it happening even more when we're trying to deal with people from a different culture and background as well.

00;09;50;12 - 00;10;25;06
Wayne Turmel
Well, that obviously gets to the point of in an increasingly global world, right? This notion that, you know, you can't really you can't get the benefits of globalism without dealing with other humans from other places, and it goes with the territory. And you said something and I'm dying to get into what the heck you mean by this, because as somebody who has spent 30 years teaching communication skills, your big battle cry is communication is not a skills problem.

00;10;25;13 - 00;10;28;00
Wayne Turmel
And what?

00;10;28;03 - 00;10;47;24
Heather Hansen
Well, that statement comes from my frustration as a corporate trainer where every october i get phone calls from h.r. Saying we really want to commit to changing the communication culture in the company. Can you come and do a two day program on presentation skills? And it's like, that's not going to cut it. That's not going to change anything.

00;10;47;24 - 00;11;17;14
Heather Hansen
That's not going to move the needle even a little bit. And this is not simply a skills problem. It's much more than that. It has to do with the entire culture of the work environment. Are people conscious communicators? Do we have cultural intelligence, cross-cultural skills? Are we good listeners? Are we aware of our environment? And when we have the loud voices and we're dominating and when we aren't letting people in, when we're interrupting and do we have connection in the company?

00;11;17;14 - 00;11;42;09
Heather Hansen
So is there psychological safety? Are we building strong relationships? What do those social networks look like inside the company itself? And, you know, do people have a fear of failure? They're not speaking up because they're always ridiculed or they're put back down. So they press mute and they they don't want to contribute. And then the last piece of the puzzle is the confidence piece, and that's both skills, confidence and self confidence, self-worth.

00;11;42;11 - 00;12;10;25
Heather Hansen
So it's only that very little sliver of the skills, confidence if you truly don't know how to communicate, you truly have such a heavy accent. No one on earth can understand you. Then we do need to work on some skills, but that is a very small part of the puzzle. I could teach you everything I know about a great presentation being a good presenter, but if you're in a toxic environment with a boss who doesn't listen, you could give the best presentation in the world and it's not going to do anything for you.

00;12;10;27 - 00;12;26;23
Heather Hansen
So. So the skills is just one teeny little piece of the puzzle, and we like to focus all of our attention there and place all of the responsibility on the individual to say you're not a good enough communicator when really so much more is based on how those messages are being received.

00;12;26;26 - 00;12;54;23
Wayne Turmel
I'm going to take us off topic for a moment because I'm fascinated by this. Having taught presentation skills in your corner of the world, does the expectation of what makes a good presentation from the leadership standpoint, how much work is it to take somebody from a what's called South east Southeast Asian culture and have them present to the white guy from New York?

00;12;54;25 - 00;12;59;01
Wayne Turmel
You know how traumatic and dramatic is that?

00;12;59;04 - 00;13;35;24
Heather Hansen
This is the entire problem because and this is why I run a successful business in the whole hypocrisy of my career is that why should that individual from Southeast Asia have to change the way they communicate their style of communication, their their personality, even to fit the expectations of the white westerner sitting in New York? Will that white Westerner ever even consider ever in a million years changing the way they speak, adapting their style, being more adaptable in general to cultural difference when they come to Southeast Asia?

00;13;35;29 - 00;14;18;14
Heather Hansen
And this is exactly the problem in the world right now, is that this Western ideal, the way leadership ideas, communication, you name it, business strategy is very Western dominated and we don't value the different styles that are coming from the East. So my whole job is trying to help these people to fit in to this global expectation that is a very western, western world and completely move them away from who they are, how they normally communicate it, how they articulate sounds to fit that picture, because that is the goal and it still is, especially in these countries that are old colonies that have just grown up with this feeling of somehow being inferior.

00;14;18;17 - 00;14;42;20
Heather Hansen
And Singapore itself has a government campaign called Speak Good English, implying that Singapore English is not good and it is a native variety. They grow up, they grow up speaking it, they're fully educated in English, they work fully in English. The government is run in English. And I don't think people outside Singapore really understand that the English is their language, but it sounds very different and their cultures.

00;14;42;21 - 00;15;06;07
Wayne Turmel
And so I'm giving you 10 minutes in a room with the average white Anglo American, Canadian project manager or division manager, you have 5 minutes and we have duct tape him or her. Yeah. So you will not be interrupted.

00;15;06;10 - 00;15;10;07
Heather Hansen
Captive audience So the mouth is duct tape. That's the most important.

00;15;10;09 - 00;15;18;21
Wayne Turmel
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I'm giving you every advantage for the next 5 minutes. What do you tell this person?

00;15;18;23 - 00;15;48;01
Heather Hansen
Oh, it's about shifting our entire view of the world, of us not being in the dominant position. First of all, understanding that we do not own the English language. We speak one variety of it. We also have an accent that is different from everywhere else in the world. We have to completely change that mindset that we're walking into global conversations in the powerful position and look at people as our peers and listen for understanding.

00;15;48;04 - 00;16;15;22
Heather Hansen
So the focus has now shifted that when we go into a global environment, we are also speaking a foreign language. The way that English is used, the way that we communicate in global settings is not the same as how we communicate with each other. Over coffee at home, we must learn how to adapt, how to change our speech, to drop idioms, to try to remove as many phrasal verbs as possible, which is incredibly challenging.

00;16;15;25 - 00;16;16;15
Heather Hansen
It's hard for me.

00;16;16;15 - 00;16;18;10
Wayne Turmel
To do over, not be.

00;16;18;13 - 00;16;37;16
Heather Hansen
A verb, plus a preposition that has a completely different meaning. So for example, I pass out verses, pass on verses, pass over one woman was an immigrant, and I believe this is in the UK. The story I heard called from the school. The school says your son is passed out on the playground, you need to come pick him up.

00;16;37;18 - 00;16;57;11
Heather Hansen
She didn't know what pass that was that she knew passed on and so she was distraught. She thought she was picking up her dead child at school. So this is how easily misunderstandings can happen. And we don't think of this as a native speaker born and raised in America, you know, we rule the world. We're so amazing and and to a degree, that's very true.

00;16;57;11 - 00;17;19;04
Heather Hansen
Globally, we have a huge reputation. We do have a lot of power in the world, but we can't abuse it. And we need to remember that there are people all over the world just as well-educated with us who have grown up speaking English, who sound different, but are just as educated, have just as many good ideas. And if we don't start closing our mouths and listening to them, we're losing so much potential.

00;17;19;04 - 00;17;38;14
Heather Hansen
We're losing our talent. We aren't taking advantage of the skills that are right in front of us. And because we have this chip on our shoulder that we think that now while you sound different, you must not be as good. And this comes from all the way back to the movies we watch as children, Disney movies, the bad guys all have accents and people are other.

00;17;38;14 - 00;17;43;14
Heather Hansen
We we try to create that distance and we make an enemy out of them.

00;17;43;16 - 00;18;07;06
Wayne Turmel
You know, this is so important and we can keep going forever. It occurs to me that Kevin and I have said for all of these many years that managers of whatever help, wherever they are, often forget that there is an inherent power difference. Yes. Even on your team between you and your direct reports, you can be as benevolent in kind of thinking.

00;18;07;06 - 00;18;39;23
Wayne Turmel
You're being open and understanding, and that exists anyway when you add the complications of working overseas accents. Not really listening to understand it only becomes that much more complicated and in a perfect world, the responsibility falls on us as leaders. So, Heather, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. We are going to you says pushing the right button.

00;18;39;25 - 00;19;00;26
Wayne Turmel
We are going to have links to heather and global speech academy and all that good stuff in the transcript of the show on long distance work life icon. Heather, I'm going to remove you from the room just long enough to finish wrapping up here, but thank you so much for being with us. It's been a fascinating conversation.

00;19;00;28 - 00;19;03;19
Heather Hansen
Yeah, thank you. Really fun to be here. Thanks so much.

00;19;03;24 - 00;19;46;04
Wayne Turmel
And if you didn't fact like this show and with this one, there wasn't much not to like. I found this fascinating. Please like subscribe to your podcast listeners. You're seeing this on YouTube. You know how this works. By now, I was delighted to come across this topic and if you have a topic that you would like us to talk about or interview somebody about, or you just have a pet peeve that you want Marisa and I to riff about while we're at it, contact us on LinkedIn, Wayne Turmel, Marisa Eikenberry or Wayne and Kevin Eikenberry dot com, or Marisa and Kevin Eikenberry dot com.

00;19;46;07 - 00;20;09;27
Wayne Turmel
And of course, if you are putting together a team please contact us and Kevin Eikenberry group or you can pick up in my new book The long distance Team Designing your team for Everyone success that is it. Thank you for joining us on the long distance work life. Don't let the weasel ski get you down. We will see you next episode.

Timestamps

00:00 Meet Heather Hansen
01:06 Exploring Global Speech Academy's Communication Training
01:54 Rethinking "Bad" English and Accent Bias
03:35 Unveiling Accent Bias in the Workplace
04:22 Diverse Language Experiences: A Personal Journey
06:11 The Realities of Written Accents and Language Prejudices
07:31 Tackling Language Bias in Organizations
08:11 The Role of Accents in Categorization and Discrimination
09:17 Beyond Non-Native Speakers: Accent Bias Affects Everyone
10:25 Beyond Skills Training: Enacting Real Communication Change
10:47 The Overemphasis on Presentation Skills in Communication
11:17 The Pillars of Communication: Culture, Listening, Connection
11:42 Overcoming Communication Barriers: Confidence and Fear of Failure
12:10 Communication: More Than Just Skills
12:26 Questioning Western Communication and Leadership Norms
13:35 Embracing Diverse Communication Styles
15:06 Adapting Speech in Global Contexts
16:15 Navigating the Complexities of Phrasal Verbs
17:19 Confronting Western Bias Against Non-Native English Speakers
18:07 Leadership's Role in Bridging Communication Gaps
19:00 Closing Thoughts

Featured Guest

Name: Heather Hansen

Bio: Heather helps multinational companies enhance collaboration, innovation and inclusion
across their global teams through greater understanding and stronger, more efficient
communication policies. She focuses on fostering unmuted communication cultures where
every voice is heard, resulting in greater inclusion, innovation and efficiency across remote
and global teams.
Along with private leadership communication coaching, Heather facilitates group training
courses and consults on a number of topics related to global communication. Heather is also
an External Industry Expert for NUS Business School’s Executive Education programs
where she runs modules on communication, presentation, and storytelling skills.

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

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Guests, Leadership, Working Remotely

Mastering Meetings: Building Great Teams in Remote Work with Rich Maltzman

Wayne Turmel and Richard Maltzman about the importance of meetings in building great teams. Richard emphasizes the role of project leaders in facilitating effective meetings and discusses the principles of project management and Agile methodology. He also introduces the concept of "meeting goblins," which are different personalities that can emerge during meetings. Richard highlights the need for leaders to manage these personalities and create a safe and productive meeting environment.

Key Takeaways

1. Meetings are a crucial touchpoint where strategy meets operations in a project.
2. The purpose of a kickoff meeting is to build the project team and ensure everyone understands the project's goals and importance.
3. Agile methodology has brought new meeting techniques, such as stand-up meetings and information radiators, that can be beneficial in any project.
4. Meeting goblins are different personalities that can emerge during meetings, such as the reticent person or the bully. Leaders must manage these personalities to create a productive meeting environment.

Featured Guest

Name: Rich Maltzman

About: Richard Maltzman is a master lecturer at Boston University and previously had a career at Nokia. He is an expert in project management and has co-authored books on facilitating great project meetings and building great teams.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
02:35 The Unspoken Power of Meetings in Project Leadership
03:11 Bridging Remote Work with Project Management
04:06 Meetings: More Than Just Info Sharing
05:03 Kickoff Meetings: The Team Builder's Starter Pack
06:03 Sustaining the Team Vibe Throughout the Project
07:07 The Facilitator: A Project Leader's Hat
08:21 Embracing the Agile Mindset
09:25 The Agile-Waterfall Blend: Taking the Best of Both Worlds
11:24 Agile Meeting Techniques Unpacked
12:17 Virtual Meeting Facilitation 101
14:09 Meet the Meeting Goblins
15:05 The Meeting Ensemble: Handling Different Personalities
16:12 Inclusion Matters: Giving Everyone a Voice
17:21 Leading Through Dominating Meeting Moments
18:14 Going Off-Script for Urgent Issues
19:09 Facilitation & Its Influence on Project Leadership
20:30 The Notetaker & Whiteboard Artist: Unsung Heroes
21:11 Closing

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Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

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Guests, Surviving Remote Work, Working Remotely

Essential Skills for Thriving in the Modern Workplace with Mark Herschberg

Mark Herschberg discusses the essential skills needed to thrive in the modern workplace. He emphasizes the importance of creating a career plan and regularly checking in and refining it. Mark also highlights the need for effective communication, especially in the remote work environment where communication channels are more limited. He explains that writing skills and written communication have become increasingly important, as 70% of work is now done in writing. Additionally, Mark emphasizes the significance of networking, both internally and externally, for career success. He encourages reframing the perception of corporate politics and recognizing the value of building relationships within the organization.

Key Takeaways

1. Creating a career plan is essential for long-term success.
2. Effective communication is crucial, especially in the remote work environment.
3. Writing skills and written communication are increasingly important in the modern workplace.
4. Networking is valuable for career growth and navigating corporate politics.

View Full Transcript

00:00:00:21 - 00:00:34:02
Wayne Turmel
Greetings. Salutations. Hello. Bienvenue. The new all that good stuff to the Long-Distance Worklife podcast, the show that is really about making sense of the modern workplace, whether you are remote hybrid, stuck in an airport wherever you are, however you do your work. Welcome. Welcome. My name is Wayne Turmel. I am a master trainer and coach with the Kevin Eikenberry Group and I am really excited to have you with us today.

00:00:34:04 - 00:01:01:07
Wayne Turmel
Marisa is sitting patiently editing and producing this episode while I have a another terrific conversation with a really smart person. And today's topic is one that I am obsessed about, which is as somebody who doesn't have a formal degree and has done okay for himself, what are the skills that we need to live in thrive in this new workplace?

00:01:01:09 - 00:01:14:21
Wayne Turmel
And our guest today is author Mark Hirshberg. He is the author of The Career Toolkit Essential Skills for Success. No One Taught You. I love that. Hi, Mark. How are you.

00:01:14:23 - 00:01:17:12
Mark Herschberg
Doing? Great. Thanks for having me on the show today.

00:01:17:14 - 00:01:25:08
Wayne Turmel
Well, as always, thank you for being here. Tell us a little bit about you and what you do and then we'll jump right in here.

00:01:25:11 - 00:01:51:10
Mark Herschberg
I do do a couple different things. I am primarily a CTO, CPO, chief technology officer, chief product officer. I do that sometimes when I build my own startups. Sometimes I work for other companies. Right now I'm doing fractional work, so I'm consulting to a few different companies, giving them a few hours a week as they either need help or lately there's been a lot of questions about, I hope, and helping them with.

00:01:51:12 - 00:02:12:12
Mark Herschberg
Now I've also, in parallel, been teaching at MIT for over 20 years, developing these skills, teach them to our students because these are skills we don't normally teach. And we recognize that years ago I put them into the book The Career Toolkit, Essential Skills for Success that no one taught you. To help reach a wider audience. And I now do speaking on that as well.

00:02:12:14 - 00:02:34:18
Mark Herschberg
And then I also have an app brain bomb, because when we read a book like mine or listen to a podcast like this one, we get information, but we need it months later, days later at the place, and we often have forgotten it. So Brain Bump is a free app to help people retain what they get from my book, other books, podcasts and other sources.

00:02:34:23 - 00:02:36:13
Mark Herschberg
So I do a lot of different things.

00:02:36:15 - 00:02:55:17
Wayne Turmel
Great, great stuff. And we will have links to the book and to Brain Bomb and all of that good stuff on the show notes, as always. So you and I were talking before we started. And by the way, if you ever get a chance to listen to the conversation before Dave rolls, that's probably the coolest part of the show, if I'm honest.

00:02:55:22 - 00:03:25:20
Wayne Turmel
This is something that I'm obsessed with as somebody who didn't get the formal business education and kind of certain stuff on the fly. I'm obsessed with how people succeed and why really smart people often don't. What first of all, what are the tools that we need? And then let's talk about how it's different in this world of remote hybrid work from the way that we've traditionally thought about our careers.

00:03:25:21 - 00:03:47:22
Mark Herschberg
There are ten skills covered in the book, and you've seen these before. Now you might see a list that has five of them or 50 of them, and they're really the same list. It's just where you're drawing the lines, how big those buckets are. But the ten that we really boil it down to three sections versus careers creating and executing a career plan skills, I call them working effectively.

00:03:47:22 - 00:04:10:03
Mark Herschberg
These are things like managing your manager and understanding corporate culture and politics. The word skill, interviewing. Now most of us know how to interview as a candidate, but many of us have to interview on the other side of the table and we have no training how to do that. Second section leadership and management. Or there's a chapter on leadership, one on people management, one on process management.

00:04:10:03 - 00:04:17:18
Mark Herschberg
They're separate. And the third section four Skills communication, networking, negotiating relations and ethics.

00:04:17:21 - 00:04:48:13
Wayne Turmel
Okay, so there's that first section in that third section really kind of set me aflame here because we spend a lot of time talking about leadership and management. There's a million resources around that. All right. There's no shortage of stuff. Talk to me about that first bunch, particularly the notion of setting your career track and working a plan, because working remotely has kind of changed the rules.

00:04:48:15 - 00:04:59:10
Wayne Turmel
Some people kind of knew instinctively when you worked in the office, you bump into people at the coffee machine and you can suck up people in the cafeteria, but it's different when you're not there.

00:04:59:13 - 00:05:16:11
Mark Herschberg
It is indeed. Let's first start with you need a career plan, because even in office, most people tend to skip that. You would never tackle a big project at work, a six month, a year long project without having some type of plan. You wouldn't say your boss. Well, cross your fingers. I'll see what I get done in six months.

00:05:16:11 - 00:05:34:21
Mark Herschberg
So I hope I hit the goal. That's crazy. You'd say, Let's create a plan unless you check things on the plan. Or are we on plan? Off plan? Do we adjust the plan? If you wouldn't do a six months or a 12 month project at work without a plan. Why are you doing a 20, 30 year career without having a plan?

00:05:34:23 - 00:05:43:14
Wayne Turmel
Now, just as we're talking about a plan, let's be really tactical and practical here. What are the milestones in that plan?

00:05:43:17 - 00:06:07:08
Mark Herschberg
Great question. What I recommend people do is you create first you've got your your vision, your long term. I want to be the VP of whatever in 20 years, whatever your goal is. Now, you know that if you want to be the VP in 20 years, you need to be somewhere probably about 15 years out. Just like if you're delivering a project in 12 months, where do you need to be ten months out?

00:06:07:08 - 00:06:24:03
Mark Herschberg
So you're on time so we can start to backtrack. Where do you need to be in about 15 years? What to be there in 15 years? Where do you need to be in ten years and in five years so we can start backing out now? The timeframe somewhat arbitrary. It doesn't have to be 15, ten, five and the ranges.

00:06:24:05 - 00:06:40:18
Mark Herschberg
But just like in your project plan, you might have these placeholders and you know what you're planning for month ten, that's kind of fuzzy and that might change. But what you're doing the next 30 days should be very clear. And so what you're doing in the next year or two is you backed out this plan, what you do in the next year or two.

00:06:40:18 - 00:07:01:04
Mark Herschberg
What I need to start by being a better communicator or learning some more technical skills in my discipline or whatever it is that should be concrete. And that's what you're working on. And just like these project plans, you want to have check ins and adjustments. So here's something simple you can do right now. I'm going to ask you to pause the podcast, but you have to promise to come back.

00:07:01:06 - 00:07:24:15
Mark Herschberg
Pause the podcast. Go to your calendar. Put in a calendar event that says, Think about my career and set that as a recurring event every six months. And now that you're back, what you just did by creating that recurring calendar event, you've created a cadence to check in and refine your plan. Just like on our projects, we have a weekly or monthly check in.

00:07:24:20 - 00:07:26:10
Mark Herschberg
You've now done that for your career.

00:07:26:13 - 00:07:29:19
Wayne Turmel
And assuming that folks are still listening at this point.

00:07:30:01 - 00:07:32:00
Mark Herschberg
That's why I made the promise to come back.

00:07:32:05 - 00:07:56:19
Wayne Turmel
And when we talk about developing skills, I just want to go to 30,000 feet for a minute. When we're talking about developing skills, we're not necessarily saying go back and get a master's degree, although that might be part of the occasion. There are a million ways to grow and develop some of both micro and macro skills that you're going to need.

00:07:56:21 - 00:08:17:23
Mark Herschberg
You're absolutely right. Certainly you can get a formal education. You can get informal education by taking online classes, reading books, listening to a great podcast like this one, exploring education is very important for some people. In fact, things like communicating leadership, it's like swimming. You can't just read a book on swimming and say, I know what I'm doing.

00:08:17:23 - 00:08:41:19
Mark Herschberg
You have to actually practice and do it. And so you can practice things by getting on certain projects. You can maybe do it with some volunteer work or things outside your professional work. You can also I have on my website on the resources page, a free download to create a free internal training program to upskill yourself or your entire organization on these skills because they are experiences.

00:08:41:19 - 00:08:44:05
Mark Herschberg
So there's many different ways you can acquire them.

00:08:44:09 - 00:09:19:14
Wayne Turmel
So time being what it is, let's kind of jump forward. Communication. I mean, communication skills are my personal passion. I think that they're all so important and too many really smart, good people don't possess them in the amount and style that they need. But it's also like this big thing. It's like a checkbox on an interview, right? Good communication skills to your mind, what's included in that and maybe how has the way we work in the last few years changed our approach to this stuff?

00:09:19:17 - 00:09:47:20
Mark Herschberg
You hit the nail on the head when you said this checkbox on these job descriptions, and I used to be guilty of that myself. Earlier was it mean to say good communication skills? Does that mean we want someone who can stand on the TED talk stage and do this global presentation? They'll get a million views. Does that mean someone who writes concise emails, Does that mean someone who can explain or discipline to people without the technical background in that field?

00:09:47:22 - 00:10:09:17
Mark Herschberg
These are all different types of communications. They're all important, but they may not all be equally important to the role. So whenever we define a role, we need to say what type of communication do we need? Because it could be any of those. And we probably in our careers want to develop some of all of them. But for a particular job, some will be more important.

00:10:09:17 - 00:10:33:22
Mark Herschberg
And so you as a hiring person should understand that you as a candidate should understand that and speak to that now as we get to remote teams, where I think this becomes particularly challenging is our communication channels narrow when we are together, we're in the same environment. Obviously we have facial expressions, body language, tone, even just the environment.

00:10:33:22 - 00:10:53:18
Mark Herschberg
We've all been meetings where everyone feels temps or everyone feels relaxed and you can just feel that vibe once you start going to video. We don't have that vibe that we can see some body language once we go to audio, we lose the body language. Once we go to email, we lose the tones, we get more and more narrow in our communication channels.

00:10:53:18 - 00:11:03:20
Mark Herschberg
And as we're remote, we're using more of those narrower channels. So it's important that we learn how to communicate despite the more narrow bandwidth we are communicating through.

00:11:03:22 - 00:11:29:04
Wayne Turmel
And I'm loving that. Talk to me a little bit. It's something that I obsess about, and I'm always shocked that more people don't find this worthy of obsession, which is what you're talking about. It's the narrow form of communication. For the first time in human history, 70% of our work is being done in writing, which is a huge deal if you stop to think about it.

00:11:29:08 - 00:11:36:19
Wayne Turmel
What are how do we need to rethink writing skills and written communication action as we look forward?

00:11:37:00 - 00:11:49:02
Mark Herschberg
One of the challenges is we kind of have this one size fits all. If you think about an email, we have this email. The email came out of a memo, What we used to do in the fifties.

00:11:49:04 - 00:11:53:19
Wayne Turmel
Or I was there when the email came about, I was there.

00:11:53:21 - 00:12:11:18
Mark Herschberg
There's almost different types of communications. In fact, we're of a we're not we're not the youngest generation anymore. And you see with younger people, why would you call us if you and I are trying to coordinate meeting up for drinks? They say, Well, why would you ever get on the phone and say, Hi, how are you doing? Are you free for drinks more?

00:12:11:18 - 00:12:32:22
Mark Herschberg
Are you free? Just text to be like drinks time date you counter with a different time date. That's much more efficient. That's how they look at it, said the whole voice. You don't need my tone. You don't need to go through formality. Hi, how are you doing to coordinate getting together for drinks so you recognize that certain types of communication say scheduling, very narrow and limited.

00:12:33:00 - 00:12:58:04
Mark Herschberg
There's other times where I say, Listen, I think there's an issue with our strategy and I'm going to lay out and all my thoughts and analysis, and that's a broader type of communication. But we use email for both of those. They go into our inbox sitting next to each other. They're in the same general format. And so we need to recognize that it might be time to split up how we do things, how we communicate.

00:12:58:04 - 00:13:22:08
Mark Herschberg
Now, the scheduling got a little easier because now the calendars, I can just propose a time on the calendar and you get this well formatted thing that can be processed. But one of the challenges, by the way, is that we now have so many communication channels. Should I be calling you, emailing you, texting you, slacking you, there's all these different channels and we might have different channel preferences because companies often don't define this.

00:13:22:10 - 00:13:27:00
Mark Herschberg
So we just have to recognize that it's it's a lot more complicated than just writing.

00:13:27:05 - 00:14:02:03
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And in the long distance leader and all the associated books, we talk about the idea of richness versus scope, which is how do we make that determination? Right? It's not just what tools we use, but why do we use which tool when in the time in the time that we have remaining. I want to talk about something that is going to cause ions to roll into the back of skulls as we talk, and that is internal networking in our company because we think of networking as, Oh, I'm looking for a job.

00:14:02:03 - 00:14:10:19
Wayne Turmel
I better network and find something. But it's critical to our careers, even internally for those of us who are gainfully employed, right?

00:14:10:23 - 00:14:35:20
Mark Herschberg
It is indeed. Unfortunately, most people think of networking as this is how I find a job, and that's the only time they think about building. Their networks are using their networks. But networks can do so much more. It can help us for our external networks outside our companies. It can help us find candidates, customers, partners. It can help us be aware of changes our industry, how to think about things.

00:14:35:22 - 00:14:58:20
Mark Herschberg
But then, as you pointed out, internal networks are so important as well because internal networks, they can do some of the same things. Certainly if you're at a big company, you might hear about job opportunities. Oh, there's a new department opening. They have a role, something you're looking forward to doing, being aware of what's happening in the company, strategic changes, understanding which way the corporate winds are blowing.

00:14:58:22 - 00:15:15:06
Mark Herschberg
Very important are networks help with all this? They help us with corporate politics. And you might not like corporate politics. Many people don't, but it's happening. It's kind of like government politics. You can say, I don't like it. You can choose not to vote. But guess what? Your life is affected by it. Your life is effectively corporate politics.

00:15:15:07 - 00:15:35:09
Mark Herschberg
Are your internal networks developing relationships with other people in the company can help you navigate the company and be more effective in your role. But now that we're not having those run ins at the WaterCooler, as you pointed out earlier, it's challenging. We have to be more proactive in building and maintaining these relationships.

00:15:35:11 - 00:16:02:04
Wayne Turmel
I think that's a huge thing for a lot of people and it's it to some degrees, it's cultural. And I'm not talking about national cultures, although some of that do, I think. But, you know, if your mother ever told you the nail that sticks its head up, gets whacked with a hammer, and if you keep your head down and do your work, the work will speak for itself, which is maybe the most terrible lie we tell people when they're when they're working.

00:16:02:08 - 00:16:20:14
Wayne Turmel
When you talk to people about this and you get the inevitable, either push back or just horrify and looks, how do you help people take the step to start being a little more interested in the politics and being a little more proactive? Because that's a huge thing.

00:16:20:17 - 00:16:41:21
Mark Herschberg
We need to reframe how we see it. And I'll use analogy with governance. We often have, no matter what country you're in, you probably have a distaste for the politics of your nation. We all hate it, but really we know we need it. We need governance. So we need to be able to elect because we don't want kings.

00:16:41:23 - 00:17:02:17
Mark Herschberg
And we also know that when done right, when we think about some of our greatest leaders, well, they really did a good job. They have changed us for the better so it can be done well. We just often focus on here's all the bad examples. And within corporate politics, if you just see it as, oh, this is bad, this is how people cheat and get ahead.

00:17:02:17 - 00:17:23:16
Mark Herschberg
And yeah, I'm not good at what I do, but I'm your buddy. So you're going to promote me? Yeah, that's a bad example. But there are also good examples where we are just using a different approach, more of a relationship oriented approach. And as long as you're not taking it to the extreme, it can actually be useful and helpful to the organization.

00:17:23:20 - 00:17:33:11
Wayne Turmel
Okay, so we are at the end of our time. I know that you have ten skills. Which one have we talked about that's most important? You got 30 seconds ago.

00:17:33:15 - 00:18:02:16
Mark Herschberg
It's not only one skill. Here's the key. By getting just a little bit better at any of these skills, you are getting incremental returns. If you get better at negotiating. For example, imagine every job you get, you're getting more money. How does it compound over time? Now that's with negotiations. It's easy to do the math, but this applies to leadership, to our networks, to any of these skills getting just a little bit better compounds over time and really helps us succeed in our careers.

00:18:02:18 - 00:18:38:03
Wayne Turmel
Dig in. And Mark Hirshberg, the book is The Career Toolkit Essential Skills for Success No One Got you. Thank you so much for being with us. I really, really enjoyed this conversation and we could geek out for a long time. Yet for the rest of you, if you are interested in learning about Mark's book, about his app Brain Bump, connecting with Mark himself, the show notes, as always, Marisa will have organized them in terrific fashion at long distance work life dot com.

00:18:38:05 - 00:19:02:04
Wayne Turmel
If you are interested in redesigning your team and thinking about your team and doing some of that development that we're talking about. Kevin Eikenberry In my new book, The Long Distance Team, Designing your Team for everyone's success is out there. You can get special deals and downloadable resources at long distance team. BBC.com You are listening to a podcast.

00:19:02:04 - 00:19:26:17
Wayne Turmel
I doubt it's your first one, so you know the drill. Please like and subscribe and tell people about it. Leave a review on your aggregator. That is always immensely helpful. And then finally, if you enjoy the show, if you don't enjoy the show, if you have ideas for way better shows, we want to hear it. Marisa is currently collecting pet peeves.

00:19:26:17 - 00:19:56:21
Wayne Turmel
You are not being shy about submitting those and that helps us plan future episodes so you can reach out to Marisa Ikenberry or myself on LinkedIn or at the email below. Links on the show notes. Thank you so much for being with us. We really hope that we're bringing you information that helps you ground yourself and survive and maintain your sanity in the changing world of work.

00:19:57:02 - 00:20:02:15
Wayne Turmel
As always, we will be back with another episode next week. Don't let the weasels get you down.

Featured Guest

Name: Mark Herschberg

About Mark: Mark Herschberg is the author of "The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You." He is a CTO and CPO, and has been teaching at MIT for over 20 years. Mark is also the creator of the app Brain Bump, which helps people retain information from books, podcasts, and other sources.

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome: Intro to Mark Herschberg
01:09 Skill Set 101
04:48 Career Mapping in Remote Work
07:01 Career Plan Check-Ins
07:56 Skill Development Beyond School
09:19 Why Communication Matters
09:47 What is Good Communication?
10:09 Remote Work & Communication Shift
09:47 Diverse Communication Types
10:33 Remote Team Communication Hurdles
11:37 Rethinking Writing Skills
12:33 Navigating Communication Channels
14:02 Value of Internal Networking
16:20 Navigating Corporate Politics
17:33 Steps to Skill Improvement
18:38 Recommended Team Resources
20:02 Conclusion

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

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Ask Wayne Anything, Technology

Bots in the Boardroom: Decoding AI’s Role in Zoom Meetings

Marisa and Wayne discuss the new AI features that Zoom is introducing to its platform. They explore the potential benefits and challenges of using AI in web meeting platforms and highlight the importance of staying informed about new features and tools. They also discuss the potential impact of AI on presentation skills and communication styles, as well as the value of real-time feedback in improving remote meetings.

Key Takeaways

1. AI in web meeting platforms has been evolving for years, with features like live captioning and simultaneous translation becoming more common.
2. Zoom's AI Companion can provide real-time feedback on presentation skills and communication styles, but it's important to use this feedback consciously and ethically.
3. AI Companion can help with research, filling out support tickets, and summarizing meetings, making remote work more efficient and productive.
4. Zoom's AI can analyze meeting participation and help identify individuals who may be monopolizing the conversation.
5. It's crucial to stay informed about new features and tools in web meeting platforms and to adopt those that make sense for your work and goals.

View Full Transcript

00:00:08:03 - 00:00:19:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to the Long-Distance Worklife. Where we help you lead, work and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I'm Marisa Eikenberry, a fellow remote worker. And joining me is my co-host and remote work expert Wayne Turmel. Hi, Wayne.

00:00:19:12 - 00:00:21:03
Wayne Turmel
Hello. How are you?

00:00:21:05 - 00:00:22:21
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm great. How are you?

00:00:22:23 - 00:00:28:14
Wayne Turmel
I am fine and ready to submit to our robot overlords.

00:00:28:16 - 00:00:49:12
Marisa Eikenberry
So today, listeners, we are actually going to be talking about A.I., which is not a new topic for the show, but it is a new topic for me and Wayne together. And specifically, we're talking about some of Zoom's new A.I. features that they've talked about recently. So I have a link to TechCrunch article about this in our show notes so you can take a look at it.

00:00:49:12 - 00:01:19:03
Marisa Eikenberry
But one of the things that they've talked about is that Zoom is updating and rebranding several of its AI powered features, including the generative A.I. assistant formerly known as Zoom IQ. So it sounds like now it's going to be called the A.I. Companion. And there's lots of different ways that it's going to do stuff. So before we get into the specific things that Zoom AI is about to do, I wanted to talk about this idea of like A.I. in web platforms and web meeting platforms anyway.

00:01:19:05 - 00:01:24:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Like, this might be new for Zoom, but this isn't new for web meeting platforms, right?

00:01:24:09 - 00:01:59:14
Wayne Turmel
It's been coming along for a while. One of the very first things, it probably had been in the background for a while right? When you do this Zoom or WebEx or whatever, automatically does this to compensate. That's been running in the background for a while. One of the first things that kind of caught my eye a couple of years ago is when WebEx was suddenly able to hold a live meeting but caption it simultaneously in three different languages.

00:01:59:16 - 00:02:01:16
Marisa Eikenberry
Which is so wild.

00:02:01:18 - 00:02:31:09
Wayne Turmel
And insane that that is a thing, right, that I can be talking to you. And in the bottom, somebody can follow along in German or whatever. Mm hmm. So that is extremely cool. The challenge. I made the joke earlier about my robot overlords. The problem when we talk about A.I. and this is true, and I know that a lot of people listening to this are already sick of the conversation because it's all anybody's talking about.

00:02:31:09 - 00:02:58:22
Wayne Turmel
Like, all but the way that I look at it is that artificial intelligence is a neutral thing. It just kind of says this is happening, this is something that you can do. It's up to us whether or not we do it. And the part that freaked me out when I saw the article and why I sent the article to you, was it will give you real time feedback on your presentation skills and communication style.

00:02:59:00 - 00:03:02:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes, that is the part that kind of caught my eye as well.

00:03:03:01 - 00:03:19:10
Wayne Turmel
Now, as somebody who has spent almost 30 years teaching presentation skills, I know that the first thing that happens when you say to somebody, you know, you say a lot is immediately they say more often.

00:03:19:12 - 00:03:27:17
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Well, and I know that if it were me, it would be like, slow down. I already know I'm doing the best.

00:03:27:19 - 00:03:44:13
Wayne Turmel
You did not say and you said, slow down. So the feedback that you are get is accurate. In the long run, it's probably helpful. But as I'm running the meeting and up pops a little message that says, make eye contact with the camera.

00:03:44:15 - 00:03:45:22
Marisa Eikenberry
You're right.

00:03:46:00 - 00:04:06:20
Wayne Turmel
It is going to throw me off. And the good news is that these things, as near as we can tell now, I have investigated this a little bit. The key word there is very little bit. These tools need to be turned on. It's not like you're going to start open up WebEx and suddenly it's yelling at you for.

00:04:06:22 - 00:04:25:01
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, on that note, according to TechCrunch and Zoom's website, this has already been added. Well, the Hey I campaign in the you're talking about real time feedback that's going to come in the spring. So at the time that we're recording this, this is September of 2023, so you're not even going to see this until spring of 2024 anyway.

00:04:25:04 - 00:04:33:17
Marisa Eikenberry
But some of these other features are we're going to talk about are already turned on. If you have a paid account, it sounds like it's an opt out, not an opt in.

00:04:33:19 - 00:04:56:06
Wayne Turmel
Okay, Good to know. So time to invest it. Go into your account. Right. And see what the heck has been turned on. And this has been going on for a while. It's like I have been following web presentation platforms for 20 years. And the cycle time for new features has just gotten shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter.

00:04:56:06 - 00:05:03:08
Wayne Turmel
And every time you open up your platform, there's something new or some button has been moved and it's not where it was before.

00:05:03:10 - 00:05:10:01
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, and so-and-so has this feature now, so obviously this one has to catch up and Yeah, yeah.

00:05:10:03 - 00:05:34:06
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, there's a lot of that. The thing that we need to remember is every once in a while, stop and find out what's new. And the reason that that matters is they're putting in all these new features and all of this cool stuff. And at the end of the day, it's the same problem. 80% of people use 20% of the features.

00:05:34:11 - 00:05:46:02
Wayne Turmel
So you can have all of these cool problems, but you don't know whether they are cool features or evil features or whatever they are until you actually know they're there and try them.

00:05:46:06 - 00:06:01:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, thankfully some of these platforms will do notifications and stuff to tell you. I know Slack does that for us. It'll tell us that there's new features and then I go look them up. But for those people who are using platforms that don't do that, you know, periodically, look yeah.

00:06:01:09 - 00:06:28:20
Wayne Turmel
And it does matter. I mean, the whole point of using these tools, I know that most of us do the bare minimum because we're getting our job done and we're not techies and we don't enjoy playing and poking around and seeing what they do. But we have to remember the purpose of these tools. All appearances to the contrary, the purposes of these tools are to make us better.

00:06:28:21 - 00:06:51:13
Wayne Turmel
They invented these things so that we could do something better, faster, smarter than we did it before. Yeah, if you blithely ignore that A you're doing your job as slowly and badly and efficiently as you always have and not taking advantage of the opportunity to improve. But everybody else is right.

00:06:51:13 - 00:07:23:11
Marisa Eikenberry
I know that there's been a huge conversation about AI in general and you have some people that are just like, That's stupid. I'm going to ignore it. I'm not going to pay attention at all. And like, I'm not saying that you need to figure out AI and every piece of your job. Like, no, like, absolutely not. But people who are completely ignoring AI are going to be behind the people who have figured out how to make it work in their job or figured out how to utilize it in their business and doing things faster, better, smarter than those that aren't touching it at all.

00:07:23:14 - 00:07:36:20
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, and it's it's a it's an issue because there are things AI is behavior neutral. It is neither good nor bad. It is just a thing. That's what I have to keep telling myself. Yeah.

00:07:36:22 - 00:07:39:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. It is only as good as whatever you put in it.

00:07:39:06 - 00:07:53:14
Wayne Turmel
Right. For example, and I can't remember if I've told this story before when Kevin insisted that I get a chatty account and start playing with it, the first thing I did was I said, Give me a bio of author Wayne Turmel, and I.

00:07:53:14 - 00:07:54:21
Marisa Eikenberry
Did this for you too.

00:07:54:23 - 00:08:07:17
Wayne Turmel
He gave me two paragraphs. Great stuff, well-written, concise. It also gave me a degree. I do not possess and credited me with a book I did not write.

00:08:07:19 - 00:08:19:15
Marisa Eikenberry
That happened to me when I put in my own name just to be like, What is it because I'm so intertwined with you? With this podcast? It had your credentials as mine, which I was like, It's very flattering.

00:08:19:20 - 00:08:48:04
Wayne Turmel
And hey, listen, bask in the past in the radiated glow and know you are welcome to whatever humble bits of glory I can share with you. But here's the thing. It took me 30 seconds to fix the problem, and suddenly I had a really good buy that I, by the way, have copied and pasted and used.

00:08:48:06 - 00:08:59:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. I use A.I. to help out with podcast features. Sometimes finding things like timestamps of our main points and things like that. Like there are good reasons to use A.I..

00:08:59:13 - 00:09:18:16
Wayne Turmel
So let's get specific to what some of the things that this is not. And I got no so of course qualified to have the, you know, do we need to worship our robots? Overlord overlords discussion but it's there's some stuff here that we need to think about, right?

00:09:18:21 - 00:09:33:03
Marisa Eikenberry
So I mean, like we talked about already, you know that the AI campaign is going be able to give real time feedback on how fast and how often you're talking versus listening so you can adjust in the moment. That's a quote straight from the Zoom blog. But some of the other things that I think are kind of interesting.

00:09:33:05 - 00:09:35:13
Wayne Turmel
Right now, the AI saying Marisa Brie, you.

00:09:35:18 - 00:09:56:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Know, which. Okay, actually, before we get on to that, like all I can think too, is some of these features and we'll talk about more of them here in a minute. To me, it feels like it's adding an extra distraction when we're already having an issue, keeping people's attention and engagement in meetings. What are your thoughts on that?

00:09:56:11 - 00:10:08:04
Wayne Turmel
Oh, yes. And okay. Yes, that's absolutely like I said, as a presentation skills coach, the minute I say look at your audience, people's brains freak out.

00:10:08:06 - 00:10:09:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:10:09:16 - 00:10:36:03
Wayne Turmel
Because they have to consciously do something that they have been doing unconsciously. And the minute you do that, it's uncomfortable and weird. So that feedback in real time, if I'm expecting it, if I've said, Hey, you know, let me know if I'm speaking too quickly and it says you're speaking too quickly, that's valuable feedback to me. I'm expecting it.

00:10:36:05 - 00:10:43:06
Wayne Turmel
I'm looking for it. I am using that to achieve a goal. This is now useful information.

00:10:43:08 - 00:10:45:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm. That makes sense.

00:10:45:16 - 00:11:16:01
Wayne Turmel
Right? So it's also really good where I expect this is going to be super helpful. It's forensically okay. And I don't mean cutting open bodies. I mean, after the meeting, you can ask it to analyze your presentation. You can ask it to analyze your mean who spoke the most on the meeting and how much did they contribute. And we find out that Bob is just monopolizing the meeting and we have the efforts.

00:11:16:03 - 00:11:20:03
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Now, it's no longer our word against Bob's.

00:11:20:05 - 00:11:52:21
Wayne Turmel
So I can see where and this caveat goes with everything involving A.I.. If you're conscious of what you are going to use the information for and you are ethical about how you use that information, it will be incredibly helpful. It's like the simultaneous translation stuff. How can that not be Google Friend? We have automatic transcribe option that is happening.

00:11:52:22 - 00:12:14:17
Wayne Turmel
I can take and they've had the app for a while where I can take notes which basically what it does is somebody talks for a period of time and then they summarize, right? So if I'm speaking on the meeting, there's going to be a big chunk of information there. But and then Marisa asked this.

00:12:14:19 - 00:12:16:11
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00:12:16:13 - 00:12:48:17
Wayne Turmel
That's useful. That's really helpful information. So, you know, this stuff is like I say, you have to understand why they're giving you. What are you supposed to do with the information? Because it it's easy to just get completely overloaded by all of the feedback that you're getting. I mean, one thing is, as a human being, if I'm giving you feedback on your presentation skills, I'd stick there.

00:12:48:17 - 00:12:50:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:12:50:06 - 00:12:54:16
Wayne Turmel
If I said everything that you were doing wrong.

00:12:54:18 - 00:12:55:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:12:55:17 - 00:13:16:18
Wayne Turmel
Or that you could do better, you're I would roll up in the back of your head and your head would explode. And you wouldn't hate me forever. Right? I pick my shots if somebody is an experienced presenter. Mm hmm. I will give them very specific, like concrete, perhaps techie advice.

00:13:16:20 - 00:13:18:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:13:18:15 - 00:13:52:13
Wayne Turmel
Because they're already working at a certain competence level and they want to get better and improve, but they're going to improve incrementally if somebody it's just awful. If somebody can barely put two words together and there are people like that and I've worked with them my entire career, if I can just get them to breathe and look at the camera, that's the way I'm going to coach them differently and give them different feedback than somebody who is super competent and trying to.

00:13:52:15 - 00:13:53:19
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, get to the next level.

00:13:54:00 - 00:13:58:07
Wayne Turmel
Get to the next level. I can make that decision.

00:13:58:09 - 00:14:00:16
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? I cannot.

00:14:00:17 - 00:14:17:04
Wayne Turmel
Right. And I cannot or at least doesn't. Yeah, Yeah. So if, you know, Bob gets feedback from the A.I. and it says, Yeah, you could slow down a little. And then Mary gets feedback from the A.I. that says page 105 and it's you.

00:14:17:06 - 00:14:17:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Mary.

00:14:17:14 - 00:14:22:22
Wayne Turmel
My list of stuff you're going to destroy Mary. And that's not the intent.

00:14:23:01 - 00:14:46:11
Marisa Eikenberry
All right. Well, and so, I mean, I know that we've talked a lot about what it will be like for presentation skills, but one of the other things that it also talks about is real time feedback on people's presence in meetings. Now, to me, I take that as, you know, they're going to zoom is going to tell, you know, my boss, whomever is running the meeting, if I look over at my screen next to me.

00:14:46:15 - 00:14:59:11
Marisa Eikenberry
But what the AI doesn't know is I'm looking over at my screen and I'm typing something because, you know, Kevin just asked a question and I'm going to find out what the answer is without interrupting the meeting. But I don't know that.

00:14:59:13 - 00:15:40:01
Wayne Turmel
This is a supercharged version of something that the original web platform tools used using guide and got away from because they got used for evil more than good early days, WebEx and the stuff that Microsoft started with and all the dozens of tools that no longer exist, they have a thing. They still have it called the attention meter, where you can tell whether the screen that somebody has open is your meeting or if they've minimized it or open another screen in front of it.

00:15:40:03 - 00:15:41:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:15:41:07 - 00:16:12:06
Wayne Turmel
And as with all things that got horribly abused, people would say, don't you dare open a screen when I'm talking to you or you know, darn it, Marisa, come back. You know, I can see that you're not paying attention. Well, that's evil and stupid and largely untrue. So why are you using the tools now when I get that feedback that maybe people maybe it's time for a break?

00:16:12:08 - 00:16:13:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:16:13:09 - 00:16:25:20
Wayne Turmel
Maybe I should give them a compelling reason to actually pay attention. There's a wacky notion. I look at that as feedback for me as the presenter as much as anything else.

00:16:25:22 - 00:16:30:12
Marisa Eikenberry
And I can see that being a really good reason to use that kind of software for sure.

00:16:30:14 - 00:16:41:08
Wayne Turmel
And so again, to say we're going to give you feedback, then tell me what I'm supposed to do with it.

00:16:41:10 - 00:17:04:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I know that we're still very much in the early days. They just announced this very recently, but I'm I'm going to be very interested to see that piece of things when it comes out in the spring. But one of the other things that I think is already enabled now is during a meeting you're going to be able to ask to a companion to help you research critical information, help fill out support tickets.

00:17:04:23 - 00:17:22:02
Marisa Eikenberry
So that way, to your point, we don't have to open up another window. We can be more engaged in the meeting, which is fair. But the other thing that I find fascinating with this companion is that if you're late to a meeting, you can ask the companion questions about what you've missed.

00:17:22:04 - 00:17:27:12
Wayne Turmel
And again, this gets back to the trend. You know, this is transcription on steroids, right?

00:17:27:13 - 00:17:28:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:17:28:11 - 00:17:37:06
Wayne Turmel
I mean, how many times have you gotten to a meeting late and you turn to the person next? You can go, What did I miss? And they say this, this and this, and now you're caught.

00:17:37:08 - 00:17:43:16
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, yeah. Or you heard something, but you didn't pay attention for a second and you got to figure out what they just said.

00:17:43:16 - 00:17:56:19
Wayne Turmel
I don't have them or instance sitting next to me that I can lean over and whisper. Right. I've got whatever horrible Anglo-Saxon name they're going to give the guy all over.

00:17:56:21 - 00:17:59:14
Marisa Eikenberry
He's just a I companion, so it may not have a name.

00:17:59:16 - 00:18:03:07
Wayne Turmel
Oh, we're humans. We will name, you know we will.

00:18:03:10 - 00:18:25:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. So I do find that part really fascinating. And just this idea that, like, you can ask questions during the meeting without necessarily interrupting the meeting to ask a question. So that could be very helpful and very fascinating. And the other thing is that when the meeting is over, it will actually like we've already talked about, you know, it's summarizing as we're going.

00:18:25:09 - 00:18:52:18
Marisa Eikenberry
So it'll provide a summary after the meeting. It will also do what they're calling smart clips and so little pieces of the meeting about different subjects that you don't have to rewatch the entire meeting. You can just get that section about that particular topic. I know that sometimes AI is not always great about clipping, so I'll kind of be interested to see how it clips things because it tends to cut off things that should have been in a section.

00:18:52:20 - 00:19:00:03
Wayne Turmel
But we also know that a good percentage of the people listening to us right now came to us because I took some clips.

00:19:00:07 - 00:19:01:00
Marisa Eikenberry
That's true is.

00:19:01:01 - 00:19:26:11
Wayne Turmel
Goes and they said, Oh, that sounds really interesting. So we already know that this happens, but it's also and we're out of time for the other stuff. But I just let me wrap this up. Yeah. It's also one of the things that happens right now is if somebody can't make the meeting, Kevin records the meeting.

00:19:26:13 - 00:19:27:06
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:19:27:08 - 00:20:00:02
Wayne Turmel
Well, a couple of things. First of all, a lot of organizations, their i.t department won't let them do that because of bandwidth and network problems. Right? And we don't want people recording stuff that shouldn't be recording, in fact, kinds of things. So that's not going to work. But even if they do record it, you really want to sit through an hour in the first 20 minutes as status reports and stuff you don't care about to find the piece of the meeting that you actually do want to hear.

00:20:00:07 - 00:20:01:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:20:01:09 - 00:20:17:10
Wayne Turmel
I can help you do that. And you can actually say, you know what? We're not going to include the status report, so let's get right to the discussion on X. That's kind of cool. Yeah. And that's an actual productivity tool.

00:20:17:12 - 00:20:37:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, they could actually be really helpful. I know it'll also add like action items and here's who to email and all that kind of stuff. So it's going to be very interesting to see how this continues to play out and if any of you have access to some of these tools and are testing these out, let us know because I want to see how this works.

00:20:37:13 - 00:20:49:07
Wayne Turmel
Well, and I promise that I will be doing some more research on this. The important thing is that we are they're not going to be making fewer tools.

00:20:49:09 - 00:20:50:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:20:50:17 - 00:20:51:08
Wayne Turmel
Away.

00:20:51:10 - 00:20:52:07
Marisa Eikenberry
There will always be a.

00:20:52:07 - 00:21:19:12
Wayne Turmel
Duty to happen. And every idea, no matter how harebrained, started with somebody trying to solve a problem, whether it does it effectively or not, is a open question. But these things were created for a reason, and so they are worth investigating and we need to adapt, adopt the things that make sense to adopt. We need to figure out what we want.

00:21:19:12 - 00:21:33:02
Wayne Turmel
Our machine overlords to help us with and what we don't need. And we need to maintain our critical faculties to not take everything that comes at us as gospel.

00:21:33:04 - 00:21:36:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely. I get things wrong all the time.

00:21:36:07 - 00:22:03:20
Wayne Turmel
Well, it's not even that A.I. gets things wrong. It can't create content. It can't tailor information to individual humans. It can't tell the difference between a joke and a statement, which, if it's analyzing me, is going to cause problems. Yes. So there will be much more about this. Thank you for joining us, Marisa. Bring us home.

00:22:03:20 - 00:22:21:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Thank you so much for talking to us about this. I have no doubt that this will be one of many A.I. conversations as we go. And like I said, any of you listeners that have questions about this, topics that you want us to cover in this, please let us know. And thank you for listening to the long distance work life for Shownotes Transcripts and other resources.

00:22:21:23 - 00:22:41:22
Marisa Eikenberry
Make sure to visit longdistanceworklife.com if you haven't yet, subscribe to the show so you don't miss any future episodes. And while you're there, be sure to like and review. This helps us know what you love about our show. Feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes. Let us know that you listen to this episode or even suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode.

00:22:42:01 - 00:22:55:19
Marisa Eikenberry
We'd love to hear from you. And if you'd like to learn more about remote teams, order Wayne and Kevin Eikenberry's new book, The Long Distance Team, you can learn more about the book at Long Distance team book Dot.com. Thanks for joining us. As Wayne likes to say, don’t let the weasels get you down.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
00:49 Zoom's new AI features
01:19 AI in web meeting platforms isn't new
02:31 AI Companion provides real-time feedback on presentation skills
04:06 Importance of staying updated on platform features
06:01 Benefits of utilizing AI in job or business
07:23 AI is behavior neutral
08:07 Personal experiences with AI inaccuracies
08:48 Practical uses of AI
09:18 Considerations and discussion on AI usage
09:33 Discussion on the potential distractions of AI in meetings
10:08 Importance of conscious use and ethical considerations of AI feedback
11:16 AI's forensic analysis of presentations and meeting contributions
14:46 Real-time feedback on presence in meetings and potential misuse
16:12 Feedback on attention as a tool for presenter improvement
17:04 AI companion's role in research and catching up in meetings
18:25 Summarize and provide smart clips after meetings
20:37 Request for feedback from listeners testing AI tools
21:19 Importance of critically evaluating AI tools and information
22:21 Conclusion

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

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Guests, Leadership, Technology, Working Remotely

Keeping Teams Engaged in the Digital Age with Vivek Nigam

Vivek Nigam, of ReTeam, discusses the challenges organizations face with team engagement and retention in the changing work landscape. He emphasizes the importance of building a culture of engagement, participation, and belonging to improve productivity, innovation, and retention. ReTeam offers a platform and service model that helps leaders and individual contributors enhance team dynamics and make engagement easier. Vivek also highlights the value of natural intelligence in combination with AI tools to augment human interactions and improve communication.

Key Takeaways

1. Organizations need to adapt to the changing work landscape and focus on improving team engagement, participation, and a sense of belonging.
2. ReTeam provides a platform and service model to help leaders and individual contributors enhance team dynamics and make engagement easier.
3. Natural intelligence, combined with AI tools, can augment human interactions and improve communication.
4. ReTeam's AI tools can assist with tasks such as drafting recognition messages, sentiment analysis, and providing personalized suggestions based on individual profiles.

Featured Guest

Name: Vivek Nigam

About Vivek: Founder and CEO of BeRemote. With over 25 years of experience in software architecture, design, and development, he has a passion for creating innovative solutions that improve engagement, collaboration, and inclusion in the workplace.

View Full Transcript

00:00:08:05 - 00:00:09:02
Wayne Turmel
Hello there, buddy.

00:00:09:03 - 00:00:35:11
Wayne Turmel
Welcome once again to the Long Distance Work Life podcast, where we try to make sense of remote and hybrid work and just generally how the world of how we make a living is changing on a regular basis. My name is Wayne Terminal. I am a master trainer here at the Kevin Eikenberry Group. This is sadly an episode without Marissa.

00:00:35:13 - 00:00:53:23
Wayne Turmel
But the good news when we don't have Marissa is we generally have somebody else really smart and interesting. And that certainly happens to be the case today. Vivek Nigam is with a company called Re Team. He is going to tell you all about it right now. Vivek, how are you, ma'am?

00:00:54:01 - 00:00:56:17
Vivek Nigam
I'm doing great. Wayne, Hey, great to talk to you again. All right.

00:00:56:21 - 00:01:06:08
Wayne Turmel
Well, you say that now. I generally find that wears off. So who are you? What's re team? Sure. What the heck is the deal?

00:01:06:09 - 00:01:27:23
Vivek Nigam
Yeah. So my name is Vivek among the founder of the companies. Copy, Remo. We also go by re team, their product called Re Team in the market. We work with companies who are experiencing challenges with team engagement as they adapt to this change of work, work, work, working place and retention has been strained with 20 to 30% turnover.

00:01:28:01 - 00:01:52:23
Vivek Nigam
Team engagement is lower by 15%, innovation is low by 25%, and traditional methods of getting people engaged just aren't working the same way. Right thing. We need some different methods. And with the new inflationary climate, you find that companies are, you know, revenues are even getting strained as well. So we want to work with companies who are looking to change their engagement culture, improve team participation, and build a better sense of belonging.

00:01:53:01 - 00:02:10:05
Vivek Nigam
Those to us are the foundations of how do you improve productivity, innovation and retention. So that's who we are all about. We have a platform, we have a service model, and we engage with people and we've got some AI that we've been integrating, although we're really big fans of what we call natural intelligence.

00:02:10:07 - 00:02:37:13
Wayne Turmel
Okay, so let's hold it right there and what you just said there. And we will have links, of course, to Vivek's Company and all kinds of good stuff on our show notes on long distance work life dot com. Okay, So let's get back because obviously when I have ten people on the show, my question is always what was the problem you were solving?

00:02:37:13 - 00:02:49:18
Wayne Turmel
Yes. Yes. What what was going on or what is going on that in your case, team leaders in particular need assistance doing?

00:02:49:20 - 00:03:10:01
Vivek Nigam
Yeah. So I'll tell a quick story and then delve into a few more of those things. So Genesis for this whole thing was actually growing up and watching my dad and how he how he went through his life. My dad was born in India. You were super smart guy, but running through the organizations here, he never attained that sense of belonging.

00:03:10:03 - 00:03:27:16
Vivek Nigam
And I remember the conversations in the kitchen between my my mom and dad. And I knew exactly what they were. Is my dad capacity for promotion yet again. And it wasn't like, say, the Met. He had three master's degrees and he worked hard and I thought he was out of the house all the time, but he never quite felt like he belonged.

00:03:27:18 - 00:03:55:17
Vivek Nigam
So as I was growing up, he gave me some advice and he would say, you know, when you start working, I want you to go out for a beer with everybody. Those are the things I didn't do and I never fit in. So when I started working out, find people that reminded me of my dad and people who are smart, quiet, hard workers, but just never really participated in team meetings, never really engaged with the team and wanted to find ways to get them to be more participative, give them a better opportunity.

00:03:55:19 - 00:04:05:14
Vivek Nigam
So I always made it my personal mission to help them. And I'll tell you, 100% of the time, when I gave them a stretch goal and they had that opportunity, they were absolutely brilliant.

00:04:05:15 - 00:04:28:16
Wayne Turmel
And so I love that you said that, Vivek, because that's actually my mission as well. I got into this crazy business because I knew so many smart, talented people with communication skills were holding them back. So whether they lacked the skills or they lacked the ability or confidence to use them effectively.

00:04:28:18 - 00:04:43:19
Vivek Nigam
Exactly. And sometimes you just don't know. It's not that you don't have the skills. You don't know what to say, how to how to use those. And so we built a platform around those trying to increase engagement, and we're finding some great results and robust mission of of a team.

00:04:43:21 - 00:05:08:22
Wayne Turmel
And I love that. Now, help me out because in our book, The Long Distance Leader, and what started this whole craziness for us is this notion that you think leadership first location second, right. That good leaders, people who are really good proactive leaders are making this remote thing work because they're doing all the things leaders have to do.

00:05:09:00 - 00:05:23:19
Wayne Turmel
What is the point of your technology and the work that you do? Is the point to reinforce those folks or is it to help everybody else who kind of isn't?

00:05:23:21 - 00:05:24:08
Vivek Nigam
Yeah.

00:05:24:10 - 00:05:25:18
Wayne Turmel
Doing so great.

00:05:25:20 - 00:05:42:09
Vivek Nigam
Yeah. Yes. And yes. What we find, a lot of times we'll run into people that say, hey, we got these recognition programs, we're doing these things, we're doing this stuff, engagement. And and I just love that. And especially somebody who says to me, Yeah, we built psychological safety and starts using those terms like, this is a kindred spirit.

00:05:42:09 - 00:06:07:17
Vivek Nigam
These are the people that really are making a lot of effort to do all the right things. So how do we help them? They're doing all the right things. They don't necessarily need what we provide, and that's okay. They're already achieving the mission that we're on. What we can do is make that easier for them, right? They're doing a lot of activities, doing a lot of preparation, and we can provide them some tools and some processes that just facilitate and make that easier.

00:06:07:19 - 00:06:24:08
Vivek Nigam
AS Yeah, so for example, a lot of our our tools are all about getting to know each other. And so these are things that you can use in the platform with one click and say, Hey, I'm just checking in to see how you're doing and get, get some responses and start to see a trend. Or I want to say thank you.

00:06:24:08 - 00:06:41:17
Vivek Nigam
And instead of having to do a formal event and make a big thank you, you can do it in one click. Record your voice and record your video and make it very authentic. Say, Hey guys, I just want to thank you for the work you guys did last week. And it's amazing how how impactful that is for people.

00:06:41:19 - 00:07:05:15
Vivek Nigam
So those are the things we want to get people into the habit of, of being being recognition based and thankful culture. And it just helps those people do that. For the remaining, I would say 95, 96% of people who have the right intentions and are doing these things but are so busy doing other things, we provide a platform to really help them build engagement and make this make this easy for them.

00:07:05:15 - 00:07:28:02
Vivek Nigam
So it doesn't is not something that has to take 20 or 30 hours a week to really engage your people. And we've heard numbers like that from a lot of people. So we do want to help that that that other, you know, I think is about 95% of people who know they want to do this, do some pieces of it and all, they generally feel like they could do this better.

00:07:28:04 - 00:07:54:22
Wayne Turmel
Now, you spend a lot of time talking about natural intelligence versus artificial intelligence. And I know the minute I said artificial intelligence, about half the audience's eyes rolled up in the back of their head, and the other half are, you know, willfully submitting to the robot overlords. But what is in your mind? What's the difference and how do they work together or compete?

00:07:55:00 - 00:07:57:14
Wayne Turmel
Help me with that. Yeah.

00:07:57:16 - 00:08:17:00
Vivek Nigam
Anybody who's played with chatbots or some other A.I. technologies and boy is just exploding right now. Right. These things have come a long way in a very short period of time. It'll give you the sense that human beings are going to be replaced and completely obsolete in a matter of years. It just feels that way. And we don't think that's the case.

00:08:17:01 - 00:08:39:10
Vivek Nigam
Right. So these tools are absolutely amazing. But we talk about when I talk about natural intelligence is the stuff that you and I, human beings can infer that we can see from each other. A.I. can pick up some of those things, and it's great at that. But it gives us the insights. It helps us be better. So we believe in taking A.I. and constraining it.

00:08:39:12 - 00:08:59:04
Vivek Nigam
So it's not just an open ended, you know, solve all the problems of the universe. It really starts to be okay. Let's go straight down to let's solve this problem. And the first one that we rolled out with, which we absolutely love find a better way to say something. It could be anything. Let's say I want to say thank you, Wayne.

00:08:59:04 - 00:09:16:03
Vivek Nigam
Thank you, Wayne, for for giving me this platform, letting me be on your show and people who are very good at it, they'll come up with something beautifully eloquent and it's wonderful people who aren't. And we have a person on our team. She's from Brazil and she says, Looking is my second language. And sometimes I struggle with this.

00:09:16:05 - 00:09:33:00
Vivek Nigam
They can go back to what we call the reaching assistant, leverage some AI, and say, Hey, I want to say thank you to Wayne and I want to make it sincere. How do I do that? And we'll come up with a nice paragraph that sounds really formal, sounds very businesslike. It's really nicely written. And they can use that and make some minor edits and boom.

00:09:33:00 - 00:09:42:23
Vivek Nigam
Now what you've done is you've taken I made it in a way that will enhance what we do interpersonally, and we think that's very valuable.

00:09:43:01 - 00:10:21:16
Wayne Turmel
So just so I catch this as a leader, you say I need to reward and recognize this person and I want to do that. I'm not really sure how you use a AI to give you that first draft to put it together, and then you can tweak and adjust that or you can say, Yeah, that's great. Zuckerberg I think that's the thing with A.I. and my fear is not that I exist, it's that people are inherently either lazy or rushed for time, depending on how generous you feel.

00:10:21:18 - 00:10:44:02
Wayne Turmel
For example, you know, the first thing I did with Shaggy and I don't know if I've ever said this on the show, first thing I did with Chad JP was write me a one paragraph bio for author Wayne Turmel, because I hate when people say, Send me your bio. And it sent me this very lovely, concise bio, which also gave me a degree I do not possess.

00:10:44:08 - 00:11:07:11
Wayne Turmel
And I did not write. Yeah, yeah. Now, you know, if I'm rushed and in a hurry, it would be really easy. And by the way, since Chatbot thinks I'm smarter than I am, cool, It's cool to just use that without using the the human thinking up front and then on the back end. Right.

00:11:07:13 - 00:11:23:16
Vivek Nigam
Right. Yeah. You know, and and as you as you recognized earlier. So I came from the tech world and it actually reminds me a lot of when I was in college, at one point, someone said to me it was a professor who said it said to give us all these software tools to analyze how do you do this?

00:11:23:20 - 00:11:46:20
Vivek Nigam
This an electrical engineering class, I think was and I said, remember, design happens here, right? So the thought process has to happen here and you have to strategize here. Everything else is a tool. And so in our minds, we take A.I. in the same way, even as fascinating and as amazing as it can be as much of a time server as can be.

00:11:46:22 - 00:12:16:16
Vivek Nigam
We also believe that the human capital, the human condition, the human intelligence that national intelligence is really critical. And we use that as a tool to augment what we're doing. And, you know, my lesson learned back then was I went to no cool software and I relied on that only tool. And sure enough, I didn't realize what I was doing and spare you the details, but I saturated a circuit and and handed in really proud, got back F and Y because guess what you did?

00:12:16:17 - 00:12:37:19
Vivek Nigam
You relied on the tool and not on on your thought process and your human condition. We think it's the same way. If we rely completely on AI, it is going to bite you at some point. We think the combination of what you do, what you think about that, you know, focus on human experience and that interpersonal experience, plus A.I. is really powerful.

00:12:37:20 - 00:13:07:12
Wayne Turmel
AI That's great, and thank you for that explanation. This is really in the weeds and I really don't want to spend a lot of time there. But does the AI I yeah, I take into account things like work stats. So for example. Yeah. You know, Bob is an introvert and Rajesh is you know really out there will is Taylor and adjust some of that to.

00:13:07:18 - 00:13:30:05
Vivek Nigam
Yeah exactly exactly right so what we do when you're kind of say something and say a thank you it does not right It tries to give you a level thank you. And that's done on purpose. One of our missions is to level the social playing field work to help people who aren't as comfortable and people are comfortable give them a little bit more of a closer.

00:13:30:07 - 00:13:49:16
Vivek Nigam
We never wanted to be everybody equal and one line, but get it, get the plane feel a little bit closer. So for things like that, it does not, however, we do a lot of other things. We do sentiment analysis. We do a lot of other components. Actually today we just talk about one that's going to be rolling out very shortly.

00:13:49:18 - 00:14:12:22
Vivek Nigam
We're based on the speech that you use. Like, you know, we do a lot of video. If you post something in a video, it is not going to take that and extract from it some to do some natural actions that we should take as a team based on what was being proposed. A lot of we would do is share ideas for innovation and based on the ideas in fact out what those are.

00:14:13:00 - 00:14:41:03
Vivek Nigam
When we do that, we actually feed in profiles for the user. And the reason we do that, if I'm talking and it knows when I talk, I, I talk all over the place, right? My, my mind will go this way and that way of, you know, kind of, kind of have a little bit of a tree of thought sometimes it will give me a series that may be a little bit lengthier, but one of the guys on our team really smart, much more reserved, much more organized.

00:14:41:06 - 00:14:56:19
Vivek Nigam
It's going to give them a shorter list. That is something that he can really manage and that the team can manage according to his profile. So, yeah, there is a combination of feeding in behavioral information and of an information perspective.

00:14:56:21 - 00:15:04:09
Wayne Turmel
One of the coolest and also scariest things I have heard in a long time is the notion of sentiment analysis.

00:15:04:10 - 00:15:04:23
Vivek Nigam
Oh yeah.

00:15:05:04 - 00:15:12:00
Wayne Turmel
That that is. And in the fiction writer in me is fascinated by yeah.

00:15:12:02 - 00:15:34:18
Vivek Nigam
It's it's really powerful we've got an engagement where we you know we working with the company that started out actually back in December and rolled out a whole new process and we were just there just to help build the engagement as well. And at the same time, watch the comments and the behaviors in the platform. You can see in December everything was very negative.

00:15:34:21 - 00:15:56:08
Vivek Nigam
People were not happy. People don't always react to change very well, but there's a lot of factors why. But then but the condition was that people were not happy. That's just sentiment. That's just based on what they're saying, what they're posting, what the things that they're doing was to see as as the company engaged and spent the time investing in the engagement month over month.

00:15:56:13 - 00:16:15:09
Vivek Nigam
Little by little, it got better and better. And I remember we had a little celebration when it hit neutral and said, Hey, now they're neutral this great today, they're positive, which was a great thing. And just use it as a as a tool. Like what am I dealing with? Like, how are people feeling? I think that's I think it's actually very powerful.

00:16:15:11 - 00:16:29:21
Wayne Turmel
So let's flip this. We don't have a lot of time left. Sure. Fascinated because this started with your father, the individual contributor who is feeling it. Let's put this on its head as an individual contributor.

00:16:29:23 - 00:16:30:02
Vivek Nigam
Yeah.

00:16:30:05 - 00:16:39:09
Wayne Turmel
How will I and the different tools that are available to us make their life our life easier?

00:16:39:11 - 00:16:58:21
Vivek Nigam
And so I'm going to jump to the grandiose vision piece here and you will see this and I'll give you a prime use case in working at a corporation years ago and and working with a woman I work with, she she'd been working at the same company for 30 years, 30 plus years, and she was a vice president.

00:16:58:22 - 00:17:18:00
Vivek Nigam
She heard her career was great. But she told me the story that she had started with another woman who's still at the company, same number of times. They started the same week. Both started as engineers, but the other woman was still an engineer. 30 years later and said, well, why is that case? And we spent a lot of time talking about this.

00:17:18:00 - 00:17:40:08
Vivek Nigam
And in in the traditional world it was that somebody from higher up grabbed her and said, You're coming with me. Let me teach you how to do these things right. So now think about that. She got a lot of attention and and her career blossomed and she grew through the organization. But the other one, her her peer did not get all that and didn't blossom.

00:17:40:08 - 00:17:59:13
Vivek Nigam
So what we want to offer to people who are individual contributors were maybe a little bit on the quieter side. Let us show you how these things are done. Let us give you some tools that let you contribute and be noticed and be heard a little bit more so that your career can also advance the way others do.

00:17:59:15 - 00:18:07:03
Vivek Nigam
You have that that opportunity? That's our goal. That's our mission. We've seen some great success with it and we're hoping to see a lot more.

00:18:07:05 - 00:18:35:14
Wayne Turmel
I love that because I know that went in 25 years of talking to managers. Yeah, the one thing that we feel like we don't do as well as we might, but is the coaching and mentoring piece and the fact that this allows support and encouragement on both ends. So this is really fascinating and it'll be interesting to see how all of this works out.

00:18:35:16 - 00:18:59:14
Wayne Turmel
Vivek, thank you so much as always. Folks, we will have the show notes links if you are intrigued and I can't believe you're not and want to check all of this out, please look at long distance work like Dot com. I am going to boot Vivek out of here just long enough to wrap up the show and say thank you for listening.

00:18:59:14 - 00:19:18:17
Wayne Turmel
You all are podcast veterans. You understand how this works, right? So please like subscribe, tell others about the show. We think we're developing a really great community of people who are interested in the future of the workplace.

00:19:18:18 - 00:19:25:23
Unknown
If you are interested. 4949 30.

00:19:26:01 - 00:19:51:17
Wayne Turmel
Check out Kevin in my new book, The Long Distance Team Designing Your Team for Everyone's Success. And please, please, please don't be shy. Marissa is doing a wonderful job with the show on Social media, particularly on LinkedIn. We are looking for your questions, topics, people that we should talk to and your pet peeves. Quite frankly, we're having a blast with that.

00:19:51:22 - 00:20:15:17
Wayne Turmel
So you can reach myself or Marissa through email or through LinkedIn. The links are in the show notes. That's it. Thank you so much for joining us. We are really, really excited to bring this show to you. We're excited to bring you very, very smart people like Vivek and our other guests. Thank you for joining us. Talk to you soon.

00:20:15:21 - 00:20:17:12
Wayne Turmel
Don't let the weasels get you down.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
05:23 Supporting proactive leaders and helping others improve
07:05 Differentiating between natural intelligence and artificial intelligence
08:17 The belief that humans won't be replaced by AI
08:59 Constraining AI to solve specific problems
09:16 Using AI to find better ways to communicate
09:33 AI enhances interpersonal interactions and is valuable.
09:43 AI can be used to save time and effort.
10:21 AI can make people lazy or rushed for time.
10:44 AI can generate a concise and impressive bio.
11:23 Human thought process and intelligence are critical alongside AI.
12:16 Relying solely on AI can lead to negative outcomes.
13:07 AI takes into account behavioral information and sentiment analysis.
15:04 Sentiment analysis is powerful and can track changes in attitudes.
16:29 AI tools can help individual contributors advance their careers.
18:59 Conclusion

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