the great mismatch - wayne turmel and marisa eikenberry on Long-Distance Worklife
Ask Wayne Anything, Surviving Remote Work, Working Remotely

The Great Mismatch: Why Returning To The Office Is Not As Easy As We Thought

In this episode of Long-Distance Worklife, co-hosts Marisa Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel discuss "the great mismatch" between organizations and remote workers when it comes to returning to the office. They explain that while there has always been a mismatch in expectations, the pandemic has highlighted the need for flexibility and understanding from both sides. They suggest that organizations need to understand their employees' needs before implementing return to office policies, rather than relying on perks like foosball tables or bring-your-dog-to-work day. Listeners will gain insight into how to navigate this great mismatch and create a successful hybrid work environment.

Key Takeaways

  1. The challenges of returning to the office after remote work due to the pandemic.
  2. The Great Mismatch: Polarization between organizations that want employees back in the office and employees who prefer remote work. 
  3. Pilot over policy.
  4. Return to office was always going to be a challenge, and it's important to be flexible and adapt plans as needed.

Timestamps

00:00:00 Introduction: Return To Office And Remote Work Challenges
00:01:40 Unexpected Resistance to Return to Office
00:03:17 The Great Mismatch Between Employers and Employees
00:08:02 Corporate Mandates For In-person Work Are Ineffective
00:09:11 Benefits of Hybrid Working Arrangements
00:14:02 Pilot Over Policy for Return to Office
00:15:59 Strategies For Leaders: Overcoming Objections To Returning To Office
00:18:07 Summary: Returning to Office After Working Remotely

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!

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View Full Transcript

00:00:07:20 - 00:00:18:16
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to 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. Say hi, Wayne.

00:00:18:21 - 00:00:21:13
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, that would be me. Hi, everybody. How are you?

00:00:22:18 - 00:00:23:17
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm good. How are you?

00:00:25:01 - 00:00:26:03
Wayne Turmel
I am swell.

00:00:26:20 - 00:00:44:12
Marisa Eikenberry
I love that answer. And well, speaking of swell, we're going to talk about some things that aren't going so swell and specifically return to office. We hear it talked about all the time. We all have mixed opinions about it. And so one of the things that I wanted to start with was we know it's not going very well.

00:00:44:12 - 00:00:48:18
Marisa Eikenberry
We see the headlines, we see people talking about it. But what exactly is happening?

00:00:49:20 - 00:01:01:11
Wayne Turmel
Well, as far as the headlines, we all know that we have to take that with a little bit of grain of salt, because nobody ever posts a headline that says, hey, the plan is working.

00:01:01:22 - 00:01:02:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00:01:02:16 - 00:01:39:21
Wayne Turmel
I have never seen that headline ever. Right. But but to be fair, there have been some challenges with remote with returning to the office and there are some things that have been happening. First of all, there was like all of these people quitting because they were like, no, we're not going to go back. And now there's a second wave, which for the record, I predicted, and you can find both Kevin and I talking about this a year or so ago, saying that there would be a return to office and then there would be this second wave of chaos that followed a few months after.

00:01:40:01 - 00:01:41:22
Wayne Turmel
And darned if we weren't right.

00:01:42:13 - 00:01:45:22
Marisa Eikenberry
We will link to that in the show notes.

00:01:46:05 - 00:02:08:06
Wayne Turmel
But we didn't know that that was going to happen. So, yeah, there are some problems with return to the office. And basically it's been that whatever the plan was and there were as many plans as there are organizations and the plans didn't work out. Now, you know, I'm a firm believer that if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans.

00:02:08:10 - 00:02:09:19
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. We've all heard that one.

00:02:10:06 - 00:02:35:05
Wayne Turmel
I am totally down with that particular thing. But there are some there's been some unexpected resistance. There has been a shuffling of things. We thought it would look like this, and now it looks like that. And sometimes that shuffling is kind of consensual and everybody agrees to it. And it's the right thing to do. And sometimes it's knee jerk reaction.

00:02:36:06 - 00:02:53:06
Wayne Turmel
But essentially, people didn't really know what to expect when they came back. And there has been this tension, this real tension between employers and employees.

00:02:54:04 - 00:03:10:20
Marisa Eikenberry
So kind of to to go off of that. There's a blog post that you posted and I'll link to it in the show notes, too, where recently you said that you were talking to somebody and they had said people are acting like we're insulting them by asking them to come back into the office. They knew that they would come back eventually.

00:03:10:21 - 00:03:16:00
Marisa Eikenberry
What gifts like did people really know that they were coming back? Is that part of this resistance?

00:03:17:09 - 00:03:44:12
Wayne Turmel
Let's remember what happened in March of 20. Whatever the heck it was. Right. Work. Originally, this was all going to be over by Memorial Day. We were going home for a few weeks. The cooties would die and go away and we would just get back to the office like nothing happened. And two something years later that turned out not to be true.

00:03:45:03 - 00:04:16:23
Wayne Turmel
So when we say people knew they'd be going back, yeah, they probably did. But they also didn't know that they would have to readjust their lives as dramatically as they did for several years. And then once people have adjusted their lives, now there's a transition to going back. And just as the transition to remote work was really traumatic and dramatic for some people and other people, it didn't bother them.

00:04:16:23 - 00:04:34:10
Wayne Turmel
Same is true of going back to the office. What has happened, though, and I think this is legit, is that, you know, I wish I had coined the term great mismatch. I really wish I had because it explains so much of what's going on.

00:04:34:18 - 00:04:36:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay. So what is the great mismatch?

00:04:37:02 - 00:04:45:04
Wayne Turmel
The mismatch is the difference in expectations between the organizations and the people doing the work.

00:04:45:12 - 00:04:46:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay. That makes sense.

00:04:46:08 - 00:04:57:23
Wayne Turmel
There's always been a mismatch. But capitalism 101, we pay you to do certain things. Yes, I can live with those expectations. Give me my check and I will just do what I'm told to do.

00:04:58:04 - 00:04:58:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:04:58:15 - 00:05:29:07
Wayne Turmel
That's how the system works, right? What has happened in the world of work, though, is employers, many employers, not all employers, of course, many employers, especially the senior leadership, not so much the the managers, but the senior leadership have said, well, so much for COVID. Let's get back to the beautiful before times when all was well.

00:05:29:19 - 00:05:31:11
Marisa Eikenberry
And acting like nothing and.

00:05:31:11 - 00:05:57:23
Wayne Turmel
Acting like nothing happened. And that's the problem. Employees said, Wait a minute, we upended our lives. We adjusted all kinds of things. Some of the things about remote working we liked, some we hated. We didn't get a choice in the matter. If we wanted to keep our job, we had to do it. You were worried that there would be massive productivity loss?

00:05:57:23 - 00:06:08:09
Wayne Turmel
Turned out not to be the case. We stepped up. We did everything you asked us to do. We exceeded your expectations. And now you're going to act like none of that happened.

00:06:08:22 - 00:06:16:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, it might almost feel like a punishment in that way. Hey, I've been doing all of this really great stuff, and now I have to upend my life again.

00:06:16:15 - 00:06:44:02
Wayne Turmel
For two and a half years, I haven't had to commute, which means I essentially got a raise, right? Right. Even if you didn't pay me, I've gotten several thousands a year back in my pocket because I don't have to commute and do all that kind of stuff. I've stepped up, I've done the job. I've proven that the job can be done, or at least part of the job can be done remotely by now without asking us or giving us an option.

00:06:44:12 - 00:07:15:15
Wayne Turmel
You are now at asking us to give up something we have that's called the endowment effect, by the way. Okay. You are leading people. You need to know about this. And this shows up in our politics all the time. It is a simple law of psychology that people react more violently to emotionally violently, of course, to the idea that something is being taken away than they do the excitement and joy of something being granted.

00:07:16:02 - 00:07:21:12
Marisa Eikenberry
So it's like so many things we react more to the negative option regardless of what it's.

00:07:21:21 - 00:07:32:05
Wayne Turmel
So the reason people scream about entitlements in government is because if you have to take something back or change something, people will feel like something is being taken away.

00:07:32:15 - 00:07:33:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm. Okay.

00:07:33:22 - 00:08:01:17
Wayne Turmel
Right. The whole Social Security debate here in the US is that on steroids? So people have gotten used to the flexibility of working from home. They've gotten used to having a little extra money in their pocket, not putting wear and tear on their car. And now you're asking them to give that up. And all they're hearing is it's because the company needs you to do that.

00:08:02:01 - 00:08:05:09
Wayne Turmel
It's kind of the corporate version of because I said so.

00:08:06:01 - 00:08:06:11
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:08:06:18 - 00:08:09:15
Wayne Turmel
I never works. It never works.

00:08:10:02 - 00:08:27:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, I know we're hearing all the time, too, about, you know, oh, well, the culture is bad, so we have to bring everybody back to the office. Everybody's like, okay, either way, I didn't want them to be my friends anyway, so they don't care. Or it's like, you know, they're happy with the people that they talk to or they do have relationships with them.

00:08:27:15 - 00:08:32:09
Marisa Eikenberry
And so it's like bringing them back to the office is really going to change that or they don't feel like it's going to change or.

00:08:32:10 - 00:08:38:15
Wayne Turmel
They don't feel like it. Here's the thing. Kevin and I get lumped in a lot with the remote work zealots.

00:08:39:00 - 00:08:40:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay? Which make sense.

00:08:40:09 - 00:09:06:12
Wayne Turmel
Are like, you know, in a perfect world, we would burn all offices to the ground and turn them into Starbucks and, you know, whatever. And I don't believe that. Right. I think it depends on what is the work that needs to be done. I believe that there is something to in-person collaboration. I believe that we are basically a remote organization.

00:09:06:17 - 00:09:11:09
Wayne Turmel
But Kevin tries really hard, at least once a year, to get us in the same room at the same time.

00:09:11:15 - 00:09:22:01
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I think at this point I'm the only hybrid employee The Kevin Eikenberry Group has, and it's only because I shoot video. I have to do that in the office. I can't do that from here.

00:09:22:08 - 00:09:29:03
Wayne Turmel
But that's the thing. There are tasks that need to be done in the office that you can't avoid. Right. And oh, by the way, you live.

00:09:29:13 - 00:09:30:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I'm not that far away.

00:09:32:17 - 00:10:05:19
Wayne Turmel
But that notion of. Yeah, you know what? You can work remotely and build relationships, but darned if it isn't easier if at least once in a while you're together and you socialize guys and you get to meet the new team members and you get to do that stuff. So there is a in the defense of the organizations, they are trying to do what's best for the business, and sometimes that's just a perceived thing, right?

00:10:05:19 - 00:10:29:21
Wayne Turmel
This you see this a lot in financial services. This business is all about relationships and networking and mentoring and, you know, for 150 years, banking has been done this way and will ever be thus. And therefore, it's, you know, you've got to come in right now seeing that there is some truth to that.

00:10:30:02 - 00:10:31:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:10:32:08 - 00:10:40:16
Wayne Turmel
And we will find out if over time, as people vote with their feet and decide, no, that's not what I want to do if they change that.

00:10:41:03 - 00:10:41:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:10:43:08 - 00:11:01:12
Wayne Turmel
But as with anything in life, if you come at it only from your point of view, you get this polarization. So you get organizations saying people are selfish and lazy and they just want to work in their pajamas. And, you know, we're paying you. Damn it. Get in here.

00:11:01:12 - 00:11:04:01
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Right.

00:11:05:00 - 00:11:21:03
Wayne Turmel
And, you know, people are saying, you know, if all I do is fight traffic for an hour a day, hang my coat over my chair, sit down, try to avoid my annoying coworkers and then go home, Why am I going into the office?

00:11:21:09 - 00:11:22:10
Marisa Eikenberry
And it's a fair question.

00:11:23:01 - 00:11:28:09
Wayne Turmel
It's fair question because people have taken those, too. Binary extreme.

00:11:28:15 - 00:11:29:00
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:11:30:12 - 00:11:51:16
Wayne Turmel
Now, if I. If you explained to me, you know what, we want people to collaborate. We want you to meet with your coworkers. We want you to have that flexibility. And oh, by the way, if you met more in the office and you did more of that, you wouldn't be on Zoom calls for you know, for 8 hours a day.

00:11:52:02 - 00:11:52:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:11:52:10 - 00:11:54:10
Wayne Turmel
Oh, I can get behind that.

00:11:54:15 - 00:11:59:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Sometimes people need a reason for why they're going to do something. I can get on board with a reason.

00:12:00:15 - 00:12:28:17
Wayne Turmel
And that's the thing, is that we don't give reasons when people say, I want to work from home. Why? Because I want to. Well, that's not going to convince your boss. Right. Right. So, again, we live in this binary world where everybody lives on the extremes, but the numbers, if you look at what people say about hybrid work, remote work, what people most people want isn't to never see the office again.

00:12:28:17 - 00:12:53:21
Wayne Turmel
It's more flexibility and control over their lives. So if you look at the bell curve and it's always a bell curve when you deal with human beings on one end of the bell curve, you've got about 10% of the people who the minute the doors were open, could not get back in the office fast enough. Right. They hated their children or they were lonely or whatever the reason.

00:12:53:21 - 00:13:20:22
Wayne Turmel
Right. Or they desperately crave human companionship. Right. There were 10% of the people who, if they work from home at all, couldn't wait to get back. Right on the tail end. You've got somewhere between ten, 12, maybe 15% in some industries of people who never want to see the office again, they have adjusted to working remotely. Many of them have physically moved right locations.

00:13:22:07 - 00:13:23:11
Marisa Eikenberry
Back to the office anyway.

00:13:23:21 - 00:13:40:08
Wayne Turmel
Their commute would be uglier than before. They enjoyed the flexibility of remote work. Many of that 10 to 12% are already voting with their feet because they're going, No, I ain't ever going back because I have a choice. Oh, look, I have a choice.

00:13:40:18 - 00:13:41:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:13:41:21 - 00:14:06:22
Wayne Turmel
Now. You've got that middle hump of your bell curve and people are on a spectrum on this, but they kind of understand the advantages of being in the office and they want that flexibility. Maybe they don't want to go in every day. Maybe they want to go in when it makes sense. Hey, we're having a meeting today. Okay, I'll go in.

00:14:07:11 - 00:14:09:20
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah. Or I know they want.

00:14:09:20 - 00:14:15:03
Wayne Turmel
Some kind of flexibility. But that's the. That's the vast majority of people.

00:14:15:08 - 00:14:15:19
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:14:16:06 - 00:14:20:11
Wayne Turmel
Fit in that center part. And that's where. Where the mismatch comes in.

00:14:21:01 - 00:14:21:11
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00:14:21:16 - 00:14:28:00
Wayne Turmel
Right. Am I being asked to do something that is giving up more than I am gaining?

00:14:29:19 - 00:14:30:03
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:14:31:13 - 00:14:50:19
Wayne Turmel
And the way we get around this is by I you know, if we're thinking about how do we make Return to work subclass, there are really two things. The first is don't put ironclad policies in place until you see how it works.

00:14:51:17 - 00:14:52:06
Marisa Eikenberry
Makes sense.

00:14:53:04 - 00:15:17:07
Wayne Turmel
Kevin came up with this brilliant term and he came up with it about a minute and a half after we finished the long distance team. So it's not in the book, but his phrase, and I love it and I use it all the time, is pilot before policy. Talk to everybody, figure out something that makes some sense, some compromise, even if it's not perfect.

00:15:17:13 - 00:15:45:06
Wayne Turmel
Compromise seldom is. Figure out something that is going to work and then let's see how it works. Is good work getting done? Are people collaborating? Are people feeling included? And part of the organization is, you know, is what we thought would happen working. And if it's if it is great, we can keep what's working. If it's kind of working, how can we tweak it?

00:15:45:10 - 00:15:52:22
Wayne Turmel
And if it's not working, what can we do now? But the minute you put it in policy and you say this is the way it is.

00:15:53:10 - 00:15:53:19
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:15:55:12 - 00:15:58:04
Wayne Turmel
Then it's almost impossible to adjust.

00:15:58:17 - 00:16:15:13
Marisa Eikenberry
So, okay, let's say why not just let's say I know we have leaders listening to this show now and in the future, if they're having issues with this return to office, then what should they be doing right now? I mean, I know that you just said pilot over policy, like, how do they get started?

00:16:16:02 - 00:16:28:22
Wayne Turmel
It starts with, do you know what the objection is? Right. If you're getting your senior leaders coming down on you saying, we have to do this, the correct question is why?

00:16:29:16 - 00:16:30:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:16:30:14 - 00:16:38:13
Wayne Turmel
And what happens if we don't? We need to act. Right. Where is part of you? The first part coming from?

00:16:38:23 - 00:16:40:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:16:41:05 - 00:16:45:21
Wayne Turmel
If the answer is because. Okay, that's not a great answer.

00:16:46:02 - 00:16:47:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Come up with another one.

00:16:48:02 - 00:17:01:20
Wayne Turmel
Try again. But then there's part of the second part, which is what? How do you feel about coming back? What are you worried about? What do you want to see?

00:17:02:07 - 00:17:02:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:17:03:06 - 00:17:08:22
Wayne Turmel
What do you think you're giving up? And what could you potentially be gaining?

00:17:09:14 - 00:17:12:11
Marisa Eikenberry
So to boil it down, you need to talk to your people.

00:17:13:00 - 00:17:46:16
Wayne Turmel
You need to talk to your people and the manager. And one day, we're going to talk about my absolutely brilliant managers, the heartbeat model. Okay. But we we are uniquely positioned to have a foot in both canoes to be terribly Canadian. You know, we have the ear of those above us. And the visibility that the individual worker may not have right.

00:17:47:03 - 00:18:07:07
Wayne Turmel
Right. So we're in a unique position to facilitate this conversation and we need to do it. As you look at return to office. Why has it been a mess? Well, what are the things that are going wrong? There were a couple of things, right? One is people came in sulky and moping because they didn't want to be there.

00:18:07:13 - 00:18:09:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Attitude is always going to play into.

00:18:09:09 - 00:18:31:16
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And pretending like it didn't. And then not offering flexibility. It's like, good, you're back. Well, can I work from home a day or two a week? No. Just know that. Well, now you've got resentment and craziness and. And, like, that's the other thing is, remember that bell curve of people who were perfectly happy to say, Yeah, okay, I'll go in.

00:18:32:03 - 00:18:38:02
Wayne Turmel
They kind of, after a while, remembered what they didn't like about being in the office.

00:18:39:20 - 00:18:41:08
Marisa Eikenberry
The rose colored glasses came off.

00:18:41:17 - 00:19:07:13
Wayne Turmel
Rose colored glasses came off and they went, Oh, yeah, it's really hard to do quiet heads down work. And oh yeah, I really dislike sitting next to Bob and, you know, so it's like, Yeah, fine, we're back and I'm glad to be back in the social. Social interaction and, and excitement and not staring at the same walls and all of that's great and.

00:19:07:13 - 00:19:08:13
Wayne Turmel
Oh yeah, that's right.

00:19:09:10 - 00:19:24:20
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Well, and something else I've seen too and I know, I know we're about to run out of time, but like, I know that some companies in their way of, you know, okay, we're going to, we're gonna bring people back and we need to motivate them with something. Okay. Deejays in the lunchroom Really?

00:19:26:06 - 00:19:38:18
Wayne Turmel
You know, foosball tables bring your dog to work day. What You have to understand who your people are before you make that work. Yes. You know.

00:19:39:09 - 00:19:44:01
Marisa Eikenberry
So it's like, oh, D.J. in the lunchroom. Or I could just be my own DJ at home in my kitchen.

00:19:44:10 - 00:19:47:13
Wayne Turmel
And do you understand? Completely.

00:19:47:14 - 00:19:47:22
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:19:48:23 - 00:19:53:04
Wayne Turmel
Yes. Young pad one, You have you have reached enlightenment.

00:19:54:01 - 00:19:55:13
Marisa Eikenberry
It was going to be like. So, yeah.

00:19:56:08 - 00:20:07:13
Wayne Turmel
Return to office. What a shock. We made a plan. It didn't work out exactly the way we thought it would. That should surprise nobody.

00:20:08:07 - 00:20:08:18
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:20:09:00 - 00:20:35:23
Wayne Turmel
What we are trying to do now is say, What do we do about it? What do we do next? And that only happens through understanding of everybody's point of view, facilitating the conversation and reaching commitments and agreements and compromises. For now that we resist, we always and people are tired of hearing me say this We always reserve the right to get smarter.

00:20:36:10 - 00:20:41:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely. Now we do the best we can until we know better. And then when we know better, we do better.

00:20:41:21 - 00:20:46:06
Wayne Turmel
Okay. There you go. So that's the story on Return to Office.

00:20:46:13 - 00:21:05:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, thank you so much, Wayne, for this conversation. I think it was great and I hope our listeners get a lot out of it. And, listeners, thank you for listening to the long distance worklife for show notes, transcripts and other resources. Make sure to visit longdistanceworklife.com. If you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss any future episodes while you're there.

00:21:05:13 - 00:21:19:02
Marisa Eikenberry
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 and let us know you listen to this episode or suggest a topic for Wayne and I do tack on a future episode. We'd love to hear from you.

00:21:19:18 - 00:21:45:01
Marisa Eikenberry
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 LongDistanceTeamBook.com. Thanks for joining us. And as Wayne likes to say, don't let the weasels get you down.

Read More
Ask Wayne Anything, Surviving Remote Work, Technology, Working Remotely

Crucial Conversations: Navigating Communication Boundaries in the New Age of Remote Work

Marisa Eikenberry shares some recent frustrations when email was treated as a form of synchronous communication and how it pushed against her communication boundaries. Wayne Turmel and Marisa use that situation to discuss the importance of setting boundaries in the workplace, particularly for remote team members. They emphasize that if a pattern of behavior is established and not addressed, it will continue. They suggest that there are two options for dealing with this: accepting it or confronting it. They also offer suggestions for managers to effectively communicate expectations around boundaries to their team members. They mention tools such as scheduling emails and out-of-office messages to help maintain these boundaries. Turmel and Eikenberry also touch on the importance of setting boundaries in personal email as well as work email. Overall, this episode provides valuable insights into maintaining healthy boundaries in the workplace and offers practical tips for both employees and managers.

Key Moments

1. Managers and team leaders should effectively communicate expectations and boundaries to remote team members to prevent these issues.
2. Email should not be treated as a synchronous form of communication, and tools like scheduling emails or setting do not disturb settings can help maintain boundaries.
3. It's important to address patterns of behavior that violate boundaries, as condoning them will only lead to continued issues.
4. Setting personal boundaries, such as not answering emails on Friday nights, can also help prevent workaholic tendencies.

Timestamps

00:00:07 - Boundaries in Remote and Hybrid Teams
00:01:53 - Marisa Eikenberry discusses Workaholism and How She Establishes Healthy Boundaries
00:03:33 - Professional Communication Boundaries
00:05:22 - Effective Communication of Expectations for Remote Team Members
00:07:46 - Establishing Communication Expectations in the Workplace
00:10:14 - Consider Using An Out Of Office Message To Set Boundaries For Online Availability
00:11:56 - The Importance Of Setting Expectations For Email Communication
00:14:33 - Establishing Work-Life Balance Boundaries
00:15:36 -  Struggling With Work-life Balance And Setting Boundaries As A Manager
00:17:55 - Setting Boundaries in the Workplace

Quotes

"As a manager, when you see people struggling with boundaries. Do not take advantage of it."

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

View Full Transcript

00:00:07:19 - 00:00:18:00
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.

00:00:18:17 - 00:00:19:09
Wayne Turmel
Hello.

00:00:19:22 - 00:00:20:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Hey, how are you doing.

00:00:20:15 - 00:00:21:20
Wayne Turmel
Welcome aboard right.

00:00:22:15 - 00:00:44:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome aboard the long distance work life ship right. So today we're going to be talking about boundaries with your team members, with your boss, with people that you work with, whatever that work, whatever that looks like. So I wanted to start off, Wayne, because, you know, we have episodes all the time where we have a topic and you go on a rant and so it's my turn.

00:00:44:13 - 00:00:46:18
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm taking the reins. I'm sitting in the rant chair today.

00:00:47:14 - 00:00:54:15
Wayne Turmel
Excellent. I love this. Ranting. Very few people know Ranting Marisa, and she is well worth the price of admission.

00:00:55:07 - 00:01:12:08
Marisa Eikenberry
So there's another story I'm going to say later, but I'm actually going to start with something different than what we had talk about right before we started the show. But I had a situation, a couple of weeks ago where email was treated like a synchronous form of communication, and it drove me absolutely up the wall.

00:01:13:22 - 00:01:25:19
Wayne Turmel
So when you say that, when you say that it was treated as a form of asynchronous or synchronous communication, help our listeners. Yes. What specifically was going on?

00:01:26:06 - 00:01:53:04
Marisa Eikenberry
So I volunteer with an organization. I will not name the organization because I also won't be what the much longer for this reason. But essentially an email was sent to me after hours on a Friday and at Monday at 8 a.m.. Well, they hadn't heard from me yet, so they contacted somebody else that knows me. Well, she didn't respond and apparently also called me, but didn't leave a voicemail or a text message.

00:01:53:04 - 00:02:20:17
Marisa Eikenberry
So I couldn't respond to anything. We've talked about this on a couple episodes before. I'm a recovering workaholic. Like, I was so bad about boundaries when I first started. I worked all the time. I would I would respond to your email as long as I was awake. Like it was it was bad. It was really bad. And I have done everything in my power, and even more so in the last year to try and prevent that.

00:02:20:17 - 00:02:46:10
Marisa Eikenberry
And one of the things that I do is on Friday night, I don't answer emails. I don't look social media for 24 hours. I don't look at anything until Monday morning. I don't care for my personal email. I don't care if it's my work email. I do not look at it at all. And unfortunately, this person sent me an email at 8:50 p.m. on a Friday and then wondered why I hadn't seen it by 8 a.m. Monday morning.

00:02:47:15 - 00:03:09:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, versus how? It's fine. It's like whatever I'm at, but it's fine. And then a couple of days later, she sent another email, which I knew was coming. I just didn't know what time it was going to come at like 435 in the afternoon, I end my day at 4:00. I go hang out with my husband. I make dinner, we watch a movie, whatever.

00:03:10:01 - 00:03:33:16
Marisa Eikenberry
I don't look at my email at night. At 845 that evening, I get a text message. Well, you didn't respond to my email yet. I didn't know I even got it. And there was just this idea that email was going to be used as their synchronous form of communication as this, you know, chat or text in a way that, like, we don't preach here.

00:03:33:22 - 00:03:54:03
Marisa Eikenberry
And I've been very lucky to not have really experienced this very much in the last nine years that I've worked here. And I think there was just a moment of this goes against what we teach. This goes against the boundaries that I have set. This goes against everything we stand for. Like, I was ticked.

00:03:54:13 - 00:04:23:04
Wayne Turmel
Well, and understandably so. Right. Right. Here's the thing. I'm putting myself in the other person's shoes. Mm hmm. Obviously, everybody who works with this person knows how she operates and has allowed this to happen. And by the way, many of them may have may operate in the same way.

00:04:23:11 - 00:04:26:04
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah. And this is not somebody I never worked with before.

00:04:26:07 - 00:04:45:08
Wayne Turmel
So this is a cultural behavior thing. And the problem with human beings is we assume that our behavior or our position is the default until proven otherwise. And that proof seldom comes in the form of gentle correction, usually comes in the form of conflict.

00:04:45:14 - 00:04:45:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:04:46:14 - 00:05:22:04
Wayne Turmel
Right. So-and-so never answers my email. So-and-so is driving me crazy with text messages. We have what we have and we're doing what we're doing and we're communicating what we need to communicate. And our natural assumption, even to the outside world, it looks like insane behavior. But the most insane behavior has a rational purpose and and reason for existing, if you know what that is.

00:05:22:04 - 00:05:33:09
Wayne Turmel
Right. What's going on in that person's mind? Right. And so we've got somebody who behaves in a certain way as obviously not had this be a problem before.

00:05:33:20 - 00:05:35:19
Marisa Eikenberry
Which is so surprising to me. But yes.

00:05:37:00 - 00:05:58:19
Wayne Turmel
Well, because one of two things happens. Either she's working with people of a similar generation mindset or whatever. So they all kind of think the same way. And they've been doing it for a while. Mm hmm. Right. Or nobody wants to have that conversation with cruel.

00:05:59:18 - 00:06:04:03
Marisa Eikenberry
And I think that one might be might be the sticking point.

00:06:04:15 - 00:06:44:12
Wayne Turmel
And especially with nonprofits and volunteer type organizations. I remember I had a guy who worked for me on a part time basis who was at one point CEO of a very large nonprofit. And we were having dinner one night and I said, Steve, what is the best thing about leading a nonprofit? And he said, Oh, if people are motivated, they're not driven by money, they're doggedly determined, and they don't take no for an answer.

00:06:44:12 - 00:06:54:10
Wayne Turmel
And they said, Very cool. What's the worst that they're not motivated by money. Doggedly determined. And they don't take no for an answer.

00:06:54:22 - 00:06:58:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. The blessing becomes the curse in that way.

00:06:58:18 - 00:07:18:21
Wayne Turmel
When people are driven to do something and their mission is the most important thing. It becomes very easy either not to pay attention to the needs of other people or to assume that the needs of other people are always subservient to the needs of the mission.

00:07:19:14 - 00:07:27:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Well, and before we go too far down, because, like, I don't want anybody to think we're bashing nonprofits or volunteer organizations. No, no, no.

00:07:27:12 - 00:07:29:15
Wayne Turmel
Not at all. But we're talking about the behavior.

00:07:29:20 - 00:07:46:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. And so just kind of to build off of this, how can managers or team leaders actually effectively communicate expectations around these boundaries to their remote team members? Like, how can we set up these these things so that way stuff like this doesn't happen?

00:07:46:13 - 00:08:18:16
Wayne Turmel
I think it's like so much. We haven't had explicit conversations or if we have, it's been kind of one on one. Mm hmm. As a team, when you're coming together, when you're forming, storming, norming, all those lovely phrases about team construction and design, when you are coming together as a group. Have you had the conversation about when do you email and what are the expectations?

00:08:18:16 - 00:08:52:09
Wayne Turmel
What are when do you text? When do you use your webcam? When do you not? Those need to be explicit or somebody is not going to live up to somebody else's expectations because we all have our preferences and our styles and and whatever. One of the things that obviously nobody has told this well meaning person is and listen to me, dear podcast listeners, I cannot stress this enough.

00:08:52:20 - 00:08:56:10
Wayne Turmel
Email is not a synchronous form of communication.

00:08:57:09 - 00:08:58:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Amen.

00:08:58:09 - 00:09:06:04
Wayne Turmel
If you are sending an email and then sitting there drumming your fingers waiting for an answer, you are using it wrong.

00:09:06:10 - 00:09:11:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, it should have been a text message or a phone call or a Slack message or any number of these.

00:09:11:02 - 00:09:36:16
Wayne Turmel
Simply number of things that we have come to realize are more synchronous now. I can remember back in the day when email was kind of a synchronous form of communication because there was no other way. There was a phone call or there was an email and what we now use chat for. MM. Didn't really exist.

00:09:37:02 - 00:09:37:11
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:09:38:02 - 00:10:08:07
Wayne Turmel
Especially in the workplace. It's funny, we had Yahoo chat and all that stuff. Right. For our personal use. But it wasn't really in use in the workplace for a really long time. Mm hmm. And so and this kind of goes to expectations around when people are in the office and when they're not. And what do they do with their I mean, this woman would be shocked to know probably, that you can turn off notifications.

00:10:08:23 - 00:10:11:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. And that people don't check their emails a certain hours of the day.

00:10:12:15 - 00:10:24:17
Wayne Turmel
But here's the thing. Nobody had that conversation. Nobody had that conversation with her. No, you did not have a conversation with her before you decided to turn off your notifications.

00:10:24:19 - 00:10:47:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Well, and even I was going to say because of this and I've teased about it, but I'm almost I'm almost serious about it. I know that there are some people that use their out of office type messages when they're not online just to say, hey, I'm not online during these days or these hours. Here's when you can expect a response from me.

00:10:47:14 - 00:11:06:02
Marisa Eikenberry
And up until last week, this has never been a problem for me, but I've almost considered adding one for this reason, because there's a reason I'm not online during certain hours of the day and certain days of the week. And and people should feel like they're safe to do that.

00:11:06:19 - 00:11:32:06
Wayne Turmel
Well, absolutely. And so I've seen people do some really interesting things. One is they actually set their out of office on their email when the day ends. Right. They have two standard out of office message that they do. I'm out of the office now. I'm back in at 9:00 tomorrow morning. Talk to you that. Mm hmm. If it's an emergency, text me.

00:11:32:16 - 00:11:35:00
Marisa Eikenberry
Of course.

00:11:35:00 - 00:11:37:17
Wayne Turmel
I've also seen people put it in their signature.

00:11:38:08 - 00:11:38:18
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:11:39:19 - 00:11:55:12
Wayne Turmel
That says, you know, Wayne Trammell, Kevin Eikenberry group, blah, blah, blah. In order to maintain work life balance, I will answer all emails first thing in the morning.

00:11:56:03 - 00:12:05:00
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I've seen some similar ones. They don't say it quite like that, but they'll say I use email as a asynchronous form of communication. You can expect a response within 24 hours.

00:12:05:16 - 00:12:11:05
Wayne Turmel
Exactly. And at first blush that a feels really formal and weird.

00:12:11:10 - 00:12:12:01
Marisa Eikenberry
It does.

00:12:12:12 - 00:12:32:00
Wayne Turmel
Right. It's interesting. A lot of people do that with their work email. They've gotten better about that. What they don't do it with and I'm bad about this is their personal email. Mm hmm. I constantly forget to set out of office stuff on my personal email.

00:12:32:18 - 00:12:35:06
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I mean, I do too. I just don't check.

00:12:36:09 - 00:12:41:05
Wayne Turmel
Well, because you are a disciplined, highly intelligent human being and very aware.

00:12:41:07 - 00:12:43:03
Marisa Eikenberry
And it took me a long time to get there.

00:12:43:08 - 00:12:44:17
Wayne Turmel
And you weren't born that way.

00:12:44:22 - 00:12:45:17
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Hey, man.

00:12:46:08 - 00:13:19:10
Wayne Turmel
But this is. This is the thing that we talk about so often when there is not an explicit conversation, when we have not set guidelines that everybody has agreed to. It's the Wild West. Everybody is going to respond the way that they respond, and they assume that that is the natural order of things. It took me a long time to come to the very obvious realization that the world does not think like I do.

00:13:20:20 - 00:13:25:01
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. The day I learned that people don't communicate the same way I do, my mind was blown.

00:13:26:02 - 00:13:35:11
Wayne Turmel
I was like, Really? You don't do that. No, we don't, Wayne. You are a freak of nature. And you must understand how we mortals choose to deal with things.

00:13:36:02 - 00:13:38:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:13:39:00 - 00:14:07:06
Wayne Turmel
And so explicit conversations. But they don't have to be super formal. There is a biblical admonition that says the first time you have a problem with somebody, you let it slide. The second time you talk to that person, The third time you take it to the authorities in a crisis. I paraphrase, but that's kind of the thing, right?

00:14:07:22 - 00:14:16:18
Wayne Turmel
The first time somebody does it. You know, I'm a firm believer that once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.

00:14:16:23 - 00:14:17:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:14:17:17 - 00:14:32:01
Wayne Turmel
And so anybody can get frustrated and stuff once. Oh, yeah. The second time there is definitely a pattern developing here. By the third time, if you do not address it, you are in fact, condoning it.

00:14:33:00 - 00:14:33:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00:14:34:06 - 00:14:52:02
Wayne Turmel
There is the pattern has been established. If you don't do anything to disrupt that pattern, it is going to continue. And if it is going to continue, you have two options as human beings. One is to just get with the program and say, okay, when I'm dealing with moreso, this is what I got to deal with.

00:14:52:22 - 00:14:53:06
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:14:53:19 - 00:15:18:03
Wayne Turmel
The second thing is to get really angry and bitter and start gossiping and talking smack about here is a until we finally have to have it out and deal with it. I would prefer to do that in a civilized fashion. So to be able to say, hey, Marissa, and this is an important feedback thing for anybody when you do X.

00:15:19:15 - 00:15:23:15
Wayne Turmel
This is how it appears to me or this is how it affects me.

00:15:24:00 - 00:15:24:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:15:25:21 - 00:15:57:23
Wayne Turmel
Be very specific. Not just what are you doing sending emails after 830. Right. Or I'm not going to answer e-mails that come in effort. I'm struggling with my work life balance. I am trying to do this. And if it is really time sensitive, here's an alternative way to reach you. Have my phone number. Text me. That conversation needs to be explicit.

00:15:58:05 - 00:16:28:06
Wayne Turmel
As a manager, when you see people struggling with boundaries. Mm hmm. Do not take advantage of it. I mean, it is really tempting. It's like, Well, Marissa's going to be around anyway. I'll ask her this question because she's going to respond. You don't be that person. You don't want to take advantage of somebody's foibles like that. But when you're having your one on one, have that.

00:16:28:11 - 00:16:46:18
Wayne Turmel
Hey, I notice that you're sending a lot of emails late at night. What's going on there? Well, I have FOMO. Well, it, you know, freaks me out to show up in the morning. And I've got 32 emails waiting for me and it stresses me out. Whatever the reason.

00:16:46:23 - 00:16:47:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:16:47:21 - 00:16:49:08
Wayne Turmel
And there probably is one.

00:16:49:20 - 00:16:50:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Oh, yeah.

00:16:50:18 - 00:16:56:11
Wayne Turmel
I need to know what that is so I can coach you, help you let you know that it's okay.

00:16:56:19 - 00:16:57:04
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:16:57:19 - 00:17:30:02
Wayne Turmel
Because a lot of times and I know that I've said this before, but it is crucial. We as managers don't understand how our actions are interpreted. We know how we mean. Like I say, if I send an email late at night, just so it's off my plate and out of my head and I can get on with what I'm doing, my expectation is not that you're going to drop everything at some bizarre hour of the night or make the kids read themselves to bed so you can answer this question.

00:17:30:19 - 00:17:31:04
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:17:31:11 - 00:17:40:12
Wayne Turmel
That was never my intention. But now I see how my actions impact you. We need to have a conversation about boundaries.

00:17:41:04 - 00:17:55:20
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, into that point, too. I mean, now there are so many other tools out there that will allow you to schedule an email so that way it does reach them at a more reasonable hour. You can still get it out exactly when you're thinking about it, but it doesn't reach my inbox until 8 a.m. when I'm in the office.

00:17:55:20 - 00:18:21:03
Wayne Turmel
You know what's funny is about two months ago there was a change to outlook that I you know, they update stuff all the time. Of course. What about when I log on at seven in the morning? There is a little message in the upper left hand corner of my screen that says you are outside normal working hours. Do you want to send this email or schedule it for later?

00:18:21:17 - 00:18:22:15
Marisa Eikenberry
That's fascinating.

00:18:22:20 - 00:18:26:04
Wayne Turmel
By default, up in the upper left hand corner of your outlook.

00:18:26:12 - 00:18:30:17
Marisa Eikenberry
See, I haven't seen that because I'm only ever looking at Outlook during work hours. That's fascinating.

00:18:30:21 - 00:18:54:02
Wayne Turmel
You know, the sun revolves around the Statue of Liberty and so all business takes place in the East Coast time. But that's just it's in pale blue font up at the top of your screen. And I actually know I need to send it now because it's 10:00 to the person that's sending it to. But that's kind of cool.

00:18:54:15 - 00:19:15:22
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, Slack does something similar. Yeah. You know, if if I'm sending you a message, you know, the fact that you're in a different time zone, it'll tell me it's 7 a.m. for Wayne right now, you know, And I can still choose to send that if I want, especially if I know you're already online and there are also things to do where, you know, this person's in Do not disturb right now.

00:19:16:06 - 00:19:28:18
Marisa Eikenberry
You can send it and they'll they'll get it. But do you want to ping them? I'm also going to tell you to not ping people unless it's an emergency. I've been pinged for crap before that I was like, this could have waited until tomorrow.

00:19:29:16 - 00:19:44:11
Wayne Turmel
You know, it just occurred to me. Yes, it just occurred to me now. And we are running. Wait. Yeah. Forgive me. When software engineers are telling you you need to chill.

00:19:45:21 - 00:19:46:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00:19:46:15 - 00:19:48:08
Wayne Turmel
You need to chill.

00:19:48:16 - 00:19:53:20
Marisa Eikenberry
I was going to say me as a tech person. Like, I'm, like, chill, but shut off your notifications.

00:19:54:01 - 00:20:02:13
Wayne Turmel
It's clearly a big enough problem that it is worth addressing in the tool itself. That should tell you something.

00:20:02:18 - 00:20:03:03
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:20:03:18 - 00:20:05:07
Wayne Turmel
And set your boundaries.

00:20:05:14 - 00:20:24:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes. And I know that there's so many more things that we can talk about with boundaries. So we're definitely going to have to do another episode to talk about some of the other boundaries that you can set with other people. But for now. Thank you so much, Wayne, for answering these questions. This was a blast. I can't wait to dive into more of this topic with you in the future.

00:20:24:20 - 00:20:40:20
Marisa Eikenberry
And for you listener, thank you for listening to the Long-Distance Worklife. For show notes, transcripts, and other resources. Make sure to visit LongDistanceWorklife.com. If you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss any future episodes. And while you're there, be sure to like in review. This helps us know what you love about our show.

00:20:41:07 - 00:20:58:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our shownotes. Let us know you listen to this episode or suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tack on a future episode. And if you'd like to learn more about remote teams, order Wayne Turmel and Kevin Eikenberry's new book, The Long-Distance Team. You can learn more about the book at LongDistanceTeamBook.com.

00:20:58:22 - 00:21:15:16
Marisa Eikenberry
Thanks for joining us. And as Wayne likes to say, don't let the weasels get you down.

Read More
Remote Work Rants: Venting Our Pet Peeves
Ask Wayne Anything, Surviving Remote Work, Working Remotely

Remote Work Rants: Venting Our Pet Peeves

We're celebrating the one-year anniversary of Long-Distance Worklife by starting a new series where we'll be diving into some pet peeves of remote teams that you sent to us. In this episode, we cover people who think people who work from home are always available and coworkers who refuse to use Slack and use email for everything.

Send us your pet peeves if you'd like us to talk about them in a future episode.

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
Read More
Ask Wayne Anything, Leadership, Working Remotely

Creating Ethical Visibility on Remote Teams

Wayne Turmel and Marisa Eikenberry revisit the topic of ethical visibility thanks to some feedback from listeners. They discuss the difference between ethical visibility and self-promotion as well as sharing some practical strategies for creating ethical visibility in your organization.

They also discuss the role of leaders in encouraging ethical visibility within the organization and the potential costs of not prioritizing it. Wayne Turmel highlights the importance of conscious effort in creating ethical visibility, particularly in remote or hybrid work settings. 

Tune in to learn how to create a culture of ethical visibility in your organization and become a leader who values and prioritizes ethical visibility in the workplace.

Additional Resources

Related Episodes

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
Read More
Ask Wayne Anything, Leadership, Working Remotely

What is Culture?

Marisa Eikenberry asks Wayne Turmel about culture from his new book with Kevin Eikenberry, The Long-Distance Team. They cover: What is culture? What's the difference between microculture and macroculture? Can culture happen in remote environments or do you have to bring people back to the office? And they define some starting steps that leaders can take to improve their culture. 

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
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The Long-Distance Team by Wayne Turmel and Kevin Eikenberry
Ask Wayne Anything, Guests, Leadership, Working Remotely

The Long-Distance Team with Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel

Marisa Eikenberry interviews Wayne Turmel and Kevin Eikenberry about their upcoming book The Long-Distance Team, releasing on Feb. 28th. They cover who the book is for, why they chose to define terms like 'team' and 'culture' in the beginning of the book, and how this book fits together with The Long-Distance Leader and The Long-Distance Teammate. 

Featured Guest

Kevin Eikenberry

Name: Kevin Eikenberry

What He Does: Leadership and Remote/Hybrid Work Expert, Speaker, Trainer, Author, Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group

Notable: Twice he has been named by Inc.com as one of the Top 100 Leadership and Management Experts in the World and 100 Great Leadership Speakers for Your Next Conference. The American Management Association named him a “Leaders to Watch” and he is among the World's Top 30 Leadership Professionals by Global Gurus. Top Sales World has named him a Top Sales & Marketing Influencer several times, and his blog has been named on many “best of” lists. 

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

View Full Transcript

00:00:07:22 - 00:00:19:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to Long Distance Worklife, where we help you lead work and drive through remote and hybrid teams. I'm Marisa Eikenberry, fellow remote worker. And joining me today are the coauthors of The Long-Distance Team, Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel.

00:00:19:14 - 00:00:23:07
Wayne Turmel
Hello.

00:00:23:07 - 00:00:25:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Don’t everyone go at once.

00:00:25:23 - 00:00:29:02
Kevin Eikenberry
And you just told me this is your podcast. I'm just following along.

00:00:29:03 - 00:00:29:13
Marisa Eikenberry
All right.

00:00:29:17 - 00:00:32:16
Wayne Turmel
You know what? When it's just the two of us we do fine is all I'm saying.

00:00:33:12 - 00:00:49:14
Marisa Eikenberry
That's for those of you who've been listening to us for a while. You may have heard Kevin's episode with Wayne about returning to office. And today all of us together have the opportunity to chat about your new book that's coming out on February 28, The Long Distance Team. So can you guys tell us a little bit about what the book is about?

00:00:49:20 - 00:01:12:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, we didn't talk about who's going to talk about what, so how about I just do that? So the subtitle of the book is Designing Your Team for Everyone's Success, and I suppose that's part of what it's about. The book is really about in in the world of work that is continuing to change. How do we make sure that we're designing teams to get the results we want and creating the culture that we really want?

00:01:12:11 - 00:01:39:14
Kevin Eikenberry
So many people around culture want to think about what would we got one and what we want. And so many books are written about, Here's the culture you should have what you really are approach. Our approach is you should. You should determine the culture that you want. We would call that the aspirational culture, and then we try to help you think about how to create that and then how to move forward to develop and have it even from being a vision to being a reality.

00:01:40:05 - 00:02:07:01
Wayne Turmel
I think what one of the interesting things about the book is the timing, which is largely coincidental. Right? But, you know, it's better to be lucky than good. Sometimes we're at kind of a unique point where people are starting to return to the office from COVID. There's the great resignation, there's audio returned office, there's all this stuff going on.

00:02:07:01 - 00:02:34:19
Wayne Turmel
And what that does is it creates an inflection point, a moment in time where people can actually say, hey, let's think about where we go from here. You know, ordinarily when it comes to culture and making the team do whatever you want it to do, we're so busy doing it that we don't get a chance to stop and ask some questions and maybe make some choices.

00:02:34:23 - 00:02:36:18
Wayne Turmel
And that's what the book is about.

00:02:36:23 - 00:03:05:08
Kevin Eikenberry
And, you know, the interesting thing I would say is for every organization that Wayne is, Wayne is taking off his cranky hat for every organization that's saying, hey, we should step back and really look at this. And this inflection point gives us that time, which is correct. There are organizations that are didn't take that time and are floundering, flailing and frustrated and and this book, I think, can be the antidote to help solve some of that.

00:03:06:04 - 00:03:14:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. So with that too, like what is the who is the long distance team really for? Is it for the leaders is a for the teammates or is it really a mix of both?

00:03:15:06 - 00:03:15:21
Kevin Eikenberry
Go ahead, Wayne.

00:03:17:12 - 00:03:44:19
Wayne Turmel
You know, it's it's for small l leaders and what I mean by small L leaders is there are big L leaders. Those are the ones with leader in their name tag. I am the VP of this, therefore I am a large l leader. But there are plenty of people in organizations with or without positional authority who desperately want to make their workplace better.

00:03:45:21 - 00:04:05:10
Wayne Turmel
And you know, you can be a teammate by definition if you're a great teammate, you are something of a leader. But this book is really for people who want to understand why their team is what it is and help lay out a plan to make it what it could be.

00:04:06:14 - 00:04:29:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, one of the things we talk about in the book is, is there to get to cultures. There's the macro culture, the organizational culture that the capital L big L leader culture, if you will, as well as the micro culture or the culture of the intact work team, project team, etc.. And this book is speaking to those details.

00:04:29:07 - 00:04:43:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. But but on a big picture level, it can certainly help a big L leader think about this organizationally, but it really does to Wayne's point, get at how can we roll up our sleeves and do the work that's necessary to make this happen?

00:04:43:21 - 00:05:01:16
Marisa Eikenberry
Since we were talking about culture a little bit ago, so in the first couple of chapters of the book, you guys take some time to really define terms like team and culture. And some people listening might be like, These are obvious terms. We know what all of these mean. So why did you decide to spend part of the book defining what a team or what a culture really is?

00:05:02:01 - 00:05:13:21
Wayne Turmel
Oh, I'll take that one. It's because I get a rash when I hear some of those ten hour words. They become buzzwords. Cranky was back.

00:05:15:05 - 00:05:18:09
Marisa Eikenberry
On the show before.

00:05:18:09 - 00:05:25:00
Wayne Turmel
And that being said, culture is really as simple as this is how we do it here.

00:05:25:09 - 00:05:25:16
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:05:26:03 - 00:05:29:15
Wayne Turmel
Right. But that being said, what is it?

00:05:31:04 - 00:05:33:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. And it's different for every organization.

00:05:33:12 - 00:05:57:15
Wayne Turmel
What is the thing that we do and how do we do it? And one of the thing I think one of the simple but very powerful things in the book is we break culture this big amorphous blob of a word into three pillars and say, if you think about what makes up a culture, how do you identify a culture?

00:05:58:07 - 00:06:20:14
Wayne Turmel
We call it the three C's. How do you communicate? How do you collaborate? How does the team come together? The word we use is cohesion so that there are three CS and makes it all lovely. But collaboration. Communication and culture. If you can identify those, then you've got a really good shot at defining your culture.

00:06:21:07 - 00:06:28:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely. And we've talked about that in a previous episode too, and I'll make sure to link to those in the show notes. Kevin, do you have any thoughts on that?

00:06:28:09 - 00:07:01:19
Kevin Eikenberry
You know, just just. Well, I suppose I shouldn't say no and then start talking. I would just say that in part because culture is one of those words that, you know, people who write books talk about, or as is an R word, if you will, that that a lot of people there's misunderstandings around it. And one of the misunderstandings is that, well, we've got the one we've got, and it is or what happened a lot of the last couple of years is we need to get our culture back to where it once was.

00:07:02:03 - 00:07:27:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. And so and what we're saying is, why don't you why don't you come to a picture of an aspirational culture that you really want so we can be intentional about it? And again, to Wade's point, using the three C's to help figure out what that actually is like, you've got one, but it might not be the one that serves you best in terms of productivity, in terms of results, in terms of retention, in terms of accountability, in terms like we go around on the list.

00:07:27:11 - 00:07:36:00
Kevin Eikenberry
And so I think one of the big messages of the book is let's be intentional about the one we want rather than living with the one we've got.

00:07:36:13 - 00:07:54:11
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely. And I think one of the things that I've also really enjoyed about not only this book, but the content that you guys have been doing for many, many years now is this idea that there is no one culture, there is no one way to do things. It's going to vary by organization. And this is a perfect example of that, which I love.

00:07:55:17 - 00:08:06:14
Marisa Eikenberry
So given all of this, like this is the third book in a series, you know, you've written a book about remote leaders. You've written a book about remote teammates. How do all of these books kind of fit together?

00:08:07:15 - 00:08:08:01
Wayne Turmel
Oh.

00:08:08:07 - 00:08:32:22
Kevin Eikenberry
I'll take that one. So first of all, you know, we we didn't use the word remote. And I know that you know that Marissa Wright, the long distance leader, the long distance teammate in the long distance team. And, you know, it ends up being a series. It wasn't it wasn't meant that way from the start necessarily. And yet the way they're they're hooked together because that's that's the picture of an organization, right?

00:08:33:04 - 00:08:57:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Like, I'm an individual contributor. I'm a leader and we're a team. And so putting the three books together, I think, makes a lot of sense. I think the sort of this sort of finishes the story, if you will, in many ways. I'll say one of the thing, all of them start with the words long distance. And yet we we struggled or we talked is probably better in all three as we wrote them about.

00:08:57:18 - 00:09:14:21
Kevin Eikenberry
And so much of this is the same as when we were all in the same room. And so while all three books certainly talk about the nuances of doing these things at a distance, the principles that under our underneath all three books apply regardless of where your team's located.

00:09:15:00 - 00:09:37:23
Wayne Turmel
I would add something on to what Kevin said, and that is that something has changed since we were a long distance leader. It used to be people were in the office or you had people who were remote and you tried to find a balance and you tried to make it worse work, not worse as you. Dr. going to the front desk.

00:09:37:23 - 00:09:38:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:09:39:09 - 00:09:53:23
Wayne Turmel
However, now at this moment in time, we are faced with this new option, which is hybrid work and hybrid work. The thing about a hybrid is it is neither of the parents, Right?

00:09:54:09 - 00:09:54:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:09:54:21 - 00:10:19:10
Wayne Turmel
It is actually its own new thing and hybrid work. The thing that makes hybrid work different than being in the office or everybody being remote is the flexibility of time. And when you think about when do we meet and when do we meet and when do we not, and when does it matter that we get people together and when can we do something else?

00:10:19:15 - 00:10:40:16
Wayne Turmel
You're adding this element of time which is going to require everybody to take a good, hard look at how they work right now and how they're going to work in the future. And I think that sense of urgency around figuring out time and when does it need to be synchronous and when can it be asynchronous Is a new wrinkle.

00:10:41:11 - 00:10:58:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, it's definitely been something I've seen people talk about a lot. I do want to go back a little bit since, you know, I accidentally said, you know, remotely as remote teammates. I do know obviously that the books are long distance leader, a long distance debate. I wish one of you guys would have said something before I said that question, but that's okay.

00:10:58:12 - 00:11:37:00
Wayne Turmel
No, know what? That's important. That's an important distinction. Any time we are in the middle of a change, right, there's the language that we used at the time to do that a little inside baseball people don't care about how our organization works. But one of the things we're doing internally is we are changing the branding and the focus of some of our content to be long distance as opposed to remote because it includes the hybrid and everything in between.

00:11:37:08 - 00:11:59:16
Wayne Turmel
It's not just all remote. It's like at the beginning of COVID, the word was telework. That was the word. That's the word everybody used. And six months later, nobody was using that word. Doesn't mean that it didn't happen and it doesn't mean that people weren't doing the exact same thing we're doing when they were teleworking, But nobody called it that.

00:12:00:00 - 00:12:11:18
Wayne Turmel
And the culture and the language and the terminology is constantly changing. So the fact that you who live in this world all the time.

00:12:11:18 - 00:12:12:04
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:12:12:22 - 00:12:31:16
Wayne Turmel
Right. Are still kind of using certain terminology that can create confusion when you're trying to put a team together. That's why it's so important when you include everybody in the process and make sure everybody's solving the same problem and talking about the same thing in the same way.

00:12:31:22 - 00:12:40:00
Marisa Eikenberry
I know that we're coming up short on our time, but I do just want to ask, is there one takeaway that you hope that readers will take from reading the book?

00:12:40:10 - 00:13:00:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Building a team, Creating accountability, designing a culture are all things that we can do something about. We don't have to live with what we had. We are living in a time when when the world and the world of work is changing. And this is a perfect time for us to be intentional about how we want our organizations and our teams to work in the future.

00:13:01:14 - 00:13:19:01
Wayne Turmel
I think for me, I use a quote in the book, and I know that this is very consultant and very 1970s and it's kind of icky, but it's a great quote. Marshall McLuhan said, I don't know who discovered water, but it wasn't a fish.

00:13:19:01 - 00:13:19:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00:13:19:15 - 00:13:48:02
Wayne Turmel
And by that, I mean we live where we live and we don't always see we assume that everything is always like this. And we assume that everybody sees the world the same way we do. And the point of the questions in the book, which are maybe the most powerful thing, is if you ask these questions, you will have a better understanding of what you actually do and how you work.

00:13:48:02 - 00:13:53:05
Wayne Turmel
And that allows you then to say, you know, if we change this, we can do this better.

00:13:53:16 - 00:14:06:19
Marisa Eikenberry
So given that, you know, as as this episode is going to come out in two weeks, you guys will have a book. Do you have any book launch plans or any like celebrations that you're planning on doing as this book comes out?

00:14:07:08 - 00:14:22:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, yes, we do. First of all, you've got it on that. You've got it on the on the field of Washington video, long distance team, Booking.com. You can go there, get all the information about bonuses and things we're doing at the launch and special offers and all that sort of stuff. And get your preorder, your copy now and all that.

00:14:22:09 - 00:14:41:00
Kevin Eikenberry
But the book comes out on the 28th of February. On the 27th of February, we're doing an event called Virtual Leader Con dot com. We've done a number of these before. This one is all around issues of teams, cultures in the future of work, which is largely it may well be long distance for you. And so Wayne will be joining me.

00:14:41:02 - 00:14:58:12
Kevin Eikenberry
We've got a number of other guests, experts, authors, etc. joining us throughout the course of the day, completely free to join us for the day. Lots of offers about how you can get the replays and get a bunch of other great stuff, some other bonuses around the book. But you can come join us and we'd love to have you do that.

00:14:58:19 - 00:15:00:19
Kevin Eikenberry
Virtual leader Khan dot com.

00:15:01:09 - 00:15:20:04
Marisa Eikenberry
I want to thank both of you so much for being here and talking with me about this book. I know that we've all been really excited about this book coming out. It's actually part of the reason why we started this podcast was because we knew this book was coming out. So I just and for those of you who are listening, thank you so much for listening to the long distance work life for shownotes transcripts and other resources.

00:15:20:04 - 00:15:40:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Make sure to visit long distance work life dot com if you haven't yet. Subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss any future episodes while you're there. Be sure to like and review. That helps our show reach more teammates and leaders just like you. 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 even suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode.

00:15:41:07 - 00:16:12:16
Marisa Eikenberry
If you'd like to learn more about remote teams, preorder Wayne and Kevin's new book, The Long Distance Team. You can learn more about the book at log. It's a long distance team book. Dot com. Thank you for joining us. And as Wayne likes to say, don't let the weasels get you down.


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Why Ethical Visibility Matters on Remote Teams

Wayne and Marisa continue their conversation from their episode about The Long-Distance Teammate by discussing ethical visibility. They explore how remote workers and their teams can foster ethical visibility in their work, from understanding what it is to how to act on it with managers and teammates. They also discuss how leaders can recognize remote workers, and how to keep ethical visibility in check without overdoing it. Join us as we dive into all the possibilities of ethical visibility within remote teams.

Additional Resources

Pre-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!

 Pre-order
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The Long-Distance Teammate Anniversary Episode

Marisa and Wayne celebrate the 2nd anniversary of The Long-Distance Teammate by discussing the 3 P Model of Remote Work Success, the difference between team member and teammate, what it was like to write this book as remote work was becoming more prevalent in 2020, and what it was like to write a book about remote work remotely. 

Key Points

  • 00:42 - The 3 P Model of Remote Work Success
  • 14:10 - The difference between Team Member and Teammate
  • 15:40 - What it was like to write and edit this book at the start of the pandemic
  • 18:45 - Writing this book remotely

Additional Resources

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View Full Transcript

00:00:08:10 - 00:00:17:18
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to 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.

00:00:18:01 - 00:00:19:13
Wayne Turmel
And that would be me. Hi.

00:00:20:10 - 00:00:42:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Today we are celebrating the book The Long-Distance Teammate. We're celebrating the second anniversary. And so, yes, there's the book. For those of you watching us and I wanted to use this episode to ask some questions about the book and just more about this book that you've had for the last two years. So I do want to start with the very first chapter.

00:00:42:10 - 00:00:58:09
Marisa Eikenberry
One of the things that you talk about is the three piece model of remote work success. So for those who haven't read the book yet, this shows the three factors that impact the overall quality of remote work. So first off, can you explain this model for our listeners?

00:00:59:01 - 00:01:27:19
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And I'm going to show it for those of you watching on YouTube or wherever, you'll be able to see this. The rest of you will just have to follow along. What happened is when we set out to write long distance teammate, the question we had was what makes a good teammate? So we surveyed hundreds of people and said, When you think of somebody as a good teammate, regardless of where they work, what does that person do?

00:01:27:20 - 00:01:59:08
Wayne Turmel
Right. Right. What makes that? And what I found is that there were three factors and in good fashion. We like alliteration around here and we like it simple. And we found three factors that made for a great teammate. And fortunately, they all were able to start with the letter piece and the three model. Right. Look how clever we are.

00:02:00:01 - 00:02:37:03
Wayne Turmel
Essentially, the three components are this. The first is productivity, which at first sounds like a big duh. I mean, that's kind of the entry level, right? If you're not hauling your weight, if you're not being productive, people probably don't look at you as a great teammate. Right. But when we talk about productivity, we're talking about out we're really talking about getting the work done, the right work in the right way, in the right amount of time and by the right work, that means not only your work, right?

00:02:37:05 - 00:03:03:14
Wayne Turmel
You got to get your work force, but you're helping the team. Right. So you're offering assistants, you're asking questions as you're stepping in when you have to. So productivity is kind of the basic version of a great teammate. The other two are proactivity and potential. Proactivity was by far the number one word that came up in the survey.

00:03:03:22 - 00:03:04:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Wow.

00:03:04:16 - 00:03:30:04
Wayne Turmel
Which is what does it mean to be proactive? On one level, it's all if something needs to be done, you do it without being asked. Yes, that's certainly part of it. But when we work apart from each other, there's a higher level of proactivity demanded. Do you reach out to somebody without being asked? Do you step up and volunteer for things?

00:03:30:05 - 00:03:46:05
Wayne Turmel
Do you speak up on meetings? You know, if you here's a big one and this is really important in hybrid work and remote work, which is when you have a question, do you ask it?

00:03:47:04 - 00:03:47:16
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00:03:48:03 - 00:04:09:12
Wayne Turmel
Because so often when we work remotely, it's like, well, I'm not really sure, but I don't want to bother anybody. I don't know what Marissa's doing right now. And so I don't want to interrupt her or be a pain or look like I don't know what I'm doing. And therefore I'm just going to kind of keep digging until I put myself in a very deep hole.

00:04:09:19 - 00:04:14:17
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, it's so interesting the questions that we would normally ask if we were in the office, what would you. Yeah, we.

00:04:14:22 - 00:04:37:22
Wayne Turmel
Are much more comfortable asking them. And those include questions of our managers. Hey, you know, Kevin, you've given me three things to do. What's the priority? Right. Which order do you want them in? Right. Which is the kind of question that creates major heartburn when you're working remotely, because, you know, you get on a call and the boss says, hey, can you do this for me?

00:04:37:22 - 00:05:04:08
Wayne Turmel
And you go, Yeah, sure. And then you realize you don't have all the information you need or you've got, you know, timed challenges or something. And you do you step up and ask those questions. What great teammates are proactive. They will volunteer to help without being asked. They'll say, Hey, sounded like you were struggling a little bit. Do you need some help with that?

00:05:05:15 - 00:05:33:07
Wayne Turmel
And then the third piece is potential and is where you're taking the long view of things, not just for the team. Right. Why should I bother dealing with Marissa? You know, I can do this by myself or I don't have to include her in this. But if I do include her, she's going to learn a little bit more and she's going to feel more like part of the team.

00:05:33:07 - 00:05:52:17
Wayne Turmel
And there's a longer term value to involving Marissa in this particular conversation. It's also really, really hard to stay engaged over the long haul if you're not if there isn't a long term advantage to you.

00:05:53:04 - 00:05:54:03
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. That makes sense.

00:05:54:21 - 00:06:15:13
Wayne Turmel
So, you know, I can it feels very much on this show and any time you talk about leadership and teamwork, it always feels particularly for the manager, like you're giving and you're giving and you're giving and you're taking one for the team for a while. The tank runs dry, right? When you say, Why am I doing this right?

00:06:15:15 - 00:06:38:04
Wayne Turmel
Why am I taking let's take team communication. It can be very transactional. Why should I take the time to ask how you're doing and how your weekend was? Well, because we're going to build a relationship and we're going to like each other a little bit more. And if you like me, you're more liable to help me out and be proactive.

00:06:38:13 - 00:06:51:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. And Carolyn, you talked about this with Carolyn Stern about why we should be asking these personal questions and how the more engaged you are and the more we feel like human beings and not task completers like that's really important.

00:06:51:05 - 00:07:34:16
Wayne Turmel
And so yes, great teammates take one for the team on occasion. And we do give and we do go above and beyond. But there's a little bit of self-interest for us in that, of course, besides which, just it's more fun when you like, but you work with and the energy is high in those types of things. So the three P's are I think if I look at everything that's in the long distance team, mate, there are a couple of things, but the thing that resonates with our clients, the things when they say, Well, we're trying to build a culture or we're trying to build the team, or we wish people would work together better.

00:07:34:16 - 00:07:45:08
Wayne Turmel
Well, what does that mean? Right. Well, you've got three areas, right? Are they productive, really helping the team be productive? Are they proactive with each other?

00:07:45:16 - 00:07:46:00
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:07:46:13 - 00:08:19:18
Wayne Turmel
And are they taking a kind of longer non transactional view of the work? And it's amazing how many people go, oh. Because a lot of people, individuals now really believe that as long as they do their work, that's what matters. And when we work remotely, it's really easy to go down the rabbit hole. You know, before the pandemic, when remote work was this lovely theory that we were all looking forward to someday.

00:08:20:19 - 00:08:23:09
Wayne Turmel
Harvard Business Review did a really famous study.

00:08:23:17 - 00:08:24:00
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay?

00:08:24:06 - 00:08:31:05
Wayne Turmel
And they said do. And the headline, of course, was People who work from home get more done.

00:08:32:05 - 00:08:32:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00:08:32:22 - 00:08:52:22
Wayne Turmel
That was the headline. Like all studies, of course, it went much deeper than that, of course. But the fact of the matter, if you judge productivity, for example, by task completion. Yes, you will probably if you are trying at all, probably going to achieve more working from home than you do in the office.

00:08:53:01 - 00:08:53:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:08:53:09 - 00:09:22:13
Wayne Turmel
Because some people aren't stopping by your desk and there's no birthday cake in the break room. And, you know, all of that stuff. But when we looked at productivity from a team perspective, like people who work from home can tend to become very focused on their own tasks at the expense of the team. They don't participate as much in meetings.

00:09:22:13 - 00:09:29:16
Wayne Turmel
They maybe don't confer with each other as often as they might. They not that they can't. Not, of.

00:09:29:16 - 00:09:30:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Course.

00:09:30:05 - 00:09:34:12
Wayne Turmel
Don't just sometimes that tendency exists.

00:09:34:12 - 00:09:36:04
Marisa Eikenberry
We get a little siloed. I understand.

00:09:36:10 - 00:09:42:19
Wayne Turmel
And and and there are days when you want. I got stuff to do. Leave me alone. Right.

00:09:44:09 - 00:09:45:17
Marisa Eikenberry
Do not disturb on and we're done.

00:09:46:00 - 00:10:19:15
Wayne Turmel
But if the team is going to succeed and it particularly in a hybrid environment where it's not all a series of individual contributors working on their own work, we need to be cognizant of how do we get that team esprit de corps, that morale and we do that by looking at the make up a great teammate. Right. Are folks productive or are they proactive and are they taking a long term potential view of of their work?

00:10:19:15 - 00:10:30:05
Wayne Turmel
And so I think if I look at the book, it's one of the things I'm most proud of is having that model so that people get it.

00:10:30:23 - 00:10:45:01
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. So with that, you know, I mean, this book has been out for a couple of years. How have you seen organizations use this model effectively within their remote teams? I mean, is it really just you talking to them and them going, Oh, hey, I'm not sure that these things are equal.

00:10:45:19 - 00:11:12:05
Wayne Turmel
I think I mean, of course, we in them, we do training in a number of different ways and we use this model in a number of different ways. But I think what a lot of organizations have realized is that when, you know, the diaspora hit and everybody started working from home, there was a lot of work done on how do I manage remotely, right?

00:11:12:19 - 00:11:28:10
Wayne Turmel
I used to have my team all here and now I don't, and rightly so. I mean, leadership training is critical to a good team, but they also realized that they hadn't done a lot to help support the individual.

00:11:29:01 - 00:11:31:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00:11:31:13 - 00:12:02:05
Wayne Turmel
You know, other than here are some tips for getting your work done because that's all that's important to us kind of thing. Yeah, but really, people were complaining, you know, I don't enjoy my work as much as I did when I was in the office or I don't have the same relationship with my teammates. And so the model has really helped people go, Aha, we need to create opportunities for our team members to interact.

00:12:02:09 - 00:12:27:19
Wayne Turmel
We need to create opportunities where Marissa is really, really smart about this and Bob needs some help there. Well, Bob's in the office. Marissa is not. But maybe if we intentionally connect Bob and Marissa not only does Bob get what he needs, but it's creating a bond that might not otherwise be there if they didn't share a workspace.

00:12:28:00 - 00:12:29:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, that absolutely makes sense.

00:12:30:07 - 00:12:52:03
Wayne Turmel
And so as with any good model, and I think Kevin and I have done a good job in the three longest science workplace books of creating very simple conversations, starting models that have long reaching effects if you start to dig into them.

00:12:52:10 - 00:12:52:19
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:12:53:20 - 00:13:23:01
Wayne Turmel
Right. And I think that's the three P model. I think that's what that does. I mean, the long distance teammate was different in that it was aimed at the individual contributor knowing full well that members are also individual contributors on their teams with their colleagues. Right. Right. Yes. I'm the boss of this. But guess what? All the other regional managers are on a team, right.

00:13:23:11 - 00:13:26:18
Wayne Turmel
Right. And they have a one of those guys.

00:13:26:18 - 00:13:29:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, absolutely.

00:13:30:15 - 00:13:40:11
Wayne Turmel
And so that's what I think makes a long distance team mate different. There were books on the market about getting work done and being active.

00:13:40:21 - 00:13:41:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:13:41:22 - 00:13:58:13
Wayne Turmel
And there were books about leading teams, but not on what's my role on the team. Right. And we were very Kevin and I went round and round, and this is one of the few discussions with Kevin. I actually he won.

00:13:59:22 - 00:14:00:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00:14:00:17 - 00:14:02:03
Wayne Turmel
So I take great pride in that.

00:14:02:03 - 00:14:04:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely. Where's the job? Right.

00:14:06:02 - 00:14:08:11
Wayne Turmel
We started talking about team members.

00:14:08:23 - 00:14:09:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00:14:10:05 - 00:14:36:13
Wayne Turmel
And everything was the team member. And then we realized that there's a difference between somebody who's just a member of the team. Mm hmm. And somebody who people consider to be a great teammate. Okay. And just like we aspire to be, not just bosses, but remarkable leaders. I don't want to just be a member of the team. I want people to think of me as a teammate.

00:14:37:09 - 00:14:39:18
Marisa Eikenberry
That's a huge distinction. I hadn't thought about that before.

00:14:40:08 - 00:15:05:10
Wayne Turmel
Because you can be especially on teams full of individual contributors. You can be a perfectly productive member of the team. You get your work done. If somebody asks you to respond, you know, but people don't think of you. There's an emotional component to being to the word team mate that is different than just being another guy that answers to the same boss.

00:15:06:04 - 00:15:10:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. So I guess all of us need to ask ourselves, like, are we a team member or a team mate?

00:15:11:17 - 00:15:27:10
Wayne Turmel
And that's the focus of this book. And I still don't think there's anything exactly like it. But certainly when this came out and the timing was what it was, certainly nobody else was having this conversation with readers.

00:15:27:17 - 00:15:46:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Well, and given that, too, so, you know, you've started writing this book and what we have called on this podcast before the before times. And, you know, so right is, you know, a third of the workforce was beginning to work remotely. So what was it like to write a book that was so relevant to a topic that was currently spreading through the world?

00:15:47:16 - 00:16:19:16
Wayne Turmel
In some ways it was a little frustrating because the publishing cycle in and nobody cares about this is inside baseball. But the publishing cycle, it can take over a year from the time a book has finished until the time it comes out into the world. Well, by the time we finished the first draft, we finished the first draft January of 2020, and then we had to do the second round of edits come March and April.

00:16:19:16 - 00:16:41:15
Wayne Turmel
Well, March and April. All of a sudden we were in the depths of the first wave of the pandemic. Yeah. And so we had to look at the book and go, do we need to change and tweak certain things? Right. And what we found, blessedly, is not a lot.

00:16:42:03 - 00:16:42:17
Marisa Eikenberry
That's awesome.

00:16:43:23 - 00:17:19:12
Wayne Turmel
We had I mean, we have an advantage in that we have been teaching leadership and I had had an expertize in the kind of remote and virtual piece for several years before things got critical. Right. And so we were already having these conversations and already talking to people about them. And the analogy I was using, I felt a little bit like the guy with the sandwich board standing there saying the end is nigh and now I just have a new sandwich board that said, told you.

00:17:19:18 - 00:17:20:04
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:17:21:21 - 00:18:00:10
Wayne Turmel
But the timing was both fortuitous. And I think it speaks to the fact that Kevin and I and the cagey group are always trying to look at what's next. We're not just resting on Here's what we know work. It's what's going on in the workplace that's going to impact that. That's what we do right pretty well. I mean, the same was true when long distance leader came out and with our new book coming out, The Long Distance Team, it's very focused on culture and team formation.

00:18:00:11 - 00:18:20:08
Wayne Turmel
And as we're looking at return to office, that's all our clients are talking about. So again, the timing is really good. You know, in a selfish world, we have like to have it out six months ago. Yeah, the answer is sure we would. But that's the way the book industry works.

00:18:20:11 - 00:18:20:19
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00:18:20:20 - 00:18:32:20
Wayne Turmel
But we've been very lucky with the timing as well as just very deliberate in what we do. And opportunity has kind of met preparation.

00:18:33:09 - 00:18:52:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Absolutely. Well, and one of the other things, because I know that, you know, we're we're running over time here, and I had a lot more questions that we're not going to get to, and that's okay. But one of the things that because, you know, inside baseball, whenever like you're in Vegas, Kevin is in Indianapolis, like this book was largely written remotely.

00:18:52:10 - 00:18:55:14
Marisa Eikenberry
I don't think you guys got together in person for this one.

00:18:55:15 - 00:19:49:20
Wayne Turmel
We did not physically get together. I think we were together in Chicago for an evening at a client event and we were starting to at the book. But I think when people say, can you collaborate and can you do good work and can you do innovative work? I kind of go, yes, apparently it can be done. But then you realize that I have worked for Kevin for almost seven years now and we have never been in the same place at the same time, more than four times a year ever in the time that we've worked together, and certainly in the pandemic kind of main body of that, we didn't, but we work together really well

00:19:49:20 - 00:20:04:05
Wayne Turmel
and we use our webcams and we collaborate effectively and all of that stuff. And frankly, if you know anything about the co-writing process not being within physical grabbing distance of each other was probably a blessing in its own way.

00:20:05:05 - 00:20:21:06
Marisa Eikenberry
Probably in many ways. You know, I know that there are obviously a lot of questions I didn't ask that I'm just not going to get to because we're running out of time. But is there anything that I didn't ask that you wish that I would have had time for? Maybe we can answer that before we close.

00:20:22:03 - 00:20:45:09
Wayne Turmel
I think I said that there were a couple of concepts in the book. The big one is the three P's, but there's another one this concept of ethical visibility. And I think and dear listener, you know, stick around because I think it deserves its own episode. And so we're going to do, I think, just an episode on that concept.

00:20:45:19 - 00:21:03:17
Wayne Turmel
And I think that's important. The big thing I think that I want people to take away is long distance leader was aimed at those with the capital L leader title. Right. I am a manager. I am a boss.

00:21:04:09 - 00:21:05:15
Marisa Eikenberry
They've got the name on the door.

00:21:05:20 - 00:21:24:04
Wayne Turmel
I've got the name on the door exactly right. But they're the inmates who think of themselves as leaders. There are people that people follow, whether they have positional authority or not. And that's who long distance team mate is for. It's for those people.

00:21:24:18 - 00:21:43:00
Marisa Eikenberry
I love that. I love that. Thank you so much for listening to the long distance work life for Shownotes transcripts and other resources. Make sure to visit long distance work life XCOM if you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast, you won't miss any future episodes and while you're there, be sure to like in review. That's helps our show reach more teammates and leaders just like you.

00:21:43:10 - 00:22:02:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Feel free to contact us. Feel 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 and I to tackle in future episodes. And if you'd like to learn more about remote teams, preorder Waiting Kevin's new book, The Long Distance Team. You can learn more about the book and long distance work like that for last year.

00:22:02:15 - 00:22:07:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Thanks for joining us. And as Wayne likes to say, we have to denounce.


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