00:00:07:21 - 00:00:31:09
Wayne Turmel
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Long Distance WorkLife, the podcast designed to help us thrive, survive, live, just generally keep the weasels at bay as we adjust to the ever evolving work of remote work and hybrid work and figuring out who does what with which to whom where. I'm Wayne Turmel. I am your host today.

00:00:31:09 - 00:00:52:01
Wayne Turmel
Marisa is not with us. But do not despair. We have an excellent conversation with a colleague of mine, Janice Chaka, and we are going to bring her in right now to discuss introverts and remote work and all of that good stuff. Ms.. Janice. Hello.

00:00:52:02 - 00:00:54:16
Janice Chaka
Hi.

00:00:54:18 - 00:00:56:04
Janice Chaka
Thank you. For that great introduction.

00:00:56:07 - 00:01:06:17
Wayne Turmel
Just chair dancing away, which is what we love here on the show. Janice, very quickly. Who are you? What is the career introvert? And then we'll get into our conversation.

00:01:06:19 - 00:01:25:22
Janice Chaka
All right. So my name is Janice Chaka, and I am the CEO of the Career Introvert, which basically means I do a lot of things to help introverts be successful, whether it be courses one on one, coaching, leadership, coaching, keynote speaking, whatever it is, it's all designed to help introverts survive and thrive in the workplace or starting their own business.

00:01:25:22 - 00:01:55:23
Wayne Turmel
Excellent. So here's why I wanted to have this conversation. There's been a lot of chat, most of it silly about who thrives in remote work, who can be successful? Who can't. Who likes it? Who doesn't. And one of the things and it's not a myth in its entirety is this notion that introverts love remote work and extroverts want to be in the office partying it up.

00:01:56:01 - 00:02:17:10
Wayne Turmel
And I saw by the look on your face and for those of you listening to the audio, she has heard this nonsense more than enough. So let's start there. I mean, this notion of, you know, who likes to sit in the dark and work by themselves and who likes human companionship, The whole conversation has gotten a little out of hand.

00:02:17:12 - 00:02:43:22
Janice Chaka
Well, because it's based on a lot of assumptions. It's based on the assumptions that introverts who get to work from home are in that ideal environment all the time, that they're not sitting at the kitchen table with the kids screaming around them or not taking care of an elderly relative or whatever the absolute amazing environment would be. You know, not all of us have like three screens and ergonomic chair and a table that does fancy things.

00:02:44:00 - 00:03:08:18
Janice Chaka
A lot of the conversation is based on assumptions. And don't get me wrong. Of course, just like anything, there are some people who definitely enjoyed it. There was. There's good points and bad points to all, and it depends on the work that you do. It depends on the community. You have the support. You have the mentorship, you have the work environment, the culture of the organization.

00:03:08:20 - 00:03:22:10
Janice Chaka
There's so many things that come into play that you can't just blanket statement like, Oh, all the vets are super happy about the lockdown and we all have to work from home. And they were all very, very happy because, I mean, have you tried to work from home with an extra rep partner?

00:03:22:12 - 00:03:40:00
Wayne Turmel
Frighteningly enough, as excited as people think I am. I am one of those borderline extroverts who suck it up when I have to. And on a scale of 1 to 10, my bride is an 11 extrovert. So, yes, I feel your pain.

00:03:40:02 - 00:04:01:14
Janice Chaka
My partner has to have noise on all the time. If it's not TV, the radio, podcast, music, something. And I'm just I, I, I have headphones. Luckily, there's enough space that we can do this in separate rooms. But not everyone has that luxury. So, yes, there is lots of blanket statements. That is a lot of assumptions and no one's asking, no one's curious.

00:04:01:14 - 00:04:18:21
Janice Chaka
And people forget that we're all individuals. And sometimes it's really nice to be in the office, sometimes not be in the office, sometimes you need to do cognitive work, sometimes whiteboards work better than Zoom sometimes, and tech fails and we don't have the space that we would like that would be good for us with plants and a natural sunlight.

00:04:18:21 - 00:04:28:10
Janice Chaka
And there's just so much there and we just all forget that we're all human and individual and have individual needs and wants and desires that can make things good or bad.

00:04:28:12 - 00:05:00:18
Wayne Turmel
And so we've struggled through three years and we've managed to make it work, much to the absolute amazement of senior leaders. Largely, we didn't for a moment believe this was going to work. And now we are in this weird transition time where we're returning to office, kind of sort of. And there's a feeling that, you know, those are ungrateful workers are resisting returning to the office.

00:05:00:18 - 00:05:27:06
Wayne Turmel
I get the sense, and this is why I wanted to have this conversation with you. I get the sense that a lot of people are happy to go back to the quote unquote, good old days where everything that managed your career was about networking and being extroverted and drawing attention to yourself and all kinds of things. And that wasn't such a swell thing before.

00:05:27:06 - 00:05:39:01
Wayne Turmel
And I suspect it's probably not as well thing now. What are you seeing in terms of return to the office and who's looking forward to it and who's not?

00:05:39:06 - 00:06:06:10
Janice Chaka
Generally speaking, almost no one is looking forward to it. They look forward to it. If there is degrees of flexibility, not if you have to be in every Friday or three days a week or five days a week if it doesn't work for the life that they have now created. Because life didn't stand still for these past three years, people got used to certain things, try different things, got a taste of different things, and now want something else out of their work life.

00:06:06:12 - 00:06:32:06
Janice Chaka
And organizations like haven't clued into that or not being flexible enough for that. And as far as the having to be in the office and have that face time so your managers can see you and know exactly what you're doing. The world of productivity is a whole other side segment on that. But what I'm seeing is a lot of people just wanting to know, okay, I want to show up.

00:06:32:06 - 00:07:13:00
Janice Chaka
I want to spend time and do well at my work, but my bosses or my supervisors or whoever's in charge, expectations are still back in 2019 and it hasn't moved forward because as far as they're concerned, we need to go back to normal. And in their minds, normal is whatever used to happen in 2019. And so you find a lot of people struggling to communicate, and especially now with a lot of people are being laid off, communicate that worth because they feel that they have to do that, go back to the office or else I will be cut because it is now used as a retaliatory retaliation, retaliate, retaliation.

00:07:13:00 - 00:07:14:04
Wayne Turmel
Military is.

00:07:14:06 - 00:07:53:09
Janice Chaka
Retaliatory thing. And if you do well, you get to stay working from home. But if the boss doesn't like you, you have to come back into the office. It's used as a tool to bash people over the head that is really vindictive and petty. And it shows it highlights just how bad managers are, how much training managers haven't had to be leaders in a remote environment, and hybrid and hybrid is such a it's a spoken word, but how we can mean anything from coming in once a month, once a week, once a year, once it's so vague and so with people wanting to show up more, it's a case of you can still do the

00:07:53:09 - 00:08:15:01
Janice Chaka
same things that you used to do. I'm sure your manager doesn't know everything you used to do. So once a week, send him an email. Hey, here's my successes, here's my losses. And so your manager knows or whatever their preferred communication style is, you definitely have some people who are like, No, my boss likes email or a spreadsheet or numbers or like a pretty canvas or whatever it might be communicate.

00:08:15:04 - 00:08:32:09
Janice Chaka
If you don't know what your managers expectations are, you kind of have to ask them to fit in with that. And as far as the networking part of it is concerned, I know some people who thrived over the last three years that working remotely and I kind of have this collaboration, I'm doing this, I'm doing this other thing, and we're human.

00:08:32:09 - 00:09:01:14
Janice Chaka
We all do like that in-person interaction. But what I've seen also is a lot of organizations being like, well, coming back in, we're going to do an Employee Appreciation Day, which is wonderful. And then they shove every last thing that could possibly find into this two days to the point that I spoke at one event where they didn't really get lunch because someone was speaking at them while they ate lunch during their Employee Appreciation Day and there was no bathroom breaks.

00:09:01:16 - 00:09:27:07
Wayne Turmel
Okay. So aside from places that violate the Geneva Convention, what you said sounds truly awful. I want to go back to something that you said, which I think is really important. Kevin and I have talked on many occasions in the long distance books about ethical visibility. This notion of you have to be visible to your manager and to your teammates, right?

00:09:27:10 - 00:10:15:17
Wayne Turmel
People have to know what you're doing and it allows you to get the reward and recognition that you need. And you said something that is a blinding flash of the obvious, but also people don't always heed, which is this notion of how does your mic, how will your manager know how you're doing right? Because they have to do performance reviews and they have to do stuff right as managers, How what are you finding works successfully if you are not fond of tooting your own horn and you're, you know, and you're you want to be from home more often than not, what kinds of things are managers worried about and what are you seeing people do

00:10:15:23 - 00:10:22:18
Wayne Turmel
that allows them to successful early make their case and stay on the radar?

00:10:22:20 - 00:10:52:05
Janice Chaka
Data Data is key. Any time a client, a coworker, a insert here says something nice about you or the work that you've done or how you've helped them pass that along. Also keep a copy of it. So when it comes to your annual review, you have it once a week. Do review. What have your successes been? But really bad because we're so stuck in the weeds of just getting things done and it is hard to celebrate your wins.

00:10:52:07 - 00:11:10:10
Janice Chaka
Just go and look at your calendar, see how many meetings you had, what projects you finished, how or how, what progress you made in the projects. And write those down. Keep a little file, keep a notebook, keep a OneNote like Evernote, insert note here and you'll be amazed when you start going back and reviewing that like once a month.

00:11:10:10 - 00:11:33:12
Janice Chaka
Oh man, I did all of these things. I didn't realize that because we forget. Like I can tell you what I ate last Tuesday. Like, I don't know, but if you have that written down or voicemails, if that works better for you, you then have that data to go ahead and use that for promotion, to use that to say, look at all the stuff that I did and honestly for yourself is really important for you to acknowledge what you've done.

00:11:33:12 - 00:11:57:21
Janice Chaka
And sometimes it's really hard because you're just trying to get through each and every day. And so example, one thing I teach my clients is this You get to see video, we'll see this. I have a box. If you're British, you will know what this is not, but you're going to be very confused. And in this box, I'm supposed to once a week go through and be like things I've achieved and it doesn't have to be like I saved the world.

00:11:57:23 - 00:12:21:10
Janice Chaka
It can be. I managed to do eight back to back meetings without crying. Like whatever it is, that means success for you is very, very personal. Then go ahead and put that in the box and then New Year's Eve. Or when you're having a bad day. OpenTable and kind of look at it, look at all the things that you've got and it'll cheer you up.

00:12:21:12 - 00:12:22:16
Janice Chaka
Shocking.

00:12:22:18 - 00:12:47:19
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And I mean, you know, keeping the sweets box full of stuff is is lovely. I simply have a folder in my outlook and when somebody says thank you so much or they send me a note, it just gets copied over there and I have it right. So when I have and of course we are very good here because Kevin is a terrific manager.

00:12:48:00 - 00:13:13:08
Wayne Turmel
We have regular conversations about performance, right? It's not like, okay, we talked about goals in January and now it's November and you have to dance for grandma and prove your value. This is an ongoing conversation in our world, which is also part of the thing, right? Is this ongoing conversation and keeping people in the loop instead of having to save everything up.

00:13:13:08 - 00:13:17:10
Wayne Turmel
And then, you know, justify your very existence.

00:13:17:12 - 00:13:38:02
Janice Chaka
Yes, very much so. And and that calls into play the company culture. Are they doing regular check ups or is it the annual review that everyone hates, building that relationship with your manager, putting time on the calendar and you could just be chat or like, what am I done? This? The old people talk about like roses and thorns.

00:13:38:02 - 00:13:55:00
Janice Chaka
Like, what am I to roses and what is my one thorn and what's holding me back? Or I need help with the more you communicate with your leader, the more they get to know you and your style and what works for you and what doesn't. And this is also for introverts, to be fair, how you can set your boundaries.

00:13:55:02 - 00:14:12:04
Janice Chaka
But I haven't been able to work on this project because I've just been in useless meetings. Maybe don't sell useless meetings for the past three days. Can I get a two hour block of time where I can put do not disturb and not be like not have blowback for helping you set boundaries and then your productivity will get better.

00:14:12:04 - 00:14:35:05
Janice Chaka
Your work will get better. They'll understand how you work and why you work that way. Yeah, there's so many little things that can be done outside of the company culture itself, but at the end of the day, knowing what your manager is looking for and what their manager is looking for is really important. So you can hit those targets, whatever it is that your boss has to do and show and prove that they're worth you to help them get there.

00:14:35:10 - 00:14:39:06
Janice Chaka
And if they don't communicate that to you, you have to, you know, poke the burn.

00:14:39:08 - 00:15:02:16
Wayne Turmel
A couple of things, too. What you just said. One is and I cannot stress this enough, and I hope that you would agree with me the single most powerful thing you can do to save your sanity is when you get that eighth meeting invitation is just start asking, do I really need to be there? And I'm serious as a heart attack.

00:15:02:16 - 00:15:26:11
Wayne Turmel
This isn't a whiny, you know, I didn't want to go to the meeting kind of thing. This is you have task me with doing X amount of work. How does this meeting fit into the priorities? It's a very simple question and it takes a certain amount of chutzpah, courage, whatever virtue, know whatever name you want to apply to it.

00:15:26:13 - 00:16:01:16
Wayne Turmel
But it's incredibly powerful and saves your sanity. More often than not. The second thing kind of ties to the last question that I want to ask you, which is, you know, this return to office means that some people are deciding to change jobs and people are being hired into hybrid work situations. And it's really critical that if you don't want to be horribly disappointed that you get definition on what does hybrid mean and what how do you have that negotiate?

00:16:01:22 - 00:16:10:04
Wayne Turmel
What does that look like when you are in the application? You know, you've gotten to the interview stage for the job.

00:16:10:05 - 00:16:15:12
Janice Chaka
Honestly, it should be before that should be in the job description. But that wasn't the question you asked me. So.

00:16:15:14 - 00:16:21:10
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, well, you know, in a perfect world.

00:16:21:12 - 00:16:42:22
Janice Chaka
So it's a case of, okay, if it's a new role that has been created and no one's ever had it before. But the question is how do you see it hybrid working for this in this role? What is the hybrid requirement for this role? What has the hybrid requirement been in the past or what would would it look like in the future?

00:16:43:00 - 00:17:02:22
Janice Chaka
Maybe what the hybrid requirement is for the department and and also question why? Because definitely some organizations that are just like, I have to be here two days a week. Why? Because, like, if there's a good reason, it's real because we have a team meeting, then we do this cognitive thing where we do board whatever. It's a specifically cannot be done online.

00:17:03:00 - 00:17:25:00
Janice Chaka
Great. If they just like because, hey, grab something that you are okay with and also ask, has this changed recently? And do you think this will change in the future? Because I've definitely had a lot of people who have signed up for a hybrid role been told it's one day a week, and then as soon as they're in the door and signed that contract, all of a sudden it's like, well, actually such and such is going on maternity leave.

00:17:25:00 - 00:17:50:11
Janice Chaka
So you need to be like three days a week. And that's not what they signed up for. That's not what they wanted. But they've got a job, so they like sitting up and shutting up so very much ask and ask what happens if it changes? How much advance notice would happen? A lot of organizations don't have these things in place because they are muddying through, but it should give the child something to think about and that you're serious about what it is you want from a role.

00:17:50:13 - 00:18:24:11
Wayne Turmel
I love the lovely British British term muddying up because basically we are all making this up as we go, which is an amazingly terrific opportune time to create your own path since the current path. It's all over at the moment. Janice, it's always so good to talk to you. I am delighted to have you with us. I am going to remove you from the room while I say our goodbyes.

00:18:24:16 - 00:18:48:06
Wayne Turmel
Yes, I know if you are and you should be interested in learning more about Janice and what she does, we will have links to her LinkedIn and the career introvert and other things in our show notes which are found at longdistanceworklife.com. If you've enjoyed the show, you listen to podcasts or you wouldn't be here.

00:18:48:06 - 00:19:19:18
Wayne Turmel
You know the drill. Please like subscribe tell your friends. Marisa has done yeoman's service in just barely a year. We have passed our 5,000th download, which is ridiculous, but thank you all for that. We are starting a series of regular segments on the show, including pet peeves and questions that you have about remote working. So we urge you to send those in to us.

00:19:19:22 - 00:19:45:01
Wayne Turmel
You can find either Marisa or I on LinkedIn or you can email us at Kevin Eikenberry Group and we are delighted if you are interested in team culture and figuring out how to structure your team. Our new book, The Long-Distance Team: Designing your Team for everyone's Success is out in the world. Thank you so much for joining us again.

00:19:45:01 - 00:19:53:16
Wayne Turmel
For heaven's sake, check out past episodes on longdistanceworklife.com. My name is Wayne Turmel. Don't let the weasels get you down.

00:00:07:21 - 00:00:36:05
Wayne Turmel
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Long-Distance Worklife, the podcast, where we try to help people whom we work work remotely or in hybrid team situations or generally just trying to keep the weasels at bay in the workplace. Welcome. Welcome. We're here to help you thrive and survive. This is a Marisa-less episode, or, as they say in French, an episode

00:00:36:08 - 00:01:03:12
Wayne Turmel
sans Marisa, which I did just for her benefit. But that doesn't mean it is without entertainment. We have my friend Liz Scully with us. Liz is a coach, a full time digital nomad. She is the brains behind Rethink Central and I am going to introduce you to her now. Liz. Hello from London.

00:01:03:14 - 00:01:06:23
Liz Scully
Hello. What a delight to be here. Thank you for having me.

00:01:07:01 - 00:01:11:08
Wayne Turmel
Oh, you really need to raise the bar on delight, but that's okay.

00:01:11:10 - 00:01:17:17
Liz Scully
I have a low threshold of delight. There is nothing wrong with that, my friends.

00:01:17:18 - 00:01:29:01
Wayne Turmel
That's true. So here's the deal. You and I met in the jungles of Guatemala, which sounds like a far more interesting story than in fact.

00:01:29:01 - 00:01:33:05
Liz Scully
Yeah, it really does.

00:01:33:07 - 00:01:44:12
Wayne Turmel
But since then, you are. Well, why don't you tell us what you do? What is? Rethink Central. Give us the the wonder that is Liz in a sentence or two and then we'll say, Excellent.

00:01:44:12 - 00:02:05:19
Liz Scully
So I am a mastermind evangelist and a business strategist. So I work with micro-businesses and very small businesses helping them grow. It is an absolute delight. I work with lots of entrepreneurs and really the focus of my business is one without the pain. Really. It's a delightful thing.

00:02:05:21 - 00:02:34:17
Wayne Turmel
Well, it sounds delightful. And so what I wanted to talk about today is as a digital nomad and as somebody who works remotely from wherever, one of the big knocks on this and it is true for some people to a fairly large degree, is the sense of social isolation that comes with I mean, yeah, yes, it's lovely to be left alone to get your work done.

00:02:34:19 - 00:03:00:00
Wayne Turmel
And the flip side of that is while you are working, you are alone. So I know that you have a system for doing that. I want to talk about being a digital nomad and then hopefully a little bit about what is a mastermind group and who should care. But that will be at the end of our conversation. So let's start with you're a digital nomad.

00:03:00:02 - 00:03:07:14
Wayne Turmel
COVID grounded you to a degree, but you were all over the place for a while. What is digital.

00:03:07:14 - 00:03:40:00
Liz Scully
Anyway? I really was all over the place for sure, so I gave up my last real bricks and mortar home something like 2011, and since then I haven't had a real home. I just move about, which is fabulous. And my last home was in Bangalore, in India, because I was working for DreamWorks there and I have just spent a lot of time bouncing between New York and various places in Europe.

00:03:40:00 - 00:03:59:02
Liz Scully
I spent a lot of time in Budapest. I spent a chunk of time in Malta. I am very big time in Guatemala, which is weirdly, it's one of my safe places. I just want to go home for a while, which as someone who doesn't have a home for me, that is Antigua and Budapest, but New York, so it's great.

00:03:59:07 - 00:04:03:09
Liz Scully
It's lovely, delightful. In fact, I would I keep using.

00:04:03:11 - 00:04:29:08
Wayne Turmel
Okay. So right now, most of the people who are listening to this are, as I am, wage slaves, kind of working for somebody. And we like the idea of being able to work wherever we are and we have that capability. But doing it is easier said than done when you land somewhere. I mean, well, let's start with when you land somewhere.

00:04:29:10 - 00:04:35:22
Wayne Turmel
How much do you know about where you're landing? What does the process of becoming a nomad look like?

00:04:36:00 - 00:05:05:23
Liz Scully
So the actually being completely location independent and running a business that is location independent are two separate things. So first of all, I move my entire business online and then I became location independent. But arriving in a new place, I have done a reasonable amount of research, particularly I normally say an Airbnb. I spent I spent last couple of years, maybe four or five years where I spent so much time in having these.

00:05:06:03 - 00:05:26:21
Liz Scully
They started asking me to the annual conference. Why would I go like, what is the benefit to me? I could see the benefit to you lot because you're going to have a like an actual customer in the building. But really, why would I do that? So I have researched exactly where to live, by which I want to know how far is the local supermarket?

00:05:27:01 - 00:05:46:19
Liz Scully
Can I get decent wi fi and the biggest research I do on obviously because because I can live anywhere. I need to check that I want to live there. So I've looked at cultural stuff and what's going on with museums and transports and all of those kind of things that we all do. When we pick somewhere we want to spend something.

00:05:46:21 - 00:06:11:17
Liz Scully
The biggest thing is a nomads, but I spend my time doing is getting people to run speed tests on their Wi-Fi and send me the results because I will live nowhere with slow internet. It is of no use because if you spend if you spend any time running video conferences, which is my entire life, you cannot do it with slow internet and you can't trust someone to go, Oh yeah, yeah, no, it's fast.

00:06:11:23 - 00:06:34:03
Liz Scully
No, no. Show me, show me the speed results. So before I choose to work to live anywhere, first of all, I check I once points of interest, then I check that the work conditions are fine. Now, you can also do this if you want to check this. Co-working is everywhere, but my job is speaking to people. So if you imagine sitting next to build a co-working session, they would hate me.

00:06:34:05 - 00:06:44:07
Liz Scully
That woman, she never say never shuts up. So fast. Internet, That's a big thing. Can I get really fast? Internet.

00:06:44:09 - 00:07:13:00
Wayne Turmel
So you've determined that this is a place, right? You like the city or you think you're intrigued by the city enough to want to spend some time there? And you've done your research and you've found a place that fits your your criteria and you arrive. Now, how do you make yourself to home? And by the way, you're keeping your business going or keeping your boss from firing you because you're not working and things True.

00:07:13:00 - 00:07:36:08
Liz Scully
So the big the big learning and gosh, this took me a long time to get together is that when you change countries, you need to spend take off at least three days. There's the day before you leave when you're closing down that particular country, there's the travel day and then there's the day afterwards when you arrive, at which point you need to buy a sim for your phone.

00:07:36:13 - 00:07:56:14
Liz Scully
You need to make sure that your internet works. You need to go and actually locate that supermarket we talked about, make sure that things work because there's always something that's missing. Yes, you have a bed, but you have no sheets or you have. And this this is a nightmare for an Irish person. You have an apartment and you have teabags, but you have no cattle.

00:07:56:16 - 00:08:19:20
Liz Scully
Now, that has to be dealt with immediately for obvious reasons. So those three days, you just need to accept that you are going to be doing things that are not work related at that point. So either do it on the weekend or make sure that you've schedule time off to deal with that. And I mean, I have done long contracts where as well as running my own business and working with other people so they expect cool times.

00:08:19:20 - 00:08:43:03
Liz Scully
And those those again, like any long term job, they're going to give you time off. Surely if they're not changing job, I like at some point people are going to allow you to have time off and some of that is going to be spent in that reassessment of where you live because there's always just a certain amount of life maintenance when you switch countries.

00:08:43:05 - 00:08:50:08
Wayne Turmel
Life maintenance, what are the breaks? And the obviously not having a tea kettle would be.

00:08:50:10 - 00:08:50:20
Liz Scully
Exactly.

00:08:50:20 - 00:09:02:17
Wayne Turmel
That's a horrible thing and a very unpleasant surprise. What are the big life maintenance things that people don't think they're going to encounter and do?

00:09:02:19 - 00:09:23:23
Liz Scully
So like really strangely, like when you move all the time, there is a certain set of food that you like. We all do it well. We have our regular supermarket shop, so if you have just done that in, say, Budapest and you go moving to Malta, you have to eat up the food in one country before you start.

00:09:23:23 - 00:09:43:07
Liz Scully
Boy, you get fresh in the second country. So you need to make a decision about whether or not you will go to be the sort of person that moves half a pound of rice from Budapest to Malta because you are too cheap to let it go. Or are you the sort of person that's just going to be forcing your neighbors to take your exit?

00:09:43:09 - 00:10:04:05
Liz Scully
So it sounds ridiculous, but if you move all the time, you spend a lot of time thinking, Didn't we have some strawberry jam? Oh, no. That was three countries back. Where is the jam? Do we have jam? So there's just like a certain there was a certain level of food that if you live in one place, you can assume that there is like a few things that are staples.

00:10:04:05 - 00:10:18:13
Liz Scully
If you move into a brand new house every three three months, you have to put all of those staples in place and you can end up in the ridiculous position of carrying tea bags around the world. It's it's foolish.

00:10:18:15 - 00:10:27:19
Wayne Turmel
Are you a once you've found your spot, you nest in and it's fine, or are you a third location kind of worker?

00:10:27:21 - 00:10:48:07
Liz Scully
Oh, I tend to look, I'm because like I said, because my job is talking to people, I feel it's unfair to co-working. Like we will see people in coffee shops having video meetings. Don't do it. It's so rude. Like like go somewhere quiet and do that. The rest of us do not want to hear about the trouble you're having with the accounts department.

00:10:48:09 - 00:11:01:01
Liz Scully
Oh, keep it moving. So I work from home, which means I need to be, you know, safe and warm and all those kind of basic stuff and food and teabags. Obviously, you need teabags.

00:11:01:03 - 00:11:26:07
Wayne Turmel
One of the things and I never thought about this until my daughter went to her massage therapist the other day, and her massage therapist said, You work on the couch, don't you? You have a lap desk, you don't have a real desk and a real chair, do you? And the reason is she's coming in looking like quasi modo.

00:11:26:08 - 00:11:28:13
Wayne Turmel
What about the physical setup?

00:11:28:15 - 00:11:57:00
Liz Scully
That is interesting. So when I'm choosing the abbey I will live in, I am actually scanning for there was a coffee, there is a coffee table I can put my feet on so that my legs are horizontal. There is cushions so that I can keep my desk at the right level. I also always have. I have one of those extendable things my laptop, so that when I am doing video conferences like this, my camera is eye level, simple things like that.

00:11:57:00 - 00:12:20:11
Liz Scully
I have a little kit of things that I am certain of. I also have the world's largest and most edited set of cables for all possible situations. I have more travel plugs and a human ever requires because you can guarantee that when you look at how the the wiring in the place is, whether you know, the distance from the plug to the desk, you want to work on.

00:12:20:17 - 00:12:35:11
Liz Scully
So again, part of that first life maintenance that you're doing that first day is making sure that you're not going to be hunched up and that you can actually manage to run a video conference without running out of battery on your laptop halfway through. Tedious but important.

00:12:35:13 - 00:13:06:02
Wayne Turmel
Now, I, I am like a three day hermit. I can live in wherever I am, whatever confined space for about three days. And then I need to get out amongst other human beings. Grumpy old man that I am. I know that one of the things you do is you help coach people who are going to be location independent to actually have lives.

00:13:06:04 - 00:13:13:03
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And connect with people. Talk to me. What does that process look like and can you help me?

00:13:13:05 - 00:13:33:08
Liz Scully
Well, I think I think it's very easy to become a technophobe. You're absolutely right. So I have I guess system is probably a strong word for it, but I have friends all over the world and that is not an accident. Many people that become location independent rather than digital nomads, which tends to be much more getting about to much more sort of social.

00:13:33:12 - 00:13:52:12
Liz Scully
But location, independent people tend to be a bit, are they? You have jobs like mine where you spend more time alone. So you have to have you have to have a system to get out there. So before I move to a country amongst the research I do is I ask my friends, of which there are many who do we know in whatever it is?

00:13:52:12 - 00:14:16:05
Liz Scully
Who do we know in Malta? And there will always be a couple of people that you could go and speak to so-and-so, so you make arrangements with them. You look at all the other networks, you have Facebook, LinkedIn, friends of friends. If it's the sort of place where this big conglomerate So I often work for Kodak or Technicolor or Sony or any of the studios, if they have a branch or department in that place.

00:14:16:05 - 00:14:34:03
Liz Scully
So I will speak to my other friends. And you work for Technicolor. Who do we know at Kodak in that country? So you then get a little group of people who are your first contact, and if your friends are kind enough to directly introduce you, they will almost always go for coffee with you. Because, you know, I've got this friend.

00:14:34:03 - 00:14:57:06
Liz Scully
She's really lovely. Cover Go out for drinks so you have some kind of interaction and you have to put the effort. This is the key. You have to put the effort in. So for a couple of weeks, I spend a lot of time ingesting caffeine. I see a lot of people and I put a lot of effort. And because for them, for the person you're meeting, it's just a tiny part of that day for you.

00:14:57:06 - 00:15:18:12
Liz Scully
You have no social life. If you don't do this, it's not going to happen. So there's a sort of certain time inequality for this, but many people will take the time to meet you for half an hour. Lovely. If you get on with them. Great. Arranged to meet them again. But if you don't or you know that they're fine, but they're not really for you, then I make another plan like so.

00:15:18:14 - 00:15:39:13
Liz Scully
This was lovely. Thank you very much. But do you have another friends that might be interested in also meeting me? I'd like to meet as many people as possible. And if you do that through all of your networks that very quickly, everybody you meet, you ask if they can introduce you to someone else and you make the effort to see them and anyone you like, you keep making the effort.

00:15:39:15 - 00:15:47:18
Liz Scully
Within three months, I guarantee you'll have a best friend in that country. Pretty much always. This is one to lots of friends.

00:15:47:19 - 00:15:54:19
Wayne Turmel
Here's a question that just occurred to me. So is Meetup an international thing or is that strictly.

00:15:55:00 - 00:16:26:19
Liz Scully
The meetups everywhere? So yes, that was that was the next thing I was going to say is always a good idea to check meetup if you have a special interest, if you're involved in a karate club or a tennis club, see if through that network, if they have a recommendation for the karate people to speak to in that area and then join that, even if you don't simply being part of a club or a snooker team or and of course you can just go to the bar on the end of the road, it's just I don't particularly drink.

00:16:26:19 - 00:16:37:11
Liz Scully
So to me that's not ideal. So you start going somewhere regularly and you make the effort to be pleasant and you accept to be there.

00:16:37:11 - 00:16:38:02
Wayne Turmel
Right there.

00:16:38:07 - 00:16:59:18
Liz Scully
Yeah, you're out. I see that. But that principle is making friends is work. And I think this is where as we get older we get this stuff. We can't be bothered. But if you go somewhere new and you're on your own, if you don't make friends, you will stay on your own. Nothing is going to change. So meetup bars, events, hiking clubs, anything.

00:16:59:20 - 00:17:06:02
Liz Scully
Just you put a lot of work and then it's a lot of promise. It works.

00:17:06:04 - 00:17:31:23
Wayne Turmel
So good heavens, look at the time you want to take a moment, though, and talk about everything we've talked about. It's like settling in and getting the work done, being productive, networking for your career, and that's where things like Mastermind comes in real quickly. When I think of Mastermind, I think of entrepreneurs who are trying to grow their business.

00:17:32:01 - 00:17:43:02
Wayne Turmel
First of all, what is a mastermind group for those who don't know? And then are they applicable to wage slaves like me, or is it strictly for entrepreneurs?

00:17:43:06 - 00:18:05:01
Liz Scully
Absolutely. So a mastermind is a small ish group. So I run a very small, but they can be larger. So they're a smallish group that meet regularly every week, every two weeks, once a month, whatever it is you meet regularly, you discuss things, and then you make a plan, a goal of some sort that you will definitely achieve by the next time you meet.

00:18:05:03 - 00:18:29:21
Liz Scully
So I liked social pressure. You get stuff done. The super simple in them, in in themselves, really simple, but really effective. And yes, most of the ones I run are for entrepreneurs and business growth, but you can have a mastermind for anything. One of the the calls I did earlier in the day was someone was telling me they used to run internal masterminds within a large corporation.

00:18:29:21 - 00:18:48:04
Liz Scully
So the heads of department, so the and all the issues that were coming up regularly within the company, they had a place they could talk about it that wasn't superficial. It was a bit more focused on people's careers. But yes, you can run a mastermind on anything you like building a barn, growing a baby, whatever you like.

00:18:48:06 - 00:19:11:23
Wayne Turmel
What I what I think is really important for a lot of people. There are two things about masterminds that I think are great ideas. I mean, the first is just other human beings that are facing the similar challenges that you are. There's a lot of power in knowing. It's not just to get it to, you know, it's like, Oh, wait a minute, everybody suffers from that school.

00:19:12:01 - 00:19:17:11
Wayne Turmel
The second part, I think, is the part that you alluded to, which is the accountability piece.

00:19:17:16 - 00:19:36:13
Liz Scully
Yes. Yes. Accountability is important, but I think there's not only the fact that you've got a group of people that are in lockstep with you moving towards the goals. That's really helpful, particularly if you run a tiny business. It's really lonely sometimes as it is with location, independent stuff. So it's really nice to have a group of people with you.

00:19:36:15 - 00:20:04:01
Liz Scully
But it's also there are very few places that we can indict. Most of us, our family is sick to death of what we do. Yeah. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah, lovely. Dear friends don't really care. They move to the K a successful, but they don't want to hear the ins and outs with the mastermind group. You can have a place where you can ask the questions that are vital to your business, that the people around you are bored witless about.

00:20:04:03 - 00:20:14:20
Liz Scully
But you can also ask questions. I just know sometimes we have very basic questions that are a little bit embarrassing to ask anywhere else. Take it, you mastermind. They will sort it out for you.

00:20:14:22 - 00:20:33:18
Wayne Turmel
Well, it's not just that the people around you are fascinated with keeping you up at night. It's that they don't know squat. Yes. You don't know anything. They only have the information. My bride is lovely, but if I show her the first draft of a book, all I'm going to get is. That's great, dear.

00:20:33:20 - 00:20:55:19
Liz Scully
Yes, yes, exactly. Yes, That's nice. I remember showing sales pages to people. Should it be that color? Oh, just my lovely friends. Yeah. So it's a good place to get feedback. And it's also a great place for when we have because as we know, running a business, doing a job will bring up every thing that could possibly go wrong.

00:20:56:00 - 00:21:12:10
Liz Scully
It's like years of psychotherapy in one go, just for the joy of doing your day to day. And a mastermind is a place to have people say, You know what, This is tough. And we can see that you're you're brave enough to turn up again for another day. That's a big thing.

00:21:12:12 - 00:21:31:04
Wayne Turmel
Liz, thank you so much. You've given us a lot to think about. I mean, if I'm thinking about being location independent, what do I have to do? And it's great. I mean, I dream of running off to Thailand on a fairly regular basis. So. Yeah, well, my wife would have something to say about that.

00:21:31:07 - 00:21:36:04
Liz Scully
Oh, you take your wife with you.

00:21:36:06 - 00:22:09:14
Wayne Turmel
But the idea of meeting other people and creating a network and a life and all of that. So thank you for all of that wisdom. I am going to boot you out of the video room just long enough to close it off. Liz is at Rethink Central. Folks. If you go to our fabulous Web page that Marisa has put all the work into longdistanceworklife.com, you will find the transcripts and links to how to reach Liz and all of that good stuff.

00:22:09:14 - 00:22:35:12
Wayne Turmel
Also, if you have not yet checked out Kevin in my new book, The Long-Distance Team: Designing Your Team for Everyone's Success, you can buy that almost anywhere. If you go to longdistanceteambook.com, you can buy the book, but you can also get special offers, free downloads, lots of cool stuff. We are nothing if not givers.

00:22:35:14 - 00:23:04:12
Wayne Turmel
Finally, if you enjoy the show, you know how podcasts work like and subscribe. Tell your friends. Tell your neighbors and if you have anything you want to say to us. Comments. Questions. Vicious personal attacks. Topics for future shows. People that we should talk to. One of Marisa's great joys right now is gathering up people's pet peeves and questions so that we can do those special episodes.

00:23:04:14 - 00:23:18:06
Wayne Turmel
That's it. Thank you so much. My name is Wayne Turmel. Thank you for joining us on the Long-Distance Worklife. Marisa will be back next week. Don't let the weasels get you down. Have a great day.

00:00:08:03 - 00:00:37:22
Wayne Turmel
Hi, everybody. Greetings. Welcome back to the Long Distance Worklife podcast. My name is Wayne Turmel. We are here to talk about all things remote. Hybrid work generally help you keep the weasels at bay and thrive and survive in this crazy, evolving world of work. Marisa is not with me today, alas, but that's not a bad thing because we have a very special guest.

00:00:39:04 - 00:01:03:06
Wayne Turmel
Catherine Morgan is joining us from Chicago. Catherine and I go back a ways and she is really, really smart when it comes to things like career planning and trying to figure out what you want to be when you grow up and all of those kinds of things. And that's what we're going to talk about today, is are you ready for remote work?

00:01:03:09 - 00:01:18:19
Wayne Turmel
How do you not let your career wither on the vine when you are in the office sucking up to everybody? And I'm paraphrasing, of course, and stuff like that. So. Catherine, hi. Welcome back.

00:01:19:01 - 00:01:20:09
Catherine Morgan
Well, thanks for having me.

00:01:21:05 - 00:01:33:06
Wayne Turmel
As always, thank you for being had. So here is the deal. I don't say this as it's going to come out of my face. You've been at this a while.

00:01:33:12 - 00:01:43:10
Catherine Morgan
It can't happen at an while on this spectrum of not experienced. Very experienced. I'm on this very experienced side of the spectrum.

00:01:44:07 - 00:02:06:17
Wayne Turmel
And the world of recruiting and hiring and staying employed and all of that good stuff has changed. I mean, certainly over the last three years when it was changing for a while before that. What have you seen in terms of people managing careers? What's kind of changed dramatically?

00:02:08:00 - 00:02:37:14
Catherine Morgan
Literally everything. The conversations I have with people in 2019 and the conversations I'm having now are utterly different. The pandemic blew up all the rules. Whatever you thought the rules were, I can't change job functions. I can't work remotely. I can't change careers. I can't work flexible time. I can't like all these camps doesn't exist anymore. The only rule is there is no rules.

00:02:38:15 - 00:03:05:15
Catherine Morgan
So what I found is people more or less can create whatever it is they want to create as long as they actually want it. So when they're not going after the knee jerk response, I should be doing this. They can create within reason. Like I'm not going to be a ballerina. But other than that, white collar professional workers can reinvent themselves, can work on site, can work remotely, can work hybrid, whatever your thing is, you can mostly make that happen.

00:03:07:19 - 00:03:16:03
Wayne Turmel
It sounds like what you're telling me, that the biggest barrier up until now has been mindset.

00:03:16:19 - 00:03:17:14
Catherine Morgan
Absolutely.

00:03:18:22 - 00:03:31:11
Wayne Turmel
How much of that is just getting our air inside of our head and how much of that has legitimately changed? And we just haven't caught up with the reality yet.

00:03:32:03 - 00:03:55:20
Catherine Morgan
Okay. Some of it is parents, family of origin, culture or how we were raised, especially people, you know, on our side of the spectrum, because the world of work has changed tremendously. When I started working, you sort of landed somewhere and you were expected to stay X number of years and get promoted and maybe spend your whole career.

00:03:55:21 - 00:04:24:14
Catherine Morgan
There are some people I graduated from college actually did spend their whole career at one company. Now that's almost unheard of. So it is a function of that. And the other thing is to ignore the fear monitoring and that advice that is ubiquitous on the Internet. I tell my coaching clients to put their fingers in their ears and go, la la la la la la.

00:04:24:14 - 00:04:30:07
Catherine Morgan
For all the fear mongering, it's just not helpful and it doesn't have to apply to you.

00:04:31:01 - 00:04:54:18
Wayne Turmel
Okay, so let's start with what are they afraid of? I mean, yeah, I know change is scary and that's kind of being a grown up one and one. But are there specific things that especially if they're making that change to remote work they are most concerned about?

00:04:54:21 - 00:05:26:15
Catherine Morgan
Yeah, they're concerned that they will be lost in the shuffle. They are concerned about communication. And I read recently that, you know, a lot of the problems with remote work or technology related and I'm going to say then you're working for a stupid company, like we should have the technology part out of enabling people to work remotely. See also 2020 and 2021, that really shouldn't be the issue.

00:05:27:00 - 00:05:42:02
Catherine Morgan
Although the individual may have some questions about their ability to learn the technology or master it or feel that they can compete with younger workers who grew up with this. So there might be some of that mindset shift.

00:05:42:08 - 00:06:17:10
Wayne Turmel
So you said something a moment ago, communication. How am I going to communicate with people is obviously important, But you said something a moment ago about being connected, which is more than just how am I going to talk to people? Right. It's do I know what's going on? Do I know You know what I mean? The careers are built on things like networking and mentoring and hallway gossip that tells you, hey, there's an opening down the hall and sorts of things.

00:06:18:20 - 00:06:25:12
Wayne Turmel
What? Let's get down into it. It's like if I'm trying to futureproof my career.

00:06:26:01 - 00:06:26:09
Catherine Morgan
Right?

00:06:27:02 - 00:06:28:18
Wayne Turmel
What do I need to do?

00:06:29:23 - 00:07:05:23
Catherine Morgan
You need to own the fact that you are essentially self. I don't care who you're getting a paycheck from. If you think of yourself as being self-employed and you are responsible for your career, not human resources, not your manager, nobody's responsible for your career but you. So, yes, absolute keeping your network warm even when you're working, keeping your technology skills up to date, having your own learning plan or and project, managing your own career progression that you would like.

00:07:06:04 - 00:07:28:17
Catherine Morgan
Nobody is going to do it for you. We're all exhausted, overworked, busy. Maybe there are a few enlightened companies that really do invest in their talent and want to keep them there and engaged and growing. But that is not the norm. If you own it and you take responsibility for that, you're going to have a much better career and essentially, in your words, futureproof yourself.

00:07:29:12 - 00:07:49:23
Wayne Turmel
I love that you said something that match, and I love when people agree with me that makes me very happy. And I've been saying for a very long time, like my entire career, that you have to have this entrepreneurial approach even when you have a nice, safe, internal job.

00:07:50:10 - 00:07:50:18
Catherine Morgan
Yes.

00:07:51:10 - 00:08:16:18
Wayne Turmel
And when you work remotely, of course, there are some pretty substantial differences in how do you do things like have hallway conversations and overhear job openings and all that stuff that happens organically and by osmosis around the coffee machine. How do you do that when you work somewhere else?

00:08:18:03 - 00:08:44:21
Catherine Morgan
I think that you would have to understand that that's less likely to happen organically, although, you know, in a Slack channel or whatever technology companies used to facilitate that show up, you will get out what you put in. So if you're lurking, just waiting for somebody else to reach out to you or just start the conversation, that may or may not happen, you can be a bit more proactive about that.

00:08:45:08 - 00:09:14:05
Catherine Morgan
Also, scheduling time in your calendar to have virtual coffees with people and it will fall off your plate because everybody's busy. If it's not in your calendar, you'll forget to follow up. You'll have every intention of doing it, but it won't happen. So being very hands on with how you're going to maintain these relationships internally, that be one on ones with your boss that you're tempted to reschedule because there's really nothing to talk about.

00:09:14:12 - 00:09:34:19
Catherine Morgan
No. Have those conversations. And maybe you're not talking about work, but maybe you're getting to know each other's goals, aspirations. You're just better as humans, so you're cementing the relationship. We haven't gotten to it yet, but one of the concerns that people have is if I'm remote, I'm going to be forgotten. And then if hard decisions have to be made.

00:09:35:01 - 00:09:56:17
Catherine Morgan
Nobody's going to raise their hand to protect me. And that's a real thing. So you need to make sure that people know who you are and know your best skills and know your ambitions and know how you contribute. Not to be the jerk with the megaphone to blow your own horn, but but just to ensure as much as one can in these crazy times.

00:09:56:21 - 00:09:57:20
Catherine Morgan
Your longevity.

00:09:58:14 - 00:10:20:01
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. In the long distance team, we call that ethical visibility, you know. How do you do that without looking like a self-serving weasel? Right. There's two things that I want to touch on, and this one is going to catch you off guard a little bit, because it just occurred to me, how do you balance? It's part of the same conversation.

00:10:20:07 - 00:10:44:15
Wayne Turmel
How do you balance being entrepreneurial about your career in your work and having a legitimate concern for the company that you work for? What I'm hearing from a lot of employers is people have gotten very selfish and self-serving and they don't want to come back to the office because they don't want to do it and they don't care what the company is saying.

00:10:45:03 - 00:11:00:00
Wayne Turmel
And how do you let the company know that while you are taking care of yourself, you also care about them and doing a good job and yeah.

00:11:00:17 - 00:11:08:08
Catherine Morgan
This is a it's an onion. We're going to peel the layers off and it's going to get a little stinky as we get to the middle. And it's.

00:11:08:08 - 00:11:09:08
Wayne Turmel
Going to make me cry.

00:11:09:17 - 00:11:41:09
Catherine Morgan
Because. Because what's the real issue here? There's some command and control. There's some habit. There are some job functions that legitimately make more sense to have internally. Okay, So maybe those don't go remote or maybe they're sort of pseudo hybrid and you can take some time and work remote occasionally. That's fine. That's the job function you chose. And if remote work is important to you, then you'll change your skills and get something that's more agreeable to that.

00:11:41:15 - 00:11:49:23
Catherine Morgan
Okay, fine. B The other part is I lost the question.

00:11:50:09 - 00:12:03:10
Wayne Turmel
Well, just how do you let your boss, the organization, know that while you might be ambitious and assertive and all that good stuff, you care about them too?

00:12:04:06 - 00:12:26:20
Catherine Morgan
Oh, yeah. You know what? I think? Once again, communication isn't just one way to the employee. Communication is two ways back to the manager. So if if you're trying to get your job remote or to have people understand that you really are not network watching Netflix while you're doing your work, you can, you know, ensure that the deadlines are done.

00:12:26:20 - 00:12:46:08
Catherine Morgan
You can create weekly status reports, you can proactively manage on what you're doing. So they don't think that you're just your goofing off, looking for your next opportunity or starting your side hustle. And you may be doing all of that, but you should also be covering your butt and proactively communicating.

00:12:48:18 - 00:13:16:15
Wayne Turmel
Now, in your coaching practice and we're going to give you a chance at the end of this to do a little public service announcement about what you do. And we will have links to Catherine and her company in the show notes. I promise. What skills? When we talk about skilling up and getting good at things, what skills do people who are working more remote and not need to build up?

00:13:16:15 - 00:13:26:22
Wayne Turmel
What are we really bad at and what should we be working on in order to be successful?

00:13:27:13 - 00:13:53:19
Catherine Morgan
Well, I can tell you from my personal experience, if it's not on my calendar, it doesn't exist. So just the manual keeping things on your calendar and putting constraints and breaks and all your meetings so that you know what you have to do because this can be very distracting. You could clean your closet, you could be doing laundry, you could be doing a bunch of things.

00:13:53:19 - 00:14:20:01
Catherine Morgan
But if you know what you have to do, accountability is probably helpful, too. If you're one of those people who's just distracted. Squirrel, you might need an accountability buddy within the organization or outside where you say, Here's the three things I'm going to get done today. We are so much more likely to get the things we need to get done if we tell somebody that I'm sure you've seen that same study I have everybody quotes.

00:14:20:14 - 00:14:46:01
Catherine Morgan
So so that that could be it. And I think self-knowledge, you know, knowing your own rhythms and foibles and being gentle with yourself about that because I don't know about you, but I'm not perfect. So knowing where you might go off the rails and putting some guardrails in place could be helpful. What would you add?

00:14:47:01 - 00:15:13:15
Wayne Turmel
I have my hobby horses, you know, I have things that I just beat on. One of the things that that I'm obsessed with that nobody else shares my obsession, including people who listen to this podcast, who have heard me talk about this, is that since the invention of email, which is basically my career, right? I've been around exactly that long.

00:15:14:04 - 00:15:29:19
Wayne Turmel
70% of our workplace communication takes place in writing. When was the last time any of us consciously did something to improve our writing, our written communication?

00:15:31:04 - 00:15:34:04
Catherine Morgan
I don't know. Senior year of high school? I don't know.

00:15:34:19 - 00:16:01:19
Wayne Turmel
Exactly. So, you know, there are a couple of things. And we talked about this with Roger Corvil in a previous episode about virtual presentation skills. There are a few things 70% of our communication takes place in writing, and yet we receive no training or coaching. We're just expected to know how to do that. Presenting effectively and communicating effectively via webcam.

00:16:02:19 - 00:16:19:08
Wayne Turmel
You know, a few people are still taking traditional presentation skills. When was the last time anybody learned how to present this way? I think the communication tools that we have are only as good as how we use them. So you asked know that?

00:16:19:09 - 00:16:49:00
Catherine Morgan
That's interesting. So as part of our training for being successful in corporate, it would make sense to do a basic business writing bootcamp. And here's how you don't come off passive aggressive or overwhelm people or defensive or, you know, a bunch of things. I don't know about you, but I've been part of email chains that just went sideways and it wasn't pretty and somebody got their feelings hurt so that might be really smart.

00:16:49:00 - 00:16:55:17
Catherine Morgan
I was going to ask you, does sending video emails help? Because where we're talking.

00:16:56:13 - 00:17:23:14
Wayne Turmel
I think sending video, video emails is one of those things that people have been trying to make a thing for 15 years. I remember 15 years ago people trying to sell us these very expensive solutions where you could send video emails and it was like, Oh, this is voodoo Jetsons magic stuff, and now you can do it. You know, you hit record and then you hit send.

00:17:23:14 - 00:17:36:12
Wayne Turmel
And it's not that hard. I think as we start to do more asynchronous work, which is what hybrid depends on, but I think it will eventually be a thing.

00:17:37:00 - 00:17:58:00
Catherine Morgan
Yeah, I wonder if maybe that gets us around some of the email disconnects. If you could read the body language of the person saying you could see that they weren't actually angry at you, they weren't actually frustrated. Maybe we're social animals, so maybe we'd have more of the social cues. I don't know. I'm on the fence about that as well.

00:17:58:00 - 00:18:08:15
Catherine Morgan
I bought a service that wouldn't let me do video emails, but I don't it doesn't have the the zoom judging in it. And every time I see myself on those, I'm like, so?

00:18:09:18 - 00:18:27:02
Wayne Turmel
Well, as with all of these tools, right, there's the tool and you look at it and say, Oh, is this some Yeah, I see how this would work. And then it's Do I actually metaphorically get off my butt and do it? Oh yeah, there's that.

00:18:27:02 - 00:18:29:04
Catherine Morgan
Who's got to solve that to say.

00:18:30:02 - 00:18:53:12
Wayne Turmel
Exactly, Exactly. Catherine, it is so good to talk to you, my friend. We have not chatted in a very long time. Tell folks where can they find you? And we will have links to all of these things in our show notes as well. But how do they find you? What's your company? This is your chance to send your message to the world, or at least the tiny corner of it that listens to us.

00:18:54:06 - 00:19:13:14
Catherine Morgan
Well, I am a career transition expert and business consultant. I recently wrote a book titled This Isn't Working Exclamation Point Evolving the Way We Work to Decrease stress, anxiety and Depression. Because a lot of what's going on in corporate right now isn't working. Yeah, I want to.

00:19:13:14 - 00:19:18:08
Wayne Turmel
Hold up a copy of the book. I, I have an e copy, so it's on my tablet.

00:19:18:16 - 00:19:35:02
Catherine Morgan
But I have a copy so that my website is point eight. The point B transitions dot com. And if you want to track me down, I'm very active on LinkedIn and I'm sure we'll be kind enough to link to my profile.

00:19:35:02 - 00:20:01:09
Wayne Turmel
We will absolutely do that. Catherine, thank you so much. Don't go away because we're going to chat after I'm done, but I need to do a facial show stuff and close off this episode. So we will have show notes to all of Catherine's socials and her book and all of that good stuff. You can find that at long distance work life dot com.

00:20:01:15 - 00:20:26:20
Wayne Turmel
We hope you stop by there if you are looking at how your team works, you may want to well consider Kevin in my new book, The Long Distance Team Designing Your Team for Everyone Success. I too have a hard copy of that one. And if you have enjoyed the show, if you hate the show, if you want to tell us what are your pet peeves?

00:20:26:20 - 00:20:50:04
Wayne Turmel
What are the topics that you want us to discuss? You can reach out to myself or Marisa any time. Wayne@KevinEikenberry.com, Marisa@KevinEikenberry.com. You can find us on LinkedIn and all of that good stuff if you listen to any number of podcasts, you know the drill. Please like and subscribe. Tell your friends.

00:20:50:09 - 00:21:26:11
Wayne Turmel
Word of mouth is most important to us. So if you like us, tell people, if you don't keep your mouth shut, we'd appreciate that. Beyond that, we will be back next week with another episode. My name is Wayne Turmel. For the long distance work life. Stay sane. Don't let the weasels get you down and we will talk to you in the upcoming episode.

00:00:07:21 - 00:00:38:10
Wayne Turmel
Hi, everybody. Welcome to The Long-Distance Worklife podcast where we try desperately to make sense of remote and hybrid work and basically all of the ways that the workplace is changing. My name is Wayne Turmel, I am master trainer/ coach with The Kevin Eikenberry Group. My usual co-host, Marisa is not here today, which means this is one of our interview episodes and so I am very, very excited.

00:00:39:04 - 00:00:59:04
Wayne Turmel
We have a couple of guests with us, Ali Greene and Tam Sanderson, and we are going to talk about their book, Remote Works: Managing for Freedom, Flexibility and Focus. And so that is enough of staring at my face for those of you on YouTube. Ali and Tam. Hi, how are you?

00:00:59:05 - 00:01:02:10
Ali Greene
Hello. Hello. Thanks so much for having us.

00:01:03:08 - 00:01:28:07
Wayne Turmel
Well, thank you for being had. We are we are stablemates in a sense. Both of our books, our newest books are out from Barrett Koehler. So lovely to have kinfolk with us again. Where did this come from? You both had real big girl jobs. Where did the idea for the book come from?

00:01:29:06 - 00:01:53:01
Ali Greene
Yeah. So it really came up in a organic way based off of the passion that me and Tam have for remote work. Both of us. Everybody knows the story of what happened a few years ago when the world went into shambles, trying to figure out how to make sense of this great work from home experiment. And for us, we had already been doing it for many years in many different formats.

00:01:53:02 - 00:02:31:09
Ali Greene
I was previously the head of people at DuckDuckGo and Tam was at a director level role at Automattic, and that's how we first met and started our remote friendship. And so when it got to the point in 2020 when the world was figuring this out, we would have regular WhatsApp friends catch up messages and Zoom calls. And it went from us just talking about our life and what we were cooking in quarantine to being really extremely frustrated with how our friends, our peer and the media was talking about this shift from working in offices to remote work and work from home.

00:02:31:09 - 00:02:56:12
Ali Greene
Even the fact that people think those are still synonyms is is troubling to me. And it was this deep rooted fear that if people did not get it right, that they would not get to reap the benefits personally and professionally that that Tam and I had. And so we set out wanting to show the world that not only is it possible, but it's possible to unlock your dreams and your ideal lifestyle.

00:02:56:12 - 00:02:59:08
Ali Greene
But you need to know how to build a remote work muscle first.

00:02:59:16 - 00:03:28:04
Wayne Turmel
Well, given that you are coming to us from Portugal today, which is frankly just showing off, just go do stand that. Tam, why don't we start with what do you think people got wrong? Didn't expect got surprised by as remote work just we got pushed across the Rubicon.

00:03:28:21 - 00:03:45:09
Tamara Sanderson
Yeah. So I think people just stayed at the surface level of remote work. And so everybody was thinking about, oh, I've tried Zoom, nobody knew about Zoom beforehand. I sometimes joked that, like, maybe it sounded like a vacuum cleaner. And now everybody talks about Zoom as if that's a part of the dictionary.

00:03:46:09 - 00:03:57:06
Wayne Turmel
Well, it's interesting. Zoom went from, “What’s Zoom?” to a verb to a syndrome. In like, 18-months. It was insane.

00:03:57:23 - 00:04:19:05
Tamara Sanderson
Exactly. So now it's like probably all over Urban Dictionary. It's like all kinds of news articles. I just think people just touch the surface level of what it means and they're like, Oh, cool. I can like, wear pajamas. I don't have to commute. But once you really unlock the benefit of remote work, you start completely rethinking every aspect of work.

00:04:19:05 - 00:04:40:03
Tamara Sanderson
And so I think people didn't necessarily go deeper into that. There's just like a copy paste for in the middle of a pandemic, Let's make this happen. So there's a lot more to building your remote work muscle then, I don't know, like a top ten listicle there, it's actually like a real skill and it can be completely life changing.

00:04:41:22 - 00:05:02:11
Wayne Turmel
All right. So let's take a look and you can take this. I don't care who takes what. Frankly, you've probably got your internal rhythm figured out, and I'm not going to mess with it, so I'm just going to ask the questions and you guys can manage it. What are some of the non-negotiables to make remote work happen?

00:05:03:06 - 00:05:21:08
Ali Greene
Yeah, so I love this question because first and foremost, as Tam said, a lot of people when they were starting to dip their toes in the remote work water, we're just trying to copy and paste what they had seen other successful companies do. And the number one non-negotiable is you have to be really intentional in order to work well remotely.

00:05:21:08 - 00:05:56:01
Ali Greene
Everything that you do stemming from your operational decisions, your strategy, how you engage with the tools you use, how you interact with people. It all comes down to intentionality. And so it has to be designed in a way that fits your values as a company. The processes you have, the decisions you make around things like if you're going to be fully distributed globally, if you're going to lean into asynchronous communication to allow for people working and living in different time zones, what products you offer, in what markets, what your risk tolerance is for things like taxes and compliance.

00:05:56:01 - 00:06:18:01
Ali Greene
All of those business decisions and cultural decisions are things that can't be copied and pasted from a company that you admire. So while you can seek out inspiration, you need to learn. What questions do you ask at the leadership level of your company? What questions do you ask at the team level? How do you gather this information and make streamlined decisions for yourself?

00:06:18:01 - 00:06:42:16
Ali Greene
And so that would be the number one non-negotiable. And from there it goes to other things like building trust. I think this is just as important, frankly, in an office than not. But nowadays we have things like tools to keep track on time tracking. And if you're actually sitting behind your computer and frankly, I think that's super patronizing and it's not building a culture of trust and motivating people in the right way and respecting your employees.

00:06:42:16 - 00:07:10:05
Ali Greene
Autonomy is the third non-negotiable, really leaning into you hired intelligent people to get the job done. Let them get that job done in the way that works for them. So things like leaning into your energy, not time management, working at different hours of the day non, you know, disjointed work days. There's all these ways and tools that people have to be more productive and more happy and we just need to provide the space to let people figure that out for themselves.

00:07:10:18 - 00:07:31:09
Wayne Turmel
Okay, so all of those things are great. Now, you said a couple of things, and I'm going to wear my grumpy old man hat for just a moment because there are people listening to this who are going, yes, preach this or it's all good. And there are people who are not nearly as comfortable. And when you say things like, well, you just have to let go.

00:07:31:09 - 00:07:41:15
Wayne Turmel
Oh, yeah, I'll get right on that. Right. Let me break a couple of hundred years of conditioning to manage things and we'll just magically.

00:07:41:15 - 00:07:42:19
Ali Greene
It's scary. Yeah.

00:07:43:21 - 00:08:02:15
Wayne Turmel
Well, talk to me. If I am a leader of an organization, I find individual managers do this reasonably well. But organizations and the senior leaders there struggle with this. Talk to me about that letting go process. How do you do that without heads exploding?

00:08:04:03 - 00:08:08:18
Ali Greene
Tam, do you want to take this and talk a little bit about design thinking at the strategic level?

00:08:08:18 - 00:08:30:22
Tamara Sanderson
Yeah. So I think you hit the nail on the head way and I think underlying all the conversation, the remote work is actually about control. And the reason why it's such a hot topic is because remote work could like fundamentally change all the ways that we've been working for the last, definitely the last 50 years with the last hundred, 200 years.

00:08:30:22 - 00:08:53:01
Tamara Sanderson
And so there's so much at stake. I think at at a leadership level, I think you have to think about the future and we're not going back. The genie is out of the bottle. Just think about when the smartphone came out. So I said, like when I started working in 2006 as a management consultant, they gave me a BlackBerry.

00:08:53:11 - 00:09:11:04
Tamara Sanderson
And at that moment, that was the second I had my electronic leash. And I started working all of the time based on the day that they gave me that BlackBerry and I couldn't go back. And so my whole life has been electronic with work and being able to be contacted after hours. And I had to create my own boundaries.

00:09:11:16 - 00:09:42:19
Tamara Sanderson
I think in a similar way, people had this huge experiment with remote work. I think in the middle of the peak of the pandemic, 60% of Americans were working from home. And so you can't take that experience back. Your employees know what it's like and they also know when it's been taken away. And so I think at a leadership level, you have to be realistic about the situation at hand and that people will not be comfortable and they will see flaws in when you arbitrarily bring people back to the office.

00:09:43:00 - 00:10:07:13
Tamara Sanderson
But in letting go, I do think it's a practice. And so I am a part of a meditation center here. And there's a lot of really interesting Buddhist philosophy about this is actually one of the main struggles in life is attachment and letting go. And so I think it's a daily activity. I don't think in one moment you're like, Oh cool, we're going to completely change exactly everything we did in the organization, whatever to the last 20 years.

00:10:07:19 - 00:10:36:18
Tamara Sanderson
I think it's individual moments and so you have to just be present like, okay, I feel really uncomfortable with this. What is a way that I can manage that uncomfortability? And so when we were actually coming up with the subtitle of our book, there's a reason we put managing for Freedom, flexibility and Focus, because managing is like how to still maintain a structure, how to still maintain visibility, how to still maintain output, like all the things that you need.

00:10:36:18 - 00:10:53:17
Tamara Sanderson
So you're still managing it, but you're allowing people that freedom. And so it is a dance and you're gonna have to try a lot of different things and experiment. There's not one way to do remote work, but I do think in the long run, if you can make this change now, you're going to improve the sustainability of your organization in the long term.

00:10:53:17 - 00:10:59:07
Tamara Sanderson
And if you don't, I think you're going to lose out on a lot of talent and be kind of seen as like a dinosaur.

00:11:00:18 - 00:11:22:02
Wayne Turmel
You mentioned earlier and you both use this phrase and I know what that's like because Kevin and I often mind-meld. But if we only do it on the things that really matter, and so you keep using the phrase cut and paste from the office, what specific behaviors are we talking about?

00:11:22:22 - 00:11:53:23
Ali Greene
So very tactically behaviors that we've seen a lot of companies that struggle with transitioning to remote work do is have set schedules for their employees regardless of where they are. So setting, setting core working hours on such as 9 to 5 Eastern time is a common practice and then expecting people to be sitting in front of their desks, whether it be at home or at a co-working space and be readily available if you get a ping, a slack message between those hours because those are considered working hours.

00:11:54:06 - 00:12:17:07
Ali Greene
The problem with that is that you're limiting when a person is feeling innovative and creative and you're isolating them to be tied to their desk instead of providing them opportunities to go out and recharge and take micro breaks throughout the day in a way that could creatively inspire them, reconnect them socially, or tie into some of their personal motivators that can actually make them stronger at work.

00:12:17:07 - 00:12:42:19
Ali Greene
And so that framework of 9 to 5 is just being replicated from working anywhere, being the first definition that people think of when they think of remote work is working. Location flexibility is something that immediately causes challenges in a remote setting because you're not leaning into creating a new structure around check ins. Instead, managers and companies that can say Work whenever you want.

00:12:42:19 - 00:13:08:12
Ali Greene
We're going to have core synchronous hours during these Times. The intention of these synchronous hours are brainstorming, are building relationships, and these will happen once a week, for example, and then asynchronous work project management. We're going to have to check end points, let's say Monday and Friday within a 24 hour period is an alternative way of thinking about a workday that gives people the room to experiment with how they work best.

00:13:08:20 - 00:13:27:00
Ali Greene
Another easy assumption within what I just mentioned already is that meetings should happen, and so a lot of people, in order to feel connected, in order to feel like they had trust, would say, Oh, we're just going to communicate more often and communicating more often in the cut and paste model meant adding in more meetings to people's calendars.

00:13:27:00 - 00:13:56:20
Ali Greene
Well, two years later we realized what happened. People were getting incredibly burnt out. They were over communicating but not feeling any more social. And there was an emotional drainage on a lot of people in society. And so instead of assuming that communication means live communication and questioning that assumption is another thing that leaders had to sit back and think of What is the intention of communication, Why am I doing it, and what other methods can we use in our workplace to make sure that people have the information they need?

00:13:56:20 - 00:14:03:15
Ali Greene
Because it's about information sharing and relationship building, not jumping on Zoom calls?

00:14:03:15 - 00:14:32:03
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, I think it's really interesting and I you know, not to make this about me, but one of the things that we are discovering is that the difference with hybrid work is that it's not just when and where it happens. Well, it's not just where and how it happens. It's when that the time flexibility piece is really the part that we've never dealt with before, and it's the part that's causing the chaos.

00:14:32:18 - 00:15:00:18
Wayne Turmel
But one of the pieces of chaos that it's causing is really good intentioned people being over connected and burning out and like that. And as a leader, you know, if I walk into the office and I see Tam banging her head on her monitor, I can go, “Oh, is everything okay?” But I can't see her banging her head on her monitor, you know, from wherever she is.

00:15:02:05 - 00:15:16:13
Wayne Turmel
Talk to me about what is the leader's role in identifying and then helping people deal with burnout. Not all at once now.

00:15:17:14 - 00:15:46:11
Tamara Sanderson
Yeah. I like looking at Ali, who so I think actually it comes back a little to I like the the framework of five wise and so why are people always connected? Why are we always on meetings, Why are we always doing that? And if you keep asking why, you can get to the root of it and usually underlying it is that there's not clear communication to begin with and clear intentionality.

00:15:46:11 - 00:16:12:22
Tamara Sanderson
And so the reason that we as 9 to 5, it's really nice to just have everybody around you and you can just ask people to do things the second it comes into your mind. And people are always waiting for you as a leader. And so there is something really nice about that. But it also doesn't necessarily strengthen your capacity to clearly communicate, give people deliverables and allow people to go out on their own.

00:16:12:22 - 00:16:28:18
Tamara Sanderson
And so I often think of this as like the high school versus the college model, which I think actually this originally came from Ali. So I'll give her credit. I just love to use it. But the old way of working, I think is like the 9 to 5 is very much like high school. And so you go from class to class, you're always there.

00:16:28:18 - 00:16:48:08
Tamara Sanderson
You need to have your button seat. You do that for four years, you graduate, right? And so those people that are fortunate enough to go on to university or choose that path, all of a sudden it changes and it becomes a model that I think is much more similar to remote work where a professor the first day of class, they're very thoughtful on what needs to happen throughout that semester.

00:16:48:08 - 00:17:02:12
Tamara Sanderson
They know the outcomes, they know what they're looking for, they know what the students need to deliver and they assign it so they have a syllabus. Maybe they meet once or twice a week in the classroom, but outside of that, they're allowed to complete their work on their own at their own pace because they've been given that information ahead of time.

00:17:02:20 - 00:17:27:03
Tamara Sanderson
You don't have professors calling all the time like, Hey, what you do, the what you do and what you do and like, hey, are you in the library or are you at IHOP? What are you doing? Instead? They know what they're allowed to do and they have the freedom to go do that. And so I think this goes to burnout in a similar way because it's it it prevents burnout by just the ability of people being able to work at their own pace and not be always on.

00:17:27:03 - 00:17:48:18
Tamara Sanderson
And so when you actually move up the ladder of remote work autonomy, you should experience less burnout if you're practicing really good, asynchronous, remote work behaviors. That would be like my initial thought. But Ali, do you want to talk a little bit about like actually viewing burnout? Because there's a lot of ways you can still do that remotely?

00:17:49:04 - 00:18:14:07
Wayne Turmel
Well, I was I was going to say I agree in principle, people are capable of autonomy and all of that stuff. And we have had it bred out of us to a great degree. And so not everybody, while it might be fine for me, is the leader. Just say you are autonomous, you are free, go and do. Not everybody is coping with that in equally successful ways.

00:18:15:12 - 00:18:35:04
Ali Greene
Yeah, I think this goes back to it's a muscle we have to build. You don't expect to go weightlifting the very first time and being able to bench press £200. You have to start smaller and I think the role of the leader is helping someone navigate when they're ready to take on the next batch of weights in their in their bench press.

00:18:35:04 - 00:18:55:16
Ali Greene
That is remote work. And over time that skill becomes easier. The most simple example that I can use to illustrate this point is in our pre chat. When you this is the first time we were talking and you noticed maybe based off of hearing my energy and other podcasts or just seeing the expression on my face that I was a little bit tired today.

00:18:55:16 - 00:19:17:11
Ali Greene
And already through the conversation today I have my energy back and I'm feeling really great. And so when it comes to things like burnout, it's I hate to to use this word, it's a word we use in our book that's quoted from a good friend of mine, but it might seem a little bit too abstract for people, but it's almost the spidey sense of what is this person's norm and when are they not acting like their norm.

00:19:17:14 - 00:19:36:16
Ali Greene
That is the red flag to dig deeper and just ask, Hey, are you okay? Or Hey, you said you were good, but that good was a little not super enthusiastic, which is exactly what you did for me. And it opened up a room for me to feel safe, to be vulnerable, to say, Actually, I don't think I drink enough water today and I'm a little tired, but I'm going to show up today because I'm really excited to be here.

00:19:37:01 - 00:19:56:11
Ali Greene
And those are the conversations it's okay to have at work. I think for so long we were afraid to to be vulnerable. And what remote work has done is it's invited people into our personal lives to be able to give that vulnerability back. But we need to learn how to do it. And we learned through asking those questions for determining what's the norm.

00:19:56:14 - 00:20:05:08
Ali Greene
You can figure out what the norm for someone is through something like a user guide, for example, and then knowing when does someone behave differently than their norm.

00:20:05:08 - 00:20:47:01
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, that noticing what isn't there is is the skill. It's the Sherlock Holmes skill, right? Why? The Sherlock solved more cases than anybody else Because he notices what isn't there is what he picks up on and Ali Greene, Tam Sanderson. The book is Remote Works: Managing for Freedom, Flexibility and Focus. Real quick, wrap up. If you have one takeaway and I know this question all authors because we've got but 85,000 words of wisdom and you want me to boil it down to one thing, you moron, but what's the one thing.

00:20:48:01 - 00:21:02:00
Ali Greene
Drink water. Listeners out there, I have a bottle with me that I'm drinking from. And experiment. You don't know what works for you, especially when it comes to remote work until you unlearn and relearn new habits. That's my one takeaway.

00:21:02:00 - 00:21:10:14
Tamara Sanderson
I would add self-reflection because all of remote work is based on knowing more about yourself and how you prefer to work.

00:21:10:21 - 00:21:23:16
Tamara Sanderson
And also how you prefer to manage and how you prefer to lead in ways that you can do that more intentionally. That's it. that's all I got.

00:21:23:21 - 00:21:55:14
Wayne Turmel
That goes into the audio. Got a little bumpy there, but the self reflection piece is really terrific. I am going to bid you ladies adieu while I close out the show. Thank you so much for being with us. We respect the heck out of that. Thank you. We will have notes in the show links. Those of you who are familiar with us know that our website LongDistanceWorkLife.com is all about.

00:21:55:14 - 00:22:31:16
Wayne Turmel
You can find the episodes, you can find links to Ali and to Tam and to their book. You can find ways to contact Marisa and I, we are doing a lot more episodes where we're taking questions from you and yours and turning those into episodes and topics worthy of discussion. I am going to suggest that besides Remote Work: Managing for Freedom, Flexibility and Focus, you might want to consider The Long-Distance Team: Designing Your Team for Everyone's Success.

00:22:31:16 - 00:23:05:15
Wayne Turmel
That's Kevin Eikenberry and my latest book. Of course, if you're enjoying the podcast, please like and subscribe. Tell your friends, tell your neighbors we really appreciate you. So thank you so much for being with us. My name is Wayne Turmel. Don't let the weasels get you down.