Ask Wayne Anything, Hybrid Work, Working Remotely

Is Giving Up Your Desk the Future of Hybrid Work?

The idea of giving up your personal desk—does it make you cringe or cheer? Many organizations are moving toward a hoteling model to save costs and accommodate hybrid work, but making it work smoothly is another story.

In this episode, Wayne Turmel and Marisa Eikenberry tackle the challenges of hoteling, from loss of control and hygiene concerns to desk wars and office politics. Plus, they offer practical solutions for leaders to involve employees, test the model, and ensure a smoother transition.

Thanks to listener Benjamin for inspiring this conversation! If your organization is considering hoteling, this episode is for you.

Key Takeaways

1. Understand the Purpose of Hoteling – Hoteling is a flexible seating arrangement where employees don’t have assigned desks, allowing companies to optimize office space while accommodating hybrid work schedules.

2. Address Employee Concerns Proactively – Employees may feel uneasy about losing their personal space, dealing with hygiene concerns, or setting up/breaking down their workstations daily. Leaders should acknowledge these concerns and create solutions in advance.

3. Create a Comfortable and Hygienic Workspace – Provide cleaning supplies, encourage good desk etiquette, and ensure employees have access to sanitized and well-maintained shared workspaces.

4. Equip Employees for Success – Reduce daily setup stress by offering lockers, duplicate equipment (mice, keyboards, monitors), and designated storage areas so employees don’t have to carry everything back and forth.

5. Involve Teams in the Transition – Instead of enforcing top-down changes, engage employees in discussions about hoteling logistics, scheduling, and workspace preferences. Address concerns before implementation.

6. Test Before Committing – Pilot the hoteling model for a limited time before making it permanent. Gather feedback and make necessary adjustments based on employee experiences.

7. Balance Cost-Savings with Employee Needs – While reducing office space saves money, organizations must also invest in tools, processes, and amenities that make shared workspaces efficient and employee-friendly.

8. Recognize Routine Disruptions & Help Teams Adapt – Change is hard, and employees may struggle with losing familiar setups. Help them establish new habits by creating structured, predictable hoteling systems.

9. Encourage Open Communication – Employees should feel comfortable sharing feedback and proposing adjustments to the hoteling system to ensure it works effectively for everyone.

10. Remember, Adaptation Takes Time – While initial resistance is natural, teams will eventually develop new habits and find stability in the hoteling environment. Patience and flexibility are key!

View Full Transcript

00;00;00;03 - 00;00;20;13
Marisa Eikenberry
Because the idea of giving up your desk for more remote flexibility make you cringe or cheer. Many organizations are grappling with this exact dilemma. If you're considering a hotel model to save money and embrace hybrid work, you're not alone. But how do you make it work for everyone involved?

00;00;20;15 - 00;00;36;11
Marisa Eikenberry
You. Welcome back to long distance Workplace. We help you live, work and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I'm Russell. I can be a fellow remote worker. And as always, joining me as my co-host and remote work expert, Wayne Trammell. Hi, Wayne.

00;00;36;14 - 00;00;40;17
Wayne Turmel
As always, because there's no escape. He's freaking everywhere.

00;00;40;19 - 00;00;45;00
Marisa Eikenberry
But we are always here. We live in the computer.

00;00;45;03 - 00;00;48;24
Wayne Turmel
Indeed. We live in this little box. Hello.

00;00;48;26 - 00;01;12;20
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, today we are actually inspired by a listener question. And today we're diving into the challenges of transitioning to a hotel and model while supporting employees who want flexibility through remote work. So, Benjamin, the person who sent us this question, thank you so much for your thoughtful email that led us to this, the situation that many organizations are navigating as they rethink office spaces and work styles.

00;01;12;23 - 00;01;21;02
Marisa Eikenberry
So we're really, really excited to get into this. But, Wayne, for some of our listeners that may not be familiar. Can we just do a quick definition of what hotel room is?

00;01;21;06 - 00;01;44;09
Wayne Turmel
It's a weird word. I don't know how it became the word. I think it's it's kind of the mental model of staying in a hotel versus having a space of your permanent space of your own, right? That when you check into a hotel, you don't know which room you're getting. You don't really know. I mean, Hamptons all look alike, right?

00;01;44;09 - 00;01;56;12
Wayne Turmel
But but it's not your. And it's not your room. There are things that you can do in a hotel room. There are things that you shouldn't do in a hotel room because it's not your space.

00;01;56;15 - 00;01;56;24
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;01;57;02 - 00;02;28;04
Wayne Turmel
And I think it's as good a word as any, but it does. It's funny. It creates far more drama than we think it should. And I'll give you the example. And not everybody will relate to this, but I do, which is I grew up in a small town, went to a small town church, and while in churches there are no assigned seats per se, everybody knows where Mrs. Williams sits, right?

00;02;28;06 - 00;02;30;14
Marisa Eikenberry
And God forbid, literally.

00;02;30;16 - 00;02;56;02
Wayne Turmel
That's you take that spot at your peril. So even though officially you sit anywhere you want, everybody has their pew. They sit in the same place every week. They sit there, they're comfortable there. They are close enough or far enough from the pastor's burning eyes. They are easy access to the exits out. Whatever you're.

00;02;56;02 - 00;02;57;03
Marisa Eikenberry
Praying.

00;02;57;05 - 00;03;30;21
Wayne Turmel
For. Choosing a seat in church. And while there are no official seats, when somebody is in your seat, it gets really uncomfortable and that's the best analogy that I can come up with. So the way that hotel I usually works is rather than, you know, there's a cube farm and you everybody has a seat assigned to them because, you know, it's Tuesday and only have two people come in on Tuesday.

00;03;30;27 - 00;04;04;21
Wayne Turmel
We have just slightly over more than half of the normal number of desks, and people kind of grab whatever's open and they set up and they do their work, and then they go home. And on paper that sounds extremely reasonable. And what's the big deal? The problem is you are dealing with human beings who are notoriously irrational. And so there are a couple of reasons that people get freaked out about this.

00;04;04;23 - 00;04;12;05
Wayne Turmel
And as with everything with people when I say them, a lot of people are going to go, that's not a big deal.

00;04;12;07 - 00;04;14;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Except it's a big deal.

00;04;14;18 - 00;04;49;09
Wayne Turmel
Human being. Humans are going to human. Yeah. So some of it is a simple matter of lack of control. When I come in, I like what I like. I like the view out the window. I like to see the coffee break room. I want my back to the coffee break room. Whatever it is we we have basically a set of esthetics that we like when we work and when we don't have control over that, that becomes a thing.

00;04;49;11 - 00;04;55;21
Wayne Turmel
There are a few other things, some of which make no difference to me, but they might.

00;04;55;22 - 00;04;56;04
Marisa Eikenberry
Just somebody.

00;04;56;07 - 00;05;16;18
Wayne Turmel
They are going to make differences to somebody, one of which is hygiene concerns. Okay. I don't know who was at this desk last. I don't know what cooties they had. I don't know what their personal hygiene is like. God only knows what they've done to that keyboard.

00;05;16;20 - 00;05;18;20
Marisa Eikenberry
Lysol was everywhere.

00;05;18;22 - 00;05;45;04
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, exactly. So part of if you're going to bring in a hotel situation is you need to make sure that you have things like sterile wipes at every desk and bottles of Lysol and those types of things. Because while I'm pretty much, I mean, I, I clean up after myself. I'm not a complete slob, but that's not top of mind for me.

00;05;45;04 - 00;05;48;20
Wayne Turmel
It's going to be top of mind for some people, right?

00;05;48;22 - 00;05;55;10
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I'm with you. It's not a big deal for me. But like, now that you said it, it's like, oh yeah, okay, I can see it now.

00;05;55;12 - 00;06;16;29
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. I mean, especially because the whole reason most of us wound up working from home was cooties. And so it's going to be part of the thinking, another thing is that and again, it sounds minor and it's really not, which is you need to set up and break down every day.

00;06;17;01 - 00;06;27;21
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. And oh, God, I forgot the my specific pens that I really like to bring or I forgot my mouse. I've done that before and that sucks.

00;06;27;23 - 00;06;58;20
Wayne Turmel
Oh, we've all done it. And you know this idea of okay, so now I'm schlepping to the office, so I've got my backpack, which now has my laptop and my mouse and whatever else in there. It's just a bigger deal every day. Getting ready to go to work is more hassle. It takes time to set up. It takes time to break down at the end of the day, you've got to put that backpack on, which now somehow weighs 20 pounds more than it did when you came in in the morning.

00;06;58;22 - 00;07;13;15
Wayne Turmel
So there's what is this do to your day? What does this do to the setup? Right. And so some of that may be a loss of productivity. I'm not using my mouse.

00;07;13;17 - 00;07;15;27
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. My horse or whatever.

00;07;15;29 - 00;07;52;26
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And there are simple ways to avoid this, right. Duplicate mice. Right. One at home, one at the office. So, so this is a thing that organizations can do, and it's not quite kindergarten. Everybody has their own cubby. But I think that lockers where people can keep their equipment, that meant that they use in the office so that you don't have to schlep it back and forth so that you can have duplicates so that it's already there, and you can very easily set it up.

00;07;52;29 - 00;08;11;07
Wayne Turmel
We'll actually take some of this strain off. It's going to require developing new routines and developing new socks. We all know that. But, you know, things like that can make it less awkward and weird.

00;08;11;09 - 00;08;14;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;08;14;29 - 00;08;43;03
Wayne Turmel
One of the one of the reasons that people don't like it as well is, you know, when I have my desk, I've got a picture of my wife and kids or, you know, Mr. Whiskers in a holiday outfit and there's stuff on my desk that is mine, and that's not going to be there, you know? Right. Situation, you know.

00;08;43;03 - 00;08;49;21
Wayne Turmel
And what are the rules around personalization and what can you do?

00;08;49;24 - 00;08;55;27
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. You're not necessarily sitting at the same desk every time where you can have that kind of stuff.

00;08;56;00 - 00;09;00;27
Wayne Turmel
Well, and you know there are drawers. What do we keep in the drawers.

00;09;00;29 - 00;09;07;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah. It's like, you know, there's storage or whatever is mine.

00;09;07;08 - 00;09;24;13
Wayne Turmel
Is there. So we need to address those. And, and this means we need to address them far in advance of it being an issue. So how these conversations need to be had before the magic wand is waved.

00;09;24;16 - 00;09;45;14
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, that's exactly where I was getting to is like, what are some ways that leaders can involve employees in the process? You've talked about some ways that, you know, they can already, think about doing stuff like Lysol and having cubbies for stuff and all that. But like, what kinds of things should they be doing to involve their employees in the process of doing this?

00;09;45;16 - 00;10;09;00
Wayne Turmel
There is a huge conversation which will be uncomfortable and is going to make a lot of people feel weird. But here's the thing everybody wants their desk, but they only want to be added a couple of days a week. Well, what this means in the long run is that the organization is paying for space that is not being used right.

00;10;09;02 - 00;10;34;25
Wayne Turmel
One of the things driving the return to office is the CEO comes out of her office and looks around at all this stuff that is costing X dollars per square foot and nobody is there. And so the organization is paying for space, equipment, things that they are not getting a return on. This is a legitimate concern.

00;10;34;28 - 00;10;35;22
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Absolutely.

00;10;35;22 - 00;10;36;25
Wayne Turmel
They're not doing their money's worth.

00;10;36;26 - 00;10;38;05
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;10;38;08 - 00;11;09;06
Wayne Turmel
Why are we paying for three floors in a building if we could arrange our schedule, accommodate everybody two days a week, and not have to pay for all that square footage, that is a legit business conversation, right? And employees need to care. Because if it comes down to we're paying for all this space and the employees are whining, right?

00;11;09;08 - 00;11;17;20
Wayne Turmel
Whining loose, right? It needs to be a discussion about mutual benefits and concerns.

00;11;17;23 - 00;11;20;04
Marisa Eikenberry
So how can they manage some of that?

00;11;20;09 - 00;11;38;21
Wayne Turmel
Well, again, it's here are the reasons we want to go to hotel. You have said you only want to come in occasionally. You only want to come in a couple of days a week. And we can arrange this so that we clearly don't need this many desks.

00;11;38;29 - 00;11;40;02
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;11;40;05 - 00;12;11;03
Wayne Turmel
And you have concerns about privacy in this in that. So how do we address that? And there needs to be a real harsh conversation around what's negotiable and what's not negotiable. If you've decided as a group of employees, two days a week in the office is plenty, you can't complain about the fact that some of the things that we are paying for are going to go away, right?

00;12;11;03 - 00;12;16;12
Marisa Eikenberry
It's like it's the consequences of the things that you want, right? It's like you can have your cake and eat it too.

00;12;16;14 - 00;12;48;19
Wayne Turmel
So which do you want more? And that just needs to be a real, honest conversation. And some organizations are much better about that than others right now. Maybe this can be done on a team basis if your office is set up so that, you know, this bullpen is salespeople and this group of people are admins. And however that set up, as a team, talk about what do we need?

00;12;48;21 - 00;12;50;19
Marisa Eikenberry


00;12;50;21 - 00;13;10;16
Wayne Turmel
You also need to prioritize what is important to you. Do you need a window? Okay. Some people do. Some people they need daylight. They need vitamin D. They need to be able to when they're thinking look out the window. Other people get distracted by looking.

00;13;10;16 - 00;13;11;16
Marisa Eikenberry
At the right.

00;13;11;18 - 00;13;33;16
Wayne Turmel
Do you want to be near the bathroom? Do you not want to be near the bathroom? Those types of things, because on a small team, often we self-select anyway. Right. If I'm in Monday and Wednesday and you're in Tuesday and Thursday and we decide we're going to share a desk and nobody else cares, great. There's your answer, right?

00;13;33;18 - 00;13;36;16
Marisa Eikenberry
That makes it easy.

00;13;36;18 - 00;13;43;17
Wayne Turmel
So, you know, if you can do that on a team basis, it's certainly going to be easier.

00;13;43;19 - 00;14;10;04
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Well, and I could see to the idea of, you know, this group is needs quiet work to do or quieter or work to do something. Yeah, you're web developers or something like that. Whereas you know, your sales team or your marketing team, they might be louder, but, you know, so it's like, is there a sound issue also to consider about where they sent me office, or that these two teams should not come in on the same day or whatever?

00;14;10;06 - 00;14;40;09
Wayne Turmel
Exactly. There are ways to address this. Maybe conference rooms is the answer, right? Right. There are rooms for conversation. Take advantage of those. Yeah. So these are the kinds of things that you need to consider. And I would suggest just as individuals what's important to you. Right. Think about what is your routine. What is your daily routine look like when you go to the office?

00;14;40;09 - 00;14;41;27
Wayne Turmel
What is important to you?

00;14;41;29 - 00;14;44;02
Marisa Eikenberry


00;14;44;05 - 00;14;54;14
Wayne Turmel
And then talk to your teammates and say, hey, I really, really like the idea of the window. Do you mind if I have that.

00;14;54;17 - 00;14;58;06
Marisa Eikenberry
You know, and then fight to the death if you need to.

00;14;58;08 - 00;15;05;26
Wayne Turmel
You know, it's it's a great it's a great team building exercise to have gladiator battles in the middle of the year.

00;15;05;27 - 00;15;08;15
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Certainly.

00;15;08;15 - 00;15;09;17
Wayne Turmel
A lot of this.

00;15;09;18 - 00;15;11;02
Marisa Eikenberry
The story. Oh.

00;15;11;04 - 00;15;18;12
Wayne Turmel
Well, just a lot of this is boils down to a cultural resistance to change.

00;15;18;14 - 00;15;20;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Which is going to happen no matter what you do.

00;15;20;27 - 00;15;50;05
Wayne Turmel
Which is going to happen. It's going to be awkward and weird. The more we discuss it, the more we recognize what the stressors are. Right. What is it that you're concerned about. Right. And then how do we address it. I always come back to an example in the early days of Covid that I was talking to to a team, and this almost became equitable issue.

00;15;50;07 - 00;15;51;14
Marisa Eikenberry
Wow. Okay.

00;15;51;16 - 00;16;12;17
Wayne Turmel
Is they made somebody said they made me come home and I've got my laptop, I have this big tower and a desk and a keyboard and multiple screens, and it's great at work. And I came home and I've got this stupid little laptop and this little rubber dealy that I'm supposed to use instead of a mouse. And I said, well, why don't you just buy a mouse?

00;16;12;17 - 00;16;14;26
Marisa Eikenberry
They're like, right, that would be.

00;16;14;28 - 00;16;47;05
Wayne Turmel
Their $9 at Walgreens. You know, just buy one. And his issue was, I shouldn't have to be out of pocket to do work for them when this change is being driven by them. And I get, okay, I can see that. Have you talked to your manager about this? Yes. Well, the policy is the manager is sticking by the policy that we don't pay for equipment that's not being used in the office.

00;16;47;08 - 00;16;56;26
Wayne Turmel
And so there's a showdown over a $9 mouse. Now, is the $9 mouse really the issue?

00;16;56;28 - 00;16;57;23
Marisa Eikenberry
No.

00;16;57;25 - 00;17;18;04
Wayne Turmel
No, it's you are asking me to work in a certain way, and you are not giving me what I require to do my job. So you are adding to my inconvenience. And oh, by the way, it's costing me money that I don't want to pay for something that I don't want to do, right.

00;17;18;07 - 00;17;21;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. The underlying issue that nobody really wants to say.

00;17;21;21 - 00;17;48;10
Wayne Turmel
So this is going to get to, you know what? You're saving $2,500 a month on square footage, spring for lockers, spring for duplicate duplicate equipment. So people have mice at their desk. Maybe there is a camera at every desk that people can use when they're there, and they don't have to break down their own camera and bring it to work every day.

00;17;48;12 - 00;18;11;04
Wayne Turmel
It's so often we have said, it's the little things, right? It's the thousand little pinpricks that lead to war, that have a pebble in your shoe that if you can handle those, make the larger issues much easier to discuss and deal with.

00;18;11;06 - 00;18;30;09
Marisa Eikenberry
And so before we wrap up, I do have one last question for you, but it's so for organizations who are thinking about trying hotel and and maybe they've, you know, not done that previously, what kinds of things that they can do to like pilot these programs, test and fine tune and roll them out to their teams. Like, I guess first steps.

00;18;30;11 - 00;18;40;17
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. Well, you use the word pilot before a policy. It's like literally, let's try this for two months and see how it works.

00;18;40;19 - 00;18;42;01
Marisa Eikenberry


00;18;42;03 - 00;18;56;02
Wayne Turmel
Rather than this is what we are going to do. And if you don't like it or you make the wrong choice or you think you want to be near the bathroom and you find that too distracting, sucks to be you, right?

00;18;56;02 - 00;18;58;20
Marisa Eikenberry
You make your choice. Now you have to live with it, right?

00;18;58;22 - 00;19;14;24
Wayne Turmel
Know people don't always know what they're choosing, and they may decide. And we may decide that, you know what, the same people take the same hotel desks all the time. And it really, after the initial chaos, isn't that big a deal.

00;19;14;26 - 00;19;16;22
Marisa Eikenberry


00;19;16;25 - 00;19;24;24
Wayne Turmel
Right. I'm working with the same people every Tuesday and Tuesday we show up and we go to the desk. We always go to a, nobody has an issue with it.

00;19;24;27 - 00;19;27;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. You get used to it.

00;19;27;10 - 00;19;40;26
Wayne Turmel
So identify the barriers, address or mitigate as many of them as you can. Make it easy for people to hotel.

00;19;40;29 - 00;19;43;26
Marisa Eikenberry


00;19;43;29 - 00;20;05;22
Wayne Turmel
And then try it and see what works and what you need to fix. You need to fix and you will eventually settle into a rhythm that works for you. Human beings like routine. We, you know when our routines get disrupted we freak out. When do we stop freaking out? When we have established a new routine.

00;20;05;24 - 00;20;10;11
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Which I mean, really is also where some of this boils down to to begin with.

00;20;10;11 - 00;20;28;06
Wayne Turmel
And and there's a paradox here. On the one hand, this is not as momentous or even insane a change as it feels like. And at some point you will get over it and deal with it.

00;20;28;08 - 00;20;28;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;20;28;27 - 00;20;43;20
Wayne Turmel
On the other hand, to diminish or to discount the very real feelings that people have, only make it harder to reach that new, that new rhythm and that new norm.

00;20;43;22 - 00;20;58;22
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely. Wayne, thank you so much for this conversation. I really hope that it was helpful for our listeners. And I know I learned a lot more about hotel later. Hot desking or you know whatever, whatever other name remote work wants to start calling it. Right.

00;20;58;24 - 00;21;06;10
Wayne Turmel
Well, it's so funny because the terminology changes all the time. I mean, hot desking. Who does that sound like? Fun.

00;21;06;12 - 00;21;24;26
Marisa Eikenberry
I was going to say. I think that's what we called it last year. I, we did a whole episode about. I'll have to link it in the show notes. So at first it was like, wait, what's hotel? And I know Hot Desk, who knows? So listeners, you may be listening to this a year or so from now and have no idea what we're talking about.

00;21;24;29 - 00;21;30;23
Marisa Eikenberry
Or it's called something else. So it just goes to show how fast things are changing. But before we go.

00;21;31;00 - 00;21;45;00
Wayne Turmel
But tell us what what are your thoughts on this? I mean, we're sitting here being all very wise on the mountain. Here are the things you can do. What's your experience? Yeah. And what's worked for you and what hasn't. Tell us.

00;21;45;03 - 00;22;06;10
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes. Yes, absolutely. We would love to share your thoughts and your questions. On another episode. But before we go, I do want to say that we're very excited to share the second edition of The Long Distance Leader. It's now available, and this updated guide is packed with actionable strategies to help you lead effectively in today's remote and hybrid environments.

00;22;06;12 - 00;22;32;03
Marisa Eikenberry
Don't wait. Order your copy at long distance work life.com/ldl and take your leadership skills to the next level. And thank you for listening to the long distance work life for Shownotes transcripts and other resources, make sure to visit Long Distance worklife.com if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a future one. And while you're at it, leave us a rating or review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this.

00;22;32;06 - 00;22;48;10
Marisa Eikenberry
It's quick and it helps us reach even more listeners just like you. And we would also love to hear from you, as Wayne already said. So reach out to us via email or LinkedIn using the links in our show notes, and let us know that you listen to this episode, or even suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode.

00;22;48;17 - 00;23;06;20
Marisa Eikenberry
We would love to hear from you. And again to Benjamin, who sent this in. Thank you so much for reaching out to us so that we could have this conversation. And before we go, as Wayne likes to say, don't let the whistles get you down.

00;23;06;22 - 00;23;07;13
Marisa Eikenberry
Thank you.


Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
00:48 A listener question sparks today’s topic
01:21 What is hoteling? A quick definition
02:28 Why losing your assigned seat feels so personal
05:55 Hygiene concerns: Should you trust a shared desk?
07:16 Setup & breakdown: The hassle of moving every day
09:45 The business case: Why companies are pushing hoteling
12:11 The trade-offs of office space reduction
14:40 How teams can self-organize for smoother transitions
17:48 Small frustrations that create major workplace tensions
18:30 How to pilot a hoteling program before rolling it out
20:43 Final thoughts

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Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Leader

Perfect your remote leadership skills with the updated edition of "The Long-Distance Leader" by Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, featuring new principles and proven strategies for today's hybrid work environments.

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In this episode of The Long-Distance Worklife Podcast, Wayne Turmel sits down with David Nilssen, author of The Future is Borderless and CEO of Doxa Talent. David discusses how his remote-first company manages over 1,000 employees across seven countries, completely office-free.

Explore the remote-first revolution, why hybrid work often falls short, and the importance of cultural awareness when managing borderless teams. David also shares lessons from his book and podcast, helping leaders navigate the challenges of global teamwork.

Key Takeaways

1.Remote-First Is a Strategic Choice, Not a Cost-Saving Measure: Embracing a remote-first approach isn’t about cutting costs by eliminating office space. Instead, it’s a deliberate strategy to align with modern workforce trends, investing in team-building, professional development, and collaboration.
2. Intentional Connection Is Critical in Remote Work: Without the "osmosis" of in-office interactions, leaders must intentionally create opportunities for team bonding, professional development, and cultural connection. This includes in-person meetups when possible to foster a sense of unity.
3. Cultural Awareness Builds Stronger Global Teams: Understanding cultural differences in communication, trust-building, and feedback is vital when managing international teams. For example, high-context cultures like the Philippines require indirect feedback, while low-context cultures like the U.S. prefer directness.
4. Hybrid Work Often Creates Two Classes of Employees: When hybrid environments are poorly managed, in-office employees may have better access to leaders, information, and opportunities, leaving remote workers at a disadvantage. Leaders must avoid this by ensuring equity in communication and collaboration.
5. Define Clear Roles and Outcomes for Outsourced Work: Outsourcing succeeds when organizations provide specific job roles and clear expectations. Avoid unrealistic “unicorn” job descriptions by focusing on the exact outcomes you need.
6. Training Remote Teams Requires More Than Osmosis: In-office training by osmosis—sitting a new hire next to an experienced employee—doesn’t translate to remote work. Leaders need structured onboarding processes and tools tailored for remote teams.
7. Outsourcing Can Benefit Higher-Level Roles: Outsourcing isn’t just for low-level administrative tasks. It can add significant value in higher-level functions like finance, marketing, and software development, especially when supported by robust systems and processes.
8. Start with Why: Before building an international or remote-first team, clarify your organization’s goals. Is it to build capacity, advance back-burner projects, or improve efficiency? Your purpose will shape how you approach the process.

View Full Transcript

00;00;08;05 - 00;00;39;27
Wayne Turmel
Hello, everybody. Welcome once again to the Long Distance Worklife Podcast, where we help you survive, thrive, arrive alive, whatever. In this crazy world of remote and hybrid and the evolving workplace. My name is Wayne Trammell. This is a Marissa Alice episode. Marissa will be back next week. But that means I get to talk to somebody really cool about an important topic.

00;00;39;27 - 00;01;02;01
Wayne Turmel
And so today we are going to talk about building international teams, working internationally, and probably ruffle a few feathers along the way, I suspect. My guest is appearing on screen now is David Nelson from Docs and Talent. He is in Boise, Idaho. Hi, David. How are you?

00;01;02;04 - 00;01;04;16
David Nilssen
I'm doing great, Wayne. Thanks for having me on today.

00;01;04;18 - 00;01;17;10
Wayne Turmel
Well, thank you for being here. Listen, the question is, who really quickly. Who are you? And docs and talent and what makes you qualified to talk about this?

00;01;17;12 - 00;01;40;15
David Nilssen
Yeah. So, docs a talent is a socially conscious outsourcing firm. We help, companies in the US build and scale up high performing teams of global talent. What makes me qualified to talk on this topic? We actually have about a thousand employees across seven different countries, and we have zero office space. So I'm a real, I'm passionate about remote work.

00;01;40;15 - 00;01;46;08
David Nilssen
I think it is the future. And I love talking about this with people. So glad to do it today.

00;01;46;11 - 00;02;06;14
Wayne Turmel
Now, before we started recording, we were having a conversation, and you said something interesting, which strikes me as, a little paradoxical, which is that you have no office space. But you told me before that you are remote first.

00;02;06;17 - 00;02;07;29
David Nilssen
Yes.

00;02;08;02 - 00;02;12;28
Wayne Turmel
You had. How do you swear that? How do you make that work with this many people?

00;02;13;00 - 00;02;29;28
David Nilssen
Yeah, I think a lot of people have this assumption that the reason why companies go remote is to save money on office space, and. And the reality is, what I tell people is that when we chose to go fully remote, meaning no office space whatsoever, we weren't remote, only we were remote first. It's not a cost cutting exercise.

00;02;29;28 - 00;03;04;19
David Nilssen
It's just a strategic move to embrace what we think are modern workforce trends. And so for us, when we say remote company, it does not mean that we don't ever get together, as an organization. So, for example, next week, my entire leadership team, and other members are flying into Manila and we're going to have, a week long, event where we do some cultural training, where we do some strategic training, we unveil our annual plan, we do some teambuilding, and then we have our annual holiday celebration, and we'll have approximately 700 people ascend on Manila for us to be able to have that.

00;03;04;19 - 00;03;10;06
David Nilssen
So that's obviously a pretty large expense. We're not saving money, we're just investing it in different ways.

00;03;10;08 - 00;03;28;13
Wayne Turmel
And that's really important. I, I think this is a little sidetracked, but I think it's important, this notion that people look at remote as a way to save money and therefore investing in getting people together is something we don't need to do because we're remote.

00;03;28;15 - 00;03;49;28
David Nilssen
Yeah, I don't think that's actually true. I mean, I do believe that in an office you have this great opportunity to build relationships, but you generally do it unintentionally through osmosis, right? You and I meet at the water cooler. We have a little coffee together. Or we have these crazy events. And I remember, you know, a decade ago when I had everybody in one office in downtown Seattle, we had all these fun events that we would do.

00;03;49;28 - 00;04;09;19
David Nilssen
And it's really about creating a fun environment when you move to the remote world now, also, you don't get a chance to sort of build that connective tissue that you would just build, naturally through, being in an office and so we have to sort of create those opportunities in small, digestible snippets. And so that's what we are we're doing in that regard with the group.

00;04;09;25 - 00;04;23;09
David Nilssen
The other thing I would say, though, is that also, instead of investing what I would call fun, and that's what people often think of culture as we're investing more in professional development and tools and training resources to help elevate them as people, professionals, along the way.

00;04;23;12 - 00;04;35;20
Wayne Turmel
What kind of skills when you are putting a team that is going to be remote first and more than that, international, what kind of skills are you looking for?

00;04;35;22 - 00;05;02;18
David Nilssen
Well, in our in our company, we help companies. We help our clients. I say build teams of everything from, administrative professionals to finance and accounting, data science, software engineering. So the skill set that they need, will vary depending on the type of roles that our clients need them to play. But I would say aside from that, there are some characteristics of the way people work in this sort of, internal needs that they have that are important.

00;05;02;18 - 00;05;19;14
David Nilssen
So we actually use an assessment to help us as one indicator towards predicting whether this person can be successful in a remote environment. One is have they done before? And if they haven't. And we want to understand are these people autonomous workers or do they need a lot of direction and sort of support, or are they social people?

00;05;19;20 - 00;05;48;25
David Nilssen
Because if you have a very high social need, the remote world can actually feel very isolated. For someone who's really a high producing individual, doesn't need a lot of social stimulus, though it can actually be a very freeing environment. And then the other thing that I would say that we do is we spend a lot of time, working with our clients to make sure that they have the right process and systems and collaboration tools and rhythms to get the the outcomes that they want from the workers that we have, because we could provide the best worker in the world.

00;05;48;27 - 00;05;56;19
David Nilssen
But if the company is instead of to actually support a remote worker or an international team member, then it may not be successful. Anyways.

00;05;56;22 - 00;06;01;05
Wayne Turmel
What kind of pushback do you get? What don't they expect they're going to have to do?

00;06;01;08 - 00;06;02;26
David Nilssen
The workers with the clients?

00;06;02;28 - 00;06;12;05
Wayne Turmel
The clients? I'm not. The person with the money makes these decisions in the long run, and are largely responsible for whether it works or not, right?

00;06;12;08 - 00;06;30;21
David Nilssen
Yeah. The thing that's always the most surprising and the place where people are challenged, the greatest working with remote workers, whether they're offshore, onshore, it doesn't really matter. The question is, do they have the tools and the sort of rhythms to work with people in our environment? Oftentimes we default in office practices when we have in office workers.

00;06;30;21 - 00;06;50;11
David Nilssen
And so we haven't built the the sort of muscles that we need as leaders to make sure that people are clear on the outcomes that are expected of them to, ensure that they've put the right person in the right seat and that, everyone feels like they're on the same playing field. So that would be the first one, is do they understand how to work with the remote, workforce?

00;06;50;13 - 00;07;09;15
David Nilssen
The second, though, is do they have standard operating procedures for the roles that are, you know, required for people to do similar work constantly, which is often what gets outsourced. They need to have standard operating procedures. Well, it's pretty interesting to me, as I've worked with large scale organizations up to public companies who didn't really have strong SOPs.

00;07;09;15 - 00;07;16;26
David Nilssen
And so that tends to be the place where there's the biggest friction point when you're trying to blend international remote with standard work.

00;07;17;03 - 00;07;42;10
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, the notion of this is how we want you to do it. As you say, it happens a fair amount by osmosis. When you're in the office, it's kind of in the oxygen. There that you breathe, which also leads to something else, which is you are very definitely remote first, and you're not a big fan of hybrid work, or at least what a lot of people call hybrid work.

00;07;42;13 - 00;07;47;08
Wayne Turmel
Now, here's your chance there. Here's your soapbox, buddy. Have.

00;07;47;09 - 00;08;10;25
David Nilssen
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, look, I would say, my first experience. So pre-pandemic, we were sort of playing with should we go remote? We've been a centralized organization for almost two decades. And, the company that I was running at the time and, you know, we celebrated culture, but we were starting to get the, you know, people reaching out to saying, hey, I'm having to move further to a for a home.

00;08;10;25 - 00;08;29;21
David Nilssen
I want to work here. I love the company, but I can't can't commute two hours a day. Would you be open to this? And so we started playing with that. And we constantly heard little grumblings from our team. That was just a bad experience. Well, it became, true to me when I was traveling on the road, we were having a leadership team meeting, and everyone sitting around the table.

00;08;29;23 - 00;08;50;25
David Nilssen
And here I am sitting in cyberspace on a zoom call. They kept forgetting about me. I was I wasn't able to barge into the calls. I couldn't read the body language of the people around me. And I realized really quickly that by creating a hybrid environment, we created two classes of people. Those that had access to information, access to leaders could read the body language and those that did not.

00;08;50;28 - 00;09;09;09
David Nilssen
And so when we looked at it, we zoomed out, we said, hey, look, in an office, we built all the same sort of muscles around. How do we how do we think about productivity and employee experience and what management, skills and tools do you need, and how do we train people and the same thing is true in remote.

00;09;09;09 - 00;09;25;20
David Nilssen
If you're fully remote, you build the same sort of muscles. When you're in a hybrid environment, you have to do both. So you do both and you pay for both. But you can't really be best in class either. And so for us, we decided we wanted to be a remote organization. We felt like that was the future of the modern workforce.

00;09;25;23 - 00;09;34;10
David Nilssen
But I'm not against in-office work. I just believe that in the hybrid environment, it's the most expensive and potentially the most dangerous for employee experience.

00;09;34;13 - 00;09;50;22
Wayne Turmel
There you go. Now, some of that, of course, has to do with what we think of as hybrid. And are we aware of these dynamics and taking steps to deal with them? Right. Well, where I'm in violent agreement is when it's done badly, all of those things.

00;09;50;24 - 00;10;06;26
David Nilssen
Yeah. Okay. Well, you talked about training just a second ago when you brought that up. I thought, you know, that's a great example of one. Right. So when we used to have salespeople that would onboard with us in an office, I would say, hey, Wayne, welcome to the company. And I'm over generalizing, of course, just to be illustrative here, but hey, great to have you here.

00;10;06;26 - 00;10;19;20
David Nilssen
You're to be our orientation with our HR leader. And then I'm going to have you sit next to Dave. Dave's been in this role for two years. You're going to watch him for the next 2 to 4 weeks. You'll pick it up, you'll be great. And that's sort of how people think about training. It's really training by osmosis.

00;10;19;22 - 00;10;38;21
David Nilssen
But in a remote environment that is absolutely impossible. So if your company is set up to onboard and train and develop people in a, in an in office environment that is not aware of or sensitive to the remote workforce, then the remote people get the short end of the stick and oftentimes, are much less successful.

00;10;38;23 - 00;11;06;08
Wayne Turmel
Absolutely. So we're going to put a pin in that for the moment. Let's get back to the notion of building an international team. If you're remote first and probably on some levels shouldn't matter. In the job and you have the infrastructure, it'll work. I suspect human beings don't work quite that easily. What are some of the challenges when you're putting together an international?

00;11;06;11 - 00;11;26;29
David Nilssen
Yeah, so there's a couple of things. One is, most people are actually not terribly clear on what sort of outcomes and activities are required of the people. So I can't tell you how many times I get sent a job description. And it looks like somebody took a, an executive assistant, a finance, professional and a software engineer and just sort of merged them together and said, hey, we're looking for this unicorn.

00;11;27;02 - 00;11;40;28
David Nilssen
And I think when a company is thinking about outsourcing, be very clear about the specific skill set, and outcomes are looking from a particular role. I know that sounds like table stakes, but, it is not. The second thing that I would say is that most people don't realize that.

00;11;40;28 - 00;11;50;03
Wayne Turmel
There's nothing there is nothing natural. There is nothing natural or simple about doing things naturally and simply.

00;11;50;06 - 00;12;11;23
David Nilssen
Yeah. Totally true. The second thing we've already covered, which I won't go into, it's just it's the management side of this. I find that most of the time when offshore teams fail, they either have the wrong provider, which is possible, or the management team is not really equipped to deal with both remote or international talent. The remote side we will talk about because we did just a minute ago.

00;12;11;25 - 00;12;30;13
David Nilssen
But when it comes to remote workforce right now, two really hot destinations, both of which we serve, are the Philippines and Colombia. And when you think about how do we communicate, how do we evaluate, problems with an organization, how do we lead? How do we make decisions? How do we build trust? How do we disagree?

00;12;30;13 - 00;12;49;24
David Nilssen
Those are all very different based on the cultures you're in. So I'll give you a couple of examples. One is, how we communicate. So, you know, in the Philippines, they've been a country, living on these islands for thousands of years. They've learned how to communicate through cultural nuances and very sophisticated level communication. Well, there you go.

00;12;49;24 - 00;13;12;10
David Nilssen
To us. We've been around for 250 years. We're a, a country of immigrants. We have to be very explicit what they call low context. And the way that we communicate Philippines high context, U.S. low context. So oftentimes the Filipinos to the Americans can feel avoidant in a conversation when in fact, actually the way that they communicate is just very, very different.

00;13;12;12 - 00;13;34;18
David Nilssen
The other thing is how we build trust. So here I'm very task based, which is very U.S centric, very in the way that I built trust. When you told me you were going to do X, you did it on time and you did it well, I now trust you to do the next step in the Philippines. Well, they want to have long coffees and lunches and get to know you as a human being and those kind of things before they trust you.

00;13;34;18 - 00;13;59;05
David Nilssen
And so understanding some of those nuances, they're not wrong. They're just different. But I think a lot of times we expect everyone to be very American in the way they work, when in fact we also need to be open to and embracing, the cultural nuances the others. So one example of that would be, when it comes to giving feedback, in the US, we like more direct feedback, not quite like the Germans, but we like more direct feedback.

00;13;59;11 - 00;14;14;01
David Nilssen
And then in the Philippines, indirect negative feedback is how you give it. So you have to sort of sandwich, the feedback one positive, a negative and then another positive. In order for them to be able to hear and understand it. So there's just things like that that make a big difference.

00;14;14;04 - 00;14;42;28
Wayne Turmel
I'm curious. And maybe this is my Canadian American centric brain. It seems to me markets like the Philippines. And this has to do with colonialism and all kinds of things, probably function with Americans a little bit, probably better, but certainly different than a country like Colombia, which is unifying you all, which you know, is there challenges there?

00;14;43;01 - 00;15;06;05
David Nilssen
Well, surprisingly, the Colombian culture is actually, closer aligned to the American culture in terms of the business environment, the Filipinos. Yes, I would say from a the standpoint of it is primarily an English speaking country. To your point, at one point, American said had, certainly occupied the territory. There's a great alliance from a government standpoint.

00;15;06;05 - 00;15;26;12
David Nilssen
There's a tax treaty. There's a lot of reasons why you would think that. But, they are still very, you know, hierarchical in terms of the way that they operate. Then it's got to be very prescriptive in terms of what's expected of them. And so, just a little bit different, though, in terms of the business environment, they've not quite yet adapted as a full culture in that way.

00;15;26;13 - 00;15;38;09
David Nilssen
Obviously, there's some people have been working with, American business for a long time. That's not an issue. But in general, what I've seen is actually the Colombian culture is a little bit further towards, or closer aligned to the American way of doing business.

00;15;38;11 - 00;15;56;14
Wayne Turmel
Well that's fascinating. And I could geek out on this for a very, very long time. When you go into these markets and looking for talent, are you looking for locals? Are you looking for expats who happen to be living there?

00;15;56;18 - 00;16;17;21
David Nilssen
No, actually, the I'm in fact, I would I would venture to say I'm not aware of any expats that work for us. These are all, local, individuals who who want to work with and learn from, American companies. And so, you know, a lot of the skill sets are the same when it comes to design and, email marketing and finance and accounting.

00;16;17;21 - 00;16;44;20
David Nilssen
A lot of those standard principles are the same. So it actually translates very, very well. But the things that we look at when we go to these markets is, is there, you know, safety, currency stability, is there the right infrastructure? Both. We look at, you know, the the possibility of, natural disasters, all these sort of things that we look at to say, hey, is business continuity going to be an issue for us for one reason in these particular areas?

00;16;44;20 - 00;16;48;15
David Nilssen
And so that's one of the things that we look at in addition to time zone and talent density and things like that.

00;16;48;16 - 00;17;14;07
Wayne Turmel
Very, very cool. We are nearing the end of our time already, which is amazing to me. If you are advising somebody to put together an international team that's going to be remote first, that you know it's going to do this, what are the 1 or 2 very first things that they need to do in your mind to be successful?

00;17;14;10 - 00;17;40;08
David Nilssen
Yeah. I would say first I would look at the places in my organization where I need to add excess capacity, but doing their fiscally responsible way, or where we have people who could be adding even greater value to the organization doing, work that that could be potentially moved somewhere else. Standard work. That, could be moved someone else so that they can focus their time and energy on higher value out of test.

00;17;40;08 - 00;17;54;17
David Nilssen
So that would be the first thing that I would look at. The second thing is I would look at is, what are some of the things that are on the back burner that have been your perpetual second or third priority that you know, need to get done, but you just haven't yet had the time, energy, or capacity to address?

00;17;54;24 - 00;18;05;00
David Nilssen
Those are the first two things that I would look at. And then downstream are the things that we talked about, which is making sure you got the right standard operating procedures and the tools and resources to be able to help to collaborate with those individuals.

00;18;05;02 - 00;18;16;29
Wayne Turmel
But deciding why you want to do it, and that this is a good business thing to do, is probably a good first step. And you'd think that would be a natural thing for people.

00;18;17;02 - 00;18;41;14
David Nilssen
Absolutely. You would think so. But I think a lot of people still just believe that outsourcing is really for, you know, low level tasks. Outsourcing can actually add value in every part of the organization. And my expense I've seen the further we move up in New York chart, the more value we extract from that experience. And so I would not limit yourself to just thinking about administrative work, more about where are the parts of organization that you want to advance, faster than you are today?

00;18;41;20 - 00;19;05;15
Wayne Turmel
Absolutely. David, thank you so much for being with us. Ladies and gentlemen, we will have links to David to, to the future is Borderless podcast Host, which is his podcast. We will have that on our show notes at Long distance Work life.com. David, I'm going to dismiss you and I am going to wrap up the show here.

00;19;05;19 - 00;19;08;00
Wayne Turmel
Thank you so much for being with us, man.

00;19;08;02 - 00;19;08;29
David Nilssen
Thanks for having me.

00;19;09;01 - 00;19;41;09
Wayne Turmel
And now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Well, come back, long distance work life is based on the books. The long distance leader, long distance teammate, and long distance team. If you want information on our new book, long distance leader, revise rules for remarkable remote and hybrid leadership. This is the new, updated edition. It is available at long distance work life.com/ldl.

00;19;41;09 - 00;20;08;09
Wayne Turmel
There are special deals and all kinds of extras that you can get there. If in fact, you are interested in our training on this, we have the long distance leadership series, which is coming up very quickly, a virtual open enrollment class. We would love to have you check that out. Visit it. Kevin eikenberry.com if you enjoyed today's show.

00;20;08;09 - 00;20;33;03
Wayne Turmel
And I certainly enjoyed my conversation with David. It's a podcast. You know how this works. Like and subscribe and tell your friends so that others can find us. That is really about it. If you have a question, a comment, a vicious personal attack, an idea for a guest that you want to tell Marissa and I about, contact us through our LinkedIn page.

00;20;33;08 - 00;20;55;27
Wayne Turmel
Or you can just simply, email us, Wayne and Kevin Eikenberry, Marissa, Kevin eikenberry.com and join us there. Thank you so much. Marissa will be with us in our next show for now. Thank you for being with us. Keep your head above water. Don't let the weasels get you down and we will see you next time. Hey!


Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
00:39 Meet David Nilssen and Doxa Talent
02:10 What It Means to Be a Remote-First Company
03:10 Building Culture Without an Office
05:02 Skills Needed for Remote-First International Teams
07:16 Why Hybrid Work Often Fails
10:38 Training and Onboarding in a Remote Environment
11:06 Challenges of Building International Teams
14:14 Cultural Nuances in Global Workplaces
17:00 Advice for Building Remote-First Global Teams
18:41 Closing Thoughts and Resources

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Leader

Perfect your remote leadership skills with the updated edition of "The Long-Distance Leader" by Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, featuring new principles and proven strategies for today's hybrid work environments.

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Guests, Hybrid Work, Working Remotely

Flexible Workspaces and the Future of Work with Sam Rosen

Wayne Turmel is joined by Sam Rosen, the founder of Deskpass, to explore how the office landscape has changed in recent years. Sam shares his journey from opening one of Chicago’s first co-working spaces to developing tools that connect companies and remote workers with flexible workspaces. They discuss the evolving role of offices, how companies can make strategic real estate decisions, and the benefits of offering co-working options to remote and hybrid teams. Sam also dives into the differences between designing workspaces with a human-centered approach versus the traditional real estate mindset. Tune in to discover how you can leverage flexible spaces to improve productivity and retain top talent.

Key Takeaways

  • Flexible workspaces provide a valuable alternative to traditional offices, offering professional environments tailored to diverse work needs.
  • A human-centered design approach prioritizes worker needs over merely filling office space, unlike traditional real estate perspectives.
  • Companies are reducing their office footprints to save costs while using co-working spaces to maintain access to professional environments.
  • Proximity and convenience are key benefits of co-working spaces, making them ideal when working from home isn't suitable.
  • In-person meetings should be reserved for deep collaboration or cultural reinforcement, with a focus on asynchronous work whenever possible.
  • Successful remote companies prioritize culture, communication tools, and processes over physical office space.
  • Access to flexible workspaces helps attract and retain talent, expanding the hiring pool and supporting employees' varied work preferences.

View Full Transcript

00;00;07;27 - 00;00;37;23
Wayne Turmel
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Long Distance Worklife, the podcast where we attempt to help you thrive. Survive, generally keep the Weasels Hat Bay when we are dealing with remote and hybrid work. My name is Wayne Trammell. I am the subject matter for remote work and the evolving workplace at the Kevin Eikenberry Group. My usual partner and producer, Marissa is not here today.

00;00;37;25 - 00;01;03;11
Wayne Turmel
The good news is that means we have an interview with a fabulous guest, in this case, Sam Rosen from Desk Pass, who is going to talk to us about the changes that digital work have wrought upon us over the last couple of years. And so, with no further ado, joining us from Chicago is Sam Rosen. Hi, Sam.

00;01;03;13 - 00;01;05;24
Sam Rosen
Hi, Wayne. Thanks for having me, man.

00;01;05;26 - 00;01;13;07
Wayne Turmel
Thank you for being had a, real quick. Who are you and what steps pass and why do we care?

00;01;13;10 - 00;01;38;02
Sam Rosen
Good question. I'm sam, and, I run a little business called that space I've been in, sort of the intersection of design and technology and where in how we work for about 15 years. So I started by, started a branding design agency and then opened the first co-working space in Chicago, where there are about 300 in the whole world now.

00;01;38;02 - 00;02;05;06
Sam Rosen
There's 40, 50,000. And since then, I've been building tools and technology around this problem. So today, I work on desktops. I'm the founder of that space. And that space is a tool that really connects individuals and companies with thousands and thousands of fantastic, flexible workspaces, co-working spaces, you know, places to book a desk for a day, meeting for an hour, private office, all on demand.

00;02;05;06 - 00;02;06;26
Sam Rosen
And that's that's what I do.

00;02;06;28 - 00;02;22;17
Wayne Turmel
All right. So whenever anybody creates a technology or does anything like that, they're clearly trying to solve for a problem. So what was the problem you were trying to solve for, with past?

00;02;22;20 - 00;02;50;09
Sam Rosen
Yeah. You know, it's funny because a lot of people in this space now, come from finance and come from real estate. And I've always come from design, and just trying to solve problems for humans. So, coming across co-working really, really early realized that was a really interesting solution to offer a place for people who want to work but necessarily don't work for the same company and just are looking for a space to get work done nearby.

00;02;50;09 - 00;03;19;08
Sam Rosen
So, and I found that to be really interesting and a new problem. And then the, the other problem was, and I think this is more clear than ever, is, offices have always been pretty empty. Offices are traditionally fairly underutilized, and that's one of the biggest asset classes in the world. So the opportunity to create something out of empty office space and share it with people so they can be happy and get good work done, is seemed like a good problem to solve.

00;03;19;10 - 00;03;39;16
Wayne Turmel
Now. You said something a moment ago, which I've dealt with remote work for 25 years. I should have thought of this, and for some reason I had a blinding flash of the obvious, which is it makes sense for real estate people to get involved in this, because there's all these offices sitting empty, and how are we going to find uses for them?

00;03;39;19 - 00;03;51;10
Wayne Turmel
What in your mind is the difference between coming at it from a real estate standpoint, where it's desks and rooms and whatever, and a design standpoint?

00;03;51;12 - 00;04;19;09
Sam Rosen
You know, I think the perspective we've always had is like, who's way, what is what is waiting live? Who does he live with? Where can he focus and get work done? And how do you build a really brilliant environment for Wayne to get his best work done, irrespective of everything else? And I think often folks that come from real estate and finance are just they're they're trying to put pegs and holes, right.

00;04;19;09 - 00;04;51;17
Sam Rosen
Which is there's empty office space. Let's fill it up. And I think for me, from the design perspective, I think for a long time the experience for workers was really driven around, you know, the the bank that owns the building, the management company that manages the building, you know, supporting the owner of the company that owns the company and building a financial arrangement that works for all those parties, but less so, like Wayne and like what works best for Wayne today.

00;04;51;19 - 00;05;19;23
Sam Rosen
And I think that's where I come from is like, how do you everyone has different needs as workers depending on what company they work for, what role they're in. I got two little kiddos that live in the suburbs, you know, like my kids have Covid today. Like my needs are different today than yesterday, right. And, and I think that's what I'm really interested is solving problems around the human and less around like X, Y, Z Corp and you know, and x, y, z bank.

00;05;19;26 - 00;05;24;20
Wayne Turmel
Okay. So we've done our burn the patriarchy death to make.

00;05;24;22 - 00;05;25;02
Sam Rosen


00;05;25;04 - 00;05;57;25
Wayne Turmel
Peace with this. So let's get really practical. A lot of people, I think, think of I'm either working at home or I'm in the office. What are some of the advantages of these kind of third spaces? Because to me, having other humans around is not the most beneficial piece of this. Yeah. But I have used spaces like this before, so, you know, if somebody is thinking about when does this make sense?

00;05;57;25 - 00;06;01;07
Wayne Turmel
When does it not? What's the the answer there.

00;06;01;09 - 00;06;23;18
Sam Rosen
Yeah. Look, I think there's a lot of things that people will say about what makes a great workspace. But I think the underlying thing is proximity distance. Right. Like if I can't work from home because my kids are home or I don't have a suitable work environment, like trying to find a place close to me that's convenient to me where I don't have to commute or schlep or go.

00;06;23;18 - 00;06;49;19
Sam Rosen
That's a that's an underlying, really important piece. I think. Other than that is not all, but most of these co-working spaces and flexible workspaces, they're like very purposefully built for work. So they tend to be really thoughtful work environments that are built and amenities better than the average office. So, you know, coffee, tea, events, different types of workspaces.

00;06;49;26 - 00;07;09;10
Sam Rosen
I think these often are nicer workspaces than the average workspace. And then the last thing I'd say is I totally connect with what you're saying, which is I don't, you know, like, people need different things and they often need different things at different times. Like some days I need a quiet place to do a podcast or to work on a deck.

00;07;09;11 - 00;07;31;12
Sam Rosen
Right. And then sometimes I'm looking for community. I'm looking for inspiration. I want to be around other people. So the value of a network like that space, or just co-working spaces in general, as you can get exactly what you're looking for typically, and not like a one size fits all solution like your home or HQ.

00;07;31;14 - 00;08;17;11
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. I mean, for me, it's always been helpful when I'm traveling because the hotel room is not always conducive to getting work done. Between, you know, housekeeping banging on the door and, bad Wi-Fi and, you know, whatever. Yeah. So that's when I've done it. As we move more and more to hybrid work and companies are shrinking their physical footprint and doing stuff, and how if I'm the CEO of a company, you know, the notion of paying for a third space, if I'm already paying for an office, might be a bit of a tough sell.

00;08;17;11 - 00;08;19;19
Wayne Turmel
What would you tell that CEO?

00;08;19;22 - 00;08;48;05
Sam Rosen
Yeah. So I think the paradigm of office is changing in a fundamental way. Right. Like one office for everybody to solve everybody's problems. I think is the old paradigm. And I think what we found there was those offices were generally pretty inefficient, generally underutilized and expensive to maintain. I am at the office today. Like, I love them, like I believe in the whole business of selling office.

00;08;48;05 - 00;09;15;29
Sam Rosen
Right. So I think what we're seeing and the thesis that I really have in this space is this notion of office as an ecosystem. And we talked to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of companies that are thinking about this. Every company is different, different employees, different geographies, different requirements. But I think the prevailing trend that I like I've seen is, companies are, changing as leasing decisions are coming up.

00;09;15;29 - 00;09;39;19
Sam Rosen
Right? They're thinking about, okay, I have all this space. Are people coming to the office? How utilized is it? And they're not abandoning the office full sale. They're typically taking less space. They're reducing their their size of their leased or owned real estate, and they're making it more efficient. They're saying, what is the purpose of this space? This is person of the space together to sell, to do R&D.

00;09;39;22 - 00;10;00;17
Sam Rosen
And let's have fewer square feet, but let's make them better. So people want to use them. And then not mandate that people are there all the time, every day. And instead of saying you have, you can work from office or you can work from home. We're seeing companies become more inclusive and saying, we will meet you where you are, what do you need?

00;10;00;19 - 00;10;18;17
Sam Rosen
And let me help support you with what you need. The value of a a platform like this fast and not to get salesy here is it's on demand pay as you go. So what companies are doing is they're not saying here's another office we're paying for near your house. They're saying work from where you need to get work done.

00;10;18;17 - 00;10;39;06
Sam Rosen
And I've given you a $500 budget that if you want to use it, you can use any of these spaces and we'll pay for it. And then it gives companies the ability to learn like, well, what are my employees really? What? How are they really using space? And how should this, help me address my my work space and strategy in the future?

00;10;39;08 - 00;10;59;06
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, and there are times when you need to have a meeting, but, you know, you don't have a space. I mean, to pay 100, 150 bucks for a meeting room for an hour that everybody can go to and then leave, is probably not a bad investment.

00;10;59;09 - 00;11;01;00
Sam Rosen
And I'd argue.

00;11;01;00 - 00;11;02;10
Wayne Turmel
It's in tonight's meetings.

00;11;02;13 - 00;11;26;14
Sam Rosen
A lot less expensive to have meeting rooms when you need them than a meeting room in your, you know, building that's empty, 90% of that 80% of the time or whatever it might be. So I think people do find that like, flexible solutions tend to be a lot more cost effective than owning heating, maintaining space. That's that's not used.

00;11;26;14 - 00;11;27;00
Sam Rosen
Well.

00;11;27;03 - 00;11;47;26
Wayne Turmel
What are some of the for people that have never, you know, taken advantage of these kinds of situations before? What are some of the ways people use them? Like why would somebody use a space when, you know, they have a home office?

00;11;47;28 - 00;12;19;16
Sam Rosen
So I mean, post through Covid like some of the, the big trends we've seen. So sales teams, right. Like bigger companies that have sales offices. So have like tens or hundreds of sales offices that were never that utilized, we're finding them divesting themselves from those spaces and saying, look, instead of having this office that's kind of far away from where you actually live, we're getting rid of it, but we're going to give you access to desks and meeting rooms and offices as you need.

00;12;19;19 - 00;12;54;25
Sam Rosen
So we see a lot of meetings, right? Like sales meetings, regional meetings, quarterly meetings, client meetings where people are leveraging the the network on demand for that. And I think another big pieces, I think Covid helped companies realize that being co-located to where the office and HQ is isn't as necessary as they thought. So they might have had employees that moved away from Chicago or whatever city are in and now live in Denver or Vegas or wherever it might be, and want to offer something to them rather than saying sayonara, right.

00;12;54;25 - 00;13;15;16
Sam Rosen
Or they're looking for talent and they're instead of just casting a net that's around their geography, they're saying, let's just find great people irrespective of where they live, and then let's support them with what they need. And that's where we see a lot of use with, I think these flexible workspaces and networks like ours.

00;13;15;19 - 00;13;25;20
Wayne Turmel
As CEO, what's the you know, where are your CEO hat for the moment and rejoined the patriarchy.

00;13;25;20 - 00;13;29;13
Sam Rosen
And I'm in,

00;13;29;16 - 00;13;46;01
Wayne Turmel
What is the discussion that you would have with your fellow fellow CEOs? What are the 2 or 3 things that they really need to think about in terms of their offices, in terms of flexible spaces like desk space?

00;13;46;04 - 00;14;12;09
Sam Rosen
Yeah. I mean, I think like the, you know, there is a huge cost savings advantage to leveraging networks like this and taking less fixed real estate and being more flexible. I think like that's a big piece. I think the other advantages to, to remote work is, is right, is talent, both acquiring new talent but also retaining great talent.

00;14;12;09 - 00;14;37;22
Sam Rosen
So like and this is, I think a, you know, that's what these tools are really great at. The last thing I'd say is, you know, some of the pushback you get, in selling what, what we sell and talking to folks is they believe the best work gets done in the office. They believe in, like, the watercooler. And getting people around the table is like, how great work is done.

00;14;37;24 - 00;15;10;11
Sam Rosen
And I I'm very much an advocate of in-person work and getting people together. I think that is work. Great work gets done, but I don't think it gets done there all the time. And I think that, like companies that have been really successful at remote work, like Nvidia, right, like the fastest growing American company right now, like Atlassian, I mean, there's a million really strong examples of fully remote company are very hybrid companies.

00;15;10;13 - 00;15;47;19
Sam Rosen
It's not about workspace, it's about culture. And it's about the having the right tools and the right processes in place as an organization, to like, effectively communicate. And I think those companies are really great because they have the best co-working spaces or the best real estate strategy. It's that they've recognized what's happening in our labor markets and with like the future of the world and where things are trending and they're building the right tools, the right culture, the right processes in-house to get the best result.

00;15;47;19 - 00;15;54;18
Sam Rosen
And that's why those companies are thriving, not because of like, the the watercooler.

00;15;54;20 - 00;16;09;12
Wayne Turmel
I'm going to leave you with one question, and this is just forget the fact that this is what you do for a living as a CEO. When do you decide an in-person meeting is necessary and when do you not?

00;16;09;15 - 00;16;36;12
Sam Rosen
It's interesting because I think of it more as asynchronous meetings like asynchronous work and synchronous work, right? What work does it need to be a meeting at all? And it's actually better if it's a host or it's, it's a, you know, like in the tools and then, okay, which meetings should be synchronous. Right. And I think okay, out of those meetings, which ones?

00;16;36;14 - 00;17;19;12
Sam Rosen
Should be in person. And I think when there's, a huge amount of work to get through, like it's a big meaty problem. I think that's when getting together really, really helps. And I think culturally, like when you feel like the culture you're building is struggling, like the, the and good pep or kind of shot in the arm is let's get people together and remember, like we're humans, like we're not just these little people in these boxes and like, it's the little things outside of just the work of just like learning about your people you work with, building empathy around them.

00;17;19;12 - 00;17;30;19
Sam Rosen
So I think, like, that's the kind of the framework that I like to use is like, does this have to be a meeting at all? And if it's a meeting, are we going to get a lot more squeezed by by doing it in person?

00;17;30;22 - 00;17;55;15
Wayne Turmel
Digging it. Thank you much. Sam Rosen desk pass. We will have links to salmon desk pass and all of that good stuff in our, show notes. I am going to remove Sam from the meeting for just a moment while I talk to you. And I remind you that if you enjoyed the show, if you continue to enjoy the show, please like and subscribe.

00;17;55;15 - 00;18;20;02
Wayne Turmel
You know how all this social media podcasting stuff works. I would urge you to check out, Kevin in my new book, The Long Distance Leader. And I know you're saying Wayne, the long distance leader, has been out for six years. Actually, this is a new, updated edition. It is the long distance leader. Revised rules for remarkable remote and hybrid leadership.

00;18;20;02 - 00;18;53;12
Wayne Turmel
We urge you to check that out. And you can, of course, get show notes, transcripts, past episodes, all that good stuff. Check out long distance work life.com. If you have ideas for shows, if you have, questions, comments, complaints, vicious personal attacks, you can find Marissa Renee on LinkedIn or our email, which is here on the screen below my face.

00;18;53;12 - 00;19;08;26
Wayne Turmel
For those of you enduring that, that's it. It's, been another episode. Thank you so much for joining us on the long distance work life. Marissa will be back next week, and don't let the weasels get you down.

00;19;08;28 - 00;19;21;21
Unknown
Hey.

00;19;21;23 - 00;19;22;20
Unknown
You know.


Featured Guest

Name: Sam Rosen

Bio: Sam Rosen is the co-founder and CEO of Deskpass, an online marketplace connecting teams and individuals to thousands of coworking spaces and conference rooms across the country. A creative problem solver, Sam's passion for coworking began with co-founding The Coop, Chicago’s first coworking space, and he has since become a recognized entrepreneur and voice in the design community. Prior to Deskpass, he co-founded The Post Family art collaborative and One Design Company, a digital branding agency that blends research, communication, and design for top brands.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction to Sam Rosen and Deskpass
01:03 Sam’s Background in Co-Working and Design
02:05 The Evolution of Office Spaces and Remote Work
03:19 Design vs. Real Estate: What’s the Difference?
04:51 Advantages of Co-Working Spaces
07:09 How to Use Deskpass for Remote Work Travel
08:17 Making Flexible Workspaces Work for Your Company
10:00 Real-Life Examples of Deskpass in Action
13:15 Keeping Culture Alive in Remote Teams
17:19 Deciding When to Meet In Person
19:08 Conclusion and Resources

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Leader

Perfect your remote leadership skills with the updated edition of "The Long-Distance Leader" by Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, featuring new principles and proven strategies for today's hybrid work environments.

 Order
The Long-Distance Leader
Read More
Mastering Hybrid Coaching: Avoiding Proximity Bias in Remote Teams
Ask Wayne Anything, Hybrid Work, Surviving Remote Work, Working Remotely

Mastering Hybrid Coaching: Avoiding Proximity Bias in Remote Teams

Wayne Turmel and Marisa Eikenberry tackle the challenge of proximity bias and its impact on coaching in remote and hybrid teams. Proximity bias, where leaders give preferential treatment to those physically closer, can skew coaching opportunities and development. Wayne and Marisa discuss how to overcome this bias and ensure remote team members receive equal attention and guidance. You’ll also learn practical tips on how to leverage technology, such as Zoom, Slack, and Teams, to create more effective and meaningful coaching experiences.

Key Takeaways

  • Defining Proximity Bias: What it is and why it matters, not just for leaders but also for peers and teams.
  • Coaching Differences: How coaching remote employees differs from in-person coaching and why proximity plays a significant role.
  • The Importance of Regular Feedback: How coaching should be proactive, consistent, and more formal in remote settings to avoid isolation.
  • Leveraging Technology: Tips on using tools like Zoom and Slack to enrich one-on-one coaching experiences and maintain engagement.
  • Avoiding Bias in Hybrid Teams: Strategies to ensure that in-office employees don’t get favored over their remote counterparts during coaching sessions.
  • The Emotional Impact: How not receiving feedback or coaching can be demotivating for remote employees, and what leaders can do to avoid this.

View Full Transcript

00;00;07;27 - 00;00;08;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to.

00;00;08;18 - 00;00;20;00
Marisa Eikenberry
The Long-Distance worksite, where we help you live, work, and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I'm Russ, I can be a fellow remote worker. And joining me is my co-host and remote work expert, Wayne Trimble. Hi, Lynn.

00;00;20;03 - 00;00;22;05
Wayne Turmel
Hello, Marissa. How are you?

00;00;22;11 - 00;00;23;28
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm great. How are you?

00;00;24;01 - 00;00;27;01
Wayne Turmel
I'm fine. Even though we're nowhere near each other.

00;00;27;03 - 00;00;57;00
Marisa Eikenberry
Right, right. You in Vegas and me in Indianapolis said we're going to kind of talk about that today, as we do every time on our remote show. But today, specifically, we're talking about coaching and differences between coaching in-person and remote and how to try to make those similar and avoiding proximity bias. So one of the first things that I do want to start with, and we've talked about this a lot on the show, but for people who have never listened to an episode of ours before, maybe we should define what is proximity bias.

00;00;57;08 - 00;01;35;21
Wayne Turmel
Proximity bias as it relates to leaders. Okay, is and I'm looking at this very fancy I generated definition and okay, like all I generated definitions I want to go. That's not entirely it. It says and I quote proximity bias is a cognitive bias that occurs when people have positions of power, favor employees who are physically closer to them, and that includes things like promotions and coaching opportunities and an unintentional exclusion for those who aren't there, and all of that good stuff.

00;01;35;21 - 00;02;02;03
Wayne Turmel
The problem with this definition, of course, is that it happens not just in leadership, it happens in life, and it happens among peers. On teams. So when we're talking proximity bias, yes, in this case, because we're going to be discussing coaching its leaders, but it's also peers and colleagues and stuff like that.

00;02;02;06 - 00;02;11;06
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. So how does proximity bias specifically like affect the coaching experiences of remote employees as opposed to ones in person?

00;02;11;08 - 00;02;41;12
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, well, proximity bias affects coaching in some obvious ways, right? An obvious way is if I'm in the office and I see somebody doing something incorrectly or wrong or even really well, and I want to give them some coaching and some feedback on that, my brain says, I see this happening and I should respond, the problem, of course, with remote workers is you often don't see things happening in real time.

00;02;41;19 - 00;03;11;24
Wayne Turmel
You see them long after the fact, and they generally need to be pretty dramatic in order for your brain to go, you know, I should pick up the phone. I should type them a message. I should make a point of mentioning this. So coaching happens much more spontaneously, much more frequently, and often better in person than it does remotely.

00;03;11;24 - 00;03;49;09
Wayne Turmel
And the ultimate impact of that is more than you would think. Because when you are remote and you perceive that other people are getting coaching and attention that you are not getting, it can be rather disheartening. And the. Well, of course, but when you're the one who is guilty of the bias, you often don't see that. For example, you know, out of sight, out of mind to a lot of leaders is, you know, unless there's a problem, I'm just going to let Marissa do her thing.

00;03;49;11 - 00;03;51;29
Marisa Eikenberry
And for some reason, you're okay with that.

00;03;52;01 - 00;04;27;00
Wayne Turmel
For some people, they're okay with that. But even people who are really good at their jobs and prefer to be left alone to do them need a little love. They need some attention. They need positive reinforcement and and occasionally correction. Because a lot of us who work remotely and we've talked before about the Wiley Coyote moments, where, you know, it's like the Roadrunner cartoons where you run, run, run, run, run and you're way off the cliff before you realize that you're off the cliff.

00;04;27;02 - 00;04;31;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. But if you would have had, you know, weekly or biweekly meetings, you may have if.

00;04;31;19 - 00;04;59;23
Wayne Turmel
You were getting regular feedback, which is ultimately what all of this comes down to is feedback loops, right? And proximity bias tends to have really strong feedback loops with the people with whom you are physically proximate and weaker, and less frequent feedback loops with people that you do not interact with in a rich way nearly as often.

00;04;59;25 - 00;05;14;10
Marisa Eikenberry
So what are some signs that a manager might be showing proximity bias during one on one? So if they are, you know, actually meeting. But how might those one on ones differ a little bit if they're showing proximity bias?

00;05;14;12 - 00;05;48;06
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, I think there are a bunch of ways. And I'll just tell you because everything ultimately is about me. It used to make me crazy with managers who, if they were in the office, would call people in. They'd have a cup of coffee, they'd sit across the desk, they do their thing. But because I was usually on the other end of the country or traveling or they were traveling, I would get my coaching conversations on a staticky cell phone in a busy airport lobby.

00;05;48;08 - 00;05;50;10
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, it was an afterthought.

00;05;50;12 - 00;06;22;20
Wayne Turmel
It was, well, we got to do this. It's schedule. Let's do it. And so there wasn't time to connect. There wasn't the visual component where you could see that somebody was stressed or not. You basically because you're trying to drown out the distractions around you run from a checklist. And so a lot of those one on ones were not coaching opportunities so much as they were check ins on tasks.

00;06;22;22 - 00;06;23;06
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;06;23;06 - 00;06;25;06
Wayne Turmel
Which is important.

00;06;25;09 - 00;06;26;01
Marisa Eikenberry
But it's not the whole.

00;06;26;07 - 00;06;52;20
Wayne Turmel
Coaching. Coaching is more than that. Coaching is not just having a one on one coaching conversation or conversation. Coaching is a very specific thing. It involves feedback. It involves both performance and development. So it's not just this is what you're doing, but what would you like to be doing right? What would you like to be doing better? How can I help you do that?

00;06;52;22 - 00;07;25;28
Wayne Turmel
Is true coaching. It's not just feedback right. So and that's one that's a very obvious one. I think the other thing is that coaching remotely by definition is going to be more formal and needs to be planned, which means there are big coaching moments. Okay. But there's not a lot of that spontaneous in the hallway giving somebody a thumbs up when you hear them on the phone, doing a great job with a customer.

00;07;26;00 - 00;07;45;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. That's fair. So, you know, you were talking a second ago about your old coaching conversations where, you know, staticky cell phones and things like that. And obviously we now have tools like Zoom and Slack huddles and Microsoft Teams that give that visual and help make things a little bit easier, even if it isn't quite the same way.

00;07;45;10 - 00;07;53;09
Marisa Eikenberry
So how can technology help to kind of create a level playing field during one on ones between remote and in-office employees?

00;07;53;11 - 00;08;25;17
Wayne Turmel
Sure. Well, we have talked a lot on this show about the importance of richness and scope and understanding when you use which right. It's fair to say that coaching should be an extremely rich experience. It doesn't mean you can't send an ad a girl over over slack or something like that. But in general, coaching, requires a little bit more attention.

00;08;25;20 - 00;09;13;08
Wayne Turmel
And, and so that's part of it. So so the richer technologies are probably helpful. The other thing and not enough coaches do this, I think, is when you're on teams or whatever you're on, is the ability to share data so that you are not just staring at each other's faces, but you're actually looking at numbers and saying, you know, if I say you're not hitting your numbers or you were a little off this month, that's very different than looking at a spreadsheet that shows exactly how much you were off relative to the month before or the last couple of months, and it makes it more real when it's just face to face.

00;09;13;15 - 00;09;17;10
Wayne Turmel
It's very easy for coaching to become emotional.

00;09;17;14 - 00;09;17;24
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00;09;18;00 - 00;09;33;19
Wayne Turmel
And emotional in good ways, but also emotional in ways of becoming defensive or, you know, putting on a front or whatever. And and that's for both the coach and the coach.

00;09;33;21 - 00;09;35;03
Marisa Eikenberry
Coach, of course.

00;09;35;05 - 00;09;37;10
Wayne Turmel
The person being coached. Okay.

00;09;37;12 - 00;09;48;01
Marisa Eikenberry
With that. You know, are there some things that managers can be doing, like to, enhance that a little bit during one on ones.

00;09;48;03 - 00;10;20;00
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And I'm not going to make this whole thing a shameless plug for the new book, the new old book, but in the Long Distance Leader Revised Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership, which is the updated version. One of the things that isn't updated a whole lot is the section on coaching, because it's the same as it's been. It's funny, one of the critiques we got of the book is, well, there's all this stuff about coaching, but it's not specific to remote and hybrid.

00;10;20;02 - 00;10;36;25
Wayne Turmel
And that is correct, because one of the things that we don't do well enough, even in person, is coaching. And there's no evidence that says we're going to do it better without the visual and approximation cues. And those sorts of things.

00;10;36;27 - 00;10;37;20
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;10;37;22 - 00;11;10;23
Wayne Turmel
But there are some things that need to happen. And a big one is when you are coaching, you need to check your beliefs because it's very easy to. And this is part of proximity bias. If you see people busily working, you assume that they're always busily working. And that tells you something about that person, right? If you feel positive towards them, you are inclined to cut them slack when something goes wrong because you see them working.

00;11;10;25 - 00;11;24;23
Wayne Turmel
When you are dealing with somebody who is surrounded by white space and you don't see everything that's going on around them. While we want to assume positive intent.

00;11;24;27 - 00;11;25;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;11;25;15 - 00;11;56;15
Wayne Turmel
We don't always. Because if I've worked with Morris a long enough, there is a part of me that goes, you know what she's like. And and that colors how we approach our coaching. And over time, if we don't check those beliefs, if we don't stop and ask ourselves if the information we're getting or the impression we're getting is accurate, we start to act on those beliefs by default.

00;11;56;17 - 00;12;17;28
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, we've talked about this in previous episodes too, but because, you know, you can't see somebody, maybe their performance is down this month. And you know, you notice that. So you just assume, oh, they're lazy. But if you had been seeing them you would notice like they're stressed out, they're overworked, they're burned out. They've got something going on at home that's affecting stuff.

00;12;17;28 - 00;12;22;04
Marisa Eikenberry
And you have no idea if you're not checking in like that.

00;12;22;06 - 00;12;49;18
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And so, you know, a coaching conversation actually has several parts. And one of the most important, you just said it and we kind of glossed over that part, okay. Is at the beginning of the conversation when we say, how are you? We made the correct response with the correct response is, oh, I am fine. Let us please get to this meeting that I don't really want to have.

00;12;49;18 - 00;12;51;02
Wayne Turmel
But you have called.

00;12;51;05 - 00;12;51;15
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;12;51;23 - 00;12;52;20
Wayne Turmel
Right.

00;12;52;22 - 00;12;54;00
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00;12;54;02 - 00;13;22;11
Wayne Turmel
And, and and so and I'm sure I've said this before because I'm mildly obsessed with it. How are you? Is both a greeting and a request for information. Right. And a good coaching conversation starts with the request for information. Yes. The second thing that the coaching conversation does, and hopefully over time, the person understands that that is a legit request for information, right?

00;13;22;11 - 00;13;29;14
Wayne Turmel
When I say to you, how are you doing? You are generally pretty forthcoming with me about how are you doing?

00;13;29;17 - 00;13;34;01
Marisa Eikenberry
I mean, we have that trust established, right? Like, I just I don't have to trust anybody.

00;13;34;03 - 00;14;05;19
Wayne Turmel
Right. But we have that trust established. I have demonstrated in the past that I am actually willing to listen. I give a hoot. And and so, I mean, we started we start every conversation with how's it going? How you doing? Is, you know, what's going on in your world. But the other thing that a good coaching conversation does, this is different than the sports model coaching that we often think of, where the coach tells you stuff right.

00;14;05;21 - 00;14;06;22
Marisa Eikenberry


00;14;06;24 - 00;14;32;28
Wayne Turmel
Nobody sees Phil Jackson. Ask Michael Jordan what's going on out there. You see Phil talking to Jordan right. You have these guys that was maybe the oldest white guy reference I could have made there. But but a good coaching conversation lets the other person speak first. Yeah right. What's going on. What would you like to talk about?

00;14;33;03 - 00;14;57;12
Wayne Turmel
And the reason is very simple. I can come in saying I need to give Billy Bob feedback on this thing that isn't work, and that's fine, right? Because we need to get his performance up. So I'm going to coach him. But as you alluded to earlier, let's find out what's going on with Billy Bob. And one of the really important things is does Billy Bob know there's a problem?

00;14;57;15 - 00;15;27;01
Wayne Turmel
That's right. If I say, tell me about your numbers last week, oh, it's no big deal, blah, blah, blah. If I say, tell me about your numbers last month. And Billy Bob goes, oh, God, you wouldn't believe it. It's such a okay. Until he events, he is not going to be able to hear my feedback. If I think that he's in denial, I'm going to give him different feedback than I would if he is guilt ridden and knows that there is a problem, right?

00;15;27;01 - 00;15;57;02
Wayne Turmel
Because he is guilt ridden and knows that there is a problem, he probably wants to get better. And I am going to approach that coaching conversation different than I will. If he doesn't think there's a problem at all. Well, it's really important for me to know where the coached person is psychologically, mentally in terms of the problem, because that's going to radically dictate how we have that conversation.

00;15;57;04 - 00;16;16;23
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Well, it's interesting that you're saying this too, because it's one of those things that like, I, I mean, I've been working for the Kevin like Burger for ten years, right? And I did not realize that almost every conversation I've had with any manager that I've had has been like that. The one on one started off with, okay, I have some things for you, but let's start with you first.

00;16;16;29 - 00;16;35;06
Marisa Eikenberry
What do you have for me? And then and sometimes it's the same stuff that's on their list. But it was just, you know, I mean, I have a biweekly meeting with, you know, my manager now, and it's always what's on your list first. And it didn't occur to me until now that it's like, oh, yeah, well, like that let me lead the conversation first for a little bit.

00;16;35;08 - 00;17;02;07
Wayne Turmel
Well, you know, we both have lists, right? Right. The manager here has a Kevin has a waiting list. Right. These are the things I need to talk to Wayne about. And Wayne has a Kevin list. And it is an actual physical running list that I keep. And if what is on the top of Kevin's list is not what's on the top of mine, I'm going to be responsive to what Kevin's telling me.

00;17;02;07 - 00;17;15;18
Wayne Turmel
But in the back of my head I'm going, yeah, but what I really want to talk about is right, right, right. Or what I really think is important is this. And I may not be fully in the game.

00;17;15;20 - 00;17;18;22
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Well, it may be something that's not on Kevin's radar.

00;17;18;29 - 00;17;49;04
Wayne Turmel
Right. So here we are running radically out of time. And most of what we have talked about is coaching, because coaching is coaching. And the nuances of doing it remotely are important. There not the biggest things in the world, but they matter. The only thing before we wrap up is that in hybrid hybrid coaching, if you've got people couple days in the week, blah blah blah, choose when to do it in person.

00;17;49;04 - 00;18;05;27
Wayne Turmel
And coaching in person is almost always more valuable than coaching at a distance. So if you can schedule your time and arrange your schedules so that if you are in the office together, that's when that stuff happens.

00;18;05;29 - 00;18;25;27
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Have it be as rich as possible. Of course. So Wayne, thank you so much for this. And I really hope that our listeners got a lot out of this. But before we go, the second edition of The Long Distance Leader is now available, and this updated guide is perfect for navigating today's remote and hybrid work environments with new principles and proven strategies.

00;18;25;27 - 00;18;56;12
Marisa Eikenberry
Kevin and Wayne show you how to lead effectively no matter where your team is located. Don't miss out on the latest insights and exercises designed to boost productivity and morale, and order your copy now! At long distance work life.com/l d l and strengthen your remote leadership skills today. And 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.com and if you haven't yet, subscribe to the show so you don't miss any future episodes.

00;18;56;17 - 00;19;12;04
Marisa Eikenberry
And while you're there, make sure to give us a rating and review your feedback helps us improve and reach more listeners just like you. And feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes. Let us know you listen to this episode, or suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode.

00;19;12;06 - 00;19;17;23
Marisa Eikenberry
We would love to hear from you. Thanks for joining us. And as Wayne likes to say, don't let his weasels get you down.

00;19;17;25 - 00;19;23;05
Marisa Eikenberry
Hey.

00;19;23;07 - 00;19;31;26
Marisa Eikenberry
There.

00;19;31;29 - 00;19;32;07
Marisa Eikenberry
You.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
00:27 What is Proximity Bias?
01:35 How Proximity Bias Affects Coaching
03:11 Differences Between In-Person and Remote Coaching
05:14 Signs of Proximity Bias in One-on-Ones
07:45 Using Technology to Enhance Remote Coaching
09:48 Creating a Level Playing Field with Remote Tools
10:48 Coaching Conversations: Feedback and Emotional Dynamics
12:22 The Importance of Trust in Coaching
14:05 How to Start a Good Coaching Conversation
17:49 Final Thoughts on Hybrid Coaching
18:25 Long-Distance Leader Book Promotion
18:56 Outro

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Leader

Perfect your remote leadership skills with the updated edition of "The Long-Distance Leader" by Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, featuring new principles and proven strategies for today's hybrid work environments.

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Ask Wayne Anything, Hybrid Work

Is Your Hybrid Work Strategy a Mule or a Platypus?

Wayne Turmel and Marisa Eikenberry dive into the hybrid work debate, comparing two very unlikely animals: mules and platypuses. Wayne introduces his humorous yet insightful analogy, explaining how a “mule” model of hybrid work is intentional and strategic, while a “platypus” model is a chaotic, unplanned combination of different parts.

They discuss the challenges many organizations face when trying to make hybrid work “work” and provide practical advice on moving from a disjointed model to one that serves both teams and the business. With the rapid evolution of remote and hybrid environments, the question becomes: is your team a well-planned mule or a hodgepodge platypus?

Key Takeaways

  • What hybrid work really means and why most companies are just coping rather than strategizing.
  • The difference between a mule and platypus approach in hybrid work.
  • How strategic hybrid teams balance not only where but also when work happens.
  • Practical steps to move from a platypus hybrid model to a mule-like, intentional approach.
  • The importance of understanding both asynchronous and synchronous work in a hybrid setting.

View Full Transcript

00;00;07;26 - 00;00;08;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to the.

00;00;08;18 - 00;00;19;13
Marisa Eikenberry
Long distance work life. We help you live, work and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I'm Marissa Eikenberry, a fellow remote worker, and joining me is my co-host and remote work expert, Winter Bell. Hi, Lynn.

00;00;19;16 - 00;00;21;23
Wayne Turmel
Hello, Marissa. How are you?

00;00;21;25 - 00;00;23;21
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm great. How are you?

00;00;23;23 - 00;00;32;17
Wayne Turmel
I am fine. For the uninitiated, we are recording this on the Friday before a long weekend and things may get silly. Is.

00;00;32;20 - 00;01;03;02
Marisa Eikenberry
We're ready to go. But anyway, we're also talking about something silly, so that that helps. But lately, in articles and stuff, when you've been talking about hybrid in the sense of do you want a mule or a platypus? And which, first of all, I think it's hilarious. But why don't we start off with can you explain how that analogy applies to remote models or hybrid?

00;01;03;02 - 00;01;37;13
Wayne Turmel
Well, there are there are grown people basically saying, I don't want a mule or a platypus. What are you talking about? So here is what is I have been spending a lot of time thinking, writing, talk to customers about hybrid work, and I realized that most of what we call hybrid work isn't okay. at best, what most teams are doing, most organizations are doing is a hostage negotiation.

00;01;37;15 - 00;01;38;22
Marisa Eikenberry
Sounds about right.

00;01;38;24 - 00;02;01;07
Wayne Turmel
How much can we make them come into the office before they quit? And how much can we whine and complain about not going into the office before they fire us and we settle on? Okay, come in three days a week. And that's kind of it. And that works kind of, sort of that doesn't make anybody ecstatic, but it gets stuff done.

00;02;01;07 - 00;02;29;07
Wayne Turmel
It's fine. But the problem is that it is not a strategy. It is a coping mechanism. And as a result, you get some weird problems with it. I go into the office and I can't get anything done because people are stopping by my desk and they want to have meetings I hadn't planned for, and there's somebody's birthdays, or there's cake in the break room, and I can't get anything done.

00;02;29;07 - 00;02;45;03
Wayne Turmel
But when I work from home, where I used to be able to get stuff done, now I'm on zoom meetings from morning till night, and that's one of the problems when you've kind of negotiated one problem but haven't really thought about the others.

00;02;45;06 - 00;02;46;04
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;02;46;06 - 00;03;22;00
Wayne Turmel
So the question leaving aside mules and platypuses is do you want to have a strategically planned hybrid work system, or do you just want to have this kind of ad hoc thing? Which got me thinking about animals? I'm getting to the point. I swear. I know it got me thinking about animals. What is a hybrid? In biological terms, a hybrid is the offspring of two different animals or biological entities.

00;03;22;00 - 00;03;51;16
Wayne Turmel
You can have hybrid axes, but in this case two different animals, which creates a third animal which is a unique beast. So the classic example is a mule. Yes, it's part horse and part donkey. But if you've ever encountered mules, you know that they are their own distinct thing and another mule is going to be more like a mule than it is its parent.

00;03;51;18 - 00;03;52;17
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;03;52;19 - 00;04;23;03
Wayne Turmel
So I started thinking about other animals that are kind of a mash up, and the one that struck me a because it's hysterical, and B because it's a really good example is the platypus, which, as you and I have discussed, Marissa is essentially God had spare parts lying around and created this thing with a duckbill and a beaver tail and poisonous toenails on its back feet, and because why not?

00;04;23;10 - 00;05;07;13
Wayne Turmel
And that's the whole point, is, from an evolutionary standpoint, all of those things developed for a good reason. But evolution is slow. And as the environment changes around it. The corpus has a lot of stuff that just doesn't make any sense anymore. And if the environment is changing very quickly so that it is rapidly becoming endangered and there are fewer places on the planet, it's geographic, where you find them geographically is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, and it's just kind of like, I know there's a reason it evolved.

00;05;07;13 - 00;05;36;22
Wayne Turmel
Poisonous toenails, but probably every time they introduce a new, predator into the environment, they know that you have poisonous toenails. And so they stay away from that. Right. And so applied. And plus, while it continues to exist, it's kind of an evolutionary dead end, and it can't suddenly change direction and become something else.

00;05;36;25 - 00;05;38;12
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. That makes sense.

00;05;38;14 - 00;06;07;09
Wayne Turmel
So a mule is carefully chosen for very specific things. It's replicable and it will continue to be useful and exist for a very long time. A platypus has been left to its own devices. And, you know, if you live in the right part of Tasmania and and you don't bother them too much, they're fine. But they're not expanding, they're not growing, they're not becoming more plentiful.

00;06;07;12 - 00;06;20;03
Wayne Turmel
Right. Because they've just kind of been allowed to evolve. And the way that they've evolved has responded slowly to changes in their environment. But there's no plan to it.

00;06;20;06 - 00;06;31;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? So okay, so if mule is considered the true hybrid, what are some elements of successful hybrid work models that you're highlighting in this?

00;06;31;21 - 00;06;41;12
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, the big thing about hybrid work is most people think work. Hybrid work is what work gets done. Where.

00;06;41;14 - 00;06;42;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;06;42;21 - 00;07;23;04
Wayne Turmel
And a hybrid a truly hybrid work experience is, yes, what work gets done where, but also when it introduces the concept of time, the idea of there are times when asynchronous work is preferable and is really good, and there are times when perhaps we need to be together. So, a platypus team, for example, might say, yeah, we're in the office three days a week, and the days when you're not, we want you logged in the same time as the people in the office.

00;07;23;04 - 00;07;36;12
Wayne Turmel
And when you logged out, when they're gone. Right. So that essentially, yes, you are free to work wherever you want, but by golly, you better be available when Nancy in accounting wants you.

00;07;36;14 - 00;07;44;17
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. And it's different if you're, you know, customer support or something like that, where those hours are really important. But, you know, if you're a web developer, does it really matter?

00;07;44;17 - 00;07;52;07
Wayne Turmel
Well, well. And if in my case, I live three time zones away from you and Kevin.

00;07;52;10 - 00;07;53;14
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;07;53;17 - 00;08;14;09
Wayne Turmel
Right now I'm an early bird. So fortunately my body clock in my brain starts very early in the morning. So I kind of sort of keep East Coast hours, but I don't have to. Right. There are certain number of hours in a day where we want overlap.

00;08;14;12 - 00;08;17;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. When you and I talk about available.

00;08;17;21 - 00;08;49;09
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. When you like I talk about stuff when we have team meetings there is time that we need to overlap. But generally speaking Kevin doesn't track my time. I'm getting stuff done. You're getting stuff done. It's all cool. you know, again on a platypus team. Great. I have to come into the office three days a week, so I fight traffic and I show up in a bad mood, and I throw my coat over my chair, and I try to concentrate, and people are bugging me.

00;08;49;09 - 00;08;52;12
Wayne Turmel
And then at the end of the day, I pick up my coat and I leave.

00;08;52;15 - 00;08;53;03
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;08;53;05 - 00;09;24;24
Wayne Turmel
Well, that kind of work maybe doesn't need to be done amongst all those other people. And when other people are asking for your time, right. And hybrid teams that are really effective maximize the what, where and when. So when they are in the office together that's when the collaboration, the team building, the social niceties occur and people aren't worried about checking stuff off their list.

00;09;24;27 - 00;09;30;29
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah. They plan the day around being in the office essentially.

00;09;31;01 - 00;09;45;17
Wayne Turmel
Absolutely, absolutely. And conversely, if I'm in the office three days a week, I do not expect to be on zoom calls from morning till night when I'm working away from the office, because a lot of that should have happened when we were together.

00;09;45;20 - 00;09;46;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;09;46;28 - 00;10;08;00
Wayne Turmel
The idea of meetings, right. When do we hold meetings? Well, maybe we hold meetings when people are there as opposed to not right. so hybrid teams take this into account and even meetings are different. Let me give you an example. On a good mule team. And I don't mean mule team like calling the.

00;10;08;02 - 00;10;09;04
Marisa Eikenberry
Dope mules.

00;10;09;06 - 00;10;42;13
Wayne Turmel
On a mule type team. You are going to have a meeting to brainstorm something. Well, there's an asynchronous component up front. Let's put all the ideas in teams before we get there, and we, as good teammates, will have read it and thought about it and actually be prepared to discuss it when the meeting starts so that the meeting is actually spent doing valuable stuff, sorting through ideas, defending, studying, figuring it out.

00;10;42;18 - 00;10;55;10
Wayne Turmel
At the end of the meeting, we're pretty sure we have a choice, and we've all left meetings and been halfway down the hall and go, oh man, you know what I should have said? Or you know what, I didn't ask. Oh my God, we didn't think about that.

00;10;55;13 - 00;10;55;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;10;55;28 - 00;11;15;27
Wayne Turmel
Well, on an asynchronous team, you go back and say, hey, I know we thought about this. Here's what we need to think about for our next meeting. Has anybody got an answer for this? You can talk me off the ledge because I think this is kind of important. and they maximize what work gets done when.

00;11;15;29 - 00;11;16;23
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. That makes sense.

00;11;16;29 - 00;11;47;11
Wayne Turmel
And it's conscious. It's intentional. Now, let's be fair. It's a lot easier to do this with a startup or a team or a project that is just coming to fruition than it is to fix the boat when it's in the water, right? And it doesn't mean it can't be done, of course. But the big thing, the whole point of metaphor of the mules and the platypuses is, are you intentional?

00;11;47;17 - 00;11;58;05
Wayne Turmel
Do you know what you want that team to accomplish? I'm doing research for a new novel right now, so I'm fascinated with mules. That's how this whole thing started.

00;11;58;08 - 00;11;59;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00;11;59;27 - 00;12;13;21
Wayne Turmel
And what I found is that mules can carry far more weight than horses. they consume less water than camels on long rides.

00;12;13;24 - 00;12;14;10
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00;12;14;12 - 00;12;40;10
Wayne Turmel
And their feet are designed for rough terrain, right? Because their feet are much more like donkey feet than, which means for certain jobs, i.e. anything involving the desert mules are way more helpful than horses. Horses are prettier and more expensive, and all of that and donkeys are smaller, and there's only so much you can do with them.

00;12;40;13 - 00;12;50;10
Wayne Turmel
But mules are bred for very specific things, and every mule is going to have those particular things in them.

00;12;50;12 - 00;12;53;14
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. That makes sense. It's intentional.

00;12;53;17 - 00;13;19;12
Wayne Turmel
It's intentional. And so that's a that's where the metaphor came from. Lest you think I do nothing all day but think of weird things. but when I started thinking about applying that to work and being intentional about how you form your team, so many teams are formed because, well, okay, here's what we got. So how do we make this work?

00;13;19;12 - 00;13;36;19
Wayne Turmel
And we got to make sure everybody's happy. And you know, yes, the work has to get done. But we'll just do this. And then they find out that it's not working. And now what do we do. And so it's little tweaks and adjustments rather than taking a long term view.

00;13;36;22 - 00;13;54;04
Marisa Eikenberry
So if a user and or user listener is on right now and maybe they realize that, you know, their organization has this platypus type hybrid model, what are some steps that they can take to kind of transition into a more mule like model?

00;13;54;07 - 00;14;24;21
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, there are questions and there are plenty of questions in the long distance leader. Some of the resources and things that you can get. If you sign up for the book on our website, you can get, resources and checklists for things. But the biggest thing is what is the work that needs to be done? Who needs to do the work, and what's the best optimum way for that work to get done?

00;14;24;26 - 00;14;40;09
Wayne Turmel
And if you can answer those, it starts to become fairly clear. Oh, this is something that does need to be, you know, the widgets need to be taken from the warehouse to a truck that's not going to happen any other way.

00;14;40;11 - 00;14;43;29
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Right. Yeah. Some stuff becomes very obvious.

00;14;44;01 - 00;15;05;04
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, some stuff is very obvious. Other stuff is like, do we really need to be in the office, or do we need to be doing that job from 9 to 5, whatever it is? And if the pandemic has taught us nothing, it's there are lots of jobs that can be done remotely that nobody thought about.

00;15;05;06 - 00;15;07;06
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Or thought couldn't be done remotely.

00;15;07;07 - 00;15;28;21
Wayne Turmel
Or thought couldn't be done. And man, maybe we need to do this. So the big thing that I want people to take away is what work needs to be done when and to be very intentional about that. And you might be wrong the first time.

00;15;28;24 - 00;15;29;20
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00;15;29;22 - 00;15;36;10
Wayne Turmel
You may not get it right the first time. but you're in this for the long haul.

00;15;36;12 - 00;15;37;08
Marisa Eikenberry
One would hope.

00;15;37;10 - 00;16;09;13
Wayne Turmel
Hopefully. And so that's the thing about the hybrid work. And there are advantages, right? if we need to be in the office all the time and we need to hire new people, people will say, oh, we need to hire the absolute best, most talented people out there. And what they really mean is we need the best, most talented, smartest people out there who live within a 20 minute drive of the office right?

00;16;09;16 - 00;16;15;05
Wayne Turmel
If the best talent is what is most important to your business.

00;16;15;07 - 00;16;15;25
Marisa Eikenberry
They might be three.

00;16;15;28 - 00;16;34;24
Wayne Turmel
How much does location matter? Yeah, exactly. So these are the types of questions. So the whole thing about mules versus platypuses is a very long, convoluted, slightly amusing way of framing your thinking as you think about what your team should look like going forward.

00;16;34;26 - 00;16;52;24
Marisa Eikenberry
Real quick before we wrap up, you know, as hybrid work continues to evolve and continues to get more prevalent, do you think that organizations are going to be strategic and develop these mule like models, or do you think that platypus style models are going to remain prevalent?

00;16;52;27 - 00;17;29;05
Wayne Turmel
I think there's always some of it. Human beings are not great at strategic thinking, the ones who are very good at it. But human beings in general do not think very strategically. we're often reacting to the crisis de jure. I think again, new companies, startups, projects that are just getting under way have an advantage because you have a short period of time where you can actually stop and think about what you're doing before the work starts.

00;17;29;08 - 00;17;30;15
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;17;30;17 - 00;17;41;23
Wayne Turmel
So I'm trying to. Not be too judgmental about people that aren't because we're all doing our darndest here.

00;17;41;25 - 00;17;53;21
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, yeah, we're trying our best. Right. But Wayne, thank you so much for these insights and why. You know, you have the that, hybrid versus platypus model or.

00;17;53;23 - 00;18;00;11
Wayne Turmel
You walk around with this brain and see what kind of stuff you come up with is all I'm saying.

00;18;00;14 - 00;18;03;29
Marisa Eikenberry
I'll choose not to, but that's another day. All right?

00;18;04;06 - 00;18;07;05
Wayne Turmel
Not a bad choice, by the way.

00;18;07;07 - 00;18;26;20
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay. But anyway, thank you so much. And before we go, I want to let all of you listeners know that the second edition of The Long Distance Leader, which if you're watching on video, I have right in front of me, it is now available. And this updated guide is perfect for navigating today's remote and hybrid work environments with new principles and proven strategies.

00;18;26;20 - 00;18;57;20
Marisa Eikenberry
Kevin, like Mary and Wayne Trammell, show you how to lead effectively no matter where your team is located. Don't miss out on the latest insights and exercises designed to boost productivity and morale. Order your copy now! At Long Distance Work life.com/l d l and strengthen your remote leadership skills today. And thank you for listening to the long Distance work life for Shownotes transcripts and other resources, make sure to visit Long Distance worklife.com if you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss any future episodes.

00;18;57;23 - 00;19;14;22
Marisa Eikenberry
And if you're on Apple or Spotify, please give us a rating or review. Your feedback helps us improve and reach even more listeners. Just like you. Feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes, and let us know that you listen to this episode, or even suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode.

00;19;14;28 - 00;19;32;16
Marisa Eikenberry
We would love to hear from you. Thank you for joining us. And as Wayne like to say, don't let the whistles get you down.

00;19;32;18 - 00;19;32;23
Marisa Eikenberry



Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
01:05 Hybrid Work Explained
02:30 Mules vs. Platypuses
04:20 The Platypus Problem
06:10 What Makes a Good “Mule” Hybrid Model?
08:45 Hybrid Work Strategies
10:30 Asynchronous Work and Its Benefits
12:00 Building Intentional Hybrid Teams
14:00 Steps to Transition from Platypus to Mule
16:40 Closing

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Leader

Perfect your remote leadership skills with the updated edition of "The Long-Distance Leader" by Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, featuring new principles and proven strategies for today's hybrid work environments.

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The Long-Distance Leader
Read More
Revised Rules for Remote Leadership: What's New in The Long-Distance Leader, 2nd Edition
Guests, Hybrid Work, Leadership, Surviving Remote Work, Working Remotely

Revised Rules for Remote Leadership: What’s New in The Long-Distance Leader, 2nd Edition

Marisa Eikenberry interviews special guest Kevin Eikenberry and co-host Wayne Turmel about the newly revised second edition of The Long-Distance Leader. Together, they explore the biggest changes in remote work and leadership since the book’s first release in 2018. Kevin and Wayne share insights on navigating the evolving world of hybrid work, the impact of technological advancements like Zoom, and the critical balance between synchronous and asynchronous work.

Whether you're an established leader or new to remote teams, this conversation offers actionable strategies to thrive in a hybrid environment. Tune in to learn how remote leadership has transformed, what hybrid work truly means, and how you can stay ahead in the remote work revolution.

Key Takeaways

  • What’s changed in remote leadership since 2018? 
  • The rise of Zoom and its impact on work culture 
  • Challenges of hybrid work and how to overcome them
  • The difference between remote-first and remote-friendly workplaces 
  • How the second edition of The Long-Distance Leader addresses modern leadership needs 
  • Kevin’s upcoming book on flexible leadership 
  • Surprising trends in remote work: Who really wants to stay remote? 
  • The importance of intentional leadership in hybrid teams 

    • View Full Transcript

    00;00;08;01 - 00;00;35;20
    Wayne Turmel
    Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Long Distance Work Life, the podcast designed to help you thrive. Survive, and generally keep the weasels at bay as we navigate the world of remote work, hybrid work, and how the workplace has changing. Today, we have a very different kind of show. Ordinarily, if it's Marissa and I, we chat and discuss the topic.

    00;00;36;02 - 00;01;07;19
    Wayne Turmel
    otherwise I interview guests. But today, because we are talking about a very special book that Marissa will tell you about, I am playing the role of hot shot author, or at least co hot shot author is our friend and boss and colleague Kevin Eikenberry. And we will be discussing the second edition, newly revised version of the Long Distance Leader Revised Rules for Remarkable Remote and Hybrid Leadership.

    00;01;07;19 - 00;01;16;04
    Wayne Turmel
    And I got that out the first time. Yay! But Marissa, you are playing interviewer today, so you are running the show lady.

    00;01;16;05 - 00;01;33;06
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Thank you. And so, as we already said, we're going to talk about the second edition of The Long Distance Leader, which was written by Kevin and Wayne, and it's a book that's been a cornerstone for remote leaders, set its first release in May of 2018, and so much of the world has already changed as far as leadership and remote work.

    00;01;33;06 - 00;01;43;01
    Marisa Eikenberry
    And so we're going to dive into what's new in the second edition, and how leaders can navigate the evolving challenges of leading from a distance. So, Kevin, thank you for joining Wayne and I today.

    00;01;43;04 - 00;01;49;01
    Kevin Eikenberry
    I'm glad to be here. you know, this is I think it's I think this is only the second time I've been on the show, so.

    00;01;49;08 - 00;02;09;13
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah, second or third. So we're excited to have you back. And I hope that our listeners are excited as well. So one of the things that I want to start off with first, so as we already said, the book came out in 2018. So much of the world has changed since then. So what are some of the biggest shifts that you've observed since the rise of remote work?

    00;02;09;17 - 00;02;32;28
    Kevin Eikenberry
    Biggest shifts? You know, I think that I I'll just say this. I think that we are in the middle of living in a time where time has been compressed. And here's what I mean. Like the nature of the workplace usually changes in takes like 50, 60, 70 years for that sort of adjustment to sort of filter through, being tested, being tried, being sort of, acclimate the world, the society being acclimated to it.

    00;02;33;12 - 00;02;53;00
    Kevin Eikenberry
    and in this one, it largely happened in like eight weeks and then over two years. And so what I think all of the changes, all the challenges, all the frustrations, all of the stuff that you guys talk about here on a regular basis are in part because we're living in this very compressed time of change that we've not ever experienced in the workplace.

    00;02;53;00 - 00;03;09;24
    Kevin Eikenberry
    Like we could go back and talk about since the Industrial Revolution and all that sort of stuff. But that's, to me, the most fascinating thing about all this, like human dynamics show up, people's people's, wants and needs show up and their and their tendencies around change show up. And it's all because of that to me.

    00;03;09;27 - 00;03;17;15
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah, absolutely. And and we've talked on the show before to your point about eight weeks. It's like zoom went from, what is that to a verb?

    00;03;17;18 - 00;03;18;09
    Kevin Eikenberry
    It really.

    00;03;18;09 - 00;03;20;19
    Wayne Turmel
    And then from to is syndrome, right.

    00;03;20;19 - 00;03;22;11
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah. Zoom fatigue and all that.

    00;03;22;11 - 00;03;50;04
    Wayne Turmel
    Yeah I think Kevin's absolutely right. The, the kind of seismic change. And yet what is both interesting and frustrating is how little it has changed. Right. some of that is because the change was already underway when the kind of crossing the Rubicon moment happened. And the other thing is, I think there's this desperate attempt to go back to the before times.

    00;03;50;10 - 00;03;55;15
    Wayne Turmel
    So we're not really embracing what's changed and launching from that point.

    00;03;55;17 - 00;03;56;12
    Marisa Eikenberry


    00;03;56;14 - 00;03;57;02
    Wayne Turmel
    Well that's the key.

    00;03;57;02 - 00;04;15;17
    Kevin Eikenberry
    So it's, it's that it's that tension between the, the future and and and and so many things are pulling us forward. And yet so many of us and I'll say us are holding us back with the way it used to be and the good old days. And why can't we all be in the office and 100 other things like that, right.

    00;04;15;19 - 00;04;22;14
    Kevin Eikenberry
    It's that tension. That's where this is so interesting. and really where so much of the conversation ends up lying, I think.

    00;04;22;15 - 00;04;36;11
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Well, and, you know, just a second ago, I mentioned, you know, zoom went to a verb. And when you guys wrote the book, tools like zoom and even Microsoft Teams didn't exist yet. So how have those communication tools transformed the way that we work?

    00;04;36;14 - 00;05;01;04
    Wayne Turmel
    So I think that it's it's transformed in two ways. One is it's normalized them. I mean, when the book first came out, one of the big lessons was use your webcam. Well, now, you know, people understand it's not going to steal your soul. And everybody, including your grandmother, has been on a zoom call and they know kind of what that's about.

    00;05;01;04 - 00;05;22;22
    Wayne Turmel
    So I think, you know, the the novelty of the technology. The other thing is that, you know, I'm going to give you a very quick analogy. When I started my consultancy, 18 years ago, there were 120 web meeting platforms out there. Everybody was inventing a new one all the time, and then it kind of collapsed into the top five, right?

    00;05;22;22 - 00;05;46;14
    Wayne Turmel
    There's WebEx and there was Skype for business and whatever. And now we have gone through another one of those collapsing where at the beginning of the pandemic, there were a thousand tools out there and people had enough already. It's not that we don't love technology, it's that we've got work to do. And they were kind of looking for one ring to rule them all.

    00;05;46;21 - 00;06;09;12
    Wayne Turmel
    And so we've settled into there's kind of the Google universe, there's the slack zoom universe, and there's Microsoft Teams. And you can argue whether teams was designed by Sauron or not. But at the end of the day, people are looking for ways to get the work done with as little drama and pain about technology as possible.

    00;06;09;15 - 00;06;29;21
    Kevin Eikenberry
    Right. And drag. Can I just make a comment? and this will probably take us off track for what you're planning, Marissa. But that that that webcam comment that, that Wayne made is exactly right. And and yet here's this tension. And yet when I'm with groups regularly, I still have people saying, do we really have to use our webcams?

    00;06;29;21 - 00;06;47;01
    Kevin Eikenberry
    Like so everyone now has use them. And yet in some ways, the message that we had in 2018, Wayne hasn't completely changed because the reasons they don't want to may be different, right? The reason they may want to not want to use them might not be the same that a still in there. So I'll see in my living room all that stuff.

    00;06;47;07 - 00;07;02;10
    Kevin Eikenberry
    But but the but the the fact that some people don't want to be on them is still there. And that's one of those tensions. Right. Like that. The drag on it, the ease of doing it all, that's gotten better. And yet we're not all really there. It's just a small example of what we talked about earlier.

    00;07;02;11 - 00;07;18;26
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Speaking of all of that kind of stuff too. So like one of the things that you guys have added into this new edition of the book is a lot of discussion about hybrid. And so what are some of the unique challenges and opportunities for hybrid work presents compared to a fully remote or a fully in office setup?

    00;07;19;00 - 00;07;36;05
    Kevin Eikenberry
    I think the single biggest thing, and it's really not rocket science, the single biggest thing to me is that if we're going to have a hybrid workplace where some or all of the people are going to be in the office some of the time, then we ought to use those days as appropriate. And so what I always say is not every workday should be the same.

    00;07;36;08 - 00;07;56;11
    Kevin Eikenberry
    The day should go to the office, ought to be different kinds of day. It's more likely you're going to collaborate to have those those serendipitous conversations. that's the chance to work with a mentor. That's the chance to do side by side training. Like we ought to make sure that we're taking advantage of those days and then releasing people when they're back home to get more, have more productivity with fewer meetings, etc..

    00;07;56;13 - 00;08;06;19
    Kevin Eikenberry
    So to me, that's the single biggest thing that's relatively easy to implement. And yet I'm still seeing most organizations not doing that very well.

    00;08;06;22 - 00;08;50;26
    Wayne Turmel
    Well, and part of that, I think, is because they're looking at going back to the office says, okay, we are now primarily in the office again. And the people who are working remotely are outliers, or they will adjust because we're in the office. What I think one of those seismic changes that Kevin was referring to earlier is that companies that are starting now are much more comfortable with the remote workplace and trying less to cram it into the old model than companies where the boat's already in the water and you're dealing with memories of before time and sunk costs and all kinds of things.

    00;08;50;26 - 00;09;06;21
    Wayne Turmel
    So that's another one of the changes is that if I'm starting a company and I don't need a big office and I don't need to be all the time, cool, but if I've already got that infrastructure, I'm already paying for it.

    00;09;06;21 - 00;09;08;14
    Kevin Eikenberry
    Wayne. Right.

    00;09;08;17 - 00;09;15;26
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Well, it goes back to the conversation we've had before about remote first versus remote friendly and how they're very, very different.

    00;09;15;29 - 00;09;39;26
    Wayne Turmel
    Well, and one of the challenges with that is that there's a tendency for leaders to fall back into old habits. And so there are some pitfalls with hybrid work primarily being proximity bias that, you know, it's really easy to look across the room and see somebody. So they get involved in the conversation and somebody gets excluded. Not intentionally.

    00;09;39;26 - 00;09;51;06
    Wayne Turmel
    I'm not, you know, not including somebody. It just doesn't happen naturally. And so that dynamic needs to be navigated well.

    00;09;51;06 - 00;10;07;21
    Kevin Eikenberry
    And then we think everybody knows whatever the thing is. And yet oh, well, we didn't know what sent an email or a slack message or send it. It's put some in the teams channels. So the only the everybody that knows are those that are here. I mean, we used to have that once in a while when someone was home sick or on vacation.

    00;10;07;21 - 00;10;29;12
    Kevin Eikenberry
    Right. But that just happens way, way, way more often now and again. Not intentional just happens. We've got to be, you know, one of the messages from the first version of the book and still in there is that word of being intentional, like making conscious choices, stepping back from our routines and our habits, from the auto utter response to, to doing what is the the best thing given the situation.

    00;10;29;13 - 00;10;42;23
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Well, and Wayne, you just mentioned a minute ago about companies that are starting now are more comfortable with remote work and so, you know, how should organizations approach hybrid work differently, whether they're an established team or they're newly forming?

    00;10;42;25 - 00;11;09;06
    Wayne Turmel
    I am like a dog with a sock on this particular topic. I think you have to be very careful about using the word hybrid. Are you, in fact doing hybrid work or or are you doing, you know, remote friendly work? With the focus in the office, a hybrid? If we're going to be really technical and semantic about it, a hybrid is two things coming together to create a third entity.

    00;11;09;08 - 00;11;28;18
    Wayne Turmel
    You know, a mule is a horse and a donkey, but as an old farm boy, a mule is a mule. I mean, it is its own thing. And I think over time we are going to develop this third way of working, this hybrid work that is not only who works where, but the element of time gets folded in.

    00;11;28;20 - 00;11;38;14
    Wayne Turmel
    So it's what work gets done where and when that work gets done. And the balance between synchronous and asynchronous is going to be very different.

    00;11;38;14 - 00;11;54;20
    Kevin Eikenberry
    I think that's huge. And I think, you know, you know, when it in the in the first book we, we introduced that we used the word hybrid. And and I wish that I could I wish that everybody on the internet would say, oh, these guys created that that phrase for the hybrid team, which, no, we can't, we can't say.

    00;11;54;22 - 00;12;12;23
    Kevin Eikenberry
    But when we use that word, that's what we meant even in 2018. Right. And and I think it's it's not it's not always meaning that. But ultimately that's what that's what it needs to mean. And organizations that figure out how to do it that way, if that's the way they want to do work, will have a competitive advantage.

    00;12;12;26 - 00;12;29;28
    Marisa Eikenberry
    So, Kevin, you know, you've had the Kevin Like Mary group for over 30 years. And we've been a hybrid team for a very, very long time. And so if you were starting a business today, if you were starting this business today, what would you do differently than you did when you started?

    00;12;30;00 - 00;12;46;24
    Kevin Eikenberry
    Well, what I do different than when I started it, different than what I would do, knowing what I know now, I suppose. Yeah. but I think that in terms of, how I hired who I, where I look for the hiring pool, I don't think it would change. Much like, I think that, you know, I do have a separate building.

    00;12;46;26 - 00;13;21;17
    Kevin Eikenberry
    That's where I'm sitting right now, that Marissa, you come to two days a week, but only if I'm here. Right? and I think there would still be a place, it would be like it is. And it's not. Wouldn't. How's everybody? Because not everyone would be. How? Isabel? Because they're all across the country. I'm not sure. I mean, there's lots of things that that we could do different about our business, but in terms of how it's set up, I'm not sure I would change that much because I think that what we have works not only works for us, but we're generally I, you know, while there's always room for improvement, we're relatively productive.

    00;13;21;25 - 00;13;31;05
    Kevin Eikenberry
    There's there's good relationships. we have we're able to collaborate. And I don't think that having us all in the same place, or even less so, would make any difference.

    00;13;31;07 - 00;13;32;23
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah, that makes a lot of, you know.

    00;13;32;23 - 00;13;57;11
    Wayne Turmel
    What I'm going to I'm going to mildly contradict that. Okay. when I joined the group, I lived in Chicago. Most of the people were in, most of the people were there, and we communicated it a little bit differently. We got together more often. We spoke more often, I think, because the longevity of the people on our team has been there for a while.

    00;13;58;00 - 00;14;23;05
    Wayne Turmel
    Kevin's comfort level as the boss with waiting, you know, letting people get their work done and trusting that we will come to him proactively if there's something that needs to be addressed. I think the way and the comfort level with that is different than it was even a few years ago. As you know, the decision was made.

    00;14;23;05 - 00;14;28;15
    Wayne Turmel
    We're not going to focus on hiring people in Indianapolis. We're not going to.

    00;14;28;17 - 00;14;29;22
    Kevin Eikenberry
    Right. so, I mean, I'm not.

    00;14;29;22 - 00;14;32;28
    Wayne Turmel
    Disagreeing with I think Kevin's comfort level and skill level.

    00;14;32;28 - 00;14;46;01
    Kevin Eikenberry
    Yeah, I, I won't disagree with that either. and yet, I think if the question is about being willing to, to bring people from different places. Yeah. Like, I mean, I think part of the reason we write the book, The Long Distance Leader and why we write a second edition of it, is to help people continue to build those skills.

    00;14;46;01 - 00;15;03;16
    Kevin Eikenberry
    Right. And I think that that's the question we get asked a lot now. Marissa is okay, why a second version of the book? And people say, well, yeah, we get it that the world is different, but do we still need this book? Because we've all been many of us been doing this for 2 or 3 years. I said, well, we've all needed new, more leadership training, even though we've been leading for longer than that.

    00;15;03;16 - 00;15;26;26
    Kevin Eikenberry
    And I think a lot of people have have haven't really locked into some of these things that maybe they know because they've done it for a few years. And I think the idea of this book is in part to not only show us what's different and changing, but also what we need to make sure we're really doing well, that I'm I'm pretty confident not all leaders of remote hybrid distributed teams are doing.

    00;15;26;29 - 00;15;36;23
    Marisa Eikenberry
    So for people who are reading the book or, you know, once they do read the book, what are some actionable steps that they can take, both organizationally or even professionally. After reading?

    00;15;36;23 - 00;15;55;16
    Kevin Eikenberry
    Okay, here's a short answer and then I'll let you go. Wayne. The short answer is don't just read it. Do something like you will determine when you read it, what those most actionable steps are. And I think we've written a book that is actionable and that gives you very specific things that you can go do. In fact, every chapter tells you, gives you some examples.

    00;15;55;18 - 00;16;08;12
    Kevin Eikenberry
    But the point that I'm making is that it the best thing you can do is go take action on whatever those most important things are to you, because it would be a bit presumptuous for Wayne and I to determine which two things those would be for an individual leader.

    00;16;08;12 - 00;16;32;00
    Wayne Turmel
    I just think that, you know, the the most dangerous thing is to think you've got it all figured out. And one of the challenges that we're hearing from our clients is, oh, we know that people could use a little help, but we've done remote, right? We did remote training during Covid. People know what they're doing now, and we never entirely know what we're doing.

    00;16;32;00 - 00;16;49;00
    Wayne Turmel
    And there's some backsliding and there's some things that we thought people knew that they're not doing. And so maintaining that skill development is really important. And I know that sounds self-serving. since that's the business we're in. Okay. But it also happens to be true.

    00;16;49;03 - 00;17;07;06
    Kevin Eikenberry
    Yeah. There's a difference between knowing something and doing something. Right. it's a and there's a big gap there a lot of the times. And so I, you know, I think Wayne and I are, are coming to that same point, like if you or if your organization did some training on remote, that's fine. That's great. but the question is how is it going now?

    00;17;07;13 - 00;17;20;17
    Kevin Eikenberry
    And if it's not going in the ways you'd like it to go, or you think it could be better, then I'm confident you'll find nuggets in this book. in the second edition of this book that would help you as a leader, but also help the leaders in your organization.

    00;17;20;17 - 00;17;29;22
    Marisa Eikenberry
    So we've gone from leader to teammate to team. Kevin, what's next for you in the world of remote and hybrid work? What's the next thing you're focusing on?

    00;17;29;22 - 00;17;49;10
    Kevin Eikenberry
    Well, I'm I'm writing a new book that's not specifically about that, but it is about the future of work. In some ways it comes out next, next March. And maybe I can convince you guys to have me on to talk about the flexible leader. or flexible leadership when, when that time comes down the road. So but it's not specifically or solely about remote.

    00;17;49;10 - 00;18;01;07
    Kevin Eikenberry
    The word remote doesn't show up or hybrid doesn't show up in the title. But certainly, there are hat tips and conversations about not only what we've been going through as lessons, but also what we do moving forward as well.

    00;18;01;10 - 00;18;15;12
    Marisa Eikenberry
    That's great. And Wayne, I know that hybrid work has been something that you've been talking about a lot. You mentioned the mule versus, you know, donkey earlier. So what are some aspects with hybrid that you're obsessed with exploring right now?

    00;18;15;14 - 00;18;41;00
    Wayne Turmel
    I think it's that being intentional about the balance of synchronous and asynchronous work. You know, my favorite example is we've all walked into meetings and had to sit there while, you know, all the preamble and context is created. Well, we could do a lot of that beforehand. And then the meeting happens. And then we've all walked out of meetings and halfway down the hallway we've got oh, man, you know what?

    00;18;41;00 - 00;19;06;26
    Wayne Turmel
    I should have said is correct. And so there is getting together in collaboration time. And then there's thinking and planning time on both ends, which can make way better use of our time and result in better outcomes. And so it's what does that hybrid work look like and how do we get better, smarter, faster about it is kind of where my brain is at.

    00;19;06;28 - 00;19;22;19
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah. Well I'm excited to do some episodes about that in the future. And before we wrap up, I have one last question. So other than the pandemic, which obviously changed a lot of things about remote and hybrid work, what is one surprising change in remote work that you didn't anticipate?

    00;19;22;22 - 00;19;45;17
    Wayne Turmel
    It's it's who wants remote work? one of the things that the numbers are showing is people thought that the youngsters wouldn't want to go to the office, and they all want to stay home and, you know, do their work. Between playing video games, no young people want to go to the office. They're early in their career. They're more socially program.

    00;19;45;17 - 00;20;05;11
    Wayne Turmel
    And they they want to learn and soak up the knowledge and the culture of the company, the people that are most demanding, remote work are middle managers, people in the middle of their career who know how to do their job, and they just want to do it, and they want to do it in a way that they can do it best.

    00;20;05;11 - 00;20;16;01
    Wayne Turmel
    They want some flexibility in their time. So some of the assumptions about who is going to want to work remotely have not proven to be the way we thought they were.

    00;20;16;07 - 00;20;50;15
    Kevin Eikenberry
    I think the thing part of part of I think I shared part of my answer earlier with this whole compacting of the timeline, but I but I will say that I think that it's been a bit surprising and I think generally hopeful and helpful that, we've, we've added in a whole other conversation, not just about the where and the when of work, but the why of work, which is, which is, people wanting to have a better sense of, of why they're there and what and finding meaning in their work and how they hook.

    00;20;50;23 - 00;20;51;09
    Wayne Turmel
    Work.

    00;20;51;14 - 00;21;09;08
    Kevin Eikenberry
    To life. Right. Which has been messy for a long time, got messier when people were working from the place that they live. But I think the the ongoing conversation about all of that, I think is generally healthy, and we need to keep thinking about it as individuals, for ourselves, but also as leaders in organizations.

    00;21;09;11 - 00;21;16;27
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Kevin, I know that, you know, when this episode comes out, we're about to have virtual con. do you want to talk a little bit about that before we wrap up?

    00;21;17;02 - 00;21;43;27
    Kevin Eikenberry
    Yeah, I can just very quickly. So, you know, back at the start of the pandemic, I had this harebrained idea that we should, when no one was having doing any training and couldn't get away, couldn't do that. So we created this thing we called virtual Leader Con, and we've continued to do it. It's evolved somewhat, but, on September 17th through 19th, we're doing two and a half days where we will have a bunch of experts join me, to on a, a virtual platform that allows for lots of participation and engagement.

    00;21;44;00 - 00;22;01;29
    Kevin Eikenberry
    And we're going to bring those leaders in, those thought leaders in to have conversations with, with our participants from around the world to talk about what matters. And I think the thing that makes a difference than a podcast or a webinar or other those kinds of things, is that that the the direction of the, of the conversation is guided much by the people that are there.

    00;22;01;29 - 00;22;24;05
    Kevin Eikenberry
    So we'd love to have you join us. It's completely free virtual contact. Com and I think the thing that specifically relates to this show is that that first half day on September the 17th, Wayne will be joining me at the beginning, and at the end we'll be we'll be doing a Q&A, but we'll have three guests, and that whole session will be about the future of work, hybrid work, and all those sorts of things.

    00;22;24;05 - 00;22;40;09
    Kevin Eikenberry
    So if you're listening to this show, you definitely want to join us that half day virtual leader. Contact. Com. And if you decide you wanted to have the recordings and transcripts of those sessions, you can get them for free if you preorder a book. And I know that's where you're headed is to talk about that. That is our I'll let you be.

    00;22;40;09 - 00;22;45;14
    Kevin Eikenberry
    I hope that we'll have you all join us at Virtual Con. And, and thank you guys for having me on the show.

    00;22;45;21 - 00;23;09;17
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yes. Thank you so much for being here. And, Wayne, as always, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation. And before we go, as we've already been discussing, the second edition of The Long Distance Leader is available for preorder and will be launching on September 17th. As we just talked about a minute ago, and this updated guide is perfect for navigating today's remote and hybrid work environments with new principles and proven strategies.

    00;23;09;24 - 00;23;32;09
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Kevin and Wayne show you how to lead effectively no matter where your team is located. Don't miss out on the latest insights and exercises designed to boost productivity and morale. Preorder your copy now at Long Distance Work life.com/lvl and strengthen your remote leadership skills today. And listeners, thank you so much for listening to the Longest and Spark Life version ups, transcripts, and other resources.

    00;23;32;10 - 00;23;55;13
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Make sure to visit Long Distance worklife.com if you haven't yet. Subscribe to the show so you don't miss any future episodes. And if you're on Apple or Spotify, please give us a rating and review. Your feedback helps us improve and reach more listeners just like you. Feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes, and let us know that you listen to this episode, or suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode.

    00;23;55;14 - 00;24;15;29
    Marisa Eikenberry
    We would love to hear from you and thanks for joining us. And it's Wayne. Like to say, don't let the weasels get you down. Hey.

    00;24;16;01 - 00;24;16;13
    Marisa Eikenberry
    You.


    Featured Guest

    Name: Kevin Eikenberry

    Bio: Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group and co-author of Long-Distance Leader

    Timestamps

    00:00 Intro: Welcome to the Show
    01:33 What’s New in The Long-Distance Leader, 2nd Edition?
    04:22 Zoom Fatigue and Remote Work Tools
    07:02 Hybrid Work: Challenges and Opportunities
    09:08 Remote-First vs. Remote-Friendly Workplaces
    11:09 Building Trust in Hybrid Teams
    15:03 What You’ll Learn from The 2nd Edition
    17:29 Kevin’s Next Project: The Flexible Leader
    19:22 Who Actually Prefers Remote Work?
    20:50 Leading Hybrid Teams with Intention
    22:50 Virtual LeaderCon: Join Us!
    23:09 Wrap-Up and How to Preorder the Book

    Related Episodes

    Additional Resources

    Pre-Order The Long-Distance Leader

    Perfect your remote leadership skills with the updated edition of "The Long-Distance Leader" by Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, featuring new principles and proven strategies for today's hybrid work environments.

     Pre-Order
    The Long-Distance Leader
    Read More
    Guests, Hybrid Work, Leadership, Working Remotely

    Transformational Leadership Skills for Remote Teams with Alex Geesbreght

    Wayne Turmel talks with Alex Geesbreght, co-founder of PRAX Leadership, about the changing landscape of leadership in the remote and hybrid work environment. Alex shares insights on the state of leadership today, the importance of authentic connections, and the skills leaders need to develop to succeed. They discuss emotional regulation, the significance of self-leadership, and how leaders can genuinely connect with their teams despite the physical distance.

    Key Points

  • The current state of leadership and how it has changed over the past five years
  • The impact of remote and hybrid work on team connection and leadership
  • The difference between connectivity and true connection
  • Importance of authenticity and vulnerability in leadership
  • Practical tips for emotional regulation and self-awareness
  • The role of neuroscience in leadership development
  • The future of leadership and the importance of investing in individual growth

    • View Full Transcript

    00;00;08;02 - 00;00;42;27
    Wayne Turmel
    Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Long Distance Worklife. The podcast where we do our darndest to help you thrive and survive and make sense of the ever evolving world of work, particularly when it comes to remote and hybrid. I am Wayne Turmel. I'm your host. Marisa is not here this week. That's the bad news. The good news is we have another very, very interesting, insightful guest who is going to help us make sense of what is going on out there.

    00;00;42;27 - 00;00;53;27
    Wayne Turmel
    And in this particular case, our guest is Alex Geesbreght, who is with PRAX leadership. Alex, how the heck are you and who the heck are you?

    00;00;54;00 - 00;01;11;24
    Alex Geesbreght
    You. Well, I'm very good, as you can see, because behind me I'm by a beach right now. So you caught me at a very good time. So how I am is great. And who I am is, Alex Geesbreght. I’m co founder of PRAX Leadership and I was fortunate enough to to co-found that with my brother with whom I've worked for a very long time.

    00;01;11;24 - 00;01;15;16
    Alex Geesbreght
    And it's it's a pleasure and it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

    00;01;15;18 - 00;01;45;00
    Wayne Turmel
    Well as always, thank you for being had. the world obviously is we're in this state of flux, this remote work. There's hybrid work. Maybe we're working with our team. Maybe we're not. let's start with a really general question. What is the state of leadership there in the workplace today? What are you what are you hearing that's different than it might have been?

    00;01;45;03 - 00;01;46;28
    Wayne Turmel
    say five years ago?

    00;01;47;00 - 00;02;11;10
    Alex Geesbreght
    Yeah, I think generally, first of all, any time any company, devotes any time to their people in terms of leadership development, it's it's good news. You know, you mentioned something there very early on about sort of this hybrid and work away and together. I think that's what a little bit different now than it was five, ten years ago, is that pre-pandemic, the norm was that we were together.

    00;02;11;10 - 00;02;41;15
    Alex Geesbreght
    We had what we used to refer to as hallway conversations, where a lot of very important things happened that you couldn't measure as it became a necessity and then maybe morphed into a bit of a convenience, maybe even for economic reasons, where people started being further and further apart from each other. I think we lost some of our connection in if you look at just generally in the last five years, connectivity is it's sort of an all time high.

    00;02;41;15 - 00;02;48;20
    Alex Geesbreght
    I mean, the number of ways that I could reach you if I wanted to is almost limitless.

    00;02;48;23 - 00;02;50;21
    Wayne Turmel
    Oh, yeah. There is no hiding.

    00;02;50;24 - 00;03;10;01
    Alex Geesbreght
    Right? There's no hiding. But very few people take the time that you have to sit down with another human being and have an interaction with them. So I think that that's changing. I think maybe not for the better. It hasn't really benefited humanity, for the better, because of the lack of opportunities.

    00;03;10;03 - 00;03;16;16
    Wayne Turmel
    Do you think that's because the ease of communication has made it more transactional?

    00;03;16;18 - 00;03;41;02
    Alex Geesbreght
    Man, I, I think I, I've struggled with how to phrase that, and I may have to just steal that because I think that's exactly I think it is first real connection. if I may be digressing a little bit, but I just sort of look at, you know, we're friends in likes have sort of, you know, friendships on social media.

    00;03;41;05 - 00;04;01;01
    Alex Geesbreght
    They've sort of taken the place or satiated our need for actual friends. but but there's a big, huge difference between having an actual friend and somebody who says, your friend online. And I think a lot of times you can sort of low yourself into believing that you have made a connection when all you've had is connectivity.

    00;04;01;01 - 00;04;24;00
    Wayne Turmel
    So if that's the case, as a leader, where do you think leaders in general, and I know your mileage may vary and all human beings are different and all those other lovely disclaimers. But at the end of the day, when we're talking about in general, where do you think leaders are struggling most in terms of connection?

    00;04;24;06 - 00;04;50;17
    Alex Geesbreght
    I think being real, actually, a lot of the pressures that a lot of leaders have, come from sometimes the top, sometimes below them, and sometimes themselves, it's what we refer to as sort of soft skills that people have. But I think it's rooted to, to get to the root of your question, if you're asking me my opinion, I think it's people's comfortability with who they are.

    00;04;50;20 - 00;05;13;12
    Alex Geesbreght
    And, a little bit of trepidation around just being real with their people, in other words, showing vulnerability. I think if you're a parent, I think if you're a boss, there's this tendency to want to be the smartest person in the room all of the time. And I think that leaders do a disservice to those in their charge when they attempt, to portray that.

    00;05;13;12 - 00;05;25;26
    Alex Geesbreght
    Because we're not perfect, we have all kinds of foibles and, and shortcomings. And I think that that's where leaders, if they can become more secure and, with themselves, I think that they become instantly better leaders.

    00;05;25;29 - 00;05;49;27
    Wayne Turmel
    Is is that what you mean? I was, will be links to Alex in practice and all that good stuff on our show notes. dear listener, but I was on your site, and and you kind of divide between, you know, teaching general skills and self leadership. Is that part of that conversation?

    00;05;49;29 - 00;06;13;15
    Alex Geesbreght
    Yeah. One of the things my brother and I, you know, he spent 20 years in the healthcare industry and had a chance to work together. And our company now is, is really the culmination of not just a general personal and professional ethos, but experience, itself. And so what we we bifurcate our company into two things really technical skills.

    00;06;13;19 - 00;06;40;27
    Alex Geesbreght
    Skills base classes that we teach that implement the practice practices and way of of thought. And then the other one is focused on, transformational growth. So it truly is a soft skills based curriculum, in several different curricula where we focus on the self. And I would just say that, you know, I think a lot of times people are people say leadership and sometimes they mean self leadership, and sometimes they just mean being a leader.

    00;06;41;00 - 00;07;00;18
    Alex Geesbreght
    We sort of believe that everybody is a leader, not just because you lead yourself. And when you lead yourself, you have a tremendous capability of leading others. And so focusing on the individual is something that is very, very important to us. And we've seen the benefits there from in reality, as applied to actual companies.

    00;07;00;22 - 00;07;23;25
    Wayne Turmel
    When we're talking about the individual, which is really as we're talking about this show, it's individuals who are listening, right? People who care enough about their leadership and about their work to want to be better. where do you think the areas are that people need to specifically grow? I mean, it's one thing to say, be authentic and be true to yourself.

    00;07;23;25 - 00;07;30;07
    Wayne Turmel
    How the heck do you teach that? I mean, wow, you know, does that be more authentic? Oh, yeah. I'll get right on that.

    00;07;30;09 - 00;07;49;06
    Alex Geesbreght
    Boy. That's, It's really what sort of what? What comes before that. That's a great question, because first of all, I love that you're asking me because a lot of times people throw platitudes and trite phrases like I did. I meant something behind it. But thank you for giving me a chance to explain it. But being more real or being more authentic, you know, I have.

    00;07;49;06 - 00;08;14;19
    Alex Geesbreght
    I truly do believe that you can draw a direct line, almost logistically from being real. Okay, which I'll explain all the way to happiness, which if you sort of think, I don't know, maybe some of your viewers will agree with this, but it's kind of the goal, you know, whether you're whether you're in your life or your personal life or your professional life, which is really not that different.

    00;08;14;19 - 00;08;42;15
    Alex Geesbreght
    You're you're the same person. But that starts with being able to see yourself as flawed, which requires vulnerability to requires a certain level of security. It requires introspection. It requires sitting down in a quiet room some time and turning everything off and saying, actually who I am, who am I? And looking in a mirror figuratively. But in order to do that, you have to be okay with what that reflection will show you.

    00;08;42;17 - 00;09;15;10
    Alex Geesbreght
    And that's scary for a lot of people. But if you will take the time to introspect, to listen to feedback and then go identify the things that are lacking, perhaps in your life, whether they be personal growth skills or technical skills, and address those things. It's incredibly freeing. It can be scary for people, but once you understand what those are and you seek to improve them through people that know more than you, somebody knows more about anything than I do.

    00;09;15;15 - 00;09;44;19
    Alex Geesbreght
    I would go to them. You get feedback, any development requires practice and feedback. And you you seek that out and then you can actually make a positive change where there was once something that you considered to be lacking. So yeah, I mean, I say real and authentic, but it's not about pretending to be those things. It's about actually being those things with an eye toward an improvement that does lead to happiness.

    00;09;44;22 - 00;10;05;03
    Alex Geesbreght
    So I don't know if that makes sense. I see it logistically, and I see them interconnected. I really do see being comfortable or secure with oneself and one's happiness, whether they're at work or at play. as being, one in the same or at least a condition precedent to the other.

    00;10;05;05 - 00;10;11;03
    Wayne Turmel
    Yeah. It feels sometimes when you take leadership training, it's if you can fake sincerity, you got it made right.

    00;10;11;06 - 00;10;13;07
    Alex Geesbreght
    The famous quote. Right.

    00;10;13;10 - 00;10;28;11
    Wayne Turmel
    That's and that's the road that is there. But let me ask you this. Is there science behind this? I mean, is there, something beyond just kind of intuitively knowing that this would make us better?

    00;10;28;14 - 00;10;49;09
    Alex Geesbreght
    Well, there's a tremendous amount. And so one of the things that we focus on is neuroscience, which is kind of this fancy word of the overlap between cognition and our behavior. So our thoughts and our behavior and what we focus on to that end is the alignment of values. And our prioritization in our lives. So we all have these values.

    00;10;49;09 - 00;11;02;14
    Alex Geesbreght
    But if I were to ask you what your values are, maybe not you because you've probably given this more thought than the average person, but a lot of people would just sort of recite aspirational values or things that they believe. They believe.

    00;11;02;17 - 00;11;07;00
    Wayne Turmel
    Okay. So when you see aspirational values, for example. Yeah.

    00;11;07;02 - 00;11;31;03
    Alex Geesbreght
    I, I, I'm a family man, right? But I come home and I watch YouTube videos instead of playing with my kids. Right. You know, so my values, there's an argument to be said that I actually live my values because I live what is actually important to me and what I think about, but I tell you that I'm a family man, but I my behavior doesn't match that, if that makes sense.

    00;11;31;07 - 00;11;54;06
    Alex Geesbreght
    So the alignment of those two things, which again, requires a certain amount of let's introspect, let's find out what our values actually are, and then align that thinking with the behavior itself over time. Not on the Tuesday sort of rah rah session. That's inspirational, but in a hard sort of practice, scientifically, applied way.

    00;11;54;08 - 00;12;27;28
    Wayne Turmel
    I want to get back to this idea of the leaders kind of being self-aware, and especially when we're remote. We are so much in charge of ourselves. Right. Or or we are either in charge of ourselves or left to our own devices, depending on your confidence and competence level. Right? what are we where are these specific skills that leaders can actually build to be better at their jobs?

    00;12;27;28 - 00;12;37;28
    Wayne Turmel
    Right. Specifically, what if I said I need to learn something right now that we make better? What what kind of things are we talking about?

    00;12;38;04 - 00;13;13;01
    Alex Geesbreght
    I would say emotional regulation. So how you influence yourself. So we have an acronym we called Bits which is fully influencing the self. It's all over what it is we do with practice. But just as an example is just emotional regulation, as opposed to dysregulation. So when somebody, when there's a threat, when there's a conflict, when there is something that, frustrates us or throws us off our game and just using sort of just very commonly terms, how do we respond to that?

    00;13;13;01 - 00;13;47;11
    Alex Geesbreght
    Do we go further and further down and, compromise ourselves and others, or are we able to step back a sense, assess who we are, how we're reacting to it and see it more objectively, and then apply the best next case as opposed to reacting in an emotional way. So self-regulation self, emotional regulation is an incredibly important thing for a leader because think about all the damage that everybody's had a boss that, that, that let's call it, flies off the handle or reacts, emotionally.

    00;13;47;11 - 00;14;11;19
    Alex Geesbreght
    And by the way, I am not, I don't use the word emotion and business pejoratively like a lot of people do. I think emotion is a tremendously valuable thing. I think directing that emotion, is incredibly important, and having it be reactionary or emotive is, incredibly damaging.

    00;14;11;22 - 00;14;42;25
    Wayne Turmel
    As you're talking, my brain is doing what it normally does, which is create about five scenarios at once. So let me just ask you about this. It seems intuitively that this might be harder to do at a distance than it is if we're together. If we're together, I'm getting a lot more feet on how to respond. I'm aware of my body language and things because you're right, there is.

    00;14;42;28 - 00;14;51;00
    Wayne Turmel
    Does being remote make it harder to do that? And how do you then, if it is, how do you overcome that?

    00;14;51;02 - 00;15;09;19
    Alex Geesbreght
    First of all, I think it absolutely is. I mean, look for today on as you know, when you look at what has replaced the meeting, it's the zoom meeting, right. And so I really only have to be concerned with what I'm wearing from about here up. and, and I, you know, I don't I could I do in fact have shorts on.

    00;15;09;19 - 00;15;35;11
    Alex Geesbreght
    I don't have to even have shoes on. So there's a certain, lack of thought and forethought that goes into to, being remote. And I love the word you introduced very early on into this, which is it's transactional. And there are so many cues that we don't get when we are not in person. that I do think it's it's clearly damaging.

    00;15;35;11 - 00;16;06;25
    Alex Geesbreght
    I mean, look, I would have much rather sat down with you across from across a table, and I actually, this is better than a phone call. but I can't imagine. And this is just for me. I can't imagine conducting business with leaders. Like, we just have an executive team of 14. We in our former business, we had 4000 employees and we had 200 corporate employees that I interacted with at least once a week, and that those 45 minutes waiting were very, very important to me because I didn't I couldn't spend time with 200 people.

    00;16;06;28 - 00;16;31;04
    Alex Geesbreght
    I could spend a little bit more time with those 14 executives. But if I hadn't sat down and looked at the faces of those 200 people once a week and given them a chance to express what their interpretation of the words that I say, were, I said work, I would have lost them, and I needed to feel not just connectivity with them, but connection with them.

    00;16;31;07 - 00;16;49;18
    Alex Geesbreght
    And as an aside, and one of the things that I would do is I would spend time telling them they would see me fly all over the country. but I would spend time telling them where I screwed up and why we didn't get a contract that they can't, that they don't have to work on because of something I did or something somebody else did.

    00;16;49;18 - 00;16;52;00
    Alex Geesbreght
    But we talked about that openly in person.

    00;16;52;02 - 00;17;14;04
    Wayne Turmel
    This idea of taking it, and it's not just emotional intelligence. It goes beyond just basic the conversation about emotional intelligence, clearly. where's it going? What where do you see these conversations and this kind of thinking what's what's kind of next and where is it headed?

    00;17;14;05 - 00;17;17;00
    Alex Geesbreght
    Well, can I just tell you my dream of where it's headed?

    00;17;17;03 - 00;17;19;14
    Wayne Turmel
    Tell me anything you want, man. I up, all right.

    00;17;19;14 - 00;17;47;29
    Alex Geesbreght
    Okay, so I don't know, I don't know, I don't know if technology Wayne will drive us further from each other or if we will somehow harness it to become actually closer. But I will tell you what I want from companies, in families and teams is I want there to be sort of a global realization that none of those constructs exist.

    00;17;48;01 - 00;18;30;21
    Alex Geesbreght
    they don't exist without people, without an individual. And I think that this world will be better off. Certainly companies, certainly families. And on a team level, when people and companies understand that you don't improve groups, you don't improve teams, you improve individuals. And so our clients, the ones that we want, which is represents what I think is euphoric in terms of how a company would, go about improving their workforce and creating a happier workforce is for them to sort of step back and instead of just the lip service of our people are the most important thing in our company, and this is who we are, where people can be.

    00;18;30;24 - 00;19;03;26
    Alex Geesbreght
    That's great. But what does that mean? And instead of approaching it with the bottom right of the PNL in mind and KPIs and metrics, I wish that they would start to look at the improvement of their people a little bit more altruistically, which is tough to ask a company to do that, but to approach it as if what they've been saying forever was actually true, meaning that their people are actually the most important and invest in them and, invest in them for the sake of them.

    00;19;03;28 - 00;19;21;23
    Alex Geesbreght
    It's okay if they want to do the math and say, look, if Bob gets better and three two gets better and Sue gets better, we're all probably going to be better. And that's okay. But just for a minute, stop with the metrics, stop with the KPIs and ask yourself, when I leave a movie, how do I know if I like that movie?

    00;19;21;25 - 00;19;41;29
    Alex Geesbreght
    Do I write down, oh, I laughed three times. I didn't go to the bathroom. I, you know, I barely ate my popcorn. Yes, I like the movie. No, you just know. And one other thing I would say is that if anybody ever has an opportunity or a need to go seek the advice of somebody else, maybe even professionally, they go to a counselor.

    00;19;42;01 - 00;20;03;19
    Alex Geesbreght
    How often does a counselor sit down and say, okay, let's develop some metrics and KPIs around your, your wellness and, and how you're going to improve. Of course they don't. They connect with the person, they sit there, they do what you're doing, they ask questions. They listen. By the way, just to answer your other question, that is another thing that leaders could do better.

    00;20;03;21 - 00;20;23;26
    Alex Geesbreght
    listening and empathy and and you maybe have to fake that until you make it. But, there are several examples, but I'm digressing. But I would just say, my dream is that companies would actually do what they say is important to them, and that is invest in their people for their people, not for the company.

    00;20;23;26 - 00;20;26;13
    Wayne Turmel
    Madness. I tell you, that's crazy. Talk.

    00;20;26;20 - 00;20;30;05
    Alex Geesbreght
    It is why I said it was a dream.

    00;20;30;08 - 00;20;57;02
    Wayne Turmel
    Alex, thank you so much. This is great. Been a great conversation. Alas, our time is up. thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it. Of course, you can learn more about Alex, about Praxis, all that good stuff, by visiting the longdistanceworklife.com. You will find a transcript of this show. You can find past episodes.

    00;20;57;07 - 00;21;22;14
    Wayne Turmel
    You can leave us comments, show ideas, questions, vicious attacks, anything that you want to tell us, you can reach out to either myself or Marisa on LinkedIn or through email. And we want to remind you that a lot of you came to us because of our book, The Long-Distance Leader Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership, that that sucker came out in 2018.

    00;21;22;15 - 00;21;58;29
    Wayne Turmel
    September 17th of this year. We are in the second edition and updated new information. edition of The Long-Distance Leader Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership. The second edition goes on sale September 17th, and we hope that you will check that out. in the meantime, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, if you want to be a better leader in a remote environment, if you want to work on some of the things that Alex told us about, check out our long leadership series.

    00;21;58;29 - 00;22;27;24
    Wayne Turmel
    We offer it three four times a year as a public enrollment program. You can find anything you need in terms of information, pricing, all that good stuff at KevinEikenberry.com. And of course, if you enjoyed the show, tell a friend like and subscribe. I refuse to say smash the like button because I am not 12. but but, you know, you could push a gem again.

    00;22;27;24 - 00;22;45;12
    Wayne Turmel
    Let us know that you want to like and subscribe to the show. So that is it. Ladies and gentlemen, for another edition of The Long Distance Work Life. Next week, we will be back with Marisa. I am Wayne Turmel. Thank you for being with us. Don't let the weasels get you down.

    Featured Guest

    Name: Alex Geesbreght

    Bio: Alex Geesbreght is the Founder and Partner of PRAX Leadership, LLC and Geesbreght Group LLC. Previously, he was the Owner of Emergency Medicine Consultants, where he served as General Counsel, President, and Chief Strategy Officer for over sixteen years until its sale in 2018. He also owned and led PhysAssist Scribes, the nation’s first medical scribe company.

    Timestamps

    00:00 Introduction
    00:43 Meet Alex Geesbreght
    01:45 The State of Leadership Today
    02:50 Impact of Remote Work on Connection
    04:24 The Importance of Authenticity
    07:23 Teaching Authenticity in Leadership
    10:28 The Role of Neuroscience
    12:27 Key Skills for Remote Leaders
    14:51 Challenges of Remote Leadership
    17:14 The Future of Leadership

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    Marisa Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel dive into the complexities of leadership when confronted with disagreeable or unpopular policies. Learn effective strategies for communicating these policies to your remote or hybrid team, ensuring clarity, empathy, and maintaining morale. Wayne shares his extensive experience on how to handle the challenges of remote leadership, from understanding the reasons behind decisions to managing team pushback. Whether you're a seasoned manager or new to leadership, this episode offers valuable insights for navigating conflict and leading with confidence, no matter where your team is located.

    Key Takeaways

    1. Communication is a two-way process; it's crucial to listen as well as deliver the message.
    2. Use rich communication mediums, like video calls, for delivering significant news.
    3. Be transparent about what you know and don’t know, and ensure ongoing dialogue.
    4. Schedule follow-ups and one-on-ones to address individual concerns and questions.
    5. Understand the technical, organizational, and personal implications of policy changes.

    View Full Transcript

    00;00;07;28 - 00;00;19;04
    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. Hi, Wayne.

    00;00;19;07 - 00;00;21;05
    Wayne Turmel
    Hello, Marisa. How the heck are you?

    00;00;21;06 - 00;00;22;24
    Marisa Eikenberry
    I'm great. How are you?

    00;00;22;26 - 00;00;25;13
    Wayne Turmel
    I am, I am well today.

    00;00;25;16 - 00;00;36;19
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Good deal. Because today, we're going to be talking about leadership and conflict and how we can handle disagreeable policies or unpopular policies.

    00;00;36;22 - 00;00;46;17
    Wayne Turmel
    Yeah, it's part of being the manager, right? Nobody is when everything's going great. Being the boss is fabulous. when.

    00;00;46;17 - 00;00;47;08
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Trade.

    00;00;47;10 - 00;01;12;14
    Wayne Turmel
    Policies come down and you, as the manager, are expected to inform the team about them, and even worse, enforce them, it can be super, super unpleasant. And when you are not in the same place as the people that you're working with, it can be unpleasant and stressful. So more stressful to be specific.

    00;01;12;21 - 00;01;34;00
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right. So given you know that we have remote and hybrid teams now. And so it's way different than, you know, walking into the office in the conference room and being like, hey guys, like here's this decision that's been made from on high. So what are some effective communication strategies that managers can use with their remote and hybrid teams when explaining some unpopular policies to their team?

    00;01;34;03 - 00;01;47;18
    Wayne Turmel
    Well, let's take a step back when everybody's in the office, right. There's like this immediate conversation and kerfuffle. And then there's cubicle conversations. And, you know.

    00;01;47;20 - 00;01;48;23
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Slack messages and.

    00;01;48;25 - 00;02;17;19
    Wayne Turmel
    Whining and people going out for beverages later. And, you know, like that when you are not physically co-located with your coworkers and with your team. That same stuff happens, but you don't know what's going on. You aren't privy to the chat conversations and the texts and the whining and complaining. There is so much, as always, with long distance leadership.

    00;02;17;25 - 00;02;44;11
    Wayne Turmel
    There is so much white space that you don't really know what's going on. And so the number one communication thing is to do it. and communication is in fact a two way process. It's delivering the message, but it's also listening. And it's listening to what people say and what they don't say.

    00;02;44;13 - 00;02;44;23
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;02;44;24 - 00;02;49;28
    Wayne Turmel
    If you are met with dead silence, there's stuff you need to learn.

    00;02;50;01 - 00;03;07;12
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Well, and you mentioning dead silence, I mean, that also is a good point to like how we're delivering this message. We've talked about mediums of communication before, but it sounds like, you know, if you're going to deliver something that might be unpopular, probably needs to be on a video call. Yes.

    00;03;07;15 - 00;03;21;06
    Wayne Turmel
    Well, certainly you want it to be as rich as circumstances demanded. a video call is a great way to break the news if it's possible to do it that way.

    00;03;21;08 - 00;03;22;20
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;03;22;23 - 00;03;35;10
    Wayne Turmel
    and you need something they can refer back to a written document that it says this is what is and isn't covered.

    00;03;35;13 - 00;03;36;25
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Okay.

    00;03;36;27 - 00;04;03;12
    Wayne Turmel
    because when you make an announcement, particularly one that is unpopular or has emotional tripwires attached to it, there's no guarantee they're going to get it the first time to really understand what's going on. So the communication strategy as such, there are a few steps that you have to take. The first is you better make sure you understand the change.

    00;04;03;14 - 00;04;03;28
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;04;03;28 - 00;04;41;18
    Wayne Turmel
    And that's not just whether or not you agree with it. You may or may not, but you darn well better understand it. And there are several levels to this. You need to understand technically what is changing or not, what is going to be the difference. You need to understand as best you can. Why is this happening right? The moment I became a real grown up adult worker was the day I realized that every decision, no matter how idiot shtick, was made for a reason.

    00;04;41;20 - 00;04;43;10
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah.

    00;04;43;12 - 00;05;18;24
    Wayne Turmel
    Somebody had a reason for doing what they did. Now, whether this is the right response. There's all that. But if you understand what the reason is, the it tempers some of the, the pain. So you need to understand what is actually changing. You need to understand why it's happening. And you need to understand the repercussions. If we know if you're making notes to yourself for how to break this news, it starts with when this happens, this will be the result.

    00;05;18;26 - 00;05;20;18
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right?

    00;05;20;20 - 00;05;38;11
    Wayne Turmel
    Good, bad or indifferent. And there's what's the result on an organizational level. There's what's the result on a personal level. And the challenge for leaders is that the information comes down always with the priority on the organizational level.

    00;05;38;13 - 00;05;39;08
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Of course.

    00;05;39;10 - 00;06;00;29
    Wayne Turmel
    This is what it means to the organization when you break it to your people. That's the secondary consideration. They want to know what does it mean for me? And you'd best have as good an answer as you can have. Now that all makes sense. The problem is we don't always have all the information.

    00;06;01;01 - 00;06;01;29
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;06;02;02 - 00;06;14;04
    Wayne Turmel
    And one of the mistakes that leaders make is if they don't have certain information they either withhold it completely.

    00;06;14;07 - 00;06;15;13
    Marisa Eikenberry


    00;06;15;16 - 00;06;35;08
    Wayne Turmel
    Or they act as if they have the information. And this is going to happen. And what happens as policies get implemented is things don't always happen the way that we think they're going to. And then if it doesn't match what you've told your people they say you lied to us, you weasel.

    00;06;35;11 - 00;06;37;01
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right. Well, and.

    00;06;37;01 - 00;06;55;04
    Wayne Turmel
    You may not have intentionally you may have tried to spare their feelings. You may have tried not to make a situation worse by saying this could also happen, but you also are perceived as not having told them the truth.

    00;06;55;06 - 00;06;56;21
    Marisa Eikenberry


    00;06;56;24 - 00;07;03;05
    Wayne Turmel
    And you did it for all the right reasons and you did it to be a good person. And it's still going to blow up in your face.

    00;07;03;07 - 00;07;06;08
    Marisa Eikenberry
    I think this is part of course for being a leader to be honest.

    00;07;06;08 - 00;07;39;04
    Wayne Turmel
    Well but that's you know, how often have we said on this show time after time, leadership first, location second, like, yes, this is breaking bad news. Leadership 101 and when people aren't there, they can't look at each other and go, what the hell? They can write the text messages and the chats are going crazy and there's all kinds of stuff going on, and you can't physically see everybody's eyes, right?

    00;07;39;05 - 00;07;51;25
    Wayne Turmel
    Right. If you call everybody into the bullpen, into the cube farm and you make an announcement, you can see so-and-so looks stunned, so-and-so is ticked off. So-and-so just looks confused.

    00;07;51;27 - 00;07;52;20
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah.

    00;07;52;22 - 00;08;07;18
    Wayne Turmel
    And you can respond accordingly. You don't have that benefit unless it's a very small team and you're on camera, and even then, you're so busy delivering the message that you may not see everything that's going on.

    00;08;07;20 - 00;08;19;00
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Well, that's what I was getting ready to say, too. I mean, even if you do have a small team, maybe everybody's on camera. Okay, I might look fine here, but you don't know. My foot shaking under my desk. You know. Right?

    00;08;19;03 - 00;08;46;15
    Wayne Turmel
    Right. Absolutely. Which means that delivering the message is only part of it. I mean, one of the things that we've taught at the cabin, I can very group for a billion years, and they've been teaching in the world for much longer than we have walked the earth is communication is missed. Message send, message received, message understood, and action taken.

    00;08;46;22 - 00;08;47;21
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;08;47;23 - 00;08;56;05
    Wayne Turmel
    Right. A commute, a successful communication sends the message. And whatever you want to have happen, happens, right?

    00;08;56;06 - 00;08;57;10
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;08;57;12 - 00;09;13;04
    Wayne Turmel
    The problem when you are instituting a an emotional or a complex message, is that message send is the only thing you know is going to happen.

    00;09;13;06 - 00;09;15;07
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Absolutely.

    00;09;15;09 - 00;09;27;01
    Wayne Turmel
    Right. You can say I sent the message. I held that call. I did that announcement. I sent that email. Yep. You sure did. And it's only a quarter of the process.

    00;09;27;03 - 00;09;32;28
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah. The email went to spam. They didn't watch the video. They didn't attend the call anyway.

    00;09;33;05 - 00;09;43;05
    Wayne Turmel
    Exactly right. I mean, there's a lot of stuff, so sending the message is only part of it. The second thing is, did they actually hear it?

    00;09;43;12 - 00;09;44;25
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;09;44;27 - 00;10;05;29
    Wayne Turmel
    Well, you know, the richer the form of communication, the more likely that they are going to physically it is going to physically hit their ears. Yeah. Right. But we all know the minute you hear something that you don't want to hear, you cease being able to hear it.

    00;10;06;01 - 00;10;06;28
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yes.

    00;10;07;00 - 00;10;22;18
    Wayne Turmel
    Right. Hey we're doing a reorg. If you're so busy thinking that's it I'm getting fired. I'm getting laid off. This is the end of life as we know it. I am literally not hearing what you're telling me, let alone understanding.

    00;10;22;26 - 00;10;28;08
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right. And they might be saying your departments fine. And you don't have no idea it.

    00;10;28;10 - 00;11;05;02
    Wayne Turmel
    So you have to make sure they they received the message clearly do the best you can to make sure they understand it. And some of that is eliminating the walls that are immediately going to shoot up. If you merely focus on the organizational part of this, they are going to be so busy trying to figure out what it means to them that now, one way to do that, particularly live, is to say, what I am about to tell you is what we know right now.

    00;11;05;04 - 00;11;33;14
    Wayne Turmel
    There's a lot that we don't know. There's a lot that might change. So I'm giving you the best information I can at this time. I would ask you to listen to it and I will answer your questions as best I can. Yeah. Because you want to eliminate the barriers so people can at least take the information in, then you better make darn sure that people understand it.

    00;11;33;17 - 00;12;02;04
    Wayne Turmel
    Some of that can happen in the moment, right? It's an all hands meeting. There are questions that most people will not ask their questions out loud. Most people do not even know what their questions are until they hang up and later. So on a remote or a hybrid team, make sure that there is plenty of opportunity for that instantaneous feedback and connection.

    00;12;02;06 - 00;12;31;03
    Wayne Turmel
    Ideally, if your team is small enough, you would schedule one on ones immediately. You want to do check ins. How you doing? What did you hear? What are your questions and be able to address those as best you can on an individual basis. particularly for those who aren't don't have easy access to you. Right. And again, you want to be empathetic.

    00;12;31;06 - 00;12;38;25
    Wayne Turmel
    I know this is hard. That's not the same as sympathetic. I know I think it sucks to is not help.

    00;12;38;28 - 00;12;51;23
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Well. So pivoting a little bit like should managers even be transparent with their own reservations on stuff like if, if, if I'm a leader and I hate this idea, should I tell them.

    00;12;51;25 - 00;13;01;15
    Wayne Turmel
    I think it is appropriate to say I have questions myself about this?

    00;13;01;18 - 00;13;03;17
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah.

    00;13;03;20 - 00;13;23;07
    Wayne Turmel
    When I first heard it, I had some concerns. I hope that I get the answers that I need, and I hope that I pass those that you know, and I will let you know when I have those answers. It is not it. It is helpful to empathize. It is not helpful to throw the company under the bus.

    00;13;23;10 - 00;13;25;01
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;13;25;04 - 00;13;46;15
    Wayne Turmel
    Because at the end of the day, on a purely mercenary, selfish level, you as the leader are going to be at least partially responsible for the enforcement and coaching and training and helping people make this change if they know that you're against it.

    00;13;46;17 - 00;13;47;08
    Marisa Eikenberry


    00;13;47;11 - 00;13;53;04
    Wayne Turmel
    First of all, are your efforts really going to be good faith efforts to make it happen?

    00;13;53;06 - 00;13;54;10
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;13;54;12 - 00;14;18;21
    Wayne Turmel
    And secondly they know you think it's nonsense so why should they bother. It is going to be three times harder to implement the change than it would it be if people were merely unhappy. So and this goes back to understanding the change, right. Why is it happening? I understand why the company is doing what it's doing. I don't have to like it.

    00;14;18;21 - 00;14;46;14
    Wayne Turmel
    I don't have to agree with it. But I better be able to say when somebody says, why are they doing this? And there's a difference between the stock is tanking and they need to shore up the numbers. And and you know, the stock is tanking. And so they're throwing us overboard. Those are two very different right ways of explaining what's going on.

    00;14;46;16 - 00;14;50;19
    Marisa Eikenberry
    And one of them is okay. And the other one is definitely not.

    00;14;50;22 - 00;15;07;29
    Wayne Turmel
    And it's perfectly natural I mean, you want transparency is important in that it creates trust. Right. Hey I don't know exactly what's going to happen either. We will figure it out together.

    00;15;08;01 - 00;15;33;09
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right. So hypothetically speaking like you know if, if managers have a bunch of pushback from their teams about a decision, you know, and it's something maybe they personally disagree with how they've decided to share that with their team. Hopefully they take some of our advice from this episode. But how do managers handle that pushback? Because, you know, they still need to support what the decision was.

    00;15;33;16 - 00;16;02;14
    Wayne Turmel
    Well, when the pushback happens, there's a couple of things. First of all, it needs to be heard. And people need to know that it is being heard. And of course, in a remote environment that might be written. So you obviously want to have one on ones with people. But maybe there is a special slack or teams chat, for questions about things.

    00;16;02;16 - 00;16;29;00
    Wayne Turmel
    Right. You want to take that information because some of the information you're going to be able to answer and you're going to be able to diffuse the drama. Pretty much right away. There is also there are going to be questions, especially if you don't have the answer, that it is your job as a manager to go up the hill and get the answers that you can get, even if the answer is when are the layoffs going to start?

    00;16;29;03 - 00;16;30;15
    Marisa Eikenberry
    It's still important to know that answer.

    00;16;30;16 - 00;16;31;25
    Wayne Turmel
    They got to know that.

    00;16;31;27 - 00;16;47;22
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah. And we've talked about this on the show before too. But I want to reiterate because you've you've kind of touched on this already, but this idea of if you get asked a question and you don't know, it's okay to say, I don't know, but I'm going to go find out, do not.

    00;16;47;25 - 00;16;50;15
    Wayne Turmel
    This is where you get accused of lying.

    00;16;50;18 - 00;16;50;26
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah.

    00;16;50;27 - 00;17;09;25
    Wayne Turmel
    Because if you try to gloss over the question or you kind of think this is the right answer. And so you give it because you want to sound like you know what you're doing. You don't want to sound like an idiot. It's going to blow back on you if that answer turns out not to be true.

    00;17;09;28 - 00;17;16;09
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right. And we as a society just need to get better about saying, I don't know, but I'm going to go find out.

    00;17;16;11 - 00;17;45;13
    Wayne Turmel
    We as human beings, just in general. Right? Again, most of what we've talked about is conveying bad news or handling conflict 101, regardless of where you are. I think as we near the end of our time in a remote or a hybrid environment, there are a couple of very specific differences. Number one is you want to make sure that the whole team gets as much information as they can.

    00;17;45;16 - 00;18;05;16
    Wayne Turmel
    As a team, it's very tempting, for example, to call the people in the office together, make the announcement, and then have a call for the people who aren't. It's a very natural, kind of instinctive thing to do. But the team needs to hear it as a team.

    00;18;05;22 - 00;18;07;26
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah.

    00;18;07;28 - 00;18;30;25
    Wayne Turmel
    so that's one thing, is don't fall into that trap. It should be delivered as richly as possible, and it needs a backup. It needs to have a place that people can go back and now read it for themselves. Right when the drama has settled, or they're a little calmer and they can read it and take a look, because then they may get some of their questions answered.

    00;18;30;25 - 00;18;32;12
    Wayne Turmel
    Other questions may arise.

    00;18;32;14 - 00;18;32;23
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;18;32;26 - 00;18;40;10
    Wayne Turmel
    And there needs to be an ongoing conversation. It's not like you can just say, well, I told them and that's it.

    00;18;40;12 - 00;18;41;09
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;18;41;11 - 00;19;10;22
    Wayne Turmel
    Right. It's going to be an ongoing conversation. And then you need to figure out what. Training are people going to need. What are they going to need to know. Some of it contextual, some of it, you know, added hey, here's what's going to happen. And there may be things they need to do differently. What are those things. And get that training in place as quickly as possible.

    00;19;10;24 - 00;19;16;28
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Absolutely. Wayne, sounds like we kind of talked about this for a lot longer than now, but unfortunately we are out of time.

    00;19;17;00 - 00;19;39;20
    Wayne Turmel
    But someday when you are a manager, young lady, you will learn, it's this is the bane. There are two things implementing policies that you yourself might not agree with and having to let people go. These are the hardest things that a manager has to do.

    00;19;39;23 - 00;20;05;04
    Marisa Eikenberry
    We want to talk about that second one on another episode sometime. Absolutely. That that might be really important. And listeners, if you're listening right now and you're like, yeah, I want to hear that. Please let us know. so that way we know that that needs to go higher up on our list. But listeners, thank you so much for listening to The Long-Distance Worklife. For shownotes, transcripts, and other resources, make sure to visit LongDistanceWorklife.com.

    00;20;05;06 - 00;20;27;07
    Marisa Eikenberry
    If you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss any future episodes. And if you're on Apple or Spotify, please give us a rating and review. Your feedback helps us improve and reach more listeners 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;20;27;10 - 00;20;50;16
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Like we already mentioned, we would love to hear from you. And before we go, I want to let you know that the second edition of The Long-Distance Leader is now available for preorder. For those of you watching, Wayne has a copy of it right here and it will be launching on September 17th. This updated guide is perfect for navigating today's remote and hybrid work environments with new principles and proven strategies.

    00;20;50;17 - 00;21;14;15
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel show you how to lead effectively no matter where your team is located. Don't miss out on the latest insights and exercises designed to boost productivity and morale. Preorder your copy now at longdistanceworklife.com/LDL and strengthen your remote leadership skills today. Thank you so much for joining us. And as Wayne likes to say, don't let the weasels get you down.

    00;21;14;17 - 00;21;28;25
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Hey.

    00;21;28;27 - 00;21;29;08
    Marisa Eikenberry
    You.


    Timestamps

    00:00 Introduction: Welcome and Episode Overview
    00:36 The Role of Leadership in Conflict Management
    01:34 Effective Communication Strategies for Remote Teams
    02:44 The Importance of Listening and Understanding Team Reactions
    05:03 Steps to Ensure Clear Communication of Policies
    07:39 Challenges of Delivering Bad News Remotely
    11:04 Transparency and Trust: Handling Managerial Reservations
    15:32 Managing Pushback and Ongoing Conversations
    17:45 Team Training and Support for Policy Changes
    20:05 Conclusion and Call to Action: Preorder The Long-Distance Leader

    Related Episodes

    Additional Resources

    Pre-Order The Long-Distance Leader

    Perfect your remote leadership skills with the updated edition of "The Long-Distance Leader" by Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, featuring new principles and proven strategies for today's hybrid work environments.

     Pre-Order
    The Long-Distance Leader
    Read More
    Revolutionizing Remote Onboarding with AI: Insights and Innovations
    Ask Wayne Anything, Hybrid Work, Surviving Remote Work, Technology, Working Remotely

    Revolutionizing Remote Onboarding with AI: Insights and Innovations

    Marisa Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel dive into the exciting intersection of AI and employee onboarding. They explore how AI tools like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT can streamline the onboarding process, enhance personalization, and provide 24/7 support for new hires. Tune in to hear real-life examples, expert insights, and a touch of humor as Marisa and Wayne discuss the future of AI in remote and hybrid work environments. Discover how AI can revolutionize the onboarding experience, making new employees feel valued and accelerating their assimilation into the company culture.

    Key Takeaways

    1. Leverage AI for Time Efficiency: Integrate AI tools like Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT to handle repetitive onboarding tasks, saving time for both new hires and onboarding managers.
    2. Personalize the Onboarding Experience: Tag and categorize onboarding materials to help AI deliver personalized content that matches the specific skills and needs of new hires.
    3. Implement 24/7 Chatbot Support: Set up chatbots to provide continuous support, ensuring new hires can get answers to their questions even when human supervisors are unavailable.
    4. Utilize Data-Driven Insights: Regularly review data collected by AI tools to identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions to enhance the onboarding process.
    5. Balance AI with Human Interaction: Use AI to manage routine tasks, freeing up managers to focus on building personal relationships with new hires, which is crucial for engagement and assimilation.
    6. Integrate AI with Internal Systems: Work with your IT team to connect AI tools with your company’s internal network and resources, ensuring they have access to the relevant data and documents needed for effective onboarding.
    7. Solicit Feedback from New Hires: Regularly gather feedback from new employees about their onboarding experience and use this information to continuously refine and improve the process.

    View Full Transcript

    00;00;08;02 - 00;00;20;08
    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, fellow remote worker. And joining me is remote work expert and my co-host, Wayne Turmel. Hi, Wayne.

    00;00;20;11 - 00;00;24;05
    Wayne Turmel
    Hi. I'm here until I am replaced by our robot overlords.

    00;00;24;08 - 00;00;45;20
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Every time. but, listeners, so some of you who have been listening to this show for a while, you heard us talk about zoom and some of the AI stuff that's being added to all kinds of different platforms and not just zoom itself. And so we wanted to take a little bit of that and talk about AI and onboarding and how those two could kind of come together.

    00;00;45;22 - 00;00;54;28
    Marisa Eikenberry
    And in true AI fashion. we decided to get a little meta and ask, I believe it was copilot right wing.

    00;00;55;00 - 00;01;26;29
    Wayne Turmel
    Yeah. So here's the deal. we have been playing with various things, you know, what is it that we're worried about? Right. And one of the hardest things for remote and hybrid teams is onboarding employees. Right? And I have sat through enough HR, software, webinars, taking the bullets so you don't have to. Dear listener. And one of the things that they say all the time is, well, it can help with onboarding.

    00;01;27;05 - 00;01;29;11
    Wayne Turmel
    And me being me went, okay.

    00;01;29;11 - 00;01;32;16
    Marisa Eikenberry
    How right. Tell me.

    00;01;32;18 - 00;01;50;23
    Wayne Turmel
    Seems a reasonable question. and so, as Marisa says, we we decided let's see what AI has to say about this, and then we will respond. And so, as it turns out, I was using copilot.

    00;01;50;25 - 00;01;51;23
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;01;51;25 - 00;02;00;07
    Wayne Turmel
    a lot of people who don't work with this day in and day out assume that ChatGPT is the.

    00;02;00;10 - 00;02;01;26
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Guy who built.

    00;02;01;28 - 00;02;17;10
    Wayne Turmel
    It. It's the one that they know. It's the Kleenex, right? It's their whatever. You're on the generic Xerox of the, AI world. And in fact, I had dinner the other night with somebody who uses three services.

    00;02;17;12 - 00;02;17;25
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Oh, wow.

    00;02;18;02 - 00;02;48;01
    Wayne Turmel
    That GPT, she uses Google Bard, and she uses Microsoft Copilot, and they all have their charms. So this is not a recommendation. I will tell you that I use copilot for the simple reason that my free ChatGPT account ran out, and I just didn't feel like paying for it. Whereas because I am a Microsoft office 365 user, I get copilot for free.

    00;02;48;04 - 00;03;14;03
    Wayne Turmel
    Done. Sold. Sign me up. The other thing that copilot does, which I like, and this is as close to a recommendation as you're going to get folks. Is that what I like is that copilot gives you the source from which they drew the information. So if it's an article, some of it, for example, you look and go, oh, that's paid content, right?

    00;03;14;04 - 00;03;31;05
    Wayne Turmel
    So I need to pay that. Take that with a grain of salt. I like having the the source content available. so we did. The question was. And I asked very politely because I'm very, of course, machines.

    00;03;31;08 - 00;03;34;15
    Marisa Eikenberry
    I mean, I said thank you to our echo all the time.

    00;03;34;18 - 00;03;54;15
    Wayne Turmel
    Alexa and I, I am extremely, extremely kind. but the question was, what are five ways I can assist in onboarding new employees? This is a very real problem that people are having, right? And so they came up with five ways.

    00;03;54;17 - 00;04;06;07
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right. And so like I was going to say I'm looking at the first one right now. And one of the first ones it talks about is time efficiency. and how, you know, onboarding takes a while. Like we've all been there.

    00;04;06;09 - 00;04;31;09
    Wayne Turmel
    Well, it does take a while. And there are even the obvious, even the less obvious things. Like, I know my boss told me this yesterday in the three hour orientation brain dump that I was given, but I can't remember. Where do I find X right? Right. AI is great for hey copilot! Where the heck do I find that?

    00;04;31;12 - 00;04;45;25
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah. Well, and and I know that some people are also doing, like, employee handbooks or something. Also make documentation. So that way you're not asking Susie every five minutes where something is because she might kill you if you ask too many questions.

    00;04;45;28 - 00;05;18;16
    Wayne Turmel
    Now, I actually one of the things that we need to preface this with, because I ran into somebody who was a little confused and not everybody who listens to this clearly is an expert in such things. Some of us who speak on it are barely experts on such things. but it was clear if your company has a paid account and the AI is tied to your internal network and your internal content.

    00;05;18;18 - 00;05;19;18
    Marisa Eikenberry


    00;05;19;20 - 00;05;21;07
    Wayne Turmel
    It will find anything.

    00;05;21;10 - 00;05;22;08
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yes.

    00;05;22;10 - 00;05;45;19
    Wayne Turmel
    And if I am a new employee and I don't even know the name of something, and I don't know exactly where it is on the drive, and it's hidden over here. And by the way, you don't have to be a new employee. I frequently, because we have 13 people. I've been here ten years. KPMG, Google Drive is insanely dense with content.

    00;05;45;23 - 00;05;47;11
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah. It's massive.

    00;05;47;14 - 00;05;55;21
    Wayne Turmel
    It's massive. And not everybody uses the same thought process as to where that file is.

    00;05;55;22 - 00;05;57;24
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right?

    00;05;57;27 - 00;06;12;00
    Wayne Turmel
    and so if I'm looking for what is the password to get on to our corporate zoom account to lead a webinar, we've got several accounts. Right. Where the heck is the password for that?

    00;06;12;02 - 00;06;17;15
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right. Because you might look for it in a place that wasn't where I put it.

    00;06;17;18 - 00;06;48;10
    Wayne Turmel
    I did not know that that information is on the tech team folder. Yeah. Not what I would have thought it'd be under instructor materials, because the instructor might need to know where how to get on. so that kind of thing is great. And when you're a new employee, when you're struggling to learn stuff, you don't always know the question to ask, and you're afraid to ask the question because, you know, somebody just told you this yesterday, right?

    00;06;48;13 - 00;06;51;23
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Like I said, you don't ask too many questions or Susie will kill you.

    00;06;51;25 - 00;06;59;09
    Wayne Turmel
    Yeah, exactly. so that's actually a really, really powerful tool just right there.

    00;06;59;12 - 00;06;59;25
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;07;00;02 - 00;07;10;19
    Wayne Turmel
    The ability to do that. Now, again, you know, if you if you are not if you're AI is not connected to the network, you're going to get somebody else's.

    00;07;10;22 - 00;07;11;07
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah.

    00;07;11;10 - 00;07;29;04
    Wayne Turmel
    And you're going to get all kinds of useless information. Right. But that's so yes, your your organization. In order to optimize, I must have it reading your network or you're not going to get the value of this.

    00;07;29;07 - 00;07;44;06
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Well, and real quick, we've talked about this too in our previous episode where you were talking about, you know, my boss just said this in a meeting the other day. If you have, like I set up for like zoom or something like that, it can give you action items or, you know, here's the main points of this meeting.

    00;07;44;06 - 00;07;51;04
    Marisa Eikenberry
    And so you might be able to consult that. and, you know, instead of asking your boss again.

    00;07;51;07 - 00;08;02;03
    Wayne Turmel
    Yeah, absolutely. And especially in Microsoft Teams, you can punch in the date of the meeting and assuming your IT department has set it up, actually find that stuff.

    00;08;02;06 - 00;08;02;18
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Oh, that's.

    00;08;02;25 - 00;08;15;08
    Wayne Turmel
    What what I have started doing is on sales calls is I will say to the customer, do you mind if I run this in the background? Because it's going to take way better notes than I can.

    00;08;15;11 - 00;08;22;17
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Oh yeah. Yeah. And then you get to focus on the conversation. You don't have to focus on making sure that you've typed everything exactly right.

    00;08;22;17 - 00;08;48;24
    Wayne Turmel
    And by the way, it does a really, really good job. Yeah. everything I've done, teams, zoom. you know, any I that's attached to WebEx at any I that's attached to that has been trained really well to take good notes. And you will remember who gets what action item and who raised this issue and like that.

    00;08;49;01 - 00;08;50;03
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;08;50;05 - 00;08;58;00
    Wayne Turmel
    so for time efficiency first thing. Yeah. Copilot told me time efficiency. the answer is yes.

    00;08;58;02 - 00;08;58;27
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Okay.

    00;08;59;00 - 00;09;00;20
    Wayne Turmel
    Okay. You dig that?

    00;09;00;23 - 00;09;18;26
    Marisa Eikenberry
    So what about, the next one it had was personalization. So it said you can utilize AI and machine learning. Onboarding programs can be tailored to match the specific skill set and needs of a new hire and personalized training and materials and resources. I'm failing to see your AI helps with this, but maybe you can.

    00;09;18;29 - 00;09;27;19
    Wayne Turmel
    Well, that like everything else. I mean, you and I were talking earlier. You know, the answer you get depends on the question that you ask.

    00;09;27;21 - 00;09;29;09
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Oh, of course.

    00;09;29;12 - 00;10;20;03
    Wayne Turmel
    So if as you are creating orientation materials, if you are creating an employee handbook and you label things as or you tag them as useful for beginners, useful for onboarding, useful for orientation, for somebody who's looking for that will find what they're looking for versus somebody else who's just looking for general information. personalization. What I can do this is both the beauty and the terrifying thing, okay, is the more you use it and the more it knows you, the more it will find what you are looking for or what is useful to you at the beginning.

    00;10;20;03 - 00;10;38;21
    Wayne Turmel
    It's going to be in general, new hires want to know this, right? It's going to be more specific. The machine will learn. Oh, this is Wayne. He's in accounting. He works with these particular clients. And so the searches will get infinitely more granular.

    00;10;38;27 - 00;10;40;09
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah, that makes sense.

    00;10;40;12 - 00;11;12;18
    Wayne Turmel
    So when they say personalization, it's not. You know, I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave. It's not like that. Right? We're not we're not going there. And if you are under 40 or not a nerd, it's a movie reference. Just stick with us. Well, so what is this personal personalization? That's what it's talking about. The more it interfaces with you and learns who you are, the more it will exclude extraneous information and give you the stuff that is really relevant.

    00;11;12;25 - 00;11;22;25
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah, well, it sounds like two from the, basically someone has to set up the stuff ahead of time for the AI to even see it correctly.

    00;11;22;28 - 00;11;38;15
    Wayne Turmel
    Everything is in the setup and where that becomes really important is actually the third thing that, yeah, it came up with, which is 24/7 support, which is all about chat bots.

    00;11;38;18 - 00;11;39;20
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right?

    00;11;39;23 - 00;11;57;06
    Wayne Turmel
    And you know, your boss is not always going to be available to you when you need them. you know, the person you're asking may be in Singapore and when you're starting your day, they're going to bed. I mean, there's realistic we need information when we need it.

    00;11;57;08 - 00;12;20;09
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right? And we know how powerful chat bots can be anyway. I know that we have one on the desk site right now. so just personality testing.com. And for those of you who have heard us talk about this before, like our support team is two people and we have to sleep sometime. so the chat bots been really helpful because we've put stuff into it to say, here's how we say this.

    00;12;20;09 - 00;12;29;16
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Here's all these videos, here's all these transcripts. So it's learning off of us, and it can answer a lot of these questions that we're asleep and can't answer it right now.

    00;12;29;16 - 00;13;00;04
    Wayne Turmel
    Well, and I just came back from a conference of HR and learning technology and oh my gosh, like, even since last year's ATD conference, which is the last time I walked in Expo floor and saw this stuff, they are so much more sophisticated and personalized and you can set the level of formality. You know, do you want it's super friendly and chatty or do you want, you know, give me the facts and give me what I'm looking for.

    00;13;00;06 - 00;13;22;27
    Wayne Turmel
    And incredibly sophisticated and deep searches and the ability to figure out what you meant to say, which is not, you know, if you go into Google right now, if you go into Google and you say, I want to know this, and I can't think of an example. Yeah, but I want to know this. It will give you exactly what you ask for.

    00;13;23;00 - 00;13;26;06
    Wayne Turmel
    But that may not be what you really want to know.

    00;13;26;09 - 00;13;30;19
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah. You're going to call it X. We're actually called something else.

    00;13;30;22 - 00;13;46;02
    Wayne Turmel
    Yeah. If I call it, where is the customer service file for x, y, z customer. And your organization calls it a, service response file.

    00;13;46;03 - 00;13;49;22
    Marisa Eikenberry


    00;13;49;24 - 00;13;51;09
    Wayne Turmel
    You know, a Google get a.

    00;13;51;13 - 00;13;52;04
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Couple.

    00;13;52;06 - 00;14;30;16
    Wayne Turmel
    Engine is it's going to struggle a little bit to come up with what you need. Whereas what I'll give you a, a non work example because I just stumbled across this and you know some of the people who listen to this know that I write novels in my spare time. And so I was because I've got a book coming out, I was trying to figure out some marketing materials and they and I said, you give me five comparable titles to the Johnny Lycan Werewolf Pi series.

    00;14;30;19 - 00;14;31;23
    Marisa Eikenberry


    00;14;31;25 - 00;14;53;19
    Wayne Turmel
    And the results were really odd, and they were really kind of uneven. And some were historical fiction and some were this somewhere that So I took a second shot at it. And I said give me comparable titles to the urban fantasy Detective Noir or Johnny Lycan Werewolf Pi series.

    00;14;53;26 - 00;14;54;18
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;14;54;20 - 00;15;07;19
    Wayne Turmel
    I got exactly the seven. comp titles which were most popular. Most recent. Exactly the list I needed.

    00;15;07;22 - 00;15;14;26
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yeah, I mean, we've known for a long. So that's specific. You get it? It helps a lot.

    00;15;14;28 - 00;15;22;02
    Wayne Turmel
    Yeah, but A.I. is getting a lot better at. Oh, I see what you were trying to say.

    00;15;22;04 - 00;15;22;14
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;15;22;21 - 00;15;25;07
    Wayne Turmel
    So it's getting better at that.

    00;15;25;09 - 00;15;26;20
    Marisa Eikenberry
    And it's like, oh, human.

    00;15;26;20 - 00;15;41;01
    Wayne Turmel
    It's not that. Well, it's funny because a lot of us look at chat bots as, oh, great, I have to deal with a chat bot because they can't be bothered hiring a human who can actually interact with me.

    00;15;41;03 - 00;15;41;28
    Marisa Eikenberry
    And that's not necessary.

    00;15;41;28 - 00;16;00;06
    Wayne Turmel
    And there is some of that. Yeah. To be fair, to be fair, there is some of that going on. but it it is more than that. You know, having a human to answer your questions is great until you've actually dealt with a human.

    00;16;00;08 - 00;16;02;05
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Yes.

    00;16;02;07 - 00;16;25;18
    Wayne Turmel
    There is no guarantee you're going to get what you're looking for. and then, of course, the fourth thing was data driven insights, which is right. It will find the if the data is out there, it will find it. And crunch it and give it to you, probably in ways that you don't expect. But that feedback, the accuracy and the speed of that feedback.

    00;16;25;21 - 00;16;54;16
    Wayne Turmel
    And then you can go back and say, tell me more about this is going to be just impressive and huge. which brings us to the last thing that copilot said, which is it's about engagement. AI can create a modern and engaging onboarding experience, making new employees feel valued and accelerating their assimilation into the company culture. And I say,

    00;16;54;19 - 00;17;05;21
    Marisa Eikenberry
    I was going to say this one sounds like we're right. Waving a flag like we're with you of, you know, four. But this one might.

    00;17;05;24 - 00;17;17;07
    Wayne Turmel
    Yeah. It's like, does this help engagement? And I'm still not entirely sure that people's default should be to the machines.

    00;17;17;10 - 00;17;19;09
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right?

    00;17;19;12 - 00;17;43;20
    Wayne Turmel
    now, some of this may be just cranky old white guy who's saying, well, I'll use it when I need it, and the rest of the time, you know, let me interact with humans. But there is, especially in the onboarding process, which let's not forget, this is what we're talking about here, right? The onboarding process is where the relationships get built.

    00;17;43;20 - 00;18;17;18
    Wayne Turmel
    It's where people decide the level of engagement that they're going to have with their employer and their coworkers and their team. And while there may be people who say, I would rather deal with copilot than Bob because Bob is mean to me in meetings, realistically, I think we need to not default, especially in the very early days, weeks, months of, of a, new hire or bringing people on or orientation.

    00;18;17;23 - 00;18;22;23
    Wayne Turmel
    I think we still need to get them to connect with the people.

    00;18;22;25 - 00;18;24;12
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Absolutely.

    00;18;24;14 - 00;18;52;27
    Wayne Turmel
    And and so we need to be really, really leery of that. That's kind of where I'm so. So that was it. We asked, hey, give us five ways I can assist in onboarding. And with all the caveats that we have mentioned. And they are not to be underestimated. Right. There's five ways they can help. Four of the five I don't disagree with.

    00;18;52;29 - 00;19;06;21
    Wayne Turmel
    I think they need to be done thoughtfully. They need to be done intentionally. All of that good stuff. The engagement piece, I don't know, but what else is I going to say?

    00;19;06;24 - 00;19;08;25
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right. Exactly. Well, and we.

    00;19;08;25 - 00;19;17;29
    Wayne Turmel
    Asked the I. Yeah. It's like if you come to me and say, you know, what do you do with this? I'm going to say, well, let me help you here.

    00;19;17;29 - 00;19;18;08
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Right.

    00;19;18;12 - 00;19;34;17
    Wayne Turmel
    And who doesn't want Wayne helping them for corn sake? Well, oh, how how. Okay, here's here's something I doesn't do. It's. I don't get snarky. It doesn't do sarcasm worth a darn.

    00;19;34;20 - 00;20;00;07
    Marisa Eikenberry
    I was like, I can't get snarky. It depends on how you run the Gpt3. But but listeners, if you've worked with any sort of onboarding things with AI or if you've seen it in your company or stuff, please let us know, because we would love to hear from you on that. And Wayne, thank you so much for this conversation, and thank you for putting this into copilot, because my default is ChatGPT.

    00;20;00;09 - 00;20;21;17
    Marisa Eikenberry
    so but this was a really great conversation. I'm really excited to continue talking more about AI and how it can help with remote work. And listeners, thank you so much for listening to Long-Distance Work Life. For show notes, transcripts, and other resources. Make sure to visit Long Distance Work life.com. If you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss any future episodes while you're there.

    00;20;21;19 - 00;20;36;22
    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 that you listen to this episode, or suggest another episode or another topic for Wayne and I to tackle in another episode.

    00;20;36;25 - 00;20;47;03
    Wayne Turmel
    And for the record, we like nonviolent, respectful, counter opinions. Don't be afraid to, tell us where you think we're wrong.

    00;20;47;06 - 00;21;10;06
    Marisa Eikenberry
    Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Because we would love to do an episode about that. And in some cases, we may try to change your mind. We'll see. But if you want to know more about how to work with and manage remote teams, please check out the Long Distance Leadership Series, which you can learn more about at Kevin eikenberry.com/l d l s thank you for joining us.

    00;21;10;06 - 00;21;17;26
    Marisa Eikenberry
    And as Wayne likes to say, don't let the seasons get you down. Hey.

    00;21;17;28 - 00;21;18;05
    Marisa Eikenberry
    You.


    Timestamps

    00:00 Introduction
    00:45 AI in Onboarding Overview
    01:26 Challenges in Remote Onboarding
    03:14 Advantages of Microsoft Copilot
    04:31 AI for Time Efficiency
    09:00 Personalization with AI
    11:12 24/7 Support Through Chatbots
    13:22 Data-Driven Insights
    16:00 Enhancing Engagement with AI
    19:08 Final Thoughts and Listener Feedback

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    Additional Resources

    Long-Distance Leadership Series

    If you want to dive deeper into the strategies and tools for effectively managing remote teams, check out the Long-Distance Leadership Series by The Kevin Eikenberry Group. This comprehensive series offers valuable insights and practical advice on leading remote and hybrid teams with confidence and success. From mastering virtual communication to fostering team engagement, the Long-Distance Leadership Series has everything you need to become a more effective remote leader. Start transforming your remote leadership skills today!

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    Guests, Hybrid Work, Leadership, Working Remotely

    Navigating Hybrid Havoc with John Forsythe

    Wayne Turmel sits down with John Forsythe of Deloitte Consulting's Human Capital Group. They dive into Deloitte's Human Capital Trend Report 2024, exploring the evolving landscape of hybrid work and what it means for senior leaders. John shares his insights on the push and pull of hybrid arrangements, the importance of flexibility, and how AI is shaping the future of work. Whether you're a team leader or an executive, this episode is packed with practical advice on how to navigate the challenges and opportunities of remote and hybrid work.

    Key Takeaways

    1. Build Trust in Remote Work: Focus on measurable outcomes to build trust in remote productivity.
    2. Promote Micro-Cultures: Encourage local team leaders to set their own work cadences.
    3. Enhance Worker Agency: Involve team members in decision-making to foster ownership.
    4. Leverage AI for Efficiency: Automate mundane tasks, focusing human efforts on creativity and problem-solving.
    5. Align Hybrid Work with Talent Lifecycle: Be intentional about in-person interactions for key lifecycle moments.
    6. Pilot Before Policy: Test and iterate hybrid strategies before rolling out policies.
    7. Invest in Manager Development: Provide training and resources for managers to lead in hybrid environments.
    8. Explore Emerging Technologies: Experiment with AR, VR, and new collaborative technologies.
    9. Prioritize Intentional Leadership: Create a positive culture focused on helping employees thrive.

    Timestamps

    00:00 Introduction
    01:14 Hybrid Work Concerns
    02:26 Together When It Matters
    05:09 Flexibility as a Competitive Advantage
    07:16 Autonomy and Accountability
    09:09 Worker Agency
    11:14 AI and Hybrid Work
    14:00 Talent Lifecycle
    16:16 Think Like a Researcher
    18:10 Technology and Collaboration
    19:47 Conclusion

    Featured Guest

    Name: John Forsythe

    Bio: John is a managing director in Deloitte Consulting's Federal Organizational Transformation service line. With over 25 years of business management experience, including 17 years in federal government consulting, John specializes in driving broad organizational change. His expertise spans organizational consolidation, culture change, strategic change, communications, leadership alignment, and executive coaching. John has also advised clients across the federal sector, focusing on the defense sector, including USTRANSCOM, the Navy, and the Wounded Warrior Recovery Care Program.

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    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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