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Hybrid Work, Leadership, Working Remotely

Designing a Winning Culture for Remote Teams: Insights from the Authors of The Long-Distance Team

This episode is a recording from this year's Virtual LeaderCon event that was all about culture on remote and hybrid teams. As more and more teams are working remotely, it's important to understand how to build successful remote teams. Jeff Brown sits down with Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, authors of The Long-Distance Team, as they share their insights and experiences on the challenges of leading and managing culture on remote teams, as well as practical tips and strategies for building strong teams, the difference between microculture and macroculture, and how to design a team in a virtual work environment. Whether you're a team leader, a remote worker, or just interested in learning more about remote work, you won't want to miss this engaging and informative conversation. Tune in to discover how to make remote work work for you!

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

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

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Guests, Hybrid Work, Leadership

Read Deeper, Not Faster: Choosing The Right Business Books For Your Organization With Theresa Destrebecq

Wayne Turmel interviews Theresa Destrebecq, founder of Emerge Book Circles, about the importance of reading deeper instead of faster. Teresa emphasizes that books can easily become shelf development if not read with intention and purpose. She shares her philosophy on choosing books that align with an organization's strategies, challenges, and solutions. Theresa also provides tips on selecting relevant books that are timely and complement ongoing work. Emerge Book Circles is a combination of Theresa's work in education and coaching where she facilitates book learning communities within organizations to support interdependent ways of working.

Featured Guest

Name: Theresa Destrebecq

What She Does: Founder of Emerge Book Circles and co-host of The Leader Learner Podcast

Notable: Theresa Destrebecq is a passionate learner and leader, who loves to read, so she started Emerge Book Circles to bring book learning to companies to make it more social and transformational. It’s about moving beyond just consuming ideas in isolation, to connecting those ideas to yourself, your colleagues, and your work.

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

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Guests, Hybrid Work, Technology

How to Make Hybrid Offices Work with Stan Meshkov

Stan Meshkov, CEO and Founder of Umbrella IT, UnSpot, and RomDo, joins Wayne to discuss what makes hybrid offices work. They discuss things like the importance of communicating when you're in or not in the office, hoteling, and what organizations are doing differently in order to make a hybrid situation work.

Featured Guest

Name: Stan Meshkov

What He Does: CEO & Founder of Umbrella IT, UnSpot, and RomDo

Notable: He's received awards such as: Executive of the Year - Computer Services, Stevie award: Bronze 2020, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award Nominated 2020, Top 100 of The Global Outsourcing by IOAP version 2020\2021 for Umbrella IT Company. He's also been published in Forbes, Inc, and other IT related media.

Additional Resources

Pre-order The Long-Distance Team

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Ask Wayne Anything, Hybrid Work, Leadership, Working Remotely

Why Ethical Visibility Matters on Remote Teams

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

Additional Resources

Pre-order The Long-Distance Team

Pre-order

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

The Long-Distance Teammate Anniversary Episode

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

Key Points

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

Additional Resources

Related Episodes

Pre-order The Long-Distance Team

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View Full Transcript

00:00:08:10 - 00:00:17:18
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to Long-Distance Worklife. Where we help you lead, work, and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I'm Marisa Eikenberry, a fellow remote worker. And joining me is my co-host and remote work expert, Wayne Turmel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

00:21:43:10 - 00:22:02:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Feel free to contact us. Feel email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes and let us know you listen to this episode or even suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in future episodes. And if you'd like to learn more about remote teams, preorder Waiting Kevin's new book, The Long Distance Team. You can learn more about the book and long distance work like that for last year.

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

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Ask Wayne Anything, Hybrid Work, Surviving Remote Work, Technology, Working Remotely

Maximizing Remote and Hybrid Planning Meetings

Wayne and Marisa discuss the things you should consider when conducting annual meetings remotely, including how to manage the logistics of the meeting, how to keep everyone engaged, and how to ensure that everyone has a chance to be heard. We’ll also explore the benefits of a hybrid meeting, and share our own experience with some tips for conducting annual planning meetings. Tune in to find out how you can make the most of your remote or hybrid planning meetings!

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Join us for a powerful, 4-part video series titled, Demystifying Remote Leadership. You will learn how to create solid working relationships in a virtual team with more confidence and less stress!

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Looking Back on Our Top Conversations About Remote Work in 2022

We've had a lot of amazing conversations since we launched in March. In this episode, we're highlighting our top five most downloaded episodes and sharing a clip from each one.

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Do Virtual Meetings Kill Creativity with Elise Keith

A study came out that said that in-person meetings had more creativity than remote meetings, but is that really accurate? Elise Keith from Lucid Meetings joins Wayne Turmel to discuss that study, how to collaborate effectively on remote meetings, and how meetings have changed since the pandemic started.

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How To Make Flexible Work The Norm, Not a Luxury with Pam Cohen

Dr. Pam Cohen from The Mom Project has a mission to help women find flexible work that fits their busy schedules. Pam and Wayne discuss why flexible work is not just a 'nice-to-have' but critical for working moms, how moms often get left behind in projects due to caregiver responsibilities, and how moms can have a conversation about work flexibility with their employers.

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Busting the Myths of Remote Work

Wayne and Marisa chat about some remote work myths and whether or not they're true. They cover: whether or not brainstorming is impossible if you're remote, not being able to collaborate remotely, and whether or not innovation is stifled remotely.

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View Full Transcript

00:00:08:02 - 00:00:26:14
Wayne Turmel
Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Long-Distance Work Life Podcast, the place where we discuss what it takes to work and thrive and survive and keep the weasels at bay in remote and hybrid work. With me is my co-host and buddy Marisa.

00:00:26:14 - 00:00:27:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Hey, everybody.

00:00:27:05 - 00:01:01:15
Wayne
Hello. Hi, Marisa. And this is one of those episodes that we actually have been told by you that you really enjoy where Marisa goes to the giant pile of questions and there are piling up about remote work and chooses some more or less a random and gives me just enough warning that I'm prepared but not enough to be rehearsed on and so, Marisa, we have a couple of questions today with the same theme.

00:01:02:05 - 00:01:16:18
Marisa
Yeah. So this week I thought we would kind of take some of these remote work myths and kind of bust them essentially because we know that they're not true. But goodness knows on seeing it everywhere. So I thought we would start with those today. Is that alright?

00:01:17:11 - 00:01:21:22
Wayne
It's fine. I actually have been accused of looking like one of the guys from Mythbusters.

00:01:22:06 - 00:01:24:05
Marisa
So this is perfect.

00:01:24:06 - 00:01:25:14
Wayne
This is perfect. Yes.

00:01:26:21 - 00:01:49:10
Marisa
So one of the first myths that I see a lot is that brainstorming is impossible if you aren't in the office and, you know, I know for me personally, I actually got into a small LinkedIn disagreement with somebody about this a couple of weeks ago. And this idea that, like, we'll just because you're not in person doesn't mean you can't pick up the phone or start a zoom call.

00:01:49:14 - 00:01:51:10
Marisa
So do you have anything else about that?

00:01:51:16 - 00:02:19:10
Wayne
Yeah, I think that we have certain pre judgments about what brainstorming is and we have this image in our head of a bunch of people in a room gathered around a whiteboard or a flip chart, and everybody's kind of shouting out ideas and we're writing them down, right? And that's where all the good stuff happens.

00:02:19:10 - 00:02:19:18
Marisa
Mm hmm.

00:02:19:18 - 00:02:23:06
Wayne
And it's based on some science.

00:02:23:23 - 00:02:31:23
Wayne
You know, there are things that we do in those situations, writing things down so that our brain continues to think about the.

00:02:32:01 - 00:02:32:09
Marisa
Course.

00:02:32:13 - 00:02:38:23
Wayne
On them and the idea of the energy that somebody says something and you go, No, but what about this?

00:02:39:14 - 00:02:41:10
Marisa
There is killed off of each other.

00:02:41:11 - 00:02:53:17
Wayne
There is a lot to that. And traditionally that's what brainstorming is. We forget, though, that those kind of brainstorming sessions also have some built in problems.

00:02:54:05 - 00:02:55:09
Marisa
Okay, so what are.

00:02:55:09 - 00:02:59:20
Wayne
Your things such as power dynamics at play?

00:03:00:04 - 00:03:00:20
Marisa
Absolutely.

00:03:00:22 - 00:03:27:13
Wayne
Where Marisa has this great idea and she's willing to go to the mattresses and I think she's insane. What I'm not going to fight with her about is, first of all, I have to sit next to her every day, and I'm not going to fight with her. You know, so-and-so's been here a long time and they're their ideas carry more weight or they are just frankly, a bit of a jerk.

00:03:27:13 - 00:03:54:14
Wayne
And if you disagree with them, it's going to get personal. So you sit back. Mm hmm. We have a lot of power. We are finding in certain surveys that, for example, some women and minorities prefer to work virtually because there isn't that physical energy. There isn't that dynamic. There isn't some guy getting loud and belligerent to get in the way of discussion.

00:03:55:03 - 00:03:56:08
Marisa
Mm hmm.

00:03:56:08 - 00:04:27:05
Wayne
You know, synchronous meetings are not always productive and true brainstorming sessions. So what makes brainstorming work? You have to have people understand what it is they're trying to solve. So there has to be kind of a common mindset about. They have to be able to really contribute ideas and capture them and have them where people can see them and build off of them.

00:04:27:14 - 00:04:42:14
Wayne
Right. You have to be willing to go back and reexamine. You have to make sure that everybody understood it. So somebody needs to be moderating and kind of leading it. And you have to know when it's over.

00:04:43:06 - 00:04:45:19
Marisa
Right. Yeah, exactly. Otherwise it'll go forever.

00:04:46:02 - 00:05:13:12
Wayne
Otherwise it goes forever. Well, can you do those things asynchronously? I happen to believe that the best answer is kind of a mix of this and asynchronous. Not all brainstorming sessions need to be a meeting. That's one reason I have too many meetings. But there are ways, for example, that you can have. I'll just give you an example.

00:05:13:20 - 00:05:39:02
Wayne
One kind of process. You have a quick meeting. You define the problem. You say, this is what we need to do. By Thursday, we need to have an answer. And it goes back and they they think and they cogitate and they noodle and they put their ideas in a common place where everybody else can see them similar to writing them on a whiteboard, whether that's a slack or a team's channel or whatever it is.

00:05:39:19 - 00:05:56:04
Wayne
And people assuming that they are motivated and want to solve the problem and want to be part of the brainstorm course entirely separate conversation. But if they are motivated, they can look at that and they could. Then maybe it's time for another synchronous meeting.

00:05:56:22 - 00:05:59:14
Marisa
Right? Yeah. Now you have all the ideas. Let's go through.

00:05:59:16 - 00:06:31:12
Wayne
This. What the heck was that? Right. What are you talking about? Yeah. Or what did you mean by this? And so you clarify it, you talk about it, you kind of eliminate the things that aren't relevant. And then you go on, you do a second batch of thinking about it. Okay. One of the things about traditional brainstorming, which has always frustrated me, is I'm one of those people, the minute I leave the room and go, oh, man, you know what I just thought of?

00:06:31:19 - 00:06:33:14
Marisa
Yeah, absolutely.

00:06:33:14 - 00:06:59:15
Wayne
Synchronous brainstorming sessions don't allow for that. Right. This pressure of, hey, great, we reached consensus here. We're out of here. On to the next problem, and there's no time to go back and add more thought to it. So there are ways of doing synchronous and asynchronous brainstorming that don't involve everybody being in the room at the same time.

00:07:00:02 - 00:07:04:15
Wayne
What it does require, though, is a high degree of engagement and motivation.

00:07:05:00 - 00:07:05:13
Marisa
Of course.

00:07:06:08 - 00:07:34:16
Wayne
What that generally means is you have fewer people working on the brain stem, bringing in the whole team. You bring in the people who are most highly motivated, who have a high stake in that. There is an inherent danger of that is that you don't get the outsider opinion. Mm hmm. On the other hand, how often in a team meeting does somebody who isn't involved with this process really contribute?

00:07:35:01 - 00:07:36:13
Marisa
Right. Yeah, it's a little bit of both.

00:07:36:21 - 00:08:02:03
Wayne
In a perfect world, it would, you know, you want that outsider opinion. But generally, asynchronous brainstorming is a little bit smaller group tighter timeframes, not as tight as we're going to walk into the meeting. We're going to brainstorm. We're going to walk out with an answer, of course, but some tight time frames and people are expected to hold up their end of the bargain.

00:08:02:14 - 00:08:05:00
Marisa
Of course. Yeah. You want them to give their input.

00:08:06:17 - 00:08:18:08
Wayne
And you expect it and it's a performance expectation. There are no shortage of teams who can prove that on a regular basis, not the least of which is us.

00:08:19:00 - 00:08:19:09
Marisa
Right.

00:08:20:17 - 00:08:39:15
Wayne
I mean, on a very small scale, this podcast was originated, hosted, all put together wi find guests. We figure out what we're going to talk about. We run the thing, and you and I have not seen each other.

00:08:40:08 - 00:08:48:17
Marisa
Uh, did we see each other last year, right before the team meetings? Nope. So two years, three years.

00:08:48:17 - 00:08:59:02
Wayne
And two years since we've been in the same room. You know, not all brainstorming is equal. Not all problems are equal.

00:08:59:10 - 00:08:59:22
Marisa
Of course.

00:09:00:18 - 00:09:13:05
Wayne
So let's be reasonable about that. But it can, in fact, be done. There's a simple example. Same with Well then what's the next question on your list here?

00:09:13:13 - 00:09:31:20
Marisa
Yeah. So two going on with that and that absolutely coincides with what we were just talking about. Like there's this myth that you can't collaborate remotely either. I mean, you and I have been collaborating about this podcasts, you know, since last December when I brought it up to you. And we haven't seen each other in person in two years.

00:09:32:10 - 00:10:06:22
Wayne
All right. Can you collab? Yes, you can collaborate asynchronously. Mm hmm. We see plenty of examples of this in technology. We see plenty examples. You know, my favorite example always is the Hubble telescope, which went into space, and it wasn't like people could actually go to the telescope and fix it. It was fixed at a pretty good distance by people all over the world and they made the darn thing work.

00:10:07:03 - 00:10:07:13
Marisa
Yeah.

00:10:08:10 - 00:10:15:16
Wayne
There are plenty of examples of having it work. Here's the challenge and here's why people say it doesn't work.

00:10:16:01 - 00:10:16:09
Marisa
Okay.

00:10:17:12 - 00:10:44:05
Wayne
Very similar to the brainstorming thing. Number one is the social norms and the shorthand that happens when people know each other and they know each other's work style and they know that you don't bug Marissa in the morning and that Wayne is completely useless in the afternoon. And if you give Wayne too much detail, his head will explode.

00:10:44:15 - 00:10:49:04
Wayne
Right. You don't give Guy enough detail. He will take your life and you need to.

00:10:49:05 - 00:10:51:03
Marisa
He'll just ask you questions until you get the.

00:10:51:03 - 00:10:54:12
Wayne
Dynamics of how we all work together.

00:10:54:22 - 00:10:55:08
Marisa
Right.

00:10:55:08 - 00:11:12:21
Wayne
You learn that kind of by osmosis when you work with people every day. You develop that shorthand, that helps make work happen and bring ideas and create great results.

00:11:13:09 - 00:11:13:15
Marisa
Mm hmm.

00:11:14:07 - 00:11:21:06
Wayne
Can that happen in a virtual environment? Yes. Does it happen as easily? The answer is no.

00:11:21:15 - 00:11:23:18
Marisa
Right.

00:11:24:13 - 00:11:50:04
Wayne
So it means that your team has to take the time to understand each other. Things like. And this isn't a panacea by any stretch of the imagination, but things like. Do you all know each other's desk profiles? Right. And your work is, you know, your work styles, whether that's disc or 16 types or whatever.

00:11:50:19 - 00:11:53:18
Marisa
Yes. We'll have a link in the show. Notes to desks, personality testing.

00:11:53:23 - 00:12:15:04
Wayne
You know what? And I will confess to being a little cynical about all of those, because the purpose of them is not that one is brilliant and the rest are all wrong. Of course, that it's a snapshot in time that gives you enough information that you can be informed how to best work with this person.

00:12:15:10 - 00:12:21:13
Marisa
Yeah, it's a tool, just like anything else. And it's also not a way to pigeonhole people. But that's a totally different conversation, right?

00:12:21:20 - 00:12:33:09
Wayne
Right. But if I know, oh, this person is a big detail person, I might pick that up in conversation. But if I know that going in, it's going to help me.

00:12:34:01 - 00:12:34:16
Marisa
Of course.

00:12:34:17 - 00:12:50:17
Wayne
Be more effective in working with that person. There are plenty of organizations that work virtually and managed to collaborate and create good work. Here's the thing about that. It's not natural.

00:12:51:14 - 00:12:51:23
Marisa
Okay.

00:12:52:08 - 00:12:55:19
Wayne
It is literally unnatural. We are social creatures.

00:12:56:02 - 00:12:56:11
Marisa
Right.

00:12:56:14 - 00:13:12:00
Wayne
Want, you know, most of us, most human beings get little dopamine blasts of being with and laughing and having fun and sharing a pizza and, you know, being silly and all of that stuff.

00:13:12:01 - 00:13:12:15
Marisa
Of course.

00:13:12:16 - 00:13:24:15
Wayne
Helps us collaborate and we are overcoming some of that with distance. Again, though, it requires a higher level of proactivity from the people involved.

00:13:25:07 - 00:13:49:05
Marisa
Right. I was going to say some of the tools. I mean, I know that we've been talking about asynchronous work a lot here recently, but like some of the other tools that I've seen too, like I know Zoom whiteboards, if I remember correctly. Now, they have an asynchronous option for those. Another tool that we've utilized a little bit here, other than Zoom is Slack has something called huddles.

00:13:49:05 - 00:14:13:06
Marisa
Now that if you if you're talking to somebody in a Slack chat and you're like, hey, actually, this would be way better as a voice chat, you hit a button. And it's I mean, it's faster than a phone call at this point, and they're going to add video later this fall. So, I mean, there are ways to simulate this simulate this whole concept of coming down the hallway and, hey, knock on your door.

00:14:13:13 - 00:14:15:14
Marisa
I need to talk to you about this.

00:14:16:02 - 00:14:24:00
Wayne
Here is the challenge with that. And it's okay, real challenge. And I know because I am one of those people who are challenged by this.

00:14:24:05 - 00:14:24:12
Marisa
Okay.

00:14:25:17 - 00:14:29:04
Wayne
Technology works. If you use it.

00:14:29:16 - 00:14:30:05
Marisa
Of course.

00:14:30:20 - 00:14:54:22
Wayne
If you know how to use it, if you understand why it adds value. And it's not just something else I need to learn. Right. And collaboration is a whole lot easier, as you say, with slack huddles, you're able to get a voice call and soon the video call with the push of a button that doesn't require, hey, let's get on a different tool.

00:14:54:22 - 00:14:56:16
Wayne
Let's log into something else.

00:14:57:02 - 00:14:58:01
Marisa
The scheduling.

00:14:58:02 - 00:15:11:20
Wayne
For it. The more it fits into the workflow and the fewer log ins and passwords and extra things and oh, good. I need to learn a whole new tool.

00:15:12:01 - 00:15:12:11
Marisa
Right.

00:15:13:03 - 00:15:45:07
Wayne
Right. The less of that that goes on, the more people are likely to adopt and use the tool quickly and efficiently. The problem with a lot of technology, and I talk to technology people all the time who say we've got a great solution to this time. And I go, okay, show me. And he shows me. And yeah, it does exactly what they say it's going to do, but it's a separate license, which means I have to get somebody to pay for it.

00:15:45:23 - 00:15:51:14
Wayne
It's more like this tool than that tool. And we use that tool here.

00:15:52:03 - 00:15:52:14
Marisa
Right.

00:15:52:15 - 00:16:04:09
Wayne
Right. Or it's based on this platform. But we don't use that here. It's Google based. But we're a microsoft House or vice versa.

00:16:04:11 - 00:16:04:22
Marisa
Right.

00:16:05:05 - 00:16:16:23
Wayne
And they don't always play well together. So the technology exists. But let's not pretend that just because the technology exists, there aren't barriers to that happening.

00:16:17:07 - 00:16:18:00
Marisa
Of course, and.

00:16:18:00 - 00:16:37:19
Wayne
They're very real. I am an old man with a lot going on. If what I am doing works, it takes a fair amount to get me to adopt a new tool or a new technology until I see proof of concept, until I see that it's not a big deal, or until I am forced kicking and screaming. Yes.

00:16:38:12 - 00:16:42:13
Marisa
Yeah. You really have to convince you why it's a better option. I totally understand that.

00:16:43:04 - 00:16:51:23
Wayne
You know, I have. I have survived. The Betamax is better than VHS wars.

00:16:51:23 - 00:16:53:04
Marisa
And we see how that went.

00:16:53:21 - 00:17:05:16
Wayne
Right. And we see how that went because not only but Betamax is a superior system. I don't care. I know how to use VHS. I can get VHS at the corner store. I'm going to use the.

00:17:06:03 - 00:17:08:20
Marisa
Right, right. And we've seen examples of that for a long time.

00:17:09:03 - 00:17:13:20
Wayne
It's gone forever anyway. And now it's CDs. And now it's something else.

00:17:14:03 - 00:17:14:11
Marisa
Right.

00:17:15:13 - 00:17:21:05
Wayne
So, yes. Can you collaborate? Yes. I know. There's a third one.

00:17:21:13 - 00:17:40:02
Marisa
Yeah. So there's a third one. It really kind of falls under this whole concept of also like that innovation is stifled when working remotely. There are some people out there that think there's no way you can be innovative because you're remote and you're not right there in front of everybody. And Bob, we both know that's not really true either.

00:17:40:16 - 00:18:15:03
Wayne
I actually have some sympathy for people who say this because innovation is a different animal. Okay. Brainstorming, collaboration, there is a defined problem and trying to address that defined problem. And we're all focused on that innovation is usually incremental. It's looking at something in a different way, looking at ways something can be improved or and it very seldom comes from the people on the inside.

00:18:16:01 - 00:18:16:11
Marisa
Okay.

00:18:17:05 - 00:18:28:19
Wayne
And one of the dynamics that happens is that the nuclear team, when we work remotely, can become very, very strong and very, very tight.

00:18:29:06 - 00:18:30:07
Marisa
Of course.

00:18:30:07 - 00:18:56:17
Wayne
What doesn't happen, though, is the conversations with people in other departments and the people in the organization who might be in the building. But you don't have the hallway conversation with the person from marketing or the person from engineering who, you know, has this kind of crazy idea. And that conversation generally doesn't happen the same way when we're remote.

00:18:57:15 - 00:18:57:23
Marisa
Okay.

00:18:58:12 - 00:19:27:06
Wayne
I think that and I don't know quite how to do this. There are organizations that are doing this just fine. But I think that for most people, innovation action comes from the edges and from comes from the outside. And I think that in a remote and a hybrid world, we have to find ways to have those conversations outside of our nuclear team.

00:19:27:11 - 00:19:42:00
Wayne
We need to find ways to cross-pollinate ideas within departments. We need to be free to have conversations that aren't transactional. To just have those. She Wouldn't it be cool conversations?

00:19:42:16 - 00:20:04:03
Marisa
Because I know that something I've seen a lot of people talk about and I mean, granted, it's slightly different. It's before the conversation is this idea that well because we're working remotely now, we're not getting quiet is interrupted as much or we have the ability to, you know, shut off your notifications for a bit and do this deep work thinking that you may not have been able to do when you were in the office, because now nobody's bothering you.

00:20:04:03 - 00:20:25:15
Marisa
And now there's not Susie Crunch in or chips to cubicles down or whatever. And so there is this ability to to think about these larger things and to think about this big picture stuff and to maybe come up with some of those innovative ideas. But you're absolutely right. Like, okay, I have this idea, but if I never talk to Joe in engineering about that, well, then who cares?

00:20:25:20 - 00:20:50:17
Wayne
That's the thing is, yes, we have the chance to daydream and we do have the chance. But do you have a the motivation? What's in it for you to raise the topic? Of course. Bring it up. Right. And the second thing is, is there a mechanism is there a way to share this and have these conversations? Is it encouraged in the organization to have Blue Sky conversations?

00:20:51:03 - 00:20:51:11
Marisa
Mm hmm.

00:20:52:04 - 00:21:27:07
Wayne
And those generally don't happen in a remote environment because we are very transactional and we are focused on tasks and what's happening at the moment. So for innovation to occur, we need to be far more proactive about sharing those ideas and seeking out the opinions of others. And then we need a mechanism to actually talk about the fine and skunkworks, the problem or the innovation.

00:21:27:16 - 00:21:28:21
Marisa
Yeah, absolutely.

00:21:29:01 - 00:21:36:01
Wayne
And so can innovation be done? There are plenty of examples.

00:21:36:06 - 00:21:40:01
Marisa
Yeah, there are big companies that have been completely remote for a long time doing the same thing.

00:21:40:02 - 00:21:46:08
Wayne
Birds. Angry Birds was not created by people who up to the same office every day.

00:21:46:20 - 00:21:50:17
Marisa
Right. Yeah. And was. And look how large that is. Yeah.

00:21:52:02 - 00:22:11:14
Wayne
And the innovative I mean, nobody had an idea like that as a way to run a game in that way. So can you innovate? Yes. Is it easy? No. And I think innovation is perhaps tougher than brainstorming and collaboration, which are much more task and outcome defined.

00:22:12:02 - 00:22:16:17
Marisa
That totally makes sense. It's more big picture thinking. It's harder to do. Absolutely.

00:22:16:19 - 00:22:17:03
Wayne
There.

00:22:17:19 - 00:22:24:16
Marisa
So can we consider all three of these myths busted with a little bit of here and there?

00:22:25:00 - 00:22:31:13
Wayne
Two of them, I think. Two of them, I think, are busted. One is slightly damaged.

00:22:31:20 - 00:22:51:08
Marisa
Societally damage. I'll take it. I will take it. If you guys have any other myths that you would like us to talk about, whether we confirm that they are true or bust them, by all means, let us know. And I want to thank you so much for listening to the long distance work life and for shownotes transcripts and other resources.

00:22:51:08 - 00:23:07:16
Marisa
Make sure that you're visiting longdistanceworklife.com. If you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss any future episodes. And while you're there, be sure to like and reveal that helps our show reach more teammates and leaders just like you. Feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our shownotes.

00:23:07:21 - 00:23:40:17
Marisa
And let us know you listen to this episode or even suggest one of these myths for us to bust in a future episode. And lastly, if you'd like to gain greater confidence free with your virtual team, sign up for our Demystifying Remote Leadership video series at long distance work life dot com slash video. And as Wayne likes to say, don't let the weasels get you down.

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