Guests, Leadership, Surviving Remote Work, Working Remotely

Creating Emotional Bonds: Remote Relationship Building Practices with Jacques Martiquet

Wayne meets with Jacques Martiquet, The Party Scientist, to discuss the importance of creating positive atmospheres for relationship building. Jacques emphasizes the things we need to do in order to create deeper relationships among remote teams. And by doing these steps, this creates psychological safety for everyone involved. 

Featured Guest

Name: Jacques Martiquet

What He Does: Jacques W. Martiquet is a corporate event strategist who helps human-centered workplaces design shared experiences that create a lasting difference in mental health, psychological safety, and belonging.

Notable: Since 2017, Jacques has been earning his title as The Party Scientist by leading thousands of dance parties and shared experiences across 15 countries, and for companies like Accenture, LUSH, and Lululemon.

Jacques is on a public health mission to transform how the west socializes. From alcohol and shows... to human connection and fun. Everything he does is informed by one belief: human connection is the elixir of life.

Additional Resources

Pre-order The Long-Distance Team

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

 Pre-order

View Full Transcript

00:00:08:00 - 00:00:35:22
Wayne Turmel
Hi, everybody. Welcome to the long distance work life. This is the podcast where we try to make sense of remote work in hybrid teams and generally keeping the weasels at bay while working in this crazy modern world. My name is Wayne Turmel. I am not Joan. Joined by my co-host Marissa today because we have a guest and this is going to be a really fun conversation.

00:00:36:09 - 00:00:55:02
Wayne Turmel
My guest today is Jack Mark, who is coming to us from my old hometown of Vancouver. He is, in fact, the party scientist. And before I do anything, Jack, you'd best explain who are you and what is a party scientist?

00:00:55:17 - 00:01:42:01
Jacques Martiquet
Yeah. Thanks so much. I'm so excited to talk about team connectedness in this new age where, you know, we're we're constantly replying to messages and being inundated by Zoom meetings. I'm very serious about public health and for me, party scientists is a light hearted way of saying really the science of connection and connectedness. And this is a massive determinant of our quality of life and our health and of team performance, psychological safety, which is the fertile soil for connection, for relationships.

00:01:42:01 - 00:01:58:12
Jacques Martiquet
This has been shown by Google to be the greatest determinant of team performance. So when I'm excited to get into some of the alternative non-mainstream practices of building relationships that foster our high performance on teams.

00:01:58:22 - 00:02:24:05
Wayne Turmel
Well, we will get to the practical stuff because we pride ourselves on doing that. And I am a big context guy. I think we need context because a lot of the conversation around remote work centers, around task completion. Right. Can people do their work to a standard for which people will pay them? And kind of that's the definition of work.

00:02:26:01 - 00:02:43:21
Wayne Turmel
But working apart from each other does doesn't entirely cause disconnection. But it certainly can be a factor. Can you tell us a little bit what your research has shown about disconnection, disengagement in the remote workplace?

00:02:44:17 - 00:03:24:12
Jacques Martiquet
Yeah, certainly. So there's a few reports that I can mention. The first is a report that came out by Betterup on the connection crisis at work. And this was done with about 3000 U.S. workers, 3000 likely average organizations. And they showed that low belonging, low connection scores are related to intentional to quit serious job searching, but also anxiety, loneliness, burnout and stress.

00:03:25:03 - 00:04:19:00
Jacques Martiquet
Um, they also showed that a lot of workers just don't look forward to work because they don't really like their coworkers or they don't even trust their coworkers. Um, if I were to look at the data more closely, it's something like 33% have quite limited trust in their coworkers. Now, how this applies to the remote and hybrid work setting, what I'm aware of just broadly from all the articles I've, I've, I've, I've written but also read about the return to office and yeah, one of the latest reports that I can dig up and include in the in the show notes Wayne is, you know, people are more willing to return to the office for that

00:04:19:00 - 00:04:48:06
Jacques Martiquet
social element. There is this this missing, this longing for these informal social connections that people have with their coworkers. And this is one of the reasons, motives for people wanting to return to the office. So, yeah, to summarize all of this, in a remote setting, it's harder to create these these emotional bonds. It's not just based on the intellect.

00:04:48:06 - 00:05:14:18
Jacques Martiquet
It's not just based on knowledge of someone's history. It's just some emotional feeling. Oh, I feel safe with this person. It's much more difficult to create this. It takes a lot more risks to create these emotional bonds with our coworkers, such that we actually look forward to our Zoom meetings versus what is happening right now is people are just that.

00:05:14:22 - 00:05:22:12
Jacques Martiquet
People are upset with how many meetings that they are attending and it's leading to to burnout.

00:05:23:07 - 00:05:57:23
Wayne Turmel
Now, I want to follow that up in a moment. But you said something about psychological safety. And this is a term that is starting to bubble up more and more. And it's kind of interesting that I mean, and is always in the early stages, the research is all over the board, but what do we mean? Let's compare and contrast psychological safety in a traditional in-person meeting versus psychological safety online.

00:06:00:00 - 00:06:35:09
Jacques Martiquet
Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, my definition of psychological safety is just a fertile soil for social risk taking. I think there's a lot of parallels between a physical environment and a remote environment in a remote environment. It's it's more difficult to take social risks because there's less social cues. So when when a risk like a social risk, if I were to take a social risk and like, oh, like, look, I have this funny sign.

00:06:35:09 - 00:07:08:03
Jacques Martiquet
I'm excited we do. You know, I'm expressing myself. Maybe I'm revealing, like, something in my vicinity that's personal. Like, my excited son had that for five years. So that's a social risk. Now, in a remote environment, the social validation is more frictional. What I mean by social validation is praise recognition. It's it's acknowledging what someone has shared, acknowledging that someone has expressed themselves or taking a risk.

00:07:08:08 - 00:07:55:02
Jacques Martiquet
There's a lot more friction to that. So it's almost like we need to amp up the, the social validation and provide more cues, be more explicit with cues. So I think that fundamental to psychological safety is validation and encouragement, recognition of risks in a remote environment, a zoom meeting. It's more difficult to provide those cues because, I mean, a lot of people don't have this this kind of digital competence with with Zoom, like, there's so much we can do with Zoom to create that really fluid, non frictional communication and validation, such as.

00:07:55:14 - 00:08:20:10
Jacques Martiquet
Yeah. I mean, you can use the multi spotlight function. You can encourage people to speak up. You can nominate people to speak. You can use nonverbal cues with your hands. Right. Because we don't want to interrupt people. So there's there's all these alternatives to providing cues. I mean, one thing that I often do when I'm in a Zoom meeting is I'll request the person spotlight.

00:08:20:10 - 00:08:38:00
Jacques Martiquet
If we're for celebrating someone or for acknowledging someone, I request the person whose spotlight to go in a gallery mode and then they see everyone, right? So we want to make sure people aren't in gallery mode to see everyone's faces, to see that they're being accepted, that the risks are being celebrated.

00:08:39:03 - 00:09:15:12
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, I, I want to just say something from Wayne standpoint, because it's my show, darn it. But but actually, this is important. There's a feeling that because of these challenges that you've mentioned, that in-person meetings are, by definition better. And it's not like there is no challenge to psychological safety in a meeting, as a matter of fact. Studies show very often women feel physical intimidation or visible.

00:09:15:12 - 00:09:28:21
Wayne Turmel
Minorities are less likely to speak out in a face to face meeting because Bob is staring daggers at them over the table and they have to go back and sit two desks away from Bob. And so it's easier to say nothing.

00:09:29:06 - 00:09:30:10
Jacques Martiquet
While Sad said, Well.

00:09:30:12 - 00:09:55:07
Wayne Turmel
Not so. So this idea of psychological safety is relevant wherever. And it's the little things that we can do to generate that. And so now that it sounds like we're on the same page and we're agreeing with everything, we need to talk about techniques, and I'm going to tell you that I am a crusty old cis hat white guy.

00:09:55:14 - 00:10:24:03
Wayne Turmel
And I do I the minute somebody says I have an icebreaker, I clench so hard you can't believe it. It makes me I just get automatically uncomfortable. So Mr. Young party guy, how do teams go about, you know, creating this environment in ways that won't make my head explode?

00:10:24:13 - 00:10:52:00
Jacques Martiquet
Yeah. Um, two things I want to say. First of all, I'm a connection guy, and I use partying as one of my modalities. So I'm not just the party guy, although, I mean, most leaders are just they're not sufficiently creating the buy in the motives for people to participate in party activities, and they're also just not willing to take the risk.

00:10:53:03 - 00:11:28:11
Jacques Martiquet
I'm going to get into your question, like, how do we how do we really make people feel excited to participate in relationship building, to to move out of this kind of formal space, mechanical, formal and and into more of an emotional space, into more of a vulnerable space. And to just lighten up a bit, right now, the first thing I want to emphasize is just this concept of emotional availability as it relates to psychological safety.

00:11:29:08 - 00:12:10:17
Jacques Martiquet
And I think this is one of like the core traits for leaders to to cultivate if they want to create psychological safety. And emotional availability is just being present with others emotions and acknowledging what those emotions are, what is being shared. It's about availability is is there's receptivity. Um, so let's jump into your question and I'm like, please, please collaborate with me because I'm a young, open minded, you know, very positive.

00:12:11:10 - 00:12:42:11
Jacques Martiquet
Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of extremely biased because, you know, I've led thousands of parties and and I I'm biased in this way. Some people have not experienced what I've experienced and and haven't haven't had the experience to become motivated to experience new things. So, you know, I'm just thinking I'm just thinking when, you know, we we get motivated based on emotion, right?

00:12:42:11 - 00:13:05:08
Jacques Martiquet
But then we justify our actions with logic. So it's kind of a chicken and egg problem. I mean, we I want people to experience how it makes them feel. And when they experience how it makes them feel, it's like, well, I want to feel that way more often. I want to feel connected. I don't just want to think I'm connected to my coworkers.

00:13:05:08 - 00:13:36:09
Jacques Martiquet
I want to feel connected to my coworkers. Um, how I approach this problem generally, Wayne is, first of all, I'm getting everyone's consent. I'm getting everyone's consent before I lead something new. And I'm not, I'm not saying it's an icebreaker. I'm not saying it's even an energizer. I'm, I'm saying I'm I'm framing this as incredibly a nourishing for us.

00:13:37:00 - 00:14:13:11
Jacques Martiquet
It's it's for our well-being. It's for our our health. It's for for enjoying work more. It's it's all these personal reasons. So I think getting into the personal motives for people is really important. The second thing that I just want to emphasize is like when people understand how things work, they're more likely to consent and embrace it. So I like to explain how things work, and a lot of people aren't really familiar with social neurochemistry, like what?

00:14:14:06 - 00:14:40:20
Jacques Martiquet
You know, what are the other ways that we can connect other than just informal chatter over drinks? I mean, a lot of a lot of people that's that's the only way they socialize. Right. That's kind of the main norm for socialization. But really, there's this like massive field of possibility that nourishes us more, makes us feel healthier, more energized and, like, deepens our relationships.

00:14:41:12 - 00:14:43:08
Jacques Martiquet
Yeah, well, do you have anything to add or.

00:14:43:08 - 00:14:44:04
Wayne Turmel
Oh, for example.

00:14:45:22 - 00:14:46:12
Jacques Martiquet
Yeah, yeah.

00:14:46:12 - 00:14:47:14
Wayne Turmel
We can't just get on that road.

00:14:48:05 - 00:15:23:00
Jacques Martiquet
We can get into some tools, we can get into some tools. Um, let me just summarize this whole buy in thing. So the next thing I'll just say is baby steps. Baby steps. Um, if you throw up people an hour long experience, I mean, it's less, it's less likely they're going to consent to that. So I'm, I'm a huge advocate for snacks, for connection snacks and connection snacks that vitalize people, but also create this this vulnerability.

00:15:23:00 - 00:15:47:22
Jacques Martiquet
Okay. All right. So what can we do? I mean, like a lot of people are not willing to take risks. Okay? A lot of leaders are trying to save face and they're not willing to take the risks necessary to drastically improve their reputation. Right. Because there's a risk some people might not like it. Some people may think it's ridiculous and a waste of time.

00:15:48:04 - 00:16:05:13
Jacques Martiquet
I've I've dealt with leaders who feel this way all the time around, like stretching to music as an example like that. That's where I encourage a lot of leaders to start. Okay. I encourage a lot of the leaders to start with two things. Two things. The first is how almost did that.

00:16:05:22 - 00:16:18:16
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. See appropriate changes. This is a family walk for the first session and he started on an interesting finger.

00:16:18:16 - 00:16:54:16
Jacques Martiquet
Yeah, yeah. You can tell you can have a rule breaker, can't you? Um, so there's two things I encourage people to start. First of all, music. Music, especially nostalgic music, puts people in a different mood. It's variable, but certain songs just improve people's mood, moods and creates creates less stress, reduces stress. So I like I encourage leaders if they want to try out new relationship building practices to begin with, some form of of stretch changing the physiology of the body.

00:16:54:16 - 00:17:20:14
Jacques Martiquet
So get people up, get people moving in some way. They can just do simple stretches to open their posture. Right. Maybe it's a yoga stretch with music, calming music, maybe funny music. Maybe it's a sing along that everyone loves. People are stretching, they're changing their physiology. And then I like to stack an intentional, structured one on one prompt.

00:17:21:23 - 00:17:47:09
Jacques Martiquet
Intentional is we choose it beforehand. We choose it beforehand to invite people into a personal, vulnerable space. Okay, intentional. What did I what did I say? Structured. So it's a prompt. It's like a question you answer or it's it's a phrase dot, dot, dot. Like, um, my favorite Christmas memory is dot, dot, dot. Okay, that's, that's a prompt.

00:17:48:01 - 00:18:15:01
Jacques Martiquet
Hear one on one, one on one because one more, one on one. There's a massive spectrum for vulnerability versus one more in front of a large group. Okay, so deep relationships are easier to form when we're one on one them when it's private and this is the benefit this is really one of the massive benefits of of remote work, is that we're not in a space where everyone's talking and we're getting distracted all the time.

00:18:15:22 - 00:18:17:03
Jacques Martiquet
So to summarize.

00:18:17:03 - 00:18:19:02
Wayne Turmel
You can use things like breakout rooms.

00:18:19:20 - 00:18:20:10
Jacques Martiquet
Totally.

00:18:20:17 - 00:18:24:06
Wayne Turmel
Totally separate chat in teams or something like that.

00:18:24:11 - 00:19:02:01
Jacques Martiquet
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so the point is summarize all this. There's three, there's three components here. Music movement and then vulnerability through a structured prompt. You could do this probably 4 minutes doesn't need to be, doesn't need to be long. And this is going to not only impact the rest of the meeting, but it's also going to gradually build more and more of this, these relationships and friendships at work.

00:19:03:12 - 00:19:13:21
Wayne Turmel
And that is a reasonable place given where we are in time to stop this conversation. There is so much more that we could do. Hijack. M.K. Where can people find you.

00:19:15:07 - 00:19:16:20
Jacques Martiquet
The party scientists dot com.

00:19:18:01 - 00:19:47:11
Wayne Turmel
And we will have links to the party scientists dot com and Jax link LinkedIn page and a couple of other things on our show notes which are of course at long distance work like dot com by the time you are hearing this, we will be dangerously close to the launch of our new book, The Long Distance Team Design Your Team for Everyone's Success.

00:19:47:11 - 00:20:20:00
Wayne Turmel
We're very excited about that. And of course, if you like the show, you like subscribe, you understand podcasts, you know how that works. And if you want to reach either myself or Marissa with questions or comments or vicious personal attacks or show ideas have at it, we can be found at our name and Kevin Eikenberry dot com jock thank you so much for taking the time man.

00:20:20:00 - 00:20:25:18
Wayne Turmel
I really appreciate it. I'm going to let you say goodbye real quick.

00:20:26:16 - 00:20:34:02
Jacques Martiquet
Goodbye, everyone, and hope this has encouraged you to take a few more risks.

00:20:34:02 - 00:21:00:02
Wayne Turmel
And that's it. We will see you on the next show. Thanks, everybody, for joining us on the long distance work life. Don't let the weasels get you down and we will talk again soon.


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

Additional Resources

Pre-order The Long-Distance Team

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

 Pre-order
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Featured Guest

Name: Alan Whitman

What He Does: CEO at Baker Tilly US and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Baker Tilly International

Notable: Named CEO and chairman of the board of partners in 2016, Whitman previously led the firm’s Michigan market and developed the organization’s robust international services practice. He joined Baker Tilly in 2003, having spent 15 years with another national CPA firm where he led the middle-market tax practice.

Additional Resources

Pre-order The Long-Distance Team

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

 Pre-order

View Full Transcript

00:00:08:12 - 00:00:39:14
Wayne Turmel
Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Long Distance Work Life Podcast. This is where we try to make sense of remote work and hybrid work and all of that stuff without letting the weasels drive you insane. My name is Wayne Turmel. We have a good news bad news situation today. The bad news being we are Marisa less because the good news is we have a really terrific guest with us today and is going to be an important conversation.

00:00:39:19 - 00:00:58:13
Wayne Turmel
I am going to bring our guest in here. This is Alan Whitman. He is the CEO of the accounting firm firm Baker Tilly. And Alan, maybe you can do like a quick introduction on you and what your company does, and then we'll get down to why we're having this conversation.

00:00:59:10 - 00:01:27:23
Alan Whitman
Yeah. Well, Wayne, thank you for having me this afternoon or this morning. I don't know when this will play. It's exciting to be with you and to talk about the subject that that you'll you and I will discuss. I'm the CEO of Baker Tilly us. We are a global CPA firm. We serve middle market, upper middle market clientele in the in the areas of assurance or test, audit and assurance, tax and advisory.

00:01:28:07 - 00:01:44:08
Alan Whitman
We've got approximately 6500 people worldwide. We're about a billion and a half dollars in revenue. And we've been at this since 1931. I've been our CEO since 2016, and I'm very, very lucky to be in the position I am.

00:01:44:15 - 00:02:08:22
Wayne Turmel
Now we are talking because you have been making some noise out in the blogosphere and and the world of Baker Tilly has taken a very different approach to remote work than a lot of your colleagues. I know I've had more than one person tell me they don't want their accountants being innovative. They want their accountants to keep them out of jail.

00:02:09:19 - 00:02:23:20
Wayne Turmel
And and yet you are really an advocate for remote work, which is not universally the case in professional services in general, but particularly in tax accounting. Tell me what's going on there.

00:02:24:12 - 00:02:46:02
Alan Whitman
Well, one foundational concept is things don't have to be either or. It's not that you're either innovative or you keep your clients out of jail. If you say you can be both, it could be a both. And so we do want to be innovative. We want to come up with with new solutions, creative solutions, because our mission is to enhance, to protect our clients value.

00:02:46:05 - 00:03:20:12
Alan Whitman
That's what we're here to do. We do that through a myriad of things, whether it's assurance, tax advisory or what have you. And so we think of both and versus either or. And so as you say that we've been, you know, making some noise. Look, I I believe that the last few years, you know, with all the horrible things that have happened as a result of coronavirus, COVID, and we all know about them solid being, isolated death, economic ruin, if you will, or economic situations.

00:03:21:08 - 00:03:40:14
Alan Whitman
This has been nothing more than a time machine. We stepped into the time machine in the winter March, I think 16th or so of 2020, and we stepped out of it some time in 21 or 22, whenever people felt that they can go about their their lives. And when we got out of the time machine, what? Well, the calendar said 22 to 22.

00:03:40:17 - 00:04:04:02
Alan Whitman
It really was 20, 35. I'd say from all the things we're dealing with, we were moving along the continuum to virtual work. We were moving along the way along the continuum of maximum flexibility for our workers, for our employees, for our colleagues. And so this is one of those things that was happening gradually and suddenly when we stepped out of the time machine, the COVID time machine, it was upon us.

00:04:04:11 - 00:04:23:11
Alan Whitman
And so one of the things we need to realize is going back to where we were is is impossible. And it's not about normal or abnormal. It's about where we were. And if we're not looking forward into the future, we're going to be hampered by where we were. And that's really no way to live a life. That's no way to run a company.

00:04:23:19 - 00:04:30:19
Alan Whitman
And so we've embraced the idea that we need to find a new way. We need to define our new normal, if you will, and our new future.

00:04:31:18 - 00:04:50:11
Wayne Turmel
Now, let me let me stop you there, because I'm I'm agreeing with that said. And the question is, was this something that you were giving serious thought to before we got pushed across the Rubicon, or did you kind of get surprised by it?

00:04:51:14 - 00:05:24:13
Alan Whitman
Well, if if if I say anything other than to surprise all people would challenge me. Look, COVID was in one way. It was a black swan. And so let's take advantage of the black swan again, knowing that it was horrific, it was horrible, and we can learn from it. And so I do remember August of 20 excuse me, August of 21, I sat down with my leaders of our human resources group, our people we call people solutions and said, listen, we knew we needed a new environment.

00:05:24:19 - 00:05:49:23
Alan Whitman
We did a new way of doing things. And so that was the genesis of Break the Mold. That was the genesis of us saying, you know what, enough's enough. We've got an opportunity here and we have got a responsibility and an expectation from our people to do things differently. So all the things that we knew that we thought were table stakes, that were unmistakable aspects of our profession, I said, You know what?

00:05:50:01 - 00:06:07:13
Alan Whitman
Why, why do we need to do it this way or that way? Why can we not do it a different way? I didn't have the solution. I just had the question with to my to my colleagues of let's think of a different way of doing things and let's break from the past. Let's not forget the past. Let's use the past to fuel the future.

00:06:07:19 - 00:06:37:06
Alan Whitman
And so I remember sitting there with my lead people Solutions executive and, and our director of People Solutions and really just spitballing on, on a on a flip chart, all the things that were holding us back. And it was generated by COVID. It was generated by the Black Swan and the change in dynamic, whether it be how we operate and whether and whether it be the way that people expected to show up and come to work.

00:06:37:07 - 00:06:51:23
Wayne Turmel
So there are 100 ways I can take this questioning and I'm trying to keep it on track here without going too far down the rabbit hole. But what was your first big aha.

00:06:51:23 - 00:07:10:16
Alan Whitman
That the way I grew up in this profession. I started this profession in 1987. That's the way I grew up in this profession. Doesn't mean that the person isn't the same as the person growing up in the profession. That excuse me. We all knew a new puppy in the house. That's that's the that's the the reverb of of working from home.

00:07:11:10 - 00:07:25:01
Alan Whitman
So I just said just because I did it that way doesn't mean that the next generation is going to do it that way. I have a 19 year old daughter. You know, the first sign that things were different was they were studying and working with headphones in their ears. I never did that and so I knew something was wrong.

00:07:25:01 - 00:07:48:10
Alan Whitman
And so watching my daughter and listening to her let's see her friends told me that there's got to be a different way. And to get them to be excited about our profession, we need to we need to change. And so we reached out to those that we were making not policies, but principles and making the way of work for to get the answers.

00:07:48:10 - 00:08:08:05
Alan Whitman
And so we brought in we had inner circles, as we like to call them. We brought all 6000 people, invited all 6000 people to small groups of inner circles to to kick the tires of this concept, to break the mold. What do we need to do to break the mold of public accounting, where by will be a different place, a different workplace into the future?

00:08:08:05 - 00:08:15:01
Alan Whitman
Because in the end of the day, when, while I may be the CEO of the firm, it really is there for it's their firm of the future.

00:08:15:21 - 00:08:42:18
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, I, I'm intrigued a little bit because one of the things I know about professional services in general and, and not that I'm an expert in accounting, but I know that culture and a culture of mentoring is a big piece of that. You know, you mentioned your daughter. We have about 15 to 20% of the workforce who came into the workforce during COVID.

00:08:43:01 - 00:08:45:16
Wayne Turmel
And so they don't remember the before times.

00:08:46:04 - 00:08:47:02
Alan Whitman
Right. Right.

00:08:47:02 - 00:08:57:05
Wayne Turmel
So so luxurious your inner circles. How do they tackle the idea of onboarding, mentoring, bringing people in and making them part of the culture?

00:08:58:00 - 00:09:20:01
Alan Whitman
Well, one of the challenges that we face is not knowing, not recognizing what you don't know. And and you're right, whether it's the apprentice model, whether it's the mentor model, etc.. And the question is, how do we mentor in this new environment? And and how do we apprentice in this new environment? Not the only way to apprentice is the way I did it.

00:09:20:11 - 00:09:41:15
Alan Whitman
The only way to apprentices proximity. And so we've we've coined the phrase in our firm, we've got to go from proximity being two feet away from somebody being at the next office to intentionality. And so maybe it maybe it doesn't matter whether you're two feet away from somebody or 200 miles away from somebody, you still need to be intentional.

00:09:42:01 - 00:10:02:13
Alan Whitman
You can't just assume that somebody is going to pick up on what you're saying because they're listening to you. You've got to be intentional about mentoring them. You've got to be intentional about building connections. That's what we're focused on. One of the things we're concerned about and so this isn't this isn't like we've got it all figured out and voila, we've got a new way of making making a soup or making a cake.

00:10:02:15 - 00:10:26:06
Alan Whitman
We are very concerned with people developing at the same pace they were before, and we're concerned about people being promotion ready when it's time to consider them for being a promotion. Did they develop? Did they take on the learnings as quickly as we had? They would have or they did before whereby they'll be ready for promotion or is everything pushed back a year or two?

00:10:26:13 - 00:10:49:01
Alan Whitman
And if that's the case, then we need to reexamine how we're developing people, not put them back to where we were, because that's the only way to do it, because think about it in a shorter period of time, I'll be out of the working world or I'll be out of Baker Tilly, then the next generation. And so just because I knew how to do it my way back in the eighties and nineties and into early 2000s, the next generation didn't learn the way I did.

00:10:49:01 - 00:11:16:09
Alan Whitman
So we really need to modernize the organization for the future. Let me give you an example. So I was a tax guy growing up and in my growing up in the firm, production was the only thing that mattered. Of course, development was, but it was all about how many of this or that can can I do? How many individual tax returns should I do in a year predicated by how many billable hours should I have in a year?

00:11:16:23 - 00:11:38:23
Alan Whitman
And I bet you I did four or 500 individual tax returns growing up. I probably stopped learning after 120 530. Why did I do the next the next group of tech of individual? All because that's the way we ran the organization, because the work was there. We needed to get the business out and we need to do the tax returns and service our clients well, what what about my development?

00:11:39:11 - 00:12:01:05
Alan Whitman
What about I wasn't learning, you know, the law of diminishing returns? Why can't we think about taking that 350 returns, tax tax filings and give them to somebody else that they can learn? And then you can build me into something different by giving me different experiences. That's what I mean by being intentional rather than just fill my day with work that is in the in the system.

00:12:01:11 - 00:12:26:21
Alan Whitman
Why don't we fill my day with developmental opportunities to unleash and amplify my talent? That is our purpose as an organization. We are here to unleash and amplify even my talent being the CEO. And so we need to be very intentional. Proximity is is not the solution. Many of many executives in the United States and frankly in the world believe that the office is the solution.

00:12:26:21 - 00:12:46:05
Alan Whitman
The office is not the solution. The office is a place. It's not just because you come to the office. Does that mean you're going to learn? Just because you're sitting next to somebody doesn't mean you're going to learn being intentional about learning and development, being intentional about developing connections. I don't care if it's under a tree. I don't care if it's in a park.

00:12:46:12 - 00:13:03:14
Alan Whitman
I don't care if it's at the YMCA. Let's connect with our people to build collaborative teams, to enhance and protect our clients value and buy in. In order to do that, I need to unleash and amplify in each individual's talent. So again, we're going from proximity to intentionality.

00:13:04:09 - 00:13:36:11
Wayne Turmel
I love that question. I'm thinking about this as somebody listening to this podcast. And so is there something specific that I almost said to you? But I know it's your people have instituted in order to begin that development pipeline that was different from what it was before? Is there a a a policy, a way of learning? A it's something concrete that we can point to that says, look what they're doing.

00:13:36:11 - 00:13:37:03
Wayne Turmel
That's different.

00:13:37:16 - 00:14:03:16
Alan Whitman
Okay. So we've built an innovation hub, innovation lab, and every individual is when they're hired, goes to that lab for a week when they get hired. Well, that's not audit in tax. That's innovation. That's learning how to think differently. That's one too. We've started identifying the career non value added tasks that everybody does and we're best getting them together and figuring out where should we put those in the organization to have somebody else do it?

00:14:04:07 - 00:14:28:04
Alan Whitman
Who is better, better equipped to do it so that the associate isn't mired in all of the administrative layers that go into being a public accountant? Here's a prime example building and collections entering time building collections. People didn't come into public accounting to do billing and collections. That's an administrative task. It's very important. Let's put it with the person that actually can do that.

00:14:28:04 - 00:14:48:20
Alan Whitman
That is designed and and learned and taught how to do that versus having the the technician, the consultant spend their time with things that aren't is things that are not going to unleash and amplify talent. It's not about being better or worse than that. Work. It's about having the right work for people. There's there's just an endless supply.

00:14:48:20 - 00:15:15:09
Alan Whitman
So all of those things are actually happening. We're also instituting short term assignments where people are going to go through a rotational program to learn different things in the organization. Now that happens a lot. And companies like P&G, their management training program, where there's one of my partners, Chris, who runs our Wisconsin practice, her son joined an organization outside of public accounting, and he was put immediately put into a five year rotational program.

00:15:16:02 - 00:15:32:15
Alan Whitman
And he said, well, I'm not going to leave. This is wonderful. I'm getting a wonderful experience over my first five years I'm seeing so many different things. Well, in our profession we could we say, Well, we can't do that because of their billable hours. They're not going to have as many billable hours. We're not going to make as much money in the long term.

00:15:32:15 - 00:15:52:18
Alan Whitman
You can have a better professional, you have a more a better trained professional. And so let's make the investment in unleashing, amplifying their talent so that in the future they're better, a better professional, better able to enhance and protect our clients. So we need to break from the past. We need to go from a production based organization where all it was was about hours, hours, hours.

00:15:53:11 - 00:16:23:06
Alan Whitman
All you were graded on was hours. You didn't know if those hours are good, bad or indifferent. Let's go to an output based organization production to our output based or value. Let's go from proximity to intentionality. And so there is a huge shift in our organization to modern size us and become more of an output based organization or be solely an output based organization rather than the be handcuffed by our accounting policies.

00:16:23:17 - 00:16:55:09
Wayne Turmel
You just said something a minute ago which I have been obsessing about, and I haven't heard anybody in a big boy position say this out loud. So I want to run something by you, because our careers are of a similar age. And when we were young workers, there were assistants and administrative professionals, and there were people who handled things like billing and recording time and doing all that.

00:16:55:09 - 00:17:19:02
Wayne Turmel
And then with the invention of the PC and all the software, suddenly we got to do everything ourselves and everybody made that sound like it was a really good idea. And I see you nodding, so I know you know where I'm going with this. You know, all the sudden we were making our own schedules and writing our own letters and doing all the stuff that we were doing.

00:17:19:02 - 00:17:30:19
Wayne Turmel
But it wasn't the work that we were supposed to do. And it sounds like you've had a little bit epiphany about this.

00:17:31:07 - 00:17:57:20
Alan Whitman
Yeah. So look, it's some of it's administrative and some of it is redundant assignments. My thinking about individual tax returns or, you know, small projects that that are repetitive and you know, you've got 3 hours. We'll do these five because you're going get your billable hours. Well, that doesn't help me. It helps the production of the organization. Okay, then let's focus on if I'm not going to do them, how are we still going to get them done?

00:17:57:20 - 00:18:16:18
Alan Whitman
Let's not focus on the fact that you didn't do them. Let's focus on redeploying you to something different. Because I have an obligation, given our purpose as an organization, to unleash and amplify Wayne Turbo's talent. That's why I'm here. And if I don't do that, I'm not living our purpose. And so you're right, it's both administrative type things.

00:18:16:23 - 00:18:52:01
Alan Whitman
The layering, it's like it's like painting your walls, right? You paint it and you paint another color, then you keep painting it. And pretty soon you've got ten layers of paint on the walls, and pretty soon you got to take the entire thing down and start over again. That's that's the layering effect of all this. And so, yes, we are going to we are not going to we are actually identifying now all of those career non value added tasks, both administrative and just redundant assignments moving aside so we can build a bespoke unleash and amplified talent development program for our 6500 people.

00:18:52:01 - 00:19:08:12
Alan Whitman
Look, it's going to take some time. It's going to it's a journey. We're not going to snap our fingers and have it happen. But we have set out, of course, we've been working on this and we have 1% buy in in the organization. And it's fun to see people doodle and and debate and innovate new ways of doing things.

00:19:08:12 - 00:19:14:07
Alan Whitman
So it's a we've got the power of the organization behind us on this. It's it's a lot of fun to watch.

00:19:14:07 - 00:19:41:04
Wayne Turmel
Now, it is often said that a profit is without honoring his own land. So you have plenty of people in your industry who are coming to some of these realizations very slowly. If there's one thing that you could tell, the one piece of wisdom that you could share before we leave with your fellow CEOs and leaders, what would it be?

00:19:41:04 - 00:19:51:20
Alan Whitman
Well, I'm a little ashamed to be giving wisdom to people maybe that have a lot more experience than I do. But since you ask the question and you're the host of this podcast, I'll I'll answer the question.

00:19:51:21 - 00:19:53:05
Wayne Turmel
I'll take the heat. Don't worry.

00:19:54:03 - 00:20:16:02
Alan Whitman
Look, many of us, especially in the technical sense, you know, technicians, et cetera. We think that we need to start perfectly until we have it perfect. Don't start. My advice is you don't need to start perfect. You just need to start. You just need to start. You're not going to get it perfect. And perfect is not the goal.

00:20:16:16 - 00:20:42:11
Alan Whitman
The goal is to get it going so you can continue to improve on what you've set out to do and getting the people in your organization to join the band, so to speak. That's a huge step. Get it going. Start. Don't start. Perfect. You'll be surprised at how much you'll accomplish if you just get over the over the over the required it self-imposed requirement of being perfect.

00:20:43:09 - 00:21:01:22
Wayne Turmel
Allen Whitman, CEO of Baker Tilly, thank you so much for being with us. This is a great conversation and I could geek out. I've got a million things that I know we could talk about. Thank you for raising your head up and talking about these things. We we really appreciate it.

00:21:02:13 - 00:21:09:23
Alan Whitman
Well, my pleasure. And thank you for allowing me to share it. And I love your excitement about the topic. So appreciate it. And happy holidays and happy New Year.

00:21:10:14 - 00:21:39:09
Wayne Turmel
And of course, all of Alan’s information is going to be on our website. Long distance work life dot com on the page for this episode. Our new book, The Long Distance Team. If you are interested in starting a team from scratch or reorganizing how your team works. Kevin In my new book, The Long Distance Team will be out February 28th.

00:21:39:09 - 00:22:07:15
Wayne Turmel
We are very excited about that and of course you want to ask us a question or have a topic that you want us to discuss. You can reach out to Marisa and I, Wayne@KevinEikenberry.com Marisa@KevinEikenberry.com. Again, we will have links to some of Alan's articles and and information about Baker Tilly for those who are interested.

00:22:08:17 - 00:22:46:11
Wayne Turmel
As always, we are very, very proud and excited that Kevin Eikenberry group to bring you information like this. You know the deal if you listen to podcasts there like and subscribe. That's it. My name is Wayne Trammell. Thank you for being with us on the long distance work life. And don't let the weasels get you down. Hey.

Read More
Guests, Leadership, Surviving Remote Work

Being an Emotionally Strong Leader with Carolyn Stern

Carolyn Stern joins Wayne to discuss her new book, The Emotionally Strong Leader: An Inside Out Journey to Transformational Leadership. They discuss why showing emotion as a leader is actually a good thing and not a sign of weakness as well as how to do that effectively within your organization.

Featured Guest

Carolyn Stern

Name: Carolyn Stern

What She Does: Emotional Intelligence expert, author, professor, and CEO of EI Experience

Notable: As a professor with the School of Business at Capilano University, Carolyn pioneered the integration of Emotional Intelligence into Capilano’s business curriculum, making it one of only a few post-secondary institutions in the world to do so, following Yale’s Centre for Emotional Intelligence. 

Additional Resources

Pre-order The Long-Distance Team

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

 Pre-order

Transcript

View Full Transcript

00:00:08:05 - 00:00:37:21
Wayne Turmel
Hi everybody. Welcome to the Long-Distance Work Life Podcast. My name is Wayne Turmel. Welcome. Welcome. This is the place for those of us dealing with remote and hybrid and virtual and whatever else we call the way we work in this crazy world of work. I am not joined by Marisa today. It's an interview episode. With us is Carolyn Stern, who is the author of The Emotionally Strong Leader.

00:00:38:01 - 00:00:40:18
Wayne Turmel
Carolyn, welcome to The Long-Distance Worklife.

00:00:41:02 - 00:00:42:09
Carolyn Stern
Thanks for having me, Wayne.

00:00:43:02 - 00:00:51:13
Wayne Turmel
Well, thank you for being had, as always. So who who are you? What's the book about? Let's position ourselves there.

00:00:52:04 - 00:01:14:18
Carolyn Stern
Well, Wayne, it's called The Emotionally Strong Leader: An Inside Out Journey to Transformational Leadership. And why I wrote the book is I was sick and tired of hearing successful leaders tell me that showing emotion in the workplace is a sign of weakness and should cause shame. And I wanted to teach the world that you could be emotional and strong.

00:01:14:23 - 00:01:40:16
Carolyn Stern
They're not mutually exclusive. So after 20 years of research, I'm happy to report that, you know, for a first time author, this book became on the bestseller list of Amazon, which is pretty unheard of. And I think it's because everyone's ready to write. The pandemic really heightened our all of our emotions and people realized that their leaders weren't equipped to deal with people's heightened emotions.

00:01:40:16 - 00:01:57:05
Carolyn Stern
Because I don't know about you, Wayne, but I never had an emotional education and I didn't have superb, emotional, intelligent role models. So I had to learn this, right? It's taken me 20 years of research and business and psychology to learn these skills, to be bigger and smarter than our emotions.

00:01:57:18 - 00:02:20:20
Wayne Turmel
Well, there you go. And so let's start with just leadership in general. I mean, you mentioned that you didn't receive an education. It is fairly apparent that I didn't either. We figured it out kind of on our own, the way we figure out so many things in life. What don't we get told?

00:02:22:17 - 00:02:24:01
Carolyn Stern
In schools you mean?

00:02:24:10 - 00:02:33:16
Wayne Turmel
In schools, when we begin our business career, what don't we get told about the job of leadership that sneaks up on us?

00:02:34:01 - 00:03:02:08
Carolyn Stern
Well, I'd say the biggest fallacy that we get told is that you I think we leaders think we have to be problem solving heroes. And I think what I want, what I wrote in the book and what I want people, the listeners to hear is that really leaders are teachers. And having taught at the university for 25 years in it from in my local city in Vancouver, British Columbia, I didn't know the answers to my students’ test, but I don't give it to them.

00:03:03:03 - 00:03:24:20
Carolyn Stern
Right. I purposely ask questions so that they figure out the answers themselves, because otherwise they're not learning. Well, it's the same thing in leadership. If you give people your answers, you just tell them what to do. They're not learning and growing. And so I think the big fallacy is that we have to have all the answers. We have to you know, we're perfect.

00:03:24:20 - 00:03:47:10
Carolyn Stern
We have it all put together. We we're human. And that's one of the reasons I wrote the book is before you're an employee or a leader, you're human and human are creatures of emotions, not just logic. And so we need to learn how to manage not only our emotions, but other people's emotions. And so the key for me and why I wrote this book is it's called An Inside Out Journey before.

00:03:47:10 - 00:04:05:09
Carolyn Stern
You've got to figure out what your emotional makeup is. So, for instance, we maybe you struggle with flexibility, maybe you're a rigid leader, or maybe you take on people stuff too much, maybe you have too much empathy, or maybe you don't know how to assert yourself and set good boundaries. Or maybe you're an impulsive leader and make rash decisions, whatever that is.

00:04:05:09 - 00:04:10:13
Carolyn Stern
We all have a different emotional makeup. And how is that helping and hurting our leadership?

00:04:11:15 - 00:04:49:07
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, I mean, that's and of course, in a traditional workplace, there are kind of guardrails in place. Right. We know more or less what's appropriate and inappropriate behavior. And we know to put on our game face when we walk through the door. And but as we've started to work across time zones and across distance and things like that, some of the things that you've talked about, what you show and don't show how you connect with people, all of those things are a little bit different.

00:04:49:12 - 00:05:24:02
Wayne Turmel
I want to talk specifically about something that you said, which is that for empathetic leaders, this is particularly challenging. And I think this has really come to the fore as we've started to work more remotely the pandemic, because not only are we trying to get work done, but there is just so much stuff going on in people's lives and the chaos of the last couple of years that it is, I fear, our most empathetic leaders that are taking the brunt of this.

00:05:24:03 - 00:05:25:07
Wayne Turmel
Can you speak to that a little bit?

00:05:25:14 - 00:05:45:11
Carolyn Stern
Yeah. So in in chapter seven of the book, I talk about 15 different emotional intelligence skills, empathy being one of them. And I asked the reader to take them through, assess themselves, where are they? Are they low in empathy, which means they don't care about people? They kind of might be surprised by people's reactions. They can show up as uncompassionate.

00:05:45:20 - 00:06:07:22
Carolyn Stern
Are they a high level of empathy, which means that they can appreciate how other people feels. They put themselves in other people's shoes? Or are they on the dark side? Which is when you have too much empathy, which is means that you're getting mashed in people's stuff, you might even take on people's emotional problems on your shoulders. It's really about getting really clear on where you land.

00:06:07:23 - 00:06:25:14
Carolyn Stern
So the strategies that we give in the book and there's 60 strategies, you know, if you have low empathy, I'm going to give you a different strategy than if you're on the dark side of empathy. When you have too much and a lot of empathetic leaders, those that have too much empathy, that maybe coddle people too much, don't push them to excel.

00:06:26:09 - 00:06:50:11
Carolyn Stern
They can be really burning out at this time because they're taking on not only their emotional problems that that things that are going on for them at home and in the office, but also all of their employees problems. And so that's that weighs a lot on people and the thing that I speak about in the book is that it's really important that you don't have to solve you don't have to be anyone's emotional support therapist.

00:06:50:20 - 00:07:17:01
Carolyn Stern
All you have to do is ask questions. Hey, Wayne, I notice that you're you know, you're struggling in that project. What do I need to do to support you so that you get this project done in an efficient way and on time? You don't have to know the answers. So what you need to do to show true connection, to show true appreciation, and to show and to to make people feel fulfilled in their role is just to connect with them and to ask questions.

00:07:17:01 - 00:07:32:05
Carolyn Stern
And three of my top favorite questions that I talk about is What do you need to feel connected to me in the team? What do you need to feel appreciated for your efforts and what do you need to feel fulfilled in your role? And then I shut up and listen and I hear what my team has to say.

00:07:32:12 - 00:07:56:16
Carolyn Stern
So, for instance, Natalie, in order to feel appreciated in my company, she likes words of affirmation. Whereas Kieran, she likes quality time with me. She'd much prefer time with me, Natalie to connect with me. She much prefers to have one on one meetings once a week. Kieran likes to have meetings every day I check in, you know, for fulfillment for for Natalie.

00:07:56:20 - 00:08:20:22
Carolyn Stern
She prefers to take a course where it's sort of Kieran. She prefers to have work life balance. Every employee is going to want different things for them to feel better because how they feel at work affects how they perform at work. And until you connect on an emotional level to find out what makes them tick, what makes them stressed out, what motivates them, what are they afraid of?

00:08:20:22 - 00:08:40:10
Carolyn Stern
Until you have those deeper conversations and in the book we call them inner iceberg conversations, you're only going to hit the tip of the surface, the tip of the iceberg, which is really all I'm going to see is your communications, your actions and your behaviors. I don't know why you're making those communications actions and behaviors. If I don't talk about them.

00:08:41:12 - 00:09:11:11
Wayne Turmel
Absolutely. Now, there are two very separate things that you raise that I don't want to let get asked us here in this conversation. I'm going to tell you something and your eyes are going to roll in your head and just trust me. This is a true story. I was talking to somebody about returning to the office and their exact words were, Thank goodness I can quit asking them how the kids are and concentrate on work.

00:09:11:11 - 00:09:35:23
Wayne Turmel
Right. Which was obviously not terribly empathetic person who has been driving herself crazy, trying to adjust and trying to do what she needs to do over distance. Before I get to the second part, let's begin you just what would you tell this credit?

00:09:36:10 - 00:09:57:06
Carolyn Stern
Well, this person probably struggles with empathy, caring about what's important for the other person. And the thing is, regardless of whether they go back to face to face and working under the same roof or continuing to work in this hybrid or remote space, they absolutely still need to start continuing to ask about their kids because we bring our whole selves to the office.

00:09:57:10 - 00:10:20:07
Carolyn Stern
We don't just bring our work persona, we bring our whole selves. And what the pandemic did, the silver lining. The pandemic brought a lot of negative lost jobs, lost lives, you know, you know, isolation, all of that. But what the silver lining the pandemic brought is it realized we could no longer suffer emotions down because they bubbled up to the surface and people realize, wow, we have chaotic lives.

00:10:20:23 - 00:10:43:13
Carolyn Stern
In fact, at some point in this podcast, my dog might come running in from his walk. That's my life, right? It's it's not as simple. I don't just get to, you know, put on my suit and work perfectly in the office. So if your leader does stop asking these personal questions because she feels she he they feel that they no longer need to because they're now face to face.

00:10:43:13 - 00:11:02:00
Carolyn Stern
That's a big mistake. The worst thing that they can do is to stop asking those personal questions, because when I feel cared for, well, that's what's going to make me stay in the company. When you just see me as a task, complete her and not a true human being that actually has a life in and outside of the office.

00:11:02:12 - 00:11:07:16
Carolyn Stern
That's when I don't care. And that's when I quietly quit.

00:11:07:16 - 00:11:35:21
Wayne Turmel
Absolutely. Now, let's take a look at something else that you said, which is about those who are super empathetic and I'm not I am shockingly not on that end of the spectrum, although more than a lot of people think. But one of the things that drive us here, Kevin Eikenberry, being our founder and leader, is passionate about is this concept of servant leadership.

00:11:35:21 - 00:12:11:12
Wayne Turmel
And one of the things that I've talked a lot about sometimes with Kevin privately is the dark side of servant leadership. This notion that if something if somebody needs to take a late call, it's going to be me because I'm trying to be sympathetic. I'm trying to take the load off people. I'm trying. And what you wind up doing, as somebody explained to me when I was doing this as a leader, is you just keep taking one for the team until there's nothing left.

00:12:12:05 - 00:12:14:02
Carolyn Stern
Yeah. And you burn out.

00:12:14:12 - 00:12:31:04
Wayne Turmel
And you burn out. And it's those people who are servant leaders and care and empathetic who are most at risk for this. What do you tell these four? It's like you can't tell people to stop caring. I mean, you can, but it's probably not going to work.

00:12:31:08 - 00:12:59:02
Carolyn Stern
My my advice is you can still have compassion and boundaries at the same time so that I can still care for someone, but I can still set some boundaries. And I'll give you a perfect example. I had a student in my class that sent me a letter saying she had a social phobia. She got hurt. She told me her therapist had recommended that she send me a letter that she could not do the presentation in the class of the assignment that was required.

00:12:59:13 - 00:13:21:13
Carolyn Stern
And I felt for her because I also struggle with anxiety. I know what that feels like to to have that that pressure of all those eyes looking on you. But I also knew the requirements for the course was one of the learning objectives was that they needed to learn how to speak in public. So as much as I felt for her and empathy is feeling with sympathy is feeling poor.

00:13:22:11 - 00:13:43:16
Carolyn Stern
So I felt with her I know what that feels like to have that kind of anxiety. And I also knew that in order for her to, to, to meet the requirements of the class, she had to do speak in public. So I gave her an option. I said, I cannot make an accommodation for this. The assignment is that you need to speak in public.

00:13:43:22 - 00:14:07:10
Carolyn Stern
You can do one of two things you can decide to not. Maybe this is not the right time to take the course. You couldn't take a zero and not do the assignment. And she decided to take a zero and not do the assignment. What she did end up doing. But I encouraged her to push herself a little, get herself out from her comfort zone into her learning zone, but not to the point that she became into panic, that then it became a negative experience.

00:14:07:10 - 00:14:29:01
Carolyn Stern
So what she ended up doing is she got zero on that assignment, but there was a group presentation assignment that she ended up doing and she ended it because that was a little bit easier for her because the eyes weren't all, all on her. She got to share some of that pressure with her other group, me. So I still had empathy for her.

00:14:30:00 - 00:14:52:12
Carolyn Stern
And with her I felt with her, but I still set some boundaries. And, and the key is, is by you getting enmeshed in people stuff and by you carrying their load, what you're creating sometimes is a culture of dependance. Oh, well, I know Wayne will do it for me, so I'll just tell him my problems and. And he'll do it for me.

00:14:52:19 - 00:15:17:15
Carolyn Stern
Well, that's not getting them to become emotionally resilient. And one of the things that I will tell you about the Gen Z, they are worse at problem solving, worse at stress management and worse at independence than any generation before. Y Because they grew up with these things and helicopter parents. If we continue to give people the answers and do it for them, they ain't learning and they're not growing.

00:15:18:07 - 00:15:41:11
Carolyn Stern
So you can be a kind and compassionate person, but also have boundaries and set the rules of engagement. And you can also ask your people, I can't do this for you, but what can I do to support you during this challenging time? And in fact, just before this podcast, I had a call, a meeting with my team, and one of my team members said she's at max capacity.

00:15:41:23 - 00:16:03:15
Carolyn Stern
And so I said to her, let's postpone this meeting and move it a week later. And so that would give her space to do the work. The other employee, who also said I'm at max capacity she I that didn't work for her see her. Even though I took that meeting and postponed it, she still felt overwhelmed. I then said rather than saying, Oh, well, what else?

00:16:03:20 - 00:16:29:19
Carolyn Stern
I said to her, What else can I do to support you? I didn't say. What can I take on for you? What can I do to support you so that you feel that you're not as overwhelmed? So if we have those conversations not take on the burden, their emotional burdens, and because really when you say let's let's, let's think about this, if I say let me do it for you, what you're basically saying is, I don't think you have the capability of doing it yourself.

00:16:29:19 - 00:16:49:01
Carolyn Stern
So let me do it for you. And so a lot of times I when I work with people who are trying really feel like they are caring and compassionate by you doing it for them, you're basically letting them know that you don't think that they can. And what you have to do is believe in your people that they can do it.

00:16:49:05 - 00:17:09:04
Carolyn Stern
Still monitor how overwhelmed they are and figure out ways, be flexible and figure out ways of how you can adapt their work, their work schedule, or their work expectations. But but don't do it for them, because all you're doing is saving the children when the plane's going down before you put the mask on yourself.

00:17:09:20 - 00:17:41:20
Wayne Turmel
Okay, so two things. Number one is it warms the cockles of my born in Canada heart to hear somebody say Gen Z. That just makes me so happy. People in Canada, in the UK are going, Yes, I am too and Americans are freaking out. Why? If you can't let somebody else need to worry but what I do want to add and we'll have to finish up on this is I understand what you're talking about is setting boundaries with your team.

00:17:43:06 - 00:18:01:22
Wayne Turmel
How about leaders for themselves? How do they set those boundaries for themselves? Because they will very often treat themselves, talk to themselves, handle themselves in ways that they would never handle an employee or team member.

00:18:02:07 - 00:18:24:01
Carolyn Stern
Yes. So a couple of things. The first thing really is they need to read the book because in the book I get them to figure out where they're too much of and where they're not enough and they have to figure out what their emotional makeup is. So for me, I have too much flexibility. I flip flop as a leader when one employee wants sushi and the other one want Greek, I say, okay, yes to sushi, and I say yes to Greek.

00:18:24:01 - 00:18:43:11
Carolyn Stern
And then I've got to make a decision. Sometimes I might say, No, we're doing Italian. And both of you know, they both are going to be disappointed. I got to take a stand sometimes, but I have really low independence, which isn't a good combination. Independence is I care too much about what people think. So if I have high flexibility and low independence, that's not a good emotional makeup.

00:18:43:11 - 00:19:06:13
Carolyn Stern
I'm a combination because I'm caring too much about what my employees think and then I'm accommodating to whatever they want. Sometimes I need to take a stand. So the first thing you need to do is figure out where you're high, low and on the dark side. And in the book we work through all 15 of those. But the second thing is, is to have compassion for yourself that treat yourself like your own best friend, don't break your own boundary.

00:19:06:19 - 00:19:26:20
Carolyn Stern
Right? So if I know that I need to be more flexible and I know for a lo someone with low independence, I need to stop asking reassuring questions. Then what I need to do is make sure that I'm accountable to doing those things. And how do I do that? Maybe I find a an advisor to help me. Maybe I find an accountability partner and a mentor.

00:19:26:20 - 00:19:37:20
Carolyn Stern
We talk about the competency advisors. If you struggle with independence, find someone who has independence and how can they help you? But then if you screw up and by the way, we'll all screw up because we've been doing this.

00:19:37:20 - 00:19:40:17
Wayne Turmel
I was going to say it's adorable that you say, if not when.

00:19:40:23 - 00:20:03:03
Carolyn Stern
Right. It's even when we screw up, how are you going to get back on track and what we write about in the book or what I write about in the book is this relapse prevention plan. What are you going to do when you relapse, when you do break your own boundary? When I do ask reassuring questions, when I know I shouldn't, when I am too flexible and accommodating, when I know I should take a stand, what am I going to do?

00:20:03:03 - 00:20:15:08
Carolyn Stern
When I do do that? I'm going to have self-compassion. I'm going to feel like, okay, I have some grace. I made a mistake, but I am not my mistake. But what can I do to get myself back on track the next day so that I don't do it again?

00:20:16:18 - 00:20:41:02
Wayne Turmel
That is a very good place to end, which is good because we are actually a little bit past the end of our time. So Carolyn, the book is The Emotionally Strong Leader. CarolynStern.com is where you can find her. We will have links to the book to her and her website and her socials and all of that good stuff on our website.

00:20:41:02 - 00:21:05:17
Wayne Turmel
Longdistanceworklife.com. Thank you so much for joining us. I am going to remove you from the meeting very shortly and wrap this up. So thank you for joining us. I really appreciate you. And if you have enjoyed our time, a few things to think about. We do have a new book coming out the end of February, The Long-Distance Team.

00:21:06:04 - 00:21:36:12
Wayne Turmel
Check that out. You can preorder it now wherever books are sold. If you are interested in developing your skills around long-distance leadership, please on the longdistanceworklife.com site, there's a link to a four part video series. Please, please, please like and subscribe. You listen to podcasts so you know how this works. And of course you can reach Marisa or I directly Wayne@KevinEikenberry.com or Marisa at

00:21:36:18 - 00:22:07:05
Wayne Turmel
KevinEikenberry.com. For those of you who like her better than me and I'm okay with that, thank you so much for joining us on the Long-Distance Worklife. We will see you again next week. Don't let the weasels get you down and have a great, great week.

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