Ask Wayne Anything, Technology, Working Remotely

Breaking Free from Screen Fatigue: A Guide to Digital Detox

Are screens taking over your life? In this episode of The Long-Distance Worklife, hosts Marisa Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel dive into the growing issue of screen fatigue and explore how remote workers can break free from digital overload. Learn about the physical and mental toll of excessive screen time, why our brains crave those dopamine hits, and how to set boundaries for healthier habits. From practical tips like setting screen-free zones to embracing old-school tools (hello, paper planners!), this conversation is packed with actionable strategies to help you reclaim balance in your remote work life.

Key Takeaways

1. Define Screen Fatigue: Recognize that screen fatigue involves both physical strain (eye fatigue, disrupted sleep from blue light) and mental exhaustion from constant input and dopamine-driven habits.

2. Set Clear Screen Break Goals: Decide specific times or durations for breaks, such as “no screens for 15 minutes,” instead of vague promises like “less screen time.”

3. Create Screen-Free Zones: Establish boundaries like no screens at the dinner table, during family time, or in the bedroom to reinforce healthy habits.

4. Limit Notifications: Turn off unnecessary alerts to reduce distractions and the urge to check your devices. Fewer dings mean less stress and temptation.

5. Reduce Blue Light Exposure: Use tools like night mode on devices, dim lighting, or e-ink screens to minimize eye strain, especially in the evening.

6. Incorporate Offline Activities: Replace screen time with activities like reading paper books, going for walks, or engaging in chores to refresh your mind and body.

7. Practice Intentional Device Use: Avoid using screens as your default downtime activity. Try alternatives like music or silent walks to give your brain a genuine rest.

8. No Screens Before Bedtime: Commit to at least 30 minutes of screen-free time before sleeping to help your brain wind down and improve sleep quality.

9. Use Technology Wisely: If you rely on tech (like a Kindle), explore settings to reduce blue light and adjust brightness for less strain during necessary use.

10. Develop New Habits Gradually: Don’t go “cold turkey.” Instead, build sustainable habits over time by integrating small changes consistently into your routine.

View Full Transcript

00;00;07;29 - 00;00;29;18
Speaker 1
Do you ever feel like screens are running your life? The constant thing. Back to back meetings and endless hours. Staring at a screen can leave you drained and unfocused. But what if you could take back control of your day? Welcome back to Long Distance Worklife, where we help you lead, work and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I'm Marisa Eikenberry, fellow remote worker, and as always, joining me is my co-host, Wayne Turmel.

00;00;29;23 - 00;00;32;03
Speaker 2
That would be me. Hi. How are you?

00;00;32;05 - 00;00;34;19
Speaker 1
I'm great. How are you?

00;00;34;22 - 00;00;40;14
Speaker 2
I'm. Well, it's, It's good. It's. We're heading into the holiday season as we record this.

00;00;40;16 - 00;00;44;16
Speaker 1
Right. And I think it'll be January when it comes out, so.

00;00;44;18 - 00;00;52;19
Speaker 2
So everybody in a fetal position, after having survived. Horrible for.

00;00;52;21 - 00;00;52;29
Speaker 1
My.

00;00;53;03 - 00;01;01;28
Speaker 2
Okay. Yeah. Well, the only way you're going to be refreshed is if you actually get downtime. Which leads us to right.

00;01;02;01 - 00;01;22;17
Speaker 1
Yeah. Today we're actually going to talk about screen fatigue and digital detoxing and what it is and how you can break free from the cycle to feel more balanced in your remote work life, which is something we would all aspire to have. So, Wayne, why don't we just start off with the basic definition of what is screen fatigue?

00;01;22;23 - 00;01;25;10
Speaker 1
How does it manifest to remote work settings?

00;01;25;12 - 00;01;58;16
Speaker 2
Well, screen fatigue is actually a couple of things. But it basically means we're on screens all the time. And, you know, I'm you're on your phone, you're checking your phone, and then you're staring at a computer monitor, and then you take a break by going downstairs and watching TV, which is basically a larger computer monitor. And then you say, oh, I'm going to go read a book, but it happens to be on a Kindle or a tablet, which is yet another screen.

00;01;58;20 - 00;02;40;01
Speaker 2
Right? And so there are a couple of challenges there. One is physical, staring into a screen all that time. It's not only bad for your eyes, but it is physically draining the blue light that emanates from those screens has actual physical effects on the human body, which we will talk about. The other thing is you're constantly taking in information and input, and if you don't give your brain a break, it becomes mentally and physically exhausting.

00;02;40;04 - 00;02;54;05
Speaker 1
Right? You might actually get kind of, irritable or I know if I've been looking at screens a lot and I've been doing a lot of especially like research or something like I kind of a jerk if I don't, I have a brain.

00;02;54;07 - 00;03;05;15
Speaker 2
And, you know, I mean, for some of us for whom curmudgeon is our default setting, it might be less noticeable. But when Marissa's in a bad mood, the world notices. You're saying.

00;03;05;17 - 00;03;08;10
Speaker 1
Wow.

00;03;08;13 - 00;03;27;17
Speaker 2
So so the fact is that there is this constant bombardment and barrage and intake. And at some point, the only way it's not like, well, I'm going to watch YouTube videos on my phone instead of staring at spreadsheets. Your brain doesn't care.

00;03;27;19 - 00;03;27;28
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;03;27;28 - 00;03;56;13
Speaker 2
What the content is. It's the actual interaction of your eyes and your scrolling finger and your brain with a screen period. Which leads to this notion of a digital detox. And a lot of people kind of take a detox. Well it's not like it's an addiction. It's not alcohol. It's that. But in fact call it what you want.

00;03;56;15 - 00;04;14;04
Speaker 2
It has all the earmarks of an addiction when it goes away your brain responds dopamine neuron receptors. All that good stuff responds in the same way as any bad habit.

00;04;14;06 - 00;04;23;03
Speaker 1
Right, right. Well, I wake up in the morning, you grab your phone. Like what? What are the screens that you gravitate towards without even thinking about it?

00;04;23;05 - 00;04;35;22
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's funny. They have done studies these and found that Farmville, you know, sets off the same dopamine receptors in your brain as cocaine.

00;04;35;24 - 00;04;40;04
Speaker 1
Wow. That is a game I heard about a lot.

00;04;40;06 - 00;04;42;15
Speaker 2
But that's it's changing so quickly.

00;04;42;15 - 00;04;43;10
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;04;43;12 - 00;04;53;23
Speaker 2
But Farmville was one of the first where they gamified something 200 points that it actually became addictive. And then, you know, it was Angry Birds and.

00;04;54;00 - 00;04;55;09
Speaker 1
And Candy crush that.

00;04;55;09 - 00;05;05;13
Speaker 2
Yeah. And somehow I have avoided all of those and yet I will twittered doom scroll for hours.

00;05;05;15 - 00;05;09;05
Speaker 1
Right. Well, I'm on this tick tock now. Right. Like you know well.

00;05;09;07 - 00;05;31;23
Speaker 2
And they're all I do not blame the poor coders who are doing this because they are doing what they are requested to do. But the fact of the matter is that all these sites are designed to be addictive. They're designed to play with the pleasure centers of your brain. And let's assume for a moment that you are a superior being.

00;05;31;25 - 00;05;52;03
Speaker 2
And you, I do not fall prey to this. I use my screens for work and other noble purposes. Okay? The fact of the matter is, when you hit send on an email, there is a ping in your brain that goes, yeah, I did something. What else can I do? Oh look, there's another one.

00;05;52;05 - 00;05;53;14
Speaker 1


00;05;53;16 - 00;06;20;05
Speaker 2
And you know this is all not terribly scientific. And yet we know it to be true. So the dopamine and reward systems and the feedback loops from screens are a big part of the problem. That's why every time we say I'm just going to put my phone away and I'm not going to look at it and it's in your hand before you know it.

00;06;20;08 - 00;06;38;18
Speaker 1
Oh yeah. Well, it's why there's that whole thing of, you know, if your phone is your alarm, either a stop or be like, put it in another room, but loud enough, you could still hear it because there's so many people. And I will say, I am also one of these people. This is not, you know, I am one of you.

00;06;38;25 - 00;06;55;26
Speaker 1
But, but like you wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is reach for your phone. And so it's like, if it's not there, you have to physically get up and go get it. Well, now you're already up. Go do something else. Is a bed rotting while watching TikToks? Not that I did that this morning or anything.

00;06;55;28 - 00;07;10;00
Speaker 2
Well, it's funny, one of the people ways that people are breaking this is going back to the future. Everybody remembers those horrible, ugly brown, radio alarm clocks I've.

00;07;10;00 - 00;07;11;25
Speaker 1
Pretty sure my dad still has.

00;07;11;25 - 00;07;39;23
Speaker 2
One side. You're bad. Right? Yes. Well, but here's the thing. That is actually better than your phone for keeping time. Because it's red light. It's not the blue light up your screen every time you pick up your phone and look at it, blue light hits your eyes and your brain, and it messes with your sleep patterns. Where as the red light so is well, I use this as my alarm clock.

00;07;39;26 - 00;07;42;04
Speaker 2
You know, there are alarm clocks, right?

00;07;42;07 - 00;07;48;15
Speaker 1
Correct. Or even, you know, whether you wear apple Watches or whatever, you can have it there too.

00;07;48;17 - 00;08;01;15
Speaker 2
Yeah, but even your Apple Watch emits a blue spectrum light. So I have an actual alarm clock, and then you don't have to have your phone by the bed.

00;08;01;18 - 00;08;02;21
Speaker 1
Very true.

00;08;02;24 - 00;08;24;26
Speaker 2
If it's not by the bed, there's less chance you're going to automatically reach for it. So that's the reason for it. That's the reason we need a digital detox. But it's not that easy because it's the ubiquity of the screen. Like I say, I'm going to stop work for the day, right? What am I going to do?

00;08;25;01 - 00;08;37;19
Speaker 2
I think I'll watch some YouTube videos. Well, that's the same problem, right? Well, staring at the same screen, maybe even the same device. And it's not helping.

00;08;37;21 - 00;08;55;15
Speaker 1
Well, and especially with remote workers too, it's like, you know, if you were in the office, you're in front of your screen, you're doing your thing. Oh, okay. I'm going to go meet with the marketing department. You physically get up and go to a conference room, or you go to a table and you're no longer on your screen because now you're face to face, that doesn't happen anymore.

00;08;55;22 - 00;09;15;09
Speaker 1
So now you're going from, I'm doing all this email and I'm doing all the stuff, and now I'm on zoom, and now I'm having meetings for zoom, and I'm talking to people on slack that I wouldn't have spoken to like that if they were in the office. And there's almost this extended screen time that would not have necessarily happened if we were still in the office.

00;09;15;12 - 00;09;48;10
Speaker 2
Right. And that goes on all day. And then our leisure activities take place on screens. Right? So part of it is what needs to be done. What do we actually need to do. And we've talked about this 100 times on this show about removing the alerts and having a start and an end to your day where you are no longer doing work stuff.

00;09;48;12 - 00;09;50;07
Speaker 1
Well, even break start to.

00;09;50;09 - 00;09;57;02
Speaker 2
Break and taking breaks during the day. But then those breaks can not include other screens.

00;09;57;04 - 00;10;03;18
Speaker 1
100%. Like if you're going to go have lunch, go have lunch and like that's it.

00;10;03;20 - 00;10;29;04
Speaker 2
But some of this is we have four strategies around this, right? We decide, oh, you know we're going to go cold turkey. Well no you're not. Yeah. You are not going to go cold turkey. It doesn't work that way. Your brain is going to torture you and you will eventually crumble and collapse. So how do we overcome this stuff?

00;10;29;04 - 00;10;49;00
Speaker 2
Well, first of all, you need to set clear goals. Why do I need a break? What kind of break do I want? How long a break am I going to take? That kind of thing, right. Because if you say, well, I'm just not going to look at my phone for a while, your brain is going, how long is a while?

00;10;49;04 - 00;10;51;25
Speaker 2
Oh, my God, we might be missing out on something. Yeah.

00;10;51;28 - 00;10;54;18
Speaker 1
No. So it's right there. I could see it.

00;10;54;20 - 00;10;59;07
Speaker 2
Whereas I'm not going to look at my screen for 15 minutes.

00;10;59;10 - 00;11;01;01
Speaker 1


00;11;01;03 - 00;11;16;25
Speaker 2
You might get a little twitchy, but at some point your brain goes it's only 15 minutes and then you will get back to the sweet embrace of the blue light broke. Go off right.

00;11;16;28 - 00;11;30;02
Speaker 2
Having no screen times, areas, you know, the dinner table, no phones at the table.

00;11;30;04 - 00;11;38;00
Speaker 2
I can't tell you how many parents I see in restaurants tell their kids no phones at the table. And yet they're constantly doing this.

00;11;38;02 - 00;11;40;14
Speaker 1
Oh 100% you know.

00;11;40;16 - 00;11;49;05
Speaker 2
So we need to walk it like we talking and having everybody is miserable as you. It's not a bad thing.

00;11;49;07 - 00;12;10;14
Speaker 1
Well and only because, you know the generation that I'm in this whole concept that these darn kids and their darn phones. I'm not saying that we're not on technology all the time. Not saying that. I also tell you, I see more boomers attached to their phones sometimes in certain situations. No offense to you, because that's not the cause.

00;12;10;14 - 00;12;20;10
Speaker 2
We use the phone to expand so we can actually read the menu and probably using it as a hearing aid. So there may be there may be medical reasons. Okay. Smart.

00;12;20;12 - 00;12;31;11
Speaker 1
Like I'm just saying I do see that constantly where it's just like these darn kids and I'm like, my phone's in my purse in another room. You're playing Candy crush while we're talking.

00;12;31;13 - 00;12;44;14
Speaker 2
Yeah, but the idea of a no screen zone or a blue Gatorade, no screen times is a really good and frankly, important way to do.

00;12;44;17 - 00;12;45;08
Speaker 1
Right, to.

00;12;45;10 - 00;12;57;14
Speaker 2
Start to break that habit. And there are alternatives. You know, I don't know if you know, this books used to come on paper and maybe.

00;12;57;15 - 00;13;00;15
Speaker 1
You can use both because I know, I.

00;13;00;19 - 00;13;13;08
Speaker 2
Know because if you're doing both, you're looking at the screen. What I'm saying is if you're going to use reading as a break, activate right. Use a non electronic form.

00;13;13;08 - 00;13;16;19
Speaker 1
It okay.

00;13;16;22 - 00;13;19;14
Speaker 2
Yes I know but your listen I know.

00;13;19;14 - 00;13;44;24
Speaker 1
I have other tech things but I'm not even going to go there because like I mean okay actually no no I'm going to do it. If you have to use a piece of technology for something, Kindle phone, whatever, they're usually are some sort of setting that you can set to reduce the blue light during certain times that automatically kicks in.

00;13;44;26 - 00;14;06;17
Speaker 1
I'm a Kindle reader. I do also read physical books. You know, those of you that are watching can see them behind me. They're constantly they're. But when I have my Kindle on at night, it's on a, you know, lower level, it's on more red light than blue light. It's dimmer. People who have the Kindle Paperwhite, it's the e-ink.

00;14;06;17 - 00;14;25;00
Speaker 1
So it's actually better for your eyes anyway. Like, there's all of these different things that if you if you feel like you need to be on a piece of technology, there are some ways to help, combat some of these eyestrain and other issues in general.

00;14;25;03 - 00;14;36;28
Speaker 2
And there are certain things that just make sense, not only for the blue light, but for the mental stimulation. No screens a half hour before you go to bed.

00;14;37;01 - 00;14;37;26
Speaker 1


00;14;37;29 - 00;15;00;16
Speaker 2
And I realize everybody just got really twitchy because most of our routines is we watch TV until it's time to go to bed. Some people go to bed to turn on the TV and watch some more before it's time to go to bed. At the very least, the ones that are right in front of your face, radiating directly into your brain.

00;15;00;19 - 00;15;30;09
Speaker 2
No phones for a half hour before bedtime, right? Put down your non Paperwhite, Kindle and give yourself a break. You know that's when you brush your teeth and do your ablutions and whatever you need to do before you go to bed, kill the screens and then do your bed routine and your brain will more easily adjust to that.

00;15;30;11 - 00;15;53;22
Speaker 1
Right. Well, and you were talking about, you know, less notifications or no notifications earlier to. With by doing that we will theoretically pick up our phone less anyway because you're not going to have the dings that you're used to. Which let's get real, it's a Pavlov's, you know, dog situation. We hear the ding. And so we pick it up.

00;15;53;24 - 00;16;11;02
Speaker 2
And the lack of a day, I mean, there is nothing there. And my thing is my phone is on vibrate or silent 90% of the time. But then I go, I wonder if anybody's called. Right. So there's so there's that.

00;16;11;04 - 00;16;13;05
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;16;13;07 - 00;16;18;17
Speaker 2
Here's the other thing, though. Don't take your phone when you walk the dog.

00;16;18;19 - 00;16;19;20
Speaker 1


00;16;19;22 - 00;16;42;22
Speaker 2
Get outside when you're doing chores, put on music, do something else. Give your brain, your eyes, your entire physical and actual brain. It's weird to think that doing dishes and emptying the dishwasher and throwing a load in laundry could be a break, but it actually is in many ways.

00;16;42;25 - 00;17;09;05
Speaker 1
Well, and it's funny that you say some of that too. So, there it's been a while since I've seen it, but there was a thing for a while on TikTok where they were, I think they had another word for it, but there were multiple at the time. But this idea of, you know, go on silent walks and it was like a brand new concept for, you know, Gen Z or younger millennials because that's just not what we do.

00;17;09;05 - 00;17;16;11
Speaker 1
And, you know, even as we're talking, it's like, yeah, go, go on a walk without anything, like just listen to the nature.

00;17;16;14 - 00;17;37;26
Speaker 2
It's I can't remember the last time I went for a walk with earphones. And now some of this is I don't have music on my phone, so there's no there's no way to put brain music. But I find if I'm walking the dog or I'm going for a walk and I don't have earbuds in.

00;17;37;28 - 00;17;38;26
Speaker 1


00;17;38;29 - 00;17;48;08
Speaker 2
I hear things, I relax, I get to spy on the neighbors because I overhear conversations. It's really cool.

00;17;48;10 - 00;17;49;00
Speaker 1
Right.

00;17;49;03 - 00;17;58;02
Speaker 2
But yeah, I, I have quit plugging earphones in when I go for walks. For exactly that reason.

00;17;58;04 - 00;18;02;28
Speaker 1
Yeah. It's just crazy to me. I think it's like a new new phenomenon.

00;18;03;00 - 00;18;33;15
Speaker 2
Listen to your Uncle Wayne. Leave the earbuds. Oh. And, and you got to develop these habits the first time you do it, it's going to be weird. And you're going to not know what to do with yourself. And it takes multiple times of doing something for it to become a habit. And it's important we are. It's funny, we are doing less physical labor than ever before.

00;18;33;15 - 00;19;11;11
Speaker 2
For the most part, human beings work less and our health is impacted by our work. Being seated all the time, being sedentary can't stand exposure to screens. Yes, it's not tarring roofs in the hot sun and it's not, you know, hauling wheelbarrows full of stuff, which is incredibly taxing on the body. But there is, of course, to the way we're working, and especially as we get to the time of year when people do New Year's resolutions, which I try to avoid.

00;19;11;14 - 00;19;32;00
Speaker 2
But if you're doing New Year's resolutions, this is a really good one. Yeah, if you're worried about your health and you're trying to get healthier, this can actually play a really big part in it. And that means don't put your exercise plans solely on your phone.

00;19;32;02 - 00;19;34;28
Speaker 1
Yes.

00;19;35;01 - 00;19;35;10
Speaker 2
It did.

00;19;35;12 - 00;19;38;15
Speaker 1
Print it out. It's okay.

00;19;38;18 - 00;19;42;26
Speaker 2
So here's the thing. Yeah, go old school. You know.

00;19;42;29 - 00;19;45;25
Speaker 1
Paper planner.

00;19;45;27 - 00;20;10;06
Speaker 2
Whatever, by any means necessary. Here's the deal. As we come to the end of the year, whenever you're listening to this, get some rest, take a break, catch up on your sleep, do what you need to do. Nobody else is going to do it for you. Your boss may pay great lip service, and may even mean that they want you to take a break.

00;20;10;08 - 00;20;15;21
Speaker 2
But when you're on the screen answering that email at 10:00 at night, they're not stopping you either.

00;20;15;23 - 00;20;17;10
Speaker 1
Right?

00;20;17;13 - 00;20;28;03
Speaker 2
Right. And it's not that they're evil, horrible, exploitative people. And even if they are, you still can control what you can control. All right.

00;20;28;06 - 00;20;52;09
Speaker 1
Well, Wayne, thank you so much for this episode. I hope that it's helpful to the people who are listening. And before we go, we're excited to share that the second edition of The Long Distance Leader is now available. So those of you who are starting your New Year's resolutions or thinking about things for this year, you might want to pick up this book because it is packed with actionable strategies to help you lead effectively in today's remote and hybrid environments.

00;20;52;11 - 00;21;16;25
Speaker 1
Don't wait. Order your copy at long distance work life.com/ldl and take your leadership skills to the next level. And thank you so much for listening to Long Distance Worklife for Shownotes transcripts and other resources. Make sure to visit Long Distance worklife.com if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a future one. And while you're at it, leave us a rating or review on Apple or Spotify.

00;21;16;28 - 00;21;33;22
Speaker 1
It's quick and it helps us reach even more listeners. Just like you. We would also love to hear from you. Reach out to us via email or LinkedIn using the links in our show notes. Let us know that you listen to this episode, or even suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode. We would love to hear from you.

00;21;33;25 - 00;21;38;21
Speaker 1
And finally, as mine likes to say, don't let the whistles get you down. Hey!


Timestamps

0:00 Introduction
0:30 What Is Screen Fatigue?
1:25 The Physical and Mental Impacts of Screen Time
7:00 Digital Detox Strategies
10:30 Setting Boundaries with Screens
13:45 Blue Light and Notification Hacks
15:35 Enjoying Offline Activities
20:10 Conclusion

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Leader

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

 Order
The Long-Distance Leader
Read More
Guests, Hybrid Work, Surviving Remote Work, Technology

The Remote-First Revolution: Building Borderless Teams with David Nilssen

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

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

Key Takeaways

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

View Full Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Timestamps

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

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

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

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Staying Connected When Natural Disasters Disrupt Remote Teams
Ask Wayne Anything, Leadership, Surviving Remote Work, Technology, Working Remotely

Staying Connected When Natural Disasters Disrupt Remote Teams

Wayne Turmel and Marisa Eikenberry dive into a topic often overlooked—natural disasters and how they impact remote and hybrid work environments. As hurricanes, blizzards, and wildfires increase, so does the need for effective business continuity plans. Wayne and Marisa discuss real-world stories and provide insights on how companies can balance employee safety with the need for operational continuity. They cover essential strategies like communication protocols, cloud-based backups, risk assessment, and creating an emergency contact directory, offering practical advice to help remote teams stay connected and productive during crises.

Key Takeaways

1. The Importance of Preparedness: Why every organization needs a disaster preparedness plan, especially in areas prone to natural calamities.
2. Real-World Consequences: Wayne shares a cautionary story about a company that delayed evacuation, resulting in tragic consequences.
3. Remote Work’s Role in Crisis Management: How remote and hybrid work setups can offer flexibility and continuity when disaster strikes.
4. Communication Protocols and Access Plans: Ensuring that every team member has access to essential data and knows how to communicate their availability during outages.
5. Human-Centric Leadership: The significance of showing grace and understanding toward employees facing personal crises during natural disasters.

View Full Transcript

00;00;00;01 - 00;00;14;12
Marisa Eikenberry
When disaster strikes, what happens to your work, whether it's hurricanes, floods or blizzards? These events can disrupt our lives and our jobs in an instant. As your workplace prepared.

00;00;14;14 - 00;00;28;23
Marisa Eikenberry
You. Welcome back to the long distance work life. We help you live, work, and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I'm Mercer, I can marry a fellow remote worker. And joining me is my co-host and remote work expert, Wayne Trimble. Hi, Wayne.

00;00;28;25 - 00;00;46;24
Wayne Turmel
Hello there. Marissa. Hello, listeners. Greetings from Las Vegas, where we have set a record for days over 100 degrees, and people are melting on the sidewalk. And so does rasters. And nature and stuff is very much on people's minds.

00;00;46;27 - 00;01;17;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? And so, listeners, as we are recording this, Hurricane Helen just came through, multiple states in the past weekend. And so we thought that this would be a really interesting episode while we dive into a very critical topic, which is how workplace workplaces handle natural disasters and ensure that business continues while keeping employees safe. So, Wayne, I just want to start off by saying, like, you know, all of these different things happen blizzards, wildfires, we've heard different stuff.

00;01;17;28 - 00;01;31;12
Marisa Eikenberry
Oh, definitely. Over the past couple of years. And how can organizations ensure that business continuity while prioritizing employees safety during these natural disasters? Because, like business can always stop? Yeah.

00;01;31;13 - 00;02;01;10
Wayne Turmel
Therein lies the problem. What I am going to say is based merely on multiple news reports. I'm not taking it from a single source, and I don't know the veracity of it, but we know of at least one company in Tennessee. People wanted to evacuate the workplace. The employer said no until it was too late, and there were 10 or 11 fatalities as a result.

00;02;01;12 - 00;02;30;15
Wayne Turmel
This is thankfully not common, but it ain't unheard of either, right? So this is a very real thing, and you can be cynical and say this ties to the whole work in the office presenteeism kind of thing. But it's also companies are trying to make a living, and they're trying to get as much work done as they can before the storm or the fire or whatever it is happens.

00;02;30;15 - 00;02;34;06
Wayne Turmel
And, you know, we we guess wrong, right?

00;02;34;12 - 00;02;36;17
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Weather can be unpredictable in that way.

00;02;36;20 - 00;03;03;25
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. So I am not casting blame other than to say that it happens. Right. But that does raise the issue of with sufficient warning. What are the company's plans. How much of a company's work can in fact be done off site. And this is where to say we are going to abandon remote work and everybody get back to the office.

00;03;03;27 - 00;03;34;28
Wayne Turmel
This is exactly the kind of thing that one faces. Before Covid, companies were starting to put call them business continuity plans. Call them what you want in place. And some of this is helped by the fact that so much is now on the cloud, or that the servers are somewhere other than the office. I mean, 1520 years ago your office had a huge server farm in it, and if your office went down, so did everything you own then?

00;03;34;28 - 00;04;07;01
Wayne Turmel
No. Right. That's that's less and less the case now for most organizations. So you know, what is the plan? First of all, for the data, your business has to survive. Your company has to survive. And then how do you ensure that people can get at it? And if you are in a cloud environment, if you are in a paid server environment where the servers are somewhere other than where you are, and if you're experiencing the disaster, hopefully your servers are not.

00;04;07;03 - 00;04;33;20
Wayne Turmel
But ready. What is the plan? And I think that organizations need to have a plan that says even people who don't normally work outside of the office need to know how to access the data. They need to know how to if they're on a VPN, they need to know how to do that. There needs to be there.

00;04;33;21 - 00;04;42;25
Wayne Turmel
And ironically, you know, if you put it in a manual, in the manuals in the office and the office is no longer there, that's a point.

00;04;42;27 - 00;04;43;06
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;04;43;06 - 00;05;01;19
Wayne Turmel
And I, you know, I say that I'm not making light of the situation clearly. So the first thing is think about it from an organization standpoint. If something happens, I mean, we talk in the office all the time about what if Kevin gets hit by a bus?

00;05;01;22 - 00;05;08;23
Marisa Eikenberry
Yep. We've said that about many, many people on our team just because of how integral they are.

00;05;08;26 - 00;05;22;08
Wayne Turmel
Right. We don't want that to happen. We clearly keep you know, we keep him wrapped in bubble wrap when he's not in the office. But you have to have those conversations, and it's irresponsible not to.

00;05;22;10 - 00;05;22;28
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;05;23;00 - 00;05;45;05
Wayne Turmel
If you live in a place that is prone to hurricanes, if you live in a place that is prone to winter blizzards, if you are, you know, whatever it is that needs to be addressed. How do people, the as many people as possible, continue to keep the business afloat? And if you haven't had that conversation, you'd better have.

00;05;45;05 - 00;06;16;14
Wayne Turmel
And if people don't have access codes and they don't have, I mean, I I've heard of people who, when they return to the office after Covid, lost their access to the VPN. Is that really what you want? Mr.. Mrs.. Business owner. So you need to think about that. You also need to and this is best done I think on a team by team basis is does everybody know where everybody is.

00;06;16;16 - 00;06;44;14
Wayne Turmel
Do they? I'll never forget I had an instructor in one of the buildings at the World Trade Center. Wow. The day that 911 and I spent 14 really bad hours waiting to hear from that person. She was safe. She was fine. She got out at the first sign of danger of building all of that good stuff. But for 14 hours, we didn't know where she was, let.

00;06;44;14 - 00;06;45;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Alone.

00;06;45;21 - 00;06;54;18
Wayne Turmel
What she was doing with the business. Whether what was going on with the client. None of that. We didn't physically know if she was still with us. Right.

00;06;54;21 - 00;06;56;21
Marisa Eikenberry
That's terrifying.

00;06;56;22 - 00;07;23;25
Wayne Turmel
So do people know when there is a disaster? Is there a plan for letting your peers and your boss know you're okay? Letting your peers and your boss know I have internet access and I am available, right? Because some people, if you have internet access, there are things that I could do in your absence, but only if I know that you don't have the internet access.

00;07;23;27 - 00;07;41;10
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, I was going to say with that example, we have a person on our team, Guy Harris, who, he's in South Carolina. So while his home is safe and his family is safe, he was hit by a lot of the storm and, like, didn't have power and didn't have internet and thankfully had a generator. But it can only do so much.

00;07;41;10 - 00;08;00;27
Marisa Eikenberry
And he called me very early on to be like, hey, like, I need you to take care of all the disk or disk, support tickets, because I can't help you unless you know, we need to have a phone call about something. But, like, he physically could not get into the back end to help me with anything. And so he made sure to let me know.

00;08;00;29 - 00;08;16;02
Wayne Turmel
So, is there a plan? Right. Do you have the home phone? Numbers are no longer a thing. But do you have the cell, the personal cell number of all your employees? And do they have each other right?

00;08;16;02 - 00;08;19;05
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Or directory somewhere that they can access.

00;08;19;07 - 00;08;33;06
Wayne Turmel
Is there a directory that exists? I know teams that put each other in their contact list, because having an online resource doesn't help if you can't get online, right.

00;08;33;08 - 00;08;34;08
Marisa Eikenberry
That's fair.

00;08;34;11 - 00;08;46;06
Wayne Turmel
That's a decision, right? You can decide do people want to be that connected to each other? You assume that everybody's going to be a grown up and behave responsibly right now.

00;08;46;06 - 00;08;48;20
Marisa Eikenberry
Drug text Susan at two in the morning.

00;08;48;22 - 00;09;26;20
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, but that's a that's a very concrete thing, right, that you can do to help make sure that that happens. So you need to think about what's going to happen before it happens. Now, I am firmly of the belief that every time one of these disaster have disasters and somebody gets convinced that maybe remote work is not the worst thing that could happen, because even if everybody is physically safe, even if everybody's homes are physically safe, if the office is damaged, if the roads are impassable.

00;09;26;22 - 00;09;33;05
Wayne Turmel
If any of that is going on, could we rarely meet somewhere else and still function well?

00;09;33;05 - 00;09;34;10
Marisa Eikenberry
And on that same.

00;09;34;10 - 00;09;35;03
Wayne Turmel
That line.

00;09;35;04 - 00;09;56;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Is. Yeah. Well, I was going to say on that same line, you know, for people who have teams that are working from home and stuff like that, I mean, there's still thunderstorms, snow, you know, lots of rain might cause flooding or whatever. Like, you know, we've all been in situations of, hey, we got a really bad storm here.

00;09;56;20 - 00;10;18;28
Marisa Eikenberry
I don't have internet or I don't have power. Right now, but it doesn't make sense to go into the office or in your case, your states away from the office. It doesn't make sense to do that. Like what level of flexibility should companies be offering employees for dealing with things like power outages and internet disruptions or personal crises, even during a disaster or just severe weather?

00;10;18;29 - 00;10;46;13
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, I think that this there's several levels to this, right? On the most basic level, you need to sit and think about what risk analysis is, what are the odds of something happen. And what are the results of it. Did that's risk analysis in a nutshell, right? So have you done a risk analysis on your business. Right. What business absolutely has to be done out of the office.

00;10;46;15 - 00;11;08;26
Wayne Turmel
What can be duplicated conducted elsewhere, whatever. And then what are the plans for that on an H.R level, it's yes, the company is fine, but Maurice's house just got washed away, right? First of all, odds are she's not coming into work a few days.

00;11;08;29 - 00;11;11;06
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I got other priorities right.

00;11;11;09 - 00;11;37;02
Wayne Turmel
And do we have an ability to absorb that or are we going to stick to the. Well, that's personal time. And you've got five days to get your insurance together because after that we ain't paying you. And these conversations happen and they happen all the time. We are very blessed. I mean, we have had some interesting things in this organization in the last year.

00;11;37;05 - 00;11;59;27
Wayne Turmel
I'm about to go out for my second knee replacement in a year, and we've kind of worked around that in terms of time off and all of that. And it's all very civilized. Guy is stuck in a hurricane zone at the moment, you know, as an organization, we have decided we want to take care of each other.

00;12;00;02 - 00;12;17;29
Wayne Turmel
Right. And there is a mechanism in place for that. Right? First of all, there's a lot of grace. There's a lot of people pitching in and helping each other. That's really the kind of thing that it can happen on the spur of the moment. But boy, it's easier if you've planned it.

00;12;18;01 - 00;12;36;10
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Well, I was going to say like, you know, I, I know that there's also been situations too, where it's like, this thing is not important right now. You know, speaking of spur of the moment, like, you know, my stepdad died last year and I was out for a week because it was just I just can't right now.

00;12;36;10 - 00;12;56;11
Marisa Eikenberry
And so it was like, podcast didn't get edited like this show didn't happen for a week or two. Like, and I don't want to say like everybody was okay with that. But it was grace was given. Right. You figure out what's the what's the biggest priority here. And frankly, it's not that well.

00;12;56;14 - 00;13;19;28
Wayne Turmel
And there are organizations that will tell you that that is the priority. And get your butt back here. We've seen we've seen it time and time again. Again. This is where the possibility of remote work, the idea of even if it's not all the time, can you access the data that you need? Can you reach your customers? Can you reach your teammates?

00;13;20;01 - 00;13;24;01
Wayne Turmel
Do we know if we can't reach the boss who does what?

00;13;24;03 - 00;13;24;14
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;13;24;20 - 00;13;53;22
Wayne Turmel
Those conversations are uncomfortable and they're weird, but you have to have them. And teams that have had those conversations and they know if something happens to Guy, Marissa handles that. If something happens to somebody else, you know, I know the intricate workings of a couple of people here in job, right? If I have to step in, at least short term, I can do that.

00;13;53;24 - 00;13;56;22
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Basically, make sure you have a backup person.

00;13;56;24 - 00;14;27;28
Wayne Turmel
We've talked about it and we've planned for it a lot of companies. And this is where bad managers get in trouble, because if you weren't used to delegating, if you are used to doing everything yourself, if you don't share the passwords and the information and the workflows and the relationships with other people in the company. If you haven't included your team on that and built into that because you are so important, God forbid something happened to you.

00;14;28;00 - 00;14;28;21
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;14;28;23 - 00;14;46;13
Wayne Turmel
And you know, this gets back to ripen. Wrapping Kevin in bubble wrap. Clearly it's a founder led company. That's a very serious thing. Right. But we can hold the fort for a bit.

00;14;46;16 - 00;14;58;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. I was going to say and and to your point, like there are plans in place if something should happen, like he's got stuff written down in places and knows who to contact and like we know what to do.

00;14;58;22 - 00;15;25;25
Wayne Turmel
But this all boils down to a couple of things. First of all, you have to trust your employees. You have to trust. And Covid proved this almost beyond a reasonable doubt. You know, if we send people to work from home, they're going to slack off. They're nothing. It's not true. When there is a crisis and Covid was a crisis, when there is something that happens, people naturally pull together.

00;15;25;25 - 00;15;47;14
Wayne Turmel
I know Americans like to think they're the only ones that do it, but no, people do that right. They help each other, they come together, they do what they do. So your employees want the company to exist. Your employees want each other to be successful. They want to stay employed. If you want to, you know? Yeah.

00;15;47;17 - 00;15;49;07
Marisa Eikenberry
Hiring like a paycheck.

00;15;49;10 - 00;16;14;01
Wayne Turmel
That's, you know, for the short term, people will move heaven and earth and they will make it happen. But you have to help them achieve it. So have the conversations have not just a central location. I mean, it's great to have everything in a filing cabinet, but if there is a raging wildfire between me and the filing cabinet, that's not going to help.

00;16;14;03 - 00;16;17;06
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Right. I do have one last question for you.

00;16;17;07 - 00;16;34;26
Wayne Turmel
It just hasn't been being and I'm not being facetious other than my normal smart Alec self. This is serious stuff that needs to be done. But they're uncomfortable and they're weird, and there's always something more important that we have to do until there is right.

00;16;34;28 - 00;16;53;05
Marisa Eikenberry
And we've talked a lot about business continuity and things like that. But one of the things that, one of my last questions for you is like, how can organizations provide meaningful support both during or after a disaster, to employees who are being affected by this and, you know, like home damage, family safety, that kind of stuff?

00;16;53;05 - 00;16;58;28
Marisa Eikenberry
I mean, we've already talked about like checking in and, you know, okay, what can I take from you? But like, what about the person itself?

00;16;59;03 - 00;17;04;22
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, a lot of that is just human grace and kindness.

00;17;04;25 - 00;17;06;16
Marisa Eikenberry
A strange concept, right?

00;17;06;19 - 00;17;37;28
Wayne Turmel
Well, it is, and when everybody is affected, it's very difficult to if there's a team member that I don't normally work with or that I'm not really close to, it might feel uncomfortable and weird. Right? For me to to reach out to them or to offer them something. But generally, most teams have somebody speaking very generically, politically and incorrectly.

00;17;38;00 - 00;18;05;10
Wayne Turmel
Eight times out of ten, it's a woman. That's where is the connector, who knows what's going on and will organize getting food to somebody or making sure that somebody has a roof if they need one or whatever that is. And we need to encourage those types of relationships, and we need to encourage those kinds of people on our teams.

00;18;05;12 - 00;18;09;14
Marisa Eikenberry
I would also encourage having a back that is one of those two.

00;18;09;16 - 00;18;11;03
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And the backup, one.

00;18;11;03 - 00;18;21;00
Marisa Eikenberry
Of those, I mean, legitimately, because we had that happen where our connector had an issue and we all had a moment of, oh crap, who is it now? We figured it out, but still.

00;18;21;03 - 00;18;38;25
Wayne Turmel
And figured it out pretty quickly because we wanted to we cared. We care about our teammates. We care about all the people that we work with, and employers are shocked at how much we care about them. Right? They really are. How?

00;18;38;27 - 00;19;02;00
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, Wayne, thank you so much for this. And listeners, if any of you or family members, relatives, friends are affected by the most recent hurricane, our thoughts and prayers are with you. But before we go, I do want to let you know that the second edition of The Long Distance Leader is now available. This updated guide is perfect for navigating today's remote and hybrid work environments with new principles and proven strategies.

00;19;02;04 - 00;19;27;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Kevin, I can Mary Wayne Trammell show you how to lead effectively no matter where your team is located. Don't miss out on the latest insights and exercises designed to boost productivity and morale. Order your copy now! At Long Day's Work life.com/ldl and strengthen your leadership skills today. Thank you for listening to the Long Distance Worklife. For Shownotes transcripts and other resources, make sure to visit Longest Work life.com.

00;19;27;10 - 00;19;47;17
Marisa Eikenberry
And if you haven't yet, subscribe to the show so you don't miss any future episodes. And if you're on Apple or Spotify, please give us a rating or review. This helps us know what you love about our show and reach more listeners just like you. Feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes, and let us know you listen to this episode, or even suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode.

00;19;47;22 - 00;19;53;14
Marisa Eikenberry
We would love to hear from you. Thank you for joining us. And as Wayne likes to say, don't let the weeds get you down. Hey.


Timestamps

00:00 Introduction: Why Disaster Preparedness Matters
02:01 The High Cost of Delayed Evacuation
04:07 Ensuring Data Accessibility for Remote Teams
08:33 Building a Team Directory and Backup Contacts
12:00 Offering Employees Grace During Crises
15:00 Trust in Remote Employees During Disasters
19:02 Wrap-Up: The Importance of Proactive Disaster Planning

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Read More
Guests, Technology

Why Virtual Reality Could Be the Key to Remote Team Engagement with Dan O’Connell

Wayne Turmel sits down with Dan O'Connell, co-founder of BrandLab360, to explore the innovative world of virtual workplaces and how they are reshaping remote work. Dan shares insights into their platform, Virtual HQ, and how it allows teams to collaborate in immersive, 3D environments without the need for VR headsets. They discuss the evolution of remote work tools, the advantages of avatar-based interactions, and the gamification of work to keep employees engaged. Wayne and Dan also dive into the psychological benefits of these virtual spaces and how they compare to traditional video calls like Zoom and Teams.

Key Takeaways

  • How BrandLab360 evolved from fashion showrooms to virtual workspaces.
  • The unique features of Virtual HQ and why it stands out from other remote tools.
  • The psychological and social advantages of using avatars in remote meetings.
  • Why companies should consider gamification in remote work environments.
  • The potential future of hybrid work in the metaverse.

Timestamps

0:00 Introduction to Dan O'Connell and Virtual HQ
2:00 How Virtual HQ is Different from Zoom and Teams
4:45 The Importance of Human Relationships in Virtual Spaces
7:30 Gamification and Fun in Remote Work
10:30 Why Avatar-Based Meetings are More Engaging
14:00 Overcoming Tech Barriers for Virtual Workspaces
17:00 Features to Look for in a Virtual Office Platform
20:00 Closing Thoughts and Where to Learn More

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Leader

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

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

Revolutionizing Remote Onboarding with AI: Insights and Innovations

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

Key Takeaways

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

View Full Transcript

00;00;08;02 - 00;00;20;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to Long Distance Worklife, where we help you lead, work and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I'm Marisa Eikenberry, fellow remote worker. And joining me is remote work expert and my co-host, Wayne Turmel. Hi, Wayne.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

00;18;24;14 - 00;18;52;27
Wayne Turmel
And and so we need to be really, really leery of that. That's kind of where I'm so. So that was it. We asked, hey, give us five ways I can assist in onboarding. And with all the caveats that we have mentioned. And they are not to be underestimated. Right. There's five ways they can help. Four of the five I don't disagree with.

00;18;52;29 - 00;19;06;21
Wayne Turmel
I think they need to be done thoughtfully. They need to be done intentionally. All of that good stuff. The engagement piece, I don't know, but what else is I going to say?

00;19;06;24 - 00;19;08;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Exactly. Well, and we.

00;19;08;25 - 00;19;17;29
Wayne Turmel
Asked the I. Yeah. It's like if you come to me and say, you know, what do you do with this? I'm going to say, well, let me help you here.

00;19;17;29 - 00;19;18;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;19;18;12 - 00;19;34;17
Wayne Turmel
And who doesn't want Wayne helping them for corn sake? Well, oh, how how. Okay, here's here's something I doesn't do. It's. I don't get snarky. It doesn't do sarcasm worth a darn.

00;19;34;20 - 00;20;00;07
Marisa Eikenberry
I was like, I can't get snarky. It depends on how you run the Gpt3. But but listeners, if you've worked with any sort of onboarding things with AI or if you've seen it in your company or stuff, please let us know, because we would love to hear from you on that. And Wayne, thank you so much for this conversation, and thank you for putting this into copilot, because my default is ChatGPT.

00;20;00;09 - 00;20;21;17
Marisa Eikenberry
so but this was a really great conversation. I'm really excited to continue talking more about AI and how it can help with remote work. And listeners, thank you so much for listening to Long-Distance Work Life. For show notes, transcripts, and other resources. Make sure to visit Long Distance Work life.com. If you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss any future episodes while you're there.

00;20;21;19 - 00;20;36;22
Marisa Eikenberry
Be sure to like and review! This helps us know what you love about our show. Feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes, and let us know that you listen to this episode, or suggest another episode or another topic for Wayne and I to tackle in another episode.

00;20;36;25 - 00;20;47;03
Wayne Turmel
And for the record, we like nonviolent, respectful, counter opinions. Don't be afraid to, tell us where you think we're wrong.

00;20;47;06 - 00;21;10;06
Marisa Eikenberry
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Because we would love to do an episode about that. And in some cases, we may try to change your mind. We'll see. But if you want to know more about how to work with and manage remote teams, please check out the Long Distance Leadership Series, which you can learn more about at Kevin eikenberry.com/l d l s thank you for joining us.

00;21;10;06 - 00;21;17;26
Marisa Eikenberry
And as Wayne likes to say, don't let the seasons get you down. Hey.

00;21;17;28 - 00;21;18;05
Marisa Eikenberry
You.


Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
00:45 AI in Onboarding Overview
01:26 Challenges in Remote Onboarding
03:14 Advantages of Microsoft Copilot
04:31 AI for Time Efficiency
09:00 Personalization with AI
11:12 24/7 Support Through Chatbots
13:22 Data-Driven Insights
16:00 Enhancing Engagement with AI
19:08 Final Thoughts and Listener Feedback

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Long-Distance Leadership Series

If you want to dive deeper into the strategies and tools for effectively managing remote teams, check out the Long-Distance Leadership Series by The Kevin Eikenberry Group. This comprehensive series offers valuable insights and practical advice on leading remote and hybrid teams with confidence and success. From mastering virtual communication to fostering team engagement, the Long-Distance Leadership Series has everything you need to become a more effective remote leader. Start transforming your remote leadership skills today!

 Learn More
Read More
Hybrid Work, Technology, Working Remotely

Press Start on SoWork: How Gamers are Influencing the Future of Remote Work

Marisa dives into the virtual office platform SoWork, designed for immersive remote work experiences. With a mix of humor and insightful observations, Wayne and Marisa discuss the generational divides in adopting such technology and explore its unique features, from customizable avatars to proximity chats that mimic walking by someone's desk. Tune in to hear Marisa’s firsthand experiences, including decorating virtual offices for birthdays and the practical uses of these virtual spaces in remote work settings.

Key Takeaways

1. Experiment with Virtual Spaces: Consider how platforms like SoWork can enhance team interaction and cultural connection in your remote or hybrid teams.
2. Embrace Customization: Use customization features to make virtual offices more personal and engaging for team members.
3. Explore Hybrid Work Tools: For those managing hybrid teams, explore tools that bridge the gap between physical and virtual presence to maintain team cohesion.
4. Celebrate Virtually: Look for creative ways to celebrate team milestones and personal events to foster a sense of community and belonging, even remotely.

View Full Transcript

00;00;08;02 - 00;00;18;28
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 remote work expert, my co-host, Wayne Turmel. Hi.

00;00;19;00 - 00;00;20;19
Wayne Turmel
Hello, Marisa. How are you?

00;00;20;21 - 00;00;22;07
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm great. How are you.

00;00;22;09 - 00;00;25;11
Wayne Turmel
Feeling? My mortality.

00;00;25;14 - 00;00;28;10
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, that should be great.

00;00;28;13 - 00;00;51;18
Wayne Turmel
Generally, I generally think of myself as, you know, open to the world and still open to new experiences. And there are days when I realize that I am a grumpy old white guy who has been far more institutionalized in the traditional workplace than I thought I was.

00;00;51;20 - 00;00;54;09
Marisa Eikenberry
And then you've got me. I'm an old soul, so.

00;00;54;11 - 00;01;26;24
Wayne Turmel
Well, yes. And you still walk around in that 32 year old body interacting with 32 year olds, doing 32 year old things and the reason for this venting, dear listener, is we have been having conversations offline about some of the different meeting platforms out there. And I don't care if you zoom routines or WebEx or Joe's virtual meeting, I or whatever you use, I don't care.

00;01;26;26 - 00;02;00;28
Wayne Turmel
But there is a trend to more of a virtual reality video game style, and it makes me break out in a rash. And I have been told I am wrong and wrong necessarily. I am firmly prepared to believe that it is generational right. This is just one of those things. I don't play video games unless you count Frogger on a, you know, bar tabletop, I guess.

00;02;00;28 - 00;02;24;24
Wayne Turmel
Right. But that was like the last cool game that I played. So Marisa has actually tested out a number of these platforms. And we're going to talk about what they bring to the table, what she likes, what she doesn't like. And she's going to try to convince me at least somewhat that the dark side is not completely dark.

00;02;24;26 - 00;02;40;18
Wayne Turmel
So we're going to talk about the gamification, the virtual reality kind of approach to some of these meetings and are they going to make a difference in how we do our work. So, Marisa, why don't you start with what have you been up to?

00;02;40;20 - 00;03;14;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, So we actually got an email from somebody about a program called SoWork, and I looked into it because I think the tagline on the for the subject line was something about, you know, start your work guild here or something. I'm like, That's gamer language. Like, I need to open up this email, right? So I was checking it out because basically that whole idea so work is that it was built by gamers to have a virtual office and to be able to intermingle in all the good office stuff remotely.

00;03;14;29 - 00;03;23;24
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm a gamer myself, so I reached out to you and I was like, Pick me, choose me. I volunteer as a tribute. Let me test this out.

00;03;23;27 - 00;03;34;13
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. As opposed to me who? And I would rather poke a red hot iron in my eye than do this. So bless your heart for. For doing.

00;03;34;18 - 00;03;47;00
Marisa Eikenberry
And with that, too, like, as I was, you know, having this moment of, okay, I really want to test this out. It was also an instant art will not test this with me. I need to go find other people who will. And that's okay.

00;03;47;01 - 00;03;49;14
Wayne Turmel
You need to go find your tribe. Go in, do.

00;03;49;16 - 00;04;14;03
Marisa Eikenberry
And that's okay. So I volunteer with a the world's first online church for gamers. Yes, that is a phrase I just said. But anyway, I knew that these are people who they're online all the time. Gaming is their thing. Like they're more likely to test this with me. So I posted it in the media team that I volunteer with, and I was like, Hey, I'm testing this out for work.

00;04;14;03 - 00;04;21;06
Marisa Eikenberry
You guys are under no obligation to check this out, but it would be really cool if you did. And they loved it.

00;04;21;08 - 00;04;22;10
Wayne Turmel
Of course they did.

00;04;22;17 - 00;04;30;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Loved it. At first they were just testing out some stuff that I was, you know, testing in a test server. How many times they tested. Okay.

00;04;30;19 - 00;04;38;03
Wayne Turmel
Now, first of all, my first thought is, of course, they loved it. These are people who can't be bothered to get out of their pajamas to go worship.

00;04;38;04 - 00;05;03;17
Marisa Eikenberry
That's a whole different We are meeting the people where they are. But that is that is a different discussion. But, you know, and the people that that I was testing with, you know, there are people that we were on a team together. We're volunteering together. We work together all the time. So I started testing it with them. The director of media team was like, This is awesome, shared it with staff, and now the church created a server.

00;05;03;19 - 00;05;12;10
Marisa Eikenberry
We're still testing out how it works, but it's pretty much staff and media team and we've had a blast with it. It's just it's been incredible.

00;05;12;14 - 00;05;23;02
Wayne Turmel
Okay, now for those of you watching, Marisa will have screenshots and things. The rest of you just have to play along. Use radio of the mind.

00;05;23;05 - 00;05;24;09
Marisa Eikenberry
Or check out the YouTube video.

00;05;24;14 - 00;05;42;28
Wayne Turmel
Or check out the bay and we will have links to all of the stuff in the show notes. So, okay, so you're creating a guild, you're doing a meeting. What does that start with? What it looks like? Yeah. And then talk to me about the impact and how it actually works.

00;05;43;01 - 00;06;05;28
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. So they have a couple different maps, I guess you could say to start out with. But we actually created one from scratch. But it looks like an office building and it's very top down kind of look. And so you can make a room over here and this is the kitchen and this is your office and these are cubicles over here, and this is a meeting space and a co-working space.

00;06;05;28 - 00;06;28;03
Marisa Eikenberry
And you can kind of make whatever you want, but it does look a lot like an office. If you had no ceiling on it. And you're looking right and everybody has a little avatar that you can customize, you know, hair outfit, whatever, change it as much as you want to. And and you walk around.

00;06;28;06 - 00;06;38;02
Wayne Turmel
Yeah I, I avatars freak me out in general. I'm not sure I'm ready to have a performance evaluation with an art book.

00;06;38;04 - 00;07;07;11
Marisa Eikenberry
Thankfully, they're not like that. All of them are human. I mean, you can, you know, change your hair color to be something different or whatever. You can have different types of costumes, and some of those are premium features. And so we were just on a free server. But yeah, I mean, you can, you know, throw a guitar on your back, throw, you know, I think they have like swords, so you can't get a little goofy with that.

00;07;07;13 - 00;07;10;01
Marisa Eikenberry
But no, no orcs this time.

00;07;10;03 - 00;07;14;29
Wayne Turmel
Okay, So at least we're talking human to human contact. Well.

00;07;15;02 - 00;07;35;28
Marisa Eikenberry
But it's interesting that you say that, though, because from my understanding, the people who created this part of the whole thing was that they had a team. I think they were Harvard creating like a business and 2020 happened. So suddenly their team became remote and they couldn't figure out how to get this culture piece and this connection piece to happen.

00;07;35;28 - 00;07;59;00
Marisa Eikenberry
And they were like, okay, we we play World of Warcraft. We know that this is possible to do online and it's in that piece is something I've been saying on LinkedIn for a long time for people who follow me there. But you know, gamers know how to connect online with people that they've never met. And so they were trying to figure out how how do we bring that into the remote work space?

00;07;59;00 - 00;08;14;29
Marisa Eikenberry
And so work was born. I'm pretty sure that it launched the public last year. So there's still a lot of beta stuff that's happening. There's still some glitchy stuff that's happening occasionally, too, and they're changing stuff all the time. Even in the months that I've been testing it, they've had so many different updates.

00;08;15;02 - 00;08;22;22
Wayne Turmel
This is voice to voice. So when you and I are having a meeting, our avatars are sitting in chairs, but we're talking.

00;08;22;24 - 00;08;38;16
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes. And you can't have cameras up. So you still can have a webcam up and be talking and you can actually like click a button and like not see any of the office space. If you didn't watch it, you just really wanted to focus on the meeting and then it would look like it looks like right now to us, you can't do that.

00;08;38;16 - 00;08;55;04
Marisa Eikenberry
But yes, you're correct. Like, you know, you go sit in chairs in the meeting room or they have proximity chat so people can actually like walk by your office. And as long as they're close to you and you don't have your do not disturb on, it'll automatically connect and start a conversation.

00;08;55;06 - 00;09;29;17
Wayne Turmel
Now, that's interesting to me because one of the big complaints about remote work or hybrid work is and I just had a flash on how this applies to hybrid work, but you don't have the incidental somebody walking by your desk and your brain goes, I need to talk to them. What you're telling me is this is running in the background all the time and you get some form of alert that says Marisa is walking past your office or Marisa is around and you go, Do I need to talk to Marisa?

00;09;29;17 - 00;09;33;05
Wayne Turmel
No, I can continue to ignore her or. Yeah, right.

00;09;33;08 - 00;09;54;27
Marisa Eikenberry
So physical, different ways that it can happen. So like, I have it minimized right now, like I'm in do not disturb mode because obviously we're podcasting, but if somebody walked by my desk and, like, got close enough to me to actually trigger that proximity chat, I actually get like a window that pops up in front of me that says, you know, somebody, whoever their name is, is connecting to you.

00;09;55;00 - 00;10;04;21
Marisa Eikenberry
And so that way I know to go back into that platform and I can actually see what's going on. But I mean, it is a very automatic connection.

00;10;04;23 - 00;10;26;25
Wayne Turmel
But where I had the flash about hybrid work is the big thing is we're out of sight, out of mind for each other. Right? Like, if I'm in the office today and you're not, I look around and I'm generally talking to the people. And if I have a question, I go to the people in the office and go, Hey, before I start typing and chatting and Marisa's around.

00;10;26;28 - 00;10;47;10
Wayne Turmel
Theoretically, if this is running in the background while a team's working, you can still get the proximity notices and you can still see that so-and-so is working and available even if they're not in your physical space. Right? That is kind of intriguing, I guess.

00;10;47;13 - 00;11;06;12
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, because since you could see the whole office at once. So they have like a WhatsApp opening menu basically. So you can see who's all online. If they have a status up, you can see what that status is. There is a chat feature. So right now it's kind of like Slack. They're about to update it. I haven't seen what the update looks like yet.

00;11;06;12 - 00;11;22;19
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm very excited to see that. So you can say like a message notification or something if you needed to that way, but you could see who's online and if you zoom out, you could actually see where they are in the map. So you could just like go over to them if you needed to get a hold of them or something.

00;11;22;26 - 00;11;48;18
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, I, I get that. I mean, I get how that can work. And by the way, we're talking specifically about SoWork. There are a number of other similar platforms out there, Remo and some others that. So we're not advocating for one versus the other, but we will have links to a couple of these things so that if you're listening to this and you're intrigued, you can certainly check it out.

00;11;48;24 - 00;11;55;00
Wayne Turmel
So why does this whole idea creep me out?

00;11;55;02 - 00;11;58;03
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, that might be a whole separate discussion.

00;11;58;06 - 00;12;26;11
Wayne Turmel
Well, no, it's a very simple discussion, which is, as a 62 year old man, even one who is reasonably technology savvy. I don't interact a lot. I mean, Alexa sits beside us in the TV room, and the main function that Alexa serves for us is Alexa. How tall is Tom Cruise? And we get the answer and I say, Thank you, Alexa.

00;12;26;14 - 00;12;28;15
Wayne Turmel
And that's the end of that, right?

00;12;28;22 - 00;12;30;00
Marisa Eikenberry
Meanwhile, I have a staff.

00;12;30;07 - 00;12;48;18
Wayne Turmel
Of homes and lives. Yeah, right, exactly. And you know, the movie Demon Seed came out in 1975, and people with smart houses should see it before you get smug, is all I'm saying. And I was young enough to see it and be scarred by it.

00;12;48;20 - 00;12;53;09
Marisa Eikenberry
My mom was four, so.

00;12;53;11 - 00;12;58;10
Wayne Turmel
And this has been a blessing. Makes the last episode so much.

00;12;58;10 - 00;13;04;00
Marisa Eikenberry
My last episode. You don't know what my name is, what I.

00;13;04;02 - 00;13;47;09
Wayne Turmel
But all of this silliness and you know, there is while there is an element of fun to this, which is part of the point, right, is to add some fun and lessen the formality for all of this. But for people of a certain age, our relationship with technology and our willingness to interact using technology, to me, I can get on Zoom and I can talk to you and I can see you and I can talk to you if I need to push three buttons to get your avatar to show up and I'm still not talking to you, that seems like more work than the benefit is worth.

00;13;47;16 - 00;13;52;22
Marisa Eikenberry
It's actually pretty easy. I mean, I'm not going to like, sit here and be like, This is forever.

00;13;52;23 - 00;13;55;00
Wayne Turmel
No, no, no. I know you're not selling for anybody.

00;13;55;00 - 00;13;57;13
Marisa Eikenberry
But yeah, because. Because you are trying to talk.

00;13;57;14 - 00;13;58;21
Wayne Turmel
This man off the ledge.

00;13;58;27 - 00;14;16;24
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, because I don't think that this is good for every team. I really don't. I do think there's a certain level of some of it's generational. Some of it's just what you interact with normally. You know, if you're somebody who's a little bit more perpetually online, you're probably going to enjoy this a little bit more like that kind of thing.

00;14;16;27 - 00;14;37;08
Marisa Eikenberry
For the most part, getting on a video call or an audio call. With this platform, it's it's really easy. Not only can you just walk up to somebody and it starts something instantly, but you can also, you know, let's say I scheduled a meeting with you and I'm like, okay, you know, Wayne, we're going to have a meeting at 1 p.m., You know, we'll meet in the meeting room.

00;14;37;11 - 00;14;47;06
Marisa Eikenberry
All you have to do is walk your avatar over it in the meeting room, and the second you cross the threshold into that room, it automatically starts the meeting. You have to click nothing.

00;14;47;08 - 00;15;09;16
Wayne Turmel
You know, it's so funny because I am listening to you and my brain is processing the information and the idea of the proximity alert, Right? Marisa's walking by my desk. I'm thinking that's really intrusive and annoying. But then I think about being in the office and having Marisa walk by my desk and I go, That's really intrusive and annoying.

00;15;09;23 - 00;15;10;05
Wayne Turmel
Yeah.

00;15;10;07 - 00;15;15;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, and you have to be pretty close for that to trigger, right? Because I know that when they have to.

00;15;15;08 - 00;15;16;05
Wayne Turmel
Want to be there.

00;15;16;11 - 00;15;37;09
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Because like we were the media team, like we were trying to figure out our desks and stuff and like, you can, you can add a bunch of furniture and you can add your computer and they have like gamer looking computers in there. And so as we were putting notes in, I know I tested with a friend of mine that's also in that team to be like, Hey, you sit down and I'm going to sit down and make sure that we don't trigger the proximity chat.

00;15;37;09 - 00;15;49;23
Marisa Eikenberry
Otherwise we may have to change where our computer sit. And thankfully it worked out the fine. But yeah, you have to be pretty close for that trigger. So it's not quite just, they walked right by your door. It's they're in your office.

00;15;49;26 - 00;15;51;04
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, they're in your space.

00;15;51;04 - 00;15;52;16
Marisa Eikenberry
Intentionally correct.

00;15;52;18 - 00;16;07;09
Wayne Turmel
Well, this is fascinating. And for those of you who are listening, I imagine some of you are horrified and appalled. And if so, your AARP card is in the mail for it.

00;16;07;11 - 00;16;27;22
Marisa Eikenberry
Can I get you one thing before we start to wrap up, though, that I think was really cool. And we talk about this concept all the time about when you're when you're remote, there's no cake in the breakroom. That's not a thing anymore. It's not cake. But one of the things cell work also allows you to do, and I'm sure some of these other platforms do as well.

00;16;27;24 - 00;16;36;10
Marisa Eikenberry
This is just the one that I've tested the most, is you can decorate somebody's office for their birthday or whatever. So I had to.

00;16;36;16 - 00;16;38;02
Wayne Turmel
Tell us the story. This is great.

00;16;38;07 - 00;16;58;28
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. So I had a birthday a couple weeks ago and I walked into the office and went over to my cubicle and I'm going to show a picture of it here on the screen. But I had balloons and cake and stuff everywhere, and I thought it was great, you know? I mean, I was able to move some stuff around and still get to my desk and I thought it was so cool.

00;16;58;28 - 00;17;31;05
Marisa Eikenberry
I kept it the whole day. And then we actually had another media team member that their birthday was the following day. So I basically moved everything in my office over to there the next day. And even while that was happening, like there was another person who they were on vacation. So we threw like a hammock and a sandcastle and a palm tree in their office because we just thought it was funny, but it was this other way of like showing culture and showing that you care about somebody else without necessarily hopping on a meeting or sending a message or, you know, taking up this extra time.

00;17;31;08 - 00;17;36;17
Marisa Eikenberry
But I saw that and felt so special and it probably took them 5 minutes to do.

00;17;36;20 - 00;17;42;15
Wayne Turmel
And they also just pulled a prank that backfired on them because you thought it was hysterical.

00;17;42;15 - 00;18;04;23
Marisa Eikenberry
That is true. And when we were first testing staff way before my birthday even happened, I walked into my testing office and had pumpkins everywhere. And apparently I was supposed to be annoyed by this. I thought it was so great. I took a screenshot and showed it as a LinkedIn lesson. No culture in a virtual space. Yeah. So.

00;18;04;25 - 00;18;06;07
Marisa Eikenberry


00;18;06;09 - 00;18;36;22
Wayne Turmel
Which is great if you live in a medieval farming village where swapping gourds is a symbol of affection. Anyway, we will have links to demos and stuff. We will have links to screenshots. Those of you watching on video will see the finished product with the screenshots built in. I am slightly less horrified than I was going in. I dare I say almost intrigued.

00;18;36;24 - 00;18;41;13
Marisa Eikenberry
But thank you. Let me know. I'll get on a meeting. I'll. I'll walk you around the office.

00;18;41;15 - 00;18;45;29
Wayne Turmel
Thank you for sharing that, Marisa. I really appreciate that.

00;18;46;01 - 00;18;47;08
Marisa Eikenberry
My taking it away.

00;18;47;11 - 00;18;48;24
Wayne Turmel
You're taking it home, lady.

00;18;48;24 - 00;18;50;28
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm okay.

00;18;51;00 - 00;18;54;01
Wayne Turmel
I'm old. I'm tired.

00;18;54;03 - 00;19;19;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Fair. Meanwhile, I'm parked in my virtual office. so while we don't talk about virtual offices in this way, we do talk a lot about remote work and how to work remotely well. And we do that with our Long Distance Leadership series, which you can learn more about at Kevin Eikenberry dot com forward slash LDLS. And thank you so much for listening to the long distance work life for shownotes transcripts and other resources.

00;19;19;09 - 00;19;39;11
Marisa Eikenberry
Make sure to visit long distance work dot com if you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss any future episodes while you're there. Be sure to like and review. This helps us know what you love about our show and feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes. Let us know you listen to this episode or suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode.

00;19;39;14 - 00;19;44;16
Marisa Eikenberry
And if you have more things like this for me to test, let me know. Thank you for joining us.

00;19;44;23 - 00;19;46;25
Wayne Turmel
Guinea pig at the Kevin Eikenberry Group.

00;19;47;02 - 00;19;58;03
Marisa Eikenberry
I mean, I am nothing if not an eager beaver like I. But thank you so much, listeners, for joining us. And as we like to say, don't let the weasels get you down.


Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
02:40 Exploring SoWork
06:05 Customization and Interaction
09:29 Hybrid Work Integration
16:07 Cultural Touches and Virtual Celebrations
18:36 Conclusion

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

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

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Read More
Guests, Surviving Remote Work, Technology, Working Remotely

Weasel-Proofing Your Work: Navigating Digital Transformation in a Remote World with Jay Goldman

Wayne Turmel dives into the intricacies of digital transformation in remote and hybrid work environments. Joined by Jay Goldman from Sensei Labs, co-author of "The Decoded Company," they explore how companies can embrace change, optimize operational excellence, and tackle the challenges of digital adoption. Listen in for an enlightening conversation about leveraging technology, managing change, and enhancing team collaboration in a virtual workspace.

Key Takeaways

1. Embrace a mindset of constant transformation: Understand that digital transformation is not a one-time project but an ongoing process.
2. Develop digital proprioception: Familiarize yourself with new tools and data to navigate digital environments more effectively.
3. Start small with transformation initiatives: Focus on achievable goals within your team before tackling larger-scale transformations.

View Full Transcript

00;00;07;26 - 00;00;36;19
Wayne Turmel
Hello, everybody. Greetings. Welcome once again to the Long Distance Work Life podcast, where we try to help you thrive, survive, generally make sense, and keep the weasels at bay in this crazy world of remote and hybrid work. My name is Wayne Turmel. I am very excited to be with you. Marisa is not here, alas. But don't go away, because we have a really, really excellent, very smart guest.

00;00;36;19 - 00;00;59;24
Wayne Turmel
And we're going to be talking about digital tram transformation inside companies and what that means and why you care as remote or hybrid worker. And so to do all that I bring into the room, Jay Goldman Jay's with Sensei Labs up in Toronto and he is the coauthor of The Decoded Company. Jay. How are you?

00;00;59;26 - 00;01;01;21
Jay Goldman
I'm great. How are you in?

00;01;01;24 - 00;01;07;26
Wayne Turmel
I I'm not claiming greatness, but I am just dandy. Thank you so much.

00;01;08;03 - 00;01;08;24
Jay Goldman
No weasels.

00;01;08;26 - 00;01;20;02
Wayne Turmel
You know, the weasels are firmly at bay today. So full question for you, man. The decoded company. Let's start there. What the heck are we talking about?

00;01;20;04 - 00;01;45;19
Jay Goldman
Code A company is a book that I wrote with three coauthors. It is almost at its 10th anniversary, which is a pretty amazing thing. It was our attempt to answer some questions both about what we were building at Click Health at the time, which is now in while it was founded in 1997. So, you know, it's quite a mature business at this point and has grown significantly.

00;01;45;19 - 00;02;06;02
Jay Goldman
Ten offices around the world, 1500 plus people, a few hundred million a year in revenue. So it's grown to be a pretty sizable business. And cricket click is really a pretty amazing growth engine. It has, for most of its history, sustained 30 to 40% year over year growth, and that is harder and harder thing to do as the numbers get bigger.

00;02;06;04 - 00;02;24;06
Jay Goldman
And so we would get asked a lot about how were we able to continue to sustain that kind of growth. It's pretty easy when you're a small company. It's much harder as you scale. And so we wanted to tell the story of how we were doing that, using a combination of technology and data to build a talent centric workplace.

00;02;24;08 - 00;02;51;08
Jay Goldman
And so we set out to tell that story. The book was written by myself, Lior Segal and Aaron Goldstein, who are two of clicks co-founders and a friend of mine. Roth Our Fish Roth is a world renowned expert on digital anthropology and on understanding how people use tools. At the time, she was working with the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, understanding the way that organizations were approaching digital tools.

00;02;51;08 - 00;03;02;03
Jay Goldman
And so she joined us to write the book and do a lot of research into companies other than click and how they had similar adventures with data and with talent.

00;03;02;06 - 00;03;33;05
Wayne Turmel
Now, so you I'm I'm going to stop there because you said something that is worth noting and this is where data and process and all this stuff come together. Right? A lot of organizations gather data or think they gather data. A lot of people, myself included, worry less about artificial intelligence and more about natural stupidity because all this data comes in contact with human beings at some point.

00;03;33;05 - 00;03;35;07
Wayne Turmel
And that's where things get messy, right?

00;03;35;09 - 00;04;06;19
Jay Goldman
Absolutely. And in in ways that we're not very good at predicting. And that's part of the problem. So with all kinds of mental biases, we might look at a training set of data and say, this seems like a complete set of data to me, and then train some AI on how to make use of that data and not identify the gaps in the training set that are now going to lead to carrying that same bias forward into the AI, which can have very serious consequences.

00;04;06;22 - 00;04;28;03
Jay Goldman
We are past the point here of AI might not generate the right image and into air, might not make the right funding decision on someone's mortgage application or make the right treatment decision in a health care context. Because the training set of data was incomplete in a way that the people who trained it didn't notice was missing from that data.

00;04;28;05 - 00;04;31;25
Jay Goldman
So we're getting into the potential for some scary situations.

00;04;31;27 - 00;04;57;09
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, and whether it's AI or data, the point is that what is going to make remote work work is people need access to information and they need access to the ability to make decisions and they need to be able to communicate with each other. Having the same baseline reality. And this is where I really want to talk to you about how organizations do this or not.

00;04;57;09 - 00;05;08;08
Wayne Turmel
This idea of digital transformation, taking what's been walking around in people's heads and kind of soaked into the paint of the office and turning it into something usable?

00;05;08;10 - 00;05;34;27
Jay Goldman
Yeah, Digital transformation is an interesting term because before the pandemic it was emerging well, emerging as a term, but in a lot of cases was not transformation. It was more so that I.T. departments and and PMOS had kind of figured out if I had a project that I've been trying to get funding for for a long time and I couldn't get funding for it, if I call it a transformation, I can get funding now.

00;05;35;00 - 00;05;58;24
Jay Goldman
And so that's not really transformative, could be digital. So in some cases that was things like we really need to migrate to a new ERP version and no one will fund this project, but if I call it a transformation, we'll get funding and now we can migrate to the new ERP version. And there's nothing transformative about that. And it was often viewed as sort of one time fixed duration project.

00;05;58;24 - 00;06;20;07
Jay Goldman
So we're going to start our ERP migration or whatever it is. It's going to take us ideally a year, probably two or three years, and then we'll be done. And then our transformation is finished and we take issue with that idea. That transformation is a one time project because you will potentially be transformed on the other side if it's a real transformation.

00;06;20;09 - 00;06;47;08
Jay Goldman
But if that project really does take you three years, everything around you will have changed as well. And so the real goal here ultimately and the term that is starting to emerge more often is operational excellence, which is we are going to go from a state of transformation to a state of constant transformation where we acknowledge that really to to execute operationally at the highest standard of excellence.

00;06;47;10 - 00;07;06;23
Jay Goldman
We have to be in that sort of constant transformation state in a kind of change is the only constant mentality and in a posture of agility that allows us to continuously take in those new market conditions, those new signals, those new other things, and be able to adapt to them and make those changes.

00;07;06;28 - 00;07;33;02
Wayne Turmel
So take me back a little bit. What is it that we're transforming? I mean, we have offices, we have people in them, we have remote employees. They're out there doing stuff. What are we transforming before we get to what we're forming? Do what is it that needs to be transformed in order for this new kind of work to take place and be excellent and all of those things?

00;07;33;06 - 00;07;55;09
Jay Goldman
The word transformation gets thrown around a lot to mean different kinds of programs. So let's first start off with what are we not talking about in this context of sort of work life? So we're not talking about a transformation at a cost transformation level. So this isn't an exercise in reducing cost of production or cost of goods delivered.

00;07;55;12 - 00;08;24;13
Jay Goldman
So we're not talking about sort of the procurement finance transformation piece here, a very valid type of transformation, but less sort of the topic at hand here. We also work with our customers and our partners on lots of transformative programs that are sort of large business processes that have happened, something like a post-merger integration on a M&A transaction is a good example of a very transformative program, but not the kind of transformation that we're talking about here.

00;08;24;16 - 00;08;47;21
Jay Goldman
Digital transformation, maybe this sort of shift. Often it is internal. So if we think about what really happened during the pandemic from a way we work perspective, we created forcing functions that we all collectively had no choice about at all. Everyone had to go home and work from home. And so it forced us to make probably a decade of technology adoption in a six month period.

00;08;47;21 - 00;09;09;22
Jay Goldman
We had no choice. We had to now all work from home and we had to figure out ways to do it. We saw new platforms emerge. We saw new ways of working emerge, and we saw rapid adoption because there was no option, which is kind of a forced digital transformation in a way. So that I would say very much in that sort of long distance work life balance question fits into that scope of that sort of transformation.

00;09;09;23 - 00;09;23;01
Jay Goldman
I had the opportunity to speak at an event about a week ago and we were talking about the four day workweek, which is something that we've adopted at Sun Labs, which is a very interesting topic. It's kind of a separate topic of happy to get into it if you'd like.

00;09;23;08 - 00;09;29;01
Wayne Turmel
But no, not a rabbit hole. We're going to go down a deep, very deep and very full of rabbits.

00;09;29;01 - 00;09;54;24
Jay Goldman
It is very happy rabbits, though, as it turns out. So and no weasels at all. So happy to talk about that at some point. But our our session at this event was about 40 week. But the broader event was all about the changing world of work and hybrid and remote and how we're adapting to those things. And the most consistent message from all of the speakers who were there was we all go to a tool mentality when this topic comes up.

00;09;54;27 - 00;10;19;05
Jay Goldman
So we start thinking about digital transformation. How do we enable our hybrid work teams to connect with each other, to collaborate, share files, video meetings, that kind of thing. And the reality is 80 to 90% of this is a change management question. It's not a tool question. The problem is the change management part is hard. It's the soft, squishy bits that relate to humans and emotion and fear of change.

00;10;19;08 - 00;10;41;04
Jay Goldman
And because it's those parts, we tend towards turning this into a tool conversation because it's much easier to make a tool based decision. Should we deploy teams or use Zoom or should we collaborate on SharePoint or Google Drive or whatever tooling decision we're making in there, Those feel more manageable, easier to assess. There's good vendor reviews out there.

00;10;41;08 - 00;10;58;21
Jay Goldman
You can make up very pragmatic buying decision about those things, but if you don't think about the change management impact when you deploy them, you're going to result in no adoption and a very turbulent time for your team members. Really, 80 to 90% of that effort should be in the change management impact.

00;10;58;24 - 00;11;15;00
Wayne Turmel
As a CEO, I want to run a theory by you right, because you're both in the space and you go to work every day leading your company. I have this theory that once you get past a certain basic set of tools, it really doesn't matter which one you use.

00;11;15;03 - 00;11;16;07
Jay Goldman
Well, I think that you're.

00;11;16;07 - 00;11;27;01
Wayne Turmel
Either going but use it, use it correctly, you know, have the right mindset and use it, or you're not. And if you're not, it doesn't matter which one you have.

00;11;27;03 - 00;12;00;16
Jay Goldman
Right? This has always been true for almost any form of tooling that exists. I think back to this sort of world of productivity. And it's so easy to fall into this trap of if I just figure out the right personal productivity system, I will unlock this state of bliss in which I am eternally productive. And the truth is, you will spend a good third of your time looking at productivity systems or not being productive, because the truth is it doesn't matter.

00;12;00;17 - 00;12;22;12
Jay Goldman
You find the one that works the best for you, whatever that thing is, whether it's GTD or whether it's, you know, some other system. And as long as you stick with the system, you'll get the output from it. It really the tool itself doesn't actually matter. And so that's absolutely true here from how we think about enabling remote work and hybrid work, there is a basic set of tools.

00;12;22;14 - 00;12;43;14
Jay Goldman
Some percentage of your organization will become power users of those tools. The vast majority of the people who work in your organization will not they are just not minded in that direction in terms of figuring out all of the intricate details of how something works and how to get the best value out of it, and they will probably use it wrong.

00;12;43;20 - 00;13;04;13
Jay Goldman
And that's just the reality of deploying tools. We find we're a microsoft based organization, so SharePoint and OneDrive and teams and that kind of thing, and I have yet to have anybody explain to me the difference between SharePoint and OneDrive in a way that makes any actual sense in terms of how I should use these and where I should put the file.

00;13;04;20 - 00;13;19;15
Jay Goldman
How our organization only operates out of our shared SharePoint volumes and the other half only operates out of their OneDrive. So all of the files are stored in their OneDrive and shared from there. No one will ever make this make any amount of sense outside of Microsoft. It doesn't matter.

00;13;19;17 - 00;13;45;01
Wayne Turmel
Now in terms of making sense in your book, in your and in the speaking that you and your coauthors do. I came across a concept that I love because we're talking about digital transformation. And it makes sense that in terms of work, you need information when you need it, you need to know where to get it. You need to be able to create context by it, and everybody has to share the same information.

00;13;45;03 - 00;14;08;25
Wayne Turmel
So all of that makes perfect sense. But you and your team talk about a concept called proprioception, which is from kinesiology. It has to do with our bodies. Can you explain how this fits into that idea? Because I thought this was the singular, coolest, most unique thing about what you guys are talking about.

00;14;08;27 - 00;14;26;24
Jay Goldman
Proprioception is your own sense of where your limbs are in relation to your body. So you don't need to be able to see where your hands are to know where they are. If you close your eyes, you can still reach out and touch your nose. That's proprioception. It's that awareness of where your limbs are in relation to yourself.

00;14;26;27 - 00;14;46;27
Jay Goldman
When we apply it in a digital context, we think of it as a similar level of awareness. Are you aware of the tools around you, the data that's around you, and how it relates back to what you're doing? Is it second nature in the same way as your awareness of your limbs are? Where do I need to go to find this thing and to retrieve it?

00;14;46;29 - 00;15;06;15
Jay Goldman
And that will it relate in many ways to the frequency of the thing that you do? So little kids, babies don't have great proprioception. They're new to this. They haven't spent that much time being aware of where their limbs are. They smack themselves in the face. They can't pick things up. We get that sense developed over time as we learn about those things.

00;15;06;15 - 00;15;29;03
Jay Goldman
And thankfully for humans, it develops fairly quickly because otherwise we would be quite useless much longer into our lives than we are. But if you think about how you learn a new tool, you're you're digital. Proprioception within that tool is pretty novice at the beginning. It all kind of feels like you have one hand tied behind your back, which relates obviously back to that sense of proprioception.

00;15;29;05 - 00;15;51;21
Jay Goldman
It feels like unnatural that you're using this, and depending on the type of person you are, it may remain at that level, especially if you don't have to use the tool that often. So as we deploy more and more digital tools, we create a category of users in those tools who will be perpetual novices. They know interact with the tool often enough to ever become anything close to a power user.

00;15;51;23 - 00;16;08;10
Jay Goldman
If you think about maybe a corporate reporting system, you might go in once a month and have to update a few numbers. Every time you go in there, you'll be at that novice level. Your proprioception is very low. You're learning it again every time you go back in there. So that tool will never really feel natural to you.

00;16;08;17 - 00;16;25;23
Jay Goldman
Someone else might use that tool on a daily basis. Maybe it's a member of the finance team or the PPMO. When they go in there, it feels like second nature to them. They know exactly where everything is. They know where to retrieve that from. And so they're able to go in there and be a power user where you're not able to necessarily do the same.

00;16;25;26 - 00;16;52;21
Jay Goldman
The other thing that's really relevant here is around how we develop an awareness of where things exist in that digital ecosystem. So less about a specific tool that I might go into, more about how do I get a question answered? And so I was just spending some time with one of our customers who is a vice president of transformation in a very large enterprise overseas, in this case, a whole bunch of post-merger integration projects that are coming together.

00;16;52;23 - 00;17;15;20
Jay Goldman
And he has a large team of project managers who report to him. One of the jobs as project managers have to do is on the strategic portfolio management side. So identifying business cases, putting them forward for review is this a project that we want to go ahead with? And writing those business cases is actually a very challenging thing to do because to do it properly and to get to a place where it's not garbage in, garbage out.

00;17;15;26 - 00;17;43;25
Jay Goldman
We had bad business cases, we made bad decisions, we ran that project. You need a fairly high degree of sophistication from a business modeling perspective, and you need a bunch of inputs into that. So this organization has a lot of field technicians. If you're doing a calculation about the cost of running a particular type of program, you might need to know what the hourly loaded cost is of a field technician in different regions in the U.S. in order to put a proper business case for it.

00;17;43;27 - 00;18;02;24
Jay Goldman
So one of the challenges they have is that process just takes too long. The PMS don't have that information for them to go and find. It is a really labor intensive exercise, low proprioception in terms of where that data exists in the organization, which results in shortcuts. So they end up just guessing at a number and plugging it in.

00;18;02;24 - 00;18;34;15
Jay Goldman
You make a bad decision and you can end up costing the organization millions of dollars in this case at the scale that they operate because a project gets greenlit with bad data that was in there or doesn't get greenlit and should have been. But you had the wrong numbers involved in that calculation. I think there's going to be an emerging category of tools here that are going to help with this because it is a thing that I, if you've adjusted it correctly to a low hallucination rate, because obviously you don't want to give people made up answers that are incorrect and are now going to get plugged into these.

00;18;34;18 - 00;18;35;13
Jay Goldman
But if you think about.

00;18;35;13 - 00;18;38;28
Wayne Turmel
The parable, some of us have made a career of that.

00;18;39;01 - 00;19;00;27
Jay Goldman
Sure, sure. But if we're building tools that do this, in our ideal state, we're playing into really the strengths of an AI system. So go out and take in a huge amount of data, far more than any individual person could do, internalize that data and understand the relationships between it and be able to answer questions for someone who can't go digging through all of that data.

00;19;00;29 - 00;19;23;21
Jay Goldman
So if deployed correctly in that way, and I love Microsoft's language of copilot as an assistant here, I should have a personal assistant that I can ask those questions to. They should be able to be questions about anything we do as an organization, and it should be able to either answer it or at least point me in the right direction as to who I could ask or where I can get an answer from.

00;19;23;23 - 00;19;31;02
Jay Goldman
And that to me might end up being one of the highest value categories of AI in an organization, especially in large enterprise.

00;19;31;07 - 00;19;54;10
Wayne Turmel
This is I could geek out about this for a while and we are out of time already, which is terrifying. I'm let me ask you this. If somebody isn't at your level of sophistication, which is 90% of humanity in terms of digital transformation, what are the one or two things that they absolutely have to know before they begin?

00;19;54;12 - 00;20;16;19
Jay Goldman
This is a big scary topic for people because we've turned it into a big, scary topic. But it doesn't have to be. It's the old thing about how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time, right? If you turn your transformation into a capital E enterprise level transformation, you have to create a transformation management office and hire people who are transformation leaders.

00;20;16;21 - 00;20;41;07
Jay Goldman
You can do that if it really is of that scale, but you're turning this into a much more complicated thing than it needs to be. If you are early in a transformation journey and a low level of maturity as an organization. And I would draw a clear distinction here between a traditional PMO who are very good at executing projects and a transformation team because it is really a different mentality and a different way of thinking.

00;20;41;14 - 00;21;08;08
Jay Goldman
We sometimes go back to a quote, which allegedly is an Einstein quote You can't solve today's problems with the same thinking that created them. And we think about transformation in the same way. If we were successful at executing all of the projects we needed to do and our operational excellence was high, we'd have no need for transformation. The fact that you have to run a transformation is in and of itself a failed state in the sense that things have gone wrong.

00;21;08;08 - 00;21;38;26
Jay Goldman
To get to this point, and we now have to correct for the things that have gone wrong by running a process which has to be different by definition than the processes that have come before. But if you're at a low level of maturity in doing that, don't try to do the entire thing in one shot. The best advice I can give is look for small opportunities to develop those transformation muscles by building out a small set of transformation projects that you're going to run that do have a finite time period and a real transformation outcome.

00;21;39;03 - 00;22;06;14
Jay Goldman
But it can be a really small one. You can start within your own team. What would be transformative for us as a team in increasing our operational excellence? Articulate a hypothesis that has a measurable outcome on it, and then run that as a transformation and start to build up that muscle of thinking differently, of running different practices, of measuring how you approach those things differently, and you'll start to level up that total transformation ability across those teams.

00;22;06;17 - 00;22;27;25
Wayne Turmel
Excellent. Thank you so much. I can't thank you enough. Ladies and gentlemen, You heard it. It's there's so much to talk about. And if you're trying to get your head around it, visit the transcript for this show. Long distance work dot com. We will have links to Sensei Labs and Jay's book and Jay and all that good stuff.

00;22;27;25 - 00;22;54;04
Wayne Turmel
Let this be the beginning of your journey into this. If you enjoy the show, if you have enjoyed the podcast, please, you know the drill. Like subscribe. I'm not going to get all YouTube and tell you to smash buttons, but you know the drill. We appreciate it. If you have questions, show ideas, guest ideas, pet peeves that you want us to tackle, reach out to Marisa or myself.

00;22;54;06 - 00;23;24;20
Wayne Turmel
Our emails are there on the screen. Wayne or Marisa at Kevin Eikenberry dot com. Find us on LinkedIn. We are happy to connect. And if you are looking at your team and thinking we need to fix this, a good place to start is Kevin Eikenberry and my new book, The Long Distance Team. You can visit long distance Team BBC.com and begin your journey there.

00;23;24;23 - 00;23;38;08
Wayne Turmel
Thank you so much for joining us, Marisa will be with us next week. And the world said yay. In the meantime, thank you for being with us. Check out past episodes of the show and don't let the weasels get you down.


Featured Guest

Jay Goldman

Name: Jay Goldman

About: Co-Founder and CEO of Sensei Labs, co-author of The Decoded Company

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
01:06 Understanding Digital Transformation
03:02 Data, Process, and Human Impact
04:57 Navigating Digital Transformation
13:45 Proprioception in Digital Contexts
19:31 Practical Approaches to Digital Transformation
22:27 Conclusion

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

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

 Order
Read More
Digital Decorum: Navigating the Do's and Don'ts of Online Meetings
Ask Wayne Anything, Surviving Remote Work, Technology, Working Remotely

Digital Decorum: Navigating the Do’s and Don’ts of Online Meetings

Join us on the Long-Distance Worklife Podcast as we dive into the quirky and often unspoken rules of virtual meeting behaviors. This episode isn't about mute buttons or camera angles; it's about the nitty-gritty of what happens on camera - from fashion choices like donning hats to the presence of pets and snack etiquette. We explore whether sipping coffee or munching during a meeting is a faux pas or just fine. With a blend of humor and practical advice, we dissect these everyday scenarios to help you navigate the dos and don’ts of digital professionalism. Tune in for a lively discussion that promises to add a new perspective to your next online meeting!

Key Takeaways

1. Consider Your Headwear: Before joining a virtual meeting, think about the message your choice of hat or headwear sends. Is it aligned with the meeting's tone and formality?
2. Pet Policy: Decide if having your pet in view during the meeting is appropriate. Consider the nature of the meeting and if your furry friend might be a distraction or a delightful icebreaker.
3. Mindful Eating: If you need to eat during a meeting, assess the context. For formal or short meetings, it’s best to wait. In longer or casual settings, keep it unobtrusive and tidy.
4. Discreet Drinking: Having a beverage? Stick to non-alcoholic options and keep it professional. A simple mug or a water bottle is usually fine, but avoid anything that might cause distraction.
5. Background Check: Take a moment to evaluate your surroundings. Ensure your background is tidy and professional, reflecting the image you want to project in the meeting.
6. Tech Check: Before the meeting starts, test your tech! Ensure your internet is stable and familiarize yourself with the meeting platform’s features to avoid any technical hiccups.
7. Engage Actively: Plan to participate actively in the meeting. Think about points you want to raise or questions you might ask to show your engagement and interest.

View Full Transcript

00;00;08;09 - 00;00;18;17
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;20 - 00;00;20;17
Wayne Turmel
That would be me. Hi. How are you?

00;00;20;23 - 00;00;22;07
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm great. How are you?

00;00;22;10 - 00;00;33;07
Wayne Turmel
I'm great. It feels like a million years since we have recorded one of these. So this could be fun. Or it could be a car wreck. This is the joy of recording live, right?

00;00;33;12 - 00;01;00;02
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. I was going to say, I mean, for those that are now scared, if you're first time listeners, do not shut this off, but that being said, today we're actually going to talk about acceptable meeting behaviors. So we actually got this survey sent to us by our boss, Kevin. And so it's a 2023 YouGov survey that was done of just different, acceptable or unacceptable leading behaviors.

00;01;00;02 - 00;01;04;27
Marisa Eikenberry
And they start off with just behaviors in general. And then we actually go into generational stuff.

00;01;04;29 - 00;01;25;10
Wayne Turmel
But now just to clarify, for the mere mortals out there who can't read our minds, YouGov is essentially this is a survey, internal survey of U.S. federal workers in all the branches, all the divisions, all the stuff right.

00;01;25;12 - 00;01;27;03
Marisa Eikenberry
Now, lots and lots of people.

00;01;27;05 - 00;01;27;27
Wayne Turmel
Context.

00;01;28;03 - 00;01;50;04
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, exactly. And one of the first things that they did talk about, which we've talked about before, you know, we mentioned remote work, is that while we would like to think that this is a majority of the population, the majority of the population is not remote working. But they talked about 32% of Americans participate in virtual meetings for work and 37% for like personal calls.

00;01;50;07 - 00;02;05;16
Marisa Eikenberry
So so that's where we're going with this. But Wayne, were there any that kind of stuck out to you from this first, you know, acceptable, not acceptable, graphic. And for those of you that are watching, I'm going to have this up on the screen.

00;02;05;18 - 00;02;23;23
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, I think if we look at the general numbers, we're not getting generational or granular on this, just in general. Certain things make sense, right? Having a TV on in the background, smoking, although that's interesting.

00;02;23;26 - 00;02;25;22
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay. So why is it interesting to you?

00;02;25;26 - 00;02;56;05
Wayne Turmel
Well, it says a whole lot more about where society is gone than where the meetings have gone. Because if we think about why smoking was banned in the workplace, second hand smoke being rude and blowing smoke in somebody's face, all of that good stuff. A lot of people take remote meetings in the privacy of their own home or a hotel room, wherever they happen to be.

00;02;56;08 - 00;03;01;21
Wayne Turmel
And secondhand smoke is not an issue. You cannot catch secondhand smoke.

00;03;01;23 - 00;03;03;16
Marisa Eikenberry
Right through.

00;03;03;16 - 00;03;05;03
Wayne Turmel
Zoom.

00;03;05;06 - 00;03;07;05
Marisa Eikenberry
That is true.

00;03;07;08 - 00;03;24;28
Wayne Turmel
So I think that says more about the fact that people just don't want anybody smoking at all. Whether or not it's rude on a meeting. Now, some of that is I come from the generation where I can remember people smoking in meetings.

00;03;25;00 - 00;03;32;07
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, See that? I can't remember. I was old enough to still remember smoking in restaurants and there being a section for both.

00;03;32;09 - 00;03;36;03
Wayne Turmel
And of course, I live in Las Vegas where you can still do that.

00;03;36;10 - 00;03;52;15
Marisa Eikenberry
All right. Well, and then for our audio listeners, so for smoking, they said, you know, 75% of those surveyed said it's not acceptable in any meeting, while 12% said it's acceptable in informal meetings. And five said it's, 5% said it's acceptable in any meeting.

00;03;52;17 - 00;04;27;27
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. One of the interesting things I found about this report is that there is an increasing, especially among people under older than dirt. There is an increasing gap between what it's okay to do in an informal meeting, you know teammates a teammate than in a formal meeting where you're doing a sales presentation or you have a customer on the line or whatever that works out to.

00;04;27;27 - 00;04;31;03
Wayne Turmel
I think that is interesting.

00;04;31;05 - 00;04;32;03
Marisa Eikenberry
yeah, for sure.

00;04;32;05 - 00;04;39;24
Wayne Turmel
And where you find that a lot is, is it okay to have a child or a pet in your lap?

00;04;39;26 - 00;04;41;05
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;04;41;07 - 00;04;51;25
Wayne Turmel
And interestingly, more people find it acceptable to have a pet in your lap than a kid in your lap, which in a strange way makes sense.

00;04;52;00 - 00;04;54;21
Marisa Eikenberry
It really does.

00;04;54;24 - 00;05;23;18
Wayne Turmel
But, you know, I can remember when remote work started to catch on. If you wanted to know whether or not somebody worked remotely on a regular basis or not, you'd be on a conference call and a dog would bark. And the people who worked remotely would say, say hi to Bailey for me. And the people who didn't work remotely were like, Is that a dog?

00;05;23;21 - 00;05;38;00
Wayne Turmel
Like they'd never heard a dog before? Right. And so I think that gap between formal and informal, if I'm just talking to you, you know, I don't care.

00;05;38;02 - 00;05;40;21
Marisa Eikenberry
Right, Right, Exactly. Like Max Barks. And it's fine.

00;05;40;28 - 00;05;46;26
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. Max barks Or he jumps in my lap and I hold him up and go say hi to Auntie Marisa. Right, right.

00;05;46;28 - 00;05;52;21
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah. My husband drops in behind me, and I'm just like, my God, Go away.

00;05;52;23 - 00;06;00;02
Wayne Turmel
And I'm going, Hi, Parker. Right. Say hi to Uncle Ray.

00;06;00;04 - 00;06;11;20
Wayne Turmel
So I think some of those are really interesting where you start to see some gaps. Is. Is it okay to eat?

00;06;11;22 - 00;06;12;11
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Right.

00;06;12;15 - 00;06;28;22
Wayne Turmel
Is it okay to drink? There is a percentage of humans and I'm looking for it. And I'm wondering who these evil people are. 3%. No, it's not 3%. It's. I'm looking for drinking and nonalcoholic drinks.

00;06;28;25 - 00;06;37;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. So 17% say it's not acceptable in any medium. 53% say it's acceptable in any meeting. And 22 say only informal meetings.

00;06;37;23 - 00;06;42;06
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. The Geneva Convention says people are allowed hydration. Right.

00;06;42;08 - 00;07;04;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Like I remember looking at this would be like, I don't think I have ever been bothered by somebody taking a drink ever. I can understand not wanting to be on a meeting and it's not a happy hour and like, they're clearly drinking a beer. Like, that's a problem. I get that. But like, I have a soda with me all the time and I drink it in meetings all the time.

00;07;04;19 - 00;07;08;04
Marisa Eikenberry
And I never thought about it being a problem until I saw that.

00;07;08;06 - 00;07;11;07
Wayne Turmel
Well, until we hold the intervention.

00;07;11;09 - 00;07;16;06
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, you know, it could be worse.

00;07;16;08 - 00;07;27;07
Wayne Turmel
So, you know, if we look at it, it's not really surprising what people think is acceptable and unacceptable. I suppose.

00;07;27;09 - 00;07;31;01
Wayne Turmel
It gets interesting around formal and informal meetings.

00;07;31;07 - 00;07;32;09
Marisa Eikenberry


00;07;32;11 - 00;08;06;19
Wayne Turmel
Right. And I have been on informal meetings. And again, everything is context, right? Right. I belong to a writer's group. We used to regularly have cocktails during our meetings. Yeah. If we're talking about it, work. I have had meetings with people overseas who, you know, are taking the meeting out of the kindness of their heart. But it's after dinner and they have a glass of wine or a beer with them as we're having it.

00;08;06;19 - 00;08;08;12
Wayne Turmel
And it doesn't bother me.

00;08;08;15 - 00;08;09;04
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;08;09;06 - 00;08;25;21
Wayne Turmel
First of all, they're the customer. What am I going to say? Okay. But also, it's an informal discussion. And I want I want a heightened level of informality because I think you communicate better that way.

00;08;25;27 - 00;08;41;11
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah. I mean, I've been on some, you know, virtual happy hour stuff with sorority sorority meetings or webinars or whatever. And it's just like, yeah, like it's 9:00. If I have a cocktail, it's fine. If they have a cocktail, it's fine.

00;08;41;14 - 00;08;52;23
Wayne Turmel
Now, one of the ones which is very personal to me because and people who regularly view this don't know this, but I wear hats a lot.

00;08;52;25 - 00;08;54;22
Marisa Eikenberry
I thought about you when I saw the.

00;08;54;25 - 00;09;22;26
Wayne Turmel
Different types of hats, but you'll notice that nobody on this podcast has ever seen me wearing a hat because I differentiate between work Wayne and Wayne in the rest of my life. However, the one time I do wear a hat on a work call is because I live on the West Coast. My day starts way earlier than everybody else's.

00;09;23;03 - 00;09;52;20
Wayne Turmel
And if somebody's not necessarily a client, but if somebody on our team or somebody like that calls a meeting for 9:00 Eastern time, there is a pretty good chance I am not going to be showered and presentable. Right. And so I can throw on a shirt that's not a big deal, but all off and put on a baseball cap just so I don't look like Albert Einstein.

00;09;52;22 - 00;10;09;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, I thought it was interesting, too, when I was seeing that, because, you know, we had a team member that she wore hats frequently and that was just part of her style. That was just how she was. And I was never bothered by it. When I would see out, it was usually a wow, like that. That's cool hat.

00;10;09;25 - 00;10;18;29
Marisa Eikenberry
I hadn't seen or wear that one before or something like that. So I definitely found it interesting it being on this because it is an issue.

00;10;19;06 - 00;10;26;06
Wayne Turmel
Most people who wear hats do it as a cheap attempt at branding and difference. Yeah, it's just myself included.

00;10;26;13 - 00;10;27;21
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;10;27;23 - 00;10;32;06
Wayne Turmel
So that particular person that was part of her wacky.

00;10;32;09 - 00;10;32;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, That was her.

00;10;32;26 - 00;10;52;07
Wayne Turmel
Laid back style and it was great. One of the things that is important, if you're going to do that, though, and baseball caps are a problem for this, is they affect the lighting over your eyes and very often make it hard for people to see your eyes. And that can be a problem.

00;10;52;09 - 00;10;55;13
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. And I can totally see that right.

00;10;55;16 - 00;11;04;16
Wayne Turmel
Now where things get ugly as we look at that is generationally.

00;11;04;18 - 00;11;05;27
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00;11;06;00 - 00;11;20;09
Wayne Turmel
What people find acceptable and what they don't. I used to think I was pretty cool. And and I do differentiate between formal and informal meetings.

00;11;20;11 - 00;11;21;10
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;11;21;13 - 00;11;36;12
Wayne Turmel
And since extremely formal has never been my style. I'm fairly relaxed about some things, sometimes more than I should be. And I am a child of my generation.

00;11;36;15 - 00;11;38;23
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Okay, So give us an example.

00;11;38;25 - 00;11;55;01
Wayne Turmel
I'm 62 years old, right? I'm looking at where there's a huge difference in what's acceptable and what's unacceptable. You know, walking around the room during the meeting.

00;11;55;03 - 00;11;56;17
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;11;56;19 - 00;12;19;18
Wayne Turmel
There is no reason not to do that. I'm when I'm in the conference room, I very often because my joints ache and stuff and I have the attention span of an Irish setter, so I have to burn off energy. So I'll stand and move to the back of the room. Right. Stand against the back wall or something while the meeting is going on.

00;12;19;21 - 00;12;29;17
Wayne Turmel
I tend not to do that on virtual meetings, but I think that's largely a function of my camera setup.

00;12;29;19 - 00;12;30;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;12;30;29 - 00;12;44;04
Wayne Turmel
I'm on camera most of the time. If it's a telephone call, I'll walk down. There are there are ruts in our carpet from where I pace and walk during a comp during a telephone call.

00;12;44;10 - 00;12;46;04
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;12;46;06 - 00;12;59;00
Wayne Turmel
But generally speaking, I'm a little more particularly if it's a camera meeting, I'm a little more traditional. Like now. I'll sit there like a good boy and do it.

00;12;59;02 - 00;13;15;04
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I do it too. And I have been on meetings or even streams that I watch where like, people have gotten up. And I think for me the issue is less that they've gotten up. It's that their mic is set up for that. And so now they're talking, I can't hear you.

00;13;15;08 - 00;13;20;23
Wayne Turmel
You know what's worse? I just realized when I want to throttle the person.

00;13;20;25 - 00;13;21;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00;13;21;28 - 00;13;23;29
Wayne Turmel
Not that I would.

00;13;24;01 - 00;13;25;04
Marisa Eikenberry
Because you're virtual, so you're.

00;13;25;04 - 00;14;01;15
Wayne Turmel
Actually laying hands on another human being is wrong. It's okay to want to just don't do it that way. But the big one for me and it's because I never do this, is I, I don't do face time or meetings, especially work meetings on my phone. When I'm having a conversation, a webcam conversation with they're on their phone and they're walking, and it's like being on the deck of the Titanic.

00;14;01;17 - 00;14;25;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Like, it's super distracting. Well, not only that, but, like, okay, I'm. Somebody gets motion sick, really easy. And still, I literally cannot watch people do that. Like, I know it's a thing. And we've we've had people on our own team that have done that occasionally. And I'm just like, I literally have to hide your camera because otherwise I'm a puke all over the.

00;14;25;20 - 00;14;26;14
Wayne Turmel
Yeah.

00;14;26;16 - 00;14;30;26
Marisa Eikenberry
I am surprised that that wasn't mentioned in this list.

00;14;30;28 - 00;14;40;13
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. I mean, it was I don't know, you know, the problem with surveys is they people answer the question that you ask.

00;14;40;15 - 00;14;41;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;14;41;20 - 00;14;59;24
Wayne Turmel
Right. Nobody says, by the way. Yeah. This drives me crazy, too. I think the biggest one and this is true of the workplace in general, which gets generational conflict is what you're wearing on your call.

00;14;59;26 - 00;15;04;10
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah. So.

00;15;04;13 - 00;15;17;25
Wayne Turmel
So is it okay to wear your pajamas, you know? Do you wear what you sleep in on a zoom meeting? And, you know, I sleep naked, so the answer is no.

00;15;17;27 - 00;15;20;05
Marisa Eikenberry
Thank you.

00;15;20;07 - 00;15;23;24
Wayne Turmel
Welcome to another edition of too much information.

00;15;23;26 - 00;15;29;29
Marisa Eikenberry
Like, unplug my headphones about. Do not need to know.

00;15;30;01 - 00;15;38;24
Wayne Turmel
But. But it drives me crazy. My daughter wears pajamas. 24 seven. She goes to the grocery store in a onesie.

00;15;38;27 - 00;15;39;23
Marisa Eikenberry
No.

00;15;39;25 - 00;15;41;20
Wayne Turmel
It drives me insane.

00;15;41;22 - 00;15;43;13
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, she's about a year younger than me.

00;15;43;21 - 00;15;44;04
Wayne Turmel
Yes.

00;15;44;11 - 00;15;55;17
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay. See, I was also the weird person, and I will confess, I'm weird that I wouldn't go to college classes in pajamas, and I felt like it was very respectful or disrespectful When. Why would somebody.

00;15;55;17 - 00;16;01;22
Wayne Turmel
Go to college classes in pajamas? Why would you leave your dorm room?

00;16;01;25 - 00;16;06;02
Marisa Eikenberry
We had 8 a.m. classes and I was like the only one in jeans.

00;16;06;04 - 00;16;09;15
Wayne Turmel
I Yeah. But now you're an old soul.

00;16;09;18 - 00;16;10;06
Marisa Eikenberry
That is true.

00;16;10;08 - 00;16;20;01
Wayne Turmel
So, you know, I can appreciate that. That's. That's why I adore you. But it's not. But, Jim, is there, like, an obvious example?

00;16;20;03 - 00;16;20;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Correct.

00;16;20;27 - 00;16;21;09
Wayne Turmel
Right.

00;16;21;16 - 00;16;23;10
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;16;23;12 - 00;16;48;28
Wayne Turmel
But what do you wear on a call? And again, context matters. Right. Right. If I'm working from home and because I'm always working from home and you have a question and we have to get on a zoom or whatever, call real quick. If I'm in my gym shorts, you know, if I'm not dressed 100% professionally, it doesn't matter because it's you and me.

00;16;48;28 - 00;16;51;14
Wayne Turmel
It's going to be a five minute conversation and we're out.

00;16;51;20 - 00;16;53;12
Marisa Eikenberry
Yep.

00;16;53;15 - 00;16;56;02
Wayne Turmel
If I'm in front of a customer, a.

00;16;56;05 - 00;16;58;03
Marisa Eikenberry
Totally different ballgame.

00;16;58;06 - 00;17;03;15
Wayne Turmel
You know, from the hips up, I need to be dressed like an adult.

00;17;03;22 - 00;17;04;28
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;17;05;00 - 00;17;09;28
Wayne Turmel
I have worn a shirt, tie and cargo shorts. I have done that more than once.

00;17;10;00 - 00;17;11;06
Marisa Eikenberry
That's okay.

00;17;11;08 - 00;17;12;24
Wayne Turmel
The customer doesn't see it.

00;17;12;27 - 00;17;33;09
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. I mean, I've occasionally done that where I've had yoga pants and, like, something really nice or there when it's really cold in my office. I have one of those like, Snuggie blanket things that, I mean, like I it's, it's Navy blue. I put on it. I look like Cookie Monster. Like it's a thing, but it's super warm.

00;17;33;12 - 00;17;46;03
Marisa Eikenberry
But you better believe if I'm sitting here and working with it on and you or Kevin or somebody else is like, Hey, we have a meeting real quick. It's Hey, can you give me a second? And I will remove that because I do have standards. Yeah.

00;17;46;03 - 00;17;57;14
Wayne Turmel
And I think that goes to a larger conversation which is worth having someday about formality or informality in the workplace.

00;17;57;16 - 00;17;58;14
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;17;58;16 - 00;18;24;17
Wayne Turmel
I was working with 45 h.r. People at a client yesterday, and we were talking about what are the things that they're dealing with and dress code and a appropriate and inappropriate clothing in the workplace has bloomed as a problem.

00;18;24;19 - 00;18;40;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I've seen it in sorority meetings sometimes, too. And i'm like this is supposed to be business wear, and you have a denim skirt on. Like, we would have set them home if it was when I was in, but it was like, Well, we can't say that now.

00;18;40;10 - 00;18;51;04
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, it's interesting. I just go back to what somebody told me, just post-COVID when people were coming back and she goes, They've gone feral.

00;18;51;06 - 00;18;52;14
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;18;52;16 - 00;19;15;08
Wayne Turmel
Like there used to be because the workplace was I mean, it was largely homogenous. But even if it wasn't homogenous demographically, there were just codes and the way things were done and they were the way things have been done for 100 years. And you had work clothes and you had plain clothes. Right, Right. It's like going to school.

00;19;15;12 - 00;19;43;02
Wayne Turmel
I had school clothes and plain clothes. They weren't the same. And when we worked from home, the it wasn't just that you're home. You can wear whatever the heck you want, but the social pressure about what you wore went down. So even now, men who wear suits to the office rarely wear a tie. Yeah, like they'll wear a jacket, button down shirt.

00;19;43;02 - 00;19;43;21
Wayne Turmel
I mean, they'll look.

00;19;43;27 - 00;19;44;18
Marisa Eikenberry
They still look nice.

00;19;44;24 - 00;19;48;16
Wayne Turmel
But they're not wearing, you know, the double Windsor at their throat.

00;19;48;19 - 00;19;50;10
Marisa Eikenberry


00;19;50;13 - 00;20;14;23
Wayne Turmel
And I think that what that does and this gets back to the Spider-Man paradox, right? With great power comes great responsibility is just because you can dress a certain way or act a certain way or get away with doing something online that you can't or wouldn't do in the office doesn't mean you should.

00;20;14;25 - 00;20;20;16
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. I mean, there's still a level of respect, both for yourself and for whomever you're on the call with.

00;20;20;18 - 00;20;34;02
Wayne Turmel
And, you know, yes, you are a grown person. Yes. You can make your own choices. You know, it's the whole thing about do you get dressed in work, appropriate attire in the morning.

00;20;34;05 - 00;20;34;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;20;34;22 - 00;20;55;15
Wayne Turmel
Even when nobody's going to see you. Right. There is evidence psychologically that it affects how you think and how you work in your level of professionalism. And there are plenty of people who say, shut up, old man, my onesie is fine and it doesn't affect the outcome of my spreadsheet.

00;20;55;17 - 00;21;17;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Like, I know some people that they feel like even when they're working from home, I'm going to wear shoes because for them, like even just having, you know, whatever they're wearing, having shoes is the thing that helps them be productive. I am not one of those people. I will admit I'm barefoot right now and have a blanket on my lap, but I'm still appropriately dressed.

00;21;17;27 - 00;21;23;10
Wayne Turmel
And so senior notes. Send your notes to Wilma Flintstone here.

00;21;23;13 - 00;21;30;01
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. But like I would have been even without this podcast, because that's just I'm just a.

00;21;30;03 - 00;21;56;05
Wayne Turmel
From the house down. It's the Wild West. You could do whatever you want from the bellybutton up. You better look like you're working. A couple of things. We are way past time and we have had an inordinate amount of fun, and I think there are some important things to think about this right? Where do the generational differences? Right.

00;21;56;07 - 00;22;25;10
Wayne Turmel
If I'm going to coach somebody about their appearance or their demeanor. Am I doing it because it's a valid business reason? Am I doing it because I am an old man? Right? Right. That is a conversation worth having when it's you and I talking. The level of formality is much lower than when I'm talking to a client. And it should be right.

00;22;25;13 - 00;22;35;01
Wayne Turmel
Right. If you are inappropriately informal in a important business meeting. Right. The VP is on the call.

00;22;35;04 - 00;22;35;24
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00;22;35;26 - 00;23;13;04
Wayne Turmel
Your AC DC T-shirt may not be the best choice, but again, it's incumbent on us. Yes, the rules are changing. Yes, they are more flexible than they ever were. And what is the minimum professional standard in your industry, on your team, in your organization? Absolutely. And those are the things we need to think about. Look at me wrapping all this up, trying real hard to sound like we've had a professional discussion instead of venting, which we've largely been discussed.

00;23;13;07 - 00;23;32;16
Marisa Eikenberry
And that being said, if you would like to know how to be more professional in your meetings and remote work, you can check out our long distance leadership series at Kevin Ikenberry, dot com slash LDL s. Thank you for listening to the long work life for shownotes transcripts and other resources. Make sure to visit long distance work dot com.

00;23;32;18 - 00;23;51;14
Marisa Eikenberry
If you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss any future episodes. And while you're there, be sure to like in review. This helps us know what you love about our show. Feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes and let us know you listen to this episode or even suggest topic for Wayne and I to tackle any future episodes we would love.

00;23;51;18 - 00;24;01;28
Wayne Turmel
And tell us. Tell us your meeting. Yes. Are we right? Are we wrong? Am I a grungy, grumpy old man yelling at clouds, or do I have a point?

00;24;02;01 - 00;24;06;12
Marisa Eikenberry
Am I just an old soul? Don't know how to act at 32 inches your shoes.

00;24;06;13 - 00;24;07;28
Wayne Turmel
Darn it.

00;24;08;00 - 00;24;16;26
Marisa Eikenberry
I might slip. Or sometimes when my feet are cool, thick you for joining us, everybody. And as Wayne likes to say, don't let the weasels get you down.


Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
01:30 Hat Etiquette
04:20 Pets in the Picture
07:15 Eating on Camera
10:05 Drinking Beverages
13:50 Background and Environment
17:40 Technical Preparedness
19:45 Generational Differences
21:30 Meeting Participation
24:50 Conclusion

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

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

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

Who’s Really a Remote Work Expert?

Marisa Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel explore the intricacies of remote work expertise. Wayne, a seasoned professional in the field, shares his candid views on the skepticism surrounding the term "expert," the evolution of remote work expertise, and offers practical advice for discerning true expertise in this domain. The episode is a must-listen for anyone navigating the remote work landscape, seeking to understand the blend of skepticism and wisdom in identifying genuine expertise.

Key Takeaways

1. Understand the History of Remote Work: Recognize that remote work has a long-standing history and is not just a recent trend.
2. Question Titles and Expertise: Be skeptical of self-proclaimed experts, especially those with pretentious titles.
3. Evaluate Credibility: Check the background and track record of a professional claiming remote work expertise.
4. Beware of Zealots: Be cautious of those who are overly zealous about remote work; true expertise is balanced and objective.
5. Look for Practical Solutions: Seek out experts who focus on practical help and realistic approaches to remote work.
6. Utilize Resources: Explore available courses and resources to deepen your understanding of remote work leadership and management.

View Full Transcript

00;00;07;26 - 00;00;19;11
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to the long distance work life, where we help you live, work and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I'm Marissa Eikenberry, a fellow remote worker. And joining me is my co-host and remote work expert, Wayne Jamal. Hi.

00;00;19;13 - 00;00;29;24
Wayne Turmel
Hello, Marissa. How are you? And hello, everybody listening? It sounds sometimes like I'm ignoring you and I'm not, so. Hello? I'm listening.

00;00;29;27 - 00;00;50;20
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm doing great. And, you know, I'm just so excited about this topic today because I think it's gonna be really interesting for our listeners. May not be something they've really thought about before, but we're going to tackle it today. So every episode I introduce you as a remote work expert and believe it or not, we actually get snarky comments about this on our videos and our clips all the time.

00;00;50;23 - 00;01;08;04
Marisa Eikenberry
How can you be a remote work expert in something that's not been around that long? Now, for the record, and people who have listened us for a while already know that remote work has been around for a very long time. And if you are not aware of this, I would highly encourage you to listen to one of our first episodes titled When Did Remote Work Start, which I will have a link to in the show notes.

00;01;08;06 - 00;01;13;05
Marisa Eikenberry
But Wayne, let's start with the basics. How do you define a remote work expert?

00;01;13;07 - 00;01;40;27
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, and total transparency. I cringe a little every time you introduce me as an expert. I am naturally a cynic and I'm kind of a that try to be a skeptic. And I sometimes go over the line to cynicism. The minute any time somebody introduces themselves as an expert, my radar goes off and the more pretentious the title, the more it goes off.

00;01;41;00 - 00;02;09;21
Wayne Turmel
When I look at somebody's LinkedIn title and they claim to be a guru, alarm bells ring, things go crazy. I just go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That and living in a time just in society in general, when expertise is kind of frowned on and nobody is really an expert and, you know, yeah, that's a nice Ph.D. you've got I've got this guy on YouTube who says.

00;02;09;23 - 00;02;10;17
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;02;10;19 - 00;02;23;24
Wayne Turmel
So there is a kind of general skepticism that I share to a degree. That being said, some people know more about other people.

00;02;23;26 - 00;02;25;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. That's going to be true for everything.

00;02;25;28 - 00;02;44;17
Wayne Turmel
Right. And if that is the case, then I suppose I am on the expert side of the spectrum. This is a topic that I started writing about in 2005 or six.

00;02;44;20 - 00;02;47;13
Marisa Eikenberry
So that's when I tell you I was a freshman in high school.

00;02;47;15 - 00;03;13;13
Wayne Turmel
And that's when I pulled the dagger out of my heart and tried to continue missing a beat. You know, I started investigating this thing called WebEx. And what did it mean back in 2005, 2006? And so you know, I have written, depending on how you counted, six books and multiple chapters and magazine articles and been doing the research and all of that stuff.

00;03;13;13 - 00;03;36;21
Wayne Turmel
So if I have to defend my status as somebody who knows more about this, then the defense rests. Your Honor. Right. That being said, that being said, it's a constantly evolving field. And this is the other thing is, as I tell people, I do all I read the research and follow the stuff and listen to a lot of nonsense.

00;03;36;25 - 00;04;03;06
Wayne Turmel
So you don't have to. And I run it through whatever filter I can to kind of separate the wheat from the chaff and present in as logical and and pertaining and kind of easily digested as possible, presented to people for them to then make their own decisions with. So, you know, that's as defensive as I get about the title.

00;04;03;08 - 00;04;10;11
Wayne Turmel
That being said, it goes back to anybody. Anybody who calls himself a guru probably isn't.

00;04;10;13 - 00;04;33;04
Marisa Eikenberry
So let's get into that a little bit. Like we've established. You've been doing this for a really long time. You have a bunch of expertise. You know what you're talking about, expert title or not. But how can how can your layperson, your normal person, determine whether somebody is a true remote work expert like yourself or they just started doing this in March of 2020?

00;04;33;07 - 00;04;36;25
Wayne Turmel
Well, you know, just go on their LinkedIn profile.

00;04;36;27 - 00;04;37;12
Marisa Eikenberry
That's true.

00;04;37;16 - 00;05;04;20
Wayne Turmel
Seriously, I am serious. Is a heart attack go under LinkedIn profile and see what their track record. What if they were a manager at Arby's March of 2020 and then suddenly they were an expert in remote work? A little skepticism may be appropriate. So, you know, what is their experience? What is their background? What are we doing? It doesn't take much to check that.

00;05;04;23 - 00;05;06;11
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00;05;06;14 - 00;05;09;28
Wayne Turmel
The other thing and this one is more controversial.

00;05;10;00 - 00;05;10;12
Marisa Eikenberry
I love it.

00;05;10;12 - 00;05;20;10
Wayne Turmel
And I have friends who are going to hate me. The more of a zealot they are, the less I take them at their word.

00;05;20;12 - 00;05;21;16
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay, so why is that?

00;05;21;18 - 00;05;47;12
Wayne Turmel
Here's the thing. And we often, Kevin and I often get lumped into it when they give lists of people who are thinkers about remote work. We're often on the list, and we are not the most zealous specializing. The future is remote work and death to the office and you know, all of that stuff. That's not where we are.

00;05;47;12 - 00;06;16;08
Wayne Turmel
We think there are incredible advantages to remote work. We think that the trend is certainly moving that way. But the people who are zealots, the people who say that there is no use whatsoever, there is no need for people to ever get together physically. All of your social, biological, nourishing needs can be met through through Zoom. I tend to look at that skeptically.

00;06;16;11 - 00;06;17;01
Marisa Eikenberry
That makes sense.

00;06;17;04 - 00;06;40;22
Wayne Turmel
Our approach is these things are happening. They are certainly trends. We need to be aware of it. And like all technology and all work trends, where does it make sense for my company, for the things that I do, for the work I choose to do? Where does it make sense and where can I leverage it, and where are the pitfalls and things that you need to watch out for?

00;06;40;22 - 00;07;02;28
Wayne Turmel
And that's where I like to spend my time. I have no interest in helping Silicon Valley companies get their next new thing launched right. I am a real skeptic about technology, and so I am not an early adopter. I am not first one over the fence, and I don't think most people should be.

00;07;03;00 - 00;07;06;29
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. We've talked about this actually in our episode not that long ago.

00;07;07;00 - 00;07;34;23
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. So I think that and any time you are an evangelist or a zealot for something, your objectivity goes out the window. Yeah, you've gone in with a good vision of the truth, and your job now is to defend that as radically as possible. And so you tend to weed out information that doesn't fit your paradigm. That's in fact.

00;07;34;26 - 00;08;02;03
Wayne Turmel
And the fact that I use the word paradigm makes me cringe, but it's true. Yeah. And so I try to be objective. And at the Kevin Ikenberry group, our focus is not on changing the world in terms of upending business models. My job personally, is to help the individual person get through the workday with some shred of sanity and dignity.

00;08;02;05 - 00;08;03;21
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Right. We just want to.

00;08;03;21 - 00;08;27;22
Wayne Turmel
And if and if remote work helps you achieve that and you're a better person, here's how we can help. And if you have to go into the office every day, here are some things that you might want to think about that might save your sanity and your dignity. So I understand, you know, the skepticism of people online who go remote work expert.

00;08;27;25 - 00;08;37;22
Wayne Turmel
You know, anybody can call themselves that. Well, yeah, they can. And I challenge you as listeners to the dose of skepticism.

00;08;37;25 - 00;08;56;24
Marisa Eikenberry
So, I mean, there's lots of people that are getting the titles, some of which are given to them and some of which are they're trying to make themselves, I guess, is the point we're trying to make. But so but specifically, going back to you, how has your role as a remote work expert evolved over time, especially in the last four years?

00;08;56;24 - 00;08;58;22
Marisa Eikenberry
I mean, a lot of stuff has changed.

00;08;58;24 - 00;09;22;24
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, I mean, if I go back to when I first started thinking about this, right, was June 26, I was teaching traditional presentation skills and I remembered the moment somebody said to me, Wayne, this standing in front of the room stuff is great, but I only talk to real people like twice a year. I work remotely and there's this thing called WebEx, and that's what I'm using.

00;09;22;24 - 00;09;55;10
Wayne Turmel
And I started investigating at the time there were 120 little plankton level web meetings and some WebEx was the Mack daddy of them all. But I became fascinated. I knew the trend was going to continue, and so I became fascinated in that. I started a company that taught people how to do webinars and how to present online, and I got asked more and more about the day to day work, not just the presentations, but how do you run a team and how do you do that?

00;09;55;13 - 00;10;20;05
Wayne Turmel
Kevin and I had known each other for a long time. We created a remote leadership institute, so I had gone from almost strictly presentation and communication skills to teams and leading them in a remote environment. And then the last year and some people have noticed this, some people haven't. The Remote Leadership Institute brand after COVID kind of went away.

00;10;20;06 - 00;10;42;29
Wayne Turmel
It still exists, but it's inside the greater Kevin Eikenberry group because the world has changed the the world of leadership, remote leadership. Most people now no longer look at it as a separate thing. It's part of the job. If you are above first line supervisor, odds are you're going to have at least one member of your team who doesn't work where you do.

00;10;43;04 - 00;10;44;13
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, and you have to prepare for that.

00;10;44;16 - 00;11;11;02
Wayne Turmel
And you have to be able to deal with that and include them in the team. And so the role of remote work in our getting our jobs done has morph and hope. And we like to believe that this is true. We have kind of kept up with that. And again, I have read more nonsense and taken part in more free samples of software and done all that stuff than any human being ought to.

00;11;11;04 - 00;11;59;04
Wayne Turmel
You probably can tell from my white beard and white hair, but I am 42 years old. No, look what it has done to me. So, you know, my has changed. And I think most human beings, if they are wise, they are open to changing as the world changes. I think that if you look at what Kevin and I teach in long distance leader London's team, one year team mate, all of our blogs, all of our courses, it's that while things are changing and we need to be aware of and adjust to and be mindful of the changes that come to us, the core of leading people, of getting work done, of having a leadership mindset,

00;11;59;06 - 00;12;12;10
Wayne Turmel
is really evergreen and it's the details and nuances that change. But those changes and nuances can drive you mad if you are unaware of them and can't deal with them.

00;12;12;12 - 00;12;30;04
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? So I guess, you know, for our leaders and our managers that are listening, you know, what are some common challenges that remote work experts actually help businesses employees overcome? I know you've talked about a little bit of them as we've gone, but like really specifically, like what? What do you help with? What do we think?

00;12;30;09 - 00;13;03;17
Wayne Turmel
Like the big thing, I think is helping us understand how being remote changes us, how we interact with each other. There are a few things. One is that we were raised from birth as face to face, nose to nose, visual in contact, communicating beings. That is our natural default. When we are not doing that, we have to rely on our higher functions.

00;13;03;20 - 00;13;30;12
Wayne Turmel
We have to rely on trust. We have to communicate quite effectively so that I don't have to stand at your desk and watch you do your job. Right. That's something that should be happening anyway. But with the rise of remote and hybrid work, the ability to micromanage the idea of command and control, which has been evaporating as we've evolved as a species, continues to do that.

00;13;30;12 - 00;13;59;11
Wayne Turmel
Well, not everybody's comfortable with that. Command and control is a very lizard brain, very natural response, right to pressure and a task and and all of that stuff. Remote work, hybrid work is a natural extension of expanding that approach in our courses and in our Long Distance Leader series, The first module, and we do this as a standalone course as well.

00;13;59;12 - 00;14;27;16
Wayne Turmel
Shameless plug is how leaders create and manage remote and hybrid teams. And really we introduce three models that are crucial to that mindset. The first is why does this feel so weird? And we have what we call the remote leadership, the three year model. There's a trust model. How do we build trust if something is happening? You know, can we apply this model and figure out what the problem is?

00;14;27;18 - 00;15;04;10
Wayne Turmel
And then the third one is choosing the right technology for the right communication task, which is huge in remote and hybrid work. If you are sending an email rather, or a text, rather than having the conversations you need to have, that is the root cause of a lot of problems, right? And I think that's the work that we do most effectively is we get people to say, if you have a leadership mindset, if you want to have a leadership mindset and you should, what are the nuances?

00;15;04;10 - 00;15;25;05
Wayne Turmel
What are the changes? What are the circumstances that require adjustments to that? And I think at the end of the day, that's not what makes us a zealot because not all work can or should be done remotely. Not all organizations function best that way. There are plenty who do if they do. This is how you need to approach it.

00;15;25;11 - 00;15;50;14
Wayne Turmel
If you are going to be hybrid. These are the nuances that you need to take into consideration. And, you know, I think that's what we bring to the party. I think if there's an expertise to it, that's what it is. So I hope that answered your question and I hope it answered the question for the listeners, because I know we we seldom talk about what we actually do, what our work is.

00;15;50;16 - 00;15;56;27
Wayne Turmel
We try to keep it more general and but specifically, sometimes you got to know that stuff.

00;15;57;03 - 00;16;15;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah. We so classes, we have to pay the bills, right. I have my one last question before we end the show here. But what advice would you give to leaders of managers who would like to better understand how to leverage this kind of expertise of remote work professionals such as yourself and us? I think at Mike Berger.

00;16;15;10 - 00;16;33;18
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, and there's a lot of stuff out there and a lot of it's very good. There are a lot of very talented people. There are people we have on this show as guests who are wonderful people and they should make a living and you should hire them if that's what you want to do. I think it's like anything else, understand the first principles.

00;16;33;24 - 00;17;09;09
Wayne Turmel
What does your organization, what is the work that needs to be done? And you are the best person to know that, right? But knowing that doesn't mean that you are 100% comfortable with what's next. Some people have no idea, and they're kind of paralyzed. Some people think they know, but some validation would be nice to make sure that we're on the right track and other people are out on that path and maybe it's not going the way they want it to.

00;17;09;09 - 00;17;13;24
Wayne Turmel
And I think those are the circumstances where you bring in other people.

00;17;13;28 - 00;17;31;02
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, that totally makes sense. And Wayne, I know earlier you were talking about our Long Distance Leadership series. And for any of our listeners, listeners who are interested in that, you can go to Kevin Eikenberry dot com slash LDL s to find out more about those classes and what's coming up and.

00;17;31;02 - 00;17;41;20
Wayne Turmel
Absolutely and those class football as you know an open enrollment series for individuals or we're happy to talk to you about bringing it in-house to your company.

00;17;41;23 - 00;17;58;17
Marisa Eikenberry
And listeners. 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 dot com. If you haven't yet, subscribe to the show so you don't miss any future episodes. And while you're there, we sure like and review This helps us know what you love about our show.

00;17;58;20 - 00;18;12;13
Marisa Eikenberry
Feel free to contact us via LinkedIn or email with the links in our show notes and let us know you listen to this episode or even suggest a topic for one night to tackle in a future episode. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for joining us. And as Wayne like to say, don't always get too down.


Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
00:29 Debating the Term 'Expert'
01:13 Wayne's Perspective on Expertise
05:10 Remote Work Zealots and Objectivity
06:17 Challenges and Solutions in Remote Work
08:58 Wayne's Remote Work Journey
12:30 Addressing Common Remote Work Challenges
17:31 Concluding Thoughts

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

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

 Order
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The Great Escape: Innovating Remote Team Building with Escape Rooms with Madeline Purches
Guests, Technology, Working Remotely

The Great Escape: Innovating Remote Team Building with Escape Rooms with Madeline Purches

Wayne Turmel joins Madeline Purches from The Escape Game to discuss the world of remote team building. Discover how the principles of escape rooms can transform the dynamics of remote teams. Madeline shares insights on adapting escape room tactics for virtual environments, tackling cultural and technological challenges, and creating engaging, inclusive activities for global teams. Whether you're leading a remote team or looking for innovative team-building strategies, this episode is packed with practical tips and fascinating perspectives.

Key Takeaways

1. Adapt to Change: Embrace innovative solutions for remote team building, like virtual escape rooms.
2. Cultural Sensitivity: Be aware of cultural references in team activities to ensure inclusivity.
3. Tech Accessibility: Ensure activities are accessible for all tech skill levels.
4. Foster Competition: Use competitive elements to engage and motivate team members.
5. Communication is Key: Maintain open, frequent communication channels for remote team members.
6. Level the Playing Field: In hybrid settings, ensure remote workers feel equally involved.
7. Create Connection: Intentionally develop opportunities for team members to connect beyond work.

Featured Guest

Madeline Purches

Name: Madeline Purches

What She Does: Manager of Corporate Sales for The Escape Game

View Full Transcript

00;00;08;03 - 00;00;43;28
Wayne Turmel
Hello, everybody. Greetings. Welcome once again to the Long-Distance Worklife podcast. The show for those who are working remotely, working hybrid, working remotely some of the time, just trying to make sense of the way that we work today. My name is Wayne Turmel. I'm your humble servant. We are very excited today. This is a guest episode. I've decided to stop calling them Marisa-less episodes because people love Marisa, rightly so.

00;00;43;28 - 00;01;16;01
Wayne Turmel
And I don't want to diminish expectations. We are blessed with another very, very charming, talented, very smart guest, Madeline Purches and we are going to be talking about team building and icebreakers and activities and all the stuff that you know, makes me a little bit grumpy. But I understand the importance of it. So we are going to welcome Madeline Purches in the show, Madeline.

00;01;16;08 - 00;01;18;16
Madeline Purches
Hey, Wayne, great to be here.

00;01;18;18 - 00;01;32;29
Wayne Turmel
Well, in the words of David Letterman, we'll put a stop to that. So welcome. Tell us a little bit about you and The Escape Game and then we'll jump into our conversation here.

00;01;33;01 - 00;01;49;20
Madeline Purches
Yeah, absolutely. So I'll start with The Escape Game. They're a little bit bigger than I am. They are one of the largest privately owned escape room companies in the U.S. We're currently sitting at 35 physical escape room locations. And if you've never played an escape room before, we're going to lock you in a small room and make you complete puzzles until you get out.

00;01;49;20 - 00;02;10;08
Madeline Purches
It's a lot of fun. Despite what it sounds like. We have sort of shifted our business model to include more and more corporate groups, especially since 2020, when there was obviously a huge need for some team building remotely and we were able to sort of shift some of our games and products to make them work remotely, which I'm sure we'll talk about.

00;02;10;10 - 00;02;14;21
Madeline Purches
And I am the manager of the sales team for those groups.

00;02;14;23 - 00;02;33;21
Wayne Turmel
Well, that's actually was the intriguing thing and why we were having this conversation, because I'm familiar with escape rooms. I've never done them, but I get the concept right now. I have friends who who are addicted to them and other friends who actually I don't know if you call them Dungeon Masters, but you know, they run.

00;02;33;28 - 00;02;35;23
Madeline Purches
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gotcha.

00;02;35;25 - 00;03;00;19
Wayne Turmel
So when I first got the query about you coming to talk to us, I went, Well, that's nice, but, you know, little hard to lock somebody in a room from across the country. So tell me a little bit about the shift, because I think a lot of people's business model took a beating in 2020. So tell us about that shift to remote.

00;03;00;23 - 00;03;09;21
Wayne Turmel
What what we know, what inspired it, but what kinds of things did you have to take into account that maybe surprised you?

00;03;09;23 - 00;03;32;08
Madeline Purches
Yeah, absolutely. This is something I really have to commend our team for, because they they saw it coming down the pike and knew very clearly that this was going to impact our business uniquely because, you know, not only were we affected by shutdowns, but we would have a harder time coming back. The games are so tactile. They literally involve, by their nature, people being in small rooms, locked in together.

00;03;32;08 - 00;03;54;12
Madeline Purches
So they knew we needed an alternative solution. And so the first version was literally sticking a camera on a helmet on somebody's head, putting them in the room and hopping them on a zoom call and seeing if it worked. It was very Blair Witch Project at the beginning. It was not the biggest success, but we tinkered and tailored until it became something that has become very accessible for remote teams.

00;03;54;12 - 00;04;13;24
Madeline Purches
And we have, through the use of both the person in the room who's got a camera on their head and some very intense training to not be bopping around like crazy, a digital dashboard on the internet that they can access. It's got an inventory and scans of the room and all sorts of things. We're able to create something that has multiple different points of interactivity.

00;04;13;24 - 00;04;24;00
Madeline Purches
And while, no, you're not locked in a room, you do feel very immersed in the experience and really as close to the real thing as we can get you, which is the main goal from our perspective.

00;04;24;01 - 00;04;39;13
Wayne Turmel
And what was what was the reaction from people when you started telling them, Hey, we can do this virtually? What kind of went through people's brains and what kind of objections did you hear about this?

00;04;39;17 - 00;05;06;29
Madeline Purches
It was very similar to you. There was a lot of skepticism. A lot of there was both skepticism towards the whole idea of virtual team building, which I think is a whole other matter, but more specifically towards how the heck can you do something so specific, like escape rooms virtually? And we we ended up doing a lot of demos, a lot of discounted and free games just to get people in the door, lots of videos to explain and show and say, No, this is viable, It is fun.

00;05;07;06 - 00;05;24;20
Madeline Purches
It's really exciting. And then somewhere around June, July of that year, I think there was sort of a cultural shift where people realized that unfortunately, we're not getting out of this anytime soon. We're not going to be able to just get by with our weekly digital happy hours. And people were getting pretty sick of the virtual happy hours.

00;05;24;20 - 00;05;39;07
Madeline Purches
So it became clear we need another solution. And so it just really started blowing up at that point because we'd proven our track record that it was quality, It was a lot of fun. And then we had also gotten to a place in the culture. People were looking for it.

00;05;39;10 - 00;05;50;03
Wayne Turmel
Well, what makes for a good game when you are scattered around the world? I mean, how do you know that? Yeah, this one works.

00;05;50;06 - 00;06;08;02
Madeline Purches
Great question. You say around the world doing it for a global team as a specific challenge. So if you're doing something for a global team, you want something where a language barrier is not going to be a big barrier. Most people speak and read English, but you want to make sure that you're not. It's very easy to create.

00;06;08;02 - 00;06;19;29
Madeline Purches
I live in America. It's very easy to create a game or an activity that is specific to American culture or even Western culture. And so that's something you have to keep in mind. You want something that's going to be broadly applicable to groups. You also.

00;06;20;06 - 00;06;42;11
Wayne Turmel
Let me stop you there, because this is an important thing, because we are blind to it. We don't realize the kind of cultural things, whether it's football references or TV commercials or whatever it is. What kinds of things do you need to be cognizant of internationally?

00;06;42;14 - 00;06;58;24
Madeline Purches
Yeah, great question. Creating something. So there's two versions of it. One is for the group that is very fluent in English, and that's not really the barrier. The barrier is the cultural knowledge, and the other is for the groups that really, if they had their druthers, they would not be doing this in English, they'd be doing this in Spanish or similar.

00;06;58;27 - 00;07;20;20
Madeline Purches
For those groups that are just lacking the cultural knowledge, it can be very insidious and difficult. We created an entire game show product that is a ton of fun, really exciting, really high energy. But the problem is one of the biggest rounds in the game was focused around guessing common idioms and phrases from picture puzzles. And we very quickly realized, like the international groups can't do this.

00;07;20;27 - 00;07;43;28
Madeline Purches
Even the groups that are based in England or Ireland or English speaking countries really can't do it because they're all American phrases. And we don't realize it because most of the time we're talking to Americans. And so people know what you mean when you say something a dime a dozen. But people in Singapore did not. So that was a great example of us learning very quickly, like, it's not as simple as just simple language applicable to groups.

00;07;43;29 - 00;07;50;28
Madeline Purches
You have to really think about what do they know about and what wouldn't they know about, and how can you make something that's broadly applicable.

00;07;51;04 - 00;08;00;18
Wayne Turmel
That's great. I love flagging that kind of thing because so often and it's insidious, it can actually damage teams.

00;08;00;20 - 00;08;20;18
Madeline Purches
Yeah, it can. Because if you're jumping into a team building, I mean, there is nothing worse not only than then not being able to participate, but they probably plan this team building because they wanted to bring the global groups groups together. And so there's nothing worse than you can do than having your ten American participants just steamrolling the others because they can't participate at all.

00;08;20;18 - 00;08;38;07
Madeline Purches
So it's just it's a real bummer when that happens. So we really try to focus on ways to keep that from happening and to create products and games and activities that are going to be fun for everybody and won't make anybody feel like they're the odd one out, which is actually interestingly enough, we don't do any trivia for that reason.

00;08;38;07 - 00;08;57;17
Madeline Purches
Trivia is very popular and we often have people that will come to us and say, we want to do a virtual team building. We were thinking trivia or something similar. Trivia is just about the worst thing you can do because it's pretty impossible to pick a category that everybody is going to have some knowledge on. Inevitably, you're going to pick a category and a bunch of people are going to go, Well, I don't watch a lot of TV.

00;08;57;19 - 00;09;14;19
Madeline Purches
I can't really play. I'm going to sit back and I'm going to answer my emails because it's so easy to do if you're doing something virtually, just go, I'm just going to do my emails instead. We don't want that. Trivia is not a great fit for virtual team building specifically because it's really hard to make it applicable to everybody.

00;09;14;22 - 00;09;26;07
Wayne Turmel
So let's just with so we know what doesn't work. And by the way, as somebody who yes, it's been 30 years, but I was on Jeopardy and I'm a trivia freak.

00;09;26;09 - 00;09;31;05
Madeline Purches
Oh my- I mean, I love trivia, too. I'm about to be a fan, but. Yeah, but.

00;09;31;05 - 00;09;53;05
Wayne Turmel
Don't be impressed. Do you have the face, Everybody has. When you say you were on Jeopardy, and then you have to explain that you got stomped like a bug in international in humiliating. man, that's that's it. But, you know, trivia is kind of the kind of thing that I would go for, right? So that's a good idea.

00;09;53;05 - 00;10;03;26
Wayne Turmel
So let's what works and what doesn't work like very specifically descriptively, what kind of things work? Let's assume a fairly homogenous team.

00;10;03;28 - 00;10;23;28
Madeline Purches
Yeah. Things that work are games that are not going to be too technologically difficult because if you're working with a team, a wide variety of folks, a wide variety of ages, a wide variety of positions, even now, three years into the pandemic, well, post-pandemic, however you want to put it, we still have people that are not super tech savvy.

00;10;23;28 - 00;10;42;20
Madeline Purches
And so that's part of what makes the virtual escape room so good is that we have the Zoom call. We've got a person in the room, we have this whole digital dashboard that you can get as into or as not into as you want. If you are an engineer and you're super tech savvy, you can have two versions of the dashboard open and be looking at two different things at once and be checking the inventory and checking your list.

00;10;42;23 - 00;11;01;14
Madeline Purches
If you're not tech savvy, you could just open the zoom call and sit back and not have to click another thing and still participate. So creating an environment where people don't end up feeling stupid because they're not super good with technology is prerogative number one. That is a great way to make sure that people feel involved and feel like they're going to have a good time.

00;11;01;16 - 00;11;19;10
Madeline Purches
Number two is competition. People love competition and I think sometimes people who are planning these events shy away from it because they're like, Well, we're doing this to create unity in the team. We don't want to break them into teams and have them compete against each other. But most people are not, you know, drop down, drag out competitive people.

00;11;19;10 - 00;11;34;23
Madeline Purches
They like competition because it makes things interesting. But truthfully, what it's going to do is create a touchstone for people going forward. If you have a group that has never been together in person and they get together, they do a fun, competitive game and they're able on their next town hall to go, my gosh, did you see Annie?

00;11;34;23 - 00;11;52;11
Madeline Purches
She crushed our group. She was so good at that one round. That was incredible. That's awesome. And people will rib each other and they'll have their fun little my gosh, Team, you did so terribly. But that's a good thing. That's a great thing. That's giving them something to talk about. That's not work. And that is the most important thing when it comes to building culture.

00;11;52;11 - 00;12;06;13
Madeline Purches
So something competitive tends to be really good, something that doesn't have super high tech requirements. And then like we talked about earlier, something that's going to be broadly applicable to global teams, to teams of different ages and cultures, those are going to be the best fit.

00;12;06;13 - 00;12;31;00
Wayne Turmel
Groups that that those are really, really good guidelines. Tell me a little bit about when you've got like just physically how it works. If you've got people in the office as well as people who are remote, does it work best when everybody is at their own machine? Does it make sense to have people, you know, gather in the conference room, whatever?

00;12;31;02 - 00;12;34;28
Wayne Turmel
Just logistically, how does that work best?

00;12;35;00 - 00;13;04;09
Madeline Purches
Great question. So I myself, I'm going to go back a bit and then go forward. I myself actually work remotely. I work from home. My headquarters is in Nashville. My team is kind of spread to the wind, but I do occasionally have meetings or team building activities with my group in Nashville, and I tend to find and I think a lot of other remote workers feel this way, that nothing feels worse than being brought into a call, or everybody else is sitting around a conference room table and you're the only one on a screen because inevitably they're going to forget you're there.

00;13;04;09 - 00;13;27;22
Madeline Purches
They're not going to remember to talk to you. You're just going to kind of be shunted off to the sidelines. So my personal view, and this is not always feasible, but I always think if you're doing an event that is hybrid, meaning that you've got some people who are in a physical office and you've got some people that are joining completely remotely, I would prefer everyone to be on their own machine, even if that means they're in the office ten feet from each other on their own machine, because it's leveling the playing field for everybody.

00;13;27;24 - 00;13;44;11
Madeline Purches
It's making those remote workers feel like, okay, if they're coming to my space, we're all playing at the same level. We're all sitting at the table together. This is great. You can do it with people in a conference room. And in fact, we've done that before. I think if you're going to do that, it is better to say, okay, here are my people in person.

00;13;44;11 - 00;13;58;19
Madeline Purches
They're going to play on a team. Here are my remote participants, they're going to play on a team because again, what I found will happen is that if you've got those remote players on a team with people who are literally sitting around a table together, they're going to get forgotten. And that's the last thing that I want to have happen.

00;13;58;19 - 00;14;14;20
Madeline Purches
So leveling the playing field, trying to get everybody on their own machines, it may feel silly because it they may be sitting two feet from each other in a physical office, but it's going to be better for those remote participants. And truthfully, that's most of the reason we're doing this, is to get those remote participants involved.

00;14;14;23 - 00;14;38;15
Wayne Turmel
Well, this is great stuff and we will have links to The Escape Game and to Madeline's LinkedIn and all that good stuff on the page. So we will know if you're interested in more details. We can do that. Madeline, what you mention your own team is remote and I mean, obviously you guys specialize in team building and we don't.

00;14;38;17 - 00;14;42;25
Wayne Turmel
So I'm guessing it's not the worst place to work.

00;14;42;28 - 00;14;44;09
Madeline Purches
I hope not.

00;14;44;12 - 00;14;57;20
Wayne Turmel
What challenges you got even in an environment that you're in where, you know, people are self-selecting to work at a place like this? What are some of the challenges that you face with your team?

00;14;57;23 - 00;15;22;00
Madeline Purches
Yeah, great question. I am lucky that my team is small. I it's just me and two other people. So it's a very intimate team, which is great, but there are still definitely challenges that arise. Namely, both of them are most of the time based at our headquarters in Nashville, and I is their leader. I'm not with them. I am in a different place, which can be a big challenge because I, as my leader, want to be as present and available for them as possible.

00;15;22;00 - 00;15;42;06
Madeline Purches
And that can sometimes feel difficult when I am hundreds of miles away. Now, luckily we do sales, which is by its nature kind of an independent role, but there are definitely times when I want to be available as an asset for them and it's harder to do so. So some things that we have taken on as sort of tactics to make sure that everybody is taken care of.

00;15;42;08 - 00;16;02;20
Madeline Purches
We are religious about our use of Slack teams. Google Chat, whatever you use, I make sure that I am as available as I can be to my team whenever I can be. We have a time difference. So I while I'm not working 24 seven, if my team is online, I at the very least have my Slack open and I'm aware of it so that if they need me, I am there.

00;16;02;20 - 00;16;18;24
Madeline Purches
I want them to feel as accessible as I would be if I was literally at a desk right next to them. And of course, that's my perspective as a leader too. I would never want my my team members to feel like they need to be that accessible to me, but I want to be that accessible to them. The other thing that we do is we have stand up every single day.

00;16;18;24 - 00;16;36;10
Madeline Purches
Some days it is 2 minutes. We hop on, we say we're busy, we can't do this. We got to go. Some days it's like 45 minutes. We're 15 minutes of that is for actual work chat and then 30 minutes we just talk. And that to me is just as valuable as the actual down home work talk because it's about building culture and trust.

00;16;36;12 - 00;16;53;11
Madeline Purches
And as a leader, especially in sales, a role that can typically be kind of a little bit, you know, competitive and not trustworthy because you're competing for sales. I don't want it to feel that way. I want them to feel like they trust me. And then the last thing that we do, we will do bigger team building activities.

00;16;53;11 - 00;17;09;15
Madeline Purches
When I come into town, or sometimes virtually, but we do a monthly lunch and we actually I would highly suggest anyone try this because we just started doing it and it is a ton of fun. We'll do a monthly lunch where we each order lunch or go grab it and we'll sit at our desks with our videos on and we'll chat.

00;17;09;18 - 00;17;28;08
Madeline Purches
We started picking it through a spin the wheel thing where everyone puts in three suggestions and we have to spin the wheel to see what everybody gets. And it can be as simple as okay, it landed on Chinese food. That's what we're going to get. Or what happened last week, which is that one of my team members put “Text your mom, what you want for lunch” into it.

00;17;28;08 - 00;17;54;17
Madeline Purches
And moms got to pick what we were going to get for lunch, which was super funny and super cute and again, just created that relationship. Touchstone remote work is all about creating those opportunities for connection that would happen organically in an office, but I sometimes think that remote working has an advantage in that you are. If you're doing it well, you are focused intentionally on creating those moments rather than just trusting that they're going to happen.

00;17;54;19 - 00;17;59;21
Madeline Purches
So there is a little bit of a superpower in that. But I think I think constant connection and constant communication are the keys.

00;17;59;24 - 00;18;25;11
Wayne Turmel
Terrific. Thank you so much, Madeline Purches from The Escape Game. Thank you for joining us. I am going to remove you from our video screen for a moment while I let everybody else know that if you want links to Madeline and her work, they are at longdistanceworklife.com. If you enjoyed today's episode and I can't believe you didn't.

00;18;25;14 - 00;18;59;21
Wayne Turmel
Please please please like subscribe, tell your friends all of that good stuff. Our listenership is growing and not only is it growing, but you're a very engaged, active little audience. We love to hear from you. So please, you know, rollout to Marisa and myself and reach us on LinkedIn or you can email us and questions. Comments. Vicious personal attacks, pet peeves that you want us to talk about.

00;18;59;23 - 00;19;25;03
Wayne Turmel
Please, please, please stay in touch. We love that. Of course, if you are thinking about your team, should it be remote? Should it be hybrid? I urge you to check out Kevin Eikenberry and my new book, Long-Distance Team: Designing Your Team for Everyone's Success. You can find the book and downloadable resources and all kinds of great things at longdistanceteambook.com.

00;19;25;10 - 00;19;45;23
Wayne Turmel
We will be back next week with Marisa and I think a good pet peeve discussion. I think that's the topic so come check that out. Thank you so much for joining us. Check us out at the Kevin Eikenberry Group and we look forward to hearing from you soon. Don't let the weasels get you down. Have a great week.


Timestamps

00:00 Introduction to Madeline Purches and The Escape Game
01:49 Adapting Escape Rooms for Remote Team Building
03:00 Innovations in Virtual Escape Room Experiences
05:07 The Cultural Shift Towards Virtual Team Building
06:58 Challenges of Creating Culturally Inclusive Games
09:14 What Works and Doesn't in Virtual Team Building
11:01 The Importance of Competition and Connection in Remote Teams
13:27 Hybrid Work Environments and Remote Inclusion
15:22 Managing a Remote Sales Team: Strategies and Experiences
17:59 Concluding Thoughts and Episode Wrap-up

Related Episodes

Additional Resources

Order The Long-Distance Team

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

 Order
Read More