Remote Work Rants: Making Sense of Remote Onboarding
Ask Wayne Anything, Leadership, Surviving Remote Work, Working Remotely

Remote Work Rants: Making Sense of Remote Onboarding

Join Marisa Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel as they navigate the lively world of remote onboarding. In this episode they reveal some clever strategies for creating a welcoming remote culture and ensuring new team members feel connected from the start. They dive into practical tips like engaging webcam chats, clear task delegation, and the importance of a user-friendly employee handbook, all spiced up with their trademark humor and expertise.

Key Takeaways

1. Remote onboarding is a critical business problem, as remote workers are statistically more likely to leave if they don't feel a sense of belonging.
2. Onboarding should include webcam conversations with team members to build rapport and connections.
3. Remote employees should be given meaningful tasks and responsibilities from the start to demonstrate their value and contribute to the team.
4. Online employee handbooks and resources should be searchable and logically organized to help new employees navigate company-specific terminology and processes.

View Full Transcript

00;00;08;02 - 00;00;18;29
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to the Long-Distance Work Life, where we help you lead, work and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I'm Marisa Eikenberry, a fellow remote worker. And joining me is my co-host and remote work expert Wayne Turmel. Hi.

00;00;19;01 - 00;00;23;25
Wayne Turmel
Hi. That's me. And also a remote worker, as it turns out.

00;00;23;28 - 00;00;37;27
Marisa Eikenberry
That is also true. It's what part of what makes you an expert? So today we are talking about more pet peeves. And first of all, thank you for to so many of you who have been sending us these, we've had so much fun doing them over the last several months.

00;00;38;00 - 00;00;42;09
Wayne Turmel
And I love listening to people whine. That makes me so happy.

00;00;42;12 - 00;00;49;03
Marisa Eikenberry
And the funny part is some of our listeners have said they enjoy hearing you rant about things. So it's a perfect match, right?

00;00;49;05 - 00;00;54;04
Wayne Turmel
It's a good it's a good thing, right? Tell me what you want me to rant about, Brady.

00;00;54;07 - 00;01;13;15
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, today we're going to rant about onboarding and specifically about remote onboarding. So I heard from Katrina on Facebook about onboarding as a fully remote worker into an existing, fully remote team is rough. She did it before COVID, before it was fashionable, and it took 4 to 6 weeks before she felt like she didn't just take up space.

00;01;13;18 - 00;01;37;27
Marisa Eikenberry
She's also had two peers and one supervisor who were all onboarded during COVID. They had a tough time with it and all have since left. And three direct reports, onboarded as a mostly remote experience. But they had complicated processes for getting access to technology and things of that nature. So far, all three direct reports are still here. But as a team, we have to and do work very, very hard to build cohesion and rapport.

00;01;38;00 - 00;01;51;21
Marisa Eikenberry
We actually had somebody else, Rachel, also on Facebook, who had said that onboarding new team members was very tricky for them and it was hard to form new and genuine connections. So there are people that are having issues onboarding remotely so.

00;01;51;23 - 00;02;24;26
Wayne Turmel
Well, they are. And I am going to be that guy again and remind people that this is not just, gee, it's really hard and gosh, I'd like to have gotten it. There is a business cost here if people do not deal within the first five days. A sense of belonging they are statistically more likely to leave. And remote workers, as we have talked about many times on this show, have no barriers to leaving.

00;02;24;28 - 00;02;29;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah, they can start the next day in a completely different job. They just have.

00;02;29;20 - 00;02;30;09
Wayne Turmel
Literally.

00;02;30;09 - 00;02;31;20
Marisa Eikenberry
The only thing that.

00;02;31;22 - 00;03;00;29
Wayne Turmel
Literally the only thing they need to do is get a new password. Yeah. So this is a business problem. It's not just a gosh, wouldn't it be nice to feel more connected to my people problem? It's a legit business problem. And I think the experience I mean, if it takes 40 days to become onboarded and be onboarded, I'm going to guess they mean doing the productive work for which you were hired.

00;03;01;02 - 00;03;04;17
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Feeling like they belong there. They're not here.

00;03;04;19 - 00;03;10;26
Wayne Turmel
And probably two parts, right? Feeling like they belong and actually doing the work that you were hired to do.

00;03;11;04 - 00;03;11;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;03;11;28 - 00;03;31;28
Wayne Turmel
Right. That you're not just doing busy work, that you're not just I mean, one of the things that makes me crazy about traditional onboarding and this is true of in-person as well, is why do we spend the first three days that we are hired filling out paperwork?

00;03;32;03 - 00;03;32;29
Marisa Eikenberry
That's fair.

00;03;33;01 - 00;03;45;04
Wayne Turmel
Right. I have to fill out the paperwork so that by the end of the week, hopefully I have my computer and my logging access and all of that stuff. Why isn't that waiting for me? Day one.

00;03;45;07 - 00;03;48;12
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Or even potentially filled out before then, if you're able.

00;03;48;13 - 00;04;25;26
Wayne Turmel
Well, this is what I'm saying is, you know, I know that I start work Monday. How about I get you the paperwork before then? Yeah. And I know that there are issues. If I'm filling out paperwork, I'm technically working and I should be paid, and there's stuff, but come on. Yeah. The fact that we spend so much of the onboarding process and when we're in the office and we're dealing with people and we're sitting in the cube farm and we're kind of kibitzing with people and meeting people and putting faces to names, it's not entirely wasted time.

00;04;25;28 - 00;04;30;00
Wayne Turmel
Right. But then how do you do that?

00;04;30;02 - 00;04;30;12
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00;04;30;12 - 00;04;52;16
Wayne Turmel
So how do you replicate that experience when you aren't in the office? Right. And I think that is it's an important question. I think it depends on where you are relative to the office. Right. If you can go in for a couple of days, your first couple of days, I think that is an optimum experience.

00;04;52;20 - 00;04;53;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely.

00;04;53;29 - 00;04;56;20
Wayne Turmel
If you are in Guam.

00;04;56;22 - 00;04;57;25
Marisa Eikenberry
You're not going be able to do that.

00;04;57;28 - 00;05;20;23
Wayne Turmel
You're not going to be able to do that in a way that makes sense. So how do you do it? Now, we have and if you have heard us talk about this, forgive me, dear listener, but this is a best practice that we do that I think is really, really critical. When somebody joins our organization, their first assignment, this is an assignment.

00;05;20;24 - 00;05;43;27
Wayne Turmel
This is stuff they are expected to do. Day 1 to 3 is to set up a half hour webcam conversation with every member of the team, whether they're going to work with that person all the time or not. Right. They may very rarely work with Lisa in payables or Angie behind the scenes, but a half hour webcam conversation.

00;05;43;29 - 00;05;46;20
Wayne Turmel
And it starts with what's your job? What do you do here?

00;05;46;20 - 00;05;47;10
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00;05;47;13 - 00;05;55;01
Wayne Turmel
Right. But it turns into where you go to school and do you have kids and what's on that shelf behind you and you know.

00;05;55;01 - 00;06;08;03
Marisa Eikenberry
It to not be mostly work. I mean, yeah, you're going to talk a little bit about that, but it's really meant to be. I'm trying to get to know you as a person. I'm trying to find commonalities so that way we can build rapport.

00;06;08;05 - 00;06;27;15
Wayne Turmel
And these conversations should happen spontaneously if you are in the office with people. Now, to be fair, they honestly don't, right? A lot of us are introverts or we don't want to bother somebody and we're not going to schedule time with somebody at the next desk to say, Give me a half hour and let me pick your brain.

00;06;27;15 - 00;06;55;28
Wayne Turmel
Right? Right. But that's a best practice because it doesn't matter where those people are. You're not just hanging out in the lunchroom with people in the office. Right. So that is a very and it needs to happen right away, like the first couple of days. Right. First of all, what else are you doing anyway? Yeah. You haven't really been trained to do anything yet, but make that useful time.

00;06;56;00 - 00;07;24;22
Wayne Turmel
The other thing that people report with onboarding remotely is there's a lot of time. The minute I meet with my manager, your manager does their best to have one on ones and give them lots of time and stuff, but they're not always available. They are doing other things and helping other employees and whatever. And so the amount of wasted time.

00;07;24;24 - 00;07;25;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;07;25;21 - 00;07;39;12
Wayne Turmel
Those first few days is really frustrating to people. They want to do work. They don't want to. Well, I had a call with my boss at one and I've got training at three and what do I do in the meantime?

00;07;39;14 - 00;07;59;19
Marisa Eikenberry
So on that same lines, I know that recently we had an episode where we talk a lot about asynchronous video and we talk about that in the context of meetings. But you know, to your point about this whole scheduling time and all that. Would you recommend asynchronous video on board in at least for part of the process?

00;07;59;21 - 00;08;20;15
Wayne Turmel
I think where it makes sense, I think that's absolutely true. And, you know, we a lot of organizations have training, right. E-learning and stuff. It doesn't have to be that formal. So it's great when you can do that, right? When you have all the schmancy e-learning and.

00;08;20;17 - 00;08;22;29
Marisa Eikenberry
And your I.T. department has time to build it for you.

00;08;23;02 - 00;08;45;20
Wayne Turmel
And the department has time to build that for you and all that stuff. I think that short asynchronous messages, you know, just to start the day. Hey, Marisa, today I want you doing this right. And it's not an email. It's just, Hey, how you doing? Hope you had a great night. Listen, today we're going to work on this.

00;08;45;27 - 00;08;59;06
Wayne Turmel
I want you to contact Alice this morning, and I want you to talk to so-and-so this afternoon and talk to them about this function or get them to show you how they do X.

00;08;59;10 - 00;09;00;28
Marisa Eikenberry
That all make sense.

00;09;01;00 - 00;09;12;25
Wayne Turmel
It's informal, it's casual, it's useful. Right? It's. You're still getting some degree of face and voice time with the person. And it's personalized.

00;09;12;27 - 00;09;15;17
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Yeah. It's way better than just a slack message.

00;09;15;20 - 00;09;52;22
Wayne Turmel
And I think if we think about the way we've traditionally onboarded, it doesn't really work anyway. I mean, think about the way we used to start jobs, especially at big companies. It's your first day and so you go to bootcamp and you and eight other new hires fly to wherever the headquarters is and you're in class all day and then you go out for dinner at night and you do that lather, rinse, repeat, and it's at least four days and sometimes two weeks, and the amount that you remember is zero.

00;09;52;25 - 00;09;59;06
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I was I will admit I've never had that experience. And now I'm very thankful that I have not.

00;09;59;08 - 00;10;31;06
Wayne Turmel
If you are if you join an organization as a new salesperson, especially straight out of school or new in your career, odds are that you have had to go to bootcamp. And the fact of the matter is, the human brain doesn't absorb information that way. Yes, you socialize, right? First of all, you you create a cohort with your fellow learners and those relationships can very often last throughout your time at the company.

00;10;31;11 - 00;10;33;02
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. And those are very important.

00;10;33;04 - 00;10;39;27
Wayne Turmel
There are no atheists in foxholes. And, you know, you bond in times of extreme stress.

00;10;39;27 - 00;10;41;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;10;41;10 - 00;11;03;28
Wayne Turmel
But in terms of two weeks of constant training, training, training, here's your handbook. Turn to page eight. You actually retain very little and at least in the old days, you used to get a binder and you could go back and refer to the document in the binder and find, How do I do that? Again, we don't get binders anymore.

00;11;03;28 - 00;11;04;27
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay, So we.

00;11;04;27 - 00;11;06;22
Wayne Turmel
Have that one.

00;11;06;27 - 00;11;20;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. So I know that, like you said, we don't we don't do the binder thing anymore, but I know that there are some companies that they've created online employee handbooks or user guides or whatever you want to call it.

00;11;20;26 - 00;11;23;20
Wayne Turmel
And they are usually impossible to navigate.

00;11;23;23 - 00;11;24;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00;11;24;21 - 00;11;32;14
Wayne Turmel
The information, this is where I, he says, referring to an early conversation that we had. This is where II becomes helpful.

00;11;32;19 - 00;11;33;05
Marisa Eikenberry
That makes sense.

00;11;33;05 - 00;12;06;29
Wayne Turmel
Because at least in a binder, I can lift my finger and start flipping pages to find what I need online. If I don't know exactly what that thing is called, I am scrolling forever. Whereas if the A, I can say, Hey, show me how to do X boom, there it is and you're good. So if you're going to have online onboarding, if you're going to have employee handbooks electronically, they need to be searchable and they need to make some sort of logical sense.

00;12;07;01 - 00;12;14;17
Marisa Eikenberry
And that makes sense. I know that there are some companies they use notion for this. Some of them create a wiki or things like that. So I mean, even.

00;12;14;17 - 00;12;36;23
Wayne Turmel
One can be incredibly, incredibly helpful. But the other thing is it's just this two weeks of whatever and there's this lovely thing that I've talked about for years, but I don't think we've ever talked about on the show, which is the Maryland okay, which is the term. It's a big rabbit hole, literally, because it's stolen from the book Watership Down.

00;12;36;26 - 00;12;44;05
Wayne Turmel
But basically the horror element is how much you can take into your brain before it's full.

00;12;44;07 - 00;12;44;20
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;12;44;26 - 00;13;12;19
Wayne Turmel
And you can't. And you know, if you've ever been to a training class, this is usually about 11:00 on day one. You have absorbed all the stuff you can absorb. And it's not that you don't want to be a good soldier and you don't want to learn it. You just don't get a chance to use it and process it and move it from short term memory to long term memory to make room for more stuff, let alone a week or two weeks of this nonsense.

00;13;12;19 - 00;13;17;27
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, you'll remember the first things you learned in the last things you learned and you won't remember a lot of the in between.

00;13;18;00 - 00;13;38;11
Wayne Turmel
Exactly right. And so one of the things that we are learning about onboarding is, yes, some things are best done in the office. Well, if you're going to be in a hybrid environment, be prepared to space in the office. You know, even if you're mostly going to be working from home, suck it up, take a day, two days, do what you need to do.

00;13;38;14 - 00;14;05;21
Wayne Turmel
But a lot of it can be learned in chunks and it can be learned in chunks from different sources. Traditionally at onboarding, Marisa's been here forever. I'm going to bolt the new person to Marisa, and she's going to follow her around like a little duckling and imprint on her. And that's how she's going to learn. And she's going to learn all of Marisa's good habits, and she's going to pick up all of Marisa's bad habits.

00;14;05;24 - 00;14;08;11
Wayne Turmel
And Marisa is not going to get a darn thing done.

00;14;08;13 - 00;14;09;03
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;14;09;05 - 00;14;16;06
Wayne Turmel
While this is going on, but helpful for knowing where the bathroom is and who's responsible for the coffee and, you know.

00;14;16;07 - 00;14;18;01
Marisa Eikenberry
And having a buddy in the office like that.

00;14;18;01 - 00;14;47;06
Wayne Turmel
So having somebody that you're assigned to online virtual team collaboration and onboarding should be the same. But you can pick different people for different functions so that you're not. Marisa isn't the only human in the world that person knows right? Right. Alison's our resident expert, expert on Excel, and Bob has been here a really long time. And you know what?

00;14;47;13 - 00;15;03;24
Wayne Turmel
I want you to take an hour with Bob and just get the history of the company. Look up what you know, What did he know? What does he know about the culture? That seems like a strange thing to assign. It's the kind of thing that we think happens organically in person.

00;15;03;24 - 00;15;04;26
Marisa Eikenberry
And it does not.

00;15;04;29 - 00;15;13;26
Wayne Turmel
But it does not. And if you wait for it to happen organically, you know it's not going to happen as quickly or perhaps as well.

00;15;14;01 - 00;15;39;09
Marisa Eikenberry
So going along the same lines of, you know, there's a point where there's too much information for us to grasp. And, you know, maybe employee handbooks aren't the right thing or user guides or I know for us and I'm sure this is true for many companies, you know, we have acronyms, acronyms and initial isms. And we have these words that nobody uses except for us, like, how do you how do you onboard somebody into that?

00;15;39;09 - 00;15;59;29
Marisa Eikenberry
How do you help them find that? I know that we as a company, we we keep realizing we've had two people who onboarded two years ago now and, you know, they've been with us and everything's great. And every now and then they ask a question that for us we think, Well, duh, it's X, Y, Z. And then we have to remember they don't know this or they never asked.

00;15;59;29 - 00;16;02;18
Marisa Eikenberry
So it never came up again.

00;16;02;21 - 00;16;18;21
Wayne Turmel
I would be a beautiful thing right there on a meeting. And we're all talking about the LDL series and blah, blah, blah, and they can go on and go, what in the name of everything that's holy is the LDL series. Right. And they can get the answer without looking like idiots.

00;16;18;28 - 00;16;19;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay, There.

00;16;20;00 - 00;16;49;03
Wayne Turmel
This is this is where now. So some of this is information gap. Right. But the other thing is, are there tasks that they can and should be doing that they can't do their entire job, but they can start to go through their lead list. They can start to compile a list of there are things that they can do so that as soon as possible they are doing some valuable work and adding value to the team.

00;16;49;04 - 00;17;07;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, and it sounds like, too, there's there's a responsibility for the people who have been working there for a while to inform the new people about things. And there's a responsibility of the new person. Ask questions, too. Now, granted, I realize if they can't ask what they don't know, but there's also stuff they can't ask.

00;17;08;02 - 00;17;36;16
Wayne Turmel
But there is. It's funny when you talk about company culture and company handbooks and that kind of thing, there's explicit knowledge and there's tacit knowledge. Okay. Explicit knowledge is stuff that's on the page. If you want to know how to do X, go to this website, turn to this page. There is a process for this, right? If I'm working and I have a question, well, everybody knows Alice is the Excel wizard.

00;17;36;21 - 00;17;49;04
Wayne Turmel
Where does it say that we should say, If I have an Excel question, I have to go to Alice because I'm going to Marisa because she's the only person I know. And Marisa is completely useless when it comes to excel.

00;17;49;06 - 00;17;56;03
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Well, which also means that I need to be really good about saying I'm not the Excel expert. Alice It.

00;17;56;05 - 00;18;21;19
Wayne Turmel
Exactly right. So one of the things that's helpful is if you have people with specific knowledge or skill sets, get them involved early, particularly if they are remote from each other because I might be unwilling to reach out to Marisa with a question. But that's Marisa's job, right? Marisa knows that I am.

00;18;21;21 - 00;18;25;17
Marisa Eikenberry
I am the keeper of the email. You have to talk to me at some point, right?

00;18;25;20 - 00;18;47;22
Wayne Turmel
Two things are going to happen. One is that I feel less resistance to reaching out to Marisa because I know that. And the other thing is Marisa might be a little more proactive about checking in with me, about how I'm doing with that thing, because that's the piece of knowledge that Marisa is responsible for.

00;18;47;24 - 00;18;48;21
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;18;48;23 - 00;19;12;07
Wayne Turmel
Right. And this all sounds very complicated, but it really is critical to getting people on board. I mean, we talk about, well, people need to be comfortable and how well, how do they do that exposure to the people on their team getting to know them socially, developing trust very quickly, doing meaningful work and demonstrating that you can do meaningful work.

00;19;12;07 - 00;19;19;07
Wayne Turmel
Right. Maybe what this person needs is to be invited to a couple of meetings that they are completely unqualified to be in.

00;19;19;11 - 00;19;20;03
Marisa Eikenberry
That's fair.

00;19;20;06 - 00;19;45;09
Wayne Turmel
But they might have an idea, right? Hey, at my old company we did that and they'll hear the acronyms flying around and they'll hear how we work together. So parceling out their day and figuring out when they do actual work, when can other people be involved in this so that we are creating the social networks and the bonds and the relationships?

00;19;45;12 - 00;20;06;19
Wayne Turmel
And then what useless work can we eliminate? Right, Right. So they're not spending five days filling out forms before they even talk to another human being. That will go a long way to making the onboarding process more pleasant, more useful and more consistent with the way we're working.

00;20;06;26 - 00;20;26;04
Marisa Eikenberry
That totally makes sense. And unfortunately, we are out of time. I know that we could probably continue to talk about this for much longer than this, but I want to thank Katrina and Rachel for sending in your suggestion about talking about onboarding, because I think this was a really important conversation, and I'm sure this is not the only time that we're going to talk about onboarding in the future.

00;20;26;06 - 00;20;42;13
Marisa Eikenberry
And thank you so much for listening to the longest work life for Shownotes Transcripts and other resources make sure to visit long distance work like that. Tom If you haven't yet subscribe to the podcast, 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.

00;20;42;15 - 00;20;57;27
Marisa Eikenberry
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 suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode. We'd love to hear from you if you'd like to learn more about remote teams. Order Wayne and Kevin Eisenberg's new book, The Long Distance Team.

00;20;57;29 - 00;21;04;09
Marisa Eikenberry
You can learn more about the book at Long Distance Team Book Tor.com. Thanks for joining us. And as Wayne likes to say, don't let the weasels get too down.


Timestamps

00:00 Intro to Remote Onboarding
01:13 Challenges & Turnover in Onboarding
02:24 Addressing Remote Onboarding
03:11 Traditional vs. Remote Onboarding
04:25 Replicating In-Person Onboarding
05:20 Webcam Conversations Best Practices
06:08 Building Remote Rapport
06:56 Tackling Time Wastage in Onboarding
07:39 Overcoming Onboarding Delays
07:59 Asynchronous Video for Onboarding
08:45 Short Messages for Daily Tasks
09:12 Traditional Methods & Retention
10:31 Building Relationships in Onboarding
11:06 Searchable Online Handbooks
13:38 Hybrid Onboarding Strategies
14:05 Diverse Roles in Onboarding
15:39 Navigating Company Jargon
16:18 Encouraging Questions from New Hires
16:49 Engaging New Hires in Valuable Tasks
17:36 Sharing Explicit and Tacit Knowledge
18:21 Involving Skilled Team Members
19:12 Building Trust and Exposure
19:45 Creating Social Networks
20:06 Streamlining the Onboarding Process
20:26 Closing 

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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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Voices of Diversity: Embracing Accents in the Workplace with Heather Hansen on Long-Distance Worklife with Wayne Turmel
Guests, Leadership, Working Remotely

Voices of Diversity: Embracing Accents in the Workplace with Heather Hansen

Heather Hansen, founder of the Global Speech Academy, discusses the issue of accent bias in the workplace and the importance of effective communication in a globalized world. She challenges the notion of "good" and "bad" English, emphasizing that successful communication is about getting the message across, regardless of accent. Heather highlights the need for leaders to understand and address accent bias, as well as the cultural differences that impact communication. She also emphasizes the importance of listening and valuing diverse perspectives. Overall, Heather advocates for a shift in mindset and a more inclusive approach to communication.

Key Takeaways

1. Accent bias exists in the workplace and can hinder effective communication.
2. Communication is not a skills problem but involves cultural intelligence and active listening.
3. Non-native English speakers face challenges in a global economy dominated by English speakers.
4. Organizations need to create a culture of acceptance and understanding for diverse communication styles.
5. Accent bias is not limited to non-native speakers and can affect individuals with regional accents within the same country.

View Full Transcript

00;00;07;27 - 00;00;40;04
Wayne Turmel
Hello everyone, and welcome once again to the Long Distance Work WorkLife, the podcast where we try to make sense of remote and hybrid work in people not being in the same place at the same time and helping people thrive through all of that. My name is Wayne Turmel. My usual co-host, Marisa is not here today. It's an interview show and I'm very, very happy and fortunate to be talking to Heather Hansen.

00;00;40;06 - 00;00;53;15
Wayne Turmel
And we're going to be talking about accents and working across languages and all kinds of good stuff, and she knows of which she speaks because she is joining us from Singapore. Hi Heather.

00;00;53;17 - 00;00;56;18
Heather Hansen
I Wayne great to be here. Thanks for having me.

00;00;56;21 - 00;01;06;01
Wayne Turmel
Well, as always, thank you for being had. Tell me, what does the Global Speech Academy do?

00;01;06;03 - 00;01;27;01
Heather Hansen
We are a global communication training company working with Multination is primarily headquartered here in Singapore, in the region, but working internationally. So we focus on everything from presentation skills to cross-cultural communication to articulation, training and clear speech, anything that can help us be better communicators in global environments.

00;01;27;03 - 00;01;54;01
Wayne Turmel
Well, that sounds like worthy work and important stuff. Now you are a little bit of a disturber because I see that. I see that with great affection. As somebody who has been accused of disturbing more than my share of stuff. You're in a talk recently called How to Speak Bad English, perfectly in which calm.

00;01;54;03 - 00;02;23;06
Heather Hansen
Yeah, people don't like hearing that. They don't want to hear, Well, why would you want to speak bad English? The whole point of that talk is the fact that there is no such thing as good or bad English. There's only communication that works. So either you get your message across successfully or you don't. And I it just pains me that so many people come to me and say, Oh, my English is so bad, my pronunciation is so bad, and we're having a full on conversation in actually fully grammatical English.

00;02;23;06 - 00;02;53;23
Heather Hansen
And I'm thinking, Who made you think that you don't speak well? What kind of perfectionism are you searching for and looking for? Because as far as I can tell, you speak just fine. But there's so much bias, so much negativity. We use power. We use language as a power for maintaining privilege in the world. And so as as native English speakers, it's very easy to maintain our privilege and power in the global economy by focusing on how bad people speak English.

00;02;53;23 - 00;03;35;21
Wayne Turmel
And well, this is all part of that. You know, you need to lighten your skin and not cover your mouth when you laugh and and make all of that cultural stuff that that goes with being and all of that imperialist that's going to go, Yeah, yeah. But one of the things that I know that you feel very passionate about is besides all of those other things, this notion of having to eliminate accents and the idea of accent bias, tell us what that looks like right in the workplace and then why does that make you so crazy?

00;03;35;24 - 00;04;00;29
Heather Hansen
Yeah. So we'll never eliminate accents so it's not so much that it's more of a bias against them, Right? Because first of all, we have to understand every single person in the world has an accent. I mean, I grew up in central California believing I didn't have an accent. It was everyone else with an accent. Right. And those of us who think that way have actually never experienced the bias that is there for people who sound different than the culturally accepted, prestigious norm.

00;04;00;29 - 00;04;22;13
Heather Hansen
So I hit the lottery, right? Being born into this variety of English that's globally recognized, seen as educated and eloquent. And I've based the whole business off of it, and I've been very successful due to the fact that I speak a type of English that people recognize and and believe is prestigious. And now it's not like that for everyone.

00;04;22;13 - 00;04;43;10
Heather Hansen
When when I went abroad, I first started learning about accent bias because I was living in German speaking society and Danish speaking. I'm fluent in both languages. My German is very rusty now, my Danish. I'm married to a Dane, so we speak it daily. And living in Denmark, for example, speaking fluent Danish, I'd be stopped in the middle of business meetings like, Oh, how are your accent?

00;04;43;10 - 00;05;05;21
Heather Hansen
So cute. Oh, more. Oh, I love you and your accent. It's like we're in a business meeting. Why aren't you listening to what I say and taking me seriously? You would never say that to me if we were speaking English right now. Right. But that shows the privilege that I have because I would say we can do this in English if you want, you know, and then like, Oh, no, no, no, it's okay, it's okay, because that would give me my power back, my respect back.

00;05;05;23 - 00;05;44;03
Heather Hansen
But what about the people who speak Mandarin or Tamil or Malay or Indonesian or languages that aren't global languages? They don't have that option. They're dealing with this every single day, day in and day out, trying to compete in a world that is dominated and run by English speakers. So that's what fuels all of my work. It's how can I help these people to better compete, to feel just as confident and to get the rest of the world to actually start listening to what they are saying and accepting them for who they are instead of constantly thinking about, Oh, that's funny the way they said that, Oh, their English is so bad and oh, why

00;05;44;03 - 00;05;53;04
Heather Hansen
don't they speak better? And oh, you've lived in America 40 years. Why do you still have an accent? All of these kinds of biases that come to the surface.

00;05;53;06 - 00;06;10;29
Wayne Turmel
And I know I'm not trying to steal your thunder, but one of the things that occurs to me is with the rise of asynchronous work, you know, you encounter a little bit less of that because as you know, in cyberspace, no. One, you don't type with an ex.

00;06;11;02 - 00;06;47;20
Heather Hansen
Yes and no. Right? Because the type of English is spoken globally. There are there isn't just one global English. And that's one of the problems. Singapore English has its own rules, its own grammatical structures, its own vocabulary. Indian English has many different varieties, English spoken in the Philippines, slightly different, and some are more British English, some are more American based, depending on who colonized them first and so even in the writing, when you when you write with someone from India, the terminology they use, maybe some of the different grammar markers that you find will be different.

00;06;47;22 - 00;07;13;14
Heather Hansen
And so if you think of it that way, there's is almost a written accent as well where we're thinking, Oh, why can they never put an F on the third person singular key works. Not he work like, Oh, their English is so annoying. It comes up both in writing and in and in speech. I mean, just look at the comments section of any social media site and the way people will will break down the writing of what someone said, usually because they have no real argument.

00;07;13;14 - 00;07;31;25
Heather Hansen
So they go to the language as the way to make themselves superior. So the grammar police I'm talking to you, it's that is not necessary because if you understood the message, then communication happens and that's where we have to start approaching all of our communication, especially in the working world.

00;07;31;28 - 00;07;45;13
Wayne Turmel
Well, and I love that you are not trying to educate the individual workers so much as the leaders and the organizations who.

00;07;45;16 - 00;08;11;07
Heather Hansen
It really does start from the top. It needs to the leaders need to fully understand this in order to make it quite clear that, listen, we're accepting of everyone. Now, the problem in organizations is that we talk about everything. And I from age to race to gender, to sexuality, Abel is an all of these things, but language is never discussed, and it's the foundation for all of them.

00;08;11;07 - 00;08;33;10
Heather Hansen
When you hear of someone on the phone, you're immediately categorizing. You're giving them the gender you believe they have, not how they identify you are deciding what race they probably are. You are deciding their education levels, probably where in the world they're from. You have decided all this information and created a vision of that person without even seeing them, without knowing them.

00;08;33;13 - 00;08;53;21
Heather Hansen
And and this is not discussed in the workplace. It's not included in the policy. It's not protected by law unless you can link accent, bias and discrimination to national origin. So that means, okay, if you're a foreign language speaker in America and someone is discriminating against you and saying, Oh, you can't speak English, go back where you're from.

00;08;53;23 - 00;09;17;08
Heather Hansen
Well, that's an easy link to national origin and you have a court case. But what about the the white American man from Alabama who is going up to work on Wall Street and is being made fun of because of his accent or isn't taken seriously? What kind of national origin clause can he fall back on? So this is not only a native non-native foreign speaker.

00;09;17;08 - 00;09;34;04
Heather Hansen
We experience this within the United States. And if I say, you know, the South, New York, New Jersey, Boston, California, Valley Girl, Florida, we have immediate ideas of what these accents sound like and what the characteristics for those groups of people are.

00;09;34;05 - 00;09;36;28
Wayne Turmel
Right. And the humans attached to them.

00;09;37;01 - 00;09;50;09
Heather Hansen
Yeah. And so this is this is an issue for everyone. It isn't only a native non-Native, although we see it happening even more when we're trying to deal with people from a different culture and background as well.

00;09;50;12 - 00;10;25;06
Wayne Turmel
Well, that obviously gets to the point of in an increasingly global world, right? This notion that, you know, you can't really you can't get the benefits of globalism without dealing with other humans from other places, and it goes with the territory. And you said something and I'm dying to get into what the heck you mean by this, because as somebody who has spent 30 years teaching communication skills, your big battle cry is communication is not a skills problem.

00;10;25;13 - 00;10;28;00
Wayne Turmel
And what?

00;10;28;03 - 00;10;47;24
Heather Hansen
Well, that statement comes from my frustration as a corporate trainer where every october i get phone calls from h.r. Saying we really want to commit to changing the communication culture in the company. Can you come and do a two day program on presentation skills? And it's like, that's not going to cut it. That's not going to change anything.

00;10;47;24 - 00;11;17;14
Heather Hansen
That's not going to move the needle even a little bit. And this is not simply a skills problem. It's much more than that. It has to do with the entire culture of the work environment. Are people conscious communicators? Do we have cultural intelligence, cross-cultural skills? Are we good listeners? Are we aware of our environment? And when we have the loud voices and we're dominating and when we aren't letting people in, when we're interrupting and do we have connection in the company?

00;11;17;14 - 00;11;42;09
Heather Hansen
So is there psychological safety? Are we building strong relationships? What do those social networks look like inside the company itself? And, you know, do people have a fear of failure? They're not speaking up because they're always ridiculed or they're put back down. So they press mute and they they don't want to contribute. And then the last piece of the puzzle is the confidence piece, and that's both skills, confidence and self confidence, self-worth.

00;11;42;11 - 00;12;10;25
Heather Hansen
So it's only that very little sliver of the skills, confidence if you truly don't know how to communicate, you truly have such a heavy accent. No one on earth can understand you. Then we do need to work on some skills, but that is a very small part of the puzzle. I could teach you everything I know about a great presentation being a good presenter, but if you're in a toxic environment with a boss who doesn't listen, you could give the best presentation in the world and it's not going to do anything for you.

00;12;10;27 - 00;12;26;23
Heather Hansen
So. So the skills is just one teeny little piece of the puzzle, and we like to focus all of our attention there and place all of the responsibility on the individual to say you're not a good enough communicator when really so much more is based on how those messages are being received.

00;12;26;26 - 00;12;54;23
Wayne Turmel
I'm going to take us off topic for a moment because I'm fascinated by this. Having taught presentation skills in your corner of the world, does the expectation of what makes a good presentation from the leadership standpoint, how much work is it to take somebody from a what's called South east Southeast Asian culture and have them present to the white guy from New York?

00;12;54;25 - 00;12;59;01
Wayne Turmel
You know how traumatic and dramatic is that?

00;12;59;04 - 00;13;35;24
Heather Hansen
This is the entire problem because and this is why I run a successful business in the whole hypocrisy of my career is that why should that individual from Southeast Asia have to change the way they communicate their style of communication, their their personality, even to fit the expectations of the white westerner sitting in New York? Will that white Westerner ever even consider ever in a million years changing the way they speak, adapting their style, being more adaptable in general to cultural difference when they come to Southeast Asia?

00;13;35;29 - 00;14;18;14
Heather Hansen
And this is exactly the problem in the world right now, is that this Western ideal, the way leadership ideas, communication, you name it, business strategy is very Western dominated and we don't value the different styles that are coming from the East. So my whole job is trying to help these people to fit in to this global expectation that is a very western, western world and completely move them away from who they are, how they normally communicate it, how they articulate sounds to fit that picture, because that is the goal and it still is, especially in these countries that are old colonies that have just grown up with this feeling of somehow being inferior.

00;14;18;17 - 00;14;42;20
Heather Hansen
And Singapore itself has a government campaign called Speak Good English, implying that Singapore English is not good and it is a native variety. They grow up, they grow up speaking it, they're fully educated in English, they work fully in English. The government is run in English. And I don't think people outside Singapore really understand that the English is their language, but it sounds very different and their cultures.

00;14;42;21 - 00;15;06;07
Wayne Turmel
And so I'm giving you 10 minutes in a room with the average white Anglo American, Canadian project manager or division manager, you have 5 minutes and we have duct tape him or her. Yeah. So you will not be interrupted.

00;15;06;10 - 00;15;10;07
Heather Hansen
Captive audience So the mouth is duct tape. That's the most important.

00;15;10;09 - 00;15;18;21
Wayne Turmel
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I'm giving you every advantage for the next 5 minutes. What do you tell this person?

00;15;18;23 - 00;15;48;01
Heather Hansen
Oh, it's about shifting our entire view of the world, of us not being in the dominant position. First of all, understanding that we do not own the English language. We speak one variety of it. We also have an accent that is different from everywhere else in the world. We have to completely change that mindset that we're walking into global conversations in the powerful position and look at people as our peers and listen for understanding.

00;15;48;04 - 00;16;15;22
Heather Hansen
So the focus has now shifted that when we go into a global environment, we are also speaking a foreign language. The way that English is used, the way that we communicate in global settings is not the same as how we communicate with each other. Over coffee at home, we must learn how to adapt, how to change our speech, to drop idioms, to try to remove as many phrasal verbs as possible, which is incredibly challenging.

00;16;15;25 - 00;16;16;15
Heather Hansen
It's hard for me.

00;16;16;15 - 00;16;18;10
Wayne Turmel
To do over, not be.

00;16;18;13 - 00;16;37;16
Heather Hansen
A verb, plus a preposition that has a completely different meaning. So for example, I pass out verses, pass on verses, pass over one woman was an immigrant, and I believe this is in the UK. The story I heard called from the school. The school says your son is passed out on the playground, you need to come pick him up.

00;16;37;18 - 00;16;57;11
Heather Hansen
She didn't know what pass that was that she knew passed on and so she was distraught. She thought she was picking up her dead child at school. So this is how easily misunderstandings can happen. And we don't think of this as a native speaker born and raised in America, you know, we rule the world. We're so amazing and and to a degree, that's very true.

00;16;57;11 - 00;17;19;04
Heather Hansen
Globally, we have a huge reputation. We do have a lot of power in the world, but we can't abuse it. And we need to remember that there are people all over the world just as well-educated with us who have grown up speaking English, who sound different, but are just as educated, have just as many good ideas. And if we don't start closing our mouths and listening to them, we're losing so much potential.

00;17;19;04 - 00;17;38;14
Heather Hansen
We're losing our talent. We aren't taking advantage of the skills that are right in front of us. And because we have this chip on our shoulder that we think that now while you sound different, you must not be as good. And this comes from all the way back to the movies we watch as children, Disney movies, the bad guys all have accents and people are other.

00;17;38;14 - 00;17;43;14
Heather Hansen
We we try to create that distance and we make an enemy out of them.

00;17;43;16 - 00;18;07;06
Wayne Turmel
You know, this is so important and we can keep going forever. It occurs to me that Kevin and I have said for all of these many years that managers of whatever help, wherever they are, often forget that there is an inherent power difference. Yes. Even on your team between you and your direct reports, you can be as benevolent in kind of thinking.

00;18;07;06 - 00;18;39;23
Wayne Turmel
You're being open and understanding, and that exists anyway when you add the complications of working overseas accents. Not really listening to understand it only becomes that much more complicated and in a perfect world, the responsibility falls on us as leaders. So, Heather, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. We are going to you says pushing the right button.

00;18;39;25 - 00;19;00;26
Wayne Turmel
We are going to have links to heather and global speech academy and all that good stuff in the transcript of the show on long distance work life icon. Heather, I'm going to remove you from the room just long enough to finish wrapping up here, but thank you so much for being with us. It's been a fascinating conversation.

00;19;00;28 - 00;19;03;19
Heather Hansen
Yeah, thank you. Really fun to be here. Thanks so much.

00;19;03;24 - 00;19;46;04
Wayne Turmel
And if you didn't fact like this show and with this one, there wasn't much not to like. I found this fascinating. Please like subscribe to your podcast listeners. You're seeing this on YouTube. You know how this works. By now, I was delighted to come across this topic and if you have a topic that you would like us to talk about or interview somebody about, or you just have a pet peeve that you want Marisa and I to riff about while we're at it, contact us on LinkedIn, Wayne Turmel, Marisa Eikenberry or Wayne and Kevin Eikenberry dot com, or Marisa and Kevin Eikenberry dot com.

00;19;46;07 - 00;20;09;27
Wayne Turmel
And of course, if you are putting together a team please contact us and Kevin Eikenberry group or you can pick up in my new book The long distance Team Designing your team for Everyone success that is it. Thank you for joining us on the long distance work life. Don't let the weasel ski get you down. We will see you next episode.


Timestamps

00:00 Meet Heather Hansen
01:06 Exploring Global Speech Academy's Communication Training
01:54 Rethinking "Bad" English and Accent Bias
03:35 Unveiling Accent Bias in the Workplace
04:22 Diverse Language Experiences: A Personal Journey
06:11 The Realities of Written Accents and Language Prejudices
07:31 Tackling Language Bias in Organizations
08:11 The Role of Accents in Categorization and Discrimination
09:17 Beyond Non-Native Speakers: Accent Bias Affects Everyone
10:25 Beyond Skills Training: Enacting Real Communication Change
10:47 The Overemphasis on Presentation Skills in Communication
11:17 The Pillars of Communication: Culture, Listening, Connection
11:42 Overcoming Communication Barriers: Confidence and Fear of Failure
12:10 Communication: More Than Just Skills
12:26 Questioning Western Communication and Leadership Norms
13:35 Embracing Diverse Communication Styles
15:06 Adapting Speech in Global Contexts
16:15 Navigating the Complexities of Phrasal Verbs
17:19 Confronting Western Bias Against Non-Native English Speakers
18:07 Leadership's Role in Bridging Communication Gaps
19:00 Closing Thoughts

Featured Guest

Heather Hansen

Name: Heather Hansen

Bio: Heather helps multinational companies enhance collaboration, innovation and inclusion
across their global teams through greater understanding and stronger, more efficient
communication policies. She focuses on fostering unmuted communication cultures where
every voice is heard, resulting in greater inclusion, innovation and efficiency across remote
and global teams.
Along with private leadership communication coaching, Heather facilitates group training
courses and consults on a number of topics related to global communication. Heather is also
an External Industry Expert for NUS Business School’s Executive Education programs
where she runs modules on communication, presentation, and storytelling skills.

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
Mastering Meetings: Building Great Teams in Remote Work with Rich Maltzman
Guests, Leadership, Working Remotely

Mastering Meetings: Building Great Teams in Remote Work with Rich Maltzman

Wayne Turmel and Richard Maltzman about the importance of meetings in building great teams. Richard emphasizes the role of project leaders in facilitating effective meetings and discusses the principles of project management and Agile methodology. He also introduces the concept of "meeting goblins," which are different personalities that can emerge during meetings. Richard highlights the need for leaders to manage these personalities and create a safe and productive meeting environment.

Key Takeaways

1. Meetings are a crucial touchpoint where strategy meets operations in a project.
2. The purpose of a kickoff meeting is to build the project team and ensure everyone understands the project's goals and importance.
3. Agile methodology has brought new meeting techniques, such as stand-up meetings and information radiators, that can be beneficial in any project.
4. Meeting goblins are different personalities that can emerge during meetings, such as the reticent person or the bully. Leaders must manage these personalities to create a productive meeting environment.

Featured Guest

Name: Rich Maltzman

About: Richard Maltzman is a master lecturer at Boston University and previously had a career at Nokia. He is an expert in project management and has co-authored books on facilitating great project meetings and building great teams.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
02:35 The Unspoken Power of Meetings in Project Leadership
03:11 Bridging Remote Work with Project Management
04:06 Meetings: More Than Just Info Sharing
05:03 Kickoff Meetings: The Team Builder's Starter Pack
06:03 Sustaining the Team Vibe Throughout the Project
07:07 The Facilitator: A Project Leader's Hat
08:21 Embracing the Agile Mindset
09:25 The Agile-Waterfall Blend: Taking the Best of Both Worlds
11:24 Agile Meeting Techniques Unpacked
12:17 Virtual Meeting Facilitation 101
14:09 Meet the Meeting Goblins
15:05 The Meeting Ensemble: Handling Different Personalities
16:12 Inclusion Matters: Giving Everyone a Voice
17:21 Leading Through Dominating Meeting Moments
18:14 Going Off-Script for Urgent Issues
19:09 Facilitation & Its Influence on Project Leadership
20:30 The Notetaker & Whiteboard Artist: Unsung Heroes
21:11 Closing

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
Essential Skills for Thriving in the Modern Workplace with Mark Herschberg on Long-Distance Worklife Podcast with Wayne Turmel
Guests, Surviving Remote Work, Working Remotely

Essential Skills for Thriving in the Modern Workplace with Mark Herschberg

Mark Herschberg discusses the essential skills needed to thrive in the modern workplace. He emphasizes the importance of creating a career plan and regularly checking in and refining it. Mark also highlights the need for effective communication, especially in the remote work environment where communication channels are more limited. He explains that writing skills and written communication have become increasingly important, as 70% of work is now done in writing. Additionally, Mark emphasizes the significance of networking, both internally and externally, for career success. He encourages reframing the perception of corporate politics and recognizing the value of building relationships within the organization.

Key Takeaways

1. Creating a career plan is essential for long-term success.
2. Effective communication is crucial, especially in the remote work environment.
3. Writing skills and written communication are increasingly important in the modern workplace.
4. Networking is valuable for career growth and navigating corporate politics.

View Full Transcript

00:00:00:21 - 00:00:34:02
Wayne Turmel
Greetings. Salutations. Hello. Bienvenue. The new all that good stuff to the Long-Distance Worklife podcast, the show that is really about making sense of the modern workplace, whether you are remote hybrid, stuck in an airport wherever you are, however you do your work. Welcome. Welcome. My name is Wayne Turmel. I am a master trainer and coach with the Kevin Eikenberry Group and I am really excited to have you with us today.

00:00:34:04 - 00:01:01:07
Wayne Turmel
Marisa is sitting patiently editing and producing this episode while I have a another terrific conversation with a really smart person. And today's topic is one that I am obsessed about, which is as somebody who doesn't have a formal degree and has done okay for himself, what are the skills that we need to live in thrive in this new workplace?

00:01:01:09 - 00:01:14:21
Wayne Turmel
And our guest today is author Mark Hirshberg. He is the author of The Career Toolkit Essential Skills for Success. No One Taught You. I love that. Hi, Mark. How are you.

00:01:14:23 - 00:01:17:12
Mark Herschberg
Doing? Great. Thanks for having me on the show today.

00:01:17:14 - 00:01:25:08
Wayne Turmel
Well, as always, thank you for being here. Tell us a little bit about you and what you do and then we'll jump right in here.

00:01:25:11 - 00:01:51:10
Mark Herschberg
I do do a couple different things. I am primarily a CTO, CPO, chief technology officer, chief product officer. I do that sometimes when I build my own startups. Sometimes I work for other companies. Right now I'm doing fractional work, so I'm consulting to a few different companies, giving them a few hours a week as they either need help or lately there's been a lot of questions about, I hope, and helping them with.

00:01:51:12 - 00:02:12:12
Mark Herschberg
Now I've also, in parallel, been teaching at MIT for over 20 years, developing these skills, teach them to our students because these are skills we don't normally teach. And we recognize that years ago I put them into the book The Career Toolkit, Essential Skills for Success that no one taught you. To help reach a wider audience. And I now do speaking on that as well.

00:02:12:14 - 00:02:34:18
Mark Herschberg
And then I also have an app brain bomb, because when we read a book like mine or listen to a podcast like this one, we get information, but we need it months later, days later at the place, and we often have forgotten it. So Brain Bump is a free app to help people retain what they get from my book, other books, podcasts and other sources.

00:02:34:23 - 00:02:36:13
Mark Herschberg
So I do a lot of different things.

00:02:36:15 - 00:02:55:17
Wayne Turmel
Great, great stuff. And we will have links to the book and to Brain Bomb and all of that good stuff on the show notes, as always. So you and I were talking before we started. And by the way, if you ever get a chance to listen to the conversation before Dave rolls, that's probably the coolest part of the show, if I'm honest.

00:02:55:22 - 00:03:25:20
Wayne Turmel
This is something that I'm obsessed with as somebody who didn't get the formal business education and kind of certain stuff on the fly. I'm obsessed with how people succeed and why really smart people often don't. What first of all, what are the tools that we need? And then let's talk about how it's different in this world of remote hybrid work from the way that we've traditionally thought about our careers.

00:03:25:21 - 00:03:47:22
Mark Herschberg
There are ten skills covered in the book, and you've seen these before. Now you might see a list that has five of them or 50 of them, and they're really the same list. It's just where you're drawing the lines, how big those buckets are. But the ten that we really boil it down to three sections versus careers creating and executing a career plan skills, I call them working effectively.

00:03:47:22 - 00:04:10:03
Mark Herschberg
These are things like managing your manager and understanding corporate culture and politics. The word skill, interviewing. Now most of us know how to interview as a candidate, but many of us have to interview on the other side of the table and we have no training how to do that. Second section leadership and management. Or there's a chapter on leadership, one on people management, one on process management.

00:04:10:03 - 00:04:17:18
Mark Herschberg
They're separate. And the third section four Skills communication, networking, negotiating relations and ethics.

00:04:17:21 - 00:04:48:13
Wayne Turmel
Okay, so there's that first section in that third section really kind of set me aflame here because we spend a lot of time talking about leadership and management. There's a million resources around that. All right. There's no shortage of stuff. Talk to me about that first bunch, particularly the notion of setting your career track and working a plan, because working remotely has kind of changed the rules.

00:04:48:15 - 00:04:59:10
Wayne Turmel
Some people kind of knew instinctively when you worked in the office, you bump into people at the coffee machine and you can suck up people in the cafeteria, but it's different when you're not there.

00:04:59:13 - 00:05:16:11
Mark Herschberg
It is indeed. Let's first start with you need a career plan, because even in office, most people tend to skip that. You would never tackle a big project at work, a six month, a year long project without having some type of plan. You wouldn't say your boss. Well, cross your fingers. I'll see what I get done in six months.

00:05:16:11 - 00:05:34:21
Mark Herschberg
So I hope I hit the goal. That's crazy. You'd say, Let's create a plan unless you check things on the plan. Or are we on plan? Off plan? Do we adjust the plan? If you wouldn't do a six months or a 12 month project at work without a plan. Why are you doing a 20, 30 year career without having a plan?

00:05:34:23 - 00:05:43:14
Wayne Turmel
Now, just as we're talking about a plan, let's be really tactical and practical here. What are the milestones in that plan?

00:05:43:17 - 00:06:07:08
Mark Herschberg
Great question. What I recommend people do is you create first you've got your your vision, your long term. I want to be the VP of whatever in 20 years, whatever your goal is. Now, you know that if you want to be the VP in 20 years, you need to be somewhere probably about 15 years out. Just like if you're delivering a project in 12 months, where do you need to be ten months out?

00:06:07:08 - 00:06:24:03
Mark Herschberg
So you're on time so we can start to backtrack. Where do you need to be in about 15 years? What to be there in 15 years? Where do you need to be in ten years and in five years so we can start backing out now? The timeframe somewhat arbitrary. It doesn't have to be 15, ten, five and the ranges.

00:06:24:05 - 00:06:40:18
Mark Herschberg
But just like in your project plan, you might have these placeholders and you know what you're planning for month ten, that's kind of fuzzy and that might change. But what you're doing the next 30 days should be very clear. And so what you're doing in the next year or two is you backed out this plan, what you do in the next year or two.

00:06:40:18 - 00:07:01:04
Mark Herschberg
What I need to start by being a better communicator or learning some more technical skills in my discipline or whatever it is that should be concrete. And that's what you're working on. And just like these project plans, you want to have check ins and adjustments. So here's something simple you can do right now. I'm going to ask you to pause the podcast, but you have to promise to come back.

00:07:01:06 - 00:07:24:15
Mark Herschberg
Pause the podcast. Go to your calendar. Put in a calendar event that says, Think about my career and set that as a recurring event every six months. And now that you're back, what you just did by creating that recurring calendar event, you've created a cadence to check in and refine your plan. Just like on our projects, we have a weekly or monthly check in.

00:07:24:20 - 00:07:26:10
Mark Herschberg
You've now done that for your career.

00:07:26:13 - 00:07:29:19
Wayne Turmel
And assuming that folks are still listening at this point.

00:07:30:01 - 00:07:32:00
Mark Herschberg
That's why I made the promise to come back.

00:07:32:05 - 00:07:56:19
Wayne Turmel
And when we talk about developing skills, I just want to go to 30,000 feet for a minute. When we're talking about developing skills, we're not necessarily saying go back and get a master's degree, although that might be part of the occasion. There are a million ways to grow and develop some of both micro and macro skills that you're going to need.

00:07:56:21 - 00:08:17:23
Mark Herschberg
You're absolutely right. Certainly you can get a formal education. You can get informal education by taking online classes, reading books, listening to a great podcast like this one, exploring education is very important for some people. In fact, things like communicating leadership, it's like swimming. You can't just read a book on swimming and say, I know what I'm doing.

00:08:17:23 - 00:08:41:19
Mark Herschberg
You have to actually practice and do it. And so you can practice things by getting on certain projects. You can maybe do it with some volunteer work or things outside your professional work. You can also I have on my website on the resources page, a free download to create a free internal training program to upskill yourself or your entire organization on these skills because they are experiences.

00:08:41:19 - 00:08:44:05
Mark Herschberg
So there's many different ways you can acquire them.

00:08:44:09 - 00:09:19:14
Wayne Turmel
So time being what it is, let's kind of jump forward. Communication. I mean, communication skills are my personal passion. I think that they're all so important and too many really smart, good people don't possess them in the amount and style that they need. But it's also like this big thing. It's like a checkbox on an interview, right? Good communication skills to your mind, what's included in that and maybe how has the way we work in the last few years changed our approach to this stuff?

00:09:19:17 - 00:09:47:20
Mark Herschberg
You hit the nail on the head when you said this checkbox on these job descriptions, and I used to be guilty of that myself. Earlier was it mean to say good communication skills? Does that mean we want someone who can stand on the TED talk stage and do this global presentation? They'll get a million views. Does that mean someone who writes concise emails, Does that mean someone who can explain or discipline to people without the technical background in that field?

00:09:47:22 - 00:10:09:17
Mark Herschberg
These are all different types of communications. They're all important, but they may not all be equally important to the role. So whenever we define a role, we need to say what type of communication do we need? Because it could be any of those. And we probably in our careers want to develop some of all of them. But for a particular job, some will be more important.

00:10:09:17 - 00:10:33:22
Mark Herschberg
And so you as a hiring person should understand that you as a candidate should understand that and speak to that now as we get to remote teams, where I think this becomes particularly challenging is our communication channels narrow when we are together, we're in the same environment. Obviously we have facial expressions, body language, tone, even just the environment.

00:10:33:22 - 00:10:53:18
Mark Herschberg
We've all been meetings where everyone feels temps or everyone feels relaxed and you can just feel that vibe once you start going to video. We don't have that vibe that we can see some body language once we go to audio, we lose the body language. Once we go to email, we lose the tones, we get more and more narrow in our communication channels.

00:10:53:18 - 00:11:03:20
Mark Herschberg
And as we're remote, we're using more of those narrower channels. So it's important that we learn how to communicate despite the more narrow bandwidth we are communicating through.

00:11:03:22 - 00:11:29:04
Wayne Turmel
And I'm loving that. Talk to me a little bit. It's something that I obsess about, and I'm always shocked that more people don't find this worthy of obsession, which is what you're talking about. It's the narrow form of communication. For the first time in human history, 70% of our work is being done in writing, which is a huge deal if you stop to think about it.

00:11:29:08 - 00:11:36:19
Wayne Turmel
What are how do we need to rethink writing skills and written communication action as we look forward?

00:11:37:00 - 00:11:49:02
Mark Herschberg
One of the challenges is we kind of have this one size fits all. If you think about an email, we have this email. The email came out of a memo, What we used to do in the fifties.

00:11:49:04 - 00:11:53:19
Wayne Turmel
Or I was there when the email came about, I was there.

00:11:53:21 - 00:12:11:18
Mark Herschberg
There's almost different types of communications. In fact, we're of a we're not we're not the youngest generation anymore. And you see with younger people, why would you call us if you and I are trying to coordinate meeting up for drinks? They say, Well, why would you ever get on the phone and say, Hi, how are you doing? Are you free for drinks more?

00:12:11:18 - 00:12:32:22
Mark Herschberg
Are you free? Just text to be like drinks time date you counter with a different time date. That's much more efficient. That's how they look at it, said the whole voice. You don't need my tone. You don't need to go through formality. Hi, how are you doing to coordinate getting together for drinks so you recognize that certain types of communication say scheduling, very narrow and limited.

00:12:33:00 - 00:12:58:04
Mark Herschberg
There's other times where I say, Listen, I think there's an issue with our strategy and I'm going to lay out and all my thoughts and analysis, and that's a broader type of communication. But we use email for both of those. They go into our inbox sitting next to each other. They're in the same general format. And so we need to recognize that it might be time to split up how we do things, how we communicate.

00:12:58:04 - 00:13:22:08
Mark Herschberg
Now, the scheduling got a little easier because now the calendars, I can just propose a time on the calendar and you get this well formatted thing that can be processed. But one of the challenges, by the way, is that we now have so many communication channels. Should I be calling you, emailing you, texting you, slacking you, there's all these different channels and we might have different channel preferences because companies often don't define this.

00:13:22:10 - 00:13:27:00
Mark Herschberg
So we just have to recognize that it's it's a lot more complicated than just writing.

00:13:27:05 - 00:14:02:03
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And in the long distance leader and all the associated books, we talk about the idea of richness versus scope, which is how do we make that determination? Right? It's not just what tools we use, but why do we use which tool when in the time in the time that we have remaining. I want to talk about something that is going to cause ions to roll into the back of skulls as we talk, and that is internal networking in our company because we think of networking as, Oh, I'm looking for a job.

00:14:02:03 - 00:14:10:19
Wayne Turmel
I better network and find something. But it's critical to our careers, even internally for those of us who are gainfully employed, right?

00:14:10:23 - 00:14:35:20
Mark Herschberg
It is indeed. Unfortunately, most people think of networking as this is how I find a job, and that's the only time they think about building. Their networks are using their networks. But networks can do so much more. It can help us for our external networks outside our companies. It can help us find candidates, customers, partners. It can help us be aware of changes our industry, how to think about things.

00:14:35:22 - 00:14:58:20
Mark Herschberg
But then, as you pointed out, internal networks are so important as well because internal networks, they can do some of the same things. Certainly if you're at a big company, you might hear about job opportunities. Oh, there's a new department opening. They have a role, something you're looking forward to doing, being aware of what's happening in the company, strategic changes, understanding which way the corporate winds are blowing.

00:14:58:22 - 00:15:15:06
Mark Herschberg
Very important are networks help with all this? They help us with corporate politics. And you might not like corporate politics. Many people don't, but it's happening. It's kind of like government politics. You can say, I don't like it. You can choose not to vote. But guess what? Your life is affected by it. Your life is effectively corporate politics.

00:15:15:07 - 00:15:35:09
Mark Herschberg
Are your internal networks developing relationships with other people in the company can help you navigate the company and be more effective in your role. But now that we're not having those run ins at the WaterCooler, as you pointed out earlier, it's challenging. We have to be more proactive in building and maintaining these relationships.

00:15:35:11 - 00:16:02:04
Wayne Turmel
I think that's a huge thing for a lot of people and it's it to some degrees, it's cultural. And I'm not talking about national cultures, although some of that do, I think. But, you know, if your mother ever told you the nail that sticks its head up, gets whacked with a hammer, and if you keep your head down and do your work, the work will speak for itself, which is maybe the most terrible lie we tell people when they're when they're working.

00:16:02:08 - 00:16:20:14
Wayne Turmel
When you talk to people about this and you get the inevitable, either push back or just horrify and looks, how do you help people take the step to start being a little more interested in the politics and being a little more proactive? Because that's a huge thing.

00:16:20:17 - 00:16:41:21
Mark Herschberg
We need to reframe how we see it. And I'll use analogy with governance. We often have, no matter what country you're in, you probably have a distaste for the politics of your nation. We all hate it, but really we know we need it. We need governance. So we need to be able to elect because we don't want kings.

00:16:41:23 - 00:17:02:17
Mark Herschberg
And we also know that when done right, when we think about some of our greatest leaders, well, they really did a good job. They have changed us for the better so it can be done well. We just often focus on here's all the bad examples. And within corporate politics, if you just see it as, oh, this is bad, this is how people cheat and get ahead.

00:17:02:17 - 00:17:23:16
Mark Herschberg
And yeah, I'm not good at what I do, but I'm your buddy. So you're going to promote me? Yeah, that's a bad example. But there are also good examples where we are just using a different approach, more of a relationship oriented approach. And as long as you're not taking it to the extreme, it can actually be useful and helpful to the organization.

00:17:23:20 - 00:17:33:11
Wayne Turmel
Okay, so we are at the end of our time. I know that you have ten skills. Which one have we talked about that's most important? You got 30 seconds ago.

00:17:33:15 - 00:18:02:16
Mark Herschberg
It's not only one skill. Here's the key. By getting just a little bit better at any of these skills, you are getting incremental returns. If you get better at negotiating. For example, imagine every job you get, you're getting more money. How does it compound over time? Now that's with negotiations. It's easy to do the math, but this applies to leadership, to our networks, to any of these skills getting just a little bit better compounds over time and really helps us succeed in our careers.

00:18:02:18 - 00:18:38:03
Wayne Turmel
Dig in. And Mark Hirshberg, the book is The Career Toolkit Essential Skills for Success No One Got you. Thank you so much for being with us. I really, really enjoyed this conversation and we could geek out for a long time. Yet for the rest of you, if you are interested in learning about Mark's book, about his app Brain Bump, connecting with Mark himself, the show notes, as always, Marisa will have organized them in terrific fashion at long distance work life dot com.

00:18:38:05 - 00:19:02:04
Wayne Turmel
If you are interested in redesigning your team and thinking about your team and doing some of that development that we're talking about. Kevin Eikenberry In my new book, The Long Distance Team, Designing your Team for everyone's success is out there. You can get special deals and downloadable resources at long distance team. BBC.com You are listening to a podcast.

00:19:02:04 - 00:19:26:17
Wayne Turmel
I doubt it's your first one, so you know the drill. Please like and subscribe and tell people about it. Leave a review on your aggregator. That is always immensely helpful. And then finally, if you enjoy the show, if you don't enjoy the show, if you have ideas for way better shows, we want to hear it. Marisa is currently collecting pet peeves.

00:19:26:17 - 00:19:56:21
Wayne Turmel
You are not being shy about submitting those and that helps us plan future episodes so you can reach out to Marisa Ikenberry or myself on LinkedIn or at the email below. Links on the show notes. Thank you so much for being with us. We really hope that we're bringing you information that helps you ground yourself and survive and maintain your sanity in the changing world of work.

00:19:57:02 - 00:20:02:15
Wayne Turmel
As always, we will be back with another episode next week. Don't let the weasels get you down.


Featured Guest

Name: Mark Herschberg

About Mark: Mark Herschberg is the author of "The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You." He is a CTO and CPO, and has been teaching at MIT for over 20 years. Mark is also the creator of the app Brain Bump, which helps people retain information from books, podcasts, and other sources.

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome: Intro to Mark Herschberg
01:09 Skill Set 101
04:48 Career Mapping in Remote Work
07:01 Career Plan Check-Ins
07:56 Skill Development Beyond School
09:19 Why Communication Matters
09:47 What is Good Communication?
10:09 Remote Work & Communication Shift
09:47 Diverse Communication Types
10:33 Remote Team Communication Hurdles
11:37 Rethinking Writing Skills
12:33 Navigating Communication Channels
14:02 Value of Internal Networking
16:20 Navigating Corporate Politics
17:33 Steps to Skill Improvement
18:38 Recommended Team Resources
20:02 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
Keeping Teams Engaged in the Digital Age with Vivek Nigam
Guests, Leadership, Technology, Working Remotely

Keeping Teams Engaged in the Digital Age with Vivek Nigam

Vivek Nigam, of ReTeam, discusses the challenges organizations face with team engagement and retention in the changing work landscape. He emphasizes the importance of building a culture of engagement, participation, and belonging to improve productivity, innovation, and retention. ReTeam offers a platform and service model that helps leaders and individual contributors enhance team dynamics and make engagement easier. Vivek also highlights the value of natural intelligence in combination with AI tools to augment human interactions and improve communication.

Key Takeaways

1. Organizations need to adapt to the changing work landscape and focus on improving team engagement, participation, and a sense of belonging.
2. ReTeam provides a platform and service model to help leaders and individual contributors enhance team dynamics and make engagement easier.
3. Natural intelligence, combined with AI tools, can augment human interactions and improve communication.
4. ReTeam's AI tools can assist with tasks such as drafting recognition messages, sentiment analysis, and providing personalized suggestions based on individual profiles.

Featured Guest

Vivek Nigam

Name: Vivek Nigam

About Vivek: Founder and CEO of BeRemote. With over 25 years of experience in software architecture, design, and development, he has a passion for creating innovative solutions that improve engagement, collaboration, and inclusion in the workplace.

View Full Transcript

00:00:08:05 - 00:00:09:02
Wayne Turmel
Hello there, buddy.

00:00:09:03 - 00:00:35:11
Wayne Turmel
Welcome once again to the Long Distance Work Life podcast, where we try to make sense of remote and hybrid work and just generally how the world of how we make a living is changing on a regular basis. My name is Wayne Terminal. I am a master trainer here at the Kevin Eikenberry Group. This is sadly an episode without Marissa.

00:00:35:13 - 00:00:53:23
Wayne Turmel
But the good news when we don't have Marissa is we generally have somebody else really smart and interesting. And that certainly happens to be the case today. Vivek Nigam is with a company called Re Team. He is going to tell you all about it right now. Vivek, how are you, ma'am?

00:00:54:01 - 00:00:56:17
Vivek Nigam
I'm doing great. Wayne, Hey, great to talk to you again. All right.

00:00:56:21 - 00:01:06:08
Wayne Turmel
Well, you say that now. I generally find that wears off. So who are you? What's re team? Sure. What the heck is the deal?

00:01:06:09 - 00:01:27:23
Vivek Nigam
Yeah. So my name is Vivek among the founder of the companies. Copy, Remo. We also go by re team, their product called Re Team in the market. We work with companies who are experiencing challenges with team engagement as they adapt to this change of work, work, work, working place and retention has been strained with 20 to 30% turnover.

00:01:28:01 - 00:01:52:23
Vivek Nigam
Team engagement is lower by 15%, innovation is low by 25%, and traditional methods of getting people engaged just aren't working the same way. Right thing. We need some different methods. And with the new inflationary climate, you find that companies are, you know, revenues are even getting strained as well. So we want to work with companies who are looking to change their engagement culture, improve team participation, and build a better sense of belonging.

00:01:53:01 - 00:02:10:05
Vivek Nigam
Those to us are the foundations of how do you improve productivity, innovation and retention. So that's who we are all about. We have a platform, we have a service model, and we engage with people and we've got some AI that we've been integrating, although we're really big fans of what we call natural intelligence.

00:02:10:07 - 00:02:37:13
Wayne Turmel
Okay, so let's hold it right there and what you just said there. And we will have links, of course, to Vivek's Company and all kinds of good stuff on our show notes on long distance work life dot com. Okay, So let's get back because obviously when I have ten people on the show, my question is always what was the problem you were solving?

00:02:37:13 - 00:02:49:18
Wayne Turmel
Yes. Yes. What what was going on or what is going on that in your case, team leaders in particular need assistance doing?

00:02:49:20 - 00:03:10:01
Vivek Nigam
Yeah. So I'll tell a quick story and then delve into a few more of those things. So Genesis for this whole thing was actually growing up and watching my dad and how he how he went through his life. My dad was born in India. You were super smart guy, but running through the organizations here, he never attained that sense of belonging.

00:03:10:03 - 00:03:27:16
Vivek Nigam
And I remember the conversations in the kitchen between my my mom and dad. And I knew exactly what they were. Is my dad capacity for promotion yet again. And it wasn't like, say, the Met. He had three master's degrees and he worked hard and I thought he was out of the house all the time, but he never quite felt like he belonged.

00:03:27:18 - 00:03:55:17
Vivek Nigam
So as I was growing up, he gave me some advice and he would say, you know, when you start working, I want you to go out for a beer with everybody. Those are the things I didn't do and I never fit in. So when I started working out, find people that reminded me of my dad and people who are smart, quiet, hard workers, but just never really participated in team meetings, never really engaged with the team and wanted to find ways to get them to be more participative, give them a better opportunity.

00:03:55:19 - 00:04:05:14
Vivek Nigam
So I always made it my personal mission to help them. And I'll tell you, 100% of the time, when I gave them a stretch goal and they had that opportunity, they were absolutely brilliant.

00:04:05:15 - 00:04:28:16
Wayne Turmel
And so I love that you said that, Vivek, because that's actually my mission as well. I got into this crazy business because I knew so many smart, talented people with communication skills were holding them back. So whether they lacked the skills or they lacked the ability or confidence to use them effectively.

00:04:28:18 - 00:04:43:19
Vivek Nigam
Exactly. And sometimes you just don't know. It's not that you don't have the skills. You don't know what to say, how to how to use those. And so we built a platform around those trying to increase engagement, and we're finding some great results and robust mission of of a team.

00:04:43:21 - 00:05:08:22
Wayne Turmel
And I love that. Now, help me out because in our book, The Long Distance Leader, and what started this whole craziness for us is this notion that you think leadership first location second, right. That good leaders, people who are really good proactive leaders are making this remote thing work because they're doing all the things leaders have to do.

00:05:09:00 - 00:05:23:19
Wayne Turmel
What is the point of your technology and the work that you do? Is the point to reinforce those folks or is it to help everybody else who kind of isn't?

00:05:23:21 - 00:05:24:08
Vivek Nigam
Yeah.

00:05:24:10 - 00:05:25:18
Wayne Turmel
Doing so great.

00:05:25:20 - 00:05:42:09
Vivek Nigam
Yeah. Yes. And yes. What we find, a lot of times we'll run into people that say, hey, we got these recognition programs, we're doing these things, we're doing this stuff, engagement. And and I just love that. And especially somebody who says to me, Yeah, we built psychological safety and starts using those terms like, this is a kindred spirit.

00:05:42:09 - 00:06:07:17
Vivek Nigam
These are the people that really are making a lot of effort to do all the right things. So how do we help them? They're doing all the right things. They don't necessarily need what we provide, and that's okay. They're already achieving the mission that we're on. What we can do is make that easier for them, right? They're doing a lot of activities, doing a lot of preparation, and we can provide them some tools and some processes that just facilitate and make that easier.

00:06:07:19 - 00:06:24:08
Vivek Nigam
AS Yeah, so for example, a lot of our our tools are all about getting to know each other. And so these are things that you can use in the platform with one click and say, Hey, I'm just checking in to see how you're doing and get, get some responses and start to see a trend. Or I want to say thank you.

00:06:24:08 - 00:06:41:17
Vivek Nigam
And instead of having to do a formal event and make a big thank you, you can do it in one click. Record your voice and record your video and make it very authentic. Say, Hey guys, I just want to thank you for the work you guys did last week. And it's amazing how how impactful that is for people.

00:06:41:19 - 00:07:05:15
Vivek Nigam
So those are the things we want to get people into the habit of, of being being recognition based and thankful culture. And it just helps those people do that. For the remaining, I would say 95, 96% of people who have the right intentions and are doing these things but are so busy doing other things, we provide a platform to really help them build engagement and make this make this easy for them.

00:07:05:15 - 00:07:28:02
Vivek Nigam
So it doesn't is not something that has to take 20 or 30 hours a week to really engage your people. And we've heard numbers like that from a lot of people. So we do want to help that that that other, you know, I think is about 95% of people who know they want to do this, do some pieces of it and all, they generally feel like they could do this better.

00:07:28:04 - 00:07:54:22
Wayne Turmel
Now, you spend a lot of time talking about natural intelligence versus artificial intelligence. And I know the minute I said artificial intelligence, about half the audience's eyes rolled up in the back of their head, and the other half are, you know, willfully submitting to the robot overlords. But what is in your mind? What's the difference and how do they work together or compete?

00:07:55:00 - 00:07:57:14
Wayne Turmel
Help me with that. Yeah.

00:07:57:16 - 00:08:17:00
Vivek Nigam
Anybody who's played with chatbots or some other A.I. technologies and boy is just exploding right now. Right. These things have come a long way in a very short period of time. It'll give you the sense that human beings are going to be replaced and completely obsolete in a matter of years. It just feels that way. And we don't think that's the case.

00:08:17:01 - 00:08:39:10
Vivek Nigam
Right. So these tools are absolutely amazing. But we talk about when I talk about natural intelligence is the stuff that you and I, human beings can infer that we can see from each other. A.I. can pick up some of those things, and it's great at that. But it gives us the insights. It helps us be better. So we believe in taking A.I. and constraining it.

00:08:39:12 - 00:08:59:04
Vivek Nigam
So it's not just an open ended, you know, solve all the problems of the universe. It really starts to be okay. Let's go straight down to let's solve this problem. And the first one that we rolled out with, which we absolutely love find a better way to say something. It could be anything. Let's say I want to say thank you, Wayne.

00:08:59:04 - 00:09:16:03
Vivek Nigam
Thank you, Wayne, for for giving me this platform, letting me be on your show and people who are very good at it, they'll come up with something beautifully eloquent and it's wonderful people who aren't. And we have a person on our team. She's from Brazil and she says, Looking is my second language. And sometimes I struggle with this.

00:09:16:05 - 00:09:33:00
Vivek Nigam
They can go back to what we call the reaching assistant, leverage some AI, and say, Hey, I want to say thank you to Wayne and I want to make it sincere. How do I do that? And we'll come up with a nice paragraph that sounds really formal, sounds very businesslike. It's really nicely written. And they can use that and make some minor edits and boom.

00:09:33:00 - 00:09:42:23
Vivek Nigam
Now what you've done is you've taken I made it in a way that will enhance what we do interpersonally, and we think that's very valuable.

00:09:43:01 - 00:10:21:16
Wayne Turmel
So just so I catch this as a leader, you say I need to reward and recognize this person and I want to do that. I'm not really sure how you use a AI to give you that first draft to put it together, and then you can tweak and adjust that or you can say, Yeah, that's great. Zuckerberg I think that's the thing with A.I. and my fear is not that I exist, it's that people are inherently either lazy or rushed for time, depending on how generous you feel.

00:10:21:18 - 00:10:44:02
Wayne Turmel
For example, you know, the first thing I did with Shaggy and I don't know if I've ever said this on the show, first thing I did with Chad JP was write me a one paragraph bio for author Wayne Turmel, because I hate when people say, Send me your bio. And it sent me this very lovely, concise bio, which also gave me a degree I do not possess.

00:10:44:08 - 00:11:07:11
Wayne Turmel
And I did not write. Yeah, yeah. Now, you know, if I'm rushed and in a hurry, it would be really easy. And by the way, since Chatbot thinks I'm smarter than I am, cool, It's cool to just use that without using the the human thinking up front and then on the back end. Right.

00:11:07:13 - 00:11:23:16
Vivek Nigam
Right. Yeah. You know, and and as you as you recognized earlier. So I came from the tech world and it actually reminds me a lot of when I was in college, at one point, someone said to me it was a professor who said it said to give us all these software tools to analyze how do you do this?

00:11:23:20 - 00:11:46:20
Vivek Nigam
This an electrical engineering class, I think was and I said, remember, design happens here, right? So the thought process has to happen here and you have to strategize here. Everything else is a tool. And so in our minds, we take A.I. in the same way, even as fascinating and as amazing as it can be as much of a time server as can be.

00:11:46:22 - 00:12:16:16
Vivek Nigam
We also believe that the human capital, the human condition, the human intelligence that national intelligence is really critical. And we use that as a tool to augment what we're doing. And, you know, my lesson learned back then was I went to no cool software and I relied on that only tool. And sure enough, I didn't realize what I was doing and spare you the details, but I saturated a circuit and and handed in really proud, got back F and Y because guess what you did?

00:12:16:17 - 00:12:37:19
Vivek Nigam
You relied on the tool and not on on your thought process and your human condition. We think it's the same way. If we rely completely on AI, it is going to bite you at some point. We think the combination of what you do, what you think about that, you know, focus on human experience and that interpersonal experience, plus A.I. is really powerful.

00:12:37:20 - 00:13:07:12
Wayne Turmel
AI That's great, and thank you for that explanation. This is really in the weeds and I really don't want to spend a lot of time there. But does the AI I yeah, I take into account things like work stats. So for example. Yeah. You know, Bob is an introvert and Rajesh is you know really out there will is Taylor and adjust some of that to.

00:13:07:18 - 00:13:30:05
Vivek Nigam
Yeah exactly exactly right so what we do when you're kind of say something and say a thank you it does not right It tries to give you a level thank you. And that's done on purpose. One of our missions is to level the social playing field work to help people who aren't as comfortable and people are comfortable give them a little bit more of a closer.

00:13:30:07 - 00:13:49:16
Vivek Nigam
We never wanted to be everybody equal and one line, but get it, get the plane feel a little bit closer. So for things like that, it does not, however, we do a lot of other things. We do sentiment analysis. We do a lot of other components. Actually today we just talk about one that's going to be rolling out very shortly.

00:13:49:18 - 00:14:12:22
Vivek Nigam
We're based on the speech that you use. Like, you know, we do a lot of video. If you post something in a video, it is not going to take that and extract from it some to do some natural actions that we should take as a team based on what was being proposed. A lot of we would do is share ideas for innovation and based on the ideas in fact out what those are.

00:14:13:00 - 00:14:41:03
Vivek Nigam
When we do that, we actually feed in profiles for the user. And the reason we do that, if I'm talking and it knows when I talk, I, I talk all over the place, right? My, my mind will go this way and that way of, you know, kind of, kind of have a little bit of a tree of thought sometimes it will give me a series that may be a little bit lengthier, but one of the guys on our team really smart, much more reserved, much more organized.

00:14:41:06 - 00:14:56:19
Vivek Nigam
It's going to give them a shorter list. That is something that he can really manage and that the team can manage according to his profile. So, yeah, there is a combination of feeding in behavioral information and of an information perspective.

00:14:56:21 - 00:15:04:09
Wayne Turmel
One of the coolest and also scariest things I have heard in a long time is the notion of sentiment analysis.

00:15:04:10 - 00:15:04:23
Vivek Nigam
Oh yeah.

00:15:05:04 - 00:15:12:00
Wayne Turmel
That that is. And in the fiction writer in me is fascinated by yeah.

00:15:12:02 - 00:15:34:18
Vivek Nigam
It's it's really powerful we've got an engagement where we you know we working with the company that started out actually back in December and rolled out a whole new process and we were just there just to help build the engagement as well. And at the same time, watch the comments and the behaviors in the platform. You can see in December everything was very negative.

00:15:34:21 - 00:15:56:08
Vivek Nigam
People were not happy. People don't always react to change very well, but there's a lot of factors why. But then but the condition was that people were not happy. That's just sentiment. That's just based on what they're saying, what they're posting, what the things that they're doing was to see as as the company engaged and spent the time investing in the engagement month over month.

00:15:56:13 - 00:16:15:09
Vivek Nigam
Little by little, it got better and better. And I remember we had a little celebration when it hit neutral and said, Hey, now they're neutral this great today, they're positive, which was a great thing. And just use it as a as a tool. Like what am I dealing with? Like, how are people feeling? I think that's I think it's actually very powerful.

00:16:15:11 - 00:16:29:21
Wayne Turmel
So let's flip this. We don't have a lot of time left. Sure. Fascinated because this started with your father, the individual contributor who is feeling it. Let's put this on its head as an individual contributor.

00:16:29:23 - 00:16:30:02
Vivek Nigam
Yeah.

00:16:30:05 - 00:16:39:09
Wayne Turmel
How will I and the different tools that are available to us make their life our life easier?

00:16:39:11 - 00:16:58:21
Vivek Nigam
And so I'm going to jump to the grandiose vision piece here and you will see this and I'll give you a prime use case in working at a corporation years ago and and working with a woman I work with, she she'd been working at the same company for 30 years, 30 plus years, and she was a vice president.

00:16:58:22 - 00:17:18:00
Vivek Nigam
She heard her career was great. But she told me the story that she had started with another woman who's still at the company, same number of times. They started the same week. Both started as engineers, but the other woman was still an engineer. 30 years later and said, well, why is that case? And we spent a lot of time talking about this.

00:17:18:00 - 00:17:40:08
Vivek Nigam
And in in the traditional world it was that somebody from higher up grabbed her and said, You're coming with me. Let me teach you how to do these things right. So now think about that. She got a lot of attention and and her career blossomed and she grew through the organization. But the other one, her her peer did not get all that and didn't blossom.

00:17:40:08 - 00:17:59:13
Vivek Nigam
So what we want to offer to people who are individual contributors were maybe a little bit on the quieter side. Let us show you how these things are done. Let us give you some tools that let you contribute and be noticed and be heard a little bit more so that your career can also advance the way others do.

00:17:59:15 - 00:18:07:03
Vivek Nigam
You have that that opportunity? That's our goal. That's our mission. We've seen some great success with it and we're hoping to see a lot more.

00:18:07:05 - 00:18:35:14
Wayne Turmel
I love that because I know that went in 25 years of talking to managers. Yeah, the one thing that we feel like we don't do as well as we might, but is the coaching and mentoring piece and the fact that this allows support and encouragement on both ends. So this is really fascinating and it'll be interesting to see how all of this works out.

00:18:35:16 - 00:18:59:14
Wayne Turmel
Vivek, thank you so much as always. Folks, we will have the show notes links if you are intrigued and I can't believe you're not and want to check all of this out, please look at long distance work like Dot com. I am going to boot Vivek out of here just long enough to wrap up the show and say thank you for listening.

00:18:59:14 - 00:19:18:17
Wayne Turmel
You all are podcast veterans. You understand how this works, right? So please like subscribe, tell others about the show. We think we're developing a really great community of people who are interested in the future of the workplace.

00:19:18:18 - 00:19:25:23
Unknown
If you are interested. 4949 30.

00:19:26:01 - 00:19:51:17
Wayne Turmel
Check out Kevin in my new book, The Long Distance Team Designing Your Team for Everyone's Success. And please, please, please don't be shy. Marissa is doing a wonderful job with the show on Social media, particularly on LinkedIn. We are looking for your questions, topics, people that we should talk to and your pet peeves. Quite frankly, we're having a blast with that.

00:19:51:22 - 00:20:15:17
Wayne Turmel
So you can reach myself or Marissa through email or through LinkedIn. The links are in the show notes. That's it. Thank you so much for joining us. We are really, really excited to bring this show to you. We're excited to bring you very, very smart people like Vivek and our other guests. Thank you for joining us. Talk to you soon.

00:20:15:21 - 00:20:17:12
Wayne Turmel
Don't let the weasels get you down.


Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
05:23 Supporting proactive leaders and helping others improve
07:05 Differentiating between natural intelligence and artificial intelligence
08:17 The belief that humans won't be replaced by AI
08:59 Constraining AI to solve specific problems
09:16 Using AI to find better ways to communicate
09:33 AI enhances interpersonal interactions and is valuable.
09:43 AI can be used to save time and effort.
10:21 AI can make people lazy or rushed for time.
10:44 AI can generate a concise and impressive bio.
11:23 Human thought process and intelligence are critical alongside AI.
12:16 Relying solely on AI can lead to negative outcomes.
13:07 AI takes into account behavioral information and sentiment analysis.
15:04 Sentiment analysis is powerful and can track changes in attitudes.
16:29 AI tools can help individual contributors advance their careers.
18:59 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
Remote Work Rants: Is Asynchronous Video Killing the Meeting Star? with Wayne Turmel and Marisa Eikenberry
Ask Wayne Anything, Surviving Remote Work, Technology, Working Remotely

Remote Work Rants: Is Asynchronous Video Killing the Meeting Star?

Marisa and Wayne discuss pet peeves related to remote meetings. They address the issue of team members not turning on their cameras during meetings and the value of having cameras on. Wayne explains that while there are advantages to being on camera, it's important to consider the context and purpose of the meeting. For larger groups, the value of seeing everyone may be limited, but for smaller teams, having cameras on can enhance engagement and collaboration. They also discuss the responsibility of the audience to pay attention and the importance of being present during meetings.

The conversation then shifts to the topic of recording presentations and sending them out for asynchronous viewing. Wayne suggests that while this can be a useful alternative to meetings, it's important for individuals to take responsibility for engaging with the content and not simply ignore it. They also explore the idea of using asynchronous video as a form of communication, highlighting its potential benefits in terms of richness and accessibility.

Key Takeaways

1. Cameras on during meetings can enhance engagement and collaboration in smaller teams.
2. The responsibility of the audience is to pay attention and actively participate in meetings.
3. Asynchronous video can be a valuable form of communication, providing a richer experience than email or written messages.

View Full Transcript

00:00:07:21 - 00:00:19:03
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to Long-Distance Worklife. Where we help you lead, work and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I'm Marisa Eikenberry, a fellow remote worker. And joining me is my co-host and remote work expert, Wayne Turmel. Hi, Wayne.

00:00:19:05 - 00:00:20:21
Wayne Turmel
Hello, Marisa. How are you?

00:00:20:22 - 00:00:22:05
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm great. How are you?

00:00:22:07 - 00:00:27:15
Wayne Turmel
I am well, actually, this is I think this is going to be a fun conversation.

00:00:27:17 - 00:00:55:16
Marisa Eikenberry
It usually is when we talk about pet peeves. But that being said, we had some of you send in pet peeves about meeting specifically. And so we're still continuing to dive into those, including in this episode. So I'm going to start with one that we got from Facebook from Brianne and it says It's been three years since the pandemic and I would have better luck demanding that someone procure me a unicorn before getting every single team member on a call with their camera on.

00:00:55:18 - 00:01:10:22
Marisa Eikenberry
So I know that we've talked several times about if it's a town hall kind of situation. Not everybody needs their cameras on. But what about if it's a team of three or four people and you're wanting engagement? Like, what can we do to get cameras on? Should we be trying to get cameras on?

00:01:11:01 - 00:01:26:21
Wayne Turmel
Oh, man, this quest, it's so funny. Before the pandemic, we push and push And push what? Your camera on. Put your camera and get people to put their camera on. And then they did. During the pandemic, some begrudgingly, some willingly. And we were.

00:01:26:21 - 00:01:27:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Lonely.

00:01:27:07 - 00:01:48:01
Wayne Turmel
It's kind of weird because we're desperate for human companionship, and any pork in the storm is fine. But then it's kind of reverted. And I'm going to say there are two parts to this conversation, right? The first part is, are there advantages to being on camera? The answer is, of course there are.

00:01:48:05 - 00:01:49:00
Marisa Eikenberry
Of course.

00:01:49:02 - 00:02:24:23
Wayne Turmel
Right. And it's funny because most people like seeing the other party. They just don't like being on camera. Right now, it is true that the larger the group, the less value there is in seeing everybody, because we are working from home. It's also possibly true that depending on time zones and what's going on in the place that you live and work, that there may be distractions and things going on that don't work really well.

00:02:25:02 - 00:02:56:16
Wayne Turmel
You know, I just got back from the gym. You know, the kids are running around. It's lunchtime and I've got to eat. Nobody needs to see that. All of those things are the kind of excuses that we get. And you need to stop and say, Why don't I want to be on camera? Some of it is, as you know, if I'm trying to present information and out of the corner of my eye, I see four people all kind of answering emails and visibly checking notes.

00:02:56:21 - 00:03:30:11
Wayne Turmel
Well, there are two sides to that coin. The one coin, the one side is, yeah, it's this whole thing is mostly going to be me talking, and it doesn't add a lot of value because most people are going to be passively listening. So do I need to see that? The other side of that, of course, is if you can't be trusted to pay attention and focus when the camera's on, you, what makes you think I am going to trust that you are paying attention when I can't?

00:03:30:13 - 00:03:49:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. To your point, like I have heard about, I don't agree with this, but I have heard about people who, when it is, you know, a town hall type meeting and maybe it's something where they don't have to have cameras on or whatever. They're posting pictures on LinkedIn of, oh, look at me cooking dinner while I'm listening to this town hall or something like that feels weird to me.

00:03:49:09 - 00:03:52:12
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm sorry. And that might be an unpopular opinion.

00:03:52:14 - 00:04:23:05
Wayne Turmel
Well, it gets back to something we spoke about a week or two ago on this very podcast, which what is your responsibility when you are allowed to work from home? You are being asked to do certain things and certain things are inside your bailiwick. I have a kind of rule that if I wouldn't do it in the conference room with everybody there, why would I do it?

00:04:23:07 - 00:04:24:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely.

00:04:24:07 - 00:04:47:14
Wayne Turmel
When I'm working from home, do I you know, if I'm in the conference room, do I check my phone more than I should? Sure. I do. But I'm also there and I'm, you know, at least paying some attention to the person who's speaking. If you are turning off your camera because you don't want to get busted doing something, why are you doing something you don't want to get busted for?

00:04:47:14 - 00:04:49:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Like, use your head.

00:04:49:12 - 00:05:04:04
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. I mean, one quick. Oh, somebody sends a teams message and you respond real quick. Nobody cares. Nobody cares about that. What they care about is if you are very obvious, as, like, not paying any attention.

00:05:04:06 - 00:05:04:16
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:05:04:20 - 00:05:28:09
Wayne Turmel
So this becomes does the camera need to be on for all of this? Right. Is the question. Well, I think that again, where does it add value? Where it adds value is seeing people reading their body language. So on team meetings, for example. I'm a big fan of everybody has their camera on at the beginning, everybody says hello.

00:05:28:14 - 00:05:52:14
Wayne Turmel
Everybody greets everybody. And then as the meeting goes on, you know, if you need to eat, if you have something going on, right, then there's no need to be on camera because it's stressful being on camera for an hour and worrying about where do I put my hands and oh, look, I'm paying attention, but I need to look like I'm paying.

00:05:52:14 - 00:05:58:16
Marisa Eikenberry
Attention, right? Or like I really am writing notes about whatever this is, but I don't want to look like I'm not paying attention. Yeah.

00:05:58:17 - 00:06:25:03
Wayne Turmel
God forbid. I'm actually looking up and referring to something that we're talking about, right? I mean, you are a machine. When we are on meetings, if we just average the dual screens, everybody needs a Marisa anyway in their life. But, you know, if we're talking about something. And so when was that meeting that we had 30 seconds later up in the chat, Marisa will have the answer to that.

00:06:25:04 - 00:06:31:18
Wayne Turmel
She's quite wonderful about that. But if the camera was on her all the time, you see a lot of her looking off.

00:06:31:19 - 00:06:32:06
Marisa Eikenberry
Oh, yeah.

00:06:32:06 - 00:06:33:00
Wayne Turmel
So I do it.

00:06:33:02 - 00:06:39:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Because, you know, I've got a screen here, but I have a screen here too, which is usually where I've got whatever I'm looking up.

00:06:39:06 - 00:07:02:11
Wayne Turmel
Right. But if I'm paranoid about whether or not whereas is paying attention, that could be sending the wrong message. Mm hmm. Some of this is what is the responsibility of the audience? The responsibility of the audience is to pay attention, to contribute to the work to do. You need to be on camera all the time. No, you don't.

00:07:02:13 - 00:07:12:08
Wayne Turmel
And if you constantly refuse to be on camera, if this becomes a thing at some point, why?

00:07:12:10 - 00:07:13:06
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:07:13:08 - 00:07:22:03
Wayne Turmel
Why don't you want to be on camera? Why don't you want to help your teammates connect with you? Well, I don't want to.

00:07:22:05 - 00:07:23:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Is not a good enough reason.

00:07:23:16 - 00:07:25:08
Wayne Turmel
It's not a great reason.

00:07:25:09 - 00:07:28:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Stop being a baby and turn camera on.

00:07:28:12 - 00:07:54:06
Wayne Turmel
Now, again, do you need to do it all the time? No. This should be something that is discussed and agreed. If you are doing a brainstorming meeting where it's really important that people see each other and make sure that we understand what the other person is saying. My rule generally is the bigger the audience, the less important it is that the passive audience members be on camera.

00:07:54:08 - 00:08:10:14
Wayne Turmel
The smaller the group. And this goes back to the richness of the communication, the smaller the group, the more active the discussion, the more we need to collaborate and cooperate, the more I want to see who I'm working with.

00:08:10:16 - 00:08:29:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely. Well, and we talked about this off off this recording, but it was this idea of, you know, well, I don't want people looking at me. I don't want my boss to see me, even if it's on a one on one. And it was like, do you walk into a conference room with a bag on your head? Because if you don't, the what are we talking and.

00:08:29:11 - 00:08:42:05
Wayne Turmel
And it also is part of your responsibility as a worker. I mean, the most common thing is, well, I'm not really dressed to be on camera. You knew there was a meeting today. And if you help.

00:08:42:05 - 00:08:45:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Out to one. Okay. But like.

00:08:45:10 - 00:09:03:07
Wayne Turmel
If the boss says, I need to talk to you for a second and you say, well, I'm not really camera ready. And she says, I don't care. I just need to talk to you for 2 seconds. That's a different conversation. But if, you know, there is a meeting at 10:00 in the morning and you're still in your pajamas.

00:09:03:12 - 00:09:06:06
Marisa Eikenberry
Get a pajamas, you're going to be done.

00:09:06:08 - 00:09:08:01
Wayne Turmel
I'm going to get judgy.

00:09:08:03 - 00:09:09:10
Marisa Eikenberry
But do it.

00:09:09:12 - 00:09:29:22
Wayne Turmel
Particularly if there are people in the office who have had to shower and dress and commute and do all the rest of that stuff. And again, you only need to be dressed from the belly button up. How lazy are you that you can't put on a shirt with buttons when you know there's a meeting?

00:09:30:00 - 00:09:51:17
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Well, and in the interest of time, I'm going to pivot a little bit to our next question, but it's related to what we're talking about. So Mike McBride from LinkedIn says, you know, it's not necessary to have a screen full of people who are clearly reading and responding to email while others are presenting information. Just record the presentation and ask for written feedback so we can all go back to working.

00:09:51:19 - 00:09:57:04
Marisa Eikenberry
So yeah, I mean, we've talked about this secret as before. Yeah. This actually video.

00:09:57:06 - 00:10:22:00
Wayne Turmel
When you told me that this question was coming, I actually got jazzed because it's a conversation that we haven't had on this podcast and is worthy of discussion. Mm hmm. So I'm going to kind of take this in a couple of parts. You know, a bunch of people are paying attention. The message obviously isn't that riveting. They're probably making announcement of some kind.

00:10:22:02 - 00:10:25:02
Wayne Turmel
Does that need to be a meeting, period?

00:10:25:04 - 00:10:26:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. And that's a good question.

00:10:27:04 - 00:10:33:23
Wayne Turmel
And these are the same people, though, who say things like, I just survived another meeting. That could have been an email.

00:10:34:01 - 00:10:34:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:10:34:16 - 00:10:50:17
Wayne Turmel
And when we talk to the managers and say everybody says this could have been an email, why did you hold a meeting? And their answer, in all seriousness and with tears in their eyes, is because nobody reads the damn email.

00:10:50:19 - 00:11:14:18
Marisa Eikenberry
I was on a meeting once, thankfully not for this company, but I was on a meeting once where they set a Google document that they wanted everybody to read, and because they could not confirm that people were going to read the document, they had a meeting where they literally verbatim read the document. Now, granted, I want to take forks and poke my eyes out, but I understood why they did that.

00:11:14:20 - 00:11:47:06
Wayne Turmel
Right. So, again, do we need a meeting to make this particular announcement? Possibly not. But what was really interesting at the end of Mike's comment is, can you just record it, send it, and ask everybody to acknowledge that they've seen it? Well, we know that that's no guarantee that anybody has actually read or understood. And it does, though, raise the specter of we're really big on asynchronous communication.

00:11:47:08 - 00:12:00:17
Wayne Turmel
Right. Send chat messages. People don't need to respond to written things right away. You can communicate this. We can contribute to meetings. You can do things. What we haven't talked about is asynchronous video.

00:12:00:20 - 00:12:03:06
Marisa Eikenberry
Which has been such a big topic lately.

00:12:03:08 - 00:12:26:21
Wayne Turmel
Well, it's funny. It's a big topic now. I remember ten years ago people telling me that video email was going to be the wave of the future that you would push a button and the camera would come on and you could say, Hey, Marisa, I need you to do this, this and this today. You know, if you have any questions, give me a call.

00:12:26:22 - 00:12:53:02
Wayne Turmel
Click set. And it was clunky and it was huge and it never really caught on because it's time consuming, right, to do that kind of stuff. But now that we work in a hybrid world, now that the bandwidth and things aren't nearly the problem that they used to be, and the fact that everybody has cameras on their phone and you don't need a great setup to do that.

00:12:53:04 - 00:13:23:14
Wayne Turmel
Is there value in making a richer form of communication than another email? I know one organization where every morning the manager records a12 minute video. Hey, good morning. I'm out of the office today. Here's what you need to know. If you need to get to know me. You can reach me here. And by the way, don't forget, we have a meeting on Friday, and I need everybody to read that thing.

00:13:23:17 - 00:13:24:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay, Fair.

00:13:24:14 - 00:13:51:21
Wayne Turmel
And it's very short, but she sends that out every morning. And, yeah, you can do read receipts and you can see if it's been clicked on. You can see who read it, and you can do all of that, you know, semi fascist documentation stuff. But if you develop a rhythm and if people demonstrate that they do in fact treat these messages seriously and do take the required action.

00:13:51:23 - 00:13:52:19
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:13:52:21 - 00:13:59:11
Wayne Turmel
It's not a bad idea. It's something to think about. Slack, for example, could not be easier.

00:13:59:13 - 00:14:10:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. They even add captions to the video or transcripts To the video. I don't remember when they did that, but like, there's another accessibility point that isn't there in a regular meeting usually.

00:14:10:09 - 00:14:40:16
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. I mean, I'm not walking around with subtitles of clearing, of course, on my shirt, although Lord knows, I probably should. So we have these forms of communication. People are becoming more and more comfortable. Certainly generationally, people face time and do all kinds of things video wise. Tik Tok. So it's actually asynchronous video is something worth exploring, you know, even if it's a monday morning.

00:14:40:16 - 00:15:09:14
Wayne Turmel
Hi, it's Monday. Here we go, team. How are you? Right. Or if you want to send a quick message to your boss. Right. Hey, I've got a question. Can we do this? You know, it's just. But it needs to be short and it needs to be easily accessed, which means it needs to be a link in teams or Slack, something that no matter what their device on, they can click it and watch it.

00:15:09:16 - 00:15:13:19
Wayne Turmel
The more hassle it is, the less valuable it's going to be.

00:15:13:21 - 00:15:30:21
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, I was going to add on to this, too, because, I mean, you know, we were talking about video and this idea of like some people, like I don't want to be on camera or whatever, which we've already set our pieces on that. But I do know that some of these platforms also allow audio clips, too. So maybe whatever you're talking about, you don't need it to be a video.

00:15:30:21 - 00:15:43:07
Marisa Eikenberry
To your point, you know, Hey, I got a real quick thing for my boss, but it's way easier to explain it than it is to type it out here. I'll just send an audio clip really quick and then you don't even have to mess with the video part at all if you didn't want to.

00:15:43:10 - 00:16:08:02
Wayne Turmel
The problem with that, of course, is that we have an entire generation of these darn kids with their rock and roll and their Foo Fighters who don't listen to voice mail, which again, there is no excuse for that. It is a tool. It is an expectation of the job you don't like. It is not a legitimate excuse.

00:16:08:04 - 00:16:16:17
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay. But as the one of the kids with the rock and roll, if I'm not listening to voice mail, wouldn't I also not turn on a video too?

00:16:16:19 - 00:16:26:16
Wayne Turmel
Which is where Mike's point about accountable and he comes in. Right. If you don't want meetings that don't have to be meetings.

00:16:26:18 - 00:16:27:11
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:16:27:13 - 00:16:42:04
Wayne Turmel
If you say I'm not an idiot, just tell me what you want and I'll do it. Then you'd better do it. Because if you don't, we are going back to entire meetings where I read the memo to everybody.

00:16:42:06 - 00:17:05:01
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, and I can't help but come back to this idea, too. And I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the idea of a here. I'll watch the video on my own time or listen to the audio clip in my own time. Like, I get all that. But regardless, the time is spent. Either way, if it's a 20 minute meeting or a 20 minute video that you watch asynchronously later, it's still 20 minutes that you have now spent.

00:17:05:07 - 00:17:26:17
Marisa Eikenberry
So it's like, is it better if it's already scheduled and you're, quote unquote, forced to do it rather than, okay, yeah, I'm going to try to make time in my schedule to watch this 20 minute video at some point, which I think sometimes might also be why some of these videos and audios and things like that don't get watched or listened to.

00:17:26:19 - 00:17:53:10
Wayne Turmel
They don't watch videos, but they don't read the email and they don't pay attention in the meeting. I mean, if you are blithely ignoring communication that's on you at some point, that's a performance management issue, right? If your boss is sending emails of your teammates or sending out emails and you start every meeting with, I didn't see that right.

00:17:53:14 - 00:17:55:17
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, how do you expect your job to.

00:17:55:19 - 00:18:04:11
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, that's a performance management issue. At that point you are not taking your responsibility. The rest of the world can only do so much.

00:18:04:17 - 00:18:06:23
Marisa Eikenberry
We can give you all the tools.

00:18:07:01 - 00:18:21:04
Wayne Turmel
We have all the tools at our disposal. There is no excuse for not getting a message anymore except time and attention. And that is on you. And that's end of the lesson.

00:18:21:06 - 00:18:25:18
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes, we could wax poetic about this for ever, but.

00:18:25:20 - 00:18:27:21
Wayne Turmel
Whatever it is that we're waxing.

00:18:27:23 - 00:18:47:01
Marisa Eikenberry
You know. Yes. So, anyway, I do want to thank Brianne and Mike for sending in their pet peeves for meetings. And we have a few more that we're going to go into. And I'm so excited to get to those as well. But, Wayne, thank you so much for talking to us about these two very important topics and listeners.

00:18:47:01 - 00:19:02:14
Marisa Eikenberry
I hope that you got a ton out of it and thank you for listening to the long distance work life for shownotes transcripts and other resources. Make sure to visit us at 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, be sure to like and review.

00:19:02:16 - 00:19:14:16
Marisa Eikenberry
This helps us know what you love about our show. Feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our shownotes. And let us know you listen to this episode or even suggest a topic or pet peeve for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode.

00:19:14:16 - 00:19:28:13
Wayne Turmel
And if you haven't figured it out by now, Marisa actually pays really close attention to that stuff. We are digging what we're hearing from you. So questions, pet peeves, vicious personal attacks. Bring it.

00:19:28:15 - 00:19:45:03
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes. Follow me on all the social media. I yes, I will bring you all the stuff you like to learn more about Remote teams, order Wayne and Kevin Eikenberry's new book, The Long Distance Team. You can learn more about the book at Long Distance Team Book Dotcom. Thanks for joining us. And as Wayne likes to say, don't let the weasels get you down.


Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
00:19 Discussion about getting team members to turn on their cameras
02:25 Advantages and disadvantages of having cameras on during meetings
03:30 Importance of trust and attention during meetings
04:23 Responsibility of remote workers during meetings
05:28 Value of seeing body language and greetings at the beginning of meetings
06:25 Challenges of being on camera for long periods of time
07:02 Importance of active discussion and collaboration in smaller groups
07:25 Addressing concerns about appearance and being seen by others
08:45 Responsibility of workers to be prepared for meetings
09:03 Dressing appropriately for video meetings
09:30 Importance of considering if a meeting is necessary
09:51 Recording presentations and asking for written feedback
10:22Exploring asynchronous communication and video
12:00 The value of asynchronous video communication
13:23Using short daily videos for communication
14:10 Accessibility benefits of video transcripts
15:09 Exploring audio clips as an alternative to video
16:42 Accountability and the need for meetings
17:05 Considering the time spent on meetings and videos
17:26 Ignoring communication is a performance management issue.
18:07 No excuse for not getting a message anymore.
18:47 Closing

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
Benefits of Co-Working in Remote and Hybrid Workplaces with Taylor Harrington on Long-Distance Worklife Podcast with Wayne Turmel
Guests, Hybrid Work, Technology, Working Remotely

Benefits of Co-Working in Remote and Hybrid Workplaces with Taylor Harrington

Taylor Harrington, Head of Community at Groove, joins Wayne Turmel to discuss the concept of co-working and how it can be applied in both physical and online spaces. They explore the benefits of co-working, such as accountability, social connection, and the opportunity to meet new people. Taylor explains how Groove facilitates online co-working sessions, matching individuals with similar interests and goals. She emphasizes the importance of transparency and vulnerability in building meaningful connections. Taylor also highlights the value of physical co-working spaces in providing a change of environment and fostering community.

Key Takeaways

1. Co-working provides accountability, social connection, and a sense of community for remote workers.
2. Groove offers online co-working sessions, matching individuals with similar interests and goals.
3. Transparency and vulnerability are essential in building meaningful connections.
4. Physical co-working spaces provide a change of environment and opportunities for community building.

View Full Transcript

00:00:07:23 - 00:00:36:11
Speaker 1
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Long-Distance Worklife. This is the show where we try to make sense of remote hybrid working wherever the heck you are, and in trying to make sense of it and helping us not just get through it, but to really thrive under those circumstances. My name is Wayne Turmel. I am a master trainer here at Kevin Eikenberry Group.

00:00:36:13 - 00:01:01:14
Speaker 1
If you are a regular to this show, you know that we do two types of shows. We do episodes with myself and my co-host and producer, Marisa. This is not one of those. This gives me a chance to talk to really cool people about things that are happening that you might not know about. And that's certainly the case today, is something I don't know a lot about.

00:01:01:15 - 00:01:26:08
Speaker 1
And we're talking about co-working. Not that I don't have coworkers, but the idea of co-working as third locations or alternatives to being in the office. And in order to do that, this is me bringing in Taylor Harrington. Hi, Taylor. Who the heck are you? And what the heck does Groove do That brings us to this topic.

00:01:26:10 - 00:01:50:00
Speaker 2
Amazing. Thanks so much, Wayne, for having me and for Marisa recommending that I. Come on. I'm so excited to talk about co-working. I love this topic. Clearly, I have had a co-working journey myself, having had experiences being in offices and then moving remotely and trying to find that awkward space in between and what that means. Back in college, I was in an incredible co-working space that I'm sure we will talk about more.

00:01:50:01 - 00:02:15:11
Speaker 2
And so when I heard what Groove was building, which was really this idea of taking the best parts about a physical co-working space and bringing it online so that people from all over the world could be a part of it and could co work together. I was so excited. So we do 50 minute co-working sessions in the Groove app where folks get matched up in small groups with people like them, whether it's friends or people who are relevant doing similar things.

00:02:15:13 - 00:02:39:06
Speaker 2
It's mostly people who don't have teams and just want good vibes and high fives, as we like to say, from people who understand that they're on these maybe career paths. So me as a whole, I'm living in New York City. I love hosting gatherings. I'm a party host. I love creating this feeling of what I call the opposite of loneliness, which there's not really a good word for.

00:02:39:06 - 00:02:52:23
Speaker 2
So my my life mission is to help people feel the opposite of loneliness. And I do that through gatherings online in person. And you can usually find me wandering into tiny coffee shops or bookstores.

00:02:53:01 - 00:03:23:11
Speaker 1
All right. So using very small words, because I struggle with this, I will tell you the truth, when we talk about co-working, obviously our frame of reference is the office You work in the office, people are sitting at desks next to you. There are conversations sometimes these are wonderful, enlightening social activities and very productive work things, and sometimes they are what drives us to work remotely.

00:03:23:14 - 00:03:39:03
Speaker 1
But when you talk about co-working in an app, help me out here. What does that look like and why in heaven's name, if I'm just, you know, how is this different than being on a teams meeting which is already killing us?

00:03:39:05 - 00:04:05:13
Speaker 2
Yes, I hear that. So, like I said, a lot of people that are on Groove don't have teams, so we know how good it can feel to have those coworkers and camaraderie of doing things together. And even just the accountability or the goal setting that happens with coworkers. When you say, okay, this is what we need to get done this week, and having those regular scheduled meetings or goal planning sessions, whatever that looks like inside of group, the folks that are attracted to it are people that don't have that type of structure in their day.

00:04:05:14 - 00:04:25:20
Speaker 2
So there are people who are designing their days as, let's say, a freelancer and they're wondering, okay, what time do I really need to start working? Because they've created a flexible schedule where they work for themselves. So a typical groover might hop onto the app on their phone and click start a groove, right as they've got their coffee in hand, opening up their laptop for the first time.

00:04:25:20 - 00:04:42:09
Speaker 2
And it's really that push to get into the zone to do the thing. So they might hop into one session. Like I said, it's 50 minutes. They'll be joined by three other people and get to it. And so immediately they've got this burst of social connection that there are other people around them, which is typically quite a lonely day.

00:04:42:09 - 00:05:01:11
Speaker 2
If they're by themselves as a freelancer, they might work with clients and work with other people who help them out on specific projects, but they don't have that camaraderie of going into the office or those Zoom meetings that you might have on working on a on a remote team. So that's typically the target user of something like Groove.

00:05:01:11 - 00:05:24:06
Speaker 2
There are a lot of other apps or platforms out there that are made for remote co-working, for folks that are remote coworkers. So you might hop on with your full team and it's more like a focus session where you're coming to get stuff done in a series of a certain sprint. So it's like, okay, let's get together four of our coworkers and hit the button and all co work together.

00:05:24:08 - 00:05:53:23
Speaker 2
That's a little bit different because you're not there for the discovery of meeting other people, whereas on Groove, a lot of folks are there to meet other people. They're there to find who these, as a griever calls them, chosen coworkers are because they don't have those coworkers. So there's a discovery part to it, there's a friend's part to it, inviting people that maybe you met at a conference last year and you thought they were really cool, but you didn't really know A meaningful, meaningful way to connect with them regularly and grouping together allows you to do that.

00:05:54:01 - 00:05:59:16
Speaker 1
Okay, so there are several things that you've said here that give me great angst.

00:05:59:19 - 00:06:00:12
Speaker 2
That sometimes.

00:06:00:12 - 00:06:11:10
Speaker 1
I don't think they're desirable just because I can't, for the life of me, imagine doing it. Know when you're five and you see somebody on the playground that you've never seen and you go, Oh.

00:06:11:10 - 00:06:11:22
Speaker 2
I want to.

00:06:11:22 - 00:06:40:06
Speaker 1
Be friends, okay? And off you go. As you become an adult, that becomes harder and harder to do. Right? So I guess, you know, the idea of, hey, there's a bunch of us and we all run our own little one man shops and it would be kind of cool to hang. I get that part. Talk to me about just involving complete strangers in this craziness, that process is just so foreign to my being.

00:06:40:08 - 00:06:58:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, so it's funny because it's grown over the last two years, you know, And we started our community was super tiny and it was mostly friends of the team that were doing this. And then I remember when our first groover came from the wild on Google and was like, I found you and I want to start co-working on Groove.

00:06:58:00 - 00:07:18:16
Speaker 2
And we were like, Oh my gosh, someone found us. And so obviously that's happened again and again now. And I think that that stranger danger is something that people bring up a lot when they're brand new to groove and when they're hearing about it. However, a lot of the people that join Groove and really love it have had some sort of an online experience where they are meeting strangers.

00:07:18:16 - 00:07:37:17
Speaker 2
So that's one thing that tends to be a commonality, whether it's they are someone who have done online workshops, so they've taken some sort of an online class where they were paired up with people in a Zoom room and they know what that experience is like, or they've done some sort of other focus app. Like I've mentioned before, or some sort of co-working.

00:07:37:17 - 00:08:01:21
Speaker 2
Even if it was a friend that started a Zoom Room or a mastermind and they were in a room co-working together for a certain amount of hours. So a lot of people have those experiences with within that. I think that one of the best parts about Groove is that people have really cool, transparent, wacky bios. So if you go on groove and you click on someone's bio before you happen to agree with them, you get to understand a little bit about who that human is.

00:08:01:23 - 00:08:23:19
Speaker 2
I like to say they're very anti LinkedIn. It's not like, Hi, I'm Taylor and I run this company. It's like people saying, Hey, I have a green thumb in a garden I can't stop paying attention to or I love to roller skate in my free time, or I've got three kiddos running around and my dog's name is Pudding and like, you just learn these funny things about people through these bios.

00:08:23:19 - 00:08:37:00
Speaker 2
So that starts to eliminate that, that scared nature of it. When you've started to create a culture of this is how we show up here and people showing up with that vulnerability and that transparency about who they are as full humans, not just what they do for work.

00:08:37:02 - 00:08:58:07
Speaker 1
Great. And we will have links to Groove and all of that stuff and you can check it out for yourself if you're so inclined. We will have those on. Oh dear. On the website. Long distance work like Dot. We will be doing that. So we will have that for you. What are some of the acts you mentioned a couple of things.

00:08:58:07 - 00:09:13:03
Speaker 1
You mentioned sprints and what are some of the activities that if I knew to coworking, what are a couple of the things maybe that you can do to kind of get started and get a get comfortable with that?

00:09:13:06 - 00:09:38:02
Speaker 2
Yes. So I think that one of the basic things is just the accountability in public. So even as simple as starting to say, okay, maybe you follow some really cool people on social media. So whether it's your Instagram stories or your Twitter account or threads or whatever you're on these days, if you want to start sharing publicly, hey, these are some things on my to do with that I'm getting done today and then celebrating any wins from the week publicly.

00:09:38:04 - 00:10:01:12
Speaker 2
I think that starts to help you feel that that shared social connection of putting it out there, Hey, this is what I want to get done today. People responding, reacting to it. And then at the end of the day or the end of the week, closing that loop with these are some of the things that I did this week or celebrating it so that I would say it's like a very easy way to ease into it without having to get on a camera, but starting to feel the benefits of it.

00:10:01:14 - 00:10:30:11
Speaker 2
If you do want to start doing it with someone else, I would say that the easiest way is to just do it with a friend. I even recommend two groupers that are brand new to group. Hey, if you are not interested in meeting someone new for the first time, use that little invite link and just hop into a private group with a friend so that you can experience it together because it is quite easy to get the hang of so I think that there are other platforms like that where if you are interested in this or if you want to do it with a coworker, for example, and you're like, Hey, this thing sounds interesting.

00:10:30:11 - 00:10:58:04
Speaker 2
Coworking online. There are a bunch out there where you can do it with someone that you already know. And then as you get used to just the process of it, it makes it way easier to do it with more people that you haven't met yet or have some sort of a commonality with it. But I think that that commonality and making that that transparent is one thing that I'm really looking forward to doubling down on with Groove, whether it's the fact that we both hop into a groove and I can now see that you're a podcaster and it's like right in my face, like, Hey, this person's a podcaster.

00:10:58:06 - 00:11:19:16
Speaker 2
It just breaks the ice. I think about relationships, kind of like peeling back an onion where if we had this onion of trying to get to the core of why we should connect is to humans. It's hard to do that when you have no context on that person. So if I met you on the side of the street and we were both walking in different directions and I said, Hey, I'm Taylor, you would be like, Why is a stranger talking to me?

00:11:19:21 - 00:11:37:19
Speaker 2
Versus if I was walking and I had a tote bag that had one of your favorite podcasts on it, you might say, Hey, I also listen to that show. What's your favorite episode? And we suddenly are layered deeper into that onion. And so you can take that even further and say, What if we're both standing in an elevator going to our friend's birthday party?

00:11:37:19 - 00:11:53:00
Speaker 2
And so now it's like, not only do I have that tote bag, but we both know we're going to the same place. And so you keep peeling back that onion. And I think that there's a lot of opportunity in connection in this space of remote work where we can be more transparent about helping people get through those layers.

00:11:53:03 - 00:12:08:16
Speaker 2
They can connect on something more meaningful, quicker. So that's something I'm keeping top of mind as we build group. But I'm sure that other other spaces are like that too. Even teams that are working remotely wondering how they can peel back the layers for coworkers to connect over meaningful topics.

00:12:08:18 - 00:12:51:22
Speaker 1
Yeah, one of the things and again, you know, when you know this, when you're writing or you're creating a podcast, you kind of have an avatar of who that person is, right? Yeah. But there are people who don't fit that. And in the remote workspace, this is particularly true. I mean, we think about people in companies that are working apart from each other, but there are a ton probably listening to this solopreneur or people who are loosely affiliated with others and need that social interaction and they're just not being alone with your own brain, which if you're like me, is something nobody wants for any length of time.

00:12:52:00 - 00:13:25:04
Speaker 1
You said something really early on in this conversation that I did pay attention to, and that is that you were a fan of traditional co-working spaces. And I will be honest, when we talk about remote work, most people or a lot of people at least think it's binary. You're in the office or you're working from home, but there's places and of course, anybody who saw the series on We Space, you know, is running away with their fingers crossed, you know, with nightmares.

00:13:25:06 - 00:13:42:16
Speaker 1
But these things exist and they exist for a reason. Talk to me a little bit about the advantage of working in a shared workspace with complete strangers and how you maximize that.

00:13:42:18 - 00:14:00:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, first off, I'll just say that sometimes getting out of the house is just a healthy thing to begin with. To have a commute to work, even if it's 10 minutes that you're walking. I live in New York City, so I could walk in any direction and be at a physical co-working space within 10 minutes. And so I think that that's that's part of it.

00:14:00:04 - 00:14:21:14
Speaker 2
I think that there are many different kinds of co-working spaces physically, and a lot of them oftentimes, people say, are quite cold. They're not really social co-working as a term. Sounds quite social. You're co-working next to people and yet you get to this big office space and you're next to someone on their laptop with their headphones in and no one's talking to you.

00:14:21:14 - 00:14:26:18
Speaker 2
And so I think there are lots of spaces like that. And in order.

00:14:26:18 - 00:14:47:01
Speaker 1
To get that's kind of been my limited experience with this is, Oh good, So you know, I can stay at home and put my earphones in and, and work or I can go somewhere else with unfamiliar physical surroundings and put my earphones in and work. I'm failing to see the benefit here.

00:14:47:06 - 00:15:20:00
Speaker 2
Yeah. I think that there are other ones that I find are more curated. They're often more expensive too, that are focused on community and helping you get to know other people in that space. So back when I was in college, I had the privilege of being able to go to one of those. I went to Penn State, which is in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania State College, and I went to this space called the New Initiative, and it was all focused on local entrepreneurs, which automatically, once it's a curated space for a specific kind of person, it just attracts a certain level of connection.

00:15:20:01 - 00:15:44:08
Speaker 2
But the community events that happened in that space were so well done where they brought in guest speakers. They even had salad bowl Fridays where they had folks bring in different ingredients for their salad bowl. So you could bring in carrots, you bring in lettuce, you bring in dressing and co-create a salad together. So there were just like all different things that this space did that fostered connection and foster real conversations.

00:15:44:10 - 00:16:00:22
Speaker 2
I attended an event where we had to figure out how to explain our ground truth, who we are at our core, and those types of things really allow people to open up so that when you hop into the coworking space the next day, you're not sitting next to strangers. You're having a conversation with someone who you know something meaningful about.

00:16:01:00 - 00:16:20:12
Speaker 2
So I do think that's a rare experience in the physical coworking world. But I do know there are a lot of spaces in Brooklyn, for example, that are tinier and have that. So it exists. It's just harder to find. And I think that the more narrow the spaces about who it's for, the better it can deliver on that community experience.

00:16:20:14 - 00:16:30:17
Speaker 1
And we have a number of digital nomads who listen to this. And the nice thing is that there are these places literally everywhere.

00:16:30:17 - 00:16:47:22
Speaker 2
Yes, yes. And I think that even digital nomads have such incredible resources out there. I know so many nomads from from group that have traveled to all these different places and they keep in touch with those people as they go to the next place, even if that person isn't there, because it's such a connected web of, Oh, you're going to be in Portugal.

00:16:47:22 - 00:17:08:20
Speaker 2
Let me tell you about this cool digital man I met last year, who's in Portugal right now. So I do think that even setting up in a coffee shop with a small group of people is another alternative to co work with people and make that experience special. It doesn't have to be something that you pay for. You know, you're enjoying a cup of coffee and a piece of coffee cake and you're hanging out with some good people as you get stuff done.

00:17:08:20 - 00:17:29:23
Speaker 2
And maybe even bringing a specific project, like a writing project that might take a couple of hours. So that's another alternative to do some co-working in-person. Just get out of your physical space, because I do think that that is is really healthy. And just having that connection. I mean, there's so much great research out there about how human connection throughout the day can really change your mood, but also that other person's mood.

00:17:30:01 - 00:17:54:21
Speaker 1
That's terrific. Lots to think about. Taylor, thank you so much. I'm going to wrap up the show now, but thank you. And we will have links to Groove and Taylor's LinkedIn page and all of that good stuff on the long distance work life dot com page. In the meantime, thank you for joining us. I hope you enjoyed the conversation.

00:17:55:01 - 00:18:27:20
Speaker 1
We try to judge it up a little bit and change topics constantly. And this was something that honestly I don't know a lot about being the anti social curmudgeon that I tend to be, but I will not be an anti social curmudgeon next episode because Marissa will be back. And if you have questions, show ideas, topics you want discussed, especially pet peeves, Marissa is constantly collecting pet peeves about remote work and and flexible and hybrid work.

00:18:27:22 - 00:18:54:21
Speaker 1
Drop us a line. Our emails are Wayne at Kevin Eikenberry icon Marissa Kevin Eikenberry dot com. LinkedIn or the show's LinkedIn page is a great way to find us. And of course if you are thinking about how should we be working and maybe rethinking how your team functions, check out my Kevin Eikenberry's new book, Long-Distance Team Designing Your Team for Everyone's Success.

00:18:54:21 - 00:19:17:13
Speaker 1
You can learn more about that at Long distance team book. Dot com If you listen to podcasts, this is the obligatory please like and subscribe. That's how people find us and we hope that you are telling your friends about us. So there you go. That's it. My name is Wayne Turmel. Thank you so much for being with us.

00:19:17:14 - 00:19:24:14
Speaker 1
Come back next week for another fun and interesting episode and don't let the weasels get you down.


Timestamps

00:00 Introduction to the show and topic of co-working
01:26 Groove app provides online co-working sessions for freelancers
03:23 Difference between co-working on Groove and team-focused platforms
05:01 Groove attracts users who don't have coworkers and want connection
06:40 Overcoming the initial discomfort of co-working with strangers
08:58 Exploring activities and sprints to get started with co-working
09:38 Benefits of using a platform like Groove for remote work
10:01 Ease into remote work by sharing goals and achievements online
10:30 Start using Groove with a friend or coworker
11:19 Importance of commonality and transparency in remote work connections
12:08 The challenge of connecting with coworkers in remote teams
13:42 The advantage of working in a curated co-working space
14:47 The struggle of finding meaningful connections in physical co-working spaces
16:30 The availability of co-working spaces for digital nomads
17:08 Alternatives to physical co-working spaces, like coffee shops
18:27 Ways to connect and provide feedback to the podcast hosts

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Featured Guest

Taylor Harrington, Head of Community at Groove

Name: Taylor Harrington

What She Does: Head of Community at Groove

About: Taylor Harrington is the Head of Community at Groove, an app that brings the concept of co-working online. She is passionate about creating connections and helping people feel a sense of community, both online and in-person. Taylor has experience in physical co-working spaces and understands the value they bring to remote workers.

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 Spider-Man Paradox: How Remote Workers Balance Power and Responsibility
Ask Wayne Anything, Hybrid Work, Surviving Remote Work, Working Remotely

The Spider-Man Paradox: How Remote Workers Balance Power and Responsibility

Marisa and Wayne discuss the Spider-Man Paradox, which is the idea that with great power comes great responsibility. They explore the responsibility that remote workers have in managing their own schedules and demonstrating their trustworthiness to their employers. They emphasize the importance of proactive communication, setting expectations, and taking ownership of one's work. They also discuss the need for remote workers to take responsibility for their own development and seek out opportunities for growth.

Key Takeaways

1. Remote workers have the power to control their own schedules, but they also have the responsibility to demonstrate their trustworthiness.
2. Proactive communication and setting expectations are essential for building trust with employers.
3. Remote workers should take ownership of their work and be proactive in seeking out opportunities for growth and development.

View Full Transcript

00:00:07:21 - 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. Hi, Wayne.

00:00:18:18 - 00:00:21:03
Wayne Turmel
Hi. That would be me. Yes.

00:00:21:05 - 00:00:37:17
Marisa Eikenberry
So today we're actually talking about something that you've talked about several times, including on this podcast, which is called the Spider-Man Paradox. And we're going to talk about what remote workers can learn from Spider-Man, basically. So let's dive right into what exactly is the Spider-Man paradox anyway?

00:00:37:19 - 00:01:05:13
Wayne Turmel
Well, the Spider-Man paradox on some level is an old man trying to sound relevant, but what it truly is, is there is this line in Spider-Man, canon and mythos and keeps showing up in all the origins stories. And that is, as you know, Uncle Ben is dying. And he says to Peter, with great power comes great responsibility. Right.

00:01:05:13 - 00:01:20:02
Wayne Turmel
And that is good advice anyway. But it generally gets directed to managers and leaders. And I am going to stir the pot a little bit, which is so unlike me.

00:01:20:06 - 00:01:22:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. We never do that on the show.

00:01:22:07 - 00:01:52:06
Wayne Turmel
But here's the deal. A lot of remote work advocates, a lot of remote work literature, talks about people's right to work from home, people's need to balance their lives and the power that we have to control our own schedules and to manage our time a little bit differently and get some of our life back. That's great power. But there is also responsibility associated with that.

00:01:52:09 - 00:01:56:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. It's not entitled things that we just have access to.

00:01:56:17 - 00:02:21:06
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, a lot of the remote work literature support stuff just sounds really entitled. And I have heard from several employers legitimately want to make this thing work, but they're like every time we make a request of the people who work from home, we're the bad guy.

00:02:21:08 - 00:02:24:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. And sometimes it's warranted.

00:02:24:07 - 00:02:53:14
Wayne Turmel
And sometimes it's warranted. I will be the last person to constantly leap to the defense of employers and, you know, corporations and like that. And workers have a responsibility here. And I have found myself doing it of late. I've been working from home for the better part of 20 years, you know, as far as I know. Our boss, Kevin, has no worries about the way I work or whatever.

00:02:53:19 - 00:03:10:07
Wayne Turmel
But I remember one afternoon I was eating lunch and my phone pinged and Kevin was like, Where are you? And I'm sitting on the couch eating a sandwich watching sports center. And it's like, how dare he question whether I'm working right?

00:03:10:11 - 00:03:14:03
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm eating lunch right now. This is my time. But it's not that right.

00:03:14:04 - 00:03:34:19
Wayne Turmel
It's like I'm sitting at home. I got a ham sandwich stuffed in my face. I'm watching Sports Center, and it's like, how is this for a how is he supposed to know that? And B, if I said to him, I'm on the couch watching SportsCenter, what do you want? Wouldn't make me sound like a really involved, committed worker.

00:03:34:19 - 00:03:40:01
Wayne Turmel
Right? And by the way, lunch had run a little long. To be fair.

00:03:40:03 - 00:03:42:04
Marisa Eikenberry
That SportsCenter must have been really good that day.

00:03:42:06 - 00:03:51:15
Wayne Turmel
Yes, In general, I am very you know, I'm committed and I'm a good worker and all of that stuff. And sometimes not so much.

00:03:51:17 - 00:03:52:20
Marisa Eikenberry
We all have our days, right?

00:03:52:20 - 00:04:16:16
Wayne Turmel
We all have our days. So do we accept that with all of this newfound stuff that we didn't have until fairly recently? Mm hmm. Right. Usually when you went to work, you physically went to another location, you went to work, you stayed there for the required amount of time to get paid, and then you came home.

00:04:16:18 - 00:04:17:03
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:04:17:05 - 00:04:43:12
Wayne Turmel
Well, we now have considerably more power than we had, and there's a responsibility that goes with that. Now, it can get a little tricky because all some organizations are addressing that by and I'm putting this in imaginary air quotes by making them earn the right to work from home.

00:04:43:14 - 00:04:45:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. I've heard that a lot.

00:04:45:17 - 00:04:54:17
Wayne Turmel
Which I know what they mean when they say that. Have you demonstrated rated sufficient skills that you can be left on?

00:04:54:19 - 00:04:55:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Will we trust them?

00:04:56:01 - 00:05:09:08
Wayne Turmel
Can we trust you? And trust, as I have said so many times, is evidence based. Right. Scripture will tell you that faith is the evidence of things. Unseen trust actually requires.

00:05:09:10 - 00:05:09:17
Marisa Eikenberry
Some.

00:05:09:17 - 00:05:10:19
Wayne Turmel
Backup.

00:05:10:21 - 00:05:14:23
Marisa Eikenberry
And yeah, it's not just like inherently you've been hired, so therefore, we trust you.

00:05:15:00 - 00:05:37:14
Wayne Turmel
Right. It's, you know your job well enough. Right? If you have a question, can you get it answered? If you're in the office with the manager, the answer is usually pretty quick. Mm hmm. You know, we're not going to make you work from home and then not give you resources and help you get your work. Of course. So there are lots of ways that organizations are doing that, bringing people in at first.

00:05:37:16 - 00:06:00:10
Wayne Turmel
Gradually, you can work from home one day to day. If it looks like there's no problem in your performance is good and your production is fine, we extend the leash, right? So there's lots of ways to do that. But a lot of people who work from home get very defensive about this notion of What do you mean I am responsible?

00:06:00:14 - 00:06:06:17
Wayne Turmel
How dare they question my work ethic? How dare they question whether I'm working? You know.

00:06:06:18 - 00:06:30:06
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, there's a there's a bit on both sides. So I guess with this. So I know that one of the things that you've talked about, you know, talking about things like it's not all on the employer, like there's responsibility between need to be doing as well. So how can we demonstrate these responsibilities? How can we act on these responsibilities so that way, you know, our employers do trust us.

00:06:30:06 - 00:06:36:13
Marisa Eikenberry
So that, you know, as you've said in a previous episode and I'll I'll link it in the show notes that, like, we don't screw this up.

00:06:36:14 - 00:06:47:04
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. I think a lot of it goes back to the three piece model that we've talked about before from a long distance team, and Marisa will have.

00:06:47:04 - 00:06:48:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Links.

00:06:48:11 - 00:07:07:13
Wayne Turmel
To all of that good stuff. But the three part P model says to be a great teammate, you need to be productive, you need to be proactive and you need to take a long term view and see the potential in the third piece. And proactivity is really a part of this. Does your boss know when to expect you there?

00:07:07:13 - 00:07:22:02
Wayne Turmel
You know, it's one thing to say, Oh, it's the middle of the day. I'm going to make a quick target running them out. It's another thing to actually say, I'm going to be out of the office for an hour. Yeah, it's a simple thing, but then they're not worried about it.

00:07:22:04 - 00:07:41:17
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, it's like you just talked about earlier with, you know, lunch and stuff like that. And it's like, well, how is Gavin supposed to know that you're eating lunch like, I know many of us on our team do it. I know I do it specifically, too, but like, I put up a slack statuses as I'm eating lunch and I put my do not disturb on for an hour and everybody knows that if they need me, I'll come back in an hour.

00:07:41:19 - 00:07:53:23
Wayne Turmel
And it does two things. First of all, oh, she's not there. So if I need something right away, I'll go bug somebody else. Right. But the other thing is, here's why I'm not here and here's when to expect me home.

00:07:54:01 - 00:07:54:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:07:54:12 - 00:08:07:13
Wayne Turmel
Home to the office. Dr. Freud. To the front desk, please. But it's those little things, right? Because you got to think. What is the other person? What does the other person know?

00:08:07:16 - 00:08:10:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. They go back to the. You're not there.

00:08:10:11 - 00:08:27:10
Wayne Turmel
It goes back to the Johari window. We talked about her. I know where I am. I know that I did yeoman service on that project before I left. So I don't feel bad about taking a break, but they don't. All they know is they have a question. And when it's not there, he's supposed to be there. What's he doing?

00:08:27:12 - 00:08:33:07
Wayne Turmel
Oh, he's not answering me. As opposed to, Oh, he's at lunch. I'll bug him right, later on.

00:08:33:09 - 00:08:35:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, you're on a client call or whatever. It doesn't matter.

00:08:35:13 - 00:08:43:06
Wayne Turmel
You're taking you're taking responsibility for not creating problems that don't need to be there.

00:08:43:10 - 00:08:46:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, you're. You're communicating what's going on? So then. Right.

00:08:46:17 - 00:08:58:18
Wayne Turmel
One of the things one of the things that we don't do often enough is check with our managers about the priorities of things, because it's not. Are you working? It's. What are you working on?

00:08:58:20 - 00:09:08:06
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Yeah. If you've been on a rabbit hole for something that was not a high priority, but this other project that needs to be done next week is been left drowning in a corner.

00:09:08:07 - 00:09:27:15
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And I do this fairly frequently. You know, we've established on this show, Kevin and I are in different time zones, and so my day starts very early by West Coast standards, and every morning I send them a quick hello. Sometimes I send them a hello. Here's what I'm working on today.

00:09:27:16 - 00:09:28:10
Marisa Eikenberry
That way he knows.

00:09:28:10 - 00:09:44:07
Wayne Turmel
It's not a big deal. It's just he knows if I'm not terribly active on Slack, if I'm not, you know, if I've got my Do not disturb on whatever, he at least knows what's going on. And unless he has a problem with it, he trusts me to do what he needs to do.

00:09:44:09 - 00:10:06:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I know. I've had situations where, you know, I mean, pretty much my entire job is task based. I don't do a lot of meetings other than like this. And so there are times that I get overwhelmed with tasks. And when Kevin was my manager, although now Adrian is, I would be like, okay, here's my task list, but I don't know what the bigger picture is and how these tasks relate.

00:10:06:20 - 00:10:14:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Can you help me decide what the priority of this is? Because right now I'm looking at the list and going, all of it needs done and I don't know where to start.

00:10:14:15 - 00:10:38:13
Wayne Turmel
Well, there's a perfect example, though. You have said, help me with this. I have given you let's say I'm your manager. I have given you guidance on this. You obviously know what needs to be done. I have given you the guidance. You acknowledge that? Silly me. I'm going to assume that when we ring off, you are actually going to work on those things, right?

00:10:38:15 - 00:10:47:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, and, you know, taking the responsibility of, hey, I know this needs done, but I need help like asking for help is not something that we do very often either.

00:10:47:10 - 00:10:55:22
Wayne Turmel
Well, and that's a problem. That's part of the proactivity thing, right? Is we get really caught in the headlights sometimes.

00:10:56:00 - 00:10:56:22
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:10:57:00 - 00:11:11:13
Wayne Turmel
And we don't want to look like we don't know what we're doing. We don't want to appear helpless and stupid. We think somehow we'll just magically figure it out until it's too late. Now it's a problem.

00:11:11:14 - 00:11:20:17
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. We're so afraid of seeming like we're incompetent or we don't know how or how to do our jobs that later we look like we're incompetent. Don't know how to do our jobs.

00:11:20:17 - 00:11:45:20
Wayne Turmel
Now, some of this is if you are proactive about communicating, you know, like I say, Kevin and I talk by chat at least once a day. Some days that's all it is. But we do it every day. And because I know where he is, he publishes his schedule and lets people know. And we're very good about letting everybody know where we are and what's going on.

00:11:46:00 - 00:12:12:15
Wayne Turmel
It's fairly easy to be proactive. I know when he's there. I know that he's, you know, he's in the office today, so if I have a question, I can probably get him sharing schedules, letting people know who's where. And especially when you're in a hybrid situation where some days you're in the office, some days you're not. Some days those days are scheduled, some days it's, you know, left up to the gods.

00:12:12:16 - 00:12:13:17
Wayne Turmel
Right.

00:12:13:19 - 00:12:32:22
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. But I mean, to the to your point, so, you know, I'm a hybrid employee. I think at this point, I'm the only hybrid employee that our company has. Just because I'm in Indianapolis. And so, you know, most of the team knows I'm in the office Tuesday and Thursday. Sometimes I'm not in on a Tuesday or Thursday because Kevin's traveling or whatever.

00:12:32:22 - 00:12:55:11
Marisa Eikenberry
And so I know sometimes I'll get a message. Are you in the RH today or as we referring to you, remarkable house. And you know, sometimes the answer is yes, because they need something, you know, that they can only be found in remarkable house. And I'm right there to be able to answer it. And so while I don't publish that necessary, I do have on my Google calendar, if somebody looked, they would be able to know.

00:12:55:13 - 00:13:09:04
Marisa Eikenberry
But but like I don't change my slack status to say I'm in the office today or not because it's typical that if it's a Tuesday or Thursday, I'm probably there and maybe I should. But also, as we're talking, I should probably communicate that more than I usually do.

00:13:09:07 - 00:13:36:19
Wayne Turmel
But all teams develop a rhythm. But so to get back to Spiderman, I mean, the big thing is what is your responsibility as the employee? Right. It's no great mystery that the more engaged you are and the more you like your coworkers and the more you like your work, the more of that you tend to do, right? You tend to own it When here's what I would say.

00:13:36:22 - 00:13:54:04
Wayne Turmel
Going to dig this too much, but that's okay if you are being called out before you get your hackles up. As with any feedback, is it valid? Right. Right. Are you in fact, you know, my boss doesn't trust me. He says as he's driving to Starbucks.

00:13:54:06 - 00:13:55:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Know thyself is.

00:13:55:14 - 00:13:59:10
Wayne Turmel
Going. Right. How dare he not think I'm working?

00:13:59:12 - 00:14:04:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Have I given them reason to believe that I am not working? Oh, well. Okay.

00:14:04:12 - 00:14:18:19
Wayne Turmel
And. And what has to happen at that point is the coaching conversation. And this needs to come from both the manager and the employee is. What do you need to say?

00:14:18:21 - 00:14:19:21
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:14:19:23 - 00:14:30:05
Wayne Turmel
What are you seeing that is creating this lack of trust? And what do you need to see? What would establish that trust and make you comfortable?

00:14:30:07 - 00:14:32:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, we're not mind readers.

00:14:32:17 - 00:15:02:01
Wayne Turmel
And it may be as simple as use your status updates and keep people apprized. It might be as simple as you know, if you're going to do something out of the or if you go spend your day doing something out of the ordinary, you need to be heads down over a project or whatever. Send up a flare, let the team know, let your manager know so that there isn't all this whitespace that gets filled up with paranoia and not knowing.

00:15:02:03 - 00:15:23:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Well, so, you know, we just talked about the responsibilities of remote workers and how it's not all on the employer, but like one of the responsibilities as remote workers, as workers in general is our own development. So now that you know, you're not in the office anymore, so it's not quite as easy as, okay, I'm the boss, I'm sending you to training.

00:15:23:11 - 00:15:28:19
Marisa Eikenberry
Like how can remote workers improve the development on their own? Like what are some. Yeah, they can do.

00:15:28:21 - 00:15:47:01
Wayne Turmel
Well, and that gets to the third P in the model. The potential is if you want to get better at your job, if you want a better job, if you want a career track, you have always owned that. Ultimately that's always been on you.

00:15:47:03 - 00:15:47:20
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:15:47:22 - 00:16:16:05
Wayne Turmel
And it's been easier to do when everybody is in the office and everybody goes to the same training together. And and there's this constant visibility and these little side conversations and things that support those behaviors. You don't have those, right? So when they send out notifications, hey, there's this class coming up, it's really easy to delete it and go back to work right?

00:16:16:09 - 00:16:51:21
Wayne Turmel
Right. Is this something I need to do? Is this something I could benefit from? Have I taken any classes this year? Because if not, whether I think I need them or not. And that's a question you really should be examining, whether I think I need it or not. What message does it send? Yeah, I am not working visibly, noticeably working on things that are important to the leader, to the organization, to the perception of me as an engaged, committed employee.

00:16:51:21 - 00:16:56:22
Wayne Turmel
I have the responsibility to look like I care.

00:16:57:00 - 00:17:19:03
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, and back to your proactivity point. Like not only is it, you know, hey, this class is available, you know, should I take it kind of thing. But you can also find your own courses, trainings, webinars, whatever. And you know, you may tell your manager, Hey, I just found out about this webinar on X, Y, Z. You know, I'm going to attend that on Friday and I will let you know what I learn.

00:17:19:05 - 00:17:39:13
Wayne Turmel
And by the way, a great thing to do is to share that with your teammates. If your group has a Slack or a microsoft teams channel on cool stuff like family or learning stuff, whatever you want to call that, right? Some people call it the so.

00:17:39:14 - 00:17:42:02
Marisa Eikenberry
I think we call ours continuous learning.

00:17:42:04 - 00:17:57:19
Wayne Turmel
Well, that sounds appropriately consultant ish, right? But we share that with each other. And hey, I'm going to be at this class, I'm going to be on this webinar. So not only don't come to me until it's over.

00:17:57:19 - 00:17:58:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:17:58:14 - 00:18:32:01
Wayne Turmel
Right. But also if you want to know about this, I'll share the slides. I'll give you the recording link, I'll do whatever is the appropriate thing to do. So to wrap this up, the Spider-Man paradox essentially is this thing about with great power comes great responsibility. And yes, as leaders, we have a great responsibility and as remote workers, we need to own more than we often do.

00:18:32:01 - 00:18:34:21
Wayne Turmel
If we're going to make this a success.

00:18:35:00 - 00:18:55:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely. Wayne, thank you so much for talking to us about this. I'm actually going to link a video in our Shownotes listeners about Wayne talking about this quite a while ago about lessons from Spider-Man for remote workers. There's a couple of things that we didn't get to cover today, so hopefully that'll fill in some extra gaps. But listeners, thank you so much for listening to the long distance work life for notes, transcripts and other resources.

00:18:55:12 - 00:19:15:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Make sure to visit long distance work life dot com if you haven't yet subscribed to the show so you won't miss any future episodes. And while you're there, 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 you listen to this episode or even suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode.

00:19:15:15 - 00:19:28:16
Marisa Eikenberry
We'd love to hear from you. And if you'd like to learn more about remote teams or Wayne and Kevin Eikenberry's new book, The Long Distance Team, you can learn more about the book at LongDistanceTeamBook.com. Thanks for joining us. And as Wayne likes to say, don't let the weasels get you down.


Timestamps

00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:37 Explanation of the Spider-Man Paradox
00:02:21 Remote workers getting defensive about responsibility
00:03:10 Demonstrating responsibility as remote workers
00:05:09 Trust is evidence-based
00:06:00 Three P model
00:07:07 Being proactive in communication with boss
00:07:41 Using Slack statuses to communicate availability
00:08:07 Importance of considering what others know
00:08:27 Misunderstandings when communication is lacking
00:08:27 Proactive communication and taking responsibility for creating problems
00:08:46 Checking with managers about priorities of tasks
00:09:27 Communicating daily tasks and work progress to managers
00:10:06 Asking for help and guidance when overwhelmed with tasks
00:10:38 Fear of looking incompetent leads to inaction and problems
00:11:46 Establishing a rhythm and clear communication within teams
00:12:12 Hybrid work situations and the need for schedule transparency
00:13:09 Need for better communication regarding office presence
00:14:04 Reflecting on one's own actions and trustworthiness
00:15:23 Taking ownership of personal development and career growth
00:16:57 Finding and sharing your own courses and trainings
00:17:19 Sharing learning opportunities with teammates
00:17:39 Closing

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
Remote Work Rants: Holding Attention & Harnessing Breakout Rooms on Long-Distance Worklife Podcast with Wayne Turmel and Marisa Eikenberry
Ask Wayne Anything, Technology, Working Remotely

Remote Work Rants: Holding Attention and Harnessing Breakout Rooms

Marisa Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel delve into the realm of remote work pet peeves, with a particular focus on virtual meetings. As they banter in their signature casual-yet-business-oriented style, Marisa and Wayne discuss the ups and downs of attention spans, attention-grabbing tactics, and the intricate dynamics of breakout sessions. Sharing insights from their own experiences, they highlight the importance of intentional meeting behavior and how to make breakout rooms truly effective. Tune in to gain valuable tips on managing meeting frustrations and optimizing remote team interactions.

Key Takeaways

1. Attention spans are shorter in virtual meetings, so facilitators should change things up every 6 minutes to keep participants engaged.
2. Meeting behavior is a performance management issue and should be addressed by managers.
3. Breakout rooms can be effective for generating better discussion and involving all participants, but they should have a specific outcome and be relevant to the topic at hand.

View Full Transcript

00:00:07:23 - 00:00:09:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to Long-Distance Worklife.

00:00:09:13 - 00:00:19:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Where we help you lead, work and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I’m Marisa Eikenberry, a fellow remote worker. And joining me is my co-host and remote work expert Wayne Turmel. Hi, Wayne.

00:00:19:04 - 00:00:21:03
Wayne Turmel
Hello, Marisa. How are you?

00:00:21:04 - 00:00:24:21
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm great. We're talking pet peeves today. Are you excited?

00:00:24:23 - 00:00:31:02
Wayne Turmel
You know, I love when people get a chance to vent. That makes me so happy.

00:00:31:04 - 00:00:51:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, I'm happy that we get to do this because. Oh, my gosh, I put out a question on my personal social media. So Twitter, LinkedIn, and my Facebook and said, What do you hate about virtual meetings? And nine of you responded, which does not sound like a lot, but in podcast world, that's a pretty big number. Which also tells you connect with me to get on the show.

00:00:52:01 - 00:00:54:03
Wayne Turmel
But you are.

00:00:54:05 - 00:00:54:10
Wayne Turmel
You.

00:00:54:14 - 00:01:03:17
Wayne Turmel
Know, when we started this show a year ago, she was like, I guess you could kind of contact me if you want. Now she's now she's like the queen of social media.

00:01:03:20 - 00:01:04:06
Marisa Eikenberry
I try.

00:01:05:16 - 00:01:28:06
Marisa Eikenberry
But anyway, so we asked you guys, what do you hate about virtual meetings? So many of you responded, Thank you. We're not going to be able to get through all of them in the show. So we're going to have multiple episodes just like we do with our other pet peeves. So keep sending those in. But I'm going to start with Sam Roberts from Twitter, who says Attention spans are shorter and we're fighting against countless distractions.

00:01:28:12 - 00:01:50:11
Marisa Eikenberry
This means facilitators need to do more prep and think of how to keep the agenda moving, to keep things interesting. I pressed a little harder just to say like, okay, so you're saying to keep things interesting, like our facilities are supposed to do that. She said that for her, she changes up what she's doing every 6 minutes. So thoughts on that as a facilitator for longer than I?

00:01:50:16 - 00:02:20:20
Wayne Turmel
Well, I think the instinct is right, which is that people do have short attention spans. Now, some of this is it's amazing. Attention span is within the normal realms, like if you keep it inside an hour or if you. Yeah, the attention span is discretionary. People are really good at paying attention to things that matter to them. Right.

00:02:21:00 - 00:02:28:12
Wayne Turmel
We are really good at tuning out things that our brain goes, don't care, don't want to know. Oh, look, Squirrel.

00:02:28:14 - 00:02:29:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:02:29:16 - 00:02:40:22
Wayne Turmel
Right. So some of this starts before the meeting. I wrote a book, and I know it's a little bit outdated, so this is not a plug for the book, but the title of the book was Meet Like, you mean it?

00:02:41:00 - 00:02:42:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:02:42:14 - 00:03:09:10
Wayne Turmel
Still pretty good advice. Right. Right. Why are we meeting? Is this something that needs to happen? Does the people that do the people that we've invited need to be there? And will they add value to the time to gather? Is this the best alternative as opposed to discussion threads or other asynchronous kind of things? But let's assume for a moment that you have actually made a conscious decision that this meeting matters.

00:03:09:14 - 00:03:13:17
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes. And I assume you have an agenda for said meeting.

00:03:13:19 - 00:03:27:21
Wayne Turmel
Well, that's the next part is do people know why they're there? Do they know what's expected of them? Do they know what the desired outcomes are? You know, have you prepared them to hit the ground running?

00:03:27:23 - 00:03:29:03
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:03:29:05 - 00:03:44:15
Wayne Turmel
And all of that is before you even start your presentation. Now, her point, about every 6 minutes we try to change this is absolutely right. I have said before and gotten in trouble for saying that human beings are like raccoons.

00:03:44:17 - 00:03:45:03
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:03:45:04 - 00:03:47:22
Wayne Turmel
We're attracted by color, light and motion.

00:03:48:00 - 00:03:50:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:03:50:11 - 00:04:07:03
Wayne Turmel
Are there things going on? And there's a fourth thing on there, which is sound. One of the cardinal sins of online meetings is people hear the same voice for a very long time.

00:04:07:05 - 00:04:08:18
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:04:08:20 - 00:04:23:09
Wayne Turmel
And after a while, our brains can only physically maintain focus on a single voice for a short period of time. After that, you turn into Charlie Brown's teacher. More, more, more, more.

00:04:23:09 - 00:04:23:22
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:04:24:00 - 00:04:25:20
Wayne Turmel
And it's very, very difficult.

00:04:25:20 - 00:04:27:21
Marisa Eikenberry
So we all had one of those teachers.

00:04:27:23 - 00:05:02:06
Wayne Turmel
The six minute rule is is fine. It's a perfectly valid rule. I try to do that by not making people hold their questions till the end. Mm hmm. Right. Doing check ins and not just any questions. Okay, good. But legitimate at check ins every little bit. You know, if you are presenting a slide deck, for example, I actually decide during my as I'm building my presentation where I want to stop and take questions.

00:05:02:08 - 00:05:12:18
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. You actually coached me on this on something I'm going to do this weekend. And and that was the idea that in between we're asking them questions about stuff that's relating to what I'm talking about.

00:05:12:20 - 00:05:37:14
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And so and I know I've mentioned this before. There's this concept called the horror limit, which is that we can only take in seven pieces of information because information comes into our short term memory. We process it. We decide what we need to keep and what we don't and what's worth remembering. And we move that to the oh, yeah, got to remember that pile and that makes room for more stuff.

00:05:37:16 - 00:05:38:11
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:05:38:12 - 00:05:48:14
Wayne Turmel
If, as is often the case, because we're trying to cram a bunch of stuff into a short period of time, you just turn on the firehose.

00:05:48:16 - 00:05:49:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:05:49:16 - 00:05:58:18
Wayne Turmel
And just one way. Push information to people. You are going to hit that horror limit wall very early.

00:05:58:19 - 00:06:01:14
Marisa Eikenberry
And then wonder why they forgot X, Y, Z.

00:06:01:16 - 00:06:27:12
Wayne Turmel
And then wonder what I told them. Now, there are a couple of things I'm going to say to this specifically about attention span, because I know we've got a bunch of other cool stuff that we want to address. Number one is don't be afraid of handouts, reference material, stuff that people can look at later.

00:06:27:14 - 00:06:29:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Mm hmm.

00:06:29:07 - 00:07:07:07
Wayne Turmel
You don't have to give them everything and walk them all through it at that point. Right. If you can give them the information beforehand, that will be immensely helpful. But that requires something else. And this is something that managers don't want to talk about, but it's really important. Okay. And that is that meeting behavior is a piece of their job performance.

00:07:07:09 - 00:07:24:10
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And it needs to be coached like a performance management issue. And that covers both ends of the spectrum. If people are dominating the meetings and not being respectful and not giving people a chance to talk. That needs to be addressed.

00:07:24:12 - 00:07:25:14
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely.

00:07:25:16 - 00:08:04:10
Wayne Turmel
If people are constantly logging on and and I'm talking about a convergence of problems, none of these are in and of themselves deal breakers. But if they come on to the meeting and they don't get there, you know, they're not on camera and they don't participate and they're constantly on mute the whole time. And, you know, they basically whine and complain and don't contribute in the chat or anything else.

00:08:04:12 - 00:08:13:20
Wayne Turmel
At some point in your one on ones as a manager, you should go, you know, you're awful quiet on the meetings. What's going on?

00:08:13:22 - 00:08:17:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. It makes you look like you're not a team player.

00:08:17:09 - 00:08:38:18
Wayne Turmel
And the problem is that that becomes a perception problem. Mm hmm. Right. And when you address that, why aren't you speaking up in meetings? You actually learn stuff. Right, Right. Like, I probably shouldn't be on that meeting anyway. Or I don't want to say anything, because you know how Bob is.

00:08:38:20 - 00:08:39:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:08:39:12 - 00:08:54:05
Wayne Turmel
Right. Which tells you that there's a team dynamic issue that needs to be addressed. Yeah. You know, it's like with the camera. Why don't you want to be on camera? Well, I just hate it now. Sucks to be you.

00:08:54:07 - 00:08:57:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Or is it a bandwidth issue? In which case you can't really happen.

00:08:57:15 - 00:08:58:11
Wayne Turmel
With the issue.

00:08:58:13 - 00:08:59:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Or anyone else.

00:08:59:12 - 00:09:10:06
Wayne Turmel
My kids are running around. It's it. I just got back from the gym, and if it's. I just got back from the gym, Maybe a little more notice. Mm hmm. Before you call me.

00:09:10:08 - 00:09:11:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:09:11:10 - 00:09:24:02
Wayne Turmel
Right. None of these things individually are dealbreakers, but when you put them all together, it starts to affect people's ability to pay attention in the meeting.

00:09:24:04 - 00:09:24:18
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:09:24:20 - 00:09:47:05
Wayne Turmel
So if you meet, like you mean it. Yeah, right. And you plan it, and you do the work up front and you hold people accountable or. I'm sorry, I use bad language when you help people be accountable. I don't want Kevin on my case.

00:09:47:07 - 00:09:49:18
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm going to send just that clip to him directly.

00:09:49:22 - 00:10:16:04
Wayne Turmel
What, you. Yeah, that would be great. Thank you. When you help people be accountable, if will make a difference. The thing is that meeting behavior over time has kind of devolved because we've allowed it to be devolved. We haven't addressed it. Mm hmm. Nobody says anything. I'm so busy trying to get through the meeting that, you know, I'm just as glamorous.

00:10:16:05 - 00:10:18:11
Wayne Turmel
Kept your mouth shut because I got to get stuff done.

00:10:18:13 - 00:10:42:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. You only have so much time to do it. Well, I'm going to go ahead and move on to the next question. But thank you, Sam, for sending that in. And so chat tsunami on Twitter said the stereotypical jokes that we said pre-COVID. And, you know, we get it. Our mike our mike is muted and I'm wearing trousers, let it go.

00:10:42:11 - 00:10:48:09
Marisa Eikenberry
And they also mention that breakout sessions are the bane of their existence. But I don't think we've talked about breakout sessions before.

00:10:48:11 - 00:10:51:15
Wayne Turmel
We haven't. I mean, to the first part.

00:10:51:18 - 00:10:52:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:10:53:01 - 00:10:55:18
Wayne Turmel
Right.

00:10:55:20 - 00:10:56:12
Marisa Eikenberry
I mean.

00:10:56:14 - 00:11:12:09
Wayne Turmel
People at the office still tend to resent those who don't go into the office every day and will take their little digs right? Yes, you are correct. We should have gotten past that point by now. Yeah.

00:11:12:09 - 00:11:17:10
Marisa Eikenberry
I mean, you know, one third of my working life has been this pandemic remote work. Whatever.

00:11:17:12 - 00:11:26:17
Wayne Turmel
Say that again, louder for the people in the back, because we were talking about this before we started recording. And it's such an important point.

00:11:26:19 - 00:11:47:01
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. So full disclosure, I'm 31. I started working at this organization literally the Monday after I graduated college. So I worked here for nine years and one third of my working life has been this pandemic remote work stuff, which is kind of wild when you really think about it.

00:11:47:03 - 00:12:10:19
Wayne Turmel
It's incredibly wild and it means that what was normal in the before times or what was novel or weird no longer is right. We need to just deal with that and get on with it. So I think that's a valid point. What the topic of breakout rooms is really interesting.

00:12:10:21 - 00:12:35:21
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I mean, I've only been in some. I know for me it depends on the meeting that I'm in. So sometimes I don't mind the breakout session because I'm excited about whatever we're talking about and we're going to talk about this project or I like who I'm in the breakout session with, but I've also been in some where, you know, we're the volunteer organizations that I'm in that are talking about leadership stuff.

00:12:35:21 - 00:12:51:16
Marisa Eikenberry
For me, I'm like, I don't even really need to be here because I already know this, but that's beside point. So I get pulled into a breakout room for them and I'm like, Cool, we're going to answer these really fluffy questions that don't really matter, and then we're going to come in and talk about it and yay, rah rah.

00:12:51:18 - 00:12:55:09
Marisa Eikenberry
So I think sometimes it depends on how the breakout session is done.

00:12:55:11 - 00:13:08:11
Wayne Turmel
Okay. Like everything else, if you're going to do something, understand why you're doing it right. You said something which is fluffy whatevers.

00:13:08:12 - 00:13:09:16
Marisa Eikenberry
And we've all been in those.

00:13:09:17 - 00:13:18:12
Wayne Turmel
We have established on this show that Wayne is not a fan of Fluffy ice breakers. They irritate me in general.

00:13:18:14 - 00:13:20:00
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. We have a video.

00:13:20:00 - 00:13:20:13
Wayne Turmel
Hook it up.

00:13:20:15 - 00:13:21:16
Marisa Eikenberry
An icebreaker.

00:13:21:17 - 00:13:48:01
Wayne Turmel
But I'd rather get to the business at hand. So if you are going to do remote or breakout rooms, why are you doing them in training? There is a very reasonable reason, which is sometimes you want different groups to discuss different things. Sometimes it's because you generally get better input in groups of four or five than you would in a room full of 20.

00:13:48:03 - 00:14:12:15
Wayne Turmel
Mm hmm. Everybody gets to speak. You're introverts aren't as intimidated or, you know, the groups tend to generate better discussion and then they come out and they debrief. And it it's it's generally better input. And it's also a great way to jumpstart a meeting that otherwise people join in, they go on mute and there's nothing happening at the beginning.

00:14:12:16 - 00:14:20:13
Wayne Turmel
Mm hmm. If you are doing them just to give them something to do, they are not going to be looked on fondly.

00:14:20:15 - 00:14:21:06
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:14:21:08 - 00:15:00:02
Wayne Turmel
So, you know, they should be relevant to the topic at hand. They should not put people in an embarrassing situation. I think breakout rooms can be very helpful and they're especially helpful if you have the same people, the same large group of people, and they've done it a few times the first time you use a breakout room. It's weird and awkward and people aren't really sure how it works and what they're supposed to do once they've done it a couple of times and it becomes standard operating procedure.

00:15:00:04 - 00:15:26:18
Wayne Turmel
They can be very helpful, but you need to have a specific outcome that there is a reason we'd broken you into small groups. This is what we want. We tend to be very prescriptive. We're in a class and we send people in to breakout rooms. We will, as part of the instructions, say things like The person whose next birthday it is is going to report out.

00:15:26:20 - 00:15:31:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Yeah. And then you don't have to do this. Well, do you want to do it? Well, what about you?

00:15:31:04 - 00:16:01:03
Wayne Turmel
Exactly. It's. Here's your assignment. Get to work. Oh, look, you're finished. Your work. Let's report out. Your work is important. We're seeking your input. We respected your input. We've acknowledged your input, and it's added value to the meeting. If you're doing it just to have something light and fluffy to do. And I suspect the person who sent that in a is male.

00:16:01:05 - 00:16:04:22
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes, I know this person. So. Yes.

00:16:05:00 - 00:16:28:20
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. Okay. So, you know, probably not as grumpy and old as me, but certainly grumpy and male and probably focused on Let me do my work. Let's get to work. Let's do what we need to do. And so the the value of the breakout rooms isn't as apparent.

00:16:28:22 - 00:16:29:22
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:16:30:00 - 00:16:38:03
Wayne Turmel
Because it's being seen as soft and fluffy and getting in the way of the desired outcome of the meeting.

00:16:38:05 - 00:16:43:16
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. I mean, just like we talk about all the time, clear communication is key there.

00:16:43:18 - 00:16:49:23
Wayne Turmel
But it's like everything else. If you're going to do something in a meeting, what is the reason for it?

00:16:50:01 - 00:16:51:09
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, don't waste people's time.

00:16:51:11 - 00:17:09:03
Wayne Turmel
If everybody knows everybody, if this team has been together forever, how much of an icebreaker do you really need right. And do we need to go through the mechanics of breaking out into a room and going back? Well, most of us went to the movies this weekend. That doesn't feel.

00:17:09:05 - 00:17:19:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah, but if it's like, hey, we have this one problem that we need to solve and we're going to pull you into breakout sessions so you guys can talk about, you know, how we might be able to approach this a little different.

00:17:19:10 - 00:17:53:15
Wayne Turmel
Well, or, you know, a really common one is you signed up for this course. You signed up for this meeting. What is your top priority? What is the thing that worries you the most about this? What are you most concerned about? That is a very legitimate use. And as the larger the group gets, the more you need to do that, because if you get above the team level, right, if you get above six, seven, eight people, just the group dynamics are going to dictate that some people are going to talk and some people are going to hide.

00:17:53:17 - 00:17:55:10
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:17:55:12 - 00:18:07:22
Wayne Turmel
Breakout rooms if used properly and properly managed, can draw information and involve those people who might otherwise hide or not be heard.

00:18:08:00 - 00:18:28:16
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that's all we have time for today. But we have so many more. Like I said, we had nine people respond and I'm so excited to get to more of these and future episodes. If you have one, please make sure to send it in. And listeners, thank you so much for listening to the long distance worklife for show notes, transcripts and other resources.

00:18:28:16 - 00:18:45:16
Marisa Eikenberry
Make sure to visit long distance worklife dot com. If you haven't yet subscribe so you won't miss any future episodes. And while you're there, 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 or any of our social media profiles. Those are all in our show notes.

00:18:45:17 - 00:18:46:07
Marisa Eikenberry
And let us know.

00:18:46:07 - 00:18:54:00
Wayne Turmel
You should know by now that Marissa is apparently the queen of social media and she does listen when people tell her stuff.

00:18:54:05 - 00:19:16:01
Marisa Eikenberry
So yeah, it's really true. If you want to talk to somebody about the podcast, talk to me. That is that is not a secret. But anyway, if you have pet peeves, if you have topics that you want us to tackle, if you know thoughts, general, whatever, like email us, talk to us, send me a message. I get so excited when I hear from listeners, so please do that.

00:19:16:03 - 00:19:27:22
Marisa Eikenberry
And if you'd like to learn more about remote teams, order Wayne and Kevin Barry's new book, The Long Distance Team, you can learn more about the book at Long Distance Team BBC.com. Thanks for joining us. As we like to say, don't let the weasels get too down.


Timestamps

00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:19 Discussion about virtual meeting pet peeves
00:01:28 Attention spans are shorter and distractions are a challenge
00:03:09 Importance of meeting preparation and clear objectives
00:04:07 The need to change things up every 6 minutes
00:05:49 The impact of long monologues on attention span
00:06:29 The value of providing handouts and reference materials
00:07:07 Meeting behavior as a performance management issue
00:08:04 Addressing issues of dominant or unengaged meeting participants
00:08:17 The perception problem of not actively participating in meetings
00:08:38 Team dynamic issue needs to be addressed.
00:08:54 Camera and bandwidth issues affect meeting participation.
00:09:10 Lack of notice and distractions affect meeting engagement.
00:09:24 Meeting behavior has devolved due to lack of accountability.
00:10:42 Stereotypical jokes and breakout sessions as meeting challenges.
00:11:26 Remote work during the pandemic is a significant portion of work life.
00:12:10 Breakout sessions can be effective if done purposefully.
00:13:08 Fluffy ice breakers are not favored by Wayne.
00:14:20 Breakout rooms should have a specific outcome and purpose.
00:16:43 Clear communication and not wasting time are essential in meetings.
00:16:50 Reason for doing something in a meeting
00:17:09 Icebreaker activities in meetings
00:17:19 Using breakout sessions to solve problems
00:17:53 Importance of involving all participants in larger group meetings
00:18:08 Proper use and management of breakout rooms
00:18:28 Closing

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
Meeting Cancellations and Time Zone Troubles episode of Long-Distance Worklife podcast with Wayne Turmel and Marisa Eikenberry
Ask Wayne Anything, Surviving Remote Work, Technology, Working Remotely

Remote Work Rants: Meeting Cancellations and Time Zone Troubles

In this pet peeves episode, Marisa Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel tackle two common frustrations faced by remote workers: last-minute meeting cancellations and the challenges of coordinating meetings across different time zones. They empathize with the annoyance of blocked-out time being wasted and provide insights on how to handle such situations professionally. The hosts also discuss the importance of considering team members' time zones when scheduling meetings and how to avoid unintentional home office bias. Listeners will gain valuable tips on effective communication, asynchronous alternatives, and fostering a more understanding and inclusive remote work culture.

Key Takeaways

1. Last-minute meeting cancellations can be frustrating, but acknowledging the inconvenience and providing a reason for the cancellation can help alleviate the frustration.
2. When meetings involve participants from different time zones, consider their preferences and try to find meeting times that are mutually convenient.
3. Utilize asynchronous communication methods like recorded videos or shared documents to avoid unnecessary late-night or early-morning meetings.
4. Be mindful of home office bias and make an effort to balance meeting times to accommodate team members in different time zones.
5. Effective communication, empathy, and flexibility are crucial for building a positive remote work culture that values the needs of all team members.

View Full Transcript

00:00:07:23 - 00:00:12:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to Long-Distance Worklife where we help you lead, work and thrive in remote and hybrid teams.

00:00:12:10 - 00:00:18:12
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm Marisa Eikenberry, a fellow remote worker. And joining me is my co-host and remote work expert Wayne Turmel. Hi, Wayne!

00:00:18:13 - 00:00:20:13
Wayne Turmel
Hello, Marisa. How are you?

00:00:20:14 - 00:00:23:15
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm great. Are you ready to tackle some more pet peeves today?

00:00:23:16 - 00:00:45:16
Wayne Turmel
I am. This is like my favorite thing is when I do training, I always tell people, don't be shy. This is your chance to vent. And just a little word about pet peeves in general. When we get them from readers, it very often starts with Maybe it's just me, and the answer is no. It is not just you.

00:00:45:16 - 00:00:46:17
Wayne Turmel
That's the point.

00:00:46:22 - 00:01:14:17
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes. So if you've been thinking about sending us one for a while, do it. Because not only is there, it's not just you. There's probably also even us that feel the same way. So we're going to start tackling those. I've got two lined up for you and we're going to start with Michael's. And Michael told me on LinkedIn that for him, his pet peeve is meeting canceled meetings, canceled the day of and it's worse if it's an early meeting or the closer the cancellation is to the starting meeting time.

00:01:14:20 - 00:01:17:17
Wayne Turmel
Yes, the answer is yes, right?

00:01:17:19 - 00:01:19:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I feel that, too.

00:01:19:09 - 00:01:30:09
Wayne Turmel
It's interesting because what Michael didn't say is the momentary feeling of relief. And hallelujah, right goes when a meeting is canceled.

00:01:30:14 - 00:01:34:12
Marisa Eikenberry
The introvert in me is like, Oh, thank God.

00:01:34:14 - 00:02:05:10
Wayne Turmel
What I suspect he's referring to is the sense that you have blocked out time on your calendar. And there is something presumably at least as important, likely, more important, that isn't getting done because you have blocked time for this meeting. There's prep time and then the meeting is simply and I think that there are a couple of things that need to go into this because what is it that peeves us off about that?

00:02:05:16 - 00:02:33:19
Wayne Turmel
It's seldom that the meeting is canceled, right? That's that in itself is often, oh, I get an hour of my life back or whatever. It's a couple of things. One is I've wasted all this time. Yeah, prepping or blocking it or not schedule ing something that I could be doing. So there's a productivity waste here. The second thing I think is it's just plain rude.

00:02:33:21 - 00:02:34:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:02:34:15 - 00:03:00:00
Wayne Turmel
Right, right. And depending on if you're crossing time zones and doing different things, it's an inconvenience. So I think there are some things. First of all, your mother probably raised you right. So if something is canceled, apologize, acknowledge the work that's gone into it and give a reason why it's canceled.

00:03:00:02 - 00:03:10:05
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah. I mean, this week that got moved a couple of times and every time it was crap. I didn't know about this thing. Here's why I need to move it. Okay, No problem.

00:03:10:07 - 00:03:36:01
Wayne Turmel
Most people are reasonable human beings. People will be reasonable about this, assuming two conditions. One is that it is acknowledged and you you don't have to grovel or anything like that. But a simple. I'm really sorry. I know that you prep this. I know that you blocked the other time out. Here's why we had to change or cancel the meeting.

00:03:36:03 - 00:03:36:11
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:03:36:14 - 00:03:44:21
Wayne Turmel
Because frankly, there's very often a good reason for that. If you are canceling the meeting, they're jolly well, better be a good reason for this.

00:03:45:02 - 00:03:46:06
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:03:46:08 - 00:04:14:02
Wayne Turmel
And it has to do with a key stakeholder. Can't make it or we're missing certain information or the building caught fire or whatever it is When you cancel, do so with an explanation. As much explanation as you can give, because most people will go, Oh, that makes sense. So that's the first thing. The second thing is whatever business was supposed to be conducted in this meeting obviously did not take place.

00:04:14:04 - 00:04:33:14
Wayne Turmel
How are we going to handle that if it was important enough to hold a meeting? Obviously it's important. Are you going to send the information via an asynchronous form? Right. Are you going to send the PowerPoint or are you going to direct them to where they can get the information that would have been given out in the media?

00:04:33:16 - 00:04:48:14
Wayne Turmel
Right. So that people at least get the value of that. I think it's important that we know is this canceled or is it rescheduled? And approximately when will it be rescheduled? Tell us what the future holds.

00:04:48:16 - 00:04:50:19
Marisa Eikenberry
So we can block that time in our calendar and we.

00:04:50:19 - 00:05:17:01
Wayne Turmel
Can walk that unnecessarily. And I think that's and I know that that doesn't make up for the frustration, particularly, as I say, if you are readjusting your life, not just your your schedule, but your actual life. You know, when I have clients in Europe and I love my European clients very much, but I live on the west coast of the United States, there is no good time.

00:05:17:03 - 00:05:20:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, somebody is going to get inconvenienced either way.

00:05:20:07 - 00:05:42:22
Wayne Turmel
Somebody is going to be inconvenienced and the customer being the customer, it's probably me as it should be now, depending on the time of day, can be a big deal because if I need to be on webcam, for example, I need to be showered and dressed from the waist up and, you know, look reasonable, lay awake and be properly caffeinated.

00:05:43:00 - 00:05:46:16
Wayne Turmel
Well, if I have done that at five in the morning.

00:05:46:18 - 00:05:48:07
Marisa Eikenberry
And you've now canceled.

00:05:48:08 - 00:06:07:06
Wayne Turmel
And it's happened, I mean, I've gotten up at 415 for 5:00 meeting only to check my email and they've canceled meeting. Oof! Congratulations. It's 415 and you're awake and the coffee's on. Well, you know my day. I'm a serious head.

00:06:07:08 - 00:06:27:17
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I know. For me, like, because the. The nature of what I do, like, I do so much deep work, and there are some times where it's like, I won't plan my deep work. I project work during certain times. This well, I'm going to have a meeting at 10:00 or I'm going to have me, so I'll just do this later and then when it gets canceled, it's just like crap.

00:06:27:17 - 00:06:38:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Like, that was time. I mean, yeah, I theoretically have it back now, but it's like, but now I've scheduled other other stuff around it, so it doesn't really feel like I got that time back, even though I theoretically did.

00:06:38:17 - 00:07:11:16
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And what you said is really important because you're not just losing the time of the meeting. I'm the same way. If I know, for example, we're recording this today and that's on my my schedule. Well, for the last half hour, I've been doing little things right, right. Deleting stuff from my inbox and, you know, updating some things, but little mindless tasks because I want my head in the game to do this and I don't want to get into something that requires deep thought and then have to stop.

00:07:11:17 - 00:07:14:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. That's that's where I'm at. Right?

00:07:14:12 - 00:07:29:11
Wayne Turmel
Exactly. So what happens is we not just lose call it an hour because that's an easy. Yeah. Framework we know lose that hour we probably misspent a half hour at least.

00:07:29:12 - 00:07:32:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Maybe depending on when the last thing that we got done. Got that.

00:07:32:23 - 00:07:41:11
Wayne Turmel
Exactly. Oh, I got off my call at 930 and the meeting is at ten. I'm not going to jump in and do something major.

00:07:41:12 - 00:07:55:04
Marisa Eikenberry
Oh, yeah. Like I've gotten off meetings. I mean, I end my day like 345. And so there are times that, you know, I'll get done with whatever task that I'm doing it like 330. And I go, Well, what am I to do for 15 minutes? I'm to be honest, I probably go on Facebook because it's like, what am I going to get done in 15 minutes?

00:07:55:06 - 00:07:56:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Not a whole heck of a lot.

00:07:56:08 - 00:08:27:18
Wayne Turmel
And so and here's the thing, though, you do that, nobody cares. The work got done. And this is the thing about remote work. The work the product for the day got done. The fact that you're 15 minutes late, early coming in, leaving, running to target, whatever you're doing is not as important as the fact that the work product, you got an acceptable amount of work product done for the day.

00:08:27:20 - 00:08:34:03
Wayne Turmel
The problem with canceled meetings is that you could have gotten more work product done right now.

00:08:34:03 - 00:08:39:00
Marisa Eikenberry
You know, now those projects have been scheduled on other days because I thought I didn't have it in my calendar today.

00:08:39:01 - 00:09:15:17
Wayne Turmel
Exactly right. So I know, Michael, that this does not assuage the pain. Right. Because it is annoying. But I think if we apologize and recognize the inconvenience, give people some sense of what's next. Right. Are we going to reschedule it for Thursday? Are we going to send out the materials in advance? Tell us what's going to happen as a result of this so that whatever work we were supposed to get done still gets done because the meeting was supposed to accomplish work.

00:09:15:19 - 00:09:25:23
Wayne Turmel
Right. Give people a sense of what's next so that they can plan their life. I think, you know, stuff happens.

00:09:26:01 - 00:09:26:17
Marisa Eikenberry
Of course.

00:09:26:17 - 00:09:33:12
Wayne Turmel
And most people recognize that. But, you know, we can take the sting out of it a little bit.

00:09:33:14 - 00:09:51:07
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, and I think, too, because I have also heard this where, you know, you have a meeting that, well, maybe it might happen, but maybe it won't happen. But it's not like we're canceling it because, you know, that was caught on fire or something like that. It's just like, I don't know if I'm going to have it or not cancel it like earlier rather than later if the day before.

00:09:51:07 - 00:09:54:09
Marisa Eikenberry
You're like, I don't know if we need to have it, cancel it.

00:09:54:10 - 00:10:00:11
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. I think periodically, you know, asking yourself, do we need to have this meeting at all?

00:10:00:17 - 00:10:02:03
Marisa Eikenberry
And that's an important question to ask.

00:10:02:08 - 00:10:13:01
Wayne Turmel
And can it be done in another fashion? If everybody comes in to the office Tuesdays and Wednesdays, maybe we'll just do a Wednesday when everybody's here.

00:10:13:03 - 00:10:18:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Or I don't really need a status update because we technically talked the other day like we can just cancel this meeting.

00:10:18:16 - 00:10:25:12
Wayne Turmel
And if you have a decent reporting system, status updates are largely unnecessary.

00:10:25:14 - 00:10:27:22
Marisa Eikenberry
That too.

00:10:28:00 - 00:10:29:00
Wayne Turmel
What's your next question?

00:10:29:04 - 00:10:33:12
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. So our next one is from Lourdes. I'm hope I'm pronouncing that right.

00:10:33:12 - 00:10:34:15
Wayne Turmel
Gorgeous.

00:10:34:17 - 00:10:55:04
Marisa Eikenberry
Thank you. And it says, if you're collaborating across time zones, global or country specific organizing meetings or expecting response, is it convenient times where headquarters are based with little regard of how late or early in the day it might be for other remote locations? Slack and Outlook have a send delay option for a good reason and she added a very nice little emoji.

00:10:55:04 - 00:11:11:11
Marisa Eikenberry
I did ask for a little bit more detail and I go, okay, what's the worst that you've ever seen for this? Like, what does that look like for you? And she said, the worst times that she's ever seen were 5 a.m. for a meeting or between 9 p.m. and midnight for time zones outside of headquarters.

00:11:11:13 - 00:11:19:06
Wayne Turmel
People who live in headquarters forget what they learned about eighth grade physics.

00:11:19:07 - 00:11:20:03
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay?

00:11:20:05 - 00:11:27:12
Wayne Turmel
And they don't realize that the sun does not revolve around their particular building.

00:11:27:14 - 00:11:28:21
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00:11:28:23 - 00:11:33:11
Wayne Turmel
People on the east coast of the United States are particularly bad at this.

00:11:33:13 - 00:11:36:07
Marisa Eikenberry
I mean, we are particularly bad at this even as an organization.

00:11:36:10 - 00:11:38:17
Wayne Turmel
Well, but we're not. We're not. Here's the thing.

00:11:38:22 - 00:11:39:13
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00:11:39:15 - 00:11:44:21
Wayne Turmel
Indianapolis is on. Indy is in Indiana, which is in the Eastern.

00:11:44:21 - 00:11:45:08
Marisa Eikenberry
Time.

00:11:45:08 - 00:12:12:00
Wayne Turmel
Zone. We have trucks in the Mountain Time zone, Arizona. Nobody knows what time it is in Arizona ever because of gas and switching. Right. And I'm on the West Coast. I'm an early bird when Kevin's schedule's like our team meetings first Friday of every month. It's 7:00 in the morning for me. But that was negotiated fair, right? That is the latest that I usually start my day.

00:12:12:04 - 00:12:19:01
Wayne Turmel
So, you know, I'll often have a t shirt and a baseball cap on because I won't have showered, but everybody knows me and that doesn't matter.

00:12:19:04 - 00:12:20:14
Marisa Eikenberry
And it's a TV call in.

00:12:20:14 - 00:12:22:12
Wayne Turmel
The morning doesn't bother me.

00:12:22:15 - 00:12:22:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00:12:23:04 - 00:12:58:02
Wayne Turmel
Now, as I say, if I'm talking to somebody in London. Right, that's a different that's a different animal. Or if you're talking to somebody in Asia-Pacific, that can get complicated. But the default very often is whatever time the headquarters is in, everybody synchronizes their clocks accordingly. And that shouldn't be necessarily the norm unless it's absolutely mandatory. You know, if you've got a call center in Manila, yeah, it probably used to be when your customers in the U.S. are awake.

00:12:58:04 - 00:12:59:01
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:12:59:03 - 00:13:19:21
Wayne Turmel
Right. There are some things that just make sense in terms of workflow. But there are two things I think. One is look for peak times, right? Hey, if I have to stay an hour later than usual to do a call, and that's not all the time. Yeah, I'll take one for the team. It's not a big deal.

00:13:19:23 - 00:13:21:00
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, once in a while it's.

00:13:21:00 - 00:13:41:07
Wayne Turmel
Fine if you feel like you are constantly being imposed upon and unnecessarily so, that can lead to disengagement and disgruntlement and all of that kind of negative stuff because it just feels like your needs are secondary to everybody else's.

00:13:41:13 - 00:14:01:19
Marisa Eikenberry
So when this happens, I mean, who needs to be the one to raise the flag? Is it the person who's being super inconvenienced needs to go talk to their manager, or does the leader need to realize, Hey, I might be in New York, but my team is in Spain and I'm asking them to be on a call at a time that's not great for them.

00:14:02:01 - 00:14:18:11
Wayne Turmel
Well, and that's the thing, right? I know that for me, when I led a team and it was an international team, I tended to take one for the team. Unless the majority of the people on the call were in a single time.

00:14:18:11 - 00:14:20:05
Marisa Eikenberry
So that makes sense to try to get as.

00:14:20:05 - 00:14:45:09
Wayne Turmel
Many of the person. If it's just me in that person, I will generally take one for the team and do it when it's convenient for them. That is one of those dark side of servant leadership things that we've talked about though, where if you've got five team members outside of your time zone and so you're starting at five in the morning and finishing at eight at night, that ain't good.

00:14:45:11 - 00:14:47:06
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, you need to take care of you too.

00:14:47:11 - 00:15:17:18
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. So everybody needs to communicate that. I think one of the things that is very helpful besides just asking people, when would you like to hold this meeting so that it's not killing you? That would be good, right? Just ask people what works Every once in a while, though. Toss them a bone. You know, maybe people in the New York office need to suck it up and, you know, take a morning call or stay a little bit later.

00:15:17:23 - 00:15:41:00
Wayne Turmel
And the thing is, the way that we work now, it's not like if I have an 8:00 call, I have to work every minute up till 8:00. We live in a time flexible world. If you're you know, if you work till 2:00 and you've got a call at 8:00 at night, go to the gym, have dinner with the family circle back and join when you when you need to.

00:15:41:02 - 00:16:06:16
Wayne Turmel
I think what Lord is, is addressing is this kind of home office bias, which literally leads to thoughtless behavior and thoughtless, not in the sense of you're a miserable, horrible human being. It's that you literally didn't think about it. So when you have people in different time zones confer with them, find out what works, Do they like early morning?

00:16:06:19 - 00:16:11:10
Wayne Turmel
Do they like evening? How does this impact their workday?

00:16:11:12 - 00:16:21:15
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Well, and to your point, even just from the last question, does it need to be a meeting at all? Could this be done asynchronously, which would probably benefit all of them?

00:16:21:17 - 00:16:32:23
Wayne Turmel
And we're living in a world where literally with the push of a button, you are recording transcripts, ing and translating your meetings.

00:16:33:01 - 00:16:33:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00:16:34:01 - 00:16:44:02
Wayne Turmel
So if it's an informational meeting where you're basically giving information, maybe somebody doesn't have to be up at midnight.

00:16:44:04 - 00:16:44:20
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, maybe.

00:16:44:20 - 00:16:45:09
Wayne Turmel
That be that.

00:16:45:11 - 00:17:02:06
Marisa Eikenberry
A meeting, it could be a video. If if it's truly just I'm going to give information and then people can ask questions. I've seen people use loom or other software to just record a video and then send it out and then, hey, watch this video. If you have questions, let me know.

00:17:02:08 - 00:17:15:12
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. So there are ways to do this. Technology allows us to do that, but have conversations with people. What works, what doesn't? Do they mind? You know, what is their body clock tell you?

00:17:15:14 - 00:17:16:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00:17:16:02 - 00:17:37:20
Wayne Turmel
Somebody to attend those things. You should know that anyway if you're hiring people outside of your time's up. So you know, what is their preference? Can they be accommodated or are there alternatives to those meetings? And by the way, every once in a while toss them a bone and schedule when it's good for them and everybody else has to suck it up.

00:17:37:20 - 00:17:42:04
Wayne Turmel
And when they complain, you go, yes, that's the point.

00:17:42:06 - 00:17:51:02
Marisa Eikenberry
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So it's always, always been, you know, missing dinner for this. You can miss dinner once a while.

00:17:51:04 - 00:17:52:19
Wayne Turmel
Exactly. Yeah.

00:17:52:21 - 00:18:10:07
Marisa Eikenberry
So I just want to thank both of our listeners for sending in these questions. I'm so excited that we got to tackle these today and we have a few more, but we would love to answer your questions too, so please make sure to send those to us. Thank you for listening to Log. This is work life for Shownotes transcripts and other resources.

00:18:10:07 - 00:18:31:23
Marisa Eikenberry
Make sure to visit longdistanceworklife.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 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 Shownotes let us know you listen to this episode or even suggest a topic or pet peeve for Wayne and I to tackle on a future episode.

00:18:32:01 - 00:18:44:15
Marisa Eikenberry
And if you'd like to learn more about remote teams, order Wayne and Kevin Eikenberry’s new book, The Long-Distance Team, you can learn more about the book at Long Distance Team Book.com. Thanks for joining us. It is Wayne. Like say don't let the weasels get you down.

00:18:44:17 - 00:18:48:14
Wayne Turmel
Darn weasels.


Timestamps

00:00 Introduction
02:05 Frustrations with Canceled Meetings
06:07 Impact on Work Productivity
09:15 Time Zone Challenges
12:12 Inconvenient Meeting Times
15:14 Asynchronous Communication
18:10 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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