Is Your Hybrid Work Strategy a Mule or a Platypus?

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Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to the.

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

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Wayne Turmel
Hello, Marissa. How are you?

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Marisa Eikenberry
I'm great. How are you?

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

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

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Sounds about right.

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

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

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

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

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

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

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

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Right. That makes sense.

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

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

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

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Wayne Turmel
Yeah, the big thing about hybrid work is most people think work. Hybrid work is what work gets done. Where.

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Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

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

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

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

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Wayne Turmel
Well, well. And if in my case, I live three time zones away from you and Kevin.

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Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. When you and I talk about available.

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

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Wayne Turmel
And then at the end of the day, I pick up my coat and I leave.

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Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Yeah. They plan the day around being in the office essentially.

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Dope mules.

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

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Right. That makes sense.

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

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

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Wayne Turmel
And what I found is that mules can carry far more weight than horses. they consume less water than camels on long rides.

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Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

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

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Wayne Turmel
But mules are bred for very specific things, and every mule is going to have those particular things in them.

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Marisa Eikenberry
Right. That makes sense. It's intentional.

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

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

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

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

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Right. Yeah. Some stuff becomes very obvious.

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Or thought couldn't be done remotely.

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

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Wayne Turmel
You may not get it right the first time. but you're in this for the long haul.

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Marisa Eikenberry
One would hope.

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

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Wayne Turmel
If the best talent is what is most important to your business.

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Marisa Eikenberry
They might be three.

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

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

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

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Wayne Turmel
So I'm trying to. Not be too judgmental about people that aren't because we're all doing our darndest here.

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

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Wayne Turmel
You walk around with this brain and see what kind of stuff you come up with is all I'm saying.

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Marisa Eikenberry
I'll choose not to, but that's another day. All right?

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Wayne Turmel
Not a bad choice, by the way.

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

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

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

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Marisa Eikenberry
We would love to hear from you. Thank you for joining us. And as Wayne like to say, don't let the whistles get you down.

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Marisa Eikenberry