Revised Rules for Remote Leadership: What’s New in The Long-Distance Leader, 2nd Edition

00;00;08;01 - 00;00;35;20
Wayne Turmel
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Long Distance Work Life, the podcast designed to help you thrive. Survive, and generally keep the weasels at bay as we navigate the world of remote work, hybrid work, and how the workplace has changing. Today, we have a very different kind of show. Ordinarily, if it's Marissa and I, we chat and discuss the topic.

00;00;36;02 - 00;01;07;19
Wayne Turmel
otherwise I interview guests. But today, because we are talking about a very special book that Marissa will tell you about, I am playing the role of hot shot author, or at least co hot shot author is our friend and boss and colleague Kevin Eikenberry. And we will be discussing the second edition, newly revised version of the Long Distance Leader Revised Rules for Remarkable Remote and Hybrid Leadership.

00;01;07;19 - 00;01;16;04
Wayne Turmel
And I got that out the first time. Yay! But Marissa, you are playing interviewer today, so you are running the show lady.

00;01;16;05 - 00;01;33;06
Marisa Eikenberry
Thank you. And so, as we already said, we're going to talk about the second edition of The Long Distance Leader, which was written by Kevin and Wayne, and it's a book that's been a cornerstone for remote leaders, set its first release in May of 2018, and so much of the world has already changed as far as leadership and remote work.

00;01;33;06 - 00;01;43;01
Marisa Eikenberry
And so we're going to dive into what's new in the second edition, and how leaders can navigate the evolving challenges of leading from a distance. So, Kevin, thank you for joining Wayne and I today.

00;01;43;04 - 00;01;49;01
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm glad to be here. you know, this is I think it's I think this is only the second time I've been on the show, so.

00;01;49;08 - 00;02;09;13
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, second or third. So we're excited to have you back. And I hope that our listeners are excited as well. So one of the things that I want to start off with first, so as we already said, the book came out in 2018. So much of the world has changed since then. So what are some of the biggest shifts that you've observed since the rise of remote work?

00;02;09;17 - 00;02;32;28
Kevin Eikenberry
Biggest shifts? You know, I think that I I'll just say this. I think that we are in the middle of living in a time where time has been compressed. And here's what I mean. Like the nature of the workplace usually changes in takes like 50, 60, 70 years for that sort of adjustment to sort of filter through, being tested, being tried, being sort of, acclimate the world, the society being acclimated to it.

00;02;33;12 - 00;02;53;00
Kevin Eikenberry
and in this one, it largely happened in like eight weeks and then over two years. And so what I think all of the changes, all the challenges, all the frustrations, all of the stuff that you guys talk about here on a regular basis are in part because we're living in this very compressed time of change that we've not ever experienced in the workplace.

00;02;53;00 - 00;03;09;24
Kevin Eikenberry
Like we could go back and talk about since the Industrial Revolution and all that sort of stuff. But that's, to me, the most fascinating thing about all this, like human dynamics show up, people's people's, wants and needs show up and their and their tendencies around change show up. And it's all because of that to me.

00;03;09;27 - 00;03;17;15
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, absolutely. And and we've talked on the show before to your point about eight weeks. It's like zoom went from, what is that to a verb?

00;03;17;18 - 00;03;18;09
Kevin Eikenberry
It really.

00;03;18;09 - 00;03;20;19
Wayne Turmel
And then from to is syndrome, right.

00;03;20;19 - 00;03;22;11
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Zoom fatigue and all that.

00;03;22;11 - 00;03;50;04
Wayne Turmel
Yeah I think Kevin's absolutely right. The, the kind of seismic change. And yet what is both interesting and frustrating is how little it has changed. Right. some of that is because the change was already underway when the kind of crossing the Rubicon moment happened. And the other thing is, I think there's this desperate attempt to go back to the before times.

00;03;50;10 - 00;03;55;15
Wayne Turmel
So we're not really embracing what's changed and launching from that point.

00;03;55;17 - 00;03;56;12
Marisa Eikenberry


00;03;56;14 - 00;03;57;02
Wayne Turmel
Well that's the key.

00;03;57;02 - 00;04;15;17
Kevin Eikenberry
So it's, it's that it's that tension between the, the future and and and and so many things are pulling us forward. And yet so many of us and I'll say us are holding us back with the way it used to be and the good old days. And why can't we all be in the office and 100 other things like that, right.

00;04;15;19 - 00;04;22;14
Kevin Eikenberry
It's that tension. That's where this is so interesting. and really where so much of the conversation ends up lying, I think.

00;04;22;15 - 00;04;36;11
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, and, you know, just a second ago, I mentioned, you know, zoom went to a verb. And when you guys wrote the book, tools like zoom and even Microsoft Teams didn't exist yet. So how have those communication tools transformed the way that we work?

00;04;36;14 - 00;05;01;04
Wayne Turmel
So I think that it's it's transformed in two ways. One is it's normalized them. I mean, when the book first came out, one of the big lessons was use your webcam. Well, now, you know, people understand it's not going to steal your soul. And everybody, including your grandmother, has been on a zoom call and they know kind of what that's about.

00;05;01;04 - 00;05;22;22
Wayne Turmel
So I think, you know, the the novelty of the technology. The other thing is that, you know, I'm going to give you a very quick analogy. When I started my consultancy, 18 years ago, there were 120 web meeting platforms out there. Everybody was inventing a new one all the time, and then it kind of collapsed into the top five, right?

00;05;22;22 - 00;05;46;14
Wayne Turmel
There's WebEx and there was Skype for business and whatever. And now we have gone through another one of those collapsing where at the beginning of the pandemic, there were a thousand tools out there and people had enough already. It's not that we don't love technology, it's that we've got work to do. And they were kind of looking for one ring to rule them all.

00;05;46;21 - 00;06;09;12
Wayne Turmel
And so we've settled into there's kind of the Google universe, there's the slack zoom universe, and there's Microsoft Teams. And you can argue whether teams was designed by Sauron or not. But at the end of the day, people are looking for ways to get the work done with as little drama and pain about technology as possible.

00;06;09;15 - 00;06;29;21
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. And drag. Can I just make a comment? and this will probably take us off track for what you're planning, Marissa. But that that that webcam comment that, that Wayne made is exactly right. And and yet here's this tension. And yet when I'm with groups regularly, I still have people saying, do we really have to use our webcams?

00;06;29;21 - 00;06;47;01
Kevin Eikenberry
Like so everyone now has use them. And yet in some ways, the message that we had in 2018, Wayne hasn't completely changed because the reasons they don't want to may be different, right? The reason they may want to not want to use them might not be the same that a still in there. So I'll see in my living room all that stuff.

00;06;47;07 - 00;07;02;10
Kevin Eikenberry
But but the but the the fact that some people don't want to be on them is still there. And that's one of those tensions. Right. Like that. The drag on it, the ease of doing it all, that's gotten better. And yet we're not all really there. It's just a small example of what we talked about earlier.

00;07;02;11 - 00;07;18;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Speaking of all of that kind of stuff too. So like one of the things that you guys have added into this new edition of the book is a lot of discussion about hybrid. And so what are some of the unique challenges and opportunities for hybrid work presents compared to a fully remote or a fully in office setup?

00;07;19;00 - 00;07;36;05
Kevin Eikenberry
I think the single biggest thing, and it's really not rocket science, the single biggest thing to me is that if we're going to have a hybrid workplace where some or all of the people are going to be in the office some of the time, then we ought to use those days as appropriate. And so what I always say is not every workday should be the same.

00;07;36;08 - 00;07;56;11
Kevin Eikenberry
The day should go to the office, ought to be different kinds of day. It's more likely you're going to collaborate to have those those serendipitous conversations. that's the chance to work with a mentor. That's the chance to do side by side training. Like we ought to make sure that we're taking advantage of those days and then releasing people when they're back home to get more, have more productivity with fewer meetings, etc..

00;07;56;13 - 00;08;06;19
Kevin Eikenberry
So to me, that's the single biggest thing that's relatively easy to implement. And yet I'm still seeing most organizations not doing that very well.

00;08;06;22 - 00;08;50;26
Wayne Turmel
Well, and part of that, I think, is because they're looking at going back to the office says, okay, we are now primarily in the office again. And the people who are working remotely are outliers, or they will adjust because we're in the office. What I think one of those seismic changes that Kevin was referring to earlier is that companies that are starting now are much more comfortable with the remote workplace and trying less to cram it into the old model than companies where the boat's already in the water and you're dealing with memories of before time and sunk costs and all kinds of things.

00;08;50;26 - 00;09;06;21
Wayne Turmel
So that's another one of the changes is that if I'm starting a company and I don't need a big office and I don't need to be all the time, cool, but if I've already got that infrastructure, I'm already paying for it.

00;09;06;21 - 00;09;08;14
Kevin Eikenberry
Wayne. Right.

00;09;08;17 - 00;09;15;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, it goes back to the conversation we've had before about remote first versus remote friendly and how they're very, very different.

00;09;15;29 - 00;09;39;26
Wayne Turmel
Well, and one of the challenges with that is that there's a tendency for leaders to fall back into old habits. And so there are some pitfalls with hybrid work primarily being proximity bias that, you know, it's really easy to look across the room and see somebody. So they get involved in the conversation and somebody gets excluded. Not intentionally.

00;09;39;26 - 00;09;51;06
Wayne Turmel
I'm not, you know, not including somebody. It just doesn't happen naturally. And so that dynamic needs to be navigated well.

00;09;51;06 - 00;10;07;21
Kevin Eikenberry
And then we think everybody knows whatever the thing is. And yet oh, well, we didn't know what sent an email or a slack message or send it. It's put some in the teams channels. So the only the everybody that knows are those that are here. I mean, we used to have that once in a while when someone was home sick or on vacation.

00;10;07;21 - 00;10;29;12
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. But that just happens way, way, way more often now and again. Not intentional just happens. We've got to be, you know, one of the messages from the first version of the book and still in there is that word of being intentional, like making conscious choices, stepping back from our routines and our habits, from the auto utter response to, to doing what is the the best thing given the situation.

00;10;29;13 - 00;10;42;23
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, and Wayne, you just mentioned a minute ago about companies that are starting now are more comfortable with remote work and so, you know, how should organizations approach hybrid work differently, whether they're an established team or they're newly forming?

00;10;42;25 - 00;11;09;06
Wayne Turmel
I am like a dog with a sock on this particular topic. I think you have to be very careful about using the word hybrid. Are you, in fact doing hybrid work or or are you doing, you know, remote friendly work? With the focus in the office, a hybrid? If we're going to be really technical and semantic about it, a hybrid is two things coming together to create a third entity.

00;11;09;08 - 00;11;28;18
Wayne Turmel
You know, a mule is a horse and a donkey, but as an old farm boy, a mule is a mule. I mean, it is its own thing. And I think over time we are going to develop this third way of working, this hybrid work that is not only who works where, but the element of time gets folded in.

00;11;28;20 - 00;11;38;14
Wayne Turmel
So it's what work gets done where and when that work gets done. And the balance between synchronous and asynchronous is going to be very different.

00;11;38;14 - 00;11;54;20
Kevin Eikenberry
I think that's huge. And I think, you know, you know, when it in the in the first book we, we introduced that we used the word hybrid. And and I wish that I could I wish that everybody on the internet would say, oh, these guys created that that phrase for the hybrid team, which, no, we can't, we can't say.

00;11;54;22 - 00;12;12;23
Kevin Eikenberry
But when we use that word, that's what we meant even in 2018. Right. And and I think it's it's not it's not always meaning that. But ultimately that's what that's what it needs to mean. And organizations that figure out how to do it that way, if that's the way they want to do work, will have a competitive advantage.

00;12;12;26 - 00;12;29;28
Marisa Eikenberry
So, Kevin, you know, you've had the Kevin Like Mary group for over 30 years. And we've been a hybrid team for a very, very long time. And so if you were starting a business today, if you were starting this business today, what would you do differently than you did when you started?

00;12;30;00 - 00;12;46;24
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, what I do different than when I started it, different than what I would do, knowing what I know now, I suppose. Yeah. but I think that in terms of, how I hired who I, where I look for the hiring pool, I don't think it would change. Much like, I think that, you know, I do have a separate building.

00;12;46;26 - 00;13;21;17
Kevin Eikenberry
That's where I'm sitting right now, that Marissa, you come to two days a week, but only if I'm here. Right? and I think there would still be a place, it would be like it is. And it's not. Wouldn't. How's everybody? Because not everyone would be. How? Isabel? Because they're all across the country. I'm not sure. I mean, there's lots of things that that we could do different about our business, but in terms of how it's set up, I'm not sure I would change that much because I think that what we have works not only works for us, but we're generally I, you know, while there's always room for improvement, we're relatively productive.

00;13;21;25 - 00;13;31;05
Kevin Eikenberry
There's there's good relationships. we have we're able to collaborate. And I don't think that having us all in the same place, or even less so, would make any difference.

00;13;31;07 - 00;13;32;23
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, that makes a lot of, you know.

00;13;32;23 - 00;13;57;11
Wayne Turmel
What I'm going to I'm going to mildly contradict that. Okay. when I joined the group, I lived in Chicago. Most of the people were in, most of the people were there, and we communicated it a little bit differently. We got together more often. We spoke more often, I think, because the longevity of the people on our team has been there for a while.

00;13;58;00 - 00;14;23;05
Wayne Turmel
Kevin's comfort level as the boss with waiting, you know, letting people get their work done and trusting that we will come to him proactively if there's something that needs to be addressed. I think the way and the comfort level with that is different than it was even a few years ago. As you know, the decision was made.

00;14;23;05 - 00;14;28;15
Wayne Turmel
We're not going to focus on hiring people in Indianapolis. We're not going to.

00;14;28;17 - 00;14;29;22
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. so, I mean, I'm not.

00;14;29;22 - 00;14;32;28
Wayne Turmel
Disagreeing with I think Kevin's comfort level and skill level.

00;14;32;28 - 00;14;46;01
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I, I won't disagree with that either. and yet, I think if the question is about being willing to, to bring people from different places. Yeah. Like, I mean, I think part of the reason we write the book, The Long Distance Leader and why we write a second edition of it, is to help people continue to build those skills.

00;14;46;01 - 00;15;03;16
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. And I think that that's the question we get asked a lot now. Marissa is okay, why a second version of the book? And people say, well, yeah, we get it that the world is different, but do we still need this book? Because we've all been many of us been doing this for 2 or 3 years. I said, well, we've all needed new, more leadership training, even though we've been leading for longer than that.

00;15;03;16 - 00;15;26;26
Kevin Eikenberry
And I think a lot of people have have haven't really locked into some of these things that maybe they know because they've done it for a few years. And I think the idea of this book is in part to not only show us what's different and changing, but also what we need to make sure we're really doing well, that I'm I'm pretty confident not all leaders of remote hybrid distributed teams are doing.

00;15;26;29 - 00;15;36;23
Marisa Eikenberry
So for people who are reading the book or, you know, once they do read the book, what are some actionable steps that they can take, both organizationally or even professionally. After reading?

00;15;36;23 - 00;15;55;16
Kevin Eikenberry
Okay, here's a short answer and then I'll let you go. Wayne. The short answer is don't just read it. Do something like you will determine when you read it, what those most actionable steps are. And I think we've written a book that is actionable and that gives you very specific things that you can go do. In fact, every chapter tells you, gives you some examples.

00;15;55;18 - 00;16;08;12
Kevin Eikenberry
But the point that I'm making is that it the best thing you can do is go take action on whatever those most important things are to you, because it would be a bit presumptuous for Wayne and I to determine which two things those would be for an individual leader.

00;16;08;12 - 00;16;32;00
Wayne Turmel
I just think that, you know, the the most dangerous thing is to think you've got it all figured out. And one of the challenges that we're hearing from our clients is, oh, we know that people could use a little help, but we've done remote, right? We did remote training during Covid. People know what they're doing now, and we never entirely know what we're doing.

00;16;32;00 - 00;16;49;00
Wayne Turmel
And there's some backsliding and there's some things that we thought people knew that they're not doing. And so maintaining that skill development is really important. And I know that sounds self-serving. since that's the business we're in. Okay. But it also happens to be true.

00;16;49;03 - 00;17;07;06
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. There's a difference between knowing something and doing something. Right. it's a and there's a big gap there a lot of the times. And so I, you know, I think Wayne and I are, are coming to that same point, like if you or if your organization did some training on remote, that's fine. That's great. but the question is how is it going now?

00;17;07;13 - 00;17;20;17
Kevin Eikenberry
And if it's not going in the ways you'd like it to go, or you think it could be better, then I'm confident you'll find nuggets in this book. in the second edition of this book that would help you as a leader, but also help the leaders in your organization.

00;17;20;17 - 00;17;29;22
Marisa Eikenberry
So we've gone from leader to teammate to team. Kevin, what's next for you in the world of remote and hybrid work? What's the next thing you're focusing on?

00;17;29;22 - 00;17;49;10
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, I'm I'm writing a new book that's not specifically about that, but it is about the future of work. In some ways it comes out next, next March. And maybe I can convince you guys to have me on to talk about the flexible leader. or flexible leadership when, when that time comes down the road. So but it's not specifically or solely about remote.

00;17;49;10 - 00;18;01;07
Kevin Eikenberry
The word remote doesn't show up or hybrid doesn't show up in the title. But certainly, there are hat tips and conversations about not only what we've been going through as lessons, but also what we do moving forward as well.

00;18;01;10 - 00;18;15;12
Marisa Eikenberry
That's great. And Wayne, I know that hybrid work has been something that you've been talking about a lot. You mentioned the mule versus, you know, donkey earlier. So what are some aspects with hybrid that you're obsessed with exploring right now?

00;18;15;14 - 00;18;41;00
Wayne Turmel
I think it's that being intentional about the balance of synchronous and asynchronous work. You know, my favorite example is we've all walked into meetings and had to sit there while, you know, all the preamble and context is created. Well, we could do a lot of that beforehand. And then the meeting happens. And then we've all walked out of meetings and halfway down the hallway we've got oh, man, you know what?

00;18;41;00 - 00;19;06;26
Wayne Turmel
I should have said is correct. And so there is getting together in collaboration time. And then there's thinking and planning time on both ends, which can make way better use of our time and result in better outcomes. And so it's what does that hybrid work look like and how do we get better, smarter, faster about it is kind of where my brain is at.

00;19;06;28 - 00;19;22;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. Well I'm excited to do some episodes about that in the future. And before we wrap up, I have one last question. So other than the pandemic, which obviously changed a lot of things about remote and hybrid work, what is one surprising change in remote work that you didn't anticipate?

00;19;22;22 - 00;19;45;17
Wayne Turmel
It's it's who wants remote work? one of the things that the numbers are showing is people thought that the youngsters wouldn't want to go to the office, and they all want to stay home and, you know, do their work. Between playing video games, no young people want to go to the office. They're early in their career. They're more socially program.

00;19;45;17 - 00;20;05;11
Wayne Turmel
And they they want to learn and soak up the knowledge and the culture of the company, the people that are most demanding, remote work are middle managers, people in the middle of their career who know how to do their job, and they just want to do it, and they want to do it in a way that they can do it best.

00;20;05;11 - 00;20;16;01
Wayne Turmel
They want some flexibility in their time. So some of the assumptions about who is going to want to work remotely have not proven to be the way we thought they were.

00;20;16;07 - 00;20;50;15
Kevin Eikenberry
I think the thing part of part of I think I shared part of my answer earlier with this whole compacting of the timeline, but I but I will say that I think that it's been a bit surprising and I think generally hopeful and helpful that, we've, we've added in a whole other conversation, not just about the where and the when of work, but the why of work, which is, which is, people wanting to have a better sense of, of why they're there and what and finding meaning in their work and how they hook.

00;20;50;23 - 00;20;51;09
Wayne Turmel
Work.

00;20;51;14 - 00;21;09;08
Kevin Eikenberry
To life. Right. Which has been messy for a long time, got messier when people were working from the place that they live. But I think the the ongoing conversation about all of that, I think is generally healthy, and we need to keep thinking about it as individuals, for ourselves, but also as leaders in organizations.

00;21;09;11 - 00;21;16;27
Marisa Eikenberry
Kevin, I know that, you know, when this episode comes out, we're about to have virtual con. do you want to talk a little bit about that before we wrap up?

00;21;17;02 - 00;21;43;27
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I can just very quickly. So, you know, back at the start of the pandemic, I had this harebrained idea that we should, when no one was having doing any training and couldn't get away, couldn't do that. So we created this thing we called virtual Leader Con, and we've continued to do it. It's evolved somewhat, but, on September 17th through 19th, we're doing two and a half days where we will have a bunch of experts join me, to on a, a virtual platform that allows for lots of participation and engagement.

00;21;44;00 - 00;22;01;29
Kevin Eikenberry
And we're going to bring those leaders in, those thought leaders in to have conversations with, with our participants from around the world to talk about what matters. And I think the thing that makes a difference than a podcast or a webinar or other those kinds of things, is that that the the direction of the, of the conversation is guided much by the people that are there.

00;22;01;29 - 00;22;24;05
Kevin Eikenberry
So we'd love to have you join us. It's completely free virtual contact. Com and I think the thing that specifically relates to this show is that that first half day on September the 17th, Wayne will be joining me at the beginning, and at the end we'll be we'll be doing a Q&A, but we'll have three guests, and that whole session will be about the future of work, hybrid work, and all those sorts of things.

00;22;24;05 - 00;22;40;09
Kevin Eikenberry
So if you're listening to this show, you definitely want to join us that half day virtual leader. Contact. Com. And if you decide you wanted to have the recordings and transcripts of those sessions, you can get them for free if you preorder a book. And I know that's where you're headed is to talk about that. That is our I'll let you be.

00;22;40;09 - 00;22;45;14
Kevin Eikenberry
I hope that we'll have you all join us at Virtual Con. And, and thank you guys for having me on the show.

00;22;45;21 - 00;23;09;17
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes. Thank you so much for being here. And, Wayne, as always, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation. And before we go, as we've already been discussing, the second edition of The Long Distance Leader is available for preorder and will be launching on September 17th. As we just talked about a minute ago, and this updated guide is perfect for navigating today's remote and hybrid work environments with new principles and proven strategies.

00;23;09;24 - 00;23;32;09
Marisa Eikenberry
Kevin and Wayne 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. Preorder your copy now at Long Distance Work life.com/lvl and strengthen your remote leadership skills today. And listeners, thank you so much for listening to the Longest and Spark Life version ups, transcripts, and other resources.

00;23;32;10 - 00;23;55;13
Marisa Eikenberry
Make sure to visit Long Distance worklife.com if you haven't yet. Subscribe to the show so you don't miss any future episodes. And if you're on Apple or Spotify, please give us a rating and review. Your feedback helps us improve and reach more listeners just like you. Feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes, and let us know that you listen to this episode, or suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode.

00;23;55;14 - 00;24;15;29
Marisa Eikenberry
We would love to hear from you and thanks for joining us. And it's Wayne. Like to say, don't let the weasels get you down. Hey.

00;24;16;01 - 00;24;16;13
Marisa Eikenberry
You.