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

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.