Skot Waldron:
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Hi, welcome to another episode of Unlocked, where we talk about unlocking the potential of people in order to unlock the potential of our organizations. And today we are talking about remote leadership. Again. You know why? Because it's not going anywhere, and there's a lot of talk about that still. COVID happened, sure. There are some companies that are going to go back to all in person. But there are many, many, many more companies that are going to adopt a new hybrid model. And that's what Jason Morwick specializes in. He is an author, he's a consultant, and he is a remote work advocate. And he's going to talk to us today on the show about his new book, Remote Leadership, and about the principle of hybrid teams and the struggles we have with hybrid teams and the successes we can have with hybrid teams.
So all these things are so important to your culture. We got to understand how hybrid teams are going to affect us as an organization, but also how they're going to affect our people. And how do we keep them motivated? How do we keep them engaged? How do we keep them productive in an environment that they want to be part of? So we're going to do this conversation today. It's going to be so good. Jason is a specialist in this and you'll see why. All right, here we go. Jason, welcome to the show.
Jason Morwick:
Thank you for having me.
SKOT WALDRON:
It is good to have you, and I'm not going to lie, I have been talking about this topic for... Or the remote leadership topic now for over a year, as a lot of people have been. There's been multiple books written. I've interviewed some of those authors on my show. But you're taking a little bit of a different spin and that's why I wanted to have you on here. Because a lot of people are talking about this remote world, but you talk about a hybrid world. Tell us about that. Unpack that word, what the difference is, and why some companies just don't get it.
JASON MORWICK:
Well, a year ago when Debra Dinnocenzo and I were writing Remote Leadership, we were thinking about the future about what's going to happen beyond the pandemic? What happens when this is finally over? Everybody had to work remotely because they had no choice, but after the pandemic, we thought it's going to be a blend of in person, in office working, and remote working, and what is that going to look like? And therefore the hybrid model was born. And there's a couple of different hybrid models, actually.
We classify one as a static hybrid where you have some people that are going to come into the office and then you're going to have permanent remote workers, people that you're hardly ever going to see. They may be in different geographies. They may be spread out. So maybe you get the occasional meetup, but you're pretty much not going to see them most of the time. But more commonly. We think companies are going to evolve into this fluid hybrid model where people are going to come and go. They're going to use the office when they need to, and then work from their home office when they want to. And that's going to present some interesting challenges for leaders.
SKOT WALDRON:
So do you think there's going to be those companies that just are all doing go back full bore, 100% in the office and not do anything?
JASON MORWICK:
Yes, I think there are some companies out there they're just waiting to turn the clock back to 2019 and just pretend a pandemic never happened and just go right back to business as normal. Then you have the companies on the other end of the spectrum, like your Pinterest and some other companies that have said that they're going to allow their workers to work remotely indefinitely. They can do it forever if they want to. I think most organizations are going to fall somewhere in between. We've seen already in the news, the Washingtonian Magazine, where they want it to recall everybody back into the office and said that if people want to work remotely, they relabel their status as contractors and cut their medical benefits. And the workers revolted. They didn't publish the magazine on time because they were protesting the CEO's message.
And it actually worked. The CEO has backtracked on that message, and now they're going to let their employees work remotely at least part time. So we're seeing the employee preference to have the best of both worlds. When I want to collaborate with someone or if I really need to be in person with someone, I want the ability to leverage an office place to do that. But if I want to maintain my productivity, if I want a more flexible work schedule because of personal reasons, et cetera, then we we're seeing employees want to work from home. So it's going to be interesting how organizations deal with this.
SKOT WALDRON:
So let's talk about that then. How do organizations deal with this in a healthy manner? So say I'm not one of those stick my head in the sand, COVID didn't happen, but I want to embrace this new hybrid model in my world, what are the challenges I'm going to face? So what are the things I can expect to have challenges with and how do we handle this in a way that's healthy for everybody?
JASON MORWICK:
Well, to start with it, what I'm seeing is actually a lot of unhealthy maneuvers going on. In fact, a lot of companies, because they don't know what the hybrid work place should look like, they're kind of going at it in different ways. For example, one company I work with locally, they decided that, yes, they're going to have a hybrid workplace when the pandemic is over, and what that means to them is that they're going to mandate three days in the office and allow their employees to work remotely two days. Now, in that case, they're giving into an employee preference, because they know their employees want to work remotely, at least part-time, but they're not really doing it strategically. And I think they're missing a great opportunity here.
So from a business perspective, business leaders should sit back and think about what are the needs of their business. Are they trying to reduce operational costs because maybe the pandemic has hit them particularly hard. So in that case you would say, "Okay, how often do my employees really need to use the office? If they only need to use it three days a week, that means I can reduce my commercial real estate perhaps by 40% and save that money." Or perhaps there's a problem you need to solve. Maybe you're having trouble keeping top talent when you can't find that talent in your geography, so now you can recruit people that are going to be remote players, they're going to be in that static hybrid model and never come into the office. But at least you can find more people that fulfill a certain requirement or need.
But the first thing, obviously, is business leaders need to reflect on what's important to them, what do they want to get out of this? We've seen countless surveys. We did a survey on preparation for the book that aligns with research from Gartner and McKinsey and these other big consulting firms that show that yes, employees want to work remotely. We know that. So the question is, what does the business get out of this relationship? Because they have to get something other than just doing it to satisfy an employee preference.
SKOT WALDRON:
So what do the businesses get out of it? Outside the... While I'm lowering my, my coffee and donut costs in break room and my electrical bills are lower, et cetera, what am I getting as an employer?
JASON MORWICK:
As an employer, you're gaining a lot of efficiencies, perhaps. There's a lot of opportunity where you could virtualize your processes, where one person in one location could satisfy several different sites because you no longer have to have someone face to face with a customer, with a client, or even an internal business partner. Think of a simple example like a receptionist. A lot of times you have multiple buildings at your company campus location. Maybe you have a receptionist in each building. Well, if you had a virtual receptionist, you have one person that can now service multiple locations at the same time, so therefore you don't need as many people, so you're gaining efficiency by virtualizing your processes.
SKOT WALDRON:
So going off of those things, what am I going to get out of it, what are the potential things that I'm losing? What are the potential risks of me having this hybrid? Because everybody's saying I need to embrace this. So what do I need to have my eyes open for to understand the reality of what I'm getting into?
JASON MORWICK:
Two big challenges for leaders. Number one, I'm hearing a lot from leaders that they fear that as our workers become more dispersed, their culture is going to become more diluted, and they're going to lose that company culture. So that's challenge number one, how to maintain organizational culture. Number two, for first-line supervisors, for managers, directors, et cetera, they have to manage perceptions of bias, because now you have people in the office, people working remotely. How can you ensure that you are treating everybody the same? We all know about things like proximity bias and things like that. We tend to favor those that are in front of us. So how do we mitigate that to make sure that everybody feels included?
SKOT WALDRON:
That's really good because I just spoke to my brother a few months ago, he's an engineer at Honeywell, and he was talking about the dynamics of their team, their small team that they have and noticing that some people that were working remote were awesome at it. Some people were just thriving. They were just productive and they were crushing it and just doing really well. And then they had other people at home that were having a really hard time and that weren't doing so well.
So management was looking at that going, "Huh? Well if John is working better at home, why don't we just let him work from home more, and then he'll be more productive. But we've got Joey over here that doesn't do really well at home, so we're going to make sure he comes into the office, even though he may want to stay at home." So is that the kind of thing that's also a problem is, now Joey's going, " Well John works from home. Why don't I get to work from home?" The management's like, "Well, you're not really that good when you work from home." Is that what you're talking about?
JASON MORWICK:
Yeah, that happens, because not everybody is cut out to work remotely. Some people when they're working from home, they just have too many distractions or they're not self-disciplined enough to separate their personal life from their work life. What we find is that some people are just the opposite, where they're great, like you said. They're more productive when they go into that remote environment. So how do you manage that with your employees? Some people will self-select themselves out of the remote process. They'll want to come into the office every day or more often than others. But the challenge is if they're performing the same job role and they both want to work remotely, but one's performance is not so good, and then you want that person to work in the office with other people. How do you manage that so that there's not a real perception of bias issue. There's not some inequities there. So you really have to coach and mentor folks and make them realize that they're more productive and they're better off than in the office place until perhaps they can go work remotely effectively.
SKOT WALDRON:
I always say to my clients, I let data tell the story. I didn't say it. Just look at the numbers and look at what we're doing here and help use that. So be strategic in what you do. If you're an accidental leader, we talk about being accidental versus intentional, and I talk about that a lot. If you're an accidental leader, you can do a lot of damage with building that trust and keeping that employee feeling loyal and wanting to be loyal to you longterm, if you communicate in the wrong way. So that's really valuable.
So you said another issue is the culture issue, maintaining company culture when we're not all in the office, and I've talked to multiple organizations and multiple people, even on this show, about that, is we don't get the water cooler talk anymore. We don't get to swing by somebody's cubicle or somebody's office and just say, "Hey, how was the weekend?" We get sucked into this Zoom world. Now Zoom is a task management tool. We use Zoom as a way to get on, have a meeting, and get off. It's not a place for chit-chat. That's what we say, it's just a productivity tool. So how do we maintain culture and even that chemistry that we have with others when we're in a remote world?
JASON MORWICK:
Yeah, and there's several different techniques that leaders can employ. But just like you said, when we tend to... When we get on a zoom call, we tend to jump right into the task at hand. And research has shown this, that virtual teams have less social interaction, less social talk, and they're more task focused when they get together. And that's not an actually a good thing. Some leaders may think, "Hey, we're more productive because we're jumping right into the task at hand," but the fact is that over time teams that have less social interaction with each other, it's been proven that they lose cohesion and they lose trust within the team members. And that's obviously a dangerous thing. So one simple thing that we can do as leaders is encourage those informal interactions. When you have your next Zoom meeting, spend the first five minutes of the meeting really getting to know folks, asking them about their weekend, talk about non-work-related activities, things that are going on in their lives, et cetera.
That will help them become more familiar with each other. It'll help increase the bonds of trust and ultimately help them work better together. And I was telling that to a team recently that works in the public sector, and they said to me, they said, "Well how do we justify that? We're using taxpayer money to do social chit-chat?" And I said, "Well, yes, that is true, but is organizational culture important to you?" And they all said, "Yes, obviously that's important." I said, "Okay, we'll put a price tag on that." And that's very hard for people to do. We all know it's important, but it's very hard for us to quantify organizational culture, unless we're talking about retention or the cost of replacing employees that we lose through attrition, et cetera.
But if we take a step back, remember that culture starts on day one. So make sure that you're hiring the right people into your organization that match the organizational values. If you know that your team members are going to work remotely, then you should look for people as you're hiring them, that you think can be effective while they're working away from the corporate flagpole. Number two, your onboarding process is also important too. So how you're doing onboarding, how you're bringing people into the organization and making them feel part of your team. As leaders, you should be meeting them at least virtually, and scheduling some informal interactions with other team members to make sure that they're becoming adjusted to the team, becoming more familiar with the team members and getting to know other folks. And then of course encourage those informal interactions. Schedule just regular calls with your folks if you can't see them so you can least talk to them, talk to them about non-work-related stuff, do a pulse check to see how they're feeling about certain things, et cetera, letting them know that you care, that you're there for them, et cetera.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah, that informal formal time is really important. And we have certain personality types in our workplace that really need that person to person interaction and that water cooler talk or that, "Hey, this person cares about me outside of the tasks that I do at work." And then there's other people that are like, "I don't really care if they care about me at all. I want them to see me as my task is valuable and that I can get the job done and whatever." So those people get on these Zoom calls, and for the first five minutes everybody's talking about the movie they saw last weekend, these people are going crazy. They're like, "Why are we talking about this? I've got my agenda. Let's roll."
But you're totally right. I think that in order to have productivity on both sides... I talk about rules of engagement. Yes, we understand that you want to just get on with tasks, and yes, we understand that you want to have some talk about your pets. There has to be an agreement that, like you said, we're going to spend the first five minutes of every meeting talking. We're going to just talk. And I think it's interesting what that person said to you. "We're using taxpayer dollars to..." How do we justify that?" Are you telling me you never had a personal conversation in the office in person? Did you use taxpayer dollars then to do that? It's the same thing. So I think that's really valuable advice to give.
You talk about workplace culture. You said this, and I like how you put this, and I always ask this question to my guests, because I think that... I'm always interested in their perspective. You said workplace culture is the personality of an organization or an undercurrent that can guide or push the organization in certain ways for better or for worse. So it's like the personality of that organization, which is cool. So put some context there for me in that personality aspect.
JASON MORWICK:
I always do an exercise with folks when we're talking about work culture, and I say, "Describe your organization in one word, just one word." Maybe I'll give them two words. But describe it that succinctly. And when I was working with a supply chain company, they said the word execute because they were very performance driven, they weren't so much about being nice to folks, I'll say that politely. They just wanted to get the job done. That's what mattered. When I was working with a tech company, I asked the same question. They said the word collaboration, because they ruled almost everything by committee. There were very few edicts coming down from the CEO's office. They did everything as a group. So if you can describe your organizational or workplace culture... And there are subcultures within every organization. Your team could have a different culture than the department or the broader organization, but where you work, if you could describe your culture in that way, that clearly, what are the culture habits that reflect that attitude?
So if you say you're performance driven or that the word is execute, how is that displayed on a daily basis? Well, every day when we start a meeting, we're looking at our dashboards and our KPIs and that's our focus. We have everything broken down from a team performance to an individual performance level and we're constantly reviewing that. If you're a collaborative environment, how do you show that on a daily basis? Well, when we run team meetings, everybody has to give input. As a facilitator, I am going to draw information out of you if you don't willingly jump forward and give me information. So it's those types of habits that you do on an ongoing basis that really sets the stage for the workplace culture.
SKOT WALDRON:
Very cool. This is the other thing you wrote that was really, really good. The biggest mistake that companies are making, you said senior leaders sometimes assume they can mandate company culture. It's like the three executives get in a room and they say, "This is what our culture is for our other 50 to 100 employees." But often the supervisors and managers of the day to day have more influence than those executives sitting in that room. Leaders may desire a certain culture, but the behaviors and actions executed daily actually determine what it is. And we saw a lot of this too back during the pandemic days with organizations all of a sudden having to walk the talk, as opposed to just paying a lot of lip service, this is what we're about, this is what we're about, but then it really coming through in times of stress, times of difficulty, and really when we look at the day to day, that's when it's really going to come through what our culture really is, despite what we think we say it is.
JASON MORWICK:
Exactly. Years ago I helped a company come up with a work from home policy and HR was very excited about releasing the policy, and then we let it run for a couple of months, and then we measured the effectiveness. How many people were actually working from home? The number was zero. No one was working from home. Even though HR had sponsored this, the CEO had blessed off on this. What had happened was all the supervisors managers, they saw the policy, but they basically told their employees, "No, no, I want you here." So it just goes to show you that the corporate office can say one thing, but the action driven on a day-to-day basis, those managers, those supervisors, they're the ones that are influencing behavior on an ongoing basis on all the little things. So if you want your hybrid work culture to take off or remote work culture to take off those managers, those people that are down the chain have to buy into it, otherwise it's never going to work.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah. It's alignment problems? You think? That's some definite problem there. Definitely miscommunication that's happening, which breeds distrust and disgruntled employees. So your new book, Remote Leadership: Successfully Leading Work-From-Anywhere and Hybrid Teams is out now, and where can we get ahold of that?
JASON MORWICK:
You can go to remoteleadershipbook.com, and if you go there and put in the promo code unlocked20, two zero, then you'll get a 20% discount on the book. So I recommend going to remoteleadershipbook.com, using unlocked20 and you'll get a nice discount. You can always, of course, find it on Amazon, et cetera. But if you come to our website, we'll give you a nice discount for listening to this podcast.
SKOT WALDRON:
Nice, man. I like that. Appreciate that. That's really cool. So all the listeners out there, very cool. This book, who's it for?
JASON MORWICK:
It's really for leaders at any level. If you are going into a hybrid environment, if you still have remote workers right now and will have some in the future, this book is for you. It'll help take you through all the basics of establishing trust and communication and running effective meetings and go into other topics such as onboarding, maintaining organizational culture, and even collaborating and innovating. We hear that a lot, that it's tough to collaborate and innovate when you're remote, but we get into those topics as well.
SKOT WALDRON:
Very cool. Awesome, Jason, this has been so good. I liked your perspective on the hybrid model and managing that because I think that it is a difficult transition for a lot of companies out there at organizations. Some not so much. They're just like, "Here we've always done this. It's what we've been doing." But there's a lot out there that are struggling and they're going to struggle and it's not going away, so I appreciate your words of wisdom here and good luck to you and Debra and the book launch. So thanks for being on the show.
JASON MORWICK:
Thank you for having me.
SKOT WALDRON:
Less social interaction leads to less productivity. I know that's not the main thing out of this interview, but it's all about culture. Some people need a lot of that social interaction. Some people don't need that. How do you maintain that as a leader? How do you understand that as a leader, understand your people and how they need to be led in order to gain more influence, gain more trust, and build high performing teams. That is what we're all about on this show, and understanding remote work and hybrid teams is going to be really, really important to doing that. The two big problems that Jason mentioned. That your culture's going to be diluted. How do you maintain that? Number two is how do you manage the bias as a leader? It's got to be really, really tough. That's a new struggle for leaders. As if you don't have enough already. But that is a new struggle.
So go check out Jason's book and use the promo code unlocked20 on the website, and you'll get a discount on that code, or on that book, so thank you, Jason, for doing that. And pay attention to what it means to be intentional as a leader remoting your new hybrid teams or your old hybrid teams, whether you've been doing this forever or not. If you want to find out more about me, you can go to skotwaldron.com. I've got more interviews there and a lot of free tools and free advice and some resources there for you. Check out my YouTube channel. It's building, I'm building content there every day. Like, subscribe, comment, do all those things. Share. And then also connect with me on LinkedIn. I love connecting there. I've got some good connections and I produced content for that all the time. So I will see you next time on another episode of Unlocked.
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