21st Century Work Life

Following yesterday's episode, Pilar saw a few tweets she wanted to share with you, after she reached out to @erimbau to ask her about this article (article in Spanish, tweets in English!): https://mba.americaeconomia.com/articulos/entrevistas/eva-rimbau-de-la-universidad-oberta-de-catalunya-un-3-de-los-empleados Here are the quoted Twitter threads: On telework: https://twitter.com/erimbau/status/1072804504045871105 https://twitter.com/erimbau/status/1072813925241159681

https://twitter.com/erimbau/status/1072813433962287104

On attitudes to flexiwork:

https://twitter.com/erimbau/status/1073177103447875584

Today's unusual episode brings us an interview originally recorded for another show, but it's a great fit for our audience here, with whom we often share and discuss interesting research findings from the changing world of work.

Journalism and scientific evidence have always had an uneasy relationship because results don't usually fit neatly into soundbites. Headlines can be very misleading. Libsyn's podcasting podcast The Feed recently cited the statistic that "28.4% of all podcasts have ads" – and it was easy to overlook the detail that this referred to 28 of top 4% of all shows. https://thefeed.libsyn.com/132-all-the-pandora-and-podcasting-questions-and-information.

These misunderstandings are far from new, and once a popular myth displaces the reality it can persist for decades – the Freakonomics podcast recently mentioned the way the 'Kitty Genovese' case study about the Bystander Effect is frequently cited as being about a trend of societal decline, whereas it's really a universally consistent bias of human behaviour in groups (that the more people there are around, the less likely each individual is to step up and go to the aid of another).

Good research is reported badly, completely distorting the message. Learning to read for the detail and critically evaluate the real stories and details behind the headlines and tweets is vital, and there are good resources for this, like the BBC's "More or Less" podcast.

When it comes to distilling the evidence behind business and work research, we really enjoy the valuable content created by non-profit Science for Work - which is why we're glad to share this interview with executive coach Mark Seabright with you today, writer of this post.https://scienceforwork.com/blog/effective-virtual-teams-big-picture/

This article addressed a 2008 meta-analysis, examining elements of both theory and practice in virtual teams. Perhaps unsurprisingly, social factors and task factors were both identified as important, in determining performance outcomes, a result which wouldn't greatly surprise us in 2018 either.

But a meta-analysis can only draw on the data already present, which can leave lots of holes in the bigger picture. Science For Work (scienceforwork.com) have many other evidence summaries which help to fill the gaps and highlight areas where additional research might be needed. As Pilar and Mark discuss, what's missing can be just as interesting as what is present in the results!

Terminology and time can also affect how research is viewed, never more so in the fast-moving space of virtual team collaborations – and comparing studies carried out even a year apart can be tricky. Consistent definitions are a challenge.

But an evidence-based approach does not mean taking your favourite bit of evidence, and following up with some cherry-picking confirmation bias! Rigorous research requires you to look at what's really happening, even when it's messy and complex, and comparing the perspectives of a range of stakeholders (including viewing organisations from the inside and the outside).

And perhaps unsurprisingly Science For Work note that many of the management challenges we were concerned about 20 years ago are far from resolved – the same issues, about how we communicate and collaborate, resolve conflict, etc, remain to be solved - regardless of the tools or the tech involved, or whether the team is remote or colocated.

Good practice and principles also remain unchanged – and that includes scientific empiricism, when it comes to testing the effects of changes in our own organisations, and evaluating and critiquing the results.

Science For Work are an international remote team themselves, and endeavour to apply all they learn within their own organisation. They focus on the social cohesion factors, and despite all being academic psychologists they try not to get too bogged down in the task detail and debate.

They're perhaps an unusual group, of voluntarily-collaborating experts, and Mark's comments offered some intriguing insights into how they collaborate. They pay attention to the getting to know the whole person they are working with, and establishing agreed norms about how to use the different tools to communicate – many of the things we talk about regularly in our own client work at Virtual Not Distant, which is very reassuring.

And research is still needed in so many areas – humility and team effectiveness correlation is one thing that Pilar and Mark identified as a gap, so please let us know if you have any good evidence-based research about that!

Meantime we'll be back soon with our 2018 wrap up, and a little look ahead to the new year.

Today Pilar interviews her colleague and co-host Maya, who is wearing her 'non – Virtual Not Distant hat', and speaking in her role as CEO of BlockSparks OÜ. This business has some unique 21st Century Work-Life aspects, which we felt it was time to discuss.

06.30 21st Century Work-Life: Maya Middlemiss, CEO of BlockSparks ÖU – "your creative communications partner for the blockchain world"

Apart from Maya's passion for remote working and location independence, she's really excited about blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. Earlier this year she was ready to formalise her status of freelancing with a small group of trusted associates by forming a limited company - but despite being a Brit living in her adopted home of Spain for a decade, she decided to constitute the company in the small Eastern European country of Estonia.

Estonia offers a unique e-residency programme specifically aimed at location-independent entrepreneurialism, and an entirely digital identity. And once Maya had set herself up as an e-resident of Estonia, it was easy – with the help of business service specialists LeapIn, to set up BlockSparks as an Estonian limited company. Later in the year she did visit Estonia to open a proper business bank account, but she ran the business for several months without visiting her new e-domicile. She wrote a blog post about the experience, and the rationale behind this decision https://www.blocksparks.io/why-blocksparks-chose-estonia-for-our-business-incorporation/

An Estonian location based on digital identity was a great fit with the BlockSparks business activity of providing marketing communications services for blockchain and cryptocurrency startups. So of course we had to get Maya to briefly define and describe how blockchain works – though she only had a few minutes, and if you want to understand in greater depth you can check out her own podcast, The Crypto Confidence Show, https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/crypto-confidence-podcast/id1435700693 to dig into the details.

We did touch briefly on some non-currency application for blockchain, for example for storing academic records – imagine being able to prove that the person you were hiring actually had the qualifications they stated they had, because the record was embedded permanently in a publicly-accessible, tamper-evident distributed ledger? This is just one example of the innovative projects being tackled using blockchain technology, that Maya is so excited to be writing about.

You can find out more at https://www.blocksparks.io/ and follow them on Twitter at @BlockSparks

42.52 Oh no, my team's gone remote! And we're going to spend all of our time in online meetings!

Working away from the office isn't the peaceful isolated place it used to be, with the array of communications tools at our fingertips. So there's a real danger we can end up in endless meetings and video conferences, instead of doing the work.

If we're clear about when we are around to talk and interrupt each other versus when we're engaged in deep concentrated work, we can communicate as we go along – saving our meetings for important strategic matters and decision-making. And if we use our collaboration tools appropriately, we can make our work visible and shared whilst we're doing it, instead of having to report on it in our face-time.

Even when we have our meetings, we do need to be able to question whether we all need to be 100% attentive, all of the time. If we trust each other and our motivations and roles, we can connect and attend when it's needed and relevant to the work – rather than trying to replicate the way we work in the colocated space at all times.

50.29 Tool: Remarkable tablet

Pilar is in love with her new tablet, which combines the free-flow creativity of handwriting with being able to store and search that digitally afterwards. It has an e-Ink screen (like the kindle), making a change from looking at backlit screens, and she uses for editing and note-taking, as well as brainstorming and note taking. It also lets you draw beautifully.

Recent software updates include optical character recognition, which has provided the only 'missing link' in the creative workflow, and made her fall even more deeply in love with it. Maya wonders whether it software would be able to read her own writing though, when frequently she herself can't… How interesting that the range of preferred tools continues to diverge and offer something for everyone.

See you next time, and do keep in touch with us at Virtualnotdistant.com!

Former co-host of this show Lisette will be familiar to long-term listeners, who might have wondered where she'd got to – well, wonder no more! She was busy writing "Work Together Anywhere", which gave us a great excuse to catch up in our featured segment today.

And don't forget to join us over on twitter (@PilarOrti or @Virtualteamw0rk), where one discussion this week has been all about what we call that bit on the screen where our colleague's head appears. Not as obvious as it sounds! Can you add any suggestions? https://twitter.com/PilarOrti/status/1053025198188965891

Speaking of social media, we were so happy to be included in Geoff Watts' video about his top 10 agile podcasts – he's a great entertaining Youtuber and podcaster, and we're in some great company here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYYxiqUdpp0&feature=youtu.be

The Voice Behind The Book: Lisette Sutherland, author of Work Together Anywhere

It's been a long time since we had a 'virtual coffee' with Lisette, so this was a great trip down memory lane for us both! We don't always have this degree of intimacy with our interviewees, at least not to the extent that they admit they started writing their book as an excuse to talk to people who might hire them for a job… But the director of Collaboration Superpowers soon realised there was a genuine demand for a practical 'how to' handbook, to underpin the workshops they delivered.

Written over a span of 5 years in the end, the book project morphed from a neon coffee table design vision to a practical, highly-navigable and structured guide, to help readers solve their own problems by being able to find the information they need most in the moment. Lisette's insight into the collaboration process with her designer and editor will be valuable to anyone embarking on challenge of bringing a book into the world.

As well as the practical stuff, Lisette's work with Happy Melly (and long-term quest for aligning work and personal fulfillment) helps keep the focus on why working flexibly and remotely is so rewarding. In her extensive career helping teams work better together online, she's seen some changes, including improved acceptance and technology – but sees that there is still a long way to go, and lots of work to do.

But she also reminds us that nothing beats a direct conversation, when working remotely. We shouldn't be afraid to get on a call – or to try something completely new and different. There are so many blended and creative ways to communicate now, from video messages to picking up the phone, so don't think about a dichotomy between text and 'real' connectivity.

Above all Lisette reminds us to keep learning, stay humble, and continually evolve our practice and mindset – so our work can stay fresh and at its best. However many years of remote work experience we might have, we can still grow and develop. We never said remote was easy – but work in general isn't easy. With the right tactics and information, we can make it better. And there is no universal formula or single right way of doing this stuff. Personalities, energies and motivations combine differently on every team, however they are located.

As well as the book, you can enjoy Lisette's podcast https://www.collaborationsuperpowers.com/podcasts/ (and don't forget our own archives, talking to Lisette, through to the end of 2017!)

Recommended Tool: Loom

A powerful way to share little videos, recording your screen in real time along with narration – and it's a great way to share learning and ideas in remote teams. It's available as a chrome plugin, free, and super-easy to share and distribute. There's no need for an account to view the videos – in fact you can see one right here https://www.useloom.com/share/91a03bf43a0a49908368e3b1bc0530f7

Wellbeing: Are you a Lark or an Owl?

It's been a while, and we should not take wellbeing in remote work for granted. And today Maya and Pilar reflect upon is the tradition of the 'work day', and how we can still end up following a habit from the industrial revolution…

Could we be more productive, fulfilled and effective, by listening to our own energy levels and circadian rhythms?

We talk a lot about the tools we have to collaborate asynchronously with colleagues in different time zones, so perhaps we could use them to work more flexibly with each other, and ourselves? To create a culture where we share stuff like 'I am going for a walk to clear my head' or, have a special Slack status to signify a siesta?

Team leaders can take the initiative and make sure that true temporal flexibility is part of your "work day".

To mix things up from our usual magazine format we have just one long substantive interview for you today, where we really dig into the detail about how one organisation manages their communications using Slack. We're sure you'll find it interesting to go really in-depth into this example, and reflect on how you select and use tools within your own organisation.

And a quick shout out to listener Stephan for recommending our show to someone on Twitter, and in turn we recommend an episode in the show Reasons to be Cheerful, episode 55, (https://pca.st/0IN0) where they interview the founder of Perpetual Guardian in New Zealand, where they have been experimenting with the four day week (which we mentioned in episode 179 https://virtualnotdistant.squarespace.com/podcasts/values-driven-culture but didn't talk to them directly).

Why not let us know what you think, we're easy to reach on Twitter, either @PilarOrti or @Virtualteamw0rk

Meantime, on with the great big chat:

Jamon is the cofounder and CTO of Infinite Red https://infinite.red/, and author of the post "5 Slack Channels Every Company Needs." https://shift.infinite.red/5-slack-channels-every-company-needs-dd0f103e0f9d

With a team of 25 fully remote colleagues, Infinite Red have been building apps since forming from a merger in 2005. (We interviewed Gant Laborde earlier this year https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/wlp174-problem-with-remote-work about a great blog post he also shared with the world). But Jamon remains conscious that their setup is unusual, that society is still not ready for remote universally – something those of us immersed in this space can easily overlook. So they had to find their own ways of getting things done, as they created their team and found ways to collaborate effectively.

Infinite Red use Slack very extensively to segment their conversations, through channels which evolve organically (and get archived after use), and also guest channels for external collaborators - in fact, they insist that their clients use Slack, as part of their terms of operation, either in shared workspaces or via guest channels.

Jamon and Pilar discuss how in a larger team, Slack can evolve from being an asynchronous collaboration platform to more of a real-time communication tool, with higher expectation in terms of response time. To manage this requires some forethought and alignment of expectations, such as use of threading to control the signal to noise ratio, especially in important channels – whilst other channels can fill the need for more casual chat. For Infinite Red this led to the creation of the 5 channels which were the subject of the blog post in question:

Roll call: For checking in, rather than checking up on, saying "hi" when you arrive at the office. They use it for really brief greetings and signalling - it's a little more personal and connected than just indicating through your status when you are working or not, or popping out for lunch or into a meeting. It creates a good snapshot of where everyone is at at any given moment, particularly in a team spanning multiple timezones.

Kudos: For recognising the accomplishments of co-workers, in as authentic a way as possible. A good way to make different aspects of the work visible across the organisation (though private praise matters too). They also use to reward effort and endurance as well as obviously positive outcomes, and try to keep it spontaneous and genuine.

Chitchat + Funny: These are actually two channels at Infinite Red, split from the default Slack 'Random' channel. Separating them in this way allows all employees join in chat without needing to dive down the rabbit-hole of memes and GIFs (and some ultra-geeky stuff that is really only funny to developers anyway) - and recognises that people bond over different kinds of content and humour.

Announcements: Some things need a destination of their own, things which have an impact on the company as a whole: team updates, role changes, policies etc. Responses in here should be threaded, to allow for rapid skimming and updating of these important messages, without diving into the discussion of it. They advise everyone to have visible alerts for this channel, and people can check-off that they've read each item with an appropriate emoji.

Scheduling: For longer term scheduling type topics, eg discussing planned absences and use of shared resources, they have this dedicated channel for "determining how we're going to spend our time as a company". So as well as syncing plans, they work out loud at a high altitude in here - stating what they're working on in any given week, to create that overview of the big picture for everyone on the team to see.

Jamon recognises that he is the power user and evangelist when it comes to Slack, and that perhaps every team needs one, to keep the channel usages on track and consistent (whilst also being dynamic and evolving), leading by example at all times.

Of course they do have other channels - so be sure to check out the article!

Pilar and Jamon also discuss the podcast, Building Infinite Red https://building.infinite.red/

This project enables Jamon and his co-founders to work on something cool together outside of their client work, and share and reflect upon what they're doing and how they make decisions. It lets them be quite straightforward and authentic, and develop their thinking out loud together – in the spirit of podcasting, as a conversation between people in a synergistic and fun way to evolve creativity.

Season 2 launches soon (but there are already 13 to get stuck into from last time). Thanks Gant Laborde for tipping us off to this one.

Finally, we also discuss their Academy.

It's in Infinite Red's DNA to share their learning with the world, as they're all from an open source background. So the Academy offers online and on-site workshops and on-demand resources, and it's all based on things they have tried and tested and used with their own clients acadmey.infinite.red They also teach workshops at conferences

https://twitter.com/jamonholmgren (especially if you like jokes, apparently)

[email protected]

A bit of a different show for you today. We share a glimpse behind the curtain, in the production of the 21st Century Work Life podcast, and also tell you about our new in-house podcasting service.

Having an in-house podcast not only shares information and updates, it's a great way to ensure continuity in connectedness and communications, making sure the teamwork flows at every level. It's especially helpful when transitioning to a more flexible way of working.

It helps everyone learn about each other's roles, and how we all respond to the same challenges and issues at work. And whilst there can be barriers to approaching people to chat for the first time over purely online tools, if you've heard that person's voice it can really help with overcoming that. Speaking is so much more rich and intimate than a typed chat message, and a podcast is also a great way to learn and keep up with information from the organisation, without always sitting in front of a screen.

With help from Virtual Not Distant – at any level from initial consultation through to full management and production – you can easily design and create your unique in-house radio show.

(And if Maya can launch the Crypto Confidence Podcast https://www.blocksparks.io/category/podcast/, this is proof that anyone can learn this stuff and get it done. Not an in-house show, so if you're curious about blockchain or cryptocurrency stuff, or Maya's "other hat", then do check it out)

BTW special hats are not essential for creating YOUR podcast, and the entry-level hardware and software is very accessible. We'll help you every step of the way.

Learn more here. https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/inhouse-podcast/

If you really want to learn something, or simply to grow as a team and create something together, then why not make a podcast about it? Sharing the process, improvising, having a go… It's a great experience, and you can do it entirely remotely or in a colocated space, as you choose.

The process of planning and chunking your content, of structuring the episodes and putting it all together, is incredibly insightful. And at the end of it, you'll have a set of episodes you can use for training, on-boarding, or presenting your work externally.

And of course Virtual Not Distant will be there for everything, from facilitating the initial discussion to helping you produce and share it however you like. Find out more! https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/learning-out-loud

In this segment we are joined by Ross Winter, our very own Podcast Polisher, who helps us sound at our best every time. https://podcastpolishing.com/

As we're all in different countries, we work through Trello, sharing checklists and links to content, so we all know what our different roles and deadlines are.

And once the recordings are in, Ross does his thing – cleaning up the audio and adjusting the levels, making sure we all sound like we're in the same conversation. He gets rid of our clips and clicks, our hisses and pops, to make it all sound professional. And he also magics away the background noise, that always happens however carefully you prepare the environment – every room has echoes and reverb, laptops have fans, and so on. It makes the sound a lot cleaner and sharper, once all this is removed.

Once he's finally cleaned it all up, he can compile the episode itself, from all the different recordings and music/effects, mixing and editing to put it all together and create the finished podcast.

It all ends up a single audio file which Maya then listens back to, in order to create the shownotes (that's what you're reading now). Rather than a transcript, these are intended to act as a kind of teaser for the show, as what we really want you to do is listen – for all the reasons above, the podcast itself is the aim of the game. It also has to work as a standalone bit of content for itself.

We make sure those notes are tagged into the podcast syndication tool, as well as published on this website, for the date the podcast goes live.

52.27 Recommended tool: Alitu

We welcome Colin Grey, to introduce this great tool for getting started with podcasting. Alitu https://alitu.com sounds like 'Ross-as-a-service' – an automated way of transforming your raw audio into a clean and podcast-ready file.

Not everyone wants to learn to edit and produce their episodes, nor invest in professional outsourcing. And now there is a middle ground, which can help make podcasting truly accessible and affordable to anyone - you just need to get your content out of your mouth, and into a mic! Alitu will then do all the work to convert it to a finished show, even uploading it to your host of choice.

Colin also runs thepodcasthost.com, where he teaches podcasting, from all the geeky technical stuff to extensive resources to help people learn about podcasting from choosing equipment to planning a schedule. There's a free newsletter and a ton of great resources, so if you're curious about this space at all, do check it out! @thepodcasthost

Pilar shares her thoughts after attending a "jamming session" in London with other facilitators. Reflections on how much to control the flow of conversation, the different expectations from an "online session", the imbalance that can occur between participants, moving the responsibility onto participants for staying engaged (if they want to be engaged!) and knowing why we're recording a session. Let us know your thoughts over at www.virtualnotdistant.com

A packed show today, where we look at some of the issues concerned with leading and connecting over distances – as we must in the virtual workplace.

Stay tuned for further developments, including our powerful new tool for 'learning out loud' – developing a team podcast together.

Meanwhile, on with our own podcast!

Kevin and Wayne have been in the leadership business for 25 years (congratulations on the milestone anniversary!) – so they've seen many changes, in the way the workplace looks and feels.

Acknowledging that some very senior people are now having to lead in a very new environment, where they don't see their teams all the time, they wrote the book to explore the new skills and techniques this world demands… Whilst affirming that leadership in essence has not changed.

Kevin walks the talk, his hybrid team is spread across the US, rarely all meeting in person. He and Wayne collaborated remotely on the book too. And of course their work with clients is all remote, enabling them to identify common areas of conscious and unconscious incompetence in the remote leadership space.

Some great insights in this interview, about how we model everything as leaders, from use of technology to intentional communication.

Kevin has many new projects in the pipeline, so watch this space!

Kevineikenberry.com, remoteleadershipinstitute.com – 'if you can spell my name, you can find me online'.

Maya's latest shiny thing, is a tool for creating proposals. A bespoke app for compiling costs and deliverables quickly and effectively, and making them look nice. Lots of great templates, but they're fully customisable

It's a premium browser-based application with user access control, it also offers tracking and analytics – so you can see if your client has opened the document, even how long they spent on each section.

And it has signature boxes, so you can use it for contracts and agreements – which would work well for internal use too.

A final bonus is really good quality customer support. This tool does have a learning curve, but they do help you to get the most out of it. Https://proposify.com

Appreciation can be hard to squeeze in to a busy and productive work environment. We manage what we can measure – outputs, sales, milestones… So the softer indicators of a thriving professional environment, such as pride and respect and affection, can get overlooked.

Even in a colocated team, gratitude and acknowledgement might get squeezed into little looks and moments – and these can be too easily omitted from the kind of tools we use to get things done online. If you make them a part of your regular practice of 'working out loud', they'll become part of your working day more naturally – check out https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/wlp170-working-out-loud

For more on the implications of this.

In this reflective piece, Pilar shares some practical ideas for making use of remote collaboration tools to express thanks, publicly and privately, for a job well done – and all that our remote colleagues bring to our working day.

For more on this check out: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/blog/appreciation-in-virtual-teams

And the tool, Canva, which Pilar recommends for creating visual 'thank you notes', is something we explored more fully here: https://virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/wlp173-publishing-books

Please tell us what you think, why not tweet us at @Virtualteamw0rk and share your thoughts.

Transitioning to an office-optional approach, creates new opportunities for everyone to contribute – including the vast talent potential on offer from people with disabilities.

Let us know what you think about this important topic, @Virtualteamw0rk, or our contact form https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/contact-us/

05.08 Interview: Jane Hatton, Evenbreak

Jane is the founder and director of Evenbreak, a job board founded in 2011 specialising in matching talented disabled candidates with inclusive employers. In 2018 it remains twice as hard for a disabled person to find a job, as a non-disabled person – so Evenbreak are working hard to narrow that gap.

Being a small social enterprise employing only disabled people themselves in a team distributed all over the UK, they work with many large UK employers - who are able to attract candidates they might not reach via any other means, but also position themselves effectively as inclusive hirers.

They also work hard at education on both sides, making sure disabled people know about the potential opportunities, but also that employers appreciate the wealth of skills and resourcefulness evident in the disabled community. Jane's book "A Dozen Brilliant Reasons to Employ Disabled People" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brilliant-Reasons-Employ-Disabled-People-ebook/dp/B077YBF66J helps organisations start to appreciate everything disabled people have to offer.

Our interview also discusses changes in apps and assistive technology, such as voice recognition tools like Dragon, which are helping to level the playing field for colleagues with disabilities. And of course we look at the role of truly flexible working in helping everyone access the right professional role –whatever their needs and abilities.

Getting the culture right from the leadership level, is what is needed – to ensure motivated, productive wellbeing throughout an organisation.

Connect with Jane Hatton: [email protected], Evenbreak.co.uk, 0845 658 5717

33.57 Recommended Tool: Mindmeister

There are many mindmapping tools out there just now, and Maya has experimented with a lot of them – and right now she is spending a lot of time in Mindmeister https://www.mindmeister.com/, a good browser-based tool, that is good for collaboration.

It has simple intuitive tools too – a mindmapping tool shouldn't create any friction, just let you think out loud, and get down thoughts as they flow, so it's important that the tool itself doesn't get in the way. You can get more fancy with adding links and notes, but for quick brainstorming it's easy to get started. And there are nice mobile apps too – it's great on the iPad.

It also integrates with Meistertask, if you want to use it to assign to-dos and get creatively beyond 'the list' to generate your ideas (this can be liberating for writing types especially!) Those integrations are paid options, but the free version lets you do quite a lot, and get a feel for whether it supports your own work.

38.06 Oh No, My Team's Gone Remote! How are we going to cope with all this change?

Change is hard for human beings - in energy and time. And it affects different people in different ways, leading to a complex 'emotional cocktail'.

Concentrating on all the new things to do, as we transition to an office-optional way of working, can mean we forget to consider: what do we want to keep? What is important to each of us about how we work and collaborate and relate to one another, that we want to ensure we don't leave behind? And what might we decide to STOP doing?

Being conscious about what we want, let's us try out new things and create new rhythms for ourselves and our teams, instead of letting too much be emergent and unplanned.

Remember that fear of change, is often worse than the change itself.

Don't forget to let us know what you think. https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/contact-us/

Today's episode brings you just two in-depth sections – we like to mix things up for you, and some subjects deserve a deeper dive. So we're pairing a great interview about culture in a distributed organisation, with a discussion about the time we spend at work.

What do you think about the format? Please tell us, in our listener survey! https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/hello

04:35 Work-life: Interview Robert Glazer

Robert is the founder and CEO of Acceleration Partners, the global independent affiliate management /performance marketing agency. Their business is ranked by Glassdoor on the 2018 Employees' Choice Awards honoring the Best Places to Work for U.S. small and medium size businesses, and in June, just before our interview, was named #2 top CEO for SMEs in the US! His team made a very touching video testimonial as part of this: https://www.accelerationpartners.com/blog/robert-glazer-ranked-2-on-glassdoors-highest-rated-ceos-list.

His take on distributed teams and local hubs was fascinating, and the win-win for team lifestyle needs meeting the business case for addressing client needs, makes total sense.

It was also really insightful to learn about their hiring and onboarding process – refined over 10 years – for recruiting great new colleagues and bringing them into the team with systematic intentionality, when you can't rely on some of the 'osmotic' processes which happen in the colocated space.

He has written about how their core values drive hiring and contractor choices, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-create-positive-environment-so-employees-can-prosper-glazer/, and he attributes much of their success to living their core values – and cutting them down from 7 to the really fundamental 3:

Own it

Excel and improve

Embrace relationships

Find out how they use them in every stage of management, and also how Robert's personal values inform and are fully congruent with those of the organisation he leads, and then you can also check out their leadership tools such as Friday Forward http://www.fridayfwd.com/ (weekly newsletter avaialble), and his own site https://www.robertglazer.com/, where updates for the new book (working title: 'Outperform: building capacity in yourself and others') will be forthcoming.

You can also read what Entrepreneur.com thought of Acceleration Partners https://www-entrepreneur-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.entrepreneur.com/amphtml/317460 and Harvard Business Partners https://hbr.org/2017/09/as-your-company-evolves-what-happens-to-employees-who-dont.

33.15 Discussion: time at work – international experiments

Long-hours culture is broadly acknowledged as a bad thing, but different organisations around the world are looking at different ways to shake this up.

Japanese executives are being encouraged to take a lie-in on ONE morning a month – 'shining Mondays' – a government initiative, being trialed with public sector employees… In a country where 'death by overwork' has its own word. Let's hope this carries over into the wider working environment too – but uptake of this and similar initiatives seems to demand broader cultural change, in a country where people can get fined for taking 3 minutes extra over lunch…

And in Australia and New Zealand, experiments with 4 day work weeks are yielding great results – when people have the freedom to get their work done in a more compact working week, their stress reduces and productivity increases.

Closer to home, in Sweden – they're looking at compressing into a 6 hour day: creating shorter shifts for hands-on nursing care, one industry where this really does cost the employer more directly in more shifts… But being offset by more preparation work, and less sickness absence, as well as public sector gains like job creation. The article was inconclusive in the end - but I know I'd rather be cared for by a nurse who has had enough rest first.

Links: https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/report/2017/working-anytime-anywhere-the-effects-on-the-world-of-work

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/03/japan-overworked-employees-monday-mornings-off

https://www.sciencealert.com/this-4-day-work-week-experiment-went-so-well-company-keeping-it-perpetual-guardian-engagement-balance

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38843341