Team Anywhere Leadership Podcast

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Today we learn how to partner with our employees with Gary Magenta, four-time author, customer experience guru, and Senior Vice President at Root, Inc.  Gary is a highly sought-after media resource and keynoter speaker for client events, industry conferences, and business strategy and human resources seminars.

Gary shares how allowing greater flexibility, being transparent, and giving more trust to our employees is contributing to higher engagement scores.  

Overall, leaders over the last 8 months have demonstrated more empathy, more curiosity and more humanity by getting face-to-face with their employees.  

Gary offers four questions that move management from “yell-and-tell” to being a partner who walks alongside his or her direct reports.  

Finally, Gary offers his hope that we will all use this time to treat each other with more humanity for generations to come. 

Getting Face-to-Face With our Employees

We must partner with our employees by being transparent from the words we say to the actions we take.

Leaders have to tell people the truth and trust that they can handle the negative and the unknown, even though the truth may cause tension and anxiety.

Leaders must display humanity and empathy by asking what is going on in their lives.

Manager as a Coach

To transform your leadership to become more of a coach, focus on sharing where your business is going to day and tomorrow.

To tackle uncertainty together, we must partner with our employees in that.

Don’t let your employees go "naked and afraid" on their own.

 Listen to your direct reports by asking questions, learning about their passions, their contributions, their point of view

Leaders must ask their direct reports:

“What’s most important for you to talk about today?”

“What else?”

Leaders must be able share the answers to these four questions with their employees:

What are the skills and capabilities that I’ll need moving forward?

Do you believe that I can get there?

What do you expect from me?

What can I expect from you?

Links

Root, Inc.

Books:

Blowing Up the Box, Disrupting the Customer Experience

The Un-Bossy Boss, 12 Questions to make you a Better Manager

720 Haircuts, Creating Customer Loyalty that Lasts a Lifetime

Audio Credit: Show Me the Way, Vendredi 

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On today’s podcast we interview Stephen Shapiro, hall of fame speaker, innovator, instigator, author, and advisor at 24/7 Innovation.  I was really excited to have Stephen use his latest book, Invisible Solutions, 25 Lenses that reframe and help solve difficult business problems, to help us come to better solutions for today’s dispersed workforce.

The pandemic has caused fear, uncertainty, and isolation, and Stephen shares that the only way to find solutions in this unprecedented time is to learn how to ask the right questions.  

No more closed questions, ask HOW questions:

People are asking the question, “when do we go back?”  The problem with this question, is that it is closed, and can only provide a limited answer.  The other problem with this question is it is too wide open.  “Going back to what?”  Are we going back to how life was?  Are we going back to traveling?  

Stephen reframed the question to ask “how” questions and to narrow the area of the question.  Better questions are, “How can we go back to collaborating face-to-face?”  “How can we go back to our culture?” “How can we go back to the same level of productivity?”

Ask Reflective Questions:

Better questions would be reflective questions, “What are we learning?” “What have we improved?” “What should we eliminate?”

Much has changed, yet we still want to have the best results.  One of the great questions to use during this pandemic to create greater effectiveness is to use the Results lens, “What’s the purpose of this meeting?” “What’s the desired outcome?” 

What do you want to achieve? 

Many people are asking how to maintain their cultures.  Perhaps a good question would be, “What do you want to achieve with the culture?”  In many cases, the culture was a place where people received help, got their questions answered, felt cared for.  By understanding what you want to achieve, you can come up with activities that are not necessarily an onslaught of meetings. 

The Leverage Lens:

Another way to strengthen the culture is to use the leverage lens, and ask “If we could only focus on one aspect of our culture, what would it be? 

Change one word:

Instead of asking, “How do we keep people connected?” ask “Why do we want to keep people connected.

Scenario-based vs. one size fits all:

Steve proposes that we look at going back to the office in a “scenario-based” lens.  Let’s look at figuring out which scenarios determine whether we need to be together, and let’s optimize for each scenario.  

Performance Paradox:

For those of us who are feeling loneliness and isolation, let’s not focus on not being lonely, but instead focus on how we can be of service to others.  When we focus on the goal only (being not lonely) we lose the opportunity to focus on other outcomes.

Elimination Lens:

Another way to help those that are feeling lonely, is to ask what else do we want if we were to eliminate loneliness.  In that case, we might choose joy and happiness to replace loneliness. 

Reframing Overwork: 

Instead of asking, “how can we prevent people from overworking?” we can instead ask, “What work gets people energized?” “How can we get people more focused on what energizes them?”

Links to Stephen Shapiro:

Personality Poker

Stephen’s Website

Invisible Solutions

Best Practices are Stupid

24/7 Innovation

Audio Cre

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On today’s podcast, we interview Anne Maltese, Director of People Insights, at Quantum Workplace.  Quantum Workplace provides the data and insights to The Best Places to Work, the contest that honors superior organizations where voices are heard, cultures are thriving, and employees are engaged.

 In a recent study of workplace engagement, Quantum Workplace studied 1.2 million employees and contrasted engagement scores from March-May 2019 with engagement scores from March-May 2020.

This is what they found: 

·      Engagement Scores SPIKED from 2019 to 2020.

·      Employees enjoyed the dramatic growth in effective communication.

·      Employees enjoyed managers who are demonstrating care for their well-being.

·      Employees like working from home.

·      Employees enjoy greater levels of clarity.

One of the takeaways is that distance has provided the following:

·      Greater necessity for transparency from leaders.

·      Greater necessity for visibility by all co-workers into what you are working on, and how you are doing.

·      Greater necessity to feel trusted by managers and the company.

To learn more about Anne Maltese and Quantum Workplace, please go to:

Quantum Workplace

Audio Credit: Show Me the Way, Vendredi 

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In today’s episode of Team Anywhere we interview Phil Lewis, Founder Corporate Punk

How do you Unlock Potential in today’s remote environment?  

COMMUNICATE AND CONNECT:

(1)   Communication

You must proactively consider how you will communicate in the new remote world.  Be mind-numbingly repetitious. Overcommunicate.  It is hard for people to absorb everything on the first go round, especially when they are dispersed.

 (2)   Companionship

Your job is to build connections that your employees have with each other.  Build a sense of connection between you and your people, and between your people with each other.

(3)   Conflict

Dissent and conflict are absolutely integral to one’s ability to deliver quality creative work.  It is important that you have conversations to address how you feel about conflict, and how you will undertake conflict.  The great thing about conflict is to realize that conflict “could get you somewhere together that you couldn’t get individually.”  “If you’re not disagreeing with each other, we’ve got a massive problem.”

(4)   Connection

It is important that you plan how you will construct meetings from our remote locations.  Almost as important, is how you plan times for people to work by themselves to think at a deeper level, so that as Cal Newport writes in his book, Deep Work, that you stay focused in a distracted world.

EXPLORE HOW YOU LIVE YOUR VALUES:

            Three ways to determine what your values are:

(1)   Why have you fired the last six people in your organization?

Take a look at the last six people your fired.  You could NOT tolerate their actions or inactions.  Those are your true values.

(2)   What are the opposite of the things that we value?

Great exploration here.  The opposite of “excellence” is not lousy work, it is being “good enough.”  Ouch, that hurts!

(3)   Where have we invested in the past?

Your money is where your values are.  If you continue to talk about building culture, but you invest no time or money into it…then building culture is NOT part of your values.

I am sure you will enjoy Phil's energy, ideas, and insight on this episode of Team Anywhere.

Audio Credit: Show Me the Way, Vendredi 

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In today’s episode of Team Anywhere we interview Brian Fox, Founder and CEO of Nimble Learning Strategies.

Brian uses many of the principles of Improv to connect deeply with the emotions of teammates, since attention, connection, and acceptance are crucial especially right now. 

One of the most important rules of Improv is to Accept whatever is happening, whatever it is.  In today’s challenging environment, the greatest thing a leader or team member can do is to accept and connect to what is going on with everyone else on the other side of the screen and to demonstrate empathy. 

 The Six Rules of applying Improv to Empathy:

(1)   Listen with your whole self – listen to the person behind that little screen with your ears, your eyes, your gut, and your heart.

(2)   Embrace the Silence – you give the other person permission to truly hear themselves

(3)   Accept – Accept what is presented to you, accept the other person’s truth, accept how they see things

(4)   Acknowledge their thoughts and feelings – let them know you heard them

(5)   Appreciate something positive about the person – a value, that they trust you, and always avoid judgment

(6)   Avoid giving Advice – Instead support the person in understanding his/her own situation

Another major concept of Improv is to “Make Your Partner Look Good.”  Today’s Leaders, given technology and separation, must rethink of themselves as Talk Show Hosts!  Great Hosts are purposeful, interested, entertaining, flexible, and create a great mood of candor and fun.

Audio Credit: Show Me the Way, Vendredi 

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Cindy Zhou, Chief Marketing Officer at LogRhythm, is based in Boulder, Colorado, and leads a team around the globe. Cindy led teams as an executive at IBM and has worked with startups. Cindy talks about utilizing the principles of Agile by having a daily standup and doing a lot of skip-level one-on-ones. Through Cindy's interview, you'll find how to be a more connected, trusting, and vulnerable leader as you lead your “team from anywhere."

Great Quotes from this episode:

“Our company is no company without our people in it.”

“Just taking a moment to ask people how they are doing is more important than ever” -

Take-Aways

Empathy

• With an empathy-first leadership philosophy, leaders take time to understand what their team is going through and try to alleviate fear as much as they can. 
• Characteristics of Empathy 
  • Be Genuine, 
  • Care about your team, 
  • Great desire to make your team proud 
  • Want what’s best for the team. 
• Think about how you can be a better leader for your team so that your team sees career progression and a solid future at your organization by offering possible routes for the future, and possible learning opportunities.

The Great Responsibility of a C-Suite Leader

• Remember that moving up to the C-Suite isn’t just a sign of career progression, it’s a responsibility you carry with people’s livelihoods on your shoulders.  Every leader should never take that for granted. 

Agile Marketing

CMO Tips:

• Employ agile marketing methodology in the organization. 
• Daily standup with Team (what did you do yesterday, what are you focused on, roadblocks)
• People can't get better if you don't give feedback. On the flip side of that is how do you receive feedback (radical candor)?

One-On-One/Daily Standup Meetings

• Open up your one on ones with how that person on your team is doing physically and mentally. How’s your family? How are your loved ones?
• Focus on building trust through transparency and vulnerability in your communication.
• Be open about personal challenges, your own personal life situations, and life stories.
• Helps you be visible and have a strong leadership presence. 
• A consistent thread of communication on a daily basis

Organizational Culture:

• Book Clubs
• Learning opportunities for future leaders. 
• Giving back to the community – employees do charitable volunteer work, donating to charity, 
  • Bike builds for underprivileged kids

Meeting with A New Team as a New Leader

• Speak with every single person one on one 
  • What’s working 
  • What’s not working 
  • Career aspirations 
• What will you promise?
• To be transparent? To trust? To always be open? To share your thinking behind every decision that you make even if someone doesn’t agree? To consider every team member and the team as a whole when making decisions?
• Benefits of this conversation as a new leader: 
  • The team is comfortable and confident in what they are doing 
  • Their work matters 
  • Takes time, yes, but pays off in dividends over time. Prioritize one-on-one meetings over other kinds of meetings because your team is your first priority. 

Links Mentioned: 

Radical Candor

Agile Marketing
Audio Credit: Show Me the Way, Vendredi 

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Bryan Ware is the  Assistant Director for cyber security at CISA, and was the CEO at both Digital Sandbox and Haystax. In this new world of remote teams, Bryan emphasizes the importance of transparency, intention, and over-communicating. Bryan insists that the most important thing you can have in a highly effective team is news traveling fast, especially bad news. Bryan encourages relooking at how, where and when to have specific meetings. Bryan has implemented senior leadership team on-sites where decision makers get together with safety precautions honored to reengage the strategy, engage in conflict, and to hold each other accountable. 

Bryan notes that charisma is not going to take you as far as it would have Pre-COVID. Employees are using the same camera to speak to their family, friends and loved ones as they are in connecting to their managers and leaders. They're looking for humility, empathy, trustworthiness and thoughtfulness. Leaders will need to spend the time to be intentional, effective, and really caring. 

Key Takeaways

• Be personable, be human, have genuine relationships with as much as your team as you possibly can, be honest, speak the truth
• Have bad news travel as fast, if not faster than good news. 
• People need to hear things a few times, and through different routes of communication
• Deeply believe in the work that you do, focus on the impact and attract the kinds of people that deeply believe in that impact too.

How can I keep my team connected to the mission when we’re distributed? What practices should I focus on?

Focus

• Focus on the things that are most important. Force yourself to simplify. 
• Focus is a way to win, focus is a way to make sure that you're not doing those things that, you know, were not as essential. By simplifying your focus, you can get a lot better alignment of your leaders to the mission, which trickles down to the individual teams, and the individuals. 

Intentional Gathering 

• Come together once a month with CDC regulations in place with your team to calibrate on strategy, hold yourselves accountable for the execution of the strategy remotely. 
• On-site meetings leave everyone in a better place to raise conflict or contentious issues. Easier to read body language. 
• Identify and classify what kinds of simple conversations can be held remotely, over email or ZOOM, and those more complex conversations that should be done face-to-face.
• Identify the length of the meetings to determine which should be held over videoconference (>30 minutes) and which should still be held face-to-face (<30 minutes)
• Identify the # of people that will be involved in the meeting to determine if the meeting should be held online or in person.
• Set clear expectations for meetings. What three things do you want to accomplish in this meeting?
• What can you do normally in a face-to-face meeting that is harder to do in a virtual meeting?
• How is what going on this is meeting so compelling and interesting that nothing else will take their focus from it?
• On virtual meetings, you’re showing up as a leader on the same screen that your team member’s friends and family show up, so you must come across as real, or they will sense it. Be empathetic, personable, truthful, and candid. 
• Allow minutes to open before a meeting for a random conversation to replace your Town Hall meetings if those have not been successful. 
• Create the same visual picture of the future of the org and make sure no matter where any one of your teammates is around the world, he or she can accurately describe and depict that vision.

Links:  CISA
Audio Credit: 

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Rachel Casanova, Senior Managing Director at Cushman & Wakefield, focuses on workplace innovation by helping business owners maximize the experience of their unique culture by leveraging their real estate, whether it is at the office, the home, the hub, or any combination in between.

Key points

• Business owners and leaders will need to become more retail oriented towards satisfying their customers, the employees to make sure just like in retail, there's a solid reason to come to work, and the experiences there will justify the reason together and to suffer the commute.
• Forward thinking leaders are looking at work by being intentional about why people gather, when they gather, who will gather and building the spaces and the calendar around that intention. 

Workspace Innovation

• Work has, and will always, include a combination of spaces 
  • Home office- Working from home 
  • Hub - When a company pays for something closer to home to support the employee working apart of separate – a meeting space, might be a traditional office location closer to employees, might be a Starbucks, a library, a park, an meeting space closer to home. 
  • Centralized Gathering Spaces - project, meetings, a space that is deliberate about experiences that happen 
• What you must consider as you determine this combination of spaces 
  • How does the real estate positively or negatively impact my culture strategy?
  • How does the combination of real estate locations support my effectiveness?
  • What is the purpose of each unique space for the task that needs to get done?
• Defining Success from a workspace perspective 
  • What we can do when we come together? 
  • How will we measure success? 
  • How will we measure that productivity was enhanced? 
• What are leaders are ignoring right now that they should not be ignoring? 
  • C-Suite Leaders are often ignoring the voice of middle management. 
  • Where's the voice? And why aren't we asking more of that? What do they need? 

Links

• Survey, The Future of Workplace: How will COVID19 and data will shape the new work environment, Cushman & Wakefield

Audio Credit: Show Me the Way, Vendredi 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jonathan Aberman Dean and Professor of practice at the School of Business and Technology at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia. Managing Director, Amplifier Advisors and Chairman and Managing Director of Tandem NSI.

In this episode, Jonathan shares an underlying theme of servant leadership and using strategy as teams tackle challenging problems like transferring to a virtual work environment and dealing with despair. Jonathan explains the importance of not letting technology work against you as you lead your virtual team and how his secret to leading a virtual team is giving autonomy and expecting accountability. Jonathan points out two qualities in highly effective leaders which is empathy, and self-awareness and discusses how asking yourself and your team one question can give you incredible feedback in leading through these times right now. 

Key Points:

Strategy Changes in Transferring to Virtual Leadership

• When delivering video calls, speak from the heart, not from a script with a focus on providing hope and clarity.
• His secret to successful leadership as a virtual leader is giving both autonomy and expecting accountability.
• You have to force serendipity in a virtual team.
• Avoid Zoom schedule burnout by Implementing non-mandatory Zoom meetings to replace your open-door policy. Most serendipitous meetings are only 5 minutes long
• Leaders have to be intentional about scheduling time to meet with people because they aren’t just going to “run into them” in a virtual setting.
• When demonstrating authenticity in the physical world, leaders can use certain opportunities such as an open-door policy, getting coffee with people. However, in the virtual world, demonstrating authenticity involves things like doing your meetings without a zoom background so people can see your pets and how you live
• Organizations that are thriving through the pandemic are purpose-oriented, conscious capital organizations.

Dealing with Despair and Uncertainty

• A silver lining in the pandemic is that Leaders are being provided with extra time to focus on hobbies and ask deeper questions like identifying our personal “Why” and getting clear on who we are here to serve.
• Leaders help their teams deal with uncertainty by helping them focus, “I need you to focus on three things right now,” or asking, “where are you (or could you) be spending your time on things for the better right now?

Self-Awareness

• Highly effective leaders are self-aware and empathetic.
• Leaders today need to not only get real with their people, but also get real with themselves.
• Questions to ask: 
•   Am I doing a good job? To yourself, and to your team. 
•   What’s my personal WHY and who am I here to serve? 

Servant Leadership

• To be a stronger servant leader, you need to first understand people are stressed, frightened, and overwhelmed by information. 
• Leaders can accommodate the stress by acknowledging their own stress. Servant Leaders can create clarity in uncertain situations by being clear in explaining what they know, what they don’t know, what they think might happen, and being frank about the facts.
• Action-oriented, type A personalities are struggling because of the circumstances.  They can’t be as action oriented right now and are learning to sit back and let some things go.
• Servant leadership is recognizing that there are a lot of ways to get to where our team needs to get to and finding the way the team should do it. 

Audio Credit: Show Me the Way, Vendredi 

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