The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:13 - 00:00:29:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders like you grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger, positive difference for your team, organization and the world. But this is a special episode. It's part of a mini series, if you will. So joining me for this mini series is Jennifer Moss.

00:00:29:17 - 00:00:55:14
Kevin Eikenberry
You if you're watching, you see her beside us. She is a writer and speaker specializing in transforming workplace culture, but she does that differently than just saying, hey, I know about culture. She uses data. She's written two books that have both been featured on this podcast in the past. One, The Burnout Epidemic in December of 2021, episode 299, and more recently, Why Are We Here?

00:00:55:20 - 00:01:21:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Creating a workplace? Excuse me? Creating a work culture everyone wants that came out in last August. It was episode number 501. So, Jennifer, welcome back. Glad to have you. The the big idea of this series, if you're just catching up with us on the fourth of the five, episodes, is that culture as you know, workplace culture is a big thing, but it changes at the micro level.

00:01:21:08 - 00:01:42:18
Kevin Eikenberry
It doesn't change by pronouncements or policy. They get made an executive retreat. Our goal here is to give you one thing that you can do in 20 minutes or less that will improve your culture. And we're going to keep this conversation to 20 minutes or less. So there you have it, Jennifer. Welcome back.

00:01:42:20 - 00:01:54:13
Jennifer Moss
And this has been so much fun. And I can't wait to keep doing these sessions, because I love how good we are at keeping to the 20 minutes. It's been amazing. Like right down to the line.

00:01:54:15 - 00:02:05:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, so I thought you were just going to. I thought you were just like, we're going to pat each other on the back, but yes, I will. I don't I don't know how good we are, but we have been good at the 20 minute thing. That's true.

00:02:05:11 - 00:02:30:00
Jennifer Moss
Yes, yes. And I just love I just love that we're able to unpack really, I think easy to operationalize tools, practices that anyone can do in a very digestible way. And I think when I have these conversations with people, they're like, just give me these practical tips. Everyone wants practical tips. So I do love, that you have so many of them.

00:02:30:02 - 00:02:53:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, and so today we're going to talk about hybrid hybrid habits. Right. You know, habits are a thing that, I've spent a lot of time thinking about. I've written a good bit about habits over the over, over time, wrote a lot about it in my last book, Flexible Leadership. But the thing about habits is that they can service or not, right?

00:02:53:09 - 00:03:34:14
Kevin Eikenberry
Many of them do. Like you likely have a habit to brush your teeth. And that would be a good habit. That one serves you right. Presuming that you do it in a way that you know is good for your teeth. But there are some habits that we have that aren't serving us. And it's my observation that, in a world in a post-Covid world, we have a lot of work habits that end up looking like culture that aren't necessarily serving us, and specifically around the fact that, you know, like 80%, Jennifer, of organizations, have some form of hybrid work, right?

00:03:34:17 - 00:03:44:20
Kevin Eikenberry
Which means people are working one day at home a week, two days at home a week or whatever. Like, I mean, I don't know, that's that's the research I've read. You got any thoughts about that? Just that hybrid thing in general.

00:03:44:22 - 00:04:11:07
Jennifer Moss
Yeah. We have so much I think it's, it's hyperbole or fear or whatever it is. We just have really loud voices talking about these return to office five days a week back, for for everyone. And then people get scared that that's going to be the case for them. But we're seeing a sort of a flattening as what I've seeing, across the board in the research is that we've decided that we're going to have hybrid and hybrid is effective.

00:04:11:07 - 00:04:34:05
Jennifer Moss
And it was Nick Bloom's work, you know, from Stanford, which incredible research that found that if you want to have the most successful business, from a purely capitalist standpoint, hybrid is the way to go. But I do think we've made we've made some decisions from the pandemic that have increased really bad habits and we haven't reset.

00:04:34:05 - 00:04:36:15
Jennifer Moss
So I'm glad you're talking about this today.

00:04:36:17 - 00:04:40:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Nick has also been on the podcast back in the day.

00:04:40:08 - 00:04:41:11
Jennifer Moss
So really smart guy.

00:04:41:17 - 00:05:03:15
Kevin Eikenberry
So for sure. So so here's the thing. I mean, I co-wrote multiple books about all this. You know, our book, The Long Distance Leader, the first edition came out before Covid 2018. So we've been talking about working on this remote hybrid virtual something other than everybody looking at each other five days a week for a long time.

00:05:03:17 - 00:05:28:07
Kevin Eikenberry
And I think that the thing that I think we ought to talk about today is that if if you're in that group of people and or are leading that group of people who work in the office some days, but not every day, whatever it is, four and one, three and two, two and three, like whatever it is. Yeah, that what I'm continuing to see is that we're treating all those days the same.

00:05:28:09 - 00:05:38:19
Kevin Eikenberry
So Jennifer, do you have you ever heard anybody say, why do they want me to come into the office? I do exactly the same thing in the office as I did at home. And if that's really true.

00:05:38:21 - 00:05:39:17
Jennifer Moss
Why are.

00:05:39:17 - 00:05:40:14
Kevin Eikenberry
You.

00:05:40:16 - 00:06:06:08
Jennifer Moss
It feels so arbitrary for people. And, you know, I write in one of the chapters of Why Are We here? About Freedom? And I talked about the psychological barrier to these return to office. And a big part of that is that we have had something given to us. It's been effective. It's worked really well. We've demonstrated we could do, you know, all of our work and maybe even be more productive in these scenarios.

00:06:06:14 - 00:06:18:09
Jennifer Moss
So why are you pulling it from me? And that is just our innate response to when we have been given a freedom and then it's taken away. So no wonder people are frustrate and feel like it's unfair.

00:06:18:11 - 00:06:43:09
Kevin Eikenberry
100%. So, you know, our frame here is something you can do in 20 minutes or less. And so what I'm going to talk about a little bit today might in a way take you more than 20 minutes, but the change only takes 20 minutes or maybe quite a bit less, which is to change the expectation of what people do on the days they're in the office versus the days they're not.

00:06:43:11 - 00:07:00:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Like the context of the work is different. So let's make the work different. So let's just start here, because I know that next week we're going to talk about an hour. And our fifth episode, we're going to talk about meetings more. But like the first thing is what I'm finding is people are in the office and they're having meetings and they're still on there.

00:07:01:01 - 00:07:27:13
Kevin Eikenberry
They're still doing it on zoom or on teams. But like, what are you doing? Go get in a meeting room together. And I would even say that on the days we're together, we should be doing the stuff. That being in-person and synchronous serves us best. Now, like, listen, I wrote books about long distance before the pandemic, during the pandemic, etc. and so, like, I know that we can have successful meetings at a distance.

00:07:27:13 - 00:07:47:13
Kevin Eikenberry
I know that we can build relationships at a distance, but I also know that everything else being equal, being able to see each other in some of those cases is better. So we should be leaning into that. So the 20 minute or less thing is set different expectations. Have a conversation with your team about what what work is going to look like on the days we're together versus the days we're not.

00:07:47:17 - 00:08:08:18
Kevin Eikenberry
So we ought to be doing the things when we're together, like having meetings like relationship building. We talked about that in one of our other episodes, right? That we should be use it like we should be going to lunch with somebody. We should be we should be having our as a leader. We should be trying to have our one on ones on the days people are in the office.

00:08:08:20 - 00:08:15:12
Kevin Eikenberry
How do you mean you can't have them when they're not? It just means that everything else being equal, why wouldn't you?

00:08:15:14 - 00:08:36:13
Jennifer Moss
One of the one of the points that Nicholas, bloom mentioned when we were in our conversation, he was saying it should be that people are there at the same time not opting in, which days they're in. Would you say that is also part of what you would advise is, is selecting the days that you're going to be in, in the days that you're going to be out?

00:08:36:15 - 00:08:55:05
Kevin Eikenberry
I think that everything else being equal, I would agree with that, right? I mean, I know it isn't always everything else is equal, but I would say generally speaking, yes. So like if the whole team is going to be here on Tuesdays, why wouldn't we have our team meeting on Tuesday? And so all of that sort of makes sense.

00:08:55:05 - 00:09:03:02
Kevin Eikenberry
But there's another side of this, Jennifer, that I think is super important. And that is the days you're at home. So.

00:09:03:04 - 00:09:04:01
Jennifer Moss
Right.

00:09:04:03 - 00:09:27:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Some of you who are listening will remember the working in the pre pandemic world like Jennifer. Do you remember like back in say I don't know the dark ages of 2000 and I don't know 2019 when maybe you worked from home for a day and you got so much done.

00:09:27:06 - 00:09:48:20
Jennifer Moss
And you were so grateful. I mean, even summer, Friday afternoons off, even half day Fridays, people would be so pumped they were considered the greatest place to work. The places that gave you Summer Fridays. And, and now it's like, it's not a perk to get this flexibility. It's. You're right. I think that's what's really changed for people.

00:09:48:22 - 00:10:06:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. And I get it. That's all true. And what I'm really saying is, remember the day when you were at home and you were working, you didn't have meetings, you didn't get interrupted, and you got so much more done. One of the big reasons we're saying we need to bring people back is so we can be more productive.

00:10:06:02 - 00:10:11:03
Kevin Eikenberry
Know what we need to do is on the days people are home, let them get the real work done.

00:10:11:05 - 00:10:34:08
Jennifer Moss
It's amazing when you have that quiet and you have that perspective, and everyone talks about being at home and working remotely as they're having so many other distractions. But when you actually look at the data, you get a lot more work done. It's just done in different types of chunks. At the office, I think of how many times I've got caught in a conversation and that's been great.

00:10:34:10 - 00:10:41:13
Jennifer Moss
You need that too, but sometimes it has completely derailed my progress in the day.

00:10:41:17 - 00:11:19:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I think it's important. I mean, I've heard this a million times, okay? It's hyper hyper, obviously, but I've heard this a million times. Like, if I could just get out of a meeting so I could get my job done. Well, like, meetings are our part of our job done well, more on that next week. And there are the kind of work that most of you who are listening to us, that you do and your teams do requires you to have the chance to think, requires you to have the chance to have some uninterrupted time.

00:11:19:18 - 00:11:48:19
Kevin Eikenberry
And so if you can create new habits. So the 20 minute or less thing is create a new habit for your team around what's expected when we're in the office and when we're not. If you can do that and people can honestly say, my work day is different, not just because I commuted, but my work day is different fundamentally, on the days I'm at home and the days I'm in the office to the benefit of both big win.

00:11:48:21 - 00:12:11:02
Jennifer Moss
Yeah, this is how you have healthier relationships when people are remote too, because that's also a big conversation, which we talked about with building community. Is this idea, oh, you're hybrid or remote then we're not building any sort of morale or connection. Well, if you use the office properly, like you're talking about, then that's time that you can develop that.

00:12:11:02 - 00:12:29:09
Jennifer Moss
That's when you have team building opportunities or you build morale through sharing space and not just doing it where you're sitting side by side, doing the exact same thing that you could be doing from home. You're actually, you know, sharing space with each other. So that's I think is really key to what you're saying.

00:12:29:11 - 00:13:04:15
Kevin Eikenberry
My team is really not hybrid. My team is remote. And when we are together, which there are moments when parts of us are together, but historically there's only one time a year that we're all together. And, when we're all together, all of that community relationship stuff, when we are face to face, nose to nose, synchronously together, we spend more than half of our time on that stuff.

00:13:04:17 - 00:13:26:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Not yes, we're having meetings and yes, we're talking about our future. And yes, we're reviewing our past, but we are really investing in our time together. And I'm investing time and money in our time together. It's it's that it's at least 50%, not only of the importance but of the time.

00:13:26:14 - 00:13:56:10
Jennifer Moss
It's kind of like what you said about making one on one more effective is there's this opportunity to create different sort of understandings of people or create value in your relationship, make it less transactional and and move it into a category where it becomes friendship. You do that in these moments, like you're talking about with making your 100 ones more effective in that, you know, great conversation that we had the last time, but it's also applicable here in the in the office.

00:13:56:12 - 00:14:17:20
Jennifer Moss
You know, one of the things that I find so frustrating, and I don't know if you agree with this, is that we've gone through this unbelievable social experiment with work. I mean, we are in total different time line of work, and it's like every organization is decided what hybrid is. You know, it's either two days in or three days in and two days out like that hybrid.

00:14:18:02 - 00:14:42:09
Jennifer Moss
But I don't think we have a clue. I, I've had some great conversations. One of my, you know, friends works for OpenText, and she would work two days or three days together every quarter. And that's what they define as hybrid. Like, we were so married to this idea of what hybrid is and not understand that you can have anything where there's part, remote part, and person is hybrid.

00:14:42:09 - 00:14:45:10
Jennifer Moss
And that could mean a different thing for a lot of people.

00:14:45:12 - 00:15:03:05
Kevin Eikenberry
I want to make a point, and I'm conscious of our time because we patted ourselves on the back and finishing in 20, and we're still going to do that. But I want to make a point before we wrap up. And that is there have been a lot of people in the press, a lot of people in lower levels of organization that says, what's wrong with our senior leaders that wanting us to take them back.

00:15:03:07 - 00:15:29:16
Kevin Eikenberry
And there's and there's been a lot of finger pointing about all of that. And all I want to say is this and that is that senior leaders, many of whom are of, we'll just say, Kevin's age, have a lot of experience and success with work, being in the office five days a week, mentoring happening that way, coaching happening that way, meetings happening that way.

00:15:29:16 - 00:15:52:20
Kevin Eikenberry
So I think I've been I've been beating this drum for a while, but I think as time goes on, it still needs to be said. That is that we need to grant senior leaders some grace, that in some ways they they are trying to get back to what they absolutely no I knew worked for them. And I think many of them want that to work, not just for the organization, but for other people too.

00:15:52:22 - 00:16:06:18
Kevin Eikenberry
And that doesn't mean they're completely right. But I think it's really useful to understand the context from which they come, rather than rather than just throwing stones at them. If you will.

00:16:06:20 - 00:16:29:20
Jennifer Moss
I think that's really important. I think we tend to make it all about leaders being responsible for all of the problems there's been in us in them argument around employers, employees, you know, boss and, you know, and subordinate. There's all these conversations around that, that, that have been around for centuries and it they're going to still probably be the same conversation we have in, 100 years from now.

00:16:29:20 - 00:16:32:12
Kevin Eikenberry
But that'd be a good episode, by the way.

00:16:32:14 - 00:16:52:13
Jennifer Moss
It would be. And I think. Yeah. So we have to talk about that. That's in our next 20 minutes or less. So one of the things that I think is important for us to recognize is that we have thrown leaders into this complete mystery of the future of work that isn't the future work. It's a new timeline of work.

00:16:52:13 - 00:17:16:10
Jennifer Moss
It's like we're in the Marvel universe of work. No one knows what's going on, and they're trying to figure it out. Of course you're going to go back to what you know. Of course you're going to rely on old patterns. And and that is that makes perfect sense. Even our brains are going to do that subconsciously. So it's a it's about leaders, I think, that are really good at being more nimble or being able to to show agility.

00:17:16:10 - 00:17:45:23
Jennifer Moss
And not being married to that old way is, is difficult. But those are the ones we're seeing as being more successful. The other ones are really leaning into that hard core culture. And we've talked about this. It's not sustainable over time. It just ends up burning people out and you lose really great people. So I mean, you and I have seen this, we know this to be true, but sometimes in the moment we just we hold on really tightly to those kind of rock beliefs, those ones that have guided us for a long time.

00:17:46:01 - 00:18:09:07
Kevin Eikenberry
For sure. I've got a question that I ask at the end of every episode. If you've been here during this series or any of of the, interview parts of remarkable of remarkable of the Revolution podcast, and that is I always ask the question now what? And and if it's ever been easy for you to answer, it should be during these during this mini series, because we've said very specifically what you go do.

00:18:09:10 - 00:18:30:12
Kevin Eikenberry
So go do it like go have a conversation with your folks about how we're going to work, what our expectations are of each other on the days we're in the office together, in the days that we're not, and see if we can't make those workdays different and lean into the benefits that both of the differences between the in-office days and the not in-office days.

00:18:30:14 - 00:18:40:00
Kevin Eikenberry
So we're going to do that. We're gonna do one more of these in this in this initial mini series. Jennifer. So people ought to subscribe, don't you think? They ought to make sure they come back?

00:18:40:02 - 00:18:58:05
Jennifer Moss
Come back. Tell us what you want to hear. Tell us what you want to change in 20 minutes or less and we will respond. We'll give you some tactics. I think that's what makes this so exciting, is that you can tell us what you need, and we'll hopefully deliver. And it it's really great to be doing this, Kevin.

00:18:58:05 - 00:19:00:17
Jennifer Moss
So thanks for setting it up.

00:19:00:19 - 00:19:16:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Here we are everybody. We're going to be back next week with the last of this mini series of things you can do to change your culture in 20 minutes or less. Make sure you come back and join us. Subscribe. Invite someone else to join us. Come back and see us next week for another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.

00:19:16:11 - 00:19:17:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Thanks, everybody.