Episode #83: Leading A fragmented workforce

Q&A with Marty & Emma

In Episode 60, released in October last year, we looked at leading remote teams. In that episode, we outlined a number of principles to ensure that a lack of proximity doesn’t translate into a lack of results or value.

Life has changed quite a bit since then, and now companies that previously had their whole complement of people within arm’s reach, are having to deal with managing a workforce that is fragmented in dozens (or even hundreds) of individual, remote work locations.

Episode #83 transcript

Marty:
Hey there, and welcome to Episode #83 of the No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast. This week's episode, "Leading a Fragmented Workforce". It's another Q&A, and I've got Em to help me here today. In Episode #60, released in October last year, we looked at leading remote teams. In that episode we outlined a number of principles to ensure that a lack of proximity doesn't translate into a lack of results or value. Life's changed quite a bit since then, and now companies that previously had their whole complement of people within arms reach are having to deal with managing a workforce that is fragmented in dozens, or even hundreds of individual remote work locations. For leaders in industries that can still trade through the lockdown, you'll need to develop new skills, perspectives, and approaches to lead your people successfully in what was until very recently an unimaginable scenario. Today, I've asked him to join me as I said, so that we can talk through some of the issues that will present themselves, and give you some techniques for leading people through these difficult times. It could become the new normal for some organisations. So sitting back and hoping it will pass is probably not a great strategy. So Em, thanks for joining me. How are you today?

Emma:
Hello! I'm pretty good considering everything that's going on in the world at the moment. There's a lot of changes happening and I don't think that there's been anyone who hasn't been impacted by COVID-19, so I guess for me personally, I'm just trying to focus on how we can best serve our community, how we can deliver value and be a source of positivity unlike so much of what we're seeing in our news feeds and on the TV at the moment. So yeah, look, probably like everyone else, just trying to get through it day by day, but hopefully we are adding some great stuff to people's newsfeeds and to their podcast listening journeys as well. What about you?

Marty:
Yeah, no thanks. You're, you're posting like a demon as usual, which is fantastic. And of course in our business we're pretty lucky, right? We're relatively fortunate with our business models, so we are super low cost with virtually no overheads. We're designed to deliver our main products through online channels already, that's the way we started so that's sort of playing quite well now in isolation times. And basically we're pretty well positioned to deal with the shocks and we're positioned well to keep trading through any restrictions that our customers are going to face. So that's, that's pretty good, right? Um, but there'll be a lot of companies out there in a similar position. The media commentary tends to focus on the companies in industries that have been decimated, but for others, it's creating unprecedented demand. So for example, airlines, hotels, restaurants, the tourism industry we know they're all being hit incredibly hard and many of those businesses simply won't survive. But equally, there's opportunities there for takeaway, delivery services, point of sale alcohol - don't underestimate that. All booming.

Marty:
And then you look at heavy industry in Australia, of course, mining demand hasn't subsided. And the demand from China for iron ore shows that urban development, which drives the demand for steel is still going strong. Supermarkets are booming with unprecedented demand as people, let's just call it "stock up" to be nice. But, incredibly in Australia and I've heard stories from other countries as well in terms of doomsday buying, but other retailers, you know, clothing, accessories and so forth are going to see a pretty massive slump as people desert the stores. And then there's sports. Can you imagine a lockdown with no sports on TV?

Marty:
And you know, I might make light of it, but that's actually a serious thing. A lot of people rely on their weekly dose of that to get them through the week. So, I guess, back in Episode 60, we looked at some of the concepts that are pretty useful in dealing with today's crisis. And we gave 10 ways to get better outcomes from remote teams and you know, it was just things like understanding the unique differences in the remote location, having a really strong communication strategy, having really crystal clear outcomes to find, and things like, of course, making sure that your challenge, coach and confront skills are top notch because from a distance it's even more important. So, you know, I figure it's worth updating today to consider how we all get into the swing of things now that our workforces are fragmented and there's a few things we want to go through. So why don't we start with social isolation? What do you reckon Em?

Emma:
Yeah, definitely. I'm happy to kick this one off if you like. I've actually really struggled separating home and work when I first started working from home. It was about two years ago now, but I would just find myself doing loads of washing during the day, vacuuming, just really procrastinating on things that I wouldn't have otherwise done. So what I learned was really important early on is to implement some really good routines and structures with your work at home situation, especially if you are homeschooling your kids like we are at the moment. So it's really important for you as a leader to set the tone from the get go about how often your people communicate and how social they are with each other. There are a few really good tools that I can recommend for this. The first one's probably Zoom, and I recommend doing morning huddles if you can.

Emma:
It's a great way to get people connected. And also I think one on one calls with your team is really valuable. This is where you're going to be able to see if your people are struggling. It's where you're going to be able to have those, you know, one-on-one conversations that get a little bit deeper than the group Zooms. So I think those are really important to do. And if you don't use Zoom, use FaceTime or WhatsApp, FaceTime or anything like that, there are so many different video tools that you can use to stay connected like that. If you do want run webinars, I can recommend Livestorm. We've been using that software for over a year now, with Leadership Beyond the Theory. So it's really brilliant technology and super user friendly.

Marty:
Yeah, that's, that's excellent isn't it? It's one of my favourites, Livestorm. We've, we've run all our webinars on those and it's just such a good product.

Emma:
It's so good. So user friendly and runs off the internet. So most of these things, as long as you've got an internet connection, you are good to go. The next thing I probably recommend for, you know, staying social with your team is Slack for instant messaging during the day. There are a lot of different instant messages, but we use Slack. Marty, why don't you just explain how we use Slack differently to say, emails.

Marty:
Yeah. So emails have sort of a little bit of formality about them. So when you send an email, it turns up in someone's box with the list of other emails. And quite often email is used as a mechanism for allocating and assigning work. So it has that connotation to it. And people always complain about how much email there is in their inboxes. But Slack is just a substitute for having a conversation over the partition with a workmate. So the sort of thing that you'd normally just turn around and say, "Hey, how about such and such?" You'd do that in Slack. So you and I use that pretty effectively during the day because we're in different cities normally just to communicate the little things that we just want to chat about without actually, you know, going to the formal email trail. So yeah, I find it really, really useful. And by the way, if you're listening to this, we are not paid to recommend any of these products, right? We're just giving you a feel for the types of things that we're using to stay connected because we work in a very fragmented work environment where none of us are in the same city as each other.

Emma:
Yeah, I think I probably should have said that early on. We don't receive a kickback or anything for this. This is just how we stay connected.

Marty:
We were just giving them such a big wrap I thought I should throw that in, Em.

Emma:
No, that was good. I'm glad you did. I think one thing with Slack that's really good is, that you can direct message with people, but just make sure that no kind of "implementable things" are said in Slack because it can be really hard to kind of go back and find the trails. So anything that kind of needs to be a little bit more formal, any, you know, points that need to be action or anything like that. I still recommend using email, but that's - Slack, we use as a bit more of a social platform. We share when clients send through great, you know, feedback and testimonials and bits and pieces. So it is more of a social hub. BombBomb, that's another tool and this is, this is my last tool for this section. Many of you probably, if you're on our email list, you probably would have received a video from me, a personalised video at some point.

Emma:
I use a programme called BombBomb. It's really easy to integrate with Gmail which is what we use, but I'm pretty sure you can use it with Outlook and, and a bunch of other email hosts. Essentially I just record a video instead of typing it, it takes way less time and I'm talking to that specific person and it's just a nicer way to connect, I think, than reading words on a page. So if you can send a video instead of an email, why not? It's really quick and really easy to do. And you get that face time. I guess in the same vein, if you can call someone instead of sending an email, then try and do that. Use as many of those opportunities as you can to have a real human connection. A lot of people are going to be craving that and I think it will just help stave off that feeling of being isolated and alone.

Marty:

Yeah, absolutely. You're spot on Em and look all of those tools, they're just examples of the sorts of things that we use and can be used really easily. If you're in a larger organisation, you've probably already got a lot of that infrastructure already in place. So it's very, very easy to tap into and also have the security that you need behind that communication in the electronics and how that works. So that's all really important. But look, the biggest thing we want to talk about here is of course, the overcoming of the psychological impacts that come with that social isolation and all of these tools just bring the people closer together so that they're not feeling quite so alone. Anecdotally we're already seeing a slight increase in the severity of domestic violence incidents in some parts of the country. So we can't underestimate the impact of people being at home all the time in the same location when they're used to getting away for, you know, 8, 10, 12 hours a day.

Marty:
And you know, you've also got to think about the loss of familiar routines, 'cause they can cause some distress to a number of people I'd imagine. So how about, giving people guidance on what they should be doing when they're not working in the office because it's very easy in the office to just throw work at them. Uh, what do you think about that? Em I mean, with my former CEO hat on, a first priority for any leader should be the health and wellbeing of our people. That's it. But they need some fact-based guidance on what to do and what not to do. And, people aren't going to read scientific research papers about COVID-19. So how do you give them the Cliff Notes? Um, how should they work if they're working from home?

Emma:
It's funny you say Cliff Notes because that's, you are basically my Cliff Notes. I always say to you, you know, what do I need to know? What do I need to know about what's happening with COVID-19? Yeah, I'll talk a little bit later in this episode about the kind of things that I do to keep my mind focused and you know, not feed into that fear. But in terms of working from home, a couple of things that I can recommend. First things first, you need to act like you're going to work and get up, have a shower, get changed out of your PJ's and get to a level that you'd be happy to video conference with your boss. This is about the mindset, the mindset shift from home to work. It really is a mental game. So just physically getting up and doing those things is going to make you feel like, okay, I'm no longer at home relaxing, I am working.

Marty:
So, what you're saying, Em, if you're the boss then you should be organising an early Zoom every morning with your people to show that they actually are dressed and ready for work. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But yeah. Well, but it's a good idea really when you think about it, people are focused.

Emma:
It is. Yeah. Because it, it, like you've got to lead the way as a leader, you know, if you're pushing them to get on a early video conference, you're going to encourage them to get into that routine of getting out of bed, getting ready. It's actually probably the best thing that you can do for them. So, I actually think that that's a good idea, Marty.

Marty:
Okay, so morning huddles, right? You already said that. Morning huddles.

Emma:
Exactly. Also it's kind of obvious. Don't turn on the TV. Don't scroll Instagram for half an hour. You've just gotta be super disciplined. I also recommend finding a sacred space. So when I'm working from home or when I started working from home, I worked from bed in the morning and then when I kinda got over that I would move to the couch. And then when my back got sore, I'd moved to the kitchen bench. It was really bad for my focus and my productivity and my posture. Funnily enough, I ended up getting carpal tunnel, but after a few weeks of serious, lacking in productivity and probably a little bit of mild depression, to be honest, I decided, okay, I'm only gonna work from one place. I chose my place in the on the dining room table. I didn't have an office or a separate space that I could go to, but I just went, you know what? I'm just going to sit in this one space. This is going to be like my cubicle, and I'm going to sit there every single day. And I did every day for a year. That was my place where I worked from home.

Emma:
The reality is most people who are new to working from home, they're not going to have a dedicated office or study area. So you need to find a space in your house that you can work from every day, no matter what. This is really, again about routine and structure, two elements that are really gonna help you with your productivity and focus and your overall mental wellbeing. The last thing I wanted to talk about in this section is batching. Marty, you love batching.

Marty:
Oh yes. When I can do it. Yeah. Cool. It's called getting on a roll, but it takes a lot of discipline.

Emma:
Exactly. So, just to explain batching at the start of the week, you can do it at the start of the day if you need to. I block out sections in my calendar for batching, so they're usually in one or two hour blocks, I think anything less than that kind of doesn't work for me personally. It's so that I'm only focusing on one task at a time. So let's say I might go from 9 o'clock till 11 o'clock in the morning just doing podcasting. So podcasts, editing, podcast graphics, bits and pieces like that. And then I might, you know, have lunch and then I might do from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM press reach outs, and then from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM client work or whatever it is, whatever it is for you. I turn off notifications on my phone and my computer. I set my Slack status to batching so that my team knows only to call a text if it's something that's quite important. And I am wholly focused on that one task. Now, before I started batching, I would flip from task to task every 10 minutes, losing my focus and then wondering why the hell I wasn't getting anything done. So it is an absolute godsend and if you can be disciplined, as Marty said around it, you're going to get a huge amount done, a lot more than you would've got done probably, you know, at work, at your physical office. So that is, that is a real hack that I recommend you start getting into the habit of doing.

Marty:
Yeah. And I think you just described my, old CEO role perfectly when you said jumping from task to task every 10 minutes, you're constantly moving from one thing to another. It's exciting and it's challenging, but it's not usually productive. When I look back on it now when I can get three or four hours cleared a block away in terms of content production or anything else, it's super, super productive cause you just get in the zone and you lift your head up and you realise three hours have gone by and you've just got a huge amount done. So it's fantastic. G.

Marty:
Let's, let's move on. That was really good there, Em, thank you for that. Let's talk about monitoring results because, you can't look at inputs anymore when someone's physically, not with you. So you can't just see how many hours people are spending at their desk or how hard they're typing on their computer. You can't see what they're doing in terms of their work habits. So you've got to move completely to that assessment of the outputs and the value that's created. So to make that easy for people, you've got to define what you want. It's got to be clearer to them to understand what the required results are, what good looks like, and where you're setting the bar. So the current crisis presents a great opportunity to learn to lead better, by relying less on the observed activity and inputs and assessing success based on results that actually make a difference. What do you recommend?

Emma:
I completely agree. As we've said on the podcast before, our whole team is remote. So that's been really the driving force for how we've created this entire company is we're always looking at outcomes. I don't know how long people are spending doing certain tasks. I only really know if they get done or not. And to what quality. A great tool that we use at, Your CEO Mentor, everyone who works with us uses it. It's a time tracking tool called Toggl. I know there are a couple of good ones around. As I said before, we're not affiliated with them. We just like using this. They've got a great plugin for Chrome. Now, this isn't the time tracking isn't about making sure that you're working the hours that you're getting paid to work. When I was working in agency land, we used to track time because clients would pay us by the hour.

Emma:
Honestly, the reason why I love Toggl is because it's a great way to look back on the day and your week and your month and see what you've actually achieved. Because I guess I find that when I'm tracking what I'm doing, it really helps me to work out what I'm spending time on that I shouldn't be. And ultimately it really enables me to delegate more effectively. So, you know, when we were looking to hire, Ash for example, me tracking my time was a really great way for me to see where I was spending time that I probably shouldn't be spending on those specific tasks and I could put them into her job description and figure out, okay, you know, this is how many hours that you should roughly be spending on this task. So, I find Toggl is super, super helpful and important thing to note, if your boss asks you to track your time, don't assume that it's because they don't trust you. It's more likely that they're doing it to help manage projects and workflow remotely because this is probably the first time that they've had to do this as well.

Emma:
So just being able to keep tabs on how every element is working together from a bird's eye view, tracking your time is really going to help that. It's going to help you and it's going to help your boss and it's going to help those people that you're leading as well. And giving them something to look back on and go, yep, I've actually nailed all these things today.

Marty:
I haven't tracked my time for years and years really, until you crack the whip on me with Toggl. And now I absolutely love it because I get the, I get the weekly report that demonstrates by project how much time I've spent, how much time have I spent in business development, how much time with clients, how much time in content production. And it's super useful to look back and see where the time's going.

Emma:
Yeah, I just think everyone should be tracking their time. So I'm a really big advocate for time tracking and it's super simple. There's you know, with Toggl, you've got the app on your phone, you've got the plugin, you've got a desktop version, so they make it super easy for you to be able to do this stuff really well. Something that's going to really help, I think with team morale is everyone's submitting their daily wins and results and we obviously do this kind of thing through Slack, but this is where they're going to have to put aside the tall poppy syndrome and really celebrate wins as tiny as they might be on a day to day basis. This is where you can really monitor those results as you go. If daily's too hard, at least do weekly, you know, this is a really good opportunity for you to measure and acknowledge those outputs and you can talk to your people about the impact that their daily actions are having on the overall picture of the organisation. Because they will feel, I guess, quite separated from it at first. So I think it's really important for you to communicate this because, you know, even though people aren't coming into the office, Marty, what are the three things that people want to know when they come to work every day?

Marty:
Oh, very easy, Em, they want to know what's expected of me, how am I going against those expectations, and what does my future hold?

Emma:
Exactly. So I think, you know, we need to be making sure that even though we're not in the office, we're still communicating those three things with our people.

Marty:
Absolutely. Alright, let's move on. It's a great conversation, but it's a long one. Interesting stuff. What can I do to keep people focused? Right? So I'm a leader, and I'm so worried about my own future and what's going on with me and what's going to happen to the world, I'm sort of a little bit frozen with fear, potentially. So, how do I get my team to focus on stuff that's going to keep them fear free and productive? So, obviously one of the main things for me, get your people out of the 24 hour media cycle hype. You can turn on and all you will hear is the doom and gloom. That's it. But you've got to be able to let people see beyond that. So we have a plan. Here's what's happened at the moment, we can't control that, but here's how we're gonna move forward. And this, you know, is complete with no regrets moves. What can we do that creates value and is no regrets, no matter how this turns out, no matter how long we locked down for, no matter how long it is before we will get back into the office together, no matter how long we're constrained, we still have a plan and there's things we can do in the meantime that will make a difference.

Marty:
And of course, talking about difference, you know, with our new environment, what's the same and what's different? So the things that are the same, we expect you to operate with exactly the same values, same set of values is required, whether you're working from home or whether you're in the office with your peers. How we serve our customers, how can we serve them best, right at this time with these constraints? And make sure your people are focused on the customer, because as Jack Welch says, the only security someone has is that a customer wants to buy your product or service. So I think those are the sorts of things for me that will help to keep people focused and take them away from that negative cycle media hype and get them back into reality and thinking about what they can do productively to take their organisation forward.

Emma:
Yeah, that's, that's really helpful. Marty. I think I as well am really selective about what I'm consuming at the moment. I don't just sit there and scroll on social media. I'm not watching the news. I'm just watching TV shows that I actually like. And as I mentioned earlier, kind of the Cliff Notes that I get from you, so you usually tell me, you know, what's worth reading, articles from reputable sources like the Economist and McKinsey Briefs. The odd report that comes out from people like Partners in Performance. There's a huge amount of overwhelm and content fatigue happening at the moment, I think. So just do your best to keep off the socials if you can.

Marty:
Is that a thing in content fatigue? I'm only kidding. Remember how we did that episode about decision fatigue a few weeks ago.

Emma:
Yes, I know, but I feel like people, like every single person that I talk to is just saying, I can't go on social media. I can't watch the TV. It's just too much. Like there's, you know, and I think that comes back to what we've been talking about over the last couple of days in terms of putting content out there that is cutting through that and that is actually positive. And isn't just kind of the same sh!t just wrapped up differently, which I think is what's happening at the moment. I mean, it could just be the things that I'm being served, cause we know what -

Marty:
Oh no I'm getting them too, don't worry about that.

Emma:
Yeah. So I think just being, you know, really controlling what's, what's going into your brain. And I think developing perspective, it's something that we talk about a lot in Leadership Beyond the Theory. Ask my husband Royce, he'll tell you that I'm a master catastrophiser, but what I've learned to do over time is think, okay, do I have any control over XYZ? How important will this thing be that, you know, this thing that I'm worrying about, how important will that be? The thing that I've got no control over in a day, a month, a year, everything's just really a guess if you start going down that road. So I think while it's important to do worst case scenario planning in business and in your personal life, it's also really helpful just to focus on things that are in your control, and the things that you can influence. Looking outside of that is kind of a waste of time and energy. So put that energy back into the things that are worth it, being in the present moment and be looking at the opportunities and challenges at hand so you can really tackle them head on and with clarity.

Marty:
Ah, that's excellent. That's excellent. So some really, really good tips there for leaders who have to lead a workforce that's actually now fragmented. And for those of you who find yourselves working at home for the first time in a career, as many of you will have. So, Em, any final thoughts?

Emma:
Look, I think that's probably it. I've given so many tools and bits and pieces. I'll make sure I put all of those in the show notes so that if anyone wants to look into them they can.

Marty:
Okay. Thanks very much for that, Em. That brings us to the end of Episode #83 thanks so much for joining us, everyone. As usual, remember at Your CEO Mentor, our purpose is to improve the quality of leaders globally. So please take a few moments to rate and review the podcast, as this enables us to reach even more leaders. I'm going to look forward to next week's episode, which I'm going to stop announcing because I keep changing the programming on this one. And I think I've said for the last three weeks, I'm going to tell you about why being right isn't everything, but I still haven't got to it because there's so much going on! But, no matter what's in store for us next week, I know you take every opportunity you can to be a No Bullsh!t Leader. Thank you, Em.

Emma:
Thanks Marty, bye!

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