Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Team Anywhere Leadership Podcast
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| #172 - IRS vs. DOD: Diverse Strategies in Teleworking and Employee Management | 13 May 2024 | 00:30:58 | |
In the latest episode of "Team Anywhere," hosts Mitch Simon and Brett Putter delve into contemporary challenges in organizational cultures, specifically focusing on human-centric leadership. They discuss the contrasting telework policies of the IRS and DOD, highlighting the DOD’s push towards flexible work arrangements to attract talent and stay competitive. The episode emphasizes the need for training DOD managers in outcome-based leadership and maintaining effective communication in remote settings. The hosts also explore the implications of the IRS’s mandatory office return policy, probing its impact on work-life balance, leadership trust, and organizational culture, underpinning the vital role of human-centric leadership in modern workplaces. Learn more inside this week's Team Anywhere episode by clicking on the link below! ► https://simonleadershipalliance.com/TA172 Watch the full podcast episode here: ► https://youtu.be/ZtIkWy-Va5Y Follow and listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform 🎧 Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/3q08HjO 🎧 Spotify - https://spoti.fi/44yuTAD Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| #171 - The Role of Joy in Attracting and Retaining Gen Z Workers | 29 Apr 2024 | 00:31:32 | |
In this episode of Team Anywhere, hosts Mitch Simon and Brett Putter delve into the increasing need for human-centric leadership, particularly for Gen Z who seek purposeful work. They highlight how 54% of Gen Z workers feel disengaged, urging leaders to infuse joy into the workplace to retain young talent. Through frameworks like Task Relevant Maturity (TRM), they explore how intentional leadership and mentoring can enhance job satisfaction and performance. The episode emphasizes cultivating a work environment where tasks are interesting, challenging, rewarding, and fun, and the importance of understanding the team needs to foster a sense of fulfillment and collaboration. Learn more inside this week's Team Anywhere episode by clicking on the link below! ► https://simonleadershipalliance.com/TA171 Watch the full podcast episode here: ► https://youtu.be/zgfVqforVaw Follow and listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform 🎧 Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/3q08HjO 🎧 Spotify - https://spoti.fi/44yuTAD Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| #162 - Figuring Out Your Next Steps: Exploring Life's Big Question | 10 Dec 2023 | 00:27:12 | |
In this episode of Team Anywhere, host Mitch Simon speaks with father and son duo, David and Colton Chorpenning, about their book "What the F is Next: The No BS Guide to Getting What You Really Want." The Chorpennings share their research-based, step-by-step process designed to help individuals identify their passions, set intentions, and achieve success in their personal and professional lives. With a focus on appreciative inquiry and intentionality, they illustrate how their process has helped individuals find clarity in their desired paths. Chapters:
Learn more inside this week's Team Anywhere episode by clicking on the link below! ► https://simonleadershipalliance.com/TA162-the-chorpennings-interview Watch the full podcast episode here: ► https://youtu.be/QNnf9XmND_8 Follow and listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform 🎧 Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/3q08HjO 🎧 Spotify - https://spoti.fi/44yuTAD Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 72 How to Build Trust in the Hybrid Workplace through Managing Change | 05 Jan 2022 | 00:40:39 | |
In today’s episode, we speak with Ket Patel, a certified Change Management Master Practitioner who teaches us how to build trust in the hybrid workplace through managing change. When it comes to managing change, Ket walks us through two main areas of pain when it comes to leading a team from anywhere: the people side and the technology side. Change Fatigue in a Hybrid Work Environment People experience change fatigue when they have to take a normal habit, change that normal habit with an alternative, and then have to keep repeating the alternative habit. For example, many of us grew fatigued with having to use zoom during Covid. To avoid change fatigue, Ket recommends leaders of hybrid teams keeping things fresh by adding in different activities. One of the best things leaders can do is inject a range of alternative activities to move teams away from daunting, repetitive tasks. For example, Ket’s kids were feeling the weight of change fatigue while they were doing school online, so Ket came up with new activities to make learning more fun. Fatigue isn't just about the volume of change, it's actually about the volume of repetition. Control over repetition and fatigue can be gained by breaking down activities into smaller chunks. Managing Change from the People Side Prior to the pandemic, most people experienced a physical boundary between work and home. With the shut-down, work and home lives became more blended and the role of leadership changed. The true challenge for leaders and companies after the pandemic is not adapting to new technology; rather, the real challenge is putting a deeper focus on the People Side of leadership. What a People-Focused Leader Does Differently When a new person enters leadership, their first instinct is to listen to and prioritize the needs of the leaders above them. People-focused leaders do the exact opposite of this. Instead of listening to the needs and desires of their leadership, people-focused leaders listen first to their new team members. New leaders can be successful by simply speaking to enough people, asking the right questions and getting a picture of the state of their team. By doing this, they get a systems view of the context, activities, and expectations of their team. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 71 How to Give Memorable Recognition to Employees on Your Hybrid Team | 27 Dec 2021 | 00:36:12 | |
What if you can measure team interactions and use that data to give memorable recognition and rewards to your hybrid team? What if you could build a culture that gives employees the one thing they’re begging for: consistent and authentic recognition? On this week’s podcast, we interview Dan Kasper, CEO of Wishlist, an HR tech company that focuses on engagement and culture. Wishlist is an app with both a marketplace and social media feed that allows employers and employees to give recognition and rewards that go beyond earning plaques and badges. Employees can choose personalized and memorable experiences as rewards that they earn through receiving workplace recognition.
Dan is a growth architect and innovator with a passion for building high-performing teams and deriving long-term results by leveraging the power of technology and challenging the status-quo. Dan served for six years in the United States Navy as an Officer within Special Operations (EOD) with deployments to the Middle East with SEAL Team Five. After leaving Active Duty, Dan began working for Airbnb where he initiated and executed global expansion for the Trust and Safety teams in the Americas and Asia Pacific. He is currently the CEO of Wishlist, an HR technology Organization which helps build cohesive cultures and engagement within workforces. Outside of work, Dan chases any and all adventures that give him a chance to tell an unforgettable story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 70 How Diversity and Inclusion Work Improves Hybrid Teams | 20 Dec 2021 | 00:32:14 | |
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a commitment. It’s a way of being and a way of leading. It's a continual commitment to make it safer, have better conversations, deeper conversations, and continually raise awareness of the different experiences all of us are having. Today we interviewed Annemarie Shrouder, an expert on DEI shares with us how to make your organization more caring, more empathetic, and more inclusive as you Team Anywhere.
For business, Diversity and Inclusion is an organizational commitment to ensure that all employees feel included, valued and an essential part of the team regardless of background, religion, race or sexual preference. Most leaders think of diversity and inclusion as just another program, but it is more than a program - it is a commitment. It’s the type of commitment that empowers all employees to be their most authentic selves so that they can perform at their highest level. Diversity and Inclusion work requires two elements: a growth mindset and working from the heart - something that is extremely difficult in many corporate environments. Inside Diversity and Inclusion work we understand other people better, get to know each other more, and use that awareness to create a greater sense of belonging, connection, and community. This is why Diversity and Inclusion is heart work. Heart work is building the skills of connection, compassion, and empathy.
When it comes to Diversity and Inclusion, one of the most important elements of achieving strong results is ensuring buy-in from all stakeholders. Many people, especially leaders, are often not bought-in on the real value of Diversity and Inclusion work. A common response Annemarie gets is, “We ARE inclusive; everyone is welcome here; why do we have to talk about it?” Annemarie explains that although leaders might have this perception, they need to remember that two people can be in the same situation and have a completely different experience. Depending on who you are in the world, how you show up, and your level of power and privilege, it's very easy to assume that you have an inclusive environment because it's a space that's safe for you. When it’s a safe space for you, it’s easy to make the assumption that everybody else feels the same way.
Remote conversations provide a layer of safety for some people, especially when it comes to hard conversations. When in our own environment, we can mute ourselves or turn off our video if we’re feeling strong emotions and don’t feel comfortable showing them. The remote atmosphere allows people to lean into difficult conversations - and take breaks when needed. Additionally, remote video meetings have allowed us to really see inside people's lives. This new information creates a level of space that allows vulnerability. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 69 What Psychological Safety looks like in a Hybrid Workplace | 13 Dec 2021 | 00:32:19 | |
Safety? Empathy? Comedy? To build thriving hybrid teams, leaders must create psychological safety, demonstrate empathy, and have a sense of humor. Discover what psychological safety looks like in a Hybrid Workplace. Today we interview returning guest and author of The Human Edge, Greg Orme. Greg teaches us what we need to know about psychological safety in the hybrid environment so we can Team Anywhere.
Many people misinterpret “psychological safety” because a lot of people think about it as just a safe environment. But Psychological Safety is specifically the feeling that it’s safe for me to take an interpersonal risk. Additionally, Psychological Safety creates a space where it is okay for me to speak up, challenge, ask questions, and make myself vulnerable–without judgment. As a result, a Psychologically Safe environment is where people can express themselves and even have creative conflict to disagree with each other. This requires high levels of empathy and authenticity on the team.
As you get to know your team, you get to know their opinions pretty well. As a team member, you can see that a person’s silence can be a clear sign of discomfort. To encourage psychological safety, it is wise to encourage them to share their thoughts. Disclaimer: This works well on teams that have already established strong Psychological Safety. If your team does not have strong Psychological Safety, the team member will likely share a “politically correct” response. Building a strong foundation of psychological safety needs to happen first to begin having strong discussions with competing opinions. This gives the team permission to be vulnerable and work through the issue. Signs of Psychological Safety discussed inside this podcast:
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| EP. 68 How a Covenant of Work Will Strengthen Your Hybrid Team | 06 Dec 2021 | 00:33:24 | |
What if every leader in your company created a contract or a covenant that stated their obligations to their team? What if every team created a covenant where they shared their obligations as a team with their manager? Certainly, the employee working 1000s of miles from the home base would feel more taken care of since he or she would know exactly what to expect from the leader. They would also have the ability to share with their leader just how the leader is doing. On today's podcast, you will learn how a workplace covenant will strengthen your hybrid team in a way that ensures mutual accountability and success between leaders and Team Anywhere. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 67 Successful Business Leaders Make Decisions Based On Employee Supremacy | 29 Nov 2021 | 00:29:11 | |
When making strategic decisions, who's supreme? Shareholders or employees? On today's podcast, Andy Alsop, CEO of The Receptionist, shares his enthusiasm for building a truly hybrid company where the focus and attention is on prioritizing employees over shareholders. What is Employee Supremacy? For example, under shareholder supremacy, if you're trying to determine how much to invest in employee benefits (an expense that is seen as primarily negatively impacting the bottom line) you naturally want to drive the cost of benefits down to the lowest possible amount. You would choose the bare minimum necessary to continue to attract employees so that you can increase profits and thus shareholder value. Alternatively, with an Employee Supremacy mindset, you want to increase the amount of benefits that your employees have. Doing this helps your employees feel secure, feel that thecompany trusts them, and gives them a sense of ease knowing that they aren’t going to have to worry about whether they can make ends meet in the case of an emergency because those benefits are there for them. The result: your employees feel valued, safe and have greater trust in the company they work for. And when employees feel trusted and trust the company, they make decisions that are in the best interest of the company, allowing them to better serve their customers. Under the employee supremacy mindset, when leaders make decisions, they increase productivity with their company, give better service to their customers, and create trusting teams that help achieve their company’s mission and goals. In the end both methods drive shareholder value but focusing on employee supremacy drives shareholder value more quickly.
When COVID hit, Andy and his leadership team did three things: --The company paid to send young, single workers to fly home to their families, --They eliminated insurance premium contributions for employees, and increased the contribution towards families. --Focusing on the company’s employees and its community, they have changed how the leaders make decisions. Because of these three decisions based on “Employee Supremacy,” they learned that making all of these decisions during a pandemic the team knew they were with a company that was focused, not on short-term results, but on the “long game.” They created what Simon Sinek describes as “Trusting Teams.” The Role of Company Values and a Just Cause in Employee Supremacy At The Receptionist, their values are an acronym called FABRIC (Fun, Authentic, Bold, Respectful, Innovative and Collaborative). Andy says the important part of core values is you actually have to live them. Could potential candidates who are seeking a position at your company actually see those values being lived out? During the pandemic their company chose to fall back on those values and really focused on making sure that these values became a part of daily-life working at their company. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 66 The Key to A Successful Hybrid Organization is Simply Being More Human | 22 Nov 2021 | 00:23:37 | |
When it comes to business in 2021, we need to resonate on a human level. How many of us actually ask ourselves how well we are interacting and impacting other human beings? In today’s hybrid and virtual environment, creating human connections is something that must be strategically planned and measured. In today’s episode, we interview Zach Giglio, Founder, and CEO of GCM, where he creates human connections through communicating and marketing. Zach has found that companies that are leading in this new virtual and hybrid environment are clear about their identity as a company, and are deeply purpose-driven. Zach has been surprised by the fact that companies have not been able to more dramatically increase human connection through technology. Although we’ve done an amazing job at creating human experiences in the virtual environment, the element of interpersonal human connection is still weak. Zach believes we need to be extremely intentional in fostering human connections with our technology. Humans are hungry for connection on a level that technology hasn’t been able to fulfill yet. At the onset of the pandemic, we underestimated the amount of work needed to keep human connections within our teams and companies alive. Leaders have realized that they have to carve out time and create a strategic plan to deepen interpersonal connections as part of day-to-day work.
Consumers and the general public are expecting a lot more from companies when it comes to purpose. They want to support purpose-driven companies. First, leaders need to take a step back and identify who they are as an organization and determine a purpose that goes beyond what they do. Then each leader needs to get clear on how they individually identify with that purpose. After these two things are clear, the company and the leaders are able to make purpose-driven decisions. Purpose is an action. When companies are clear on purpose, they can work towards that purpose in an authentic way. Getting clear on your purpose as an organization or a leader has to do with “what you are about” not “what it is you do.” Leaders who understand the importance of having a strong organizational identity are a lot more willing to be vulnerable. When leaders are extremely serviced or product-oriented, they tend to downplay the importance of having a clear organizational purpose and value proposition. But the leaders who are brave enough to dive deep into vulnerable conversations about their organizational identity are the ones who believe that it’s their people who move the needle and make progress towards their purpose and organizational success.
GCM - is a family-founded global communications and marketing firm that believes in the power of human connection and business as a force for good. We get to know our clients from the inside out to create thoughtful communications and marketing campaigns that resonate on a human level. It’s important to not only create an identity statement but to also use it as fuel to make it come alive within your company. For example, let’s say inside your identity statement, you have a part that says “we’re a family.” Now you need to live that out through talking about and caring about others in your company as if they were your family. You create the energy of an ideal family on your team and in your culture. Click here to read the full summary. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 65 5 Elements to Focus on During A Company Culture Change | 15 Nov 2021 | 00:28:08 | |
Company culture and change is one of the most important discussions today. With the hybrid work challenges, and as some companies work through mergers and acquisitions, leaders need to get very clear on certain elements to help build a solid foundation so that they can Team Anywhere. Today on the podcast, we interview Kim Clark Pakstys, thought leader and strategic advisor on mergers and acquisitions. Kim shares with us her experience with successful leaders who've been managing difficult mergers with patience, resilience and empathy. When two company cultures are merging, Kim shares five elements that leaders need to focus on to ensure a smooth change. These elements include leading with empathy, being clear on decision making and role clarity, coming up with a common language, and listening to the needs of your hybrid team. Some industries have made more mergers and acquisitions since COVID than they ever had in history. Alternatively, other industries have paused mergers and acquisitions all together. Prior to COVID, the conversation around whether the company was remote or in person was not a consideration as most had an office centric culture. Now, with so many companies adopting a “virtual-first” philosophy, it’s another critical consideration as leaders move forward with mergers and acquisitions. In a virtual first environment, it is difficult for new and newly acquired employees to assess culture. Leaders need to be extra cautious about the culture of their company and the implications on leadership alignment, accretion, value creation, and fit following an acquisition. When two cultures are merging, there are five elements that companies need to focus on to adapt to a change.
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| EP. 64 Find New Ways to Communicate To Strengthen Relationships on Your Hybrid Team | 08 Nov 2021 | 00:36:54 | |
The way we communicate is more diverse than it ever has been. Or is it really? If you think about it, since the dawn of time, the two ways human beings have had to communicate are print and verbal communication. Today, we see those in perhaps newer ways through our email, chat groups and DM’s. Communication avenues haven’t changed much since the beginning, yet today, communication is getting increasingly more and more complicated. This begs the question, are these avenues we currently have truly enough to allow us to Team Anywhere? On today's podcast, we interview Josh Little, a serial entrepreneur and founder of 4 remote businesses. Josh is on a serious mission to create a team communication platform that sucks less. While trying to collaborate with his remote teams, he discovered the true challenges of remote team communication. This led him to realize that it’s time to combine the richness of face-to-face interaction in an asynchronous time period, without the burnout of a Zoom Call. This led Josh to founding his fourth company, Volley. The Volley App allows you and your team to send authentic video messages asynchronously. Think of it as having a face-to-face conversation that you don’t have to schedule. Volley can make your Daily Standups more productive, deepen relationships among team members, and make communicating remotely a lot more fun.
In a hybrid and virtual work environment, developing relationships with your teams, colleagues and leaders is much harder. Leaders and teams are faced with the challenge of building relationships and trust through a screen, something much easier said than done. The downside to a remote and hybrid work environment is the lack of spontaneous conversations that would typically occur in the office. These spontaneous conversations in the office allowed leaders to establish their leadership presence, and build trust fast. In hybrid and remote work, these conversations are now missing. Volley fills that void because it creates a more spontaneous, natural and authentic conversation you might otherwise have with someone in person. With Volley, your conversations flow more similarly to real time face-to-face conversations, allowing you to connect, communicate, build trust and deepen relationships.
The objective of communication on a remote or hybrid team is to allow communication to flow as freely, or more freely as it did in the office. Communication occurs two ways: through type or print (Slack, chat, or email) or verbally (in-person, Zoom, or phone call.) Research has shown, typing is seven times slower than speaking verbally. Because of this, we tend to delay communication until we speak in person. For remote and hybrid teams, this creates communication disasters. Team members end up going back and forth in Slack for way too long, write emails that could be a book, and end up realizing that they just need to talk. Before Volley, this meant that team members needed to schedule a time to talk together. This led to scheduling back-to-back Zoom meetings, ultimately creating Zoom Burnout. Benefits of Verbal/Video Asynchronous Communication
To read the full summary, click here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 63 How Hybrid Leaders Make Teamwork Fun | 01 Nov 2021 | 00:34:24 | |
The difference between a good company and a great company.... is fun. Fun is the number one factor between the companies that made the 100 Best Companies to Work For list and those that didn’t. In the companies that made the list, 82% of the employees said that they have fun at work. Alternately, that number was closer to 60% for those companies that didn’t quite make the cut. Today on the podcast, we have Dr. Bob Nelson and Mario Tamayo, authors of Work Made Fun Gets Done. Dr. Nelson and Mario Tamayo share tips for how to make your team and your organization less dull and more engaging. To lead a vibrant hybrid or virtual organization, one of the best things you can do is find out what your team members need for their own work to be fun. Why Fun at Work Matters Even if we do our best to avoid it, today we are constantly bombarded with negative news. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to combat the negativity that your employees are facing. Many leaders higher up in the organization can have the misperception that fun is a waste of time and money, and is an impediment to business outcomes. But these leaders are highly mistaken. Especially since the pandemic, our work lives and home lives have never been so intertwined before. The leaders that deeply understand how their employees are balancing work and home life, also understand the value that fun plays in establishing the right mood for work. Leaders today need to understand that with this new hybrid work, it doesn’t matter where employees are located. Rather, what matters is incorporating fun into the work process from where you are. Dr. Bob Nelson and Mario Tamayo recommend that leaders and team members bring the proper data to their executives to discuss the results of having more fun at work. They explain that it’s important to speak the language of your executives and discuss the impact fun has on recruitment, retention, healthcare, and cost savings.
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| #161 - How to Build Trust & Nurture Distributed Teams | 26 Nov 2023 | 00:29:20 | |
In today’s episode of Team Anywhere, I interviewed Amy Anderson, the co-founder of Wild Coffee Marketing. Amy shares her insights on building engagement and a strong company culture in a distributed team. Through her human-centric approach to leadership, Amy demonstrates the value of genuinely caring for employees and creating a supportive work environment. Chapters:
Learn more inside this week's Team Anywhere episode by clicking on the link below! ► https://simonleadershipalliance.com/TA161-amy-anderson Watch the full podcast episode here: ► https://youtu.be/ZB-jeXp7SFM Follow and listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform 🎧 Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/3q08HjO 🎧 Spotify - https://spoti.fi/44yuTAD Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 62 5 Elements Required to Prevent Business Disruption | 25 Oct 2021 | 00:34:32 | |
Today we interviewed Brant Cooper, author of the newly released book Disruption Proof. Brant suggests in a time of continuous disruption, we must spend more of our time innovating in what he calls “exploration mode”. Leaders need to be more open to trying things out, experimenting, exploring and finding solutions to near-term ever-changing problems. As companies innovate, they must work towards building a “RAD” organization (Resilient, Aware, Dynamic) so that they can empower their teams, and create an organization that embraces uncertainty and agility. In a post-pandemic era leaders need to rethink their roles. Instead of thinking about a five or 10 year horizon, leaders must empower their teams to deal with uncertainty and solve near term problems. This approach allows leaders and teams to be exceptionally skilled to Team Anywhere.
Many leaders are still using an Industrial Age mindset, one that believes the leader should know all the answers. This outdated mindset focuses on a centralized, top-down decision making style that causes leaders to think are the only ones responsible for solving the problems. Today, COVID has increased uncertainty in business at astronomical levels and the way of doing business is now radically different. Today, successful companies are depending on their front line teams to be heavily involved in both making decisions and implementing change. This approach is completely opposite to what many executives and leaders understand, but this is where true transformation happens.
Executives and leaders need to step out of their mid or long-term outlook to spend more time exploring near-term problems. Your leaders can’t buy into a long-term vision if they are crippled by current issues. In order to do this, leaders and executives need to step into more exploration work. In the pre COVID era, work and leadership was centered around certainty. An average team would roughly spend 95% of their time in execution mode and 5% of the time in exploration mode. This worked in the pre-COVID era, but with so much uncertainty now, this approach no longer works. Today, leaders need to spend more time in exploration mode and use their innovative mindset to be able to solve near-term challenges.
When leaders rely on their teams to find solutions, they empower their teams. This gives the leader more space and time to remove obstacles in the way of the team. When teams are empowered to exercise their intelligence and their creativity, they are more engaged, enjoy their job, and look forward to coming to work. Leaders can begin to empower their teams by trusting them to solve problems that are low risk and create near term impact. Empowering teams in this way helps the teams demonstrate their ability to solve those problems.
To build a Disruption proof Business, Brant explains that it’s important to build a RAD Organization (Resilient, Aware and Dynamic). A RAD organization is much like a palm tree that bends as it weathers a storm but doesn’t break. RAD organizations are flexible and strong. These organizations continuously gather data, collate themes, formulate external and internal trends, expand perceptions, and transfer this dynamic knowledge into strategic planning and everyday work. These organizations are able to quickly change based upon that new information. 2. Exploration 3. Evidence 4. Equilibrium 5. Ethics Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 61 3 Relationship-Centered Goals for Leadership Development in a Hybrid Work Environment | 18 Oct 2021 | 00:32:36 | |
Today on the podcast, we have David Nour, a trusted adviser to global clients, corporate leaders, and rising entrepreneurs and the author of the recent book, Curve Benders. David is an expert in Relationship Economics: how to build enduring relationships that last a lifetime. Inside this episode, David shares how deepening relationships is the way to succeed in today’s distributed workplace. David proposes three relationship-centered goals for leadership development in a hybrid work environment that allow leaders to both deepen their relationships and stretch the true potential of their teams no matter where they are.
The question for leaders today is, how do you build that relationship-centric team, especially now where many teams are not getting together physically?
Unlike typical - and often ineffective networking approaches--David talks about the value of relationship deposits, where you cannot ask for a favor until you've earned the right to do so. With his experience living in several cultures, David was able to see the vastly different ideologies within relationship economics in different countries compared to America. In other countries like Iran, Asia, and Latin America, relationships are built first before two people conduct business. Unfortunately, we as Americans are so focused on the business first, that we typically don’t focus on relationships until after there is a good business fit. Once the business part works, we then begin forming relationships. But when it comes to having a successful business, leaders must remember that people will prioritize who they will invest in based on their relationship with you. Their relationship with you is based on four considerations: know, like, trust and respect. Relationships must be first, you must get other people to know, like, trust and respect you before you engage in business. Trying to bypass these four factors rarely works. To be an effective leader for your hybrid teams and for your customer, it is so important to build relationships first before doing business. Goal #2 Build Relationship Centric Teams Relationship-centric teams need a clearly defined set of characteristics that they know are required for that team to succeed. The team then needs to be clear on further developing these characteristics. Many teams look for characteristics such as grit, personal accountability, responsibility, and proactiveness. 2. Trust. Trust is easy to talk about, but incredibly difficult to build, nurture, and sustain. Trust takes years to develop, and an instant to destroy it. When it is destroyed, it’s often because one is Pennywise and pound foolish. Relationship-centric teams are skilled in developing trust and having conversations around when trust is broken. Click here for the entire summary Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 60 How The Post-Pandemic Workplace Creates Meaningful Gatherings in New Space Designs | 10 Oct 2021 | 00:37:34 | |
The post-pandemic workplace is not going to be like it was when you worked in the office before 2020. As companies grapple with their hybrid work plans, leaders are taking this moment to refresh and reset. Leaders need to think consciously about creating a post-pandemic workplace that creates meaningful gatherings in new space designs. In today’s episode, we interview Tracy Brower, a PhD sociologist, author and a principal with Steelcase Applied resource and consulting group. Tracy explains that instead of “getting our employees back to the office”, we need to talk about how we are going to make our return to the office more compelling.
Meaningful gatherings mean identifying and creating significant mini-events that purposefully require in-person presence. These in-person gatherings must be meaningful according to the people attending - not just according to the leadership. These in-person experiences need to create awe. Awe is when we feel like we belong to a part of something that's big and awesome. Meaningful gatherings create employees who are happier because these gatherings recognize their contributions. When employees see the link between their work and how it serves the purpose of the company, they feel a sense of joy. Organizations need to be really clear in sharing this link during these in-person experiences. Talk to your employees about how meaningful gatherings give people the proper recognition, feed the company's purpose, and allow for proper planning and reflection. These conversations will help compel your employees to understand the role of returning to the office.
Planning and reflection are two activities that need to be meaningful in-person gatherings. In our North American culture, we don't take a lot of time to reflect or to be intentional. We like to do things without planning and ignore reflection. Planning and reflection are two critical activities in a successful organization. Planning and reflection help feed a sense of team belonging and encourages a growth mindset. These gatherings allow employees to develop and stretch which is directly correlated with employee happiness.
Bring in your customers or stakeholders for a small event to share stories with potential customers or employees. For example, host an event where you invite your current customers and your potential customers and let your current customers share stories about their success with your organization. This gathering creates more unity between not only your current and potential customers, but also between your employees as well.
Many organizations are now using their work cafés for remote workers who need to do focus work, and also want to be around other people. Unlike a productive work-from-home space, Alone Together is a gathering similar to an internal We-Work. These office spaces allow remote workers to reduce feelings of loneliness and isolation, even if they’re not working with the other people in the space.
There are many meaningful reasons to celebrate inside your organization. When celebrating, some companies use an artifact, like a cart, to use for their celebrations. This cart gets rolled out for events like baby showers, cocktail hours, and honoring employees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 59 To Build a Hybrid Work Model, Propose Scenarios and Listen to Everybody | 04 Oct 2021 | 00:38:53 | |
In today's special episode we interview Rachel Casanova for our second round discussion on how to build a hybrid work model. Who is accountable for designing the hybrid work plan? If we leave it exclusively up to leadership, we may disenfranchise the employees and frankly, they'll leave. If we leave it up to the employees, will they have the best interests of the company in mind? Rachel recommends that this be a collaborative quest where leaders partner with their employees to come up with several possible hybrid scenarios. Companies that focus on the solutions rather than the problems will collaboratively create viable options to Team Anywhere in ways that work best for everyone. The Problem: The Organization vs Employees Now organizations are experiencing tension with their employees. There have been many examples where employers have said, “we need you back,” and employees have responded with, “we're not coming.” Several organizations have been focused on proposing hybrid work models. Perhaps these organizations and their employees are inspired by the same outcome. Organizations are faced with both the war for talent and the fear of employees quitting if they don’t get what they need. Thus, organizations have been willing to be flexible, perhaps because they have no choice. Both organizations and employees want to get to an ideal state where pandemic issues are behind them; and fortunately, it seems organizations are more willing to remain flexible. Accountability Accountability on certain subjects between the employee and the employer is also creating rising tensions. Both the employee and employer have their own individual mission, vision, and goals, and they need to get into a place where they can have those conversations to find alignment. Accountability in many areas has pivoted toward putting more accountability on employers. What is an employer going to do for their employees? What is the employer going to do to make the return-to-office easier for the employees? Employers are still faced with identifying who is accountable for things like vaccine mandates and the overall mental health of employees. The Solution: Prototype Several Hybrid Work Models Collaboratively What does hybrid work mean? Before the pandemic, hybrid work was not a mainstream conversation. Today, discussions fall under this bucket of hybrid work, as if there is only one “right” hybrid work model. Have the Right Discussions Having the right discussions with the right people allows organizations to create a hybrid work model that works for everyone without it being at the expense of a certain part of the organization. Employees are more open to speaking when the leader/owner isn’t in the room, so including expert dialogue consultants can break down that leadership influence to create great discussions. To read the rest of the summary, click here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 58 3 Steps to Create Your 2022 Strategy Despite Uncertainty | 26 Sep 2021 | 00:36:15 | |
Most return-to-office conversations begin with a binary perspective: are we in the office or are we out of the office? This question leads companies into discussing a hybrid strategy. But when leaders don't clearly and explicitly describe what their hybrid model will really mean and fail to create a clear strategy, they end up setting themselves up for more trouble. So is this question about “returning to the office” really the right question leaders should be asking? Tara explains that leaders need to start thinking more strategically about what they mean inside this topic.
Starting with a destination allows you to get out of our current world and start expanding your thinking. A vision board is a wonderful tool for showing that expanded thinking visually. Unlike a vision statement, a vision board is not just the words on the page that describe your vision. A vision board helps others see what your end vision looks like. When digging into your vision, it’s important to consider your external landscape to be sure the vision is compelling and fits within your business context.
If you can't precisely identify what value you add and deliver on it, it’s going to be hard to sell your future strategy. This doesn’t mean you have to be doing charitable work to add value to the world or to your customers. Rather, it means you need to get clear on how your future strategy adds value to all of your stakeholders. Without the value component, it’s harder to sustain success. In Tara’s experience, most people want to feel the work they do matters - to customers, the community, or the environment. Thus, connecting value to the vision also makes it easier to motivate your team to reach the destination.
Start thinking about what worked, what could be improved, and what could change or be done in more innovative ways. Over the past 18 months, your company has learned a lot. Now, you have the chance to think carefully about what has changed for the better and enhanced your ability to deliver value for customers and staff. What happened in the last 18 months that really worked well and how can you build on that? Find dialogue questions inside Tara’s book. One caution: Rationalizing your return to office decision as grounded in your culture may be a trap. You may not want to blindly retain the culture you “had”, even if it worked well in the past. Why? Looking forward, the culture you had may not be the culture you NEED to achieve your objectives. See full summary here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 57 How Leaders Can Actually Have an Effective Return-to-Office Conversation | 16 Sep 2021 | 00:33:14 | |
In today’s episode, we interview Liane Davey, a New York Times bestselling author and contributor at the Harvard Business Review. Some of the nicest, most empathetic, most wonderful managers are making the biggest mistakes in planning their back to the office agenda. They're trying to be empathetic and nice and wonderful. They're asking their employees, “what are you thinking about return-to-office?” The only problem is that trying to be nice and fair just isn't working. How can you be fair to everyone? You can't. In the podcast that you all have been waiting for, Liane Davey deals with the top three problems of the return to office conversation. Number one is going in with no boundaries or guidelines. Number two is getting all hung up on fairness; and number three is optimizing for individuals rather than optimizing for the team overall. Spoiler alert: you need to have an established baseline of non negotiables before you just let everyone decide.
At the senior leadership level, leadership teams need to discuss and identify boundaries and non-negotiables to guide the conversations. Such guidelines prevent pitfalls as plans and conversations with employees are rolled out. The guidelines provide a win/win--flexibility for employees while also meeting the needs of the organization. Without such preparation, conversations can become confusing and too open-ended.
If you’re in a senior leadership team, you will likely be creating (or have created) boundaries in your strategy meetings. It is prudent that leadership teams spend time digging into these boundaries--the reasoning and all implications. Those just below the top team need to check-in and make sure communication is flowing from the top and from HR so they can successfully hold conversations throughout the organization. In this way, they can identify what is true versus the story they’ve been telling themselves or what employees have been assuming. This is the time to be mindful and identify the guiding principles that are going to be at the core of these difficult conversations. Once again, identify at least a few non-negotiables that are going to be true for the entire organization. When identifying boundaries and non-negotiables, leaders need to stay customer-focused and consider the impact on culture. Stay Customer Focused The customer should be in the center of tailoring clear boundaries and non-negotiables. Get clear on what your customers need and when your team needs to be physically together to achieve customer success. Ask yourself, “Will the customer experience change in different scenarios regarding the amount of time our teams will or should spend in-person?” Consider the Impact on Culture Consider how culture is affected by whether your team spends more time together in person or not. When it comes to this, companies are going in very different directions. Some companies are saying, “Look, there’s culture, there’s collaboration, and then there's the sparks of innovation that we believe won't happen if people aren't physically together. So, we're going back to the office most of the time.” Other companies are saying, “Roughly 20% of what we do is beneficial to do in person. The rest of our work can be done just as easily or even more productively at home because of in office distractions and long commutes. So, we are going to go hybrid and only get together for gatherings and special projects.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 56 How the Pandemic is Redefining the Future of Your Organization | 14 Sep 2021 | 00:37:13 | |
In this podcast, Renee McGowan states that success in a virtual or hybrid environment depends on getting clear on the new and ever-changing expectations of employees. Spoiler alert: if you don't find out what those expectations are, you will be toast! In today's world, you will need to master empathy, vulnerability, and even deeper levels of trust. With these new practices and a greater appreciation for agility and flexibility, you will truly succeed as you team anywhere. The level of organizational change that has occurred in this pandemic is one that will be talked about in history books for a long time. When the pandemic started, the entire globe experienced a sudden organizational shift as companies went 100% remote with zero time to prepare. Organizational Design and Leadership Today, and in the future, organizational design is going to be about hybrid work and remaining flexible. Organizational Design Questionnaire
Renee shares an example about product engineering roles. Product engineering roles can be done remotely, and many engineers have been doing so. But, is it optimal for collaboration, creativity, sitting down and reviewing blueprints, prototypes, etc? After leaders know what flexibility is possible, then they should look at what flexibility is actually desirable. How much do you actually think people need to come together in person versus working on their own? What amount of flexibility is sustainable? Then consider, what's the role of the office? What technology have you got that's enabling it? Do you have the right job descriptions or the right performance management descriptions that support workers being successful in their roles?
You have to take stock of all the ways work has changed. Leaders tend to focus on hybrid or remote but overlook that other things have changed as well; both leadership styles and employee expectations have changed. The biggest risk factor is satisfying new employee expectations, but then not being able to create the employee experience or energized workforce needed for a sustainable organization today. There must be a balanced solution. To see the full summary, click here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 55 How Hybrid Leaders & Teams Promote Inclusion in the Workplace | 06 Sep 2021 | 00:29:45 | |
Hybrid work has changed the way businesses operate and radically changed the way teams operate. For many organizations, hybrid work is here to stay and a lot of industries are embracing operations in a hybrid environment. So today, there is a responsibility for those leaders and teams to figure out how they are going to operate in a hybrid environment and how to create an inclusive culture when team members are often dispersed. In today’s episode we interview Perrine Farque, Author of Inclusion: The Ultimate Secret for an Organization's Success. Perrine agrees with and shares the work of recent studies from HBR and McKinsey, which prove that diverse and inclusive teams push the limits to perform better. What is the Meaning of Inclusion? Inclusion is being heard and seen and valued for who you are. At work, you feel included when you are greeted by your name, people listen to your ideas, and your feedback is valued. A leader who creates inclusion recognizes the presence of every person on their team, remembers details about each person's life, and asks questions that allow for meaningful connection.
Belonging is the ultimate level of where people feel like they belong to their team. They see their team as a tribe, as human beings wired by a sense of belonging. This desire is present for all of us--at home, at work and in our communities. Thus, keeping this sense of belonging alive in hybrid environments is essential.
As a Team Member Understand and Notice the Difference between Appreciation vs. Depreciation at Work A lot of managers depreciate their team members and they don’t even know it. Depreciation is the opposite of appreciation. When team members are depreciated, they do not feel heard, valued, or respected. Team members feel depreciated when they are not asked for their opinion in meetings or are asked at the last minute when time is running out. Leaders might not even notice this is happening. In extreme cases of depreciation, this could be seen as bullying or a form of toxic leadership. Depreciation leads to disengagement, lack of trust, and lack of creative thinking. If You Don’t Feel Appreciated At Work
If, as a team member, you don’t feel like you belong, what should you do? Perrine recommends that you begin by taking ownership of your feelings, and muster the courage to reach out. Take Ownership As a team member who doesn’t feel a sense of belonging, sharing how you are feeling is a way for you to take responsibility for the relationship. You can't expect your team members or leaders to read your mind. By reaching out and instigating a two-way dialogue, you can share your challenges and also learn what challenges others are dealing with. This creates a bond of inclusion. To see the full summary click here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 54 Successful Hybrid Teams Have More Conversations than You Think | 30 Aug 2021 | 00:24:50 | |
In today’s episode we interview Dave McKeown, author of The Self-Evolved Leader. In this week’s episode, Dave talks about how successful hybrid teams need to have more conversations than they might think as we figure out the hybrid work environment. Additionally, Dave discusses how the pandemic shifted what leadership styles are working. The old “here’s my vision, follow me” approach no longer works as leaders are called upon to embrace the unknown and create a unified vision with their team. Successful hybrid teams will have to view the unknown future as a growth opportunity for themselves and their team members. These teams will recognize that embracing uncertainty is the best environment for everyone to develop. When these team members become Self-Evolved leaders, they will take the opportunity to reach out, ask questions, and challenge their team members as they all grow together and navigate teaming from anywhere.
This caused a new leadership style to become more powerful - a leadership style that is more authentic and that embraces the fact that leaders don’t always know everything. The leaders that became more successful were the ones that were asking “How are you really doing” and “How can I help you right now”. The Servant Leadership style instantly became the new norm. Leadership today is about not being able to lead with true certainty. Leaders need to know how to lead with a degree of uncertainty and create a shared future over being the one with the vision. In the hybrid workplace, our leaders need to focus on achieving goals and making sure team members are developing. Balancing these two focus areas is harder with remote work. Leaders need to be highly intentional about creating symbiotic conversations that create mutual relationships between remote and in-office employees. Leaders need to avoid the easy approach of returning to the office and then tagging on remote workers. Leaders are called upon today to create a whole new design for work. They Have Conversations that Create Team Flow
The hybrid work environment simply can not rely on email. Hybrid teams must ensure they have good tools and systems in place. The work has to be looked at, talked about and executed in a way that everyone can access at any time. In this way, there is a shared responsibility to get things done and fill in the gaps. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 53 New Rules for Successful Hybrid Teams | 22 Aug 2021 | 00:36:33 | |
The rules have changed. What used to work for you as an employee, as a manager, or as an organization isn't going to work anymore. Today on the podcast we have Vice President of User Experience at RingCentral, Michael Peachey. Michael has been at the forefront of Human Centered Design, especially looking at how teams collaborate from anywhere. In this episode, we explore the rules that change and your new responsibilities as an organization, a team leader, a team member. If you're remote, or if you're on a hybrid team in the office, you need to go out of your way to connect to your team. It's always been an obligation, but it's now more crucial for you to take on that responsibility so that you can thrive as you Team Anywhere. As teams continue to evolve, follow these simple rules to help you succeed as a hybrid team. New Rules for Successful Hybrid Teams
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| #160 - Building Engagement through Authentic Dialogue with Employees | 12 Nov 2023 | 00:29:24 | |
In this episode of Team Anywhere, Mitch Simon interviews Ollie Lingwood-Craddock, the CEO of Rungway, a platform that promotes effective communication and authentic dialogue in organizations. They discuss the importance of human-centric leadership and how Rungway's employee listening platform helps leaders connect with their workforce and understand what is really happening in their organization. Lingwood-Craddock emphasizes the need for leaders to step outside their normal network to gain a broader perspective and address emerging issues. The conversation explores the value of anonymity in enabling employees to share their experiences and ideas, ultimately creating a more inclusive and engaged workforce. Chapters:
Learn more inside this week's Team Anywhere episode by clicking on the link below! ► https://simonleadershipalliance.com/TA160-ollie-lingwood-craddock Watch the full podcast episode here: ► https://youtu.be/zOtDkQTVKyo Follow and listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform 🎧 Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/3q08HjO 🎧 Spotify - https://spoti.fi/44yuTAD Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 52 Forget the Hybrid Work Schedule and Focus on This Instead | 15 Aug 2021 | 00:44:38 | |
Have you created the perfect hybrid work schedule yet? On today's episode, we interview Sam Palazzolo, Founder and Managing Director at Tip of the Spear Ventures and we learn how leaders need to be focusing more on what has worked and not worked in the past rather than their hybrid work schedules. When leaders focus on the right things, it allows space for innovation on their hybrid team. Focusing on over communication, creating a collaborative vision, increasing clarity and continuing to seek new perspectives on your business, will help you continue to lead your hybrid teams from anywhere. Over Communicating (Seriously, Keep Doing That!) Over communicating is a habit many companies chose to pick up in the pandemic. Without having their employees in the office full time, companies felt a greater need to over-communicate with their staff. This is a habit that needs to continue. Ironically, there is a false assumption that extra communication worked with teams because the pandemic required an influx of communication. But the truth is that over communication is an underrated habit that companies and leaders need to demonstrate in all environments--pandemic or not. In terms of communication, team members need to see what Sam calls the “face of the business.” Leaders at all levels are the face of the business and they need to continue to be aware of their leadership presence. Leaders with the right amount of presence will communicate crucial details to their teams as the communication flows through the organization. Creating a Collaborative Vision Versus a Top-Down Vision If your people are your most valuable asset, what are you actually doing to make them successful? It’s one thing to have an executive team attend a retreat and come back with a shared vision. But, it's another thing to transform vision into reality. In order to make a vision actually work, leaders need to have conversations about their vision with employees at all levels of the organization to reality test that vision. A huge source of frustration occurs when team members hear a leader share a big picture vision that seems impossible to actually achieve. Conversations around your vision should be collaborative, encouraging perspectives and details from those on the front line. Building Clarity Around What is Working, and What Isn’t Working The leaders most often needed in times of crisis are very clear on where the organization is supposed to go. For leaders, the challenge today lies in asking themselves the question, “Is what we did in the past, the right thing to do in the future?” The answer to this depends on a lot of variables. Having these conversations with your team and seeking their feedback is going to help you get the information that you need. Get Perspective from a Higher Altitude to Expand Your Vision Leaders are going to be challenged to view the landscape of the business from a higher altitude to expand their vision. At this higher altitude, leaders should look to expand their vision both internally and externally within the company. An expanded vision gives greater clarity to the day to day business. Leverage Masterminds Every leader doesn’t have the answers all the time. As leaders, it can feel lonely at the top and it can feel like you have no one to turn to. Meeting on a regular basis with other business owners or leaders to share your challenges and opportunities can add a level of accountability. During this time, leaders can gather input from their peers and formulate an action plan. During the next mastermind, leaders can share implemented ideas, results, and next steps. If you want to be really successful with a hybrid team, bring in outside perspectives on your company. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 51 New Perspectives for Fostering Collaboration & Teamwork on a Hybrid Team | 08 Aug 2021 | 00:34:32 | |
In today’s episode we interview Phil Simon, author of Reimagining Collaboration: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and the Post-COVID World of Work. While many leaders are focused on how to go back to the office, Phil cautions that instead of focusing on when or how to go back, we should instead focus on how best to collaborate. It is possible to collaborate in a hybrid environment effectively and efficiently, but it will require curiosity and experimentation. Leaders will focus on culture and priorities first, and then choose their collaboration tools to design the best ways of working. The winners in the future will build engagement and grow profits through maximizing collaboration to Team Anywhere. What is Hybrid collaboration? Success begins with a common understanding of terms. What do we mean by collaborating on a hybrid team? Is it the same as productivity? Having these kinds of conversations with your teams is going to open up opportunities to see new perspectives and expectations as to collaboration. Collaboration vs. Productivity Collaboration and productivity are not the same. An independent team member can work alone and be very productive. Alternatively, several team members can collaborate poorly and thus hinder productivity. Consequently, it is important to clearly define both concepts--what does collaboration look like for us? What does productivity look like? Let’s make both happen. In terms of Collaboration, We’re Never Going Back Before the COVID pandemic, collaboration was different. There was much more synchronous and in-person collaboration. The pandemic taught leaders and teams that remote work and collaboration was possible. Many employees have liked the ability to work from home and they want to continue their remote work. After a year and a half of learning to collaborate remotely - many teams and companies have realized that there really won’t be going back to the way collaboration was before the pandemic. Create Curiosity when there’s a Resistance To Change When it comes to making changes to how you collaborate, there’s bound to be resistance to change. Sometimes it's a team or team member, and sometimes it's the leader. It can be hard for team members to speak up and encourage their leaders to leverage, purchase, and actively learn collaboration tools. Fortunately, when most leaders realize the benefits of company-wide collaboration tools, they can’t believe they didn’t embrace the change earlier. We Need to Reimagine Collaboration and Teamwork in a Different Way Much thought is needed to re-imagine collaboration and teamwork as we move into an increased hybrid environment. Leaders are asking questions, such as, “How do you evaluate employees?” “How do you look at workflow in terms of collaboration?” “What part of the performance review measures collaboration?” If collaboration is important, it should be connected to performance check-ins and used to support an entire high performance culture Collaboration isn't just about tools; rather, it should be the infrastructure of our emerging work world. It is the glue for business processes, organizational culture, hiring, change management, and engagement. Click here for the full summary. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 50 The Leadership Mindset Shifts to Make in 2021 | 01 Aug 2021 | 00:39:15 | |
Today's leadership in the virtual and hybrid world requires a new leadership mindset. Leaders must be flexible and willing to work with ambiguity. It's very much about collaboration and the process of inquiry. On today's podcast, we interview Laila Tarraf, Chief People Officer of Allbirds and learn about her journey and her powerful new leadership book, Strong Like Water™ How I Found the Courage to Lead with Love in Business and in Life Laila Tarraf will show you how to open your heart and step into the type of leadership that is required in today's chaotic world where no one has the map of what the future brings. Laila encourages leaders to strike a balance between using their heads and their hearts, a place where Laila believes the magic happens. In this episode, you'll hear Laila’s incredible story where connecting to her heart allowed her to strengthen her leadership. Leadership Mindset Shifts
To learn more about the details behind these leadership mindset shifts, see the full summary here and listen to the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 49 7 Crisis Leadership Strategies from a Leader Who’s Experienced 3 Major Crises | 26 Jul 2021 | 00:38:12 | |
The tempo in our return to office plans should be much slower than it was when the pandemic started and everyone went home to work. When the pandemic started, the pace of getting employees to work from home was like running. It was a crisis. Now, a year and a half later, the crisis is still showing uncertainty. As employees begin to move back to the office, great leaders know that the way back isn’t to run. Leaders need to set a tempo that’s more like walking. In this episode, Rob LoCascio, CEO of live person, shares with us that the greatest leaders today must be the type that set a walking pace, provide certainty and clarity, and remain authentic - even in the most challenging times. This is the time for leaders to acknowledge that no one knows what the future holds. The best way forward is for leaders to share the truth about what they do know, rather than pretending they have everything figured out. Instead, leaders must listen to their employees to find out what their employees need in order to Team Anywhere. Leaders Should Give Themselves a Break Leaders can be very hard on themselves. They have had to navigate immense amounts of uncertainty without having much control over it. As humans, we tend to get angry when we feel we are losing control. The pandemic has caused leaders to feel frustrated, angry, and helpless as they try to navigate the return to office plans moving forward. The lack of ability to control the situation can be aggravating and defeating. We all get it, and we all feel it. But at the end of the day, leaders have to give themselves a break and realize that they are doing their best. Every company is dealing with the same issues and no one has the right answer right now. Give yourself a break and focus on accepting that there are things occurring right now that you can’t control. Walk - Don’t Run Our natural tendency is to run, when right now, we need to walk. It is extremely important that leaders slow down and listen to what their employees are thinking, saying, or not saying. This advice is similar to the concept from the book, The First 90 Days. Inside this book, the author, Michael Watkins, recommends that new leaders spend the first 90 days at a new company just listening and not making any changes. By taking the time now to slow down and really listen to your employees--without rushing to make changes or decisions--you can get a lot of valuable information that is going to be needed when it is time to solidify a plan. Be Authentically Empathetic Make a Safe Environment For Employees Schedule Diligently Be Extremely Clear Apologizing Gives You The Power to Move Forward Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 48 Lead Virtual Meetings People Actually Love with these 7 Tips | 18 Jul 2021 | 00:41:43 | |
There is nothing worse than that sinking feeling when you start to see camera after camera turn off inside your virtual meeting. Leaders know this feeling all too well as they have struggled over the past year and a half with keeping the engagement of their meeting participants. When it comes to keeping people engaged, competition is tough. Major industries spend billions of dollars to fight for people’s attention and engagement and inside your meeting; it’s you versus them. When it comes to leading virtual meetings that people will actually love, you have to up your game. You have to be able to build the skills to make and keep the meeting personally engaging, and keep your participants active. In this podcast, Ivan Wanis Ruiz, founder of Public Speaking Lab, shares seven tips that will help you lead meetings that people will actually love. The great news about leading these types of meetings is that it isn't complex. These are tactical tips that you can use right away in your next meeting. 1. Have one meeting to establish the rules of the meetings. One way to do this is to toggle your camera between the PowerPoint you are presenting and you, or depending on what tools you are using, push certain buttons to make the screen go black or white. In Microsoft Teams, you can use the “B” button to make the screen go black, or the “W” button to make it go white. To illustrate, you can show a slide of a question that you want to ask your audience, and then make the screen go blank to give people the visual space to think about their answers creatively. Another tactic is to make people do things. Ask your attendees to put something in the chat or ask them to share an emoji to react to something that was said. Ask them to take a big breath and stretch for a minute. Keeping your audience engaged by keeping them moving can help you create a meeting where they feel heard and are adding real-time value. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 47 Take a Step Back, Embrace the Unknown and Listen to Your Hybrid Team | 12 Jul 2021 | 00:29:42 | |
The pandemic has demonstrated that people are more capable of change than they ever imagined. Today, workers are changing their priorities given their new post-pandemic perspectives, and leaders and companies are looking for solutions to manage their hybrid teams. In today’s episode, Michael Seaver, author, speaker and founder of Seaver Consulting, encourages us to use this time for teams and employees to come together to build more authentic and sustainable solutions. Right now is not the time to pretend we have the solutions, but for us to focus on and embrace what we don’t know. Now is the time for leaders and teams to focus on their uniqueness, resiliency, and core values to successfully team anywhere.
New Personal Perspectives Though many people don’t have a choice, others questioned their commutes and their very jobs. Now workers across the nation are questioning this. Is the commute worth it? Could I get another job and be closer to home? Even if it pays less, is it worth it? Now people are weighing the pros and cons of working from home, in the office, or in a hybrid arrangement. As they weigh these outcomes, they are questioning if their work is aligning with their most authentic selves. With this in mind, whichever way someone decides, they should remember that we all are way more capable of adapting to change and dealing with the unknown than they were 12 months ago. New Leadership Perspectives If leaders repeated the behaviors that might have existed in 2019, they have not learned or grown very much from this world-wide upset. What has occurred over the past year and a half has created a transformational change in every industry and leadership role. As we experience the biggest worker transition in history, leaders across the nation are trying to keep up with creating companies, cultures, teams and atmospheres that will attract and retain top talent. Solutions that Work: Ask the Right Questions and Listen Closely One firm Michael works with made changes in the way their leadership assesses outcomes by making the transition from billable hours to becoming a results driven company. This is a big shift to make mentally and culturally inside an organization. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 46 How to Equalize Remote & In-Office Workers | 04 Jul 2021 | 00:34:05 | |
DISCLAIMER: This episode is not sponsored by Mentimeter, we just love the product and know that more leaders can use this to raise engagement in their meetings whether they are virtual, in person or hybrid. Are we moving from the world of Zoom Fatigue to a world of Zoom Segregation as we move to hybrid work? Are there solutions out there to equalize and engage remote and in-office workers? Yes, we believe there is. In today’s episode, we interview Oscar Svernlöv, the community content creator at Mentimeter and he shows us how to stay ahead of the curve with a great equalizer for hybrid teams. What’s Wrong With Virtual Meetings?
What if you could take the issue of your meeting participants looking at their phones and turn it into a productive & purposeful conversation that includes seeking feedback from them using their phones? That is where Mentimeter comes into play. With Mentimeter, you can create a presentation, much like PowerPoint, but called “Mentimeters” where you can actively seek participation and engagement at much higher levels than you would inside Powerpoint. Instead of having a passive audience watch a presentation, you bring the audience into your presentation so that they can vote on topics, share their ideas and answers to questions, and react using emojis and comments to your entire presentation. Bridging the Remote & In-Office Communication Gap How Mentimeter Works
Employees have a fundamental need to feel involved and engaged. But think about the meetings where the participants are just watching the screen, slowly losing their attention, and then before you know it, you’ve lost their attention all together. Mentimeter was born out of this frustration before there was a large focus on virtual meetings. This shows that engagement itself has been the one of the keys to Zoom fatigue and now we need our teams to contribute more. Oscar’s team has done A/B Testing comparing Mentimeter Presentations to PowerPoint Presentations while scanning the brains of participants. They discovered that when participants watched Mentimeter presentations, the engaged section of their brains were activated-- proving that Mentimeter scientifically improves engagement. 3 Ideas for Leaders to Leverage Mentimeter
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| EP. 45 **SNEAK PEEK** Stop, Look, and Listen, Innovation is Coming | 30 Jun 2021 | 00:05:53 | |
Rachel Casanova and Ginny Bianco Mathis have been investigating this post-COVID work environment and there seems to be two conflicting conversations occurring between leaders and employees. In one extreme, there are some leaders saying they want their employees back into the offices by September. On the other side, employees are questioning the very nature of work and want their leaders and organizations to meet their needs. The options in the future (remote work, in office work and hybrid work) seem to serve different needs for different audiences. Inside this teaser for episode 55, listen to Rachel Casanova's perspective that explores how we can think about creating places for people to come to work, and what we should be watching for. Make sure you subscribe to the #TeamAnywhere Podcast to stay up to date with the most relevant leadership conversations. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 44 7 Virtual Meeting Tips From an Emmy Award Winner | 27 Jun 2021 | 00:34:15 | |
When was the last time you had an Emmy Award winning broadcast journalist coach you on how to look great on camera? On today's episode, Karin Reed, co-author of Suddenly Virtual: Making Remote Meetings Work, shares her wisdom on how to be effective, look great, sound great, and create great participation and engagement during your hybrid and virtual meetings. Today, many leaders are not thinking about how they show up on the other side of the camera. These leaders are doing a great disservice to themselves and their teams because they are primarily going to have to lead through various virtual lenses for now and into the future. If leaders want to maximize how they communicate, connect and show up with their teams, the only way to do that is by following these simple steps. 2. Attend to Participation 3. Favor Remote Attendees First 5. To Make Eye Contact, Look at the Camera, Not the Screen 6. Be MORE Human Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 43 Successfully Leading Dispersed Teams Requires Compassion | 20 Jun 2021 | 00:46:05 | |
Today our guest is Scott Shute, head of mindfulness and compassion, at LinkedIn. Scott is the author of, The Full Body Yes. Scott’s vision is to change work from the inside out, and his mission is to mainstream mindfulness and operationalize compassion for the 3.3 billion workers in the world. In this episode, you will discover the mindset and practices of companies that are 14 times more profitable than the standard S&P average, by spreading mindfulness and compassion at work.
The antonym of compassion is your inner critic. We allow our inner critic to run rampant inside our heads, triggering our fight or flight response. Our amygdala, formerly used to ignite that fight or flight response that kept us safe from predators, is now used in less extreme situations. Today, this response might go off during times when our kids are arguing in the next room while we are on a Zoom call. Our inner critic is driven by fear. Our inner critic focuses 99% of our energy on the 1% of our life that is hard or wrong. Scott calls this pothole management. There could be 1000 miles of perfect road and one pothole, and we will spend 99% of our time concerned about that one pothole. Because of our inner critic, we don’t spend any of our time on the 999 miles of perfect road. A Compassionate Leadership Mindset Thinking you need to project confidence and be feared by your employees is outdated - and ineffective - thinking. Inside this old approach, leaders told their employees what to do, and their employees did what was said without questioning it in fear of getting replaced. That world is gone. The power has shifted from the company and its leaders to the employees. Employees today have more power in where they work, and who they work for, more than ever before. The best people write their own tickets to the best companies. If you want to be successful as a leader, you must treat your employees as the most valuable resource you have.
If leaders deeply know themselves, they can then know other people. Compassionate leaders have a mindset of kindness that enables them to wish the best for others.
Compassionate Leaders Have the Courage to Take Action Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| #159 - Overcoming Loneliness & Building Connections in Today's Workplace | 30 Oct 2023 | 00:32:48 | |
In this episode of Team Anywhere, we explore the power of human-centric leadership with guests Three Carpenter and Jackie Carpenter. They discuss the importance of creating a culture where individuals feel valued and connected, rather than just focusing on productivity. From improving team dynamics to fostering a sense of community, the speakers share their experiences in transforming workplace cultures. They delve into the topic of loneliness in the modern world, particularly in virtual environments, and the need for companies to address this issue. Discover the impact of human-centric leadership and how it can lead to happier, more engaged employees. Chapters:
Learn more inside this week's Team Anywhere episode by clicking on the link below! ► https://simonleadershipalliance.com/three-jackie-carpenter Watch the full podcast episode here: ► https://youtu.be/na1b0y7vY6A Follow and listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform 🎧 Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/3q08HjO 🎧 Spotify - https://spoti.fi/44yuTAD Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 42 5 Tips For Designing a Productive and Creative Home Workspace | 13 Jun 2021 | 00:39:17 | |
Have you ever wondered how to make your workspace more effective and more tailored to your individual ambition? On today’s podcast we are delighted to have Susan Meier, a branding genius and acclaimed artist, and Hallie Burton, a world renowned lifestyle photographer. Together they created Workspace Studio, a website featuring the world’s most beautiful and productive workspaces. They share with us how to develop your home workspace so that it reflects who you are, emboldens your productivity, and enhances your creativity. Many people are being much kinder to themselves when it comes to designing their home workspace compared to their office. Most of us weren’t allowed to fully make our work space represent ourselves in the office. Working from home is a different experience because you have full control of creating a space that compliments you, your needs, and your expression. It’s a place where you can feel the most comfortable. #1 Get Creative in Creating a Room of Your Own Many people who work from home struggle to find a way to create a room of their own. With the onset of the pandemic, our homes went from the places that we leave in the morning, to the places we stay at and use all day and night. Most people don’t have a dedicated home office, making it even more difficult to find this room of their own. Even if it's not an actual room, do your best to get creative. Figure out where you can create, carve out, or re imagine that space where you can close the door and form a physical boundary that shows you are working. Establishing this room of your own allows for physical privacy, and both surface and wall space. #2 Make Organization Mobile In situations like this, Hallie and Susan recommend creating a work tote. The work tote is a mobile organizer that you can take to the space you need to work and move around as needed.
For example, a special seashell from a special trip, pictures of your family, or a wood carving made for you can add meaningful richness to your environment. These items are reflections of you and should be key elements inside your home workspace. Another idea that can help you personalize your workspace is adding things that will help improve your ability to work, foster a creative zone, or provide a spot to rest. For example, Hallie loves having a thermal mug warmer because drinking tea is an important ritual in her working day.
See the full summary here: https://tinyurl.com/ytpr8v9d Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 41 Remote Team Communication Should Be Strategic and Outcome Based | 07 Jun 2021 | 00:29:13 | |
In today’s episode, we interview entrepreneur, leader, and CEO of Aquila Capital Partners, Mark Watson. Mark shares that the key to success for remote leaders is to understand the importance in clearly communicating the vision and having outcomes based conversations that progress towards relevant KPi’s. Since we are not physically together, our conversations must be outcome based. On a remote team, leaders spend more time in the leadership role versus the management role. Just like Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper said, “you lead people, you manage things,” successful remote leaders spend more time leading their remote teams towards their vision and mission. The outdated management style that focuses on closely managing the activities of remote employees during the time on the clock can be detrimental to achieving success. When leaders shift to outcomes based conversations their team members gain more autonomy, feel more trusted, and produce better outcomes. Communication with Remote Teams During the pandemic, when all teams were operating remotely, leaders lost that reassurance they once had in the office. The leaders that had a tendency to micromanage in the office shifted to virtual micromanagement. For some companies, this led to a plethora of virtual micromanagement tactics that has hindered their success. Remote employees began to endure entire workdays in front of their Zoom cameras and - for some - every keystroke on their computers being tracked. What these companies did is apply outdated micromanagement tactics (meant for managing “things”) and applied them to people. Successful Leaders Make Synchronous Time Valuable Virtual Meetings Need to Be Focused and Short Keeping these discussions short, crisp, and to the point makes a real difference in valuing the time of your remote team members. In the office, these meetings used to take an hour but they only needed to take 20 min max. The same is true for your remote meetings. By focusing on relevant KPIs, outcomes and vision, successful remote leaders help their remote teams identify their goals, and then let the employees figure out how they are going to achieve those goals. Remote leaders must shift their mindset and language in virtual meetings. Instead of asking, “what did we accomplish today?,” they should ask, “Are we on our timeline to achieve our goals?” Even a simple shift in asking a new question like this produces greater results with remote teams. Leaders then should leave all other work and less relevant conversations for asynchronous communication; for example, DM’s, emails, or phone calls. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 40 Arts Based Virtual Team Building Activities For An Innovative Remote Team | 31 May 2021 | 00:35:08 | |
Can you teach collaboration, empathy, creativity and transparency in the virtual world? Sure, you can teach it but it won't change behavior. To change your behavior you and your team must immerse yourselves in creative experiences. On today's podcast, Dr. Fred Mandell and Harvey Seifter, founders of Futures that Work, demonstrate how to build the competencies required to succeed in the two dimensional zoom world by engaging our team in the three dimensional worlds of art and science. Many people were waiting to get to the other side of this pandemic, hoping the virtual world would become less relevant and that we would get back to “normal.” But the reality is, we're not going to get back to that ever again. Because of that, there is a premium in developing the kinds of skills and communication to be effective in a virtual world. Because we're moving toward a hybrid world, we don't exactly know what the balance is going to be. And we have found that the arts continue to be a incredibly engaging, three dimensional experience in a two dimensional medium, One downside to the virtual world is that it is 2-dimensional. The 3-dimensional world is where the art experience thrives. But is it possible to bring the richness of the 3D of the arts into virtual team building? Bringing the arts into virtual team building is very powerful, because it begins to help people appreciate that the world that we're entering into, is going to be an interplay between three dimensions in two dimensions. What is Art-Based Learning?
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| EP. 39 Remote Work Culture Ideas to Build Strong Connections | 24 May 2021 | 00:31:31 | |
Despite the return-to-office plans, remote work is here to stay, and leaders are searching for remote work culture ideas to help build strong teams. As the founder of DistantJob, a company that finds global remote talent, and author of Surviving Remote Work, Sharon Koifman has over a decade of experience finding, hiring, and creating great remote cultures. Sharon shares that his success has been based on a clear definition of culture, building trust and caring about remote workers' mental health. The Truth: Remote Work is Here to Stay Nearly all of the research out there is showing that remote work provides greater productivity and is preferred by many workers. According to SloanMIT research, remote work has created happier and more independent people. Coco-cloud research shows that people are 77% more productive and 23% are willing to work more hours if they can work from home. Additionally, 23% of people would prefer a lower wage if they could work from home. Remote work is becoming a necessity, and leaders need to figure out how to continue to strengthen their remote culture, and adjust their leadership style to support their remote workers. How to Keep Remote Company Culture Alive Clearly Define & Declare Remote Company Culture Remote Company culture is about creating connection. Culture in the remote world is your connections between you and the company, between colleagues, and between clients and employees. A clearer definition of remote culture allows leaders to prioritize what is needed to shape the culture going forward After the clear definition of company culture has been created and agreed upon, it should be shared and role modeled in the early stages of growth—whether in person, virtual, or hybrid. However, as the company grows, so does the culture. The culture is a living, breathing organism that eventually shifts its power from the leader to the employees. Eventually, other people, your culture champions, will begin to take charge of defining and declaring the culture. This will empower the company to create and support a healthy remote culture that becomes embedded in all organizational processes; including, hiring, personal growth, completion of work, and engagement. 3 Ideas to Strengthen Remote Culture Donut App One idea that Sharon personally uses is an app called Donut. With Donut, he has 1-on-1’s with each person on his team. With the Donut app, remote companies can connect serendipitously for virtual coffee, peer learning, DEI discussions, and more. Define & Build Trust Most leaders think that they need to define and build trust with their team so that they can trust their team. But Sharon challenges leaders to think about trust the other way around. The question isn’t whether the leader can trust the employers; rather, the question is whether employees can trust the leader. As a leader, are your employees comfortable approaching you when they don’t understand something? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 38 This Leadership Type Thrives in the Hybrid World | 16 May 2021 | 00:36:50 | |
In today’s episode we interview Dr. Annemarie Spadafore where she shares the leadership type that has best thrived in the pandemic, and how these leaders are now approaching return-to-office conversations. Annemarie is the managing principal of Powerlab, executive coach and author of, There is Only I in Team, scheduled to be published in December of 2021. The type of leader that is thriving in the new dispersed work environment focuses on personal responsibility, takes the time to know themselves better, consistently assesses their boundaries, remains obsessively curious, and leads with a partnership approach. This Type of Leader Thrived Through the Pandemic They Took the Time to Know Themselves They Focused on Personal Responsibility They Consistently Assessed Boundaries
Identifying What Works Best for Your Return to Office Plan
In turn, leaders should encourage their team members to consider the same questions so everyone can bring their best selves to the future of work. Return to Office Conversations For Your Team Inside the planning phase of each company’s return-to-work plan, leaders have a real opportunity for holding coaching conversations with their employees. Leaders have a natural tendency to treat everyone the same for the sake of fairness. Yet, over the past 14 months, leaders have had to treat each employee's personal situation differently. This still needs to continue during this renewal period. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 37 How to Lead Virtual Teams With Humility | 09 May 2021 | 00:28:55 | |
On today’s podcast, we interview Bert Sarkkinen, founder and owner of Arrow Timber Framing. Inside this episode, he shares with us that the secret to creating committed virtual teams is to embrace humility in leadership. As leaders practice humility, they’ll place a greater emphasis on listening rather than speaking and be more open to experimenting. Brett emphasizes that Humble Leadership is more about listening than speaking. Additionally, humble leaders should spend more time asking questions uncovering what’s in other people’s heads rather than spending time communicating what they are thinking. Humble leadership is more about just simply trying things and improving with each iteration rather than trying to create the perfect masterpiece the very first time. What is Humility?
The humble mindset lies in believing that you really don’t know what someone is thinking. Humble leaders spend more time discovering what others are thinking rather than assuming that they know. The only action a leader can take is to listen more so all ideas are heard, put on the table, and considered for action. Humble leaders avoid giving tons of information to their teams right away for the sake of “saving time.” Humble leaders practice the “listen more than you speak” by allowing their team to work on projects at their own pace. As the team hits roadblocks, humble leaders give them the information they need, slowly, along the way. This approach offers more opportunities for the team to be open to learning, rather than getting flooded with information when they aren’t ready to receive it. To practice this, for your next project, instead of leading and directing the meeting, take a step back and instead ask your team the following questions.
Belief #2 Misunderstandings Happen The Humble leader understands that messages between the leader and listener can be misunderstood. As leaders and teams develop, their paradigms change. During this time of transition, messages are often misunderstood. Humble leaders recognize the importance of constant dialogue to align intention with consequence and to clear up misunderstandings. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 36 Create A Return to Work Plan that Fits Your Purpose | 02 May 2021 | 00:42:13 | |
Leaders around the globe are in the midst of creating their return to work plan during the COVID-19 pandemic, requiring both vigilance and flexibility to navigate uncharted territory. Inside today’s episode, we have a brilliant conversation with Rachel Casanova, on things to consider when approaching your back to work plan. This reboarding phase is something that we will all experience together. During this period, it’s vital for your entire staff to be authentic and open about identifying and understanding the needs of returning to work through three perspectives: the business, the individuals and the team members. When it comes to this return to work plan, no one has the answers. The best approach is to look at everything moving forward as a two week sprint. Prior to COVID, the idea of businesses making decisions in two week sprints was unheard of. Yet over the past year, companies have found short, temporary, and flexible decision-making to be the only way to move forward.
Make your return to work plan a prototype. Bring your staff in for a day to figure out where the issues are. Then, define how you want to invest your money and what solutions you need to create. The idea behind a prototype is to do first, and then strategize, rather than strategizing first and then do. Your company can work out the issues just like you did a year ago when everyone went fully remote. It’s time to recognize that the next step back is going to be messy and none of us have the answers.
The expectation for authentic communication continues to grow. As the leader, be clear on sharing what you know and don’t know. The return to work plans require tough conversations. Instead of trying to come up with the return to work plan on your own, bring the conversations to your leadership team and your employees. Have everyone share what they think is important in regards to the back to work plan. After sharing what you think is important, ask your team: Why would this work? Why wouldn’t it work? What did we forget? Spend time having conversations around imagining what this new plan is going to look like.
Individual Needs: Overcoming FOGO At the individual level, there is a new fear employees are facing called FOGO, the fear of going out. In crafting your return to work plan, focus on helping your employees overcome the fear of going out. When it comes to balancing the needs of the employees versus the needs of the company, don’t overlook issues involving specific, valid needs. For example, many people are still caregivers and have specific reasons for wanting to continue to work from home. Leaders can give employees help in navigating the path to going back to the office. When crafting your return to work plan, ensure the experience of coming back to the office is worth it. Think of your employees as the customers: What would make their return great? What would make coming back to the office comfortable? Remember we’re re-onboarding Corporate America. Do something that makes your employees’ lives easier. Imagine that everyone is almost like a new employee. They haven’t seen their desk or the office in over a year. What are you, as the employer, going to do to make coming back to the office easier and better? Read the full summary inside our blog. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP 35 How to Captivate and Engage Your Remote or Hybrid Team Through Business Storytelling | 25 Apr 2021 | 00:38:32 | |
Storytelling is one of the most in-demand and underrated skills for leaders to discover in 2021. In this week’s podcast, we interviewed Yamini Naidu, economist turned master business storyteller. The new hybrid and virtual workplace will be new, challenging and definitely a more emotional game. The greatest leaders and managers will engage their workforce through masterful storytelling to create new relationships, and create a new future and culture. Every leader today is now further away from their employees and will need to leverage storytelling to bring their employees together.
Personal Storytelling Versus Business Storytelling Transform Bland Company Events into Captivating Experiences How to Make Storytelling An Experience for A Company Retreat or Event
Storytelling can be used in collaboration with planning events because every time we bring stakeholders together, we want to create an experience. So how can you create experiential moments at your next event? There's nothing more experiential than storytelling. Think about setting up your event like a campfire, with small break out sessions dedicated to storytelling in a unique way. Elements of Business Storytelling Business Storytelling Requires Three Elements
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| EP 34 How Remote Teams Build Resilience for Long Term Success | 19 Apr 2021 | 00:42:33 | |
Today on the podcast we interview Nick Petrie, Author of Work Without Stress: Building Resilience for Long-Term Success. Whereas many teams fail under stress there are certain teams that build resilience and can actually thrive under stressful conditions. Nick shares with us the secrets of how hybrid and virtual teams confront today's turbulence, focus on strengthening their relationships, looking for new opportunities and reframing to take advantage of the disruptions in today's new work environment. Responding to Hardship Differently Everyone initially has the same response when faced with a difficult experience. At first, everyone has a big drop off, and their typical levels of functioning and results go down across the board. Meanwhile, after the initial hit of hardship, people begin to respond in different ways.
The Widening Leadership Gap The Poor Performing Leaders are Struggling Even Worse In the office, if you didn’t have good one-on-one meetings with your people before, that was bad. If you’re not doing it now, it’s disastrous. The same is true for a leaders’ practices. The ties that were weak have dwindled and died in the remote setting; people are not meeting anyone from other departments, and they are not meeting in the cafeteria at lunch. There are even many people who joined in the last year and who have never actually met someone from their company in person. The Strong Leaders Are Feeling Better Than Ever Before The strong leaders are feeling closer to their teams than ever before. Strong leaders have built deeper connections and ties with their teams. These leaders are getting their teams to think strategically about what their networks need to look like across the organization. These leaders then create intentional plans for people to interact to build these relationships.
Why is it that two people can go through the same event and one person gets stressed and overwhelmed but the other person is fine? Events don’t equal stress. There is a difference between pressure and stress and we usually put them together like they’re the same thing. Pressure is defined as an external demand in your environment. When people ruminate on the pressure, they convert the pressure into stress, which impacts their health and well-being. Leaders need to distinguish these two terms, and come up with strategies that prevent rumination to build resilience. The Redefining Mindset: A Phase of Re-Exploration in Leadership Many Leaders reach a level of success where they find themselves asking, “is this all there is?” These leaders have accomplished everything they thought was going to make them happy, but they still don’t feel fulfilled and begin to burn out. This phase can mimic a mid-life crisis. Nick helps leaders see where they are on these developmental stages. By discovering what this phase is, leaders often feel relieved. They realize they’re not losing motivation, they’ve just moved to a new developmental stage as a leader and adult. An In-Person 360˚ Assessment? Nick recommends that leaders dedicate time to seek in-person 360˚ Feedback. Learn more inside the episode or read the full summary on our blog. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP 33 Solving Problems Through Design Thinking | 11 Apr 2021 | 00:30:56 | |
On today’s episode we interview Hannah Berson, Founder and CEO of the Design Thinking Consultancy, SALT Collaboratory. Design Thinking is a human-centered approach to creative problem solving. Hannah introduces us to Design Thinking and to MURAL, an online tool that allows people from all over the world to collaborate in a creative, productive and engaging way. Hannah shares an enlightening story of how a real company used Design Thinking in solving how to bring their employees back to work. We are certain you will enjoy discovering how Design Thinking is imperative in today’s world to effectively team from anywhere.
Design thinking is a disciplined approach leaders use when they are trying to creatively solve problems. The types of problems businesses face today are too complex, and today’s leadership teams need to come up with creative solutions. “If I had an hour to solve the problem, I'd spend the first 55 minutes figuring out what the problem is, because I'd only need five minutes for the solution.” - Albert Einstein 3 Step Problem Solving Process with Design Thinking #1 Understand the Problem from the Perspective of the People Who are Experiencing It By spending more time on this important step, you can get a really clear definition of what the problem actually is versus what you originally thought it was. #2 Propose Three Possible Solutions #3 Humbly Test the Solution DESIGN THINKING TOOLS
One way to survey your staff is to use an exercise Hannah calls, “What’s on your radar?” Exercise. In this exercise, each person is given an unfilled outline of a radar that is divided into several labeled pie pieces, such as Career Development, Work Life Balance, Tools and Technology, Team Connections, etc. In breakout rooms, each person fills-in the pie pieces with elements they want in the future. For example, in the work/life balance area, one person might say that they want to eat dinner at home with their family every day. As the leader, you can drop into the breakout rooms to listen to what they are saying. After listening to these breakout rooms, you can create a consolidated radar that visually displays everyone’s cares and future hopes across the entire spectrum. Buy-A-Feature Another way that companies can discover feedback through design thinking is a tool called Buy-A-Feature. With this tool, you can create a storefront with three aisles, each titled as either Technology, Real Estate, and People. Each participant is given money that they can spend however they want in the store. For example, some people can spend their money on certain items such as a nice office in the Real Estate Aisle, or an outdoor gym at work, etc. During this exercise, people begin to understand cost vs. wants and can have an ideation session that best informs leadership on future implementation strategies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| #158 - Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Be Better Communicators | 15 Oct 2023 | 00:24:28 | |
In this episode of Team Anywhere, Mitch Simon welcomes guest Matt Abrahams, a renowned strategic communication expert and host of the podcast "Think Fast, Talk Smart." Matt discusses his journey into the world of communication, from a 14-year-old boy facing a public speaking mishap to becoming a lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. They dive into the importance of managing anxiety in communication and how great communicators focus on serving their audience. Matt's upcoming book, "Think Faster, Talk Smarter," offers practical tips and stories to enhance communication skills. Tune in to learn how to become a more effective and human-centric leader in any communication setting. Chapters:
Learn more inside this week's Team Anywhere episode by clicking on the link below! ► https://simonleadershipalliance.com/TA158-matt-abrahams Watch the full podcast episode here: ► https://youtu.be/xwuBn1VM1B0 Follow and listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform 🎧 Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/3q08HjO 🎧 Spotify - https://spoti.fi/44yuTAD Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP 32 How Successful Leaders Use Experience Design for Events and Meetings | 04 Apr 2021 | 00:43:37 | |
What if you took the details of the most memorable experiences you’ve had and integrated that into work? How did that experience make you feel? What did you get through that experience? What is it that made you walk away and continue to share that experience with others? Inside this episode, we interviewed Experience Strategist and former head of VIP events at Cirque du Soleil, Carolene Méli. Carolene has traveled the globe creating and delivering VIP experiences and now she’s here to help leaders understand more about Experience design and tips for creating unbelievable experiences.
On today’s podcast you will learn the four essential elements to create a successful and meaningful event, the one question to ask before planning any event, and the magic of a box of popcorn.
To become better at experience design, leaders must ask four questions when they are planning experiences.
In Cirque du Soleil, Carolene shared she was surprised by how many problems she could solve by offering a box of popcorn. It was how she quickly solved customer service problems by offering this small gesture. Offering a box of popcorn showed the customers that she cared about them and understood the issue, even if she couldn’t solve the problem. Often, the customers would come up and thank her for the box of popcorn after the show. Carolene explains that we tend to overthink solutions (internally and externally.) Offering a box of popcorn for her was incredibly cheap, but had a high impact for customer service solutions. As a leader of your team, what low effort, high ROI gestures can you make to help solve problems that show that you understand the issue even if you can’t solve the problem? This goes back to personalization. How can I get something across very quickly to my team? Examples to consider are using more personalized videos. Don’t overlook personalization when it comes to small gestures; this extends connection even further. What do you have to offer to your customers and employees to solve problems that are low effort, high ROI. Event Planning Tips: For leaders to become better at experience design, they should start planning events by leading through curiosity.
Create opportunities for conversations to happen naturally.
How do you want them to feel at the end? For a more detailed summary, visit our blog. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 31 Increase Connection and Communication by Avoiding These 8 Virtual Meeting Mistakes | 29 Mar 2021 | 00:36:32 | |
In today's episode, we interview Gwen Stirling Wilkie, author of From Physical Place to Virtual Space. In this episode, she emphasizes that our team meetings will need to be more purposeful, build stronger connections and be open to new ways to collaborate and co-create. Inside this episode you’ll learn about eight common mistakes leaders make when leading virtual meetings:
Full-day meetings are typical when everyone is in the office. In these meetings, leaders have time to introduce some context, have several presentations and then have a discussion around certain topics. Virtual meetings need to be structured in a different way. Meet shorter and more frequently. In-office meetings often can run smoothly for 60 minutes. But virtual meetings should be shorter and more frequent. 2. Jumping Right Into Business Leaders need to remember “connection before content”, and they have a responsibility to connect. Leaders make sure people feel listened to, valued, appreciated and a part of the team. 3. Unrealistic Expectations of Attention Spans 4. Not Using Pre-work Strategically 5. Trying to make a Hybrid Meeting “Inclusive” Whether you want to admit it or not, the truth is, we’ve all tried this. If you haven’t tried it, you’ve been in a meeting where someone else tried it. Attempting a meeting where half of the people are in person and several other people are somehow on Zoom is a recipe for disaster. 6. “Having” All the Answers 7. Using Technology Above the Participants Skill Levels 8. Avoiding Conversations that Create Accountability Working virtually has given us more of an excuse to avoid hard conversations. Whether you’re working virtually or in person, as a leader, it’s your responsibility to have conversations that create accountability, and to do so with the right approach, right spirit, and right intent. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| EP. 30 Secrets to How Remote Companies Build Organizational Culture from Anywhere | 21 Mar 2021 | 00:40:08 | |
Organizational culture is built deliberately and differently in top performing remote companies. In this episode, we interviewed Brett Putter, author, culture expert and CEO of CultureGene. Brett shares with us details into his research for his most recent book, Own Your Culture: How to Define, Embed and Manage your Company Culture. Brett researched 50 CEOs of startup and high-growth companies with top performing cultures. These CEO’s are skilled in clearly defining their culture, mission, vision, and values, and actively recruit new employees for a fit with the values of the company. They are also able to explain how their leadership team has a framework for making decisions based on organizational culture. The leadership teams embed this framework into their processes. In-Office Culture The dynamic of being in the same place allows the culture to develop by default. With in-office cultures, leaders could afford to be lazy in building the culture because of the osmosis that happens between people. In-office culture occurs naturally in break rooms, walking down hallways and during random points of contact. This feeling of connection and being in the loop is often a huge challenge in remote cultures. Processes Remote Culture Processes Virtual Meetings Ideas Cultural Values Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||