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Exploring how humans connect and get stuff done together, with Dan Hammond and Pia Lee from Squadify.
We need groups of humans to help navigate the world of opportunities and challenges, but we don't always work together effectively. This podcast tackles questions such as "What makes a rockstar team?" "How can we work from anywhere?" "What part does connection play in today's world?"
You'll also hear the thoughts and views of those who are running and leading teams across the world.
[00:00:00] Dan: In a time of return to office mandates, we hear a lot of people saying that it's not possible to build a team or lead when people are not co-located. While it's clearly not true, people have been successfully led remotely for decades. Remote and hybrid working does present some additional challenges.
[00:00:17] Dan: Our guest on this episode of We Not Meet is Kevin Eikenberry, author and leadership consultant. He's literally written a book on how to make remote work work, so keep listening to hear how to get all the benefits of remote working without the downsides.
[00:00:32] Dan: hello and welcome back to We Not Me, the podcast where we explore how humans connect to get stuff done together. I'm Dan Hammond.
[00:00:41] Pia: And I'm Pia Lee.
[00:00:43] Dan: And today, Pia, we have on the bench one of our favorite topics actually, because it's really close to our heart as we have spent a many, many a year working remotely and, uh, leading remote teams.
[00:00:58] Dan: So this is going to be, um, a real treat to get stuck into this, uh, this topic. And I remember when we first worked together, you talked a lot about. long distance relationships are hard and, and it sort of stuck with me.
[00:01:12] Pia: and And, you and you have stuck with me over the years.
[00:01:15] Dan: I have stuck with you. Yeah.
[00:01:16] Dan: You won't let me go. You won't let me leave. Yeah.
[00:01:20] Pia: that's, I mean, we know we've been doing this for, well, actually, I mean, because you moved back over to the UK in our former company, I think over 10 years.
[00:01:30] Dan: yeah, it, way over period. We were talking about it today. It's um, it was 2011, so we're coming up to 14 years that we've been, uh, working remotely. So, yeah, and setting up a company remotely, people around the world. And, um, and it's, it's fascinating. It obviously has its challenges when we get together, it is different.
[00:01:52] Dan: It's easier.
[00:01:53] Pia: there's nothing like a hug.
[00:01:54] Dan: Exactly, there's nothing like it. and, and you know, you've got that serendipity, you've got all these other things. However, the benefits are so massive, that, uh, that it's really worth exploring. And I think with all these return to office mandates and a slight oversimplification of this situation, a sort of applying technical answers to adaptive problems or, and, and opportunities in a way, um, it's, it's really worth keeping on just taking a look at this, uh, this question of remote leadership and, uh, remote teams.
[00:02:28] Pia: and I wonder whether if you and I had been in the same country, in the same office running this business, how it would've gone. As opposed to how we've done it remotely. So I, you know, I don't, would we have gone faster? Would it have been easier? Would we have actually gone slower or because we have an, an amazing, um, because of the nature of we're at opposite ends of the world, we can create work that follows the sun. We can be double, double time
[00:02:55] Dan: It's so weird. It creates things out of nowhere, doesn't it?
[00:02:59] Pia: Which I think we've become really, really good at over the years to do that. I'm looking for all the ways to leverage the fact, neither of us bemoan the fact that, that there is the time difference. It is what it is. It's how we use it.
[00:03:13] Dan: Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a really fascinating area with upsides and downsizes and we are really lucky and I think the, our listener will really enjoy our guest today. Um, Kevin Ikenberry, um, it's full of life and, uh, really enthusiastic on this topic and he knows his onions, so let's go and hear from him now.
[00:03:30]
[00:03:35] Pia: And a really warm welcome to Kevin Eikenberry, nice to have you on the show, Kevin.
[00:03:39] Kevin: It is a pleasure to be here.
[00:03:40] Pia: Oh, it's wonderful. Um, we're gonna talk about not long distance relationships, but long distance leadership. So, um, I think this is gonna be a very interesting topic. Could be the same
[00:03:49] Kevin: Well, there is a relationship that's important. There may not be quite the same as
[00:03:54] Dan: Okay.
[00:03:54] Pia: What? No, but we, but we do take things a bit off piece on this podcast, so we, we never know where we might end up.
[00:04:02] Pia: so I guess part of the, the part of the, the key thing we might be looking at is a degree of trust, which is probably, um, shortly earned. ' cause I'm going to throw you into the hands of Dan Hammond who's gonna ask you a very tricky question and put you on the spot with the conversation starter cards.
[00:04:18] Dan: I am, I am. And I'm just, uh, I'm just gonna shuffle these here and then, um.
[00:04:24] Dan: actually, I've got you a green card here. My earliest memory,
[00:04:28] Kevin: Well, my mother says, my first word was tractor. I grew up on a farm. Uh, but the, this isn't really my first memory, but I will tell you something. I told my team the other day that I, my, I have my, the memory of the first time I went to a movie theater, uh, which was to see the jungle book. So now everyone can,
[00:04:46] Dan: Yeah. We can calculate. Yes.
[00:04:49] Kevin: but, I have pretty early memories of, um, uh, of being, being outdoors and, and, uh, I, my sister, I was about two and a half when my sister was born, and I almost kind of remember that.
[00:05:00] Dan: So farm life for you, Kevin. So why don't we just grab that and give us a little bit of a bio. What, what's, uh, what's your, what's your bio? In a box.
[00:05:08] Kevin: Uh, my bio in a box is I'm a husband, a father, a son. Um, I am a farm kid, a proud farm kid. Uh, I'm a Purdue graduate. I, I am a business owner. I'm an author, a podcaster, a speaker. I'm, I'm a, a fan of, of barbecuing meat and cheese. How about that? Smoking meat and cheese
[00:05:28] Dan: Okay. This is
[00:05:30] Kevin: gives you plenty of stuff there.
[00:05:33] Pia: Yeah. Yeah, there is quite a lot. Uh, let's go to the really important bit. Do you put the smoker into the barbecue to flavor the meat?
[00:05:40] Kevin: nope. I'm just use, I use apple or cherry or whatever would and always better if I cut it off the tree myself.
[00:05:47] Dan: Wow.
[00:05:48] Kevin: I, and you don't even know my, you don't even know. One of my hobbies, which I should probably tell you. One of my hobbies is I collect antique tractors,
[00:05:55] Pia: Oh my gosh,
[00:05:56] Pia: that does not
[00:05:57] Dan: so hence the possibly first word.
[00:06:00] Kevin: I suppose, I mean prophetic, I suppose.
[00:06:03] Dan: Yes, indeed.
[00:06:04] Pia: so how do you feel that, this is an interesting one because my kids, we, we made a, a country change and my kids are growing up on a small farm. It's nothing, it's not, I, I. call it a farm Litt. what do you think that experience has given you? The life of business. '
[00:06:21] Kevin: I, I recently read some, some research about, um, kids who had chores when they were young, and that doesn't require to be on a farm like I was necessarily, but they had chores, real chores. Uh, there's all sorts of po you know, the research says there's also positive benefits around, around self-confidence and around a whole bunch of other, uh, other stuff, but.
[00:06:40] Kevin: For me, growing up on, on a farm is, is a part of who I am. Um, uh, my father was only 20 years older than me, so I really, in many ways grew up with my mom and dad. Uh, I was involved in our farming business from a young age, and I had the opportunity to, uh, do things that had an impact on the bottom line, make decisions.
[00:07:00] Kevin: I was given the chance to do that kind of stuff. I mean, I, I think that. When you're given the chance to have responsibility, when you're given the chance to really, to lead, um, to work with customers, because we had a farm, a, an agricultural business as well as a farm. Uh, and then I, I think, I personally think there's a lot to be said for learning how to work hard.
[00:07:19] Pia: Yeah. Well, that makes me feel great because, because I'm on this podcast, I've sent my 9-year-old to go and collect the eggs from the ducks up at the top of the hill, so that
[00:07:28] Pia: makes me
[00:07:29] Kevin: I have never collected a duck egg in my life. Not once.
[00:07:32] Pia: we eat them for breakfast, so that is, that is a real true pleasure of life, I have to say. Fresh duck eggs.
[00:07:38] Dan: Right, you two farmers. I'm gonna have to break up this, this loving and um, ask you this next question, Kevin. So you've written your, you wrote your book, um, the Long Distance Leader. We'd love to hear more about that, but what prompted you to put pen to paper as it will? What, what, what? It's a big project. What made you embark on that,
[00:07:59] Kevin: I've done it a lot of times at this point. So, uh, I mean, I, I think there's, in, so in terms of writing in general, I, I think for me there's, there's two parts to it. One is, there's a. There's a missional component, uh, for the mission of our company. The mission of my life is to help leaders make a better world, in short, and to help more leaders make a bigger positive difference in the world.
[00:08:20] Kevin: And so, um, writing is a high leverage way to do that is to, is to hopefully have some impact. Although, there's sort of a, there's slight sort of a continuum here. You can, you can do. Things that have a lot of impact on a few people, or you can do things that have perhaps have impact on a lot more people, but not as much.
[00:08:38] Kevin: And so books are at the one end of that spectrum. So writing is definitely a part of, of our mission. And my mission, uh, and let's be honest, books, um, are the very best business card on the planet. And so there's a commercial value. Certainly as well. Most people you may, people may not know, but you don't, most people don't make money from the royalties on the book, but hopefully, uh, it shows your credibility and it shows you, it helps to, for you to, to get clients.
[00:09:05] Kevin: So it takes us back to mission, right? So it's a combination of Mission, missional and com and commercial reasons. Um, this particular book is The Second Long Distance Leader is the second edition of this book. We wrote the first edition of Long Distance Leader. Way back when, uh, before we had a pandemic and back. I like to say back when Corona was still a beer. Um, and so in 2018,
[00:09:28] Dan: we'll be stealing that.
[00:09:30] Kevin: well that's fine. Go right ahead. Uh, so back, in 2018 we wrote the first edition of Long Distance Leader, and so this is the second edition that we've updated. 'cause the world has certainly changed, if case in case people hadn't noticed.
[00:09:42] Dan: yeah, so why don't we rewind? What, well, let's talk about 2018 because it's, it seems so. Appropriate to that post Corona, time.
[00:09:50] Kevin: so when we wrote the Long Distance Leader, I, I co-wrote, wrote it with Wayne Ell, and Wayne and I had actually created, uh, as separate from my, our, my main business, something called the Remote Leadership Institute and, and then I bought his company, which was all around communicating at a distance.
[00:10:06] Kevin: He had back when, you know, when, when. Zoom didn't exist. Like how did helping people sell and train and communicate at a distance? He was one of the top people in the world on that. And we brought that together with our leadership stuff and we created the Remote Leadership Institute, which led to the book.
[00:10:22] Kevin: And I've been leading a remote team now for, um, I. Approaching 15 years. So we'd been doing it, we'd been working with clients on it, and it led to writing the book in short. So again, we're writing the book in like 2017. We've been doing workshops on this stuff. Virtually delivered. We were doing virtually delivered workshops, you know, for a decade now.
[00:10:42] Kevin: Uh, not a decade then, but a decade now. And. And, and so we really wanted to start to share some of what we'd learned with clients, what we'd learned, what I'd learned as leading, uh, our team. And, and that's what led to the book then. And, um, and, and I would say if you asked me what the biggest idea was, then it's probably, well, it is still the single biggest idea.
[00:11:02] Kevin: And so the book, the subtitle of the book is. Rules. Well, in the first edition it was rules for remarkable remote leadership and now it's revised rules for re remarkable remote and hybrid leadership. So in the new book, the new version, there's a lot more about hybrid and that sort of stuff,
[00:11:16] Kevin: which probably makes sense.
[00:11:18] Kevin: But the big I, here's the big idea, the number one rule in both books is this, uh, think leadership first, location second. In other words, don't
[00:11:26] Kevin: forget everything
[00:11:27] Kevin: you already know about leading.
[00:11:28] Kevin: And, uh, and, and now it's everyone wants, a lot of people want to sort of go back to where they once were. We could have a long conversation about why that is.
[00:11:36] Kevin: Go bring everybody back to the office. Um, and yet, and, and so wherever our folks are, whether we are, we are in physical proximity with them or not, or whether we're with them physically, some of the time doesn't matter. Um, leadership is still leadership. Leadership is largely. The same, um, you know, since the pyramids, because we're talking about human beings and human behavior.
[00:11:59] Kevin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The context changes and I think that's the big thing about when our team is at distance is the context changes. And, and I'm a big believer that con context matters a lot. And so all of the things that people wanna say are new about leading, whether it's this or something else. Uh, what's really different is context.
[00:12:16] Kevin: The underlying, the way humans behave, the way humans interact, what humans want and need hasn't changed drastically. Context has changed drastically, uh, but human beings haven't. And so, uh, think leadership first, location second.
[00:12:32] Pia: That's really interesting because, um, I think we've become absolutely fixated on the location and whether, you know, how many days we've got in the office, what days you're in the office, and made that, and made that, as I say, a sort of point of object fixation. What did you notice about, about leadership during the pandemic?
[00:12:52] Kevin: lemme make a comment first though, back to what you said before, and that as we've been fix, become fixated on the location. And I think there's, there's truth there. Uh, what I wanna say is this, even though think leadership first, location second, there are differences and the differences matter a lot.
[00:13:06] Kevin: I. It's just like, it's, it's, it's just not 90% different and 10% the same. It's the other way around. Right? So I, I don't wanna leave that point. And people say, oh, it's no different at all. Like, what are we even having this conversation about? Because it is different. And I, I, I think the fix, so you really asked two questions.
[00:13:21] Kevin: So why the fixation with everyone coming back? I, I have a slightly different take on this than a lot of people do. It's not quite as cynical as many do. Uh, and that is that if you think about the folks. Who are leading organizations that are in many cases wanting to bring people back, so they succeeded in a world of physical proximity.
[00:13:42] Kevin: They. Created business. They built their own career in a world of physical proximity. And so that's the model that they know and a model that works for them. And if they want that for their business and for their people, not just for themselves, it's natural as a human to say, let's do it in a way that I know.
[00:14:04] Kevin: Worked. The problem is that this other thing we now have didn't, didn't really exist in large to large measure before. And so that natural tendency to wanna bring people back, I think is a bigger part. There are other reasons, like we've got a, we've got a bunch of office space here and there. There's other reasons.
[00:14:22] Kevin: Those have all been talked about. Ad nauseum around the world. But I think we, I think people that are on the remote side of the saying, why can't people work from wherever, haven't really thought about what one of the biggest drivers are for those, for those leaders who want people back. And it isn't all negative and it isn't all, uh, sort of selfish.
[00:14:40] Kevin: I think it's what we all tend to want to go to, gravitate to things that we know work that are comfortable and, and we are confident in. And I, so, I, I, I. I'd like to grant, uh, senior leaders that are trying to bring people back with a lot of grace. Uh, but to take you back to the first question, Pia, about what did I, what did I observe about leadership during the pandemic?
[00:15:01] Kevin: That's, that's another big topic. But I will say one thing. I think one of the things that a lot of leaders got way better at during the pandemic, not all, but what many leaders got way better at, was being empathetic. Because we were all in this place of, this world is different and none of us really know.
[00:15:17] Kevin: And, and oftentimes the leader didn't have the same situation as their team members. Like I, I didn't have any, uh, elementary school aged kids that I was trying to teach while I was trying to work and all those other, I didn't have to, I wasn't trying to deal with an aging parent that was living in my house and making sure they don't get a virus.
[00:15:34] Kevin: Like I didn't have, not all of us had the same experience, but we were having. A related experience, and I think a lot of leaders
[00:15:42] Kevin: stumbled into realizing they had to pay attention to what was going on with their folks. And, and, and generally speaking, did that far better. And, and I have continued to say, I hope leaders don't forget that.
[00:15:56] Kevin: And I'm, I've been trying really hard to help leaders remember that that thing that you did. Because it seemed like the right thing to do has always been the right thing to do.
[00:16:05] Pia: yeah, I think it's really interesting that, because I think we did pay a lot of attention to it. Suddenly, you know, we, I think, I think it was also driven by a, um, a fear that everything would go off the rails once we moved into a remote situation, which didn't happen. And then we started to see some actual real benefits from it.
[00:16:26] Kevin: And if you look at employee engagement, what happened in, let's say the, the, the first four to four to 10 weeks of people working apart, employee engagement went through the roof. Because for, for once, we were all really rowing In the same direction, and we all, you know.
[00:16:43] Kevin: People were working hard to figure it out, uh, because we'd already written this book and had been out for a while. Not only that, but because of our existing clients, you know, we, I spent a lot of time on the phone with leaders, as you might imagine, when the lockdowns happened and for the next few weeks on the phone and, and on a webcam.
[00:16:59] Kevin: Um, and, the, the sense of togetherness in the chaos was a real thing. Now, the, the. You know, the honeymoon ended there in most organizations. And, and employee engagement levels are back to the sort of sorry level, uh, that they've been for the last 20 years, even though we've all been talking about it now for a long time.
[00:17:19] Kevin: Uh, but there was a peak and that peak, I, I think, ultimately was predictable because when everyone is rowing in the same direction and everyone's got a common, enemy or a common challenge, and we're all, it, it, you know, we're, when we're all in that same spot. It changes the way we interact with each other.
[00:17:36] Dan: and is it possible to, because we observed that a lot people, teams we work with will say, whoa, we really pulled together. We had a, you know, we had a product recall. We really pulled together then it was amazing. Can you remember those days? That was so good. Now, not so good. Is, is it? Is it possible to maintain that level of goal focus and keep that spirit of, of teamwork up and what, um, in, in sort of more regular days or is it inevitable that that's a sort of rare coming together?
[00:18:05] Kevin: Um, I think there's a couple things. The first thing I would say is that, um, as a leader, when we know that we've got everyone coalesced around that, when we have that sort of magic, I. Synergy. We need to, we need to be aware of it then as well.
[00:18:19] Kevin: And we need to, and I don't mean this in a negative way or a manipulative way, but we need to capitalize on it. And we need to, we need to recognize what those things are and help everyone else see it. Because it's easy to see later, but help people see like what, what, you know, it's sort of in the action after review, uh, after action review or in the, in the debrief of a project when we had that.
[00:18:39] Kevin: Like, okay, what was it about that and how can, 'cause everyone would want it again. And so how do we recapture it? What were the things that helped create that? So just be really intentional with the group about that. And I also think, um, we don't wanna like, have people, you know, just living in the, oh, life was good back then thing, but we do want to remind people of that magic.
[00:19:00] Kevin: And then the second thing I will say is that I, I, you know, we can't, we can't, we can't drive our car 110 miles an hour or 170 kilometers per hour all the time. I, I don't know if that was a perfect match, but you get the idea. Um, we can't do that all the time. We can't run on adrenaline all the time. So we also, as a leader, have to help our teams manage that energy. And not set our expectations about 110%. You wanna call it that all the time. But I do think there's a lot of intentional things we can take and we can learn because everyone who's lived through one of those loved it. And so we just have to help the, this isn't just the leader's job, but it's the leader's job to ask the questions and say, what are the things that happened there that we want to recreate, recapture, or at least not forget.
[00:19:49] Dan: That's so interesting, that spirit, and I just wanna pull that thread just a little bit further. It's a fascinating time, isn't it? Because it's then that actually people's individual needs. Are subordinated to the team need, aren't they? So it's, it's a strange that people look back on that time. Great. That was when I was less important than the team. whereas in sort of peace time conditions, those individual niggles sort of seem to float to the top, don't you? But it's fascinating that how much people love it when the.
[00:20:17] Kevin: We, we, not me.
[00:20:19] Dan: Yeah.
[00:20:20] Kevin: not me. Sorry.
[00:20:21] Dan: that was, you win our listeners award for 2024.
[00:20:28] Pia: and then if, to go back to your comment about context though, sometimes I remind myself, gosh, it's, it's, it's less than five years this period of time, but so much they're like dog years. So much has happened. There's been a lot of political, geopolitical, economic instability, pressure on, you know, on living standards, um, restructures transformation.
[00:20:53] Pia: So there's nothing has remained the same. There's been like shock waves, so I would've thought for. Hybrid teams, particularly where they're, this must be really tricky to be leading in this situation 'cause it's not, we're not back to normal. I don't even know what normal's going to be, but it's an interesting time to be leading.
[00:21:14] Kevin: So first, I think there's two things going on here. We did have this whole pandemic thing. We did have this. Changing of the sort of social understanding of what work is. I wanna get to that in a second.
[00:21:26] Kevin: But the second stuff you're talking about, the geopolitical stuff and all other stuff, that's just a sign. I mean, it all happened at, this is happening at the same time, if you will, but it's just creating tremendously more uncertainty in general. which is a topic in my, in my new book, but, but I wanna go back to the, to the other point, like it's just been five years, it's not even been five years.
[00:21:49] Kevin: It's really, it's by the time this podcast comes out, it will be just about five years for some parts of the world almost exactly.
[00:21:57] Kevin: And so here's, here's the history. It took about 80 years from between when people first. In the 1860s ish when, when people started saying, Hey, maybe work doesn't have to be 12 hours a day, six days a week, we ought, and they started playing with five days a week and they started playing with eight hour days.
[00:22:15] Kevin: And it wasn't till about till after Henry Ford. And, and, and really about the late 1920s that sort of the social view of work was 40 hours a week. Five, you know, eight hours a day, five days a week, Monday to Friday. And because even if that's not what you work, that's what everyone said. Well, I don't work that way.
[00:22:31] Kevin: I work second shift. Well, I work weekends. I'm in retail. Like we, that's how we thought about it. So all of our lives, that's what we've been. So it's been another 80 years that that's been the thing in, in real time. But then we changed it overnight. And so we're living in a time of change that normally, and we could actually go back to agrarian before 1860 and we could, there's another, there's another era back there if you wanna think about it that way.
[00:22:57] Kevin: But we have reframed how the world thinks about what work is, where it happens, when it happens, and how it happens. And we started it overnight and the whole thing has only been five years. Um, and so. That's one reason why it feels so chaotic because the human race largely, first world for sure, whole way we think about work has changed.
[00:23:22] Kevin: Even again, just like the last, in the last epoch. Even if that isn't what's changed for you. Even if I work in a warehouse, drive a truck, work in a restaurant. Even if I haven't had that change, I know that the world has changed and I know people for whom that's changed. Everyone has an opinion, everyone has a thought.
[00:23:40] Kevin: And, and that's why it's been so challenging is because, uh, in, in historical terms, it happened in literally five years in historical terms. Compared to 80 is a blink of the eye, right? And so that's, I I think we have to grant us ourselves some grace here on the whole thing that we are figuring it out.
[00:24:00] Kevin: Think about what it would've happened if the pandemic would've happened when all we had was a fax machine. You think you, you think our economies were impacted by this? You realize what it would've been then would've been unbelievable.
[00:24:13] Dan: That's interesting. It's a good thought. so Kevin, leadership over location, um, but still you said that, you know, leadership is different in d remotely. Um, what are the key, this is getting down to brass tacks as we say, where I live. Um, what are the sort of key mindset and skillset differences when, when leading remotely?
[00:24:35] Kevin: So, so I would say that the single biggest thing is you have to recognize it's different. So you have to be, be willing and able to lead differently. Um, which means there are some things that, that we could, we can still do, but we have to work harder at like communication. relationships, trust, collaboration, all of those things can be done.
[00:24:56] Kevin: Wayne and I wrote this version of this book, the second version of this book. We never saw each other physically once during the entire process. Um, we generally see each other about to twice a year period. We've written four books together.
[00:25:08] Kevin: Right. So, so we can, collaboration can happen at a distance, right? Uh, communication can, all these things can happen, but in order for us to do them better or to have the level of relationship that we want and need as a leader, we have to go first and we have to be intentional about the changes. So I'll give you an example. So I have a team of 14. There are 14 of us.
[00:25:34] Kevin: They don't all, they don't all directly report to me. But listen, I write the paycheck, so I'm the leader, right? And so, um, long before the pandemic and continuing, I have a magic number and it's the magic of three. If I don't have three interactions with a member of my team on a day, I haven't done, I don't feel like I've done my job.
[00:25:55] Kevin: Now, an interaction is not a transaction. I'm not talking about work and weather. Like there are there, there's probably lots of transactions. We're talking about the work and the weather, right? But I'm talking about something more than that. Relationships. C or one of the dynamics upon which relationships are built are level and quality of interaction, right?
[00:26:12] Kevin: Being willing to talk about something beyond the work in the weather, being able to feel a sense of connection because of those interactions. And so for me, one of my talismans is I need to be having at least three of those kinds of true interactions with folks every day. And if I'm not, I'm probably not doing my job and I'm not doing the things that are truly most important for us over.
[00:26:33] Kevin: Long haul. Now do I make it every day? No, but there are other days I get five, right? And so, um, that's sort of the thing that I have at the top of my list every day. Uh, it is 3 34 my time as I'm talking right now. And I can safely say I've had four of 'em today, so I can check that one thing off my list.
[00:26:52] Pia: so given that, given the context has changed and the and the external pressures, where have leaders' minds gone, because I've, I'm working with a lot of leaders who are on intent intense pressure. So that, so to think about, for instance, these three interactions, it just becomes an almost like another thing. on the list to do.
[00:27:12] Kevin: I, I said this to my team. My team was all together about once a year, we're all together, and it was last week and it was wonderful. And I, we were talking about, we were talking about our customers. We were talking about, you know, the, the world of work and our customers. And one of the things I, I've said for a long time that the most dangerous four letter word in the English language, and by the way, my grandmother would not have agreed with this, the most dangerous four letter word in English language is busy.
[00:27:34] Kevin: the problem is now the word is capitalized. So, Peter, to your point, like, uh, the level of busyness, the level of focus on activity versus accomplishment, and that's the problem, right? Is that we've got our focus on the wrong thing. And then the second thing I would say about this, well, it is just one more thing on the list.
[00:27:52] Kevin: Here's the thing, the word priorities, the, the root word of the word priorities. Did not have a plural, and in fact, from what I've studied and read and tried to determine, it never was used as priorities until about 180 or a hundred years ago. And so I. Part of the problem. Like, that's what I'm saying, like it's one of the most important things for me to do every day is this three.
[00:28:17] Kevin: And here you've all, we've all heard the metaphor of put the, you gotta put the big rocks in first, right? If you put all the little stuff in and all the other stuff and, and, and then there's no room. But if you put the big rocks in and then the pebbles and then the sand, and there's still room for the water, right?
[00:28:30] Kevin: But if you don't put the big ones in first, if you put sand and water in first, there's no room left. And so as leaders, we have to be. Aware of those things that maybe we didn't have to worry about. 'cause we would see people in the hallway before, right? And we'd sort of say hello and maybe some of the folks are in the office, but some of our hybrid is, some people are never there and now they're really left out.
[00:28:51] Kevin: 'cause there's no serendipitous, there's no, there's no water cooler talk. There's no like, it happens without me thinking about it because now it all has to be more intentional.
[00:29:00] Pia: I think that's the key word. Intentional. part of leadership has to come into clear focus. I mean, for some people leadership is always the side dish. And the main dish is the, is the functional or the technical capacity. Um, but hybrid really is shaken that up. 'cause you can't, you can't, you can't lead effectively if you don't bring that into The mains.
[00:29:20] Kevin: A lot of people are trying. so just on a personal level as an, I mean, as I talk to anyone who's listening, who is a leader, if you will do this stuff, that we're kind of stuff that we're talking about. It, it's, it's a, it's a. Competitive advantage for you as an individual. Like forget the, it's the right thing to do.
[00:29:39] Kevin: It's the best thing for the business to do, but just for you as an individual leader, if you'll do this stuff, it's a competitive advantage from a career perspective. I don't really like to think about that as being the biggest reason to do it, and yet it's absolutely true.
[00:29:55] Dan: So, and Kevin, just, um, we always ask this question about what steps someone could take. So I'm, I'm gonna adapt it a little bit in this case 'cause it's been, you've given such a powerful guidance there. If someone has never done this sort of thing before, they've been very task focused. They've never picked up the phone or had a call with one of their people and they think.
[00:30:14] Dan: They're just gonna think I've freaked out or something, or they'll think I'm gonna fire them. Or starting the, starting these things can be hard, right? What, what, what, how would you guide someone into this, this new set of habits, to um, uh, to connect a little more?
[00:30:29] Kevin: What you do is you throw Dan and Pia and Kevin under the bus and say, I just heard this thing on a podcast, and I don't know if it'll work, but I believe it's the right thing for us to do, and so I'm gonna try.
[00:30:38] Dan: Okay.
[00:30:38] Dan: Just, just have to
[00:30:40] Kevin: try. You just have to, you just have to do it. I just wrote something the other day, uh, and we talked about the word intention, which is such a, such a powerful word, but
[00:30:49] Kevin: intention without action It, it, it's guilt creating. it's self-sabotaging. Uh, it's, it SAPs our confidence, right? But when we have intention and then we follow it with action, that changes the world, right? We all know that action matters, but we all, but if we don't have intention, the action is just our natural. Habit and response, which means we lead in the ways we always did when everyone was down the hall.
[00:31:17] Kevin: So we can't really do that and expect to get great results, but that, so action alone isn't enough. Intention without action is a problem. We gotta hook 'em together. And so my advice to anyone here, uh, about trying some of this stuff is just try it. and, and the things that, I mean very specifically about picking up the phone, and, and by the way, the phone still is actually a phone.
[00:31:40] Kevin: We don't have to type into it. We can actually talk on it, or we can actually turn on our webcam and talk to somebody and, that's a human skill that you have. So use it.
[00:31:49] Dan: That's a, that's really sound advice, Kevin. Give, we'll give you a little chance to talk about your upcoming book, because I think when this podcast comes out, it will be in a, within a few weeks of the next one. Tell us, tell us brief, that's not the key subject, but what's, tell us a little bit about that. Could you,
[00:32:04] Kevin: So the book is Flexible leadership, navigate uncertainty and lead with confidence. And so it's the idea of the way that we've always done it is not gonna get us where we need to go as leaders. We have to be able and willing to. To be flexible based on the context. So some things we've always done will still be just fine, but if we lean into, well, this is the kind of leader I am because I took this style assessment, or I have the strengths, finders told me this, and, and like, I have no, no quarrel with styles and I have no quarrel with strengths.
[00:32:38] Kevin: I have no quarrel with any of that. Because it's not a problem until it is. And it's a problem when we have locked ourselves in and say, well, this is what I am and I'm not able to, willing to, or I don't think I'm supposed to flex. So what we've done is put this idea of, of figuring out how to be more intentional along with, uh, the understanding. And we've given people a way to come up with content, understanding context, so they can flex on a variety of factors. That's the idea of flexible leadership.
[00:33:03] Dan: Sounds perfect. I'm gonna get my hands on that. And some of our clients, I think, because I think people do, uh, you know, we see a lot of people in this, in this complex time for a start not being confident and therefore trying everything, and therefore being busy with capital letters all the way through.
[00:33:20] Dan: And, uh, you and it spirals. So you, we just see this all the time. So it sounds like your new book will be a little bit of a circuit breaker.
[00:33:27] Kevin: I'd like to hope so. So, you know, I, it, it's been such a pleasure to be with you guys. If people wanna learn more about the Long Distance Leader book and there's, there's a Long Distance Teammate and long distance team book in that series, you can go to long distance work life.com, learn all about those books and, and that, and if you want to learn more about flexible leadership, uh, we've got a free gift for everyone that wants there.
[00:33:46] Kevin: In fact, we've got a masterclass that I built about. Creating greater confidence in ourselves and others we're giving that to you free. Just for having listened to this podcast, you can go to kevin ikenberry.com/gift, kevin ikenberry.com/gift to get the free masterclass. And there there'll be a link there to the flexible leadership book too.
[00:34:03] Kevin: But, uh, we just wanna give people something, uh, and it really does frame around this idea of confidence, which as you just said, Dan relates to, uh, whether. Whether the frame is flexible leadership or whether it's like, how do I build my confidence as a leader regardless of my situation, including if my team is hybrid or
[00:34:18] Dan: Indeed, indeed. Wonderful. And that link will also be in the show notes, but thank you, Kevin. That's a generous gift. Um, final question for you. You've recommended quite a few media items there. What's your recommendation for a, uh, podcast, a Netflix series, another book? What's, uh, what's your, what's entertained or, uh,
[00:34:37] Kevin: Well, I mean, asking me to tell you what book to read is not a, is a dangerous thing. So I, I'm not gonna give a book. I'm gonna, and I, and I'm not even gonna go recent, although I read all the time for my podcast, for the Remarkable Leadership Podcast. But I would say, uh, go find a book. By OG Mandino.
[00:34:56] Kevin: There's a whole bunch of 'em. here. Here, they're, they are short. They are. I would call them. They're in the parables sort of thing, but a lot of the business parables now are almost formulaic, even though they're excellent.
[00:35:07] Kevin: But any book by OG Mandino would be my, Recommendation. Greatest salesman in the world. Greatest miracle in the world. That's my favorite. Uh, and there's many others. uh, and not only that, Pia, they're short so people can find time.
[00:35:22] Dan: Great. The, the link to OG Manina will be in the show notes as well. So, uh, it just leaves us to say a huge thank you to you, Kevin, for joining us from, um, Indiana, um, on this afternoon, morning and evening, um, to share your wisdom and, uh, your, just best of luck to you and your team on your mission. It's, um, you're making a real difference clearly. Thank you.
[00:35:44] Kevin: Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be with you guys. It was, this was super fun and I appreciate the chance to be with you.
[00:35:50] Pia: I really liked, um, Kevin's focus on, on intentionality and, and, being very conscious about the interactions and how he checks in, to have a, a proper interaction with each member of, of his team. And it makes me realize, you know, pretty much, you know, you, you, every day that you and I, you know, clock on in some meeting or other, if it's the two of us, we, we will always check in on each other. There's always a relational element like, what's happening for you? You know, because there's a lot of time that you don't see one another. And so you do need that check-in. Um, and you become quite, I think we become pretty good at sort of, you can see the signs when there's a bit of fraying going on or there's other stuff happening and you know,
[00:36:40] Dan: I mean, mind you, you have a, you do have a sixth sense on that. I was talking to someone the other day, I'd say, sometimes I'll send a message to me and I'll just say, hi, how are you doing? And you come back and say, oh, you are right. I'm not, how the hell did you know that? So, but yeah, but you, but most people aren't like
[00:36:55] Pia: Juliet told me that's right.
[00:36:58] Dan: you're not cheating, are you? No. But um, but yeah, it is, right. But I think those little, those moments. And it's, you know, we talk a lot about, we observe. Teams spending a lot of time on tasks and they have a lot of tasks to do, but, but getting away from that for a moment and having those conversations and it's not about what's your cat called? Or, oh, it's ginger, by the way. Um, but you know, it's, um, it's really about knowing each other and intentionally deepening that knowledge and daring to go a little bit further about sharing emotion, you know, shit. Just allowing that to happen and, and intentionally just pushing those, opening that window a little bit and, and that's, that really gives you that solid, solid basis for, um, for the relationship and for the work.
[00:37:45] Pia: and for the work because ultimately. You, you are reliant on the person that is sitting in a team's window to be bringing as much of themselves as possible. And there may be a number of things that have got in the way of that, you know, fatigue or friction or, you know, other stuff happening outside of life.
[00:38:06] Pia: So sometimes clearing the decks on that and having just a, it's not a therapy session, but you're able to just acknowledge that those things are there, enable you then to be present. To then actually do, do the work. Because the, the thing that I think that is different about being next to somebody is that you really know when someone's present, when they're, when they're next to you.
[00:38:32] Pia: But it's more difficult when you've got a number of people on the call. That's, that's tricky. And so you can show, you can be there, but you're not really there. So. Certainly, and it's more difficult when you're running a team and you've got a big number of people. But I think Kevin's point of how do you check in on people and, and certainly through the work that we've done with these coaching power bundles, everyone's form of communication is different. Is it WhatsApp? Is it text? Is it Slack? Is it email? Is it voicemail? Whoa, it's, everyone's got different, different preferences and it's important I think to find that what do they want?
[00:39:10] Dan: So true. In the last 24 hours in my sort of various. Angles of my life, whether it's the charity or um, or, or work. I've had one person WhatsApping me about their mental health crisis and how they're really struggling and that was really helpful. He opened up and really helpful.
[00:39:30] Dan: and someone else, telling us about their. trans perineal biopsy on their prostate. You sort of think, you know, it's sort of on in 24. It's sort of getting a bit much, but, but that sort of openness and honesty, it is just sort of really helps and it takes you deeper so that actually when you do hit.
[00:39:49] Dan: you can make sure they're okay, but also when you hit challenges, you can have the proper conversation instead of that, you know, the fine, I'm fine thing. So, um, so, and, and that's the, that's the bit I think people miss sometimes when they have their one-on-ones that they are having them about having about task and, uh, they're missing a huge trick.
[00:40:08] Dan: Um, and by the way, the only thing I'd add is I think these things often don't happen in the office. Um, so it's not as if these things, it's a bit easier, but they often don't even happen. So you've got an opportunity virtually to really be aware of the absence and therefore be more, um, more deliberate, I think.
[00:40:26] Pia: A hundred percent. And I think they sort of did happen sometimes at social events after the office, and I think that's when people did connect. And I, and, and there's still that I think is nothing as good as breaking bread and celebrating and, and actually eating together. That is a, that's a ritual that we all have in us.
[00:40:44] Pia: So, so I think, again, intentional of when can we meet, you know, even if it is. For our sake once or twice a year. But, I think that is, how can you try and make that happen? Or how can you try and make a different flavor in the way that you are connecting? You know, some of my, some of the teams I'm working with have a much more of a task driven, objective driven, uh, meeting at the beginning of the week, but a, an actual welfare check-in at the end of the week. So those two balance each other. So they check in on the, and check out on the, on the emotional side of where they're, where they're all at, and that that seems, that works really well.
[00:41:24] Dan: that's brilliant. And I'll make an appeal to our listener, which is that if you do have an offsite, don't spend the time. Watching each other. Do PowerPoints in some hotel somewhere or an office building. Take the time to connect and have a structured, even if you were just asked chat, GPT, come up with a few exercises that we could do as a team to get to know each other better, it'll do fine and just go for it because, um, I've seen too many, um, offsite that they're starting to happen again now, but they're wasted, uh, largely wasted. And there's no, you can do all of that stuff on teams, all the PowerPoint stuff. So,
[00:41:58] Dan: But Kevin was wonderful and I love his enthusiasm. It's just a, so just a breath of fresh air on the, on the whole subject. and there's lots of information in the show notes, um, following. that, that little conversation we had.
[00:42:09] Dan: But that is it for this episode. We are Not Me as supported by Squadify. Squadify helps any team to build engagement and drive performance. You can find those show notes where you're listening and also at squadify.net. If you've enjoyed the show, please do share the love and recommend it to your friends. We are Not Me, as produced by Mark Steadman. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye from me.
[00:42:29] Pia: And it's goodbye from me.