211-Isabelle Durmortier - 23.02.21_ 18

Christian: Hello Isabelle

Isabelle: Hi Christian. Hi, Michael

Michael: Hello Isabelle. Good to see you. Buongiorno Christian.

Christian: Michael. Good to see you again.

Michael: Isabelle, welcome to our podcast about remote leadership.

Isabelle: Thank you.

Michael: Who are you and what do you do?

Isabelle: My name is Isabel. I'm a director at E Y. I specialize in everything. That's value-based corporate communication, branding, strategy and inbound marketing. If you look at my background, I've been in the workforce for 14 years now, seven years of which as an entrepreneur and seven years as a consultant in everything that has to do with customers. I've seen advertising agencies, I've seen digital transformations, I've built a huge amount of websites in my life. A good combination of everything you need right now to do what I do. The thoughts are linked. Personally, I am a very, very, very optimistic person. Very much into spirituality I'm writing a book right now. I'm probably the most introverted extrovert you'll ever meet. I love my cappuccinos with oat milk and I have a six-year-old son.

Michael: I have to ask if I may.

Christian: Yes, please. I knew Michael, that this is interesting for you.

Michael: Introverted extrovert. How do you mean, how is that?

Isabelle: I really love to be in the center of attention sometimes when it comes to like being a party's, you'll find me on the dance floor and you'll find me having a lot of fun and I don't mind, taking the stage and giving keynotes. But at the same time, I'm also very much into philosophy. I love sitting at home reading books. I also really like my home and that's the safe space for me. I let people in and when I let them in, I let them in fully or maybe not always. It's a strange combination, sometimes I get stuck in it myself. It's something I'm needing to learn with. It's something I need to, learn to live with, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

Christian: Thank you for explaining. I was asking, cause I got to be careful what I say because she might be listening. I always thought that Patricia, my wife Is an introvert. And then she took a bunch of those personality tests and they all said she's very extroverted. And so, when you said that, I thought I know somebody else just like that.

Isabelle: interesting part of it is when I look at my private life versus my professional life, is that. My friends also know me as a person that comes in and says, oh my God, I have the next big idea. And I love to be, as I said, you'll find me on a dance floor as the first person on there couldn't care less. What other people think. But at the same time in my homes that I really just love being with my family and taking care of my son and just having a very safe space. Right now, for example, I'm very much, I got off Instagram for a while just because. Also, I wasn't really comfortable with sharing my personal life anymore. And then on the other hand, I love digital marketing. So, it's kind of a weird situation.

Christian: Sounds like a wonderful combination to me. That means, you know, both sides.

Isabelle: True. Absolutely.

Michael: You said you have so many ideas. Would you like to share some of the ideas you put into companies in the last years? I know at least there were some very interesting ideas there.

Isabelle: Yes course, my first company was an online shop in piloting material. Everything you can so very niche Everything a pilot needs from headsets to win bags for on your private airport to the bags, they put their stuff in. And then I also started a web shop in tutus till skirts, which was and an amazing success. It was great. We had eight different lengths and like 20 different colors of tutus. And it was a really cool brand around it. We said Cinderella never asked for a Prince. She asked for a night off and a huge ass Tutu. Everything was like girl power and it was very ballsy. And I had so much fun building that brand. It was nice. Unfortunately, I had to say goodbye to the company about two years ago, but I never regretted it once. Although so many people called me crazy for selling tutus, but it was such a thrill. It was such a ride and I really enjoyed it.

Christian: Nice kudos to you for doing that. That sounds wonderful.

Isabelle: Thank you. so that's the extrovert. She had a ride...

Michael: Tutus, maybe that was the extrovert side.

Isabelle: Yeah, absolutely. But it was great. And I think in the last year, at one point we opened a store and I remember the day. We had a lot of girls between the age of 16 to 32 and kids were our target audience, but it was for almost 16 to like 24. That was really our core group. And I remember opening a shop in the city center of Andrew. And went in like the best shopping streets we have. And the day before I told my staff, I was like, "Oh my God, imagine like nobody's coming tomorrow. Right? Imagine like, that would be horrible". All of us we went home. And the next morning I started getting text messages, from my bank director at 7:00 AM in the morning. And I thought, this is not good. Saturday morning, 7:00 AM. My bank director is sending me a text message. So I was like, Holy shit, I saw my name. And I thought that's something else. As an entrepreneur, you always get there for news. You never know what's going to be behind that text, but this is crazy. There are already people lining up in front of your store. In the end, we had like 100 people or something waiting before we opened up that specific store. It was such a ride. I'm so grateful for that experience and definitely entrepreneuring to the fullest there.

Christian: Our podcasts here, we call this a season. It's all about remote leadership. When you hear that term remote leadership, what does it mean to you?

Isabelle: When I hear that term, I hear a few things. I think one thing that I hear is that you have people all over the world, you need to lead which is been existing for a few years already. What I also hear is that we have this very shitty COVID situation where we have to remotely lead because we literally have no choice. And I think it's the art of leading people from a distance.

Christian: Since you mentioned the COVID situation, which does not feel so pleasant, quite a lot of times, I have to say, what has been the greatest learning or news for you in terms of working remotely and leading remotely? What was different a year ago or what's different now, where you go “Wow, that's been a big change”.

Isabelle: I think what I would like to keep from this situation is the hybrid way of working. What I really enjoyed was the in-between the two lockdowns in Belgium. We were allowed to go back to the office. And I remember just walking in, in the morning, being there for like three, four hours. And then during lunch, went somewhere else had pick something up and then I just finished my day at home. And that I really loved, so that's something I hope becomes the new normal, and we don't go back to how it used to be like being at the office all the time. On the other hand, obviously there are four walls and I just kind of seen them by now. That's something I learned too and realizing that other people on the other side of the screen are people too, and that's, I think the biggest learning for me is that it doesn't really matter that you're behind a screen. You can still make real connections. And you still need to take the time to ask how people are and definitely being in the situation. It's such a difficult place to be mentally sometimes, that I truly believe that. Taking the time with whomever, if it's the CEO I'm talking to or an owner, or if it's somebody, a junior that just started and which is crazy their first year on the job, and they're doing this remotely, I mean, can you imagine, I can't imagine. First of all, when I started, I had my own company, but when I was 20-21, I started working as a consultant and I was so happy to be around people as well. I think that's a big learning too. The fact that they need to get all the encouragement they can get to learn as much as possible in those first years.

Michael: How do you do that? What tips and tricks can you share? How to create those bonds, have people come close to another and establish rapport and you know, and have culture and values and all of that play a role, but what are your tricks? How do you do it?

Isabelle: Oh, those are many questions at the same time.

Michael: So, you could pick one that you like.

Isabelle: The trick default I think and I actually like it. I also feel that during my conversations. I get into depth with people that I haven't seen in person yet very quickly because I they're to be vulnerable. I dare to say that in the past few months, I've never been so intensely as well, unhappy myself, for example, I'm a super happy person most of the time. And I've also gone through really shitty times mentally, just because you're stuck at home. You have so much time to think that's the introverted part as well, by the way, I overthink everything. I have friends call it; they say. "Isabelle, you have like a lot of tabs open and then one of the screens is frozen and there's another one where music is coming from, but you don't know which one, so a lot of stuff going on at the same time", but I think being open and honest about the fact that, even though I'm most of the time, I'm a super happy person and I'm a grateful person too. But that sometimes it's not all roses and unicorns. And being able to say that, I think in the past months I have sold some really nice projects. Two big CEOs as well, and two huge companies. And I think one of the things was, is that I really took the time to get to know these people and ask them how they were and truly ask them how they were. And if they just said "fine", "are you sure? You're fine because you can say if you're not fine" and I think with people as well, taking the time to understand how they're doing, but also going for walks. I try to go for walks with team members a lot for them, but also for me, it's the I think, when you were talking about values. For me running a company value based is as you set your values super strict, you keep yourself to them. It's three strikes and you're out. And it doesn't matter if you're remote or not, values are inherently and, and you can sometimes mess up. I've also already messed up when it comes to values and it's how you learn. But I think that's the question which doesn't mean being really open as well and asking people if they understand your company's values

Michael: I feel values-based management is something I cherish deeply. And what you're mentioning there, it's my experience has been it's hard enough. To gauge if someone is in line with the company's values, as it is when we are together physically, where I can experience a person through all the senses and now, we're working remotely. And then I only have the sense of vision and of hearing.

Michael: And then maybe a little bit in between. What do you have any advice for me for how I can gauge if somebody is in line with the company values? When all I do is see them over zoom or teams or, or blue jeans or any of those?

Isabelle: I always used 15Five for that. It's a tool 15five.com. And it really helps me with when I set up values for a company. I also put; I'm just going to find the right English word for this. We would say [DUTCH LANGUAGE] in Dutch.

Michael: I was like something with indicators.

Isabelle: Indicators on how you have to behave as a person. But what we did always in those, or what we do in those 15 fives is asking them it's a, it's an online tool that they fill in on a weekly basis. And one of the questions that is asked is. Do you understand our company values? For example, what have you done in the past two weeks to celebrate something or what have you done in the past two weeks to show integrity? And that's something taking those, for example, it takes five minutes to fill in that. It changes automatically with 15Five, so you can set it up really quickly and easy. And on Mondays you can do the one-to-one. She takes the 15 fives. Everybody filled in. And it just really helps you to pinpoint. That's not exactly what we mean with that value. I think it's important. Values are a thing; you push against the wall. It's something you name it and it needs to be the right word, but then you also say, what does that value mean to you?

Michael: You check in on the values with everyone every week. Did I understand that correctly?

Isabelle: Right now, it's not something I do. I do it with the people I work with, but I used to do it in my company. So, on a weekly basis with that 15 five and it's it was a really good tool to have an oversight. We were with 15 people in total, which is funny. Anyway, I think every podcast I've been on, I've been promoting these guys. But it's a really good tool.

Michael: Sounds like they deserve it. Thank you for sharing it.

Isabelle: You're welcome.

Christian: Thank you. So, you went through different stages of working. So as a consultant, as an entrepreneur, and now as a director at UI. How is that different leading people and especially perhaps leading people remotely now than it has been in your own company?

Isabelle: Good question. I think the difference foremost, if I see now at UI, it's such a huge company with so many experts all around the world, which results in having a project. Literally right away, they'll say, Oh, you want to have that person on it. You want to have that person on it. And those people I haven't seen in my life I'm working with them all over the world, which makes it easy. We don't have to travel so I can work together with amazing people from all over the world. And it’s a huge company, it's thousands and thousands of people. If I look at and what I do. Have to add, is that what I noticed is that there's a certain way of working and there's a certain although there's a lot of freedom, there's definitely also a certain way of working. And if I would apply that to my company, for example, in the past it was just, although I love the culture at UI. It's just a different culture at my own company. I think the difference as well. The company I had, we had an average age of 26 or 27, which is young. I actually can't imagine that I would have led that remotely, but I can't say what the difference would be today. Although, I knew that it was an A-player team that was for sure.

Michael: I just looked up while you were talking about the number of people at a UI, and it says here on Google, that it's almost 300,000.

Isabelle: I think it's even more; I think it's 420,000 worldwide.

Michael: Over 300,000 people. Begs the question. What does work look like at the moment? And I take it that many of the 300,000 are at the moment, not in their offices are working remotely. What's a typical day in the, what do you call it? It's not the office. What's a typical day at warmup or for these 300,000 people working more or less together?

Isabelle: I think we have different service lines. Everybody knows E.Y. From the audit place. Finance audit. So that's still a big part of the company. On the other hand, we also have consulting services. We have financial service offerings that consultancy there. We have such a broad a broad offering. I think. How it works is that we, I think it works different for every service line. I can't speak for others. What I do know is that we're not allowed in the office right now, or we need to ask approval. So, they're very strict in that and I actually appreciate it because they've been stricter than the government has in the beginning just to be really, they, they wanted to make sure that nobody gets sick. And that's how it feels as well that they really take the decision based on what they want for the employees. And that's so much I mean, they'll follow the rules, but they'll be very strict in the best way. And how does my day look? It really depends. Right now, in the beginning I actually really enjoyed the first lockdown. I thought, Oh, this is nice. This is a bit quieter than usual. There's not somebody running behind me going like, ah, where's this. And then we had the opening up again and then it was hybrid and I really enjoyed it and got a lot of energy. And then the second lockdown, all of a sudden, my schedule was completely full back to back calls. And then I also had a project with the States, which was intense because then all of a sudden at night I was also in call. So, it was literally calls from morning till evening. And then one of the learnings I had and which I really don't like about the situation is that normally you would just walk in, in an office or you would just step, right. We all will have open offices, which are amazing. You're just no, walk by and ask a question. And now you have a minimum of like 15 minutes in a call and for one reason or the other, you feel the 15 minutes, which is not efficient.

Michael: How do you organize and communicate through all that? To replicate that experience of just walking in, or is it all meetings back to back?

Isabelle: I think the biggest challenge right now is, that's actually, the point I wanted to get to is managing your own schedule and making sure that you stay sane because we have a lot of work, which is amazing. Our clients are up and running. They want to keep on going. And right now, I really have blocks in my agenda, and because I noticed that I was in calls so much that I wasn't able to do my work anymore. So, it was just more and more and more, which does make you a happy person.

Christian: What are your strategies or your tactics for staying sane?

Isabelle: I'm definitely meditating. I do my morning ritual every morning.

Christian: The miracle morning.

Isabelle: Miracle morning, Christian. We met each other five years ago, I think, or six years ago this month. And Christian was telling me about like his vision board and how he's like manifesting the shit out of everything. And I'm this young entrepreneur I like. Holy smokes. I need to do what this guy's doing, right. Because whatever he's doing, it's working. So, he said, ah, Isabelle, you need to read the miracle morning. And I've been doing the miracle morning since, and I think Christian is a part of my day, every day. And he changed my life. I started my spiritual journey there too. I started the value-based journey there. I went through a lot of roller coaster in peeling off my onion. But I am getting at a point where most of my masks are gone now. So, it's a good place to be in five years’ time.

Michael: Good on you. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing that.

Isabelle: So, the miracle morning is one part. And what I also learned is I make my bed every morning, which makes a huge difference. I got that from the willpower instinct, which is an amazing book on how you can keep your willpower buckets full and making the bed every morning really helps me and I have a really clear example about that lost my company two years ago. It was such an intense bankruptcy as well, because it was just a very intense bankruptcy and going through that bankruptcy because I do, I made my bed every morning, which sounds so weird, but I realized now is that I had the energy to keep ongoing until the end and to deliver everything to the government officials and to just finish it off with a bow tie around it. And maybe it wasn't the most beautiful package, but it was a good package, nonetheless.

Michael: Same thing by the way, about making the bed.

Isabelle: Yeah. Good.

Christian: I hold that in very high regard. Well, it's something about, it's an easy part of life to get right. And I was inspired by a video that I saw about the stairs, this military commander.

Isabelle: The navy seal guy.

Michael: And then he talks like "while they're yeah. When you come home at night and there's a bed that is made and that it's nice, no matter what happened in the day" and first, I was just cracking up thinking this guy, can't be real talking about making a bed to all these army guys on Navy seals. And I listened to him and I thought, this is actually awesome. I love it. I totally agree. And it's so easy to start the day with that and to get the first thing right. And it's there for me when I come back later and I love it. It's as much discipline as I can bring up.

Christian: It's a feeling of accomplishment, achievement. I did something today, even in times of crisis, but all the world was crumbling down. So, this is just a stable point in my...

Michael: And it's at a time where I can stay at home. Really, totally let myself go. I mean, all I really have to do is be on the camera, like make sure that I wear something that folks need from the waste and what happens the rest could just all go to hell. I find this all part of keeping it together. I value that for me. It is important that I keep these things in order, even if the rest of life is changing, there's still something I can fall back on and enjoy.

Isabelle: I'm glad you have that too. It really helps. I think if people are listening that are having a hard time finding their way that that's probably the best place to start. And it takes like two minutes every day. And the cool thing is...

Michael: Some years ago, there was the video from the Navy seal’s guy. And no, it's these podcasters that talk about making a bed, remote leadership.

Isabelle: Honestly, it was cool though, is that when I started doing it the Navy seal guy, when I saw that video, I think, or was it the book? I don't know anymore. Anyway, somewhere I read, if you start doing this, then you actually want to make your bed better every time. So, you want to try to like make it perfect. What happened with me is that I started, I'm not doing it anymore. But it was just funny. I started making like flamingos with my towel. And they going to say, will you come home to that? You're like, Oh, this is Thailand and Belgium.

Michael: I can tell you when I start doing that, my wife and my kids will be really worried. Your father is making flamingos on the bed again.

Christian: Specially flamingos.

Isabelle: What's also important though, because you asked. It's about what would be what's the way of staying sane is, is once I realized that I was having these calls all day long and back to back is that I started putting blocks in my agenda, the strategy block getting things done, block a brain dump block. And it just it's really helping me because I have a lot more bandwidth in my brain, literally, because knowing, okay. Admin stuff is that moment. And everybody that has admin questions. Great. But you're going to have to wait till Friday to get them answered. I also have strategy block strategies that time and nobody gets to have.

Michael: So that's a certain day of the week. And then a certain time is when you say this is when I'm doing admin or strategy and how do you know how many hours to allocate to what?

Isabelle: I think if you want to do your job right, depending on where you are, in your journey, but the more you can work on your work instead of in your work, the better. With the strategy part as well, it's just for me right now, it's four to six hours. Admin part is three hours a week. And I used to in my company because. I'm an entrepreneur. That's my way of working. I've never met an entrepreneur in my life to date, convince me otherwise that loves doing administration. That's mostly not why they started the business. They didn't wake up one day and thought, Oh, you know what? I want to be an entrepreneur because I love administration. I love making all this stuff, all these things for the government. Well, I can't disagree that we have quite some admin too, but it's helping me structuring how I work. I'm grateful for it. I'm learning a lot by being there what I did in my company was a put four hours, Wednesday mornings as admin. And because people knew it wasn't really my strength or the stuff I really loved doing, they knew that, okay, she's going to put this time, Wednesday morning, those four hours are for admin and that's when we ask her about it. And we're not going to ask it any other time, but when she's doing that, we can ask her about it. We can remind her. And it really helped because for me it stopped all the clutter as well of thinking, oh shit, I have to do that. Letter or I have to put that information or that document. And I just knew, okay. I just put it all on that Wednesday morning and it helped very much.

Michael: It's fascinating, the topic of structure keeps coming up. We've heard a number of people that we speak with about remote leadership. And this is one that seems to be one of the recurring themes of, you know, having more structure. Having more processes doing goal setting tighter. So, a lot of the things that we normally do anyways now it's okay. I got to do this a bit better now because it actually helps to make it all more successful. And then there's a lot of people saying, Oh, actually, you know, it's quite enjoyable to do that. This is really working for the first time now.

Christian: I learned that from you. I still have an fixed appointment in my calendar, which is called Edmund Wednesday. And I also have a paper file here, which is called Edmond Wednesday from you. And it helps me having fun with admin stuff.

Isabelle: Oh, that's great to hear. I'm glad you're doing that. What I wanted to add was that what I find funny if that's, what's what keeps on coming up, if the structure part is coming up, is that so when I had my son I love him to pieces, of course, but he came unexpectedly and in the beginning I had quite a hard time with figuring out. Okay, so I'm becoming a mom, how does this work? I thought I was going to be running businesses all the time. So how do I handle this and, I read this amazing book by Gina Ford. It's called a consented baby. She's very strict, but what she said was what we need as babies is, we need structure. We need love, and we need to be taken care of. And I think as grownups, we sometimes forget that those are our three basic needs. And I think if we can get there again that we have structure in our lives and that we're taking care of and that we're loved or that we take care of ourselves. I think those three points just make big difference if it's remotely or not.

Michael: That's wonderful. I have two girls. One is six now and one is three. And, what's striking me, isn't that the changes that we are experiencing now in our lives and in how we work and all of that, you have the kids running to the video, or I wish I was, there seemed to be sensational just a year ago. Now it's almost cannot ever work. Without somebody bringing in the kid, which is lovely, what I'm wondering about is. Where's this going to go in the future. When, when our kids have grown up and they're going to work, or even as they go to school, now, what will the world be like in 10 years? Where is this leading us to and understood that Corona is at some point going to go away and it will be different again. And most people, I think, seem to agree. It's not going to be the old normal that there's a new normal, and we're finding out what that is, but what's your idea of the future, your vision, what's your intuition about what will this be like in five to 10 years?

Isabelle: Michael, are you ready to open this box of Pandora?

Michael: Oh yeah. Open the box.

Isabelle: I truly believe that how this is being handled right now is not the way to go. Even totally against it. I think this is not how the world intends to have people run around. I think what's good about what's happening with COVID is that it has pushed companies to accept and the world to accept digitalization as something they can't go around anymore. It just fast-forwarded digital transformation. But we, as humans are not made to not live and work together and to have social contact, we're social creatures, we need social contact. I truly hope that, I really love everything that's technology, but What I don't like is the, is the divide that it's bringing into our culture on so many levels. And you also see it with social media and my hope would be is that people will realize, okay, we can use technology and it can help us make our lives more efficient, but it can help make our lives more efficient to also have more meaningful connections and not so much from the rat race and not so much from let's create more and more and more. For children right now, I see my son who had a lockdown first. Who's not allowed to go to school again. And I see his gratitude and how happy is that he can play with his friends and that he can see them again. He goes to school every day with a huge smile. And that I think is a good thing that he realized, okay, this can be taken away from me. So now I have it. I want to be grateful for it. How that looks for the future. There are people in their first year of university now not being able to experience what we experienced at that age; I didn't go to university. I mean, not for long anyway, tried failed, but it wasn't for me, but I partied, I had fun. I met people there. I networked there. Although I'm happy with the speeding up of the digital part, as in we realize it's going to be part of our lives. I hope that the realization is going to be there too, that we really need social contact.

Michael: Can I share one of my utopias with you and see what you think?

Isabelle: Of course.

Michael: It's about the values thing. In the past, we lived in a world where the people that would come and work for a company where the people that lived nearby. So, it was geography was the main factor of what kind of people could apply for a job at a company that of course evolved and changed. And particularly for some people, in some jobs, it was easier to travel around, to move city. We did become more mobile. And then I think it became sort of about the channel. How to reach people that fit the company. And often I think it was more skills-based competency-based than values-based. And there seems to be a big trend, at least to me about values-based management, values-based leadership and the big realization that if the people in the company all share the same values, the company can be a lot more successful. So, here's my utopia. What if in the future. I can identify and hire people worldwide based on if their values fit with our company. And I wonder what would that organization be like and what would the culture be like and how joyous would that be? Because it would mean that we can make values actually a deciding factor or possibly a lot more than we have been able to in the past.

Isabelle: Yes, it could be a deciding factor. I absolutely agree. It would be amazing. I think if people can find each other that way, you see a big part of the society going there. What I do see on the other hand is what values, what I see as you get together, right? Values bring people together. And at the same time, we see so much polarity as well. And people are going in taking certain stance. I do believe that youth is probably going to go and go for that values. If I see why people, everybody's heard it Simon, sine X, Y how, what people buy, what, why you do it. And it's true. And I can see it in everything. I also tell my clients, if we do values exercises and. They say. Yeah, but I also just want to make a lot of money. I say that's fine. Just be honest about don't go. Don't be like the Holy Samaritan. It's fine. Just also tell me what's around that. You're in a business of something you want to make money. That's fine. Go ahead. But just do it in such a way. That's true to your values.

Michael: That's quite a nice future.

Isabelle: That'd be good, right? And it would be nice to have, like, I was talking about it with my son the other day we were talking about how cool would it be if you can move without having to like, if we could step on a plate and then just see when you go to Sydney right now, that would be utopia for me.

Michael: We'd love to go anywhere right now.

Christian: Speaking of utopia, we have a little gift for you, which is a magic wand. And when, when you swing that magic wand, you can send a message to all the leaders, all the entrepreneurs out there. What would be the one message you want them all to know?

Isabelle: The one message would be we're all in this together. We're all human beings. Everyone is going through this and. My message would be is the next person you have a call meeting with no matter how well or not well you know them, try to genuinely ask how they're doing and be completely open and vulnerable when they ask you how you're doing.

Michael: This has been such a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much Isabelle.

Christian: Thank you very much Isabelle.

Isabelle: My pleasure. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it.

Michael: Thank you.