Audio for transcript - Andrew

Christian: Hello, Andrew.

Andrew: Hello, Christian and Michael.

Michael: Hello, Andrew and Christian.

Christian: Hello Michael and Andrew

Christian: Who are you and what do you do?

Andrew: I’m a coach, an occupational psychologist, a consultant sometimes a trainer at other times and a partner to various different clients throughout the world.

Christian: Behavioral psychologists, no. And organizational psychologists.

Andrew: Yes. More organizational culture change. And people going through change, I suppose, would be the, would be the big coaching topic that I would do.

Michael: So you work with people a lot.

Andrew: A lot, Yeah, a lot. It's all people all the time, I do not work with technology or anything that is electronic. It's a people thing. But there might trade.

Christian: And that sounds like from a psychologist’s standpoint or point of view that should have been like 12, 14, very interesting months.

Andrew: It has, how can I put it psychologists, like helping other people go through change. They don't necessarily like going through it themselves. And I would say for the last 12, 14 months I had to go through as most changes my clients. And I would say I've catching up slowly. It's been a very interesting moment.

Andrew: A lot of I would describe as dealing with denial. And the deployment of denial as a coping strategy has been something quite amazing from the last year. Like this thing will just last three months and then we'll make everything in three months’ time and then three months passes.

Andrew: Well, maybe we'll make it in three more months. And then suddenly it's 15 months. The countries are shut down everywhere. And we're saying, you know what, maybe we need to think about doing something different at this point.

Michael: I love how this is starting it starting with denial. It starting with coaches are the people who advise other people on change or I help other people to change, but are not necessarily So willing to change themselves.

Michael: So taking these two things, the change or the past 15 months and the denial curve, what was your personal journey then if we go straight there and then we talk about other people.

Andrew: Yeah, it's a very good point. My personal journey is I think I actually do belong to the to the category of people that really didn't want to accept that this was a big thing.

Andrew: Although, it started for me, I was standing in the training room. It was nine o'clock in the morning. And somebody walked in and says, the company has decided to shut everything down, go home, get on an airplane, go home. And I thought, oh, this could be real. Then I went to the airport. And they're like, have you got a ticket?

Andrew: I said, no, I have one for Friday. Can I change it? They're like, and there was a big fuss about changing the ticket. And I got on the airplane and there were 12 people on the airplane, 12, it was some pilots. There was some air staff and half a dozen passengers, me being one of them.

Michael: And what happened from there on, so this was probably at the beginning of lockdown, wherever you were at the time, and then you flew home and it dawns on you that...

Andrew: No, it didn't at that point, I flew home. It dawned on nobody. Everyone just thought, well, you know, a couple of months and we'll be fine. So I looked in my diary and said, okay, we need to move some things three months. And that was, everything was fixed. I went, well, I have some gaps in my diary. I can read some books.

Andrew: I can go for a walk. This is a gift.

Michael: Lovely.

Andrew: Yeah. And then the process repeated three months later and six months later, and then at this point, Hmm, maybe, maybe, maybe I need to eat some of my own dog food here. That will be a useful thing to do.

Michael: So it sounds kind of our journey Christian, you remember?

Christian: Yeah.

Michael: You were sitting there in March 1st, locked on happening on whom. It's nice with time though. Yeah. Wonderful. I got to read some books and then we decided we're going to write a book. And then we wrote a book three months later, four months later, the menu script is there and oh, Hmm. What do we do now?

Michael: And then. Oh, how did the journey continue for you? How did you deal with the change Andrew?

Andrew: Well, at some point then you need to figure out, this is real. And I kind of sat down and said, you know what? This could last two years, this could last three years. This could be the war time for our generation.

Andrew: And I started saying, okay, this is continuing. I now need to act. Like this is going for the next two or three years. And it meant having some challenging conversations with clients along the lines of, you know, what, if your job is to be the learning and development person and to make things happen in your company, you've made nothing happened for the last six months.

Andrew: And your plan is to not make something happen for the next three months. And you're running out of year. And actually, that sort of facing up and having that, that straight direct kind of conversation that says, you know what, we got to think differently here. And some of the, of my clients said, you know what?

Andrew: Yeah, okay. Let's, let's do this. Let's put the date in the diary and at it's happening online on zoom or, or whatever the format is. But if by miracle you can travel, you travel. But if not, we make the appointment, we hold the appointment, we do it. And we are keeping our promises from now on. And things for me began to change.

Andrew: Like September the kids went back to school, September, it all became, you know, it, it kicks off again in the, in the learning world. And since then, we've totally lived in the idea that this one is gone is only going to last for another three months, but we are booked in it's happening. It's done. It's decided it's on.

Michael: And then now we are nine months after that.

Andrew: 9 months after that and I still see every single day, we just need to vaccinate three more people. And it’s on, and now we're talking vaccine passports and we're talking all of this type of thing. And I think there was something to be gained from this world and I think we should actually maybe focus on that.

Michael: So when you hear the two words that this podcast is all about remote leadership, what comes to your mind?

Andrew: I would say that there's a, the first word that comes to mind. If you were to do a Freudian test on me would be something like potential.

Andrew: There actually is a potential here. If. I, we, you are actually willing to look at it and, and to say, and I've started to look at what the potential gains could be from this. And I'm thinking that we shouldn't go back to the old way. We should continue forward in a more hybrid kind of way. And I think we should take the gains out of this and then do something with that going forward.

Andrew: And there definitely are gains and there definitely are thoughts about it.

Michael: What are the gains? What has worked particularly well, where 15 months after the beginning of the Corona situation, you can count the Italian go, oh, actually here are some nuggets in this that I want to keep for the future or that the world can keep for the future cause it's better.

Andrew: If I start with a simple one on me. So, if my job is, is training development, coaching, those kinds of things. Then a contract needs to be kind of signed. And there was a kind of a ritual that the contract always had to be signed face-to-face in person. So, you always had to go meet face-to-face to close the deal.

Andrew: For me that means two flights down to Europe and overnight in a hotel and two flights back for a one-hour meeting.

Michael: We should probably say you're based in Ireland.

Andrew: I'm based in Ireland. While it's a very beautiful place. It's not located in the middle of Dusseldorf for somewhere like this, you know?

Andrew: What that would mean is that I would have to say, oh, this is great that, you know, we're getting together to do it, but it's two days out of a diary for one hour of work. And now I can sort of go. Well, you know, it would be great if we could meet together, but as we can't, why don't we just signed this contract kind of virtually and, you know, do a cup of tea and little ceremony along the way.

Andrew: It takes up one hour of my time. Now if I come with that idea and go to a client like I did, I was sitting with a client that presents physical products. And it's not this product, but let's just say, for example, it's a shoe, it's a safety shoe. And if you look at the, where the salespeople were spending their time, they were spending more time driving than they actually were in front of a client because they drove around to various different companies.

Andrew: So, what does that mean? It, in a perfect world, they could go to an industrial park and meet five clients in the day, but it never worked that way. They were never available. So, you got one in the north, one in the south, one in the east and one in the west. Typical was two appointments a day. Good was three, a miracle was four.

Andrew: And I'm sitting in front of, because I'm their coach for a different program. And I'm saying, do you know what, if we could actually learn how to present this product remotely, you could meet more clients. So, what does this mean is that it's about building a pack of stuff that could be sent to a client and then having a pitter-patter.

Andrew: To get the client to open the box or unbox it as we call now and then to start to demo the product. And the thing about physical products is clients need to hold and feel them touch them, bang the table with them, you know, safety shoes. You want to squeeze it and show it soft. And then you want to hit the toes and show it's hard.

Andrew: There's a ritual about it. I don't know what it is. So suddenly, I'm sitting with the sales team saying you could do six appointments. You could still have lunch. And you could make more money and, that came out of that idea came out of me, not needing to fly somewhere and then how to convert it then from there.

Christian: Thank you, Andrew. So, we already talked in other episodes about the sales people and one excuse is always I have to build a relationship with my customer and this doesn't work if it's remote. So, it's easier if you see if it's not job, if you can shake hands. Well, what's, what's your take on relationship building? In, in sales or even other positions remotely.

Andrew: I'm inclined to partly agree with it, that it when it came down to getting new business, it was definitely easier to do that remotely with people that you've met before. So, I found that my sales guys were more comfortable starting with people that they knew and they've met before.

Andrew: So definitely yes, there was a go-to, which is go to the people that I know, at the same time, there are people out there that need to buy something. And if you can be somewhere charming, some way friendly, some way helpful, somewhere useful, somewhere kind, and give them the time to buy what they want and answer all the questions that need to answer and maybe take the care to send the thing to them and let them feel it, hear it, touch it, smell it or whatever, and be available a lot.

Andrew: I think it's possible to build a relationship.

Christian: So that sounds like two approaches. The one that the first one is relationship first sales later, and then you just show sales first because they need something to buy. And then perhaps there's a relationship building up in the future.

Andrew: Yeah. There's a certain amount of that. I'm also working with a lot of leaders at the moment. Have recruited people to their team during the last year, and I've never physically really met them. So, they noticed that at the very start, they had one new person in the team. If this makes sense, and everyone else they knew, and then sometimes the balance can change.

Andrew: The 30% of the team could be new. The graduate intake came last summer and there's another one coming in some months’ time. And it doesn't look like they're going to be meeting until the ultima or latest, and they've never physically been in the same room and met people.

Andrew: So, for that, definitely some form of video calling some form of regular calling, some form of connection. And what I've noticed there that's different is when people sit in an office, they kind of get a collective unconscious as to what's going on in the office. So, you can feel that there's tension in office.

Andrew: If there is an office, you can see people going by, you can hear the other phone calls. And that's gone when you were working remotely and that's especially gone if it's your first job. So, the question then is how do we get people into that and how do we connect them in more ways? So, you know, a chat, connection, zoom connection and actually it's not enough to give you a goal.

Andrew: It's actually better. If you got your employee to say, okay, this is what I hear. And this is my offer. And actually, in that, getting them to make the offer that seems to go over really well on zoom. And it seems to overcome the limitations of managing remotely.

Michael: Here's a question. So, I'm wondering, cause, you work as a coach you train coaches.

Andrew: Yes.

Michael: You work with a lot of leaders in businesses, some very big businesses. So, what have you seen in the last 15 months with the remote situation being as it is currently, what successful leaders are doing right? What's working?

Andrew: What's definitely working is actually to have a little bit more one-on-one time with their various different people.

Andrew: So, there is the collective meeting. In the collective meetings people can get lost, let's say newer, quieter shier kind of people can get lost. So, a definite kind of like looking their person in the eyes as how are you and what's going on? The second thing is we have an idea in this part of the world, this idea of separating work and life, you know they don't have the yeah, you and I have worked down in the Gulf and places like that and that separation is not there.

Andrew: And at this time depending on which country, but in my country for the last year, the kids have been to school three months of the last year. This means the rest of the time they've been at home doing their education on zoom in the same houses, their parents who are also working from home.

Andrew: So, to actually spend time with people to say, Hey, how's it going? What's going on in your house? Like, is there something that we can do to support? And then some support for technology and support with stuff would actually make the, it would make a real difference. You know, like buy somebody, a decent camera or a decent microphone, or a decent, a decent tool to get the job that they need to get done.

Andrew: And I think if you have children in the house, then some kind of understanding as to, okay, listen. You know, you got to go feed them at some point, you know? And, and they may not stick to wanting to be fed exactly at the end of your overrun meeting. So, a little bit of balance of family discipline and work discipline, probably useful thing.

Michael: I see that more and more in meetings and workshops and in training sessions and coaching saw that the kids pop up. And it's what I observed in myself is quite interesting, there's, one side in myself is then, oh, that's nice. You know, I get to see the kids and that's lovely.

Michael: It's kind of like, you know, when. Colleagues used to bring the kids into the office and they would come in and see where mommy or daddy works. And it's, that was always, you know, endearing. And the other side is thinking, oh my God, now all the people are going to have all the kids in all the video meetings all the time.

Michael: So where is this going to go? So, it's like, there's a new stream of business. Etiquette.

Andrew: Yeah.

Michael: Evolving, and I suppose the bigger thing behind that observation is what is this going to do culturally, in terms of talking company culture, and we have a lot of companies that we work with or people that come here and that we speak with them, that the chairs yet we have core values and we work with values and they guide our culture.

Michael: And I'm fascinated by the question right now is all the core values helping in the current situation. Are they giving you strength or is it challenging the culture of the company to evolve, to be able to cope with the remote situation?

Andrew: I think if we look at paternity leave maternity leave and the idea of who takes care of children, I think if we need to have any kind of cultural change, it's more of a balance in that direction.

Andrew: And what became apparent to me was that even if it was a you know, a male who's on the call, the kids don't like, sort of say, well, it's okay for daddy to be on the call all day. If they want his attention, they want his attention. And actually, in homes, there seems to be a bit more of a balance of taking care of kids.

Andrew: But there's a pretense for work that men don't take care of kids. So, you often see females saying, I need to go get kids from daycare and guys don't say that, but at home you can't hide from that excuse the kid is in your lap and say, hello, you know

Michael: Equalizer isn't it?

Andrew: It's a great equalizer. I think what it has also done for me. That's kind of cool, if anyone brings a kid to work. That kid has been washed, polished, shined, new clothes are on. So that is the best version of that kid that you can have when you see people's houses like a kid walks in with holding his own nappy.

Andrew: And saying, I need another one of these, you know and you, the insight for me was everyone's house is actually remarkably similar, not as perfect as the outside, but inside has a slightly more homely feel to it, let's put it that way.

Michael: It's more real. And what do you see with the companies that you work with?

Michael: How are they coping with being more remote and how are leaders coping and what needs to get better?

Andrew: I would say at the start, they coped really badly. It's a lot of people hunched over laptops and a lot of ideas that everybody needs to be on the call all the time. And for me, there was a total boom in what I think is now called zoom fatigue.

Andrew: So, for me, it was great. There was six months last year where everybody wanted coaching on dealing with exhaustion. From kind of not moving or doing nothing and you know, so that was great. And bring it up. Sadly, there is a way to fix it and that kills your business a bit, but why not? But effectively it's this idea of really stage managing the call who needs to be on show, who doesn't need to be on the show and not everybody needs to be on show in every call all of the time for participation.

Andrew: Yes. Learning. Yes. Voting. Yes. But actually, when it comes to processing, what's, what's going on. Some people will say, you know, what, if I could just sit comfortably and listen, I would process what's going on. And I would be able to come back with a more idea. And for that, I don't want to be sit fixed hunched over my laptop for the duration of the call.

Andrew: So, I would say this idea of saying, asking people, what is it? You need to be more effective as opposed to, you have to be limited by the technology. If I looked at a second point, sorry, Christian go.

Christian: Oh, okay. No, thank you. I just wanted to come back to the to the one-on-one you said more one-on-one time.

Christian: Between people apart from, from the big meetings before our podcast recording, I had one hour with Michael and we had no agenda. We just sat there and talked to each other and try to figure out what is the relationship like? What is important for the other one and what's next?

Christian: So are there any other tips, tricks, and tools or methods. You can share of which, I can use for its only for me, it goes to view.

Andrew: It's a great question. And I'm not prepared with an answer. I still go back to it's about the question you ask. Are you asking about, Hey, is this stuff done?

Andrew: Or are you asking how fit are you today to get stuff done? How was your energy level today? How was your productivity today? What do you need? to be more productive. And my observation of lots of zoom calls is that they pack so many things into the time. There's absolutely no time to have a personal conversation.

Andrew: So, I think you've hit the nail on the head here by saying we're going to have a meeting with no agenda, except, how are you? And we have an hour, so there's nowhere to hide, you know, at some point it's going to come out. How are you? And I think that idea sort of along the lines of what is it that you need and not to be embarrassed about the fact that you don't know how to use a piece of technology, or you don't know how to do something or you're not set up right.

Andrew: To do it. So how do we get you set up? And, and the idea here is that it's not, oh, that's your house, that's your responsibility. The ideas. We are in partnership together and it is our job to move, whatever it takes to move, to help you to do whatever you want to do.

Christian: So coaching is all about asking the right questions.

Christian: What questions could I use for that? So how are you, is one question. Are there any other questions out of the trick box?

Andrew: I think if you ask, how are you, the typical answer you'll get is fine.

Michael: It's like when the kids come home from school.

Andrew: Yeah. Good, fine. But you know, so, I, in fact, you can even see two people walk down a corridor and one say, how are you today?

Andrew: And keeps walking before the other one says, well, actually I'm feeling a bit rubbish. So, I think how are you when. Yeah, you could try it. It doesn't work. I think it's more about if you were to dream about being more effective, what would be on your list of things to have, or things to need.

Andrew: And if we could support you in some way to be more effective and I don't mean more effective because you're not being effective, I mean more effective than great. You know what I mean? And, and if you were the boss. What would you do? And compared to me and you guys, you guys are quite technologically savvy, so you probably wouldn't have a lot of questions around what, how do you use technology and how to use cameras and microphones and all this type of thing.

Andrew: But if it was me, I'm not. So, I'd be saying, how do I get this thing to talk to that thing? And this thing not to shine upside down. Would be my kind of question. And if somebody answered that, I would feel a lot better, you know, I would really feel a lot better.

Christian: So, and that will help you in fact, to be more productive and effective.

Andrew: Yes because when I, or others that I observed are working in the zone of their total incompetence, it takes a lot of time, a lot of effort just to get to mediocre results. So what I want to do is not spend time there. I want to get out of that fast. And then I want to spend time in my area of competence and actually deliver something useful or good or positive or, or whatever.

Michael: What's the most inspirational or motivating or crazy stuff that you have seen. A person does in the last year or so to deal with a remote situation?

Andrew: I wouldn't say crazy, but I would say if I live on the south coast of Ireland, it's a low population. And one of the things stopping some organizations from growing was they, there isn't enough people living in the village, you know, too, with the technical skills to do it.

Andrew: And what became apparent in the last year was, well, if I was the leader and all of my people are sitting at home and I'm interacting with them on zoom, why do they need to be in the same village? Why couldn't they be from another end of the country? Why couldn't they be from another country? So, I'm now working with a leader and he's saying I can recruit from the world, from the world.

Andrew: And there is no shortage of people. There must be like in doing what we do at least 50 people in our planet that can do it. And I need to figure out a way to get to them. And now this person who lives in, who works from home at the moment in this small little village house by the sea near me.

Andrew: Has a team from five different continents in a village, in a fishing village in Ireland. Think about that for a second.

Andrew: So, no limitations whatsoever, apart from your ability to dream and your ability to connect to people from different cultures.

Michael: And what do I need to get ready for to manage that?

Michael: What are the, I'm sure there must be something that's not going to be all that easy with people being all over the planet, working together. So, what is it that I got to be ready for it and good at as the boss.

Andrew: I would say there was a time when productivity was measured by the amount of time you spent in the office, and there were even games that people played that they would come in and hang their coat over the back of the chair.

Andrew: So, their boss could see they were in and then they would go have breakfast. And this presenteeism, these kinds of silly games and the idea that says, I know people are working because I can see them kind of working that is all to do with a limitation of a leadership style. And actually, it's not about that.

Andrew: I say we get rid of those kinds of leaders. We get leaders to hire people that want to get stuff done. And the leader says, I'm not your babysitter. I'm not your thing. If you need something, tell me, and I'll make it happen. And I'm not going to judge you for the thing that you might need.

Andrew: Everyone needs a resource of some kind, whatever it is you need, then I will help you with that. I'm not going to sit over you. I'm not going to watch you. I'm going to give you a task. You make me an offer. I accept the offer, get it done, whoever you want to do it. And especially if you're in different time zones and things like that, you may be working while I'm sleeping.

Andrew: Fine. I'm not going to get up in the middle of the night and check that you're actually working, get the stuff done so...

Christian: that you hang your coat over the chair...

Andrew: On the zoom call you don't put on your suit. So, I've got a photograph.

Christian: Better get up and check.

Andrew: So this idea, this old-fashioned leadership style, got to go.

Christian: So, thank you very much, Andrew. We're coming to the end and so there's a little present for you. It's like a magic wand. And you as a psychologist and a coach, you have the opportunity to tell all the leaders outside all the managers one thing and they will hear it and they will understand it.

Christian: So, what would that be? Your message.

Andrew: Mine would be that the current situation that we're in right now, actually, is an opportunity for experimentation. What was really great at the start was it was acceptable to be mediocre at experimenting with zoom calls and technology and things like this. So, this idea about being it's okay.

Andrew: That we're doing something new. It's okay to be mediocre. We're all pretty mediocre at it. Actually, it's a really good place to start. And I would say now lean into that and we say, okay, what is the advantage of this? What do we get out of it? What's in it for you. You have no recruitment limitations.

Andrew: Now you have people that want to, that can connect with you from anywhere and can deliver whatever you want to do. So now, what do you want to do and free yourself from the limitations of that, people are only doing something if you're standing over them and actually watching them.

Christian: I thank you very much, Andrew.

Michael: Thanks Andrew. Good to be together.

Andrew: My pleasure, my total pleasure.

Christian: And next time we meet in Ireland in person.

Michael: Hopefully in the pub by the coast village, everybody sits at a laptop and is working remotely around the world.

Christian: 50 people from five different countries. Thank you very much. Have a nice day and a good week.

Christian: Bye bye.

Andrew: All right, bye.