Hello and welcome to the Virtual Frontier the Podcast about Virtual Teams created by Team. Disclaimer, all of our interviews are conducted virtually. I'm Daniel your host and I'm part of the team here at the Virtual Frontier. In this episode, we welcome Tara Powers as our guest. Remote work and Home Office has become quite a thing during 2020, right? But guess what? It isn't new at all. Tara could be already called a Virtual Teams veteran as she has worked on the scheme of work since decades. With her book Virtual Teams for Dummies she was in the best selling charts long before the pandemic hit us and many of us were forced to work this way out of the blue when offices and physical workspaces were shut down. Today, I talk with Tara about her new book, Working from Home, how to Establish Authentic Connection in a Remote Working Environment and What It Means to have the permission to be fully human at work. A quick mention of our sponsor, Flash Hub Build your virtual team systematically and methodically. If you want to learn how to scale your business at any time, and make work better. Visit FlashHub.io/start to get free access to the virtual business builder training. Learn in this free training how you can build, grow and scale your business with Virtual Teams and global freelancers. If you like to show subscribe on YouTube, reviewed it on Apple Podcast follow us on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon music or any other platform you like for podcasting. So without further ado, let's dive into Episode 36 of the Virtual Frontier. Enjoy the Conversation.

Hi, Tara. Thank you very much for joining us today. It's great to have you here on this show to Virtual Frontier Podcast. Um, actually, I got to know about you with your last book that you wrote about Virtual Teams. And then I followed you over the last year. And I just recently found out that you have written a new book, which is a good fit for everyone working right now from home, Title is work from home. And yeah. But before we start with our topic today, might you want to give us a short introduction about who you are, how you ended up in this environment with virtual work and Remote work? I think there is a long history, but please go ahead.

Well, thank you, Daniel. It's great to be here. I love doing a global Podcast right and getting to talk to different audiences. So thank you for having me. Yeah, my background is I have had a small boutique consulting company here in the United States for a little over 20 years. And my folk, my main focus has been working with leaders and teams and I've done that for a really long time, helping them either learn to lead more effectively, collaborate better, build more stronger cohesive teams. And that's been what I've been doing for a long time. And about seven, eight years ago now, I think some of my big clients, larger organizations started to ask me about what what did I know about virtual work? What did I know about teams that had half of the people in the office and half of the people at home or in the United States? Something that was pretty popular a few years ago was called hoteling. So they would actually take, you know, their large org, these large organizations, these buildings that have, you know, all kinds of cubicles with numbers on them. And instead of just being able to go to a cubicle that was yours every day, you would log on to a system like a hotel system and have to reserve your spot because they didn't have enough room for everybody. So that would force teams to not all be in the office at the same time. And they were really starting to feel this struggle with keeping the teams connected, keeping everybody on the same page, communicating effectively. And so I was noticing this is a real trend with some of my clients. And even though I've been working virtually for, you know, 20 years I've had my business, I should probably do some research and find out what is working, what the challenges are. So I hired a organizational psychology firm who builds surveys and we built a validated survey and had several Fortune 500 companies here in the US completed. We had three different levels. We had executives take it who were supporting Virtual Teams or considering going virtual with some of their workforce. We had leaders who were leading Virtual Teams or partially virtual, and then we had employees who were working virtual and some who were not. And we put together this really amazing research study, which eventually, you know, I was posting about I was talking about we build a white paper on it. And that is where I got asked to then write the book Virtual Teams for Dummies, which is the popular Dummy series. Mostly everybody around the world has heard of it. And in in doing that, I actually did more research because I then reached out to companies who were 100 percent Remote for the book to find out what they were doing, that was working, what wasn't working. And you'll notice if you do have that book, I interview a lot of well-known companies who are virtual and how they make it work. So that's the long story short of how I got into this whole Remote field.

Oh, interesting. And as I could listen, you started off this whole Remote and virtual work a couple of years ago, long before, let's say we started last year worldwide before working Remote everyone or let's not say everyone, but a huge amount of the Workforce went remote. But you did it already like seven, eight years ago, and were teaching other companies and leaders how to overcome those struggles you just mentioned about building to use in different settings, hybrid, whatever. So this is this is already what is very, very interesting.

Yeah, I've been working with it a long time now. Definitely. I think there's some some things that have changed, but not a ton. Right. What makes good communication in a virtual environment hasn't shifted because of the pandemic. I think it's just now in the forefront. So my book, which I think was published in twenty eighteen, I would have never imagined that it would be so relevant today for a lot of people. Yeah, I have people reach out to me a lot that say we're using your book. We all read it. I had a professor reach out to me recently who had the her whole class read the book and she had me come on and speak virtually. And I thought that was really interesting. Because I tend to be very practical and tactical in the way that I work as a consultant. I really look for what is the simplest and easiest path to success and because I'm dealing with people, it normally is, you know, a shift in Mindset behavior approach, style, building, emotional intelligence. And it's not hard. It just needs to be thoughtful and intentional for people to build those things. So anyway, yeah, it's been a journey. Yeah.

And speaking about this journey, just as you mentioned, the university there, there were a lot of challenges for for all of us the last year, a lot of Change was coming up. And so I was also wondering, as an expert in working many years in this area, also in leadership and human resource, what did change for you, what challenges you might confront on by yourself during the last year having my two kids at home doing work time. What was how you got affected by the situation and what challenges you might have and how you did overcome them?

Yeah, I think there's been challenges and blessings and the challenges certainly we were discussing right before we started as both of my children are home right now working on their laptops and eating up bandwidth. And so, of course, my work requires me to do a lot of this, being on webinars and Calls and not be having highly, you know, functional, secure Internet 24/7 has definitely been a challenge, but nothing we can't work with. Right. But also, you know, I think just the demands of wanting to be a active and participative and present parent while your kids are home with you and then also trying to build and continue to work and build your company, a consulting company, and maintain connections. It's just been really challenging, feeling like I'm doing a good job at either of those things. I do feel that my kids are a little older, a two girls, 11 and 13, and they are able to do some things on their own, which I don't know if I had smaller kids, which I believe you might, that would even make it more difficult. Right, because they need you. They have to have you there helping them. So I think just the presence being present, I felt like I wasn't present at work all the time. I wasn't present at home all the time. And I think it did take a toll on me. I definitely, over the last ten months have struggled with sleep stress more than I have ever in the past. And so I am right now actually working on those things by trying different things I haven't done before. I'm trying to meditate. I'm trying to make sure I just was talking about this with my husband today. Like, whatever I did last night did not work because I didn't sleep. So I was looking at work stuff. Right. I was just planning out my week. But that was the last thing I did before I went to bed, and so I was thinking of all the things that I had to get done this week, which is a lot, and I didn't sleep at night. So I think I have to get really better at how I'm managing my time and my wellbeing and keep, I'm keeping a journal now of when I sleep and what I was doing before I went to bed, what I eat, you know, when I'm not sleeping, what am I doing to really try to hone in on what is going to work for me to create more well-being and less stress and health? I think that's probably the biggest thing that I've noticed that most people are struggling with, is that sense of well-being. And whether that's balance, like I was mentioning with family and work or just how overall health and staying connected to things that matter to you eating well, getting outside. It's so easy now that people work from home that we basically can sit. And I do it right. You probably do. Do you sit down and the next thing you and you had all these good intentions. I'm going to take a walk. I'm going to go work out. I'm going to walk my dog. And it's one o'clock in the afternoon and none of those things happened. And now you're well into your day and you've been sitting at your computer for already seven hours. So, you know, I think it's a real struggle for most people. But I am trying to personally create different habits and try different things that I haven't done before to get in front of it, because it can easily just take you down, take you down, I think, as a business owner.

Yeah, thank you very much for sharing that with us Tara, because everyone has something to challenge on or a struggle with, even the experts and I tried it in the last episode I always like to get like a little introduction or insight about what is happening to to my interview partners I'm talking with because even they are mostly professionals in their specific capacities. Everyone everyone has to challenge something and there are different ways to go for it. And what's nice to hear that you took the way to write journal, to have like awareness about what is happening in your day. And I think this is very important. And I would also mention, like the acceptance, right to see, OK, I'm tired, I should get more sleep or I have overworked. I should they probably take a day off and do the action steps. But you need to be aware of that first in the first place and a journal can be helpful.

Yeah. And you know, I wanted to ad because you mentioned this just last week. You know, I have some things that I promised some clients. It's actually a partner that I'm working with and I had a lot of stress last week. Lots of stuff going on. We have a family member who's ill. And I was dealing with this this insomnia that I mentioned and I just had to reach out. And I normally, if you're consultant and you own your own business, you'd never want to say no to your clients, right. You know, you always want to over deliver and you always want to provide the best service. And that's been my kind of what I've done for 20 years. And I basically reached out and said, I cannot get you what I promised you this week. And here's why. And here's my plan right when I'm going to get it to you. And they were OK with it, right. Where, you know, they were totally understanding. And I think sometimes we have to just give ourselves a little more grace, especially since we're still in this pandemic and ask for help when we need it. And and be honest with the people, even our clients sometimes because we're all human. And I do think in some cases, a lot of people are trying to do everything at the level that they did before with very, very different and new circumstances. And and it will burn you out. I think, you know, I'm definitely trying to work with that, with some of that burnout myself so yeah.

But if you're burned out, you wouldn't have any value to your customer because burned out you can't deliver anything, right?

That's right.

I think it's always and I would like to get back to that as well later. Like the well being, is like also an economic factor for the company or in this case, just as you mentioned from the customer. Everyone should be having the interest that my counterpart or partner or time is also in the well-being state and not like the five before burned out.

Yes. Yeah, well, being directly correlates to engagement levels. Right. So if you are not paying attention to well-being, if you're a leader and you are working with a team and and well-being isn't a topic that you talk about and try to perhaps collaboratively support with each other, you and and people are suffering. You are going to see levels of disengagement and productivity drop. Right. I mean, this example of myself, I'm giving you a perfect example. Right. But I'm very open about it. I'm trying to figure out what's happening, how do I change it? I'm trying new methods. But if I if I wasn't open about that and my manager wasn't asking about it and I felt it was uncomfortable to share that because I might appear weak or I might appear like maybe, you know, I can't do my job, then what's happening, right? What's happening is I'm hiding it. I'm not I'm disengaging. I'm not certainly not giving it my all when I show up, I'm probably not connecting with my team as well as I should. So it definitely is something to pay attention to. And here in the United States, well-being is moving high up the priority chain in terms of what companies are starting to pay attention to, because that's one thing the pandemic has done, is shown a spotlight on this topic and that it is important and necessary for organizations to pay attention to it. So it's definitely something we're talking about here, but how is it what's happening in Europe? Is that something that's that's being discussed at all?

Oh, I would like to dive into that a little bit more of a few them especially I'm getting also from from you are much more deep inside about how companies act or organizations act differently in different countries or continents. Right? Of course. And in Europe or for example, also in Germany, as I'm a German, there's always like this, not laziness, but I would say people are still in the in the waiting period or that they are just waiting for something to happen, right some changes. And I see probably in the U.S. also in different other countries, they are much more Agile and getting things like moving because. Probably the Social Security level is not so high, so you have to get things really moving on your own on your own initiative, and if you don't move, nobody will move it. And there I see a difference. But but getting back to that, how do you see that as you are also in communication and training with customers or other companies in the organization you see, how they did adapt in the last year. What challenges they have or how they re-think their way of doing business? You just mentioned that part of the well being is there is still more stuff that you have observed.

Yeah, yeah. I think the companies that are getting it right are definitely prioritizing well-being. And what that looks like is in a Remote environment is that teams are working. So they they're very specific about the types of meetings and connection time that they create. And so one way that they are addressing well-being is really making sure that they that they're building time for teams to connect socially. And what they're finding is the more connected socially teams are, the more trust they have, right. It starts to lower their stress levels. It it it's tapping into something in our brain that's very important, which is authentic human connection. And it's then impacting in a positive way their ability to meet their deliverables and their productivity levels and their engagement levels. So that's one thing I am seeing is that companies are prioritizing not just meetings where we're talking about what got done, did we hit our goals, what's the numbers this week? But actually scheduling meetings that are specifically for connection. So that's one thing. The other thing that's really popular in the United States are what we call employee resource groups. So we call them ERGs. And those are basically, I like to explain it as they're are groups that employees can volunteer or choose to be a part of that align with something they care deeply about or they're excited to be a part of. So you can have an employee resource group that's all about, you know, helping diverse groups move up into leadership positions in your organization. And then they really focus on how can we help make that happen? Maybe we need to outsource training or education or bring a program in-house. That's one example. Another employee resource group could be a group that cares about food and making healthy meals, right. And they get together and they share recipes and they do things like like cook together. So there's just a lot of different ERGs that allow again and allows employees to tap in to like minded folks who appreciate or have a passion about something that they do as well. And they a lot of companies will give them time to meet during the workweek. Right. Because they know investing in that type of authentic connection where you're aligned around a passion you care about is going to help the company in the long run. So the ERGs are also really important. Let's see what else have I noticed? Definitely. What I'm seeing in my work, because I do a lot of leadership development work, I work with teams any time I'm being asked to put together a program, they the companies want to know how are we ensuring that what we are delivering in terms of leadership development is inclusive, you know, and in equitable for all. So we're making sure we are including everybody. There's a variety of voices represented and diverse perspectives. And so that actually has made me, I think, become a better business owner. Right. I have to think about those things as I build e-learning, as I build when I do videos. It can't always just be me, right. I have to consider bringing in diverse viewpoints and people who don't necessarily look like me. And that's actually making me better. I feel like I'm meeting the needs of everyone, right. Instead of maybe not thinking about that as much as I was before. So those are a couple of things. Yeah. That I'm noticing.

It just remember me about a conversation I had last week, also a Podcast guest Nico Rose, you could also dive into that maybe next week, which was interesting because he was mentioning some experience. I don't remember right now who he was mentioning, but they do just Ninia Calls, means just pick up the phone and call your co-workers. Right. Unexpected and don't write messages, call them and see what happens. Because one struggle or challenge is that in this virtual environment, we're working all together right now. Most of the things have to be scheduled. Right. And something out of the box, which is not scheduled, which is like spontaneously you think about a colleague or co-worker and wondering how they're doing. Just give them a call and surprise them, because this is something that so many people anymore are expecting. Yeah. Or out of the scheduled work we have right now.

Yeah. And if I can add to that, one of the ideas that I like to tell people about is think about, as, you know, the money you used to put in piggy banks for your kids that, you know, if you ever did that. But I can remember growing up, my dad would come in every night after work and he'd put some Change into my piggy bank in my in my room. It isn't really much different right. Right now with everyone working Remote and honestly, the way we work will change forever because of this. And we will probably always now have aspects of Remote work and as part of our life. But you have to really think about it as investing in your social capital piggy bank, right? That is what we are doing with each other. And if you have to have something on your desk to remind you, like wooden nickels or coins or whatever it might be to remind you that on a daily basis, you know, whether it's three, five times a day, what am I doing to invest in the social capital of my building, my team, or what am I doing to invest in, you know, these social relationships that are important to my success and to the success of others? And sometimes it can be an email. Sometimes it's picking up the phone. Sometimes it's it's you know, what a great idea a team shared with me is. They just have what they call open open meetings where they schedule 90 minutes, two hours, maybe once a week, where everybody just gets on Zoom and they just work to next to each other. There's not a meeting scheduled they're not actually talking about, but they're just all on Zoom working like you would as if you were in the office. And they can ask someone a quick question and everybody can hear it, you know, but it's it's a way just to bring people together and build that social capital, which is so important. Yeah.

Yeah, I was I was talking to a friend last week about that as I work also or most of the time in my office and by myself, that is sometimes like really good to have someone just sitting next to you on something on something completely different. As my friend is working on movies. OK, just let's get together for working two hours or an afternoon. And it's just about that someone is there right, helps sometimes to overcome this loneliness that some someone feels.

Absolutely. Yes, that's it. And you know, there is a part of some of the research that I've done on connection is around the loneliness epidemic. And this was before the pandemic, right. So there is a loneliness epidemic. And there's actually an Australian coalition to end loneliness like that because there is such an epidemic. And that was pre pandemic. And one of the things that they mention is that loneliness occurs when the quality of our relationships are felt to be inadequate and it can occur even if we are surrounded by people, right. So the idea that when we are with each other, like you do have your friend sitting there next to you working, it feels good. How can we even take that to a little bit of a higher level and intentionally do something when we are together that really connects us a little bit or allows us to, you know, share in a moment of connection, because that is is really raising the quality of our relationships. So just a little tip.

Yeah, thank you I will take that into account definitely. As we speak today, of course, we want to dive a little bit also into individual practical work that you mentioned before. And we have already heard about your books, The Virtual Teams for Dummies and also the Work at home. Let's try today as our audience is also connected to the virtual environment to get a little bit more on the expert level. And I know and you have shared with me before our Podcast recording your framework that I would like you to present it a little bit. So we got an idea, which was what I really liked before. Was the title or something in the title which you mentioned permission to be human at work. And that sounds really nice to me, but please go ahead and explain a little bit about what this framework is about and how we can work with it.

Yeah, so one of the things that came out of, you know, everybody working remotely is people were in the early months, so March and April in the U.S. when when we all started working from home, the biggest concern that employees had and the biggest issue and thing that that was going on for them was this lack of feeling connected. And I don't think it's much different. I do think some, you know, teams have figured it out, but this has continued to be an issue. And as I mentioned, back to, you know, connections related to well-being, engagement, right. It impacts everything. So how are we building these moments of authentic connection with each other? And it has good business reason, right. Business reasons behind why we want to do that. So I basically have done a lot of research, as you know, on my own. But I've also studied other people who have done a lot of research on authentic human connection. One of those is Brené Brown. She is really popular here in the United States. And she's a social worker who's done tons and tons of research on connection. And basically what we're seeing and what we're what we know now to be true is that connection is a basic human need, right? We need to connect with each other. It is part of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Like we have to do it for us to flourish and thrive in our environment, whether that's work, home life anywhere. And so this idea about permission to be human at work, one of the benefits that I believe the pandemic is creating, maybe in pockets, maybe it's not happening everywhere, is that we are getting to see people in a little bit more of their human environment. Right. Like I'm getting to see you right now in your home. I think the first time we talked, you showed me where your kids are going to school, which is right out the window there. And I would have never got to know that or see that if we were in the office together. You get to see me. I've been on Calls with executives where their kids are running through the background. So where we are getting to see this more human element of each other. And the key is how do we leverage that? How do we leverage that as we start to perhaps send some people back to work? Right. Or just let's leverage this idea that it is OK for us to fully show up being who we are at work. Right. Like this, permission to be human at work. And so with all my research and the things I've been reading and seeing and doing, what I came up with is something called the team connection framework. I'll just hold it up here for a minute. But it has really three focus areas and that is relevance, belonging and nourishment. And so one of the things that I talk about is when we when we study human behavior, what we know is for people to feel that they are relevant, that what they're doing matters, that they're bringing some type of value to our team or to the world, and that they are contributing in some way that makes a difference. We need to tell people that we need to pay attention to pointing that out to each other. And so one of the things, you know, obviously starts with the leader really understanding and being able to articulate to their team why what the work we do matters. Right as a team. But then it's even more important than that, that on an individual level, we show each other our relevance or we show someone else their relevance by listening deeply right to them, by not really thinking about, oh, I got to one up them on this, right. Or I know what they're talking about and I have my own ideas and I'm just going to wait for them to stop talking so I can so I can jump in. But I'm really listening deeply to what someone's saying so that I understand them and I can actually repeat that back to them. That makes someone feel valued. That makes someone feel relevant and hurt. Another key thing is that when we are working with each other, even in a virtual setting, that we communicate why this is important, why is this important to me? Why is this important to the team? So we're communicating purpose and then we're consistently recognizing the positive impact people have on the team. So when they when they complete a task, it will help make my life easier. If they stepped in and helped me with a difficult client, you know, I let them know we recognize their impact. So right before we got on this call, I'm actually working with a company in the UK. We're building I'm building an app, an app that allows for a scalable learning in a Remote environment. And I'm working with this lovely, lovely person who is giving, she has the technology and I'm building the content. And it's probably, I don't know, seven or eight p.m. there, I'm guessing. And one of my clients had a technical call and I just sent out an email and said, can you do you think you might be able to hop on this call, because I'm not going to be able to answer these technical questions. And she did. I think she probably got out of bed maybe. And she got ready. She got on. She answered all their questions. And when I got done, I sent her not only an email that said, here is why that had such an impact on me and on the client and most likely their decision to move forward with us. But I also sent her a thank you and gave her a gift card. And she was like, oh, my goodness, you don't need to do that. But it really she brought tremendous value to that call and to me. And I think she really needed to know that. And so I tried to do it in a variety of ways. So I just was practicing that this morning. And I'm hoping it makes her feel good for the rest of her evening and tomorrow around that. The second focus area that I think teams and companies need to focus on in terms of connection, relevance is the first. The second is belonging. And this is back to what I mentioned is a basic human need. We know this, right? This is in in our hierarchy of needs, a sense of belonging to a group, a tribe, whatever you want to call it, is something we all must experience to thrive in life and in work. And so how do we do that? So a couple ideas that I propose is use appreciative inquiry. If you've ever heard of appreciative inquiry to come together as a team, talk about stories when you have felt a deep sense of belonging and allow people to tell those stories. So appreciative inquiry, if you haven't heard of that term, is basically asking questions for people to share a story when they have felt belonging, when they have felt like they were thriving. What did that what was happening in that moment? Right. So it's this idea of not necessarily focusing on our shortcomings, but focusing on when things were working really well or when we were thriving and at our best. What was that like? What were we experiencing so that we can try to create it again? And so when we think about belonging, rather than guess what makes someone feel like they belong, allow that time to share stories of a time when they did belong and they felt a deep sense of belonging, what was going on for them. So that's one strategy around that. A second strategy is really around creating psychological safety. So a couple of years ago, I think it might have been in 2017 or 2016, Google did that big study, if you remember this, but Google did a huge study about what builds high performing teams. And of course, you know, I've been in this field for 20 years and all of us that have been in learning and development, any of you that have been in that this learning and development field when they basically came out with their study, right. Of thousands of teams in Google. And the number one thing was creating psychological safety. This is what we're talking about, right? Allowing people feel like they belong, giving people a voice, making sure they know what their purposes and why they contribute. We were like, no duh, this is what we've been teaching for 20 years. But it was so right like but it was so important to be validated. And so I think that study really made the work that I do more important. Right. It wasn't some kind of fluffy fufu stuff that, you know, it's nice to have. It's good to talk about. It's actually, we know creates the highest performing teams. This isn't soft type of stuff. It's real right and it makes a difference. So that's the other piece is as a team, are we creating a safe environment where people feel like I can speak up and I can disagree with you, I can disagree maybe with the leader. And it's OK. We have a healthy debate around ideas and that is what's going to get us to the best solution. And I don't feel like if I disagree with you, I'm going to get fired, right. That we are here with the intention of doing our best work and doing having the best solution. And part of that is that we create a psychological safe environment. Did you want to. I didn't want to end. Did you want to say something about that?

No, no. Just keep going.

OK

I'm listening.

Yeah. So and then a third strategy is really, I think I mentioned already to create a sense of belonging. It's just to encourage people to practice self compassion. So one of the things that I mentioned is really hard for me is to say no to a client. And this week, last week, I had to say, I'm not going to get to you what I thought I was going to get. And that was really difficult for me. But what I am trying to practice and hope that others will as well is that it is important for us to encourage people to be compassionate with themselves. ^When people are experiencing more stress than they ever had. They're potentially experiencing more insecurity around work than they ever have before where their children may be they're not able they have to work and they can't give their kids the care that they want. And things might not be going well with their. So we have to really allow people a little bit of grace and a little bit more flexibility than we ever have before. And I'm encouraging that self compassion in others, and I have to practice it myself and try not to be myself up for not being able to deliver something, right so that is the other thing. And then the third focus area that I think really builds connection is nourishment, and this is around the quality of our relationship, so I mentioned this earlier as well. What am I doing? What is our team doing? What is the leader of the team doing? What's the company doing, right. We can look at this at every level to improve the quality of relationships that we have with each other. So how are we creating moments of authentic connection? How are we getting to know each other at a deeper level? How are we investing in that social capital? One of the tools that I use with teams that I encourage all teams to do this is some type of assessment, right. That we're all comfortable with taking and willing to share the results of with each other. I use a tool called DISC. You might have heard of Myers Briggs strength finders. These are all, I think, U.S. centric tools. But they're pretty well known, I think, around the the globe. But what they do is allow us to understand what someone's motivators might be, how they like to be communicated with. Do they like to be communicated very directly? Do they like to build relationships first before they jump into business? Do they need data, right. Do they need a lot of information and data or do they need actually, you know, time to think over what I'm saying before I ask them to make a decision? So these are just other ways that we can build the quality of our relationships by really understanding what makes our team members tick is very, very important and super helpful. And one of the things, again, it helps us leverage our differences. Right, because there's also studies out there that show diverse teams are way more over time effective and successful than non diverse teams. And when I say diversity, I mean in all its forms, diverse ways of thinking, diverse approaches, diverse communication styles, diversity and race and all of those things we know based on studies that the more diverse a team is, as long as they're functioning effectively, that they tend to get better results. So discovering that those differences and figuring out and talking about how to leverage them is another way to really nourish the relationships that we have. So those are some of the strategies to build belonging, relevance and nourishment on a team. And there definitely are something I'm talking more about and hopefully going to be building kind of a little assessment for teams to take, like, how well are we doing this? Right. So that we can assess where we are and then, you know, get better because it does make a difference to the bottom line, to productivity, to high performing teams. So that's that's the framework. And I'm happy to share this with your audience. If they want to use it or talk about it with their own teams.

Yeah, let's do it. Let's connected somehow, maybe in the notes or in the description, and all people could get in contact with you and download it somewhere. But I would definitely go for that because this would be a easy map that you can see or use a sheet and it points really out like the big points. And then from down you can go into more more detail, right.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And and yeah. Definitely they can they can talk about this, what I encourage everybody to do is really just ask those questions, right, are how well are we valuing people's contributions on this team from a scale from one to five? Right. These are so you could take this and be very simple in just doing a quick pulse check. Right. When's the last time that you felt, you know, like you really belonged on this team or any team? And what was that like and how well are we doing? Where can we improve, right. And then the quality of our relationships. Do we need are you getting the the amount of social connection that that is filling you right on this team from a on a scale from one to five? So you can take this. I'm going to build a survey around it eventually and probably in the next week or two. But it's certainly something anybody can use, easy to do.

It's great, and I just want to pick up something about the quality of relationships and the different types of tests or questions you could ask. You mentioned in Myers Briggs or on the DISC system, and they're always people there are some somehow cryptic or other expect like magic out it to get like a pinpoint on their on their co-workers or themselves. And for me, it's not like that. It's just like having a met and knowing how to go right and you're just not in the dark. If, you know, for for a person, the personal relationship is more important in the first place and you know them a little bit better. That will just help you to make the thing's more concrete, more more explicit, and not just having some guess work around it, then have a tendency and then you can focus on it really, and that will improve the relationship by X-fold just taking out all the guesswork and having to colleague or coworker knowing each other for tree years, but they don't really know who they are. Maybe they don't know who they are by them selfs, but this is also something you could work on.

Yeah. You know, those are the tools that are very popular, most of them are validated, right, in terms of their response rate, and I can't get the word here, but they're validated assessment tools, right. So they are based on research and data and they've given them to thousands of people. And you have a lot of data about they actually the responses seem very accurate. So their accuracy and their relevancy are high. What I always do when I'm facilitating any kind of conversation around an assessment tool is I ask people to read it and personalize what works for them and what doesn't, right. We are dynamic human beings. An assessment tool is never going to get it all right, because in different situations, we're going to show different aspects of ourselves or our personality or turn our volume up in some cases, like, for example, you know, if I'm under stress, I can be very, very direct. But when I'm not under stress, I'm not always like that. So in different situations, things can shift. So what I always do when I'm facilitating any kind of conversation around assessment is like what rings true for you that would be helpful to share with me, right, that would help me be a better co-worker for you. Because here's the thing. When we talk about motivators and stressors at work, a lot of times it is our colleagues that are either motivating or stressing us. And so if we can get language, if an assessment can give us language, to then share that with someone rather than saying, you're just driving me crazy, I can't stand you anymore. Right. Like, actually, I can actually say it would really help me out if when you asked me to do something, I clearly understood the why and I had some details to back up what you're asking me to do so that I make sure I know what the expectation is and I get it right the first time. That's a style. That's a personality style. And so if I know that and I come to you and give you that information and that's your style, you're going to be like, great, I don't have any questions. I could get this done. I'm going to do it right the first time. I'm not going to waste any time that builds better relationships. It does. It builds trust between people. So it is can be very helpful. But it's interesting because I just read an article, someone is coming out with a I think this is in the United States. Someone's coming out with a show or a movie or something where they're trying to debunk they're going they say they're going to debunk all the assessments. Right. Personality assessments. And I'm really interested in what that's going to say because I have helped thousands of team members, you know, learn to communicate better using assessments. So it'll be interesting. And they're really going up against, you know, thousands of people who it's helped. So we'll see how that goes. I'll have to let you know when that comes out. I just read an article about it two days ago, so OK.

Let's let's look for that. Yeah, I would have one topic I would like to dive into a little bit with you, because it's something we don't talk so much about. But I think it's a really crucial part and that is conflict. How you treat conflict in an Virtual Teams when it's already difficult and often avoided in the physical office space. We try to look for workarounds to just not confront your co-workers or your boss or whatever person or you work with we have a situation or something that is not going well, how you transfer it in the virtual space where things are even more disconnected in the first place and you would have to be connected to get really to the core of a conflict and resolve it all, probably in the best case, avoided in the first place, have strategies in place to tackle those conflicts when they when they grew or when they when they get bigger. Mm hmm.

Yeah. There's so many good things to unpack around this question. So one thing, one truth about Remote work is that conflict can go on for a really long time remotely. It can be very insidious. You can hide it because you're virtual the manager may not know that people are in conflict and they're not working well together. They're not sharing information, you know, because everything's done Online so we don't see it. And so one of the most important things and I talk about this in the book, Virtual Teams for Dummies, that I Remote team absolutely has to do. It's not a nice to do anymore. You if you are working remotely, you have to put agreements in place of how we're going to treat each other, how we're going to operate. And one of those agreements is how are we going to address conflict. And the easiest and simplest way to build this agreement, I use actually a exercise. If you've ever heard of the book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, which is another U.S. book, but a very popular book by Patrick Lencioni. I use that book. There's an exercise in there around conflict, which is let's as a team define what is acceptable behavior during conflict and what is unacceptable behavior during conflict. And so you do this as a team building activity, right? You actually you can do it virtually. You can use something like Padlet or Miro, you know, any kind of Online collaboration tool where everybody is just typing in what is unacceptable behavior during conflict and what is acceptable behavior during conflict. And so we get this list. And what you will inevitably find is some are on both sides. Right. So we have an opportunity as a team to discuss what is. This one thing here is acceptable. I'll give you a great example that comes up when I do this swearing, using, using, you know, swearing, using language. Some people think it's ok.

Greetings to Gary Vaynerchuk.

Yeah, somebody people say, hey, it's totally fine, right. It's totally OK to swear when we're in conflict. And some people are like, absolutely not. That is not OK. And so right there is a great example of a team that needs to discuss kind of go down that that that topic area and talk about how does it feel for you when someone swears when you're in conflict. Right. Let's talk about what what can we agree is OK and not OK. So we first want to agree on those things. The second thing is, what do we agree to do if we see it? And it can't just be the manager's job to call people out, we have to agree as a team to call people out, right. So when we see someone swearing, if we all agreed, we're not going to do that, what are we all committing to being willing to do if it's in a team meeting or after the team meeting? If we don't want to if we don't feel like it's a good idea to call someone out right then and there after a team meeting, what do we agree to do? And this is a team agreement. It's not the manager's job all the time, right. We have to agree to do this together. So that's a simple activity where it really creates an opportunity for a team to have a conversation that starts to unravel what is what is OK and not OK when we're in conflict. The key here is not to avoid conflict because productive conflict is absolutely necessary to get to the best result. And when we talk about productive conflict, what I'm talking about is conflict around ideas, conflict around process. I'm not talking about conflict around people where it's mean spirited attacks. Right. And so that's the difference, there is conflict around people is always what what goes off the rails, conflict around ideas is good. And how do we create an environment where it's OK to say, I don't agree with that, let's talk about this, right. And we debate it. And at the end of the day, maybe the manager has to make the final decision or we're going to vote as a team because that's what we agreed to. But productive conflict is really important for teams to engage in. And I actually have a program I do that use an assessment around how you show up in conflict and it helps teams understand what is productive conflict look like and sound like. Because it is important. I think we have to destigmatize conflict, you know, like kind of let people know it is OK. Now, what's interesting is in different parts of the country and different cultures, conflict is certainly not OK. And so we need to to discuss. I still am a proponent of the team coming together to discuss an agreement that works, that everybody feels this is something they can work with. So those are a couple....

There I would have a question, just a quick one, as we just spoke about different cultures and how you go for that if you have a culture that is more more dominant, more conflict, more open to discuss, and you might have other co-workers from a completely different country from a different culture, they are more like the passive ones. They are not really like this sharing attitude. How you how you enable them. OK, you can you can do this different assessments. But what is happening if they're not joining in. Yes. How you can encourage that. Because some some people might from from from the Philippines or from Vietnam, they're like like more like how you say that they're more reserved and they wait before they're like really go into action. But they probably they have a colleague that swears all the time. They don't say anything, but they really disagree with that. And so how you level that out?

Yeah. So one of the really this is really important for the leader right to know and to take some action steps on, and that would be to really work on establishing a one on one relationship with with every colleague and understanding what is OK and not OK, you know, in their culture. And and even talking about that as a team, like allowing different cultures to share, you know, what is what is appropriate, what's not appropriate in your culture, like help us understand that. And the other thing that the leader can do is if there is going to be a conversation where debate is going to needs to happen and it will perhaps reaching out to them ahead of time and providing them an opportunity, one on one, to discuss how they feel about it so that you get a sense and agreeing on how you want to present their idea in the meeting and give them a chance to be heard. A lot of times people just need to be invited to the conversation. What I notice, whether it's a cultural thing or just a style thing, is that there will absolutely be people on your team who are not going to jump in and talk over someone to get their point across, right. They're not going to jump in when two or three people are debating really loudly. They're just not going to do it. That's not who they are. And so as the leader or the leader of the meeting, I need to recognize and create that, psychological, safe space to make sure everybody has a voice. And one way I have done this is if we're virtual, I create kind of a virtual conference table. So I might just, you know, draw a little conference table on the on the screen with little circles and I'll put everyone's name around the virtual conference table and that lets and I'll start. OK, we're going to start with Daniel and then we're going to work our way around. And I'd like to hear what you think is a good idea, what you think is something we should be concerned about. Sometimes it's in the way I pose the question that that allows someone to to actually disagree. But they don't feel like they're getting into conflict. Right. But they can say, here's what I'm most concerned about, rather than saying, well, I don't agree with this, that, you know, so it can be a language thing that we just have to be a little careful of how we present the question. It can be building, making sure we're building those strong relationships up front and understanding different cultures. And if I know. Know that I'm working with, you know, people that aren't going to be comfortable disagreeing, but I think they're going to have something important to say, I can do a meeting ahead of time and just kind of get a sense for where they're at. I might follow up afterwards and get a sense for where they're at. So those are a couple ideas. But that I would recommend, yeah.

Just to ad what worked for us really good is also to prepare meetings up for share like a agenda, whatever, and have and have everyone participate as not the leaders putting the agenda. So everyone that wants to contribute should contribute before because there are some sometimes it's just mentioned, people, they are not going to jump in if they're Tools screaming heads in this meeting room and they just wont going to answer. But they're probably going to provide some information let's say in the written form and then you get a really good insight and can work on that in the meeting with the others.

Mm hmm. That's exactly right. Yeah. Agenda is again really important if you want to have all voices in the room sending out an agenda and allowing people to contribute to that agenda ahead of time or sending out the agenda and asking some questions, you know, what are what do you think is going to be a challenge here? What are you excited about? Whatever. You know, you can ask some questions, get them to contribute before the meeting. That really gives you a jumping off point in terms of what to discuss. So, yeah, agenda is really important. And I think a lot of unfortunately, a lot of companies have gotten away from it. Right, because we're so we try to do things so quickly. And I do think that's a Best Practice to get back to sending out an agenda ahead of time if you want to get all the voices in the room and the best ideas, because it gives people time to consider and reflect. Yeah, for sure.

Great, one more thing also to run up our conversation today, I would like to get a little insight from you. A lot of leaders when we see them, and mostly company owners or managers have this mentality. I'm the doer type. I stand over all the things that are coming onto me. I don't struggle. I don't have problems of emotions. Nothing affects me. And it seems that this is kind of counterproductive in the long perspective. But I would like to ask you, what do you think how someone could open up to that in especially in environments that we're working right now remotely and everyone is on its own, more or less when we're not working? How can they open up to really, like letting the teams feel this authentic in the conversation, in the communication which is often missed and counterproductive?

Yeah, yep. So what you're talking about is there's two two aspects to building trust on a team. And one is what we call predictive base trust, which is I predict that you do what you say you're going to do. If you're going to get me something by 5:00 on Friday, you're like you're going to do it right. I can predict that you'll do that. And I trust that you will. And you always pull through. And that's important. I mean, certainly we need to be able to trust our colleagues to do what they say they're going to do. But the second level of trust, which is been proven and researched to be the most important and powerful in terms of building high performing teams is where a team can practice what we call vulnerability based trust. And it usually has to be role model by the leader, because if the leaders are willing to do it, your team is certainly not going to be willing to be vulnerable. And vulnerability based trust is when we are comfortable or willing to basically say, I messed up, I made a mistake. Here's what I did. Right. You're better at this than me. I don't know the answer to that. I'm afraid of doing this. And here's why. Right. So you're basically being vulnerable. You're being honest with people. And what happens is that when you when you are vulnerable and you build that vulnerability based trust, normally we actually think, oh, well, gosh, if I show anybody I'm weak, then they're going to think I'm a bad leader or they're going to think I can't do my job are they're going to think, you know. But the studies and research show us that when we are vulnerable, when we admit our mistakes, when we admit, you know, that that I did something wrong or that you're better at this to me or I need your help, I don't know how to do this, that we actually build higher levels of trust with people by doing so, right. Because we're human, right. We're human and we need each other. And I think that it goes back to a lot of the stuff we've been talking about earlier. And so for a leader who really is operating under that mindset that I cannot show any cracks, I would love to encourage you to explore that a little bit, because it really when you are vulnerable, when you're willing to admit something is hard, when you're willing to admit that I'm struggling right now with my kids at home, I'm really feeling like I can't get everything done. All of a sudden, you have now connected with your team who also feels the same way. And it it really does build trust levels. And trust is the foundation of a high performing team. It is the foundation, nothing else. Productive conflict isn't going to happen. Connection isn't going to happen. Accountability isn't going to happen. Commitment if trust isn't there. All of the things that we want from our teams, we're going to it's going to be a tough, tough go to get it if we don't have trust. And the best way to build trust is through being honest, being vulnerable, being authentic. It also, in my opinion, demonstrates what we call growth mindset, right. So when we think about a growth versus fixed mindset, someone that comes from a growth mindset is open to learning, right? They're open to saying, I made a mistake. I want to learn how to do it better. What would you guys have done right? Or maybe one of you could do it better than I can and I can learn from you. Again, that's vulnerability and a growth mindset happening at the same time. And that also, we know creates high performance and it helps people thrive when we're willing to be open and continuously learn. So I don't know if that helps a little bit with your question there, but.

Sure it does, Tara thank you very much for sharing all this information today, it was really like insightful, different perspectives, exactly what we are aiming for. Probably two quick questions before we are rounding up. What books besides your own you're reading right now. Maybe you can share it with us also for our listeners, this is also interesting to know what other people are reading, if you would like. And then also how people and organizations could reach out to you if they're interested in your work and they want to know more about what you're doing and probably start working with you.

Sure. Yeah. Right now I am reading a book called Believe It by Jamie Lena Kern. And she is one of the most successful self-made female billionaires in the U.S. and totally, like, bootstrapped her way to the top and went through so many challenges in her book is all or on all of that. So it's definitely inspiring me, you know, because she faced way bigger challenges than I ever have. So I'm reading that. And I just got done reading Elon Musk's biography. And that was mind blowing, like, wow, it's a very, very interesting book. And and yeah. So those were the two that I just read recently. I think Elon's book was just amazing. What one person's determination can do. I think is just like how many people laughed at him and said he couldn't do what he's doing and he's doing it, you know, and it's stuff that we didn't even think was possible. So pretty amazing. So I'm reading those two books right now. And of course, I think I mentioned yeah, I think you mentioned at the beginning why two books are Virtual Teams for Dummies and we'll see them working from home for Dummies. So grab those if you want to kind of explore any of the things that we talked about here today in more detail. We'll get everybody the team connection framework. I'll give you a link for that. And if anyone wants to just I think the best way, actually, if you would like to follow me or here, I do post regularly on LinkedIN, but I also do YouTube videos that are short how to training videos for leaders and their teams around many of the topics that we've been talking about today. And so you can find me on YouTube. It's Powers Resource Center on YouTube, and we have a lot of great how tos for Virtual Teams out there, remote teams are all free. So yeah, just subscribe to our YouTube channel. We update that at least twice a month with some new stuff. And of course, follow me on LinkedIN Tara Powers.

That we will do

oK,

Everything will be linked in the show notes. Thanks again Tara for your time.

Thank you it is a a pleasure.

... and hope to see you soon again.

Yes, thank you, Daniel.

I want to thank Tara for joining us today. If you're working Remote or from your home office and you'd like to take it to the next level, get your copy of Tara's new book, Working from Home and find many of the topics we discussed today explained on an even deeper level. If you wonder what are the next practical steps when working with Virtual Teams and in a Remote working environment, remember the virtual business business training from Flash Hub. You can subscribe to the Virtual Frontier on Apple Podcast Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, YouTube or wherever podcasts can be found. And while you're there, you can give us a review. Please support us on Patreon so we can keep improving the show and your experience. On behalf of the team here to Virtual Frontier, I want to thank you for listening. So until the next episode, keep exploring new frontiers.