The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 129 - What’s Next?

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Hello, Jen.

Jen: As we have just passed the one year mark of life as we knew it ending and life as we know it existing, it feels like this is the right moment to start asking the question: What's next?

Pete: Uh-huh, yeah. What's next? I like it. Sounds a little like planning, Jen, which you know I love talking about. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: So I'll tell you why this question came up for me, other than the very obvious like marking the date on the calendar. It came up because a friend of mine started asking me questions about what was coming next at the studio. And she actually noticed that I was making a lot of decisions that were serving only the virtual studio. And she basically called me out on that and was like, "You need to be solving for things that also will help you when you are back in-person. Don't take your eye off of the future. Yes, be here in the moment, but know what's coming. And by the end of this year, you're going to be back in some form of in-person and won't be the same way you were before. But I'm not hearing you talk about solving these problems for the in-person environment, Jen." And I was like, "Woof. I'm off my planning game. Got to get back on. Got to get back on."

Pete: What a gift that feedback is. And also like, are you okay? Because you're always thinking about the future.

Jen: Well, to be perfectly honest, there have been quite a lot of little fires that have added up to what feels like a large fire. Nothing like devastating, but just like lots of little things I've had to attend to. Which, I think, shortened my view a bit. And so, her saying that to me pushed everything back out and open, and now I'm able to see clearly again. Like, is the decision I'm making right now going to serve where we need to be one year from now, two years from now?

Pete: Can you say that question again?

Jen: Are the decisions that we're making right now going to serve where we want to be one year from now, two years from now? And so on.

Pete: That is like...that's a master-class question that I think listeners just needed to hear that twice. I also wanted to...

Jen: Oh, okay. I wasn't sure if maybe my audio was glitchy.

Pete: I was channeling, you know, when you listen to Brene Brown's podcast, and she's like, "Oh, say that again."

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: I was channeling Brene, so here we are. So, thank you for saying that twice.

Jen: Oh my gosh, that's funny.

Pete: But I think that question is so unbelievably rich and relevant to many, many, many conversations, many of our listeners, for sure. And I had an example of this, it was two days ago. I was talking with a, you know, very senior executive at a very large international corporation. And we were talking about leadership development programs, and doing some work, and helping them think about that. And one of the things that she said to me which I thought was really interesting was a lot of companies, consultants, providers out there, research, even, in the market at the moment is about how to lead in a remote environment. How to lead in a, you know, working-from-home world. And she was saying to me, like, "I needed that twelve months ago." So we've been doing this for twelve months now, we've kind of got a little sense of what's working and what's not. We've kind of figured that part out. What we actually need help with now is, to your point, what does it look like to lead in a hybrid environment? We talked about this word "hybrid", where you have some people maybe going back to the office at the end of the year and some people still working remotely. And like, how do you support both, not making it either/or? And so that conversation I had with her is, I think, extremely relevant to the same conversation that you had with your friend.

Jen: Yeah, that's interesting. On our team huddle today, we were talking about the hybrid situation, since so many of our clients have moved away from New York City. You know, pre-pandemic...

Pete: Right.

Jen: ...our clients all had to be able to physically get to 38th Street in the theater district. Like, that was the room where it happened. But now, you know, everyone's in the Zoom where it happens.

Pete: I feel like there's a reference here that I'm not getting, but just continue.

Jen: Oh no, it's a Hamilton reference.

Pete: Okay, sorry. Straight over my head. Come on, Pete.

Jen: Sorry. Sorry about that. Didn't catch what I was throwing. But in any case, many people have moved. And when we're able to get back in-person with the folks who are still in New York, we're not going to abandon the folks who have moved across the country. We have to figure out how we're going to be able to serve in-person and how we're going to be able to serve online. And I think the trick (and this is probably what the leader you just mentioned was struggling with around hybrid) is how do you create the conditions for everyone, whether they are remote or in-person, to be a vital, necessary piece of what is happening? How do you make it so everyone is able to contribute? How do you make it so that everyone is able to receive, when you've got some people who are doing it from afar and some people who are doing it in-person breathing the same air?

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. How do you make everybody feel like they belong, no matter where they are? I think it's a super juicy question that I think, honestly, all businesses, all leaders, all companies should be and probably are thinking about. It's a bit like what we talked about a year ago. Which was, when you went from, you know, many businesses being largely in-person to "we're all working from home", and what we saw in terms of mistakes. And we observed these, was companies trying to replicate exactly what they had in-person, online. And I think for most cases, people realize that wasn't quite effective. And in actual fact, what we should be doing is thinking about, "Okay, so now we know these are the new constraints, this is the new sandbox that we have to operate within. What does it look like for us to make this better? How might we structure these calls in a way, or this conference in a way that is effective, and leverages the technology we have at our disposal?" And we did an entire episode, I think, on Zoom, and how you could use breakouts, or the chat feature. And these are things you can't do in-person. I think the same is true coming back the other way, or going through this transition that we're going through. Which is, how do we make in-person not what it was twelve months ago, and not what it's been for the last twelve months? But like different, or new, based on the constraints and the world that we're now living in, which is a hybrid world. And vice versa, with working remotely. How do we cater for the fact that there's now going to be employees in-person? That it is hybrid, which is different to what's been happening the last twelve months. So, it's almost like we need to reset again. Which is...

Jen: Yep.

Pete: ...kind of like a little bit like, "Oh my god."

Jen: I know, I know.

Pete: But also super important. Super important.

Jen: Well, I think this is....you made a joke earlier, like, "Oh, this is going to be about planning, Jen, your favorite subject." But I think you're right. I think you're right. Because my obsession with planning is not that I need things to go to plan. My obsession with planning is to imagine, visualize, project many different possible scenarios, so that I can better prepare myself as the leader of my own organization. To take people forward into the future in a way that's healthy, and safe, and useful, and relevant. So now I'm at this place of imagining all of these different scenarios for the studio, trying to get ahead of the obstacles, trying to get ahead of the pitfalls, trying to get ahead of some of the objections, so that I can start now pouring resources into the right areas. So that when we need them nine months, twelve months from now, whenever it's going to be, that we get to go back in-person. That we're ready. That we're not scrambling to figure out what people need, but we know now.

Pete: Yeah. Well, and what's interesting about, you know, our different worlds is I feel like in many ways, because I'm on a remote island in Australia, with far less people and we're far more spread out, and we've had different reactions and responses to a pandemic, like we have businesses that are now in this. Like, people are working three days a week in the office. And so they're like trying to figure this out, I think, almost in the moment. And some of them did a good job of like, "Let's plan for this three months ago." But I'm realizing that I'm seeing this kind of on the local stage in front of me. And I'm very aware of all of my American clients, all of my American friends, people like you that are like, "Oh, we're planning for this in six months time." And I feel like it's almost like a unique position for me to be able to help and support people like you, and businesses, and leaders like the one I was mentioning earlier. Because it's different. It's different. A really simple example that I think about a lot is in terms of a company. If you have, say, half of the people going into an office on any given day and half of the people staying at home, just for argument's sake. And then, you were on a call and you were one of the people at home. Let's say, three of the five people or three of the four people were in the office together, and you were the one person that was at home.

Jen: Oof.

Pete: You would feel...exactly. Your reaction is exactly how you would feel. You would feel so left out. You would feel like you don't belong. You would feel like there's no point in you being in that meeting. And so we need to reimagine, when are we structuring meetings? How are we structuring meetings? Are we requiring that in order for a meeting to happen, either everyone has to be in-person or everyone has to be remote? There's no benefit in having somewhere in the middle. So these are just really real-life, fascinating examples, I think, that are playing out.

Jen: I think what you might have just said to me in different words is that Australia is my new Worthy Rival. I shall be studying you, Australia.

Pete: Yeah. Well, I mean, like I shared an article with you, I think, a few weeks ago. That shows are back on in Australia. Come From Away is back on. Hamilton's coming to Sydney. So I have to fly up and go see Hamilton, because clearly I missed your joke before.

Jen: Yes, I'm going to need you to get that joke next time. Okay, so this is bringing up another thing that I think is worth talking about. What we've been digging into so far is like, "How are we structuring our environments so that, or making decisions so that we can accommodate as many different personal scenarios as possible?" And something else I've been thinking a lot about...and I mean, this is really, I can't even say it's like partially-cooked. I mean, this noodle is still in the sealed box. But like, how are we going to think about solving for the very unique personal experiences people have had during this time? And the environments as they were no longer being tenable. I'm thinking about people who have lost loved ones. I'm thinking about over here in the States, especially in my industry, we've been having very serious conversations about workplace culture, safety, psychological safety, physical safety in the workplace, mental health, all sorts of things that we just were not talking about in this way a year ago. And I think the thing that I'm trying to get ahead of is we've been doing a lot of talking, but we don't actually know how we're going to be implementing, because we haven't had the opportunity yet to be in-person and test out these ideas. So okay, this is me thrashing. But I think what I just came to for myself is trying to create an environment with as much built-in slack, patience, and grace as possible.

Pete: Can I add one?

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Empathy.

Jen: Empathy? I knew it.

Pete: You knew it.

Jen: Yeah, that too. That, too.

Pete: I think this is...I mean, it feels like a very weird and conflicted sentence to say out loud, but I'll say it anyway. Which is like, one of the good things that's come from the last twelve months...which again, feels strange. But like, one of the good things, I think, has been that we are talking about mental health.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Pete: As individuals, as businesses, I've heard leaders ask about their employees' mental health. And I know these leaders, and I know they wouldn't have asked that twelve months ago, or eighteen months ago.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And so I hear that conversation and go...I mean, that gives me a little bit of hope that we can actually start to lead with more empathy. Acknowledge the struggles and difference in struggle that we've all had over the last twelve months, and then create the conditions or an environment that caters for different people, and their different needs, and their different journeys, and their different worldviews. Like, it's like this huge exercise in sonder, and empathy. Which, I hope and I think that if we do this effectively moving forward, that's the thing we need to hang on to more than anything.

Jen: You know what's really interesting, we have a new meditation and mindfulness teacher at the studio and they were at our team huddle today. And I was talking about how our students are so used to chat culture right now. Because all of our classes happen on Zoom, and everyone's on mute and then they're putting their feelings in the chat. And then when there comes a time for discussion, I use the "raise your hand" feature so it's a very organized conversation. And there's almost like these built-in protections where people can't really talk over each other. I, as the host, can mute someone. You know, I wouldn't mute someone in the middle of a sentence, but you know what I'm saying? Like, there are some controls in place. And I was saying, "You know, what is it going to be like to be in a classroom again, without a chat feature and without a mute button?"

Pete: Strange, I'd imagine.

Jen: And they wrote to me after that meeting, and they said, "What we have to do is reteach people how to listen."

Pete: Ah.

Jen: And I was like, "Woah, yes. Yes, yes, yes." So that's also part of what we have to get ahead of, as we're thinking about, "What are we going to need to put in place to have a successful adjustment to being together again?" Part of it is, we have to really learn how to listen to each other.

Pete: Oh, wow. And I guess I would, I would add to that, given what you said about them being a mindfulness teacher, is, we have to reteach people how to be present and not distracted, which I think is practicing good listening. Because the other thing that is happening, you know, when you're putting in chat is you're kind of multitasking or doing two things at once. Or if, you know, I feel like everyone has been on a Zoom call where you can tell someone's checking their email or checking their phone. Like, it's very obvious.

Jen: Yes, because you see their eyes reading.

Pete: Exactly.

Jen: Not fooling me, friend.

Pete: Right. Yeah, we're on to you. And so I feel like there's been even more temptation to be distracted over the last twelve months, because the devices that we're using to be in the work are the same devices that we can use to check everything else. So, there's almost like a...there'll be an interesting tension, I think, of, "We are now in a room and no laptops are out." You know, if you're in a class, you're probably not on your laptop. And we probably don't want you to be on your phone. You might have a notepad. So, I feel like there'll be an interesting reintegration of device...it's like device-free listening, or something like that. Yeah.

Jen: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Oh my god, I have to say, I'm looking forward to that.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: I'm so looking forward to closing this freaking computer for at least a couple hours a day.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Jen: Alright, so it seems to me that we've posed this question, "What's next?" And the answer, of course, is, "We don't know. But we can imagine." This is one of the gifts of being human. We have a gift of imagination. We have the ability to project different variations of the future. And so, what's next is some time for imagining, so that we can better prepare ourselves and the people in our care to have an experience that is safe, and fulfilling, and empathetic.

Pete: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.