Speaker 1: It's that time again, time for another bonus episode. Dear listeners.
Speaker 1: Now for this week's after pod, we thought we'd put
Speaker 1: some of your workplace quandaries to our guests from last week, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts,
Speaker 1: and leadership expert Carrie Pulkotz. So we have carry here.
Speaker 1: We have some listener voicemails we're going to play for him,
Speaker 1: and some additional questions about his work with leaders in
Speaker 1: corporate America. So let's get to it. Here's a voicemail
Speaker 1: from a caller named Jonah who is a new manager,
Speaker 1: and he had a question for you. Hi. I'm the
Speaker 1: editor of a small publication that is business to business
Speaker 1: UM and I've recently started to manage just a couple
Speaker 1: of reporters. I'm exploring a lot of resources for managers,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them seem to assume that the
Speaker 1: team is all centralized in one place, But I and
Speaker 1: managing a remote team. But I only really get to
Speaker 1: talk to by phone and not slack. So I guess
Speaker 1: I'm wondering what are some ways to really build a
Speaker 1: good bond or remport with team and being affected manager
Speaker 1: when you're managing people on the other side of the country.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Right, that's interesting. You know this talks
Speaker 1: about sort of the disruption of management in this country
Speaker 1: because of technology. Jonah, I'm sure isn't the only person
Speaker 1: dealing with this, So what advice would you give him?
Speaker 1: Carry This is such a common challenge these days of
Speaker 1: managing a remote team, and most managers manage remote teams
Speaker 1: these days. It seems, um there's no substitute, first of all,
Speaker 1: for face to face contact. So even if the team
Speaker 1: is remote, if it's possible economically to try to get
Speaker 1: this team together from time to time in person, I
Speaker 1: think that makes a huge difference. That's one. The second
Speaker 1: is that given that remote management puts some barrier between
Speaker 1: the manager and the people that he or she he
Speaker 1: in this case is managing, um, it puts even more
Speaker 1: of a premium on the manager to get to know
Speaker 1: his people and allow them to get to know him
Speaker 1: and so uh so a greater degree of personal disclosure,
Speaker 1: of making himself more vulnerable to them, of not just
Speaker 1: making the time that they speak on the phone or
Speaker 1: via Slack or whatever technological aid they use, making that
Speaker 1: time not just transactional, and in his case, talking about
Speaker 1: the stories that they're covering, but also getting to know
Speaker 1: them as human beings, understanding something about their families, their
Speaker 1: personal lives, and letting them get to know him. Establishing
Speaker 1: that personal bond deepens the trust and helps mitigate to
Speaker 1: some degree, the challenge to managing remotely. Is there some
Speaker 1: single business challenge that you consistently see ceo s or
Speaker 1: boards facing in addition to sort of this type of dislocation. Well,
Speaker 1: in regard to remote management, it's not just the one
Speaker 1: on one relationship between the manager and whoever he's managing,
Speaker 1: but it's also the ability to create a healthy team
Speaker 1: dynamic because the team is often dispersed, and so I
Speaker 1: think teams find that, for instance, if you get together
Speaker 1: off site h every now and then, it makes an
Speaker 1: enormous difference. And again, those off sites shouldn't just be
Speaker 1: with a rigid agenda of topics to cover, but there
Speaker 1: needs to be a social component, and it's that social
Speaker 1: company something that that certainly members of Congress need to
Speaker 1: do more often. They say, if they get to know
Speaker 1: people personally, their willingness to work together and to compromise increases,
Speaker 1: you know, immensely. But I wanted to ask you what
Speaker 1: about not just remote working, But do you hear sort
Speaker 1: of an issue that business leaders come to you about
Speaker 1: that seems to be a thread among a variety of
Speaker 1: workplaces today. Some of the themes that are coming up
Speaker 1: in my travels through the business world these days that
Speaker 1: are new, even though many aspects of management and leadership
Speaker 1: are really unchanged, probably since the dawn of time. One
Speaker 1: is remote management that's new, relatively new. And another big
Speaker 1: trend that I've seen in business these days is that
Speaker 1: traditional vertically organized organizations, meaning were the people who have
Speaker 1: the most power and the most authority on top and
Speaker 1: those with with lesser down on the bottom, are being
Speaker 1: flipped over. And so the given the interest in the
Speaker 1: emphasis on technology these days and the startup culture that
Speaker 1: we're living in, it's usually the young, the millennials, the
Speaker 1: people in their twenties thirties too, who know a lot
Speaker 1: more about what's going on in the business than the
Speaker 1: CEOs and the senior managers who may be in their
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties. And so I think that it behooves
Speaker 1: leaders these days to not be hierarchical and to listen
Speaker 1: and learn from the bottom up. I met someone at
Speaker 1: the Aspen Ideas Festival who said we need to have
Speaker 1: reverse mentoring, in other words, young people teaching older employees
Speaker 1: because things are changing that quick. Along those lines, we
Speaker 1: have a voicemail from Joyce who wants to know how
Speaker 1: to navigate going from being a chief executive to answering
Speaker 1: to younger colleagues, which can hurt sometimes. Let's listen, Hi,
Speaker 1: this is Joyce, and I am calling a out being
Speaker 1: a former leader of an organization, I was executive director
Speaker 1: of a small museum. I have led campaigns, and I
Speaker 1: am looking to find out as I move into my
Speaker 1: later stages of my career, and I'm hoping for a
Speaker 1: little bit less stress and less responsibility how I go
Speaker 1: about working with people that are younger than me, who
Speaker 1: will probably be in higher position, but yet still will
Speaker 1: be looking for leadership within my position, yet will probably
Speaker 1: also need to be somewhat subservient, which is a hard
Speaker 1: thing to do after you have led organizations. So I'm
Speaker 1: looking for a way to navigate those two somewhat opposing
Speaker 1: situations within the workplace and and seeking your guidance. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much, by What would you say to her? To Joyce?
Speaker 1: It's a great question and one that I think will
Speaker 1: be increasingly common as people don't want to retire when
Speaker 1: they're in their fifties or six season want to keep
Speaker 1: working in some way even if they're not running an
Speaker 1: organization anymore. And the secret to it, if there is one,
Speaker 1: is does one feel comfortable being a little humble? And um,
Speaker 1: I was going to say you have to leave your
Speaker 1: ego at the door a bit, right, Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: that term, even though it's of course not really possible.
Speaker 1: But um, but yeah, if there's there's nothing wrong with
Speaker 1: admitting that, you know, you used to be an executive
Speaker 1: director or a CEO, uh and you're not doing that anymore,
Speaker 1: and that you want to learn. You have a lot
Speaker 1: of wisdom presumably and have a lot to offer these
Speaker 1: young people. But it's a it's very mutual. They have
Speaker 1: a lot to teach you and if you can approach
Speaker 1: it not about being subservient. I actually am a little
Speaker 1: troubled by that word. It's less about subservience and more
Speaker 1: about a kind of mutuality and sharing. Um, and the
Speaker 1: learning can go in both ways. Carrie Salkowitz, Carrie, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. That's it for our Afterpod with Carrie Salkowitz.
Speaker 1: As usual, we want to hear what you thought. You
Speaker 1: can leave us a voicemail at four six three seven,
Speaker 1: or email us always at comments at current podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: We hope you enjoyed that little bonus episode and we'll
Speaker 1: talk to you next week