​​To go or not to go… into the office? (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Anne Morriss:
So today we get to talk about remote work.

[00:00:03] Frances Frei:
Oh, I love remote work.

[00:00:05] Anne Morriss:
And I wanna propose that we, uh, retire the word remote because it's such a bummer of a word.

[00:00:12] Frances Frei:
It, it is 'cause it feels awfully remote.

[00:00:15] Anne Morriss:
It sounds isolating.

[00:00:17] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:00:17] Anne Morriss:
I love the framing of our colleague, Tsedal Neeley, who's done so much rigorous thinking and research in this space. This idea that remote work is really about making progress anytime from anywhere. And I think when we frame it that way, it's actually a super aspirational possibility for the how of doing work in a new way.

[00:00:41] Frances Frei:
Beautiful.

[00:00:45] Anne Morriss:
Alright. Welcome everyone. I'm Anne Morriss. I'm a company builder and leadership coach. I'm here with my wife Frances.

[00:00:51] Frances Frei:
I'm Frances Frei. I'm a professor at the Harvard Business School.

[00:00:54] Anne Morriss:
This is Fixable from the TED Audio Collective. At Fixable, we believe that meaningful change happens quickly, anything is fixable, and good solutions are often just a single conversation away.

Frances, today we got a call from Dean, that's what we're gonna call her to protect her privacy. Dean leads a global accounting firm with more than 4,000 employees and she says the company's struggling, like so many others right now, to find that balance between doing work together, co-located in the office, and doing work offsite. So let's get into it.

[00:01:33] Dean:
Hi, wanted to call in and just, uh, tell you a little bit about the problem. And it's really about, how we, we kind of maintain our culture in the firm and one where, where people are connected, engaged, and, and you know, the challenge we have in maintaining that is the, the balance between a, an in-person versus a remote culture. Looking forward to some suggestions you might have.

[00:02:00] Anne Morriss:
Great. Frances, what's, uh, what's your reaction to Dean's voicemail?

[00:02:05] Frances Frei:
So I think the question of where should work occur is an, is an important question for culture. So I love the question of, um, where and how should we work in order to have highly engaged, uh, employees with an awesome culture?

[00:02:21] Anne Morriss:
Yeah, I love opening up the framing of the question to how do we solve for engagement?

[00:02:26] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[BREAK]

[00:02:35] Anne Morriss:
So Dean, welcome to Fixable.

[00:02:37] Dean:
Hi. Great to be here.

[00:02:39] Anne Morriss:
Tell us a little bit about the work you do.

[00:02:40] Dean:
So I run a large practice in advisory services. You know, we work with clients as their trusted advisors, um, as they're buying or selling companies. Um, in fact look at it as just being, you know, providing services along the full life cycle of a business from startup all the way through to an exit of a more mature business.

[00:03:02] Anne Morriss:
How long have you been with the firm?

[00:03:04] Dean:
Just over nine years.

[00:03:05] Anne Morriss:
And you, if you look back on those nine years, give us a high point for you.

[00:03:10] Dean:
Wow. I think it's my current role that I'm in. I came into this particular role at the onset of COVID. Call that about April 2020. So we went through COVID in a very virtual remote environment. The group went from about 140 people when I started to 250 roughly by September last year. And we, we did our first onsite meeting and brought together the, the different people and it was just phenomenal to see.

[00:03:39] Anne Morriss:
So what inspired you to give us a call?

[00:03:41] Dean:
Prior to COVID, we, we were in an environment that was a lot more spontaneous, just in terms of how people interact and go into the office. We’re, we national and we’re labeled as virtual. So while we tag to one of our firm's offices, there's no requirement to be in an office, and the work doesn't necessarily dictate that you're in an office five days a week. So people were going into an office. It was more like, “Well, we, we’re not traveling this week. We'll go into an office.” And that it was very social as well. The culture is one where people really care about one another. They help one another. Um, and then COVID comes around, and we go virtual literally like everyone else in a matter of days. And then you have a whole lot of new people joining the organization.

And so the culture started to change and you know, there's a component of entry-level and younger people joining who aren't as experienced in their career and are looking to more senior people to help them learn.

And we are not getting that in the environment. And we hired a lot of people who were hired as really truly remote workers because they live in a geography where there isn't an office. And they wanna be working at home. So I think we come into a bit of an inflection point because of, you know, what do we do?

We, we, we, we are gonna have to do something if we are gonna retain the culture because we, we so far from pre-COVID that people have forgotten and we got all these new people, but we wanna retain what we had. It's a real issue for us now.

[00:05:14] Anne Morriss:
What do you think is at stake for the business if you don't solve the problem?

[00:05:18] Dean:
It's keeping people engaged and keeping people long-term who want to have a career with us, you know, as opposed to that it's just a stop in their career.

[00:05:29] Anne Morriss:
This shift in culture that you've described so beautifully, what’s it been like for you personally?

[00:05:36] Dean:
It's a little disheartening, because especially when people leave us, you know, I take it personally. I, I just, you know, 2021 was the worst year, like we had phenomenal growth, financial results, but from a people standpoint, it was the worst. We had the highest amount of attrition. People were hating what they were doing, and it was really tough. And we were growing so much so our hiring didn't keep up with the needs of the business. So people were just slammed, like constantly. It's one thing to work for two weeks and you're working 80 hour weeks for two weeks, but when it becomes week after week after week, it's just way too much. So we, we try, we, we have fixed a lot of that in the last year.

[00:06:21] Anne Morriss:
How were you able to fix that part of the problem?

[00:06:24] Dean:
We've just hired a lot more people.

[00:06:27] Anne Morriss:
I wanna invite my esteemed wife in to see if there's any other diagnostic or context questions that you have.

[00:06:34] Frances Frei:
First of all, it makes me really like you that the business performance is at an all time high, and it was the lowest point in your career because of the people. It speaks volumes. When you said that people were hating their job, was it for the reasons of the 80 hour week, or were there other aspects of it that were contributing to that low point in 2021?

[00:06:58] Dean:
So it was the intensity, but it was also the firm had to make some changes through COVID, and I’ve gotta be honest, it wasn't all in my control.

[00:07:09] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:07:09] Dean:
And sometimes you have to go with the broader organization and what makes sense, even if I didn't agree along the way with many things.

[00:07:16] Anne Morriss:
Dean, right now, in this moment, what is most meaningful to you about the work you're doing?

[00:07:24] Dean:
The relationships that I have, both internal and external.

[00:07:30] Anne Morriss:
And tell us about the internal relationships. What about those are most valuable to you?

[00:07:38] Dean:
I dunno if I can articulate it with words. It's more feeling and just what happens in your interactions day to day. It's not about what people say, it's just about how they act and the actions. And just seeing my leadership team, the partnership group coming together and really just working together to solve problems in there.

[00:07:59] Anne Morriss:
And in this remote environment, it, how much harder is it for you to get access to that?

[00:08:09] Dean:
You know, I think for people I know and have met with and know, you know, have spent a fair amount of time in person, the virtual environment's fine. It's for those that you haven't spent time with in person, that it's more challenging.

[00:08:25] Frances Frei:
Um, one last question and then we're gonna get into the, into the solution part of this. Uh, before COVID, you were remote, is that right?

[00:08:36] Dean:
Remote, but tied to offices. So people would decide, “We're going into the office,” and it was far more social. I think people have got very used to being at home and in their routines. So when we do meet in the office, it's because, “Oh, we've got a happy hour tonight. We are going out for dinner. We are having some training.”

[00:08:56] Anne Morriss:
And how frequently is that kind of a thing happening right now?

[00:09:01] Dean:
Maybe every month. Something more formal and then, just remember, we've also got people who are not near an office. We’ve tried and encouraged them to fly in to meet with people that are in an office. But the problem is they fly in and no one's in the office to meet them.

[00:09:18] Frances Frei:
No one’s there. Yeah.

[00:09:19] Dean:
You know, I go to, I've been to the office where I can literally be one of four people on the floor. We, it's big. We got 65,000 square foot on one floor in New York City. Can you imagine you are one of five people in that office?

[00:09:32] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:09:32]
Dean: I don't need to be there.

[00:09:33] Anne Morriss:
And you’re all getting on Zoom to talk to other people.

[00:09:35] Dean:
Exactly. My, my door's shut and I'm, uh, busy on Zoom or teams.

[00:09:41] Anne Morriss:
Alright, Frances, summarize the challenge.

[00:09:43] Frances Frei:
Yes, it's an environment that was happily not office-first, so happily remote. Uh, an external shock of the tragedy of COVID, which just dislocated people from the office now more in a, in a more permanent way. And now it's a question of how do we maintain the culture? And you have the two aspects of the culture that I adore are caring and helping.

[00:10:12] Dean:
Yeah. Perfect.

[00:10:13] Frances Frei:
Okay. So, um, anchor days. is one aspect where instead of permitting people to come in spontaneously, now that we're on this mostly remote, we have to disturb it to avoid the fact that when we do come in, there's not anyone there is that there's anchor days, and it might be five days a month, it might be one day a week, it might be one week a quarter, but whatever it is that there are anchor days, not an anchor event, but anchored days that have it and that people can plan for, um, so that they're there, but also so that we can plan activities.

So they're not doing what you just said is, which is we all go into our individual isolation chambers and, uh, and talk remotely. So, uh, I, I suspect you have thought about this, and I would like to know how did that go with you? You discarded it for this reason, you've adopted it in part for that reason.

[00:11:08] Dean:
So I think it, it goes down to, uh, flexibility and making sure that people can be flexible and empowered to make some of their own decisions.

[00:11:21] Frances Frei:
I think people will. The challenge is that they won't all be doing them in simultaneity with each other. So the reason you do need, I think, to impose some coordination is because the chance of all of us, even if it would just require a small adjustment for me, I wouldn't know to make it without a coordination.

And because you, it's the interconnective tissue that matters, I think you are gonna have to coordinate and probably come to terms with that's not taking away flexibility, it's actually adding something lovely. Now, when we're doing that, we have to, we know a couple of things have amazing food at the office, for the days, for the anchor days, like amazing food.

I would have amazing education on the days that people come in. And then I would also have amazing social, and it sounds like you've been doing it for social. And that's good, but probably not purposeful enough to pull enough people off of their routine.

Um, so my first thought is, uh, you are being a little bit more presumptuous about the role of coordination, not as a detraction, but as a proactive development, uh, opportunity.

[00:12:36] Dean:
I like that.

[00:12:36] Anne Morriss:
And what I like where you're going there, Frances, is this idea that because for sure, Dean, what you articulated, that um, people are losing something in a world where we are mandating or strongly encouraging, people come in on specific days, whatever that number ends up being, uh, we are, you are taking away some amount of agency and flexibility.

And one of the key lessons I think of the experiment that we ran in remote work over the past two years is how much people really do value that agency and flexibility, I think particularly people who are drawn to the industry that you're in. So if you're gonna take a little bit of that away, what are you explicitly giving in return?

And Frances, the two, two buckets that I think are important that you just added there, the, there's developmental. So what, like training opportunities, um, and then there's coordination—when I show up at the office, what can we do on the management side to create the conditions where that collaboration can happen? For sure letting people go into their offices and get on a teams call is not gonna do it. So what would it look like given the nature of the work?

[00:13:50] Frances Frei:
And then two other things to add to that. Um, one is I would put as many wheels as possible on the furniture in the office. Because what's the chance that it's the right setup for this new way we want to, it's, I, I'm gonna just guess it's 0% chance.

[00:14:07] Dean:
It's not, it's, yeah, you're hundred percent right. It’s not.

[00:14:09] Frances Frei:
And then, you know, I was speaking recently about somebody who was having a lot of success be, bringing people into the office for these events, for these anchor days. And they put a really creative group of people, um, on the team together to think what, what could be anchor events on the anchor days? One of the ones that has been most deliciously received is having Peloton instructors come in.

[00:14:34] Dean:
Wow, ok.

[00:14:35] Frances Frei:
So Peloton instructors. It turns out the best Peloton instructors know how to captivate untold numbers of people. And you don't have to bring in the Peloton bikes 'cause they can do stuff when you're standing. And it can be exercise, it can be motivational, but I would have anchor events on the anchor days. And they don't all have to come from you. In fact, I would have them be surfaced by folks. In fact, I would ask people, “What would make you want to fly in?”

[00:15:01] Dean:
So how many those anchor days did you do? Did you study like the cadence and what works versus what doesn’t?

[00:15:10] Frances Frei:
So I would ask you: how often will people need to be physically around each other to activate caring and helping one another? Like what does your instinct tell you?

[00:15:24] Dean:
Probably two days a week.

[00:15:27] Frances Frei:
My sense is that's a lot. Um, so I would, but I like it being consecutive. And so I would maybe, if you want, if you think that's right, I would maybe think three days every other week.

[00:15:41] Dean:
Yeah. Or two days every other week and, you can ramp it up over time.

[00:15:45] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:15:45] Dean:
Once people get, you know, realize the benefits and are enjoying it.

[00:15:49] Anne Morriss:
Really, what you're solving for here is engagement. You're not trying to solve for office work per se, but you have a strong working hypothesis that there's some relationship there. I wonder if there is a high engagement way to solve this problem. For example, uh, putting together an engagement committee that involves, like, some of the highest potential people on the team or the people best suited to think about this problem and, you know, make it a committee, make it a working group.

[00:16:25] Dean:
I think that's all great. No, I, I do. And you know, I, I think it's, it's better that it's not me that's driving this, that it does come from the team you know, when it's pushed down from leadership, it's never the right way to do it.

[00:16:37] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:16:38] Anne Morriss:
And let's do it in a way that actively models the behavior that you are trying to cultivate, which is that people are in this, they're committed, they're creative, they're engaged.

[00:16:51] Frances Frei:
Alright, it’s time to take a break. We’ll be back with Dean right after this…

[BREAK]

[00:17:01] Anne Morriss:
Dean, where's your head?

[00:17:04] Dean:
How long do you anticipate this, the anchor days and this, is this like forever now or do you see that it comes back to something?

[00:17:13] Frances Frei:
Yes. This is an idea that our friend and colleague, Tsedal Neeley has, really in her book Remote Work Revolution, really tried to get people to understand that the office is a tool. If you're a person to like a, a personal business and a relationship business, yeah. I think it's a forever, because this is gonna be the new, um, the new normal.

[00:17:36] Anne Morriss:
But let me complicate that a little bit. Hopefully this is a reason to be optimistic. We're never going back to the world that we inhabited.

[00:17:45] Frances Frei:
Not with the best people.

[00:17:47] Anne Morriss:
But what we're experiencing right now is not what the future of work is gonna feel like. Because what we're experiencing right now is what remote work felt like when our primary job was to survive a pandemic. That's what we've just done. And we are still primarily working with those assumptions. But the new world of work that we're going to inhabit is not gonna be organized around surviving a pandemic. It's gonna be organizing around how do we design work to achieve whatever mission we came to do? And how do we do it without the limits of space and time? And Dean, if I were coaching you, um…

[00:18:28] Frances Frei:
She's the best coach in the world.

[00:18:29] Anne Morriss:
I, the intervention I would be doing on you is that you don't need to do this alone. In fact, you don't need to do the practice of leadership alone anymore. It's not a solo sport.

[00:18:42] Dean:
You know leadership, it’s a lonely place, though. I was saying to someone last week, “Being a leader can be a very lonely place.”

[00:18:49] Anne Morriss:
So the question is, how, how do you make it less lonely? I suspect you have made choices that make it more lonely than it needs to be. And on the other side of different choices, you're gonna get some of that energy and joy back, that time and space back to live the life and do the work that you wanna do right now. Tell us where, tell us where your head is now, what you're thinking.

[00:19:19] Dean:
I'm feeling quite energized from the call. The first action is I'm going to go and form this committee. The challenge is gonna be in who should be on the committee.

[00:19:29] Frances Frei:
It's also like that giving us advice, and maybe that has worked well, I have seen that take a dark turn in some organizations. But what's different about this one is this is a committee that's gonna do things. So they can come and ask you for help, but they're the doers. They're not the advisor to the doers. It's a very different thing.

[00:19:50] Anne Morriss:
You know, with these kinds of committees, I like bringing some lightness and joy, even in somewhat serious organizational cultures. How do we make this a company where, or a team where people jump out of bed and wanna work for, you know, like bring a little bit of, of lightness to the mandate? But signal: this is a real problem that we need to solve as a company. We don't know how to solve it. And that's why we need your help.

[00:20:13] Frances Frei:
And you're applying to be part of a working group.

[00:20:15] Anne Morriss:
Working group. Yes.

[00:20:16] Frances Frei:
Not an advisory group. Um—

[00:20:17] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. Give them the mandate and the budget to run some experiments.

[00:20:22] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:20:22] Anne Morriss:
And we wanna use the word “experiment” and “pilot” and all of those words that signal—

[00:20:28] Frances Frei:
Removes all the pressure.

[00:20:28] Anne Morriss:
—that like, we're going to, we're here to try things.

[00:20:30] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:20:30] Anne Morriss:
And the only way we're gonna get to the answer and find our way through this maze is to try, fail, try, fail, get smarter as we go.

[00:20:39] Dean:
And what's the good size?

[00:20:40] Frances Frei:
So this is on behalf of 200 people, did you say?

[00:20:40] Dean:
No, about 300.

[00:20:45] Frances Frei:
About 300. And next year it's gonna be…

[00:20:47] Dean:
Oh God, I hope it's 400.

[00:20:49] Frances Frei:
400.

[00:20:50] Anne Morriss:
I think you just wanna optimize for the size of effective teams, which is somewhere in the 8—

[00:20:56] Frances Frei:
8 to 12.

[00:20:57] Anne Morriss:
8 to 12 zone. Maybe you, you can throw on a couple on the edge. 'Cause not everybody's gonna come to every, you know, like, but I wouldn't go over 15.

[00:21:05] Dean:
Alright. Okay, good. Thank you.

[00:21:10] Anne Morriss:
Dean. It was was so, uh, it was so fun to get in the sandbox with you and we hope you do come back and tell us how it all went, and—

[00:21:18] Frances Frei:
And we wanna share. I'd love to share in the learnings. I think you're gonna learn some pretty cool things about how to do this in your particular context and we would love to learn alongside of you with that too.

[00:21:29] Dean:
I look forward to it. So thank you both for your time today.

[00:21:37] Anne Morriss:
Alright. Frances, what'd you think?

[00:21:39] Frances Frei:
So, most of the time when I think about people battling with remote work, it, it's not as optimistic as this call, as this call was enormously optimistic. It's not trying to go backwards.

[00:21:53] Anne Morriss:
Right.

[00:21:53] Frances Frei:
Somehow it's going forwards. I think they're also gonna learn how to do it in a sustainable way. So I've, I am super energized by what might happen. Mm-hmm. How about you?

[00:22:01] Anne Morriss:
Yeah, I mean the thing I see organizations still stuck on is, “Oh, we tried that remote work thing.” You know?

[00:22:11] Frances Frei:
You tried a remote work experiment.

[00:22:13] Anne Morriss:
There’s a super exci—I mean, to your optimism point, there's a super exciting part of the challenge in front of us, but we are bringing a lot of the baggage of surviving a pandemic into that challenge. One of the exciting assumptions in this world we're building that is distinct from the world we're leaving is that we actually can come together.

[00:22:34] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:22:34] Anne Morriss:
Now the question is, well, why?

[00:22:36] Frances Frei:
For what?

[00:22:36] Anne Morriss:
Why do we come together and to do what? And under what circumstances?

[00:22:40] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:22:40] Anne Morriss:
And what kind of snacks do we have? Uh, and really, I mean, I think we're at the very beginning of solving this problem.

[00:22:48] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:22:48] Anne Morriss:
And dwelling in the possibility here.

[00:22:50] Frances Frei:
And dwelling in the possibility.

[00:22:51] Anne Morriss:
Most organizations, in my experience, are starting with the snacks question.

[00:22:54] Frances Frei:
Which is not a bad place to start.

[00:22:55] Anne Morriss:
No. No. Listen, no judgment. Get the snacks right. But to your point, you know, what purposeful work—

[00:23:04] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:23:04] Anne Morriss:
Uh, are we going to do together when we are now deciding very strategically to cohabitate for these specific days or times?

[00:23:13] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:23:13] Anne Morriss:
I think is the most important question. And in many experiments right now, that is an unanswered one.

[00:23:18] Frances Frei:
I want people to be able to talk about what they did on their anchor days with, uh, with their peers. Uh, like I want that to be like, “Oh my gosh, do you know what we got to do?” I want it to feel like that. I wanted to feel nourishing. So it's a pull, not a push. And I watch organizations that think they have leverage and so they get a little draconian. It is not gonna help them in the end.

[00:23:40] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:23:40] Frances Frei:
Like create it so that people want to come. Don't say you have to come. Create it so that they want to. And I think it's gonna be magnificent. I really look forward to learning what her team comes up with.

[00:23:52] Anne Morriss:
Yeah, me too.

Alright, everyone. That's our show. Thanks for listening. Come back next time. We like to fix things at Fixable. If you wanna join us, we would be delighted to have you on the show. Email us at fixable@ted.com or call us at 234-fixable. 234-349-2253.

[00:24:15] Frances Frei:
Fixable is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective. It's hosted by me, Frances Frei.

[00:24:20] Anne Morriss:
Oh, you nailed it, baby. Yeah, you nailed it. And me, Anne Morriss. This episode was produced by Camille Petersen. Our team includes Isabel Carter, Constanza Gallardo, Lidia Jean Kott, Sarah Nics, Jimmy Gutierrez, Michelle Quint, Corey Hajim, Alejandra Salazar, Banban Cheng, and Roxanne Hai Lash. Jake Gorski is our mix engineer.

We'll be bringing new episodes of Fixable every week, so make sure to follow the show, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. When you follow a show, the episodes are automatically downloaded and ready to go whenever you're ready to listen.

[00:25:00] Frances Frei:
I hope you heard that, mom. One more thing. If you can, please take a moment to leave us a review. We love hearing from our listeners. See you soon.

[00:25:09] Anne Morriss:
Good reviews, please. Leave us, leave us a good review.