Dr. Tracy Brower | How We Can Get Back to Work and Bring Life to Work

Dr. Tracy Brower  11:31  

Yeah, that’s huge. That presence and accessibility and I think it’s really interesting. We’ve talked to a few clients and their leaders have tried to stay really present, like they’ll do a, you know, Friday afternoon podcast from their home office, or they’ll, you know, stay in touch regularly through an email or something like that. Video is probably better than email in these times. But like some of the coaching that those leaders have gotten is you don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t even have to say anything. Super substantive, maybe you’re just talking about how your week has gone and what you’ve learned this week and how you’re getting through it. But people need to hear that voice. They need to feel that presence. And the reason is that it gives continuity and some predictability and some consistency in the message. And people appreciate that during times of difficulty. One of the things we know sociologically is that it is our instinct as humans to pull together during times of difficulty or challenge or threat. And the really tough part about the pandemic and all this social distancing is that it flies in the face of what is natural and instinctual for us. We want to be together, we want to be connected. And so that’s a really big part of what leaders can do is be present and accessible. And the other part of being present is really attending to people and people feeling like leaders are paying attention. Not just broadly and generally to the organization, but to them specifically, like my leader kind of knows what’s going on, I might not have to know my deepest, darkest secrets. But if my leader knows what’s going on, and just has a sense, that, that, that I’m challenged or that things are going well, or things are going less well, that feeling that somebody’s paying attention can be really, really valuable. Yeah,

John Corcoran  13:23  

and I love that you said, sharing a regular video like that, because that’s actually something that I’ve been doing for the last few weeks has been doing a regular Friday video screencast. It is recorded via loom and it just kind of some observations from the week. Part of the reason I’ve been doing it is because I know how depressing the news has been. I’ve personally tried to limit my intake of the news, look it in the morning, look at it in the evening, but not during the day because I don’t want to get derailed during the day. So I’m just, you know trying to, for our team just trying to pick them up, let them know because we’re in a very fortunate position, you know, and I realized that that our company right now is in demand. And that’s a very I feel very privileged to be at that point. But I love that you said that. So any tips for companies listening to this about, you know, sharing those types of videos, any further tips on that point?

Dr. Tracy Brower  14:19  

Yeah, I mean, I think more is more, I think the other thing that’s really nice is to hear from that senior leader, but sometimes it’s nice to vary the voices, you know, like multiple people in places of leadership or places of influence can be really helpful. I think we’re also seeing the sort of expansion of support for employee programs of all kinds. So we’re seeing lots of videos and podcasts, you know, like it’s yoga on Tuesdays with Christine or, you know, mindfulness on Mondays, that kind of thing. We heard about one organization who serves food like free food is a really big part of their employee value equation and all these options Boys are going home and they’re not sure how to cook for themselves because it’s some for some of them. It’s their first job out of college. So they’ve been doing videos on how to prepare food or how to be nutritional or kind of funny, but it’s a really great use of that medium in terms of staying close and a lot of different ways.

John Corcoran  15:17  

Yeah. And you wrote an article for Forbes, about five predictions about how Coronavirus will change the future of work. And those are some of your predictions that employers are going to expand the support that they provide. Now, if I’m going to be a contrarian here, if I’m an employer, and I’m thinking, well, we’re struggling right now we’re having to do layoffs, and we’re supposed to do additional support. How are we? How are we gonna make that work?

Dr. Tracy Brower  15:42  

Yeah, I think that’s that is the $6 million question and the pushback that I hear a lot because it’s all about cash flow, right. Um, I think that the opportunity is that when we invest in people, we get so much more in terms of their discretionary effort. These are strange, strange times with lots of people furloughed and high unemployment levels. But even so you want to maintain your best and brightest. And so people in kind of counter intuitively have more opportunities than they might have had before. So you want to keep those best and brightest. I think the other thing is to think that a lot of those kinds of investments don’t have to be out of pocket investments. If you’re, you know, doing an educational program that helps people with mindfulness, you know, on Wednesday morning, for example, you can have somebody on your staff do that, and you’re not necessarily paying out of pocket for it. Or if you’re setting up a mentorship program, that’s about connecting people with each other. That’s not necessarily a heavy cash investment on your part as a company. So I think there’s some really important things you can do that are an investment and literally a cost to you. And there are other things I think that we can think about that are really not an out of pocket investment. But an investment of time and energy and how you spend that energy as an organization.

John Corcoran  17:05  

That’s a great point. And a couple other points you made in the article, which I thought were really powerful were one you said, your relationship with your teammates will improve, which goes back to what we’re talking about just kind of people naturally bond together, click together, which is what’s been kind of devastating about the nature of this particular crisis, because we can’t even hug one another right? You know, I mean, it’s just such a weird feeling to be going through that I’m fortunate I have a family but I, I couldn’t imagine being, you know, single living alone, and that and that would just be extremely, you know, lonely. But then another point that he made was, you know, your boss and teammates will be more empathetic about your work life. And I feel like we’re at this moment in time where our work life is coming into everything. Like right now I’m interviewing you. And I’ve done other interviews where my three year old or my six year old or my nine year olds are in the corner, you In the corner during the videos, I’m doing the interview because there, my wife and I are balancing, you know, childcare responsibilities. So it kind of feels like it was thrust upon us. But you say that, you know, people will become more empathetic about that.

Dr. Tracy Brower  18:14  

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the sociological concepts that I really, really appreciate is that idea of the common enemy phenomenon. That’s the kind of way that we refer to it with air quotes. And the virus is surely a common enemy, the pandemic, right, so we’ve lived through it together, and we bond together because we survive it and we get through on the other side. But I think the other really interesting thing is you get a new window into people’s lives, right, like, like one of the things we also know is that relationships are built on and on a recognition and appreciation of what people are going through. There tends to be a kind of virtuous loop, a reinforcing loop that’s set up the more I see you, the more I learned about you The more we get to know each other, proximity is the number one determinant of relationship, the people that we tend to see more tend to be the people that we have deeper relationships with. And of course, you have long distance people that you’re close to. And that’s all fair. But in general, that proximity drives relationships. And all these crazy times have video conferences with my dog barking in the background, or my three year old coming up behind me gives me that sense of proximity recognition. It gives me more information about you. And that helps me be more empathetic. And it’s super interesting, right? Because we know that mental health issues are at an all time high. 75% of people, according to one study, are saying that they feel fatigued and stressed and socially isolated. And so that social connection is so critical as an antidote to that. So that may be the small group that you’re around, but it may also be anything you can do to reach out to others. Whether you’re on a video conference, whether you’re yelling across the call to speak to your neighbor, there’s even some really interesting research that suggests that things that are familiar can also feed some of that need for socializing. So you might watch an old TV show that just feels familiar to you or you’re listening to music that you’ve always loved. That familiarity tends to help us feel a little bit less stressed three times.

John Corcoran  20:24  

Now, you know, companies like zoom, which we’re using to record this right now have been going gangbusters just tremendous amounts of, of growth, you know, other, you know, software tools that allow people to work remotely. How do you think these companies are going to handle it when we can start going back to work? Maybe there’s a vaccine, maybe there’s, you know, a lessening of the virus or something like that, that enables us to go back, you know, our companies, our employees going to demand you know, I really like not having a 45 minute, one way commute on Want to work from home more days a week? Our company is going to be OK with that, because they’ve seen that it can work or what are your thoughts on all those different?

Dr. Tracy Brower  21:07  

I think it’s a I definitely think it’s a both and I’m spending almost my full time talking to companies about that exact question. So it’s a brilliant question. And I think we’re all trying to figure out the answer. One of the things I’m hearing from companies is that it’s a rare organization who believes they’ll go back to business as usual, even post vaccine, that what we’ve done is we’ve proven to ourselves that the barriers for working remotely might have been artificial, because we were all forced into it. And while it’s difficult today, what it has done is expanded our perception and understanding of what we can really do and what we can make work. And so I think we’re going to see increased flexibility in terms of work and in terms of choices. So you know, maybe people will have more opportunity to work from home on a Friday or to you know, work from home on a Monday morning or leave early on a Tuesday because they need to take their kid to soccer and God willing, we get to go to soccer again Sunday, and then you know, work from home later in the evening. So work flexibility will increase. That’s what we’re absolutely hearing in those choices. But the other thing I think we’re going to see is I think we may see actually a resurgence in terms of the office and more investment in the office, because I think the other thing that’s happened is that we might have taken the office for granted in the past, like, you know, we weren’t thinking very hard about it, because it was just something we did every day was out of the office. And now I think we’re saying to ourselves, Oh, my gosh, I miss it. I miss it for all these reasons. And I think that’s going to cause us to think really hard about what we really, really need to get done in the office and what are the ways that we can attract people to the office and be really planful about the processes that we can support from an office. We can work anywhere. But just because we can doesn’t mean we should, there’s something really special about face to face and the magic of coming together in a certain place.

John Corcoran  23:08  

Right? That’ll be interesting to see what develops from that because you had, you know, in the 90s, you had the cubicle culture, you know, you had office space, stuff like that, where, you know, cubicles were overrun, and people didn’t like it. Then you went to the other end of the spectrum where companies tore down all those walls, and you had the Open Office, but then it turns out, a lot of people are too crazy about that one either. So it’s eventually something, maybe it’s gonna be a happy medium. Maybe that’s all arrive on. And related to that point. Last one I want to ask you about in this article, he also talked about what you said, innovation will flourish, which I think is fascinating. I was watching a video the other day, about a 75-year-old company in New England that made wood shutters outside of homes. And they about two months ago pivoted to creating PP you know, protective devices for them. care workers. And then the video was about how they’re shifting back to their original thing that they were doing. But how innovative is that? You know, if you’d ask that company, they’ve been doing the same thing for 75 years, if you’d asked them three or four months ago, do you think you guys could pivot on a dime, and start producing some completely different product for a couple of months? They probably wouldn’t have believed it. But now imagine that confidence that they have emerged from that, and I think more and more companies are going to emerge with that when they know, it’s like, what that whole thing about what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. I think they’re gonna be more companies gonna be feeling that way.

Dr. Tracy Brower  24:38  

Yeah, I love that point. I think this is actually really exciting. I think it was Winston Churchill that said, never waste a good crisis. You know, like, what happens in the natural growth curve of organizations is you start your organization and you’re in the garage with your, you know, sleeves rolled up and you’re figuring it out and you’re making it up as you go along. And you’re you know, putting things together with chewing gum and duct tape and paper clips for those of us who can remember MacGyver and you don’t have it figured out, and then you start to figure it out, and then you want to replicate it. And you want to get consistency. And so you develop systems and you look for hockey stick growth that is based on replicability and systems and consistency. And we call that bureaucracy when it goes really far. And I think what this has taught us is that all of a sudden out all those systems and a lot of cases got kind of blown apart. And so we were able to move really, really quickly. And we had to make some decisions and a whole new way. And some of those previous policies and practices which were put in place for all the right reasons, were really reinvented because we needed to do things differently. And I think that gives us a really interesting opportunity to think differently about everything that we do. The other thing that I think is really exciting is that innovation is Best with the most barriers, like when you don’t have any barriers and anything goes, you can be slightly innovative, but you don’t have to work too hard at being innovative. And a lot of times when the barriers are most significant is when we have to be the most creative. That is when we figure things out that we never would have figured out before. And so I think that is the opportunity to really tap that kind of innovation. And one of the other things I wrote about is the opportunity for career opportunities, which seems really counterintuitive. I know with unemployment higher than it’s been in decades. But what tends to happen is we tend to shift the swim lanes of roles and responsibilities in times like these, and that can give us new opportunities to stretch. So if every company is a startup company, and they’re figuring it out in new ways, and they’re innovating in new ways, they are going to need that entrepreneurial skill set. skill set of people who are figuring it out and making it up and finding new ways. And so I think that is our opportunity, again, not to be Pollyanna, but to think about, gosh, where might we be able to go? And where might we be able to reimagine and reinvent.

John Corcoran  27:16  

I love that positivity. Any final thoughts on ways in which you see work changing and ways in which companies are going to be bringing life back to work in the months and years ahead?

Dr. Tracy Brower  27:30  

You know, I think it is going to be all about both the people and the business. Like I always like to say when you do the right thing for people, the right thing for the business happens as well. And we’re in this really interesting time where the supply and demand has shifted, pre pandemic, there was a shortage of talent. And so talent had the power and companies were doing everything they could to attract and retain. With unemployment as high as it is. We’re going to go back to a situation where companies have more of that power because everybody needs a job. And this is going to be a moment of truth for companies to do the right thing to make sure that they’re taking constructive productive approaches to make sure that they’re focusing on integrity and the right kinds of corporate values. Because the power shifts will change again, and the companies who have done the right thing by people and by their business and have been able to balance those will surely be the ones that are coming out on top and differentiating. So really, really good things to come. We all hope.

John Corcoran  28:30  

That’s great. All right. Well, I want to wrap things up with a question I was asked which let’s pretend we’re in an awards banquet, much like the Oscars and the Emmys. We’re all sitting socially distance six feet apart, of course, at that awards banquet, but you’re walking up to the podium to receive an award for lifetime achievement for everything you’ve done up until this point, and who do you think are the people that you acknowledge in your remarks? And it’s just a family friend? Of course.

Dr. Tracy Brower  28:52  

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course, family and friends are really, really critical. You know, it’s that first debate coach that told me Tracy, she said, you know, even if you don’t have anything to say you can sound really good when you’re saying it. So God bless her She

John Corcoran  29:09  

sounds like a little backhanded compliment, I guess.

Dr. Tracy Brower  29:14  

It’s for some reason it’s stuck with me or it’s that, or it’s their career counselor in college who kind of whispered to me and asked me to, you know, come to her office after she overheard a conversation and said, Tracy, what you’re interested in is called XYZ in a company. And so she was able to kind of guide me and direct me and I’ve just had some amazing leaders over time who have been so oriented toward learning and toward advocating for me and really, I have been able to be really authentic and so I’ve learned so much from them.

John Corcoran  29:46  

It’s great bringing work to life by bringing life to work. tracybrower.com is your website. I know you have some exciting projects, not ready to announce them yet, but on the horizon, so we’re going to be hearing more from you. Where can people go to connect with you and learn more about you?

Dr. Tracy Brower  30:03  

Well, they can go to my website tracybrower.com and I work for Steelcase, which is an amazing organization. So steelcase.com has tons of resources in terms of returning to work and kind of the, the new way that we need to think about supporting work from an office standpoint and a work experience standpoint. Excellent. All right, Tracy, thanks so much. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Outro  30:26  

Thank you for listening to the Smart Business Revolution podcast with John Corcoran. Find out more at smartbusinessrevolution.com. And while you’re there, sign up for our email list and join the Revolution, and be listening for the next episode of the Smart Business Revolution podcast.