How To Work And Lead With Intention with Jacqui Brassey & Vivek Bapat

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0:42The Anxious Achiever: There's a business book that you really need right now, and it's called Life at the Speed of Play. Launch Products People Love by Mark Pincus. He's an entrepreneur's entrepreneur, known in Silicon Valley as one of the most prolific idea generators. I guarantee you've played one of the games that he has invented. And he's going to give you his book, two for the price of one. If you go to getmarksbook.com slash anxious, he will send you a second copy for free. If you're thinking about starting an online business, launch before Black Friday, a time of year when more people are already shopping and ready to buy.

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2:03The Anxious Achiever: Is it possible for AI to make room for more human connection, not less? Notion says yes, and it will help you do your best work. Learn more about how Notion can support your business at notion.com slash achiever. That's all lowercase letters, notion.com slash achiever and try Notion today. And when you use our link, you're supporting our show. Hi, I'm Maura Aarons-Mele, host of The Anxious Achiever. Today, I'm going to bring you one of our most downloaded and one of my most favorite episodes from our archives. It's a classic. The Anxious Achiever has been at it for a long time. We have over 300 episodes, and honestly, they're all still more relevant than ever.

2:52The Anxious Achiever: You may hear details in this episode that remind you it's from another time, but I guarantee that the advice you get will be as crisp and meaningful and the stories as resonant as before. If you have a favorite episode of the show, let me know. I'd love to air it again or even re-record it for you fresh. Enjoy this classic Anxious Achiever episode.

3:23The Anxious Achiever: Intention, the leadership tool we all need to use now. Today, we'll have two conversations with leaders who are thinking about intentionality. A bit later, we'll hear from Vivek Bapat of the software and technology giant SAP about how he approaches work, why mental health is a key part of DEI, and strategies and tricks he's learned in many years as an introvert like me about being a remote-based leader. First, though, my conversation with Jackie Brassi. She's a co-leader at the McKinsey Health Institute and author of the book, Deliberate Calm, How to Learn and Lead in a Volatile World. She looks at adaptability, emotional flexibility, and leadership resilience.

4:08The Anxious Achiever: Jackie studies how toxic leaders affect our anxiety and in turn how that anxiety shows up in our performance and in our office culture. Jackie's an anxious achiever herself whose own crisis of confidence has inspired her area of study. Here's our conversation. So just tell me quickly, you know, why is McKinsey invested in mental health? I think every organization currently is invested in mental health. And McKinsey is one of the many organizations that really look at what can we do for our own people, but also for the organizations that we work with to help them become better. And through the McKinsey Health Institute, which is an initiative by McKinsey, but separate from McKinsey, which is a non-fee generating institute.

4:56One of the things we do is also research the mental health and well-being. And it turns out it's a very important aspect, of course, of employee performance, productivity, etc. But also for attracting talent and retaining talent. So apart from doing the right thing, because it's just the right thing to do for human beings, the good thing is also that it turns out it's good for your organization. Okay, so let's start with toxic workplace behavior.

5:25The Anxious Achiever: This is something that I think all of us feel like we know it when we see it. How do you define toxic workplace behavior? So the way we looked at it, we have looked at it in our study that we launched in April. And indeed, as you say, it can be a very broad topic and it can be very narrow. And the way we defined it, we literally had six questions that we asked people. And those six questions varied from my manager ridicules me. That is like a very explicit bad type of behavior. And it's very clear when that happens. Wow, like makes fun of you. Exactly. Or puts me down in front of others. And two, one of the questions was I work with people who shut me out of conversations.

6:11And that's more of an implicit type of experience of toxic behavior. The second question was my manager puts me down in front of others. My manager makes negative comments about me to others. I work with people who make derogatory remarks about me. And I work with people who belittle me or my ideas. And then the last one, I work with people who shut me out of conversation. So it's about my manager, who's clearly not treating me well, or the people in my team. and that is actually, Moira, we found people indicated in this study that we did, and that was a global study in 15 countries representing 70 % of the working population, that one out of four indicate to experience high levels of toxic workplace behavior, which was a complete shock to us.

7:01The Anxious Achiever: Let me just ask a question because I'm curious. There aren't measures in there about my employer doesn't respect my time or my employer expects me to be always available to them or any of those kinds of questions. Does that complete lack of respect for time and boundaries factor into toxic workplace behavior as far as you see it? It is. So we did have we have more questions in that survey. Yeah, and we did ask also for sustainability and the experience of people to being able to balance the time. But one of the dimensions that we also asked was around inclusivity, which goes a little bit further around being a feeling that you belong and feeling that you are safe in the team.

7:46But the sustainability of work was another one. And all of them are important if you look at how they drive burnout symptoms. But they were factoring separately. and also what we saw is that you can still have an inclusive experience yet also experience toxic behavior so these these two are not always they are correlated but they're not always the same

8:09The Anxious Achiever: thing so the toxic behavior is really about my attacking my own sense of self it's really about me feeling and experiencing the truth is in the eye of the beholder of course right but this is what I think is happening to me. And that is, yeah, immediately attacking the sense of safety. And of course, immediately impacting burnout symptoms, distress and anxiety. Right. Wow. So one out of four people globally. Yeah. Yeah. Experiences this. That feels very high. I was also struck one out of two people at work at least think they would perform better if they were less afraid of making mistakes or not being good enough.

8:59The Anxious Achiever: At least 40 % of people worry a few hours a day about not being good enough. They're anxious. And then people avoid leaning into challenges, speaking up or giving feedback. if they feel these feelings where they're worried about how they'll be perceived or shamed if they make a mistake. And so they're just walking around with anxiety all day long. Sure. And Maura, what you just read is also part of a book called Authentic Confidence. And this exploratory study, those numbers come from a study that I did pre-pandemic. They're pre-pandemic numbers. Oh, wow. Actually, they were related to my own confidence crisis, which I had about seven years, eight years ago.

9:46And I started to study this topic. And there were three questions that we asked. And we were wondering, you know, how many people are worried whether they can perform better and how much time do they spend worrying? And then we thought, well, is this a big deal? So we asked, what do they not do? And indeed, what you see is that people stay under the radar. They don't speak up. And so, I mean, you do get, you miss out on a lot of talent because people, if people don't participate and they do not lean in and, you know, there's talent that gets lost that doesn't come to the table. And the other bit is also you do not potentially get critical information to the table.

10:22Additionally, we now know, of course, that it also impacts health and well-being. So there are so many reasons to actually understand what this topic is about, what this problem potentially is, and also how you can learn as an individual to handle this, to deal with this effectively, and as an organization, how you can create an environment where the negative effect is reduced. So this was pre-pandemic and this was part of a study that I did as a result of my own confidence crisis a couple of years ago. And I wanted to understand this topic better. And then I found out, hey, I'm not the only person.

10:57I thought I was alone. But then it turns out this is actually quite common, which was good to know.

11:04The Anxious Achiever: I want to hear about your confidence crisis, but first I want to pull out the thread between toxic behavior and this extreme anxiety and worry that people are walking around with. I mean, have you found a connection or are these two different threads of research? Well, they were different threads of research, but toxic behavior directly impacts anxiety. The first one that you mentioned was before the pandemic, before the McKinsey Health Institute was launched. The second one was when we launched it and we actually globally researched the link between toxic workplace behavior and the impact on burnout symptoms, distress, anxiety and depression screeners.

11:47So they are related. The link, I think it's a bit nuanced here. I want to emphasize that one of the hypotheses that I personally have and also discussed recently with a professor, Tessa West from New York University, is you have toxic workplace behavior that may come from bad intent and bad behavior, and that impacts people. But there may also be toxic workplace behavior that does not come from bad intent. And there is bad behavior, which does not let the people with bad behavior off the hook. but it may be as a result of stress right um in the end we are all human beings and people and i see that under stress it's very hard to stay calm and sometimes the result may be that you say something or you do something that you did not intend to do but that is the result of the stress and the huge pressure the increasing pressure that we're under now again that does not let us off the hook of bad behavior.

12:48But it is a challenge that we see. And so I wanted to highlight another finding that we saw in our global study, the people with the skills of effective adaptability, which is very similar and close to emotional flexibility. Those people suffer less in stressful environments than people without those skills, because they are really vulnerable. And so there is also a buffering effect for yourself and for the experience that you have. If you find yourself in toxic workplace behaviors, it is not a solution, right? But it is an indicator that there is more to this topic than what we just said. A lot of people experience it.

13:30There's a lot of stress going around. I also would love to look at this topic with a bit of compassion and see what we learn from this. And me included, because I'm not walking around like a saint all day either, right? I have my moments.

13:44The Anxious Achiever: And actually, there's brand new data that I saw from Future Forum that says, you know, executives are feeling on average 40 % more stress and anxiety than they were pre-pandemic. So the stress is just out of control. Yeah. So it's kind of like a two-way street that the manager is feeling very stressed, very anxious themselves. And so their behavior may get toxic unintentionally. and then of course that creates stress and anxiety for their team for their employees how does that cycle of reacting to each other affect people and the team it's huge right it's it's not only the domino effect it's the social system that impacts how you feel I mean there if you look at some of the work I describe also in my in my book if you look at how we construct direct emotions and how we feel, Lisa Feldman Barrett, I think is the one who actually describes it the neatest or the clearest for the sake of this conversation.

14:44It is what you've learned, your concepts, what do you have in your backpack and how do you look at the world? What are your own filters? That's one. The second factor is how do you feel? She calls it your body budget. So for example, are you tired? Are you exhausted? Or do you take care of yourself? It all impacts how you eventually are vulnerable to whatever happens to you during the day. And then the third one is a huge factor is the context that you're in. And so this feeds on and off each other constantly if the context. So if one person is stressed, especially in teams, the leader has a hugely important role by the very fact that he or she has a hierarchical distance or a different level than the rest of the team.

15:25And therefore, it's more important to even pay attention to how you come across and impacts how the team responds. But then within the team, it's the same thing. The social aspects of how you respond or what is valued or what is appreciated or what is listened to or not is huge. And you need to, so that is the interesting bit is you can have skills. That's what we also saw. You can have skills to handle with stressful environments. Eventually, people with those skills will not stay in those environments. They will leave. We saw that as well, 60 % more likely to leave the organization if the organization has a toxic environment.

16:03And that has also to do with the fact that you may be more confident about your alternatives. But yeah, so the interaction, it's the individual and the individual skills and how you as an individual regulate your emotions and respond to situations and the other way around.

16:19The Anxious Achiever: So the toxicity exists on a systemic level as well as on a team level, as well as on an individual level. Yeah. So what are some tools we have to combat that? So in our study, we indicate eight actions, not only handle toxic behavior, but actually to help organizations reduce burnout symptoms and also improve well-being. And those tools are at different levels as well in the organization, right? If you look at it, toxic workplace behavior exists because certain behaviors are not tackled as an organization. If there's bad behavior, then we need to have actually policies and routes in place for employees to seek help and to solve this, to say this is absolutely not tolerable and these are the steps that you can take.

17:11That's one. So you have basically policies and also follow-ups in place that something can be done about that. But a lot of this, and not only toxic behavior, but also challenges and conflicts of work-life balance and difficulty in team settings, or difficulty for individuals often happen at the team level. And I think teams and even team leaders or whatever the names of the team leaders are these days, you have scrum masters, you have team coaches, whatever you name, right? Because we tend to go towards the more flatter organizations and more networked organizations. the opportunity is huge for the team level to create a space where people can actually have an open dialogue and have a conversation around what the needs are of the people in the team and then solve that also at the team level.

18:07So the empowerment for teams is very important within that wider system. Yeah. It's also the place where you pick up the challenges. I mean, in the end, We can make a perfect machine and think it through, but we cannot forget about the human beings. And that's really the interaction and the dynamic of human beings and whatever they bring to work and the family situation and their lives. You know, a lot happens at team level. So how do you create space for that? And how do you create space for the flexibility and adaptability as a team to handle that and to solve the problems that you may face along the way?

18:45You know, there's always dynamic around that.

18:47The Anxious Achiever: There's always dynamic. What I always hear from people is, you know, organizations may have the best mental health policies in the world and benefits, but if there's toxicity at the team level, it doesn't really matter. No, it's like a basket of healthy apples with one rotten apple. If you don't take the rotten apple out, all the apples will get rotten. You can have all the therapy apps, all the benefits, all the everything, and it doesn't matter. And we say that and we explain it and then everybody's silent taking it in. And then they still feel more safe with the compliance kind of. We have ticked the boxes on this.

19:26I mean, it's important to have it, right? I'm not saying don't do it. It's important to have it. You do need to have it. But please realize that the other part is so many more times more important. You cannot do without all that safety net and the compliance type of infrastructure. literature but do not forget about tackling the other side and that is maybe harder to do for

19:49The Anxious Achiever: people but we we cannot do without that okay well let's talk about you I would love to talk a little bit about your own confidence crisis and then this concept of authentic confidence and emotional flexibility so tell me a little bit about your journey yeah so my journey with anxiety I realized later on in life that I always had low-grade anxiety. But I actually got a full-blown anxiety confidence crisis when I was already quite far in my career. Back then, early 40s, I had a couple of big roles already before global leadership roles with Unilever. And I'd done all my studies.

20:35I I was working in my second year at McKinsey and I really started to struggle with confidence. And one of the thoughts that was really taking a big seat in my brain was that I was not good enough. And it was starting to get in my way. And basically that was a process. So I tried to tackle it by working harder, doing more of my best. and that resulted in me not taking care of myself good enough, you know, working harder and harder, sleeping less and less, and realizing only later that, of course, you need a sustainable working model too also. And lack of sleep is impacting that, yeah.

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25:40The Anxious Achiever: It's the grain of your self doubt. Can you think about when those messages you first started sort of hearing that message in your head? Did something happen or was it a moment or did it just come on gradually? I think it potentially, with many of these things, there's a bit of me that is my personality and that I brought with me from a young age. And then there have been some experiences in my life, a little while when I was bullied and also I think in my environment, maybe lack of self-esteem, which has impacted me, you know, there's often the case with people with anxiety, there's always often, you know, what are the beliefs that you have learned and that you have embraced and maybe also believe to be true.

26:38And that's stuck with me. And then, you know, a bit of a perfectionist character doesn't always help. And so there is always, there's a couple of things. For a long time, I did think that I was not good enough. That's why I also didn't go to university. That has also to do with not having the, you know, it was also not a normal standard route in the environment where I came from. I come from a very lovely, warm family in a lovely small farmer village in the Netherlands. but you know that the big world was a journey and now I really see it as I've embraced this is a wonderful background and experience but for a long time I thought hmm that is you know it was impacting me as I was looking up to to every everything else in the world and thinking I was not good enough and that started to settle inside of me and so yeah that I think I never tackled it properly and it came out big time.

27:37And then I had to make a decision. Do I actually want to tackle it? Because I could have walked away from it. Really? I felt, yeah, I could have walked away from it and go into my safe bubble. But I thought, no, I actually, I want to do something beautiful in the world. And in order to do that, I need to face these demons. And so I decided to face it head on, which was the best journey that I could have taken. At that time, I didn't feel like that. But I realized, A, I was not alone. And B, there are wonderful tools that can actually, it's normal. And you have, you can learn skills. And it's also then, Maura, I found out there's science behind it.

28:17It's biology. It's neuroscience, you know. And I just thought it was either you have it or you don't have it, right? And that felt so empowering.

28:26The Anxious Achiever: So as we round out here, let's talk about where you've come to with the concept of authentic confidence and does emotional flexibility, is that part of authentic confidence? We have actually done also an academic study based on the book. And basically what we did was we trained people on emotional flexibility skills. And then we looked at, and it was over time and we had a control group and we looked at how it impacted people's generalized self-efficacy, which is an academic term for self-confidence. And we saw that it improved confidence. So if people developed emotional flexibility skills, it improved confidence.

29:08And the reason why I talk in this book about authentic confidence is that people often ask me as well, are you never insecure anymore? And do you not have anxiety anymore? And I said, well, yes, every day, even today, Moira, for this podcast, of course, I have this healthy sense of anxiety. I'm honored. I hope I'm going to do a good job. And that's normal. By the way, there's nothing wrong with anxiety, right? It's also the body is designed to have these feelings in the brain. And it's very good that it happens. It only becomes a problem when it gets in the way for us to achieve what we need to achieve in life.

29:45Or what is important to us. But authentic confidence for me and for this book means becoming comfortable with the discomfort. And that means I can be confident because I have the right tools to help me in the moment that I feel anxious or that I feel insecure. Even if that means that I need to say that I'm not sure. Even if it means that I need to admit that I don't have the answer or that I feel a little bit nervous in the moment. and I have the skills to calm myself down. And if I do not fully calm myself down, I'm also okay with being transparent about it. Now, that feeling and that feeling that you have that backpack with you actually builds authentic confidence.

30:33And that is wonderful because it means that the whole concept of acceptance and commitment training and authentic confidence is about, you know, think about what's important for you. What are your values? What is your purpose? And try, you know, set, you're trying to move towards what matters to you. Because once you know what matters to you, then you can make difficult decisions. Also, if you need to go left because that matters to you, then you can say no to going right. And on that journey to going towards what matters to you, sometimes there are challenges because it means you need to potentially learn new things, do difficult things.

31:10and for that you'll have the tools so you can still live a meaningful life whilst still feeling challenged every now and then and you have to if you want to learn and develop you know for me it means going on stage talking about this topic which is sometimes super scary to do but I do that because it's part of my purpose and so that is the link emotional flexibility is the the fact that you can handle the the stress that you experience and the emotions that you may have you can regulate these emotions and and also it feels more like you take ownership of your life instead of life taking over for you right yeah right and and the idea that when you hook into

31:53The Anxious Achiever: your values doing scary things feels like a part of the journey not the huge roadblock in your way Right. I mean, that's the ideal is that is that because this is part of your journey and part of what you really, truly value, you're going to push through, you're going to do it. Yeah. And life, as they say, Stephen Hayes says, life is also about suffering as well as it is about beautiful things. But it also means sometimes suffering. Right. So how do you translate that concept to the boardroom? What do you say to people about that? That's interesting. Well, difficult things in the boardroom, difficult decisions have to, we bring ourselves as human beings to the boardroom.

32:37If we enter the boardroom, that doesn't mean we are different human beings. We still bring our personal lives there as well. And our personal lives are sometimes challenging and not easy. And in the, you know, at the same time as a board, we may face a storm as well. because you see what you know what we we are all since the pandemic is one example the world is volatile we we know we've heard the concept of VUCA often the world is is actually becoming more volatile and and stormy the last couple of years and disruptions are are everywhere and that is not that is not easy and therefore old solutions are not always applicable in the new world and And that causes in the boardroom, but also in any team, stressful situations.

33:28And it requires us to be even more collaborative and more open to embrace uncertainty and to be okay that we do not always as individuals or as leaders have all the answers. So we need to go out of this feeling of control and top-down decision-making into more bottom-up decision-making and more iterative decision-making and also being okay with decision-making that is not 100 % certain anymore, as it felt more certain like a longer time ago when the world was more predictable.

34:08The Anxious Achiever: Vivek Papat is a leader in sustainability marketing and solutions at SAP, focusing on brand purpose. He's got a lot of thoughts on ways leaders can be more intentional in the world of remote and hybrid work. He says in many ways we're leading without a map, but he's here at least to give us some landmarks. I started by asking him why he views mental health as solidly in the bucket of diversity and inclusion? One of the things that we have been observing for a pretty extended period of time is that while there's been a classical focus on physical health for many, many years in corporations, so you can think of all of the different programs that organizations have put into place in terms of ensuring that they are able to support an employee's or colleague's physical health, we observed that more and more employees were bringing in, you know, their whole selves into work.

35:05And a large part of that equation was actually how they actually felt from a mental perspective. And so we saw a clear trend line in terms of really thinking about mental health in the same way that we would think about physical health. We saw that opportunity to look at it this way about three or four years ago. And we felt that when it came to mental health, there were lots of different challenges in terms of employees not necessarily willing to share how they felt, you know, on certain issues, you know, what the outlook was from a mental health perspective internally within the company, because there's a massive stigma associated with it.

35:49So part of the work that we've been doing is that we've been really working hard to create an environment of psychological safety and create an environment where employees are able to bring their full self into work and that managers and leaders are equipped to be able to have those types of conversations in the workplace. and really not treat it as a stigma or, you know, as something that needed to be hidden, but actually create a forum where these types of discussions can actually happen. And we've also seen enough research out there in the marketplace that this is an important issue to employees as well.

36:24So when we do annual surveys, for instance, or even quarterly surveys in terms of, you know, assessing how employees might be feeling about the organization, about the workplace in general, this is one of the things that keeps coming up, which is many employees will say, in fact, a majority of employees will say that one of the things that they are looking for is to make sure that they have the right kind of work-life balance, work-life integration. So the life component of it is a very clear signal that many employees care about. And traditionally, the workplace has not cared about that component.

37:01The Anxious Achiever: What's a tangible way that you make the rubber meet the road when it comes to helping people reclaim space for their lives, for example? Yeah, I think there's lots of simple things that can be done, which is I think a lot of at a global level, maybe at a corporate level, I think what can be done is, you know, resources that can be created in order to enable employees to have those conversations. For instance, we actually have a chief medical officer within our company. And within the chief medical officer's organization, we actually have experts in mental health and mental health care that are available to all employees to have confidential discussions.

37:40So while this actually existed for a while, many employees didn't even know that this type of a service or opportunity existed for them. So just making the visibility, creating the program at a corporate level, making sure that we have the programs in place where employees can actually go to somebody in confidence and have a discussion with a professional counselor, for instance. So that's one layer. But I think a really, really important layer is ensuring that we're able to enable colleagues and employees and managers to have these discussions at an operating level. So if you think about the interaction across colleagues, for instance, or the interaction between a manager and an employee, what we are doing is we're creating the atmosphere where those types of interactions on a daily basis, for instance, can happen without any kind of stigma, without the employee feeling like this is going to be held against them, for instance, in some way, shape or form.

38:43And so just creating that sort of a cultural environment to make those discussions happen at a one-to-one level, I think is where the rubber actually meets the road. And I think once you create the platform, in the case of myself, for instance, that have led many multiple teams across different types of geographies and boundaries, it's really surprising and refreshing to see that employees are willing to share these types of things once they feel like they will be listened to and heard. By the same token, I think, you know, we've also seen enough research out there that means that these types of changes have to be driven top down, which is the leadership needs to also step in and actually show their vulnerability in the right moments, in the right cases, and sharing some of their own challenges, for instance, openly and honestly, gives many employees around the world the license to actually share their own challenges with their managers and their colleagues.

39:38The Anxious Achiever: Leaders go first, as my friends at Mindshare Partners like to say. Yes, leaders go first, for sure. I also think it's a top-down run. And I would also think that, you know, while leaders can go first, I think a lot of work that needs to be done at a consistent basis at scale across the organization to make sure that everyone feels included as part of the process. So it's not enough for leaders to, for instance, you know, just have, you know, maybe once every six month town hall to talk about this process. But this needs to become part of the leadership ethos, not just at the top level, but it needs to become part of the leadership ethos across the entire company at all levels.

40:23And that's truly when the change can happen.

40:25The Anxious Achiever: Right. And at that team level, you mentioned psychological safety, right? And you need to have that team level belief that you can be your true self and you can be open and not fear shame or fear making a mistake. How does your job help that get done? I mean, I can't even imagine how many teams there are at SAP as a whole. Well, so I think I'll give you an example of just, you know, some of the observations from my own team. So what I've seen is that, especially as we navigated our challenges globally with COVID, you know, there were many occasions where we would set aside literally, you know, sort of the day-to-day work responsibilities and just have an open discussion.

41:11with the team on how everybody was doing, you know, and everybody was feeling. And what you see is you get different types of responses to that type of openness. So in some cases, I had employees, you know, I had my teammates share very openly about what was going on in their entire life, right? And they would share it openly with the entire team. At the same time, there were other employees who didn't quite feel that way. And they felt that, you know, maybe this was a topic that was better reserved for a one-to-one discussion. So in our case, what I found was that as a leader, you have to be willing to accommodate both types of sharing.

41:53So in some cases, it's sharing in public and people are open to doing it. In other cases, people are much more reserved and you want to create the opportunity to have those one-to-one discussions. So we've seen everything during the pandemic. So we had divorces, we had, you know, deaths in the family, we had, you know, births, we had, you know, all kinds of things, job losses, we had all kinds of these things that were happening with colleagues as part of their lives, and they had never really had the opportunity to share it with anybody. And what I found was that when we opened the door to create that psychologically safe space, and as I mentioned, there are two or three different types of how sharing occurred, the team came together and there was a real collegial feel to teamwork.

42:44So in retrospect, I think everybody got to know each other much more, you know, sort of beyond the day-to-day work, but they got to know each other as individuals. And longer term, what that has led to is really cohesion with the team, a real appreciation for each other in terms of just even the work environment. And it's led to better teamwork and frankly, better outcomes as an organization.

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47:20The Anxious Achiever: That's$50 off your first year at Monarch.com with code Achiever. So I've seen it, you know, in cases related to COVID. I think we had a very similar type of situation happen when we had lots of social unrest with the George Floyd situation, where we opened the door to actually openly talk about race issues. I wrote a piece, you know, just a leadership piece that I published on LinkedIn, but many other leaders did the same. And then, of course, the corporation, SAP, actually had a few town halls where they brought in experts to actually enable these types of conversations at scale with an entire employee community.

48:01And that really builds an enormous sense of belonging and inclusion. And again, like I said, so many of the stories that came out were unbelievable stories that you would have never, ever had the opportunity to listen to. And it really just makes you appreciate each other more as individuals. Yeah.

48:21The Anxious Achiever: So you and I got to talking because we are both people who've been working remote for a very long time. How long have you been working remote? Yeah, I've been working remote for SAP. This is my 16th year at SAP, and I've worked remote for SAP throughout my career. So when remote work sort of went to scale, right, or we thought about remote work at scale as we navigated the COVID-19 crisis, the fact that we were working remote was not a new thing for me. Yes. And I also have been working remotely for 16 years. And we were talking about that we're both introverts who really need our introvert space, but that we had developed a rhythm of connection with colleagues by building a remote work life that included a lot of in-person touches and yes, business travel.

49:18The Anxious Achiever: But we had found a rhythm and that it really worked. And that was very disrupted by COVID. And you shared some ways that you really felt like leaders in this hybrid era need to be very intentional going forward about communicating. Because so many of the old ways that we used to communicate are changing. And now with the so-called looming recession, people are cutting travel budgets right and left, which I worry will separate us more. And I'd love for you to reflect on how to be an intentional communicator in this new world, what you're learning and what you're seeing. Yeah, it's a really great question.

50:04So one of the, like we discussed earlier, the fact that I was already used to remote work, but most of my colleagues were not. So imagine a scenario where it was many of my colleagues in many meetings would be in the office. And then I would be that one sort of annoying voice in the conference room that nobody could really see or hear.

50:26The Anxious Achiever: Can I ask you, Vivek, why were you always remote? Was that a choice or did? It was just something that, yeah, well, it was a choice and it was just part of the way that we had hired. And SAP was a very progressive company in that regard. So it's not just me who was working remote. We had a lot of employees even prior to the pandemic that would work remote. But clearly, majority of the people, the colleagues worked in the office. And so remote work was still seen as an outlier. And you kind of felt included in meetings. But it wasn't always the full inclusion that you would expect. And what COVID did was it basically leveled the playing field for everybody.

51:07And so all of a sudden, everyone was remote. And so everybody had to work with each other to make sure that, you know, all voices were heard. And as a leader, I think, you know, it was really important for me to focus on drawing out the voices from people who are new to this and were perhaps a little more reticent in terms of sharing their opinions and ideas and so on and so forth. So I think that was one part of COVID. But I think one of the things that you mentioned earlier was that in a global company, even though I was working remote, I still had the opportunity to travel to different office locations or to customer meetings where I would meet with customers and I would meet with colleagues.

51:52And typically what I would do is, you know, I'd schedule for an entire week at that office. And what I would do is when I was in the office at that particular location, I would schedule one-on-ones. I would have one-on-one personal meetings, you know, in-person rather meetings, where it gave me the opportunity to build the types of relations face-to-face that ultimately would sustain, you know, a work that was being, or a worker such as myself, who was mostly operating in the remote arena, right? So I think it was a nice balance of being able to go out and meet with colleagues, build your network, establish those face-to-face relationships.

52:31And then when you went back into remote work, those relationships were established and then the remote work would actually be, you know, easy.

52:39The Anxious Achiever: Your cup was full. Your cup was full of all the good energy and the goodwill and the, you know, knowledge of each other. Exactly. Because I do firmly believe that it's important to, you know, build relations face to face. And once those are built, of course, you can nourish them and nurture them over time. But then the remote part of work becomes easier once you have those relationships established. And for a long time, you know, that was that was possible. And I used to do that at every opportunity where, like I said, if I went to an office, I would have, you know, my calendar would be completely full.

53:13And, you know, I'd use my time to intentionally create those relationships that would then ultimately be sustainable over time. And I think as the world moved towards almost exclusive remote work, what has happened is that the ability for workers to actually establish those physical personal relationships, right, in-person rather relationships, has gone down. And the narrative at the moment is, well, you know, we were able to do all of the work remote just as we did in the past or even better from a productivity point of view. So an organizational leader might look at it and say, well, it's fantastic because now I don't need to, you know, have a lot of offices and I can really focus on maybe a cost savings approach to this, which, of course, many companies need to do.

54:10And it needs to be done in lots of different areas. If the sole measure of product, you know, is productivity. Right. So I think we've learned how to be productive as organizations through the pandemic. On the flip side, I believe that there's a cascading effect, which is, you know, companies will cut travel, for instance, or they will somehow look at this as an opportunity for cost savings. And my fear is that as we do that, if employees who are exclusively working remote are not given the opportunities to actually meet with customers face-to-face or meet with their colleagues face-to-face, that's a relationship -building opportunity that gets missed.

54:57And what ends up happening is that the employees feel more and more detached from the workplace. And especially in large global companies, personal relationships and the network that you have is really how work happens the best. And my fear is that while productivity might be fantastic for some time, the question is, what is it actually doing to the culture of the company? And so because, as you know, once people start feeling disengaged, what ends up happening is they go back into their own echo chamber. And it's not just for employees. It happens to leaders as well. So if you're a leader who goes back into your echo chamber, guess what happens?

55:37Well, you're more likely to, you know, if there are new projects that are coming up, you're more likely to, you know, trust people who are very close to you in proximity. Right. To take those on or people that you worked with in the past to take those on. Right. And so you kind of, I feel like you might inadvertently, a company might create these echo chambers of leadership across the organization. And so that could clog up the whole sort of machinery of the way that work actually happens through these very human networked relationships. So that's a danger that I see. I know many organizations see it the same way as well.

56:14And so, of course, we're in a different environment now where, you know, we have so much inflation and, you know, potentially a threat of a recession. So the pressures on things like travel are only going to increase. And I just my my perspective here is as a leader, think about the cultural aspects of this type of work and whether or not you're creating the opportunities for your staff and your employees to actually build these professional personal networks in person as well. Right.

56:44The Anxious Achiever: To build the weak ties. Right. And what you call the bridging social network versus the bonded social network, the bonded social network is these are the 10 people that I talk to on a regular basis. This is the pool I'm thinking of versus when you oh, I met that person in in Austin and they were incredible. And I never you know. Right. And it just makes sense. I'm curious also, what else do people trying to create great remote work cultures have to learn from sort of traveling introverts like us? Because we created a way to work that was extremely intentional with communication. And what I don't see right now in our constant Zoom culture is any intentionality when it comes to planning and communication.

57:30My view here is that consistency is the key. And I feel like, you know, one of the very wise leaders that I've followed over the years that says anything that is important for you, that's super important to the organization is worth over communicating. Yeah. And so a lot of times I feel that, you know, leaders job, you might feel that, hey, I've already said this, you know, five times, let's say in meetings, or I've already had a discussion about this five times. In a remote environment, sometimes you have to over over communicate that because not, you know, everybody's not receiving it in the same way.

58:12and as many others have said before you know people always remember how you feel yeah and they'll you know they'll probably remember a third of what you said or what you wrote so I think you have to communicate with deep empathy you have to also make sure that you're giving room to hear people out so it's never a one-way communication I've had many styles I would say that you know Of course, we have team dialogues, which are, you know, we have consistent team dialogues. We talk about these issues, both work as well as life issues. At the same time, I also do a lot of one-on-ones where the one-on-one isn't necessarily a work-related one-on-one.

58:56Sometimes it's a mentoring one-on-one. Sometimes it's an opportunity for me to get to learn, you know, what's happening in somebody's life where I can actually make the decisions to make sure that as a leader, I'm providing the kind of safety for that person to get through maybe a tough situation that they might be going through at a certain point of time. And so I think communication to me becomes a lot of listening. Right. It's a lot of sharing. So a lot of times, you know, it's a sharing discussion, just like you would speak to a friend. And then it's really the culture of empathy, like we talked about earlier, which is caring.

59:32I think people genuinely need to know that you care and it has to be authentic. So it really raises the bar on leadership. And I wouldn't say it's just leaders, right? I mean, I think this is if you really truly want this to scale within organizations, I think everybody needs to feel that. And I've seen amazing examples where people within my own team, for instance, have stepped up and they've been amazing colleagues to their peers, or they've reached across the aisle to others that they knew were struggling with certain issues and have provided that kind of support. So it's really, it's not just a top-down thing.

1:00:06It's also a peer-to-peer type of opportunity. And I've seen really incredible examples come out of this through this whole crisis.

1:00:14The Anxious Achiever: This may sound like a very basic question, but in the remote era, how can a manager show they care? What's effective? Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of times it comes down to deep listening. I think it's listening, you know, is the first thing. And, you know, one of the things I worry about just as a manager and not necessarily being an expert in health care is, you know, what is it that I can do? So I can listen. I can provide some counsel. And in some cases, I've actually suggested that somebody actually go talk to a professional counselor. Because, you know, it's really hard for somebody to actually agree and admit that sometimes they need professional help.

1:00:59And if there's a facilitator that can say, look, maybe this is something that I can make an introduction to you and I can create some. This is a resource that maybe you have never considered, which is available within SAP, for instance, or outside of SAP. I can provide that type of guidance. But I think for the most part, for the most part, what my observation is that people just want to be listened to. They want to be seen. They want to be heard. And I think in the words of Brene Brown, right? I mean, I think empathy is really trying to do your best to walk in somebody else's shoes. And it's not always easy.

1:01:35It's not simply saying, yeah, I can relate or I can say, yeah, you know, I know you're going through a tough time and I'm here for you. But it's really sort of the next layer down, which is, you know, I see you and I can appreciate what you might be going through. And I'm going to try to meet you where you are.

1:01:53The Anxious Achiever: And I do think that's harder with remote teams because we don't have those moments of being thrown together. Can you think of a time where your empathy kind of failed you and what you learned from that? Yep, I'll give you a great example here, which is there's a colleague that, for instance, I've known for a long time. And because we've known each other for a while, you know, for the most part, I personally felt that, you know, my relationships were secure. and that, you know, it would be okay for me, let's say, to talk to her maybe once a month, you know, but what I found was that the frequency of that conversation, even though I felt that, you know, I knew everything, you know, she was, she was in a good situation and that we had known each other and that she didn't necessarily need much support, not that she needed a whole lot of support or guidance, but even the interaction on Zoom was not as frequent.

1:02:53And what I found was that this is where I personally felt that I failed as a leader, where I took something for granted. And what I saw was that the performance and the health of that mental health of that employee, really, there was a direct co-relationship, at least in my mind, in terms of the frequency of how I showed up and her performance and her sort of connection to work. And I never really realized that until we had a discussion where, you know, we went into all of this and we said, well, what is actually happening here? You know, I thought everything was fine. And, and, you know, we've been there for each other through many of these ups and downs.

1:03:35And what I found was that, you know, a very simple step, which is we said, instead of meeting monthly, why don't we just talk weekly, once every week on a Friday, you know, pick up the phone, let's talk for 20 minutes. And more, I cannot tell you that that one little act alone had such a big difference, because again, the frequency of communication, frequency of knowing that somebody is there for you on a weekly basis, not that she needed a whole lot of help, but just the willingness to be there for both of us made a huge difference. So it was an example where I think sometimes, you know, as leaders, you kind of tend to run to where the fire is the most, but you neglect the areas where, you know, there might not be something happening.

1:04:21And then, you know, you got to sort of recalibrate. And this is another example. I mean, there have been other examples, but this one was a glaring example. It was a great learning for me that I've taken out of this particular, you know, situation.

1:04:33The Anxious Achiever: Okay, my last question, circling it back to work and life, how do you recommend leaders at whatever level, think about boundaries? I mean, we all talk about how boundaries have become very difficult when we're working at home, you know, like what's home and what's work. How are you thinking as a leader differently about how you sort of model your boundaries or state your boundaries or, or use your boundaries as a tool to maybe help your team's mental health? So for me personally, you know, I've worked hard at setting some boundaries. And what I try to do is, you know, three to four days a week, I will take the time to go exercise and work out or play my sports and those types of things.

1:05:16So I clearly set aside some time personally to do that because I feel like if I don't do that, then it impacts my mental well-being and everything else that comes in front of it. So that's just a personal boundary that I've learned to execute. I'm not the best at it and I don't do it consistently. It's something that I need to continue to really focus on. From a team perspective, I think, you know, I have an organization, a team where, you know, we're working across so many different types of time zones. So we have European time zones, we have Asia Pacific, we have the US time zones, we even have an employee working in Hawaii.

1:05:56How do we then accommodate all of these different things? And so for the most part, we will try to have meetings during a time where most of the individuals can participate. We're not necessarily going to be able to please everybody, right? But we try to share that across the board, right? So we don't always end up penalizing just one or two individuals in really different time zones. So that's one thing that a leader can do. The second one is I actually firmly believe that you have to trust your employees to do the work. And so if somebody has, let's say, their daughter's recital, or they have a family event going on, or they have something else going on, for me personally, I'm very open to somebody just either making up the time whenever they're able to, as long as the work gets done.

1:06:44And so I think that making sure that you have the flexibility and that people feel like they don't, they're not always going to be watched and observed as long as the work happens. I think, you know, that flexibility is hugely important.

1:07:00The Anxious Achiever: I know to those things that jiggle your mouse so that it makes it seem like you're online. That is terrifying to me. You've seen those. Yeah, exactly. No, I think, look, I think my view is that flexibility is key here. And I think, you know, I don't think anybody these days, with the exception of just a few professions, right, works in a nine to five environment anymore. No. And so I think I mentioned work-life balance is one of the things that used to be a thing. Now it's all about work-life integration. We all have families. We all have something going on, you know, within our lives and work's a very, very important piece of our lives, obviously.

1:07:42But as leaders, I think you have to put into context the whole picture, not just the partial picture. And I think that's a learning for leaders. Not everybody can do it, frankly. Not everybody's wired in that way. But I feel like generally the trend is held in the middle.

1:08:05The Anxious Achiever: That's it for this week's show. If you like the show, follow us and tell your friends. And please leave us a review. It really helps the anxious achiever get found by people just waiting for our content. I'm your host, Maura Aarons-Mele. Lots more to come in the next episode.

1:08:37Thank you.