Hybrid Work Revolution: Unlocking the Future of Productivity with Gustavo Razzetti

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What is a hybrid work model?

I always like to define things first, but what they're not. I think that the pandemic opened everyone's eyes to explore different possibilities. Every company is going to pay a high price because of not investing. We are always busy doing, doing, doing and we never stop to practice, to prepare ourselves. We're losing that sense of belonging. Does the water cooler conversations really spark innovation and creativity? Silence is a powerful tool.

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I'm going to challenge you to rethink everything you know about office culture, hybrid work and remote teams. If you want to thrive in a post pandemic world, then you've got to listen to today's episode. Gustavo Rossetti, the CEO of Fearless Culture, joins me for an incredible conversation. He's a sought after speaker and workplace culture consultant. His most recent book, Remote Not Distant is an incredible book and a best selling book at that. So please sit back and enjoy the show.

Foreign.

Gustavo, a huge welcome to the Lead on Purpose podcast.

Thank you. Very excited to be here James.

Oh, it's an absolute pleasure to connect with you. And I wanted to start off by asking you what is a hybrid work model?

I always like to define things first, but what they're not.

I'm going to say why hybrid is not hybrid is not just defining how many days people are going to be at the office and how many days they're going to be working from home or remotely. Hybrid it's about flexibility. It's our understanding that we need to design how we work based on the reality of the work that changes from team to team that changes from week to week. So it's a more flexible approach to design how teams work based on what they need to achieve rather than into a predetermined schedule.

Okay. And people who are going, you know what? I'm just too busy to do this design stuff. We've got too many things to do. I can't even think about that. What are the challenges or the consequences for them if they don't take the time to get this culture design right?

I mean, before we started recording, we're talking about sports. I'm not going to get into the details because, I mean, you guys with the All Blacks always win.

Right?

However, one thing I always like to mention is that in many areas, let's take sports, arts, music, etc. Most teams or even individual performers spend 70, 80% of their time rehearsing, practicing, getting better at what they do, and only a little bit of the time, 20% actually playing. In the business world, we are always busy doing, doing, doing, and we never stop to practice, to prepare ourselves. And that's a huge mistake that every company is going to pay a high price because of not investing. So it's like going and playing against the All Blacks without having trained and practice before.

I love that. It's a great analogy. Although I know that your home team of Argentina, they did beat the All Blacks here in Christchurch last year.

Yeah, maybe it's an exception to a rule, but, yeah, I enjoy it for sure.

I love it. And look, do you think this hybrid model is because of COVID or do you actually think this was starting to happen pre Covid?

I think I always like to tell that things in life don't happen overnight. We don't see them until they become visible, they become more important. And I think that what happened with the pandemic, it basically accelerated things that were already happening, things that were good and things that were not good. So when people say, hey, our culture is not so connected, we're losing that sense of belonging. Well, that was something that existed, and then the pandemic made it worse. When it comes to flexibility in the workplace, when it comes to work remotely, there were already many companies that work either mostly remote or working fully remote before the pandemic.

For me, I really feel like when I'm with people and rubbing shoulders and sitting side by side, there's like this energy and you build trust, and it really does energize you and get you thinking and strategizing. When I spend too much time by myself at home or working from home, sometimes that energy starts to kind of dissipate. So how can companies really find that balance for their culture, that working culture? Where do we find that balance between letting people have that hybrid?

I think that's a great point and I like the word balance because I think that we turn leaders tend to think in black and white kind of terms, binary terms like either we're all together or, or were not. And I think that every scenario has its problems. For example, if you are too much time in the office, there's a lot of interruptions, there's a lot of basically people working there, like pretending they're working to be seen and be perceived as a hard working employee. And to your point, if you're working fully remote, then you lose a little bit of the connection. There are two things. First, as I explained in my book, I interview a lot of people to see, okay, many companies have been running remote teams for decades successfully. So they're very intentional about when and how they meet. Either like now be assumed like we're doing you and I or getting people together. But the point is when those remote teams get together, they don't get together to work or actually rarely they get to work. They get together to build relationship, they travel to different places, they engage in community events. So they do things that are really meaningful to bring those people as human beings together, not just to talk about work. And I think what happens is that many other teams, they meet every day, they're in the office, but they don't spend time to building those relationships. So that's not a good answer or solution either.

Yeah, and remote, not distant. That is your book. And I'm going to put a link in the show notes. So if someone's listening or watching, please feel free to go click that link. Get the book with your book. What kind of research or interviews that did you do to kind of form the basis of your book?

There are different manuals. First analyzing lots of research that existed in terms of culture, remote teams, what work like to your point, like does the water cooler conversations really spark innovation and creativity? I'm sorry to jinx it, but no, it doesn't. So people believe that those casual encounters, there's no evidence whatsoever that shows that. I also also interviewed a lot of people. I interview people from larger organizations. I interview leaders who resisted and suffered a lot through the pandemic. I also talked to remote experts.

I wanted to hear also from smaller teams actually. For example, in the US there's a government entity that manages all the credit and mortgages that's called Fannie Mae. So it's a very bureaucratic, if you will, with all due respect, organization. But I Also learned a lot from them, how they challenged the way they used to work because of the pandemic.

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Yeah. And what were some of those key learnings that you did learn from them?

Hey James here. I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about something. Look, I get asked to deliver keynotes and workshops for teams and companies all over the world, from London to Antarctica, from America to Australasia, from armies to small businesses to large corporates to sports teams. But I go in and deliver keynotes around the mindset of high performers, around the habits of high performers, about how we navigate change. If you would like me to come and speak to your team or speak at your conference or deliver a bespoke workshop, please get in touch with my team. Carolinejloughlin.com will be able to help. I'll also make sure that we put that in the show. Notes.

Two things. First, I think the most important aspect is being intentional. So I self define. I call myself like a culture designer. What I do, I train a lot of people with my methodology and also I have my team and we work with different companies. We help leaders become more intentional about culture. Traditionally, we think that culture was something that happens because we work together. And that's not the point. You need to be very intentional. What's our purpose? What are the behaviors? How would you give feedback to each other? How do we design meetings to create better engagement? The second element is that I talk a lot about flexibility and freedom because that's a huge benefit for both organizations and employees. However, with freedom comes accountability and I think the most important thing is that high performing remote or hybrid teams have a lot of freedom, a lot of flexibility, but also they have a lot of discipline. And this is the part that many people miss. They can operate in different time zones, flexible personal schedules because they agree. For example, yeah, you can work in any hours you want, but from 9 to noon or from 10 to 1, whatever, we are all going to be available for meetings, discussions. So they set a very concrete rules and they're very disciplined. For example, how they document, et cetera.

Yeah, that's amazing. And I imagine for this to work well, there's got to be some degree of psychological safety. So can you share some tips for how a company, organization or team might build more psychological safety in a hybrid workplace?

Absolutely. I think first of all, psychological safety is like a muscle. So you need to build it and you need to exercise it all the time. And there's also chicken egg kind of dilemma which is, which comes first. Like we have, we make, we create a safe environment so people participate and speak up or do we have people to speak up and participate so we build psychological safety. So it's a little bit of both in that regards. How we facilitate meetings, for example, turn taking, make sure that everyone has their time to speak up, that leaders and louder voices go last. Silence is a powerful tool. Like for example, if you ask a question, you're facilitating a meeting or a leader says, hey, we need new solutions because our sales are down. Let people reflect on their own first. Introverts need time to write your ideas before they just share it out loud. They don't do well in a very high energy like crazy loud environment. But also it allows people to share in a more organized fashion and build off each other's kind of ideas. Another element that's important about participation is make sure that we don't have people interrupting. So we have what we call the no interruptions rule to make sure that when people are expressing their opinions, even if we disagree, we let them continue.

These kind of tips. I could see them working really well off field as well, with family, with friends. These are great pieces of feedback. And I guess from my experience working with organizations that are in the hybrid workspace, communication has been the biggest challenge intra communication within the organization. What do you recommend in terms of how do we stay connected without being busy on WhatsApp or Slack or Twilio? What do you recommend in terms of how we communicate powerfully and clearly?

First of all, I think that we have much more tools than we need. So I Remember when I first started using Slack, like when slack started over 10 years, I forgot and I thought, oh, this is going to kill email or replace email. And here we are. So we keep fragmenting conversations. So I think that's important for teams to understand where the different communications medium and how to use it. We have a tool that we call that's washing instructions, team washing instructions. The same way that your clothes come with a label that you know how it needs to be treated. This is about writing and codifying how we want to be treated as a team and how each team member should communicate, should collaborate, what things should manage asynchronously, which things should manage in real time. So writing those washing instructions really help bring some kind of a shared norms.

And those washing instructions, I'll tell you what, sometimes I haven't read them and I put a woolen jumper on a 60 degree Celsius wash. Not a good idea. So what is the consequence or the downside of people not writing these instructions for their team?

You're playing catch up or you're playing the guesswork. So let's say that we define that. For example, for small chit chat, we use Slack or chat for bigger issues. Maybe we want to write an email for documenting a decision making process and things are evolving like our team norms, we want to use notion. So if we don't agree on that, each team member is going to default to their preferred way of communication and that's chaotic. Also, I talk about fragmented communication. So I send you an email, you make a comment about the same topic on Slack, someone else uses chat. And then when we want to track all the communication, everyone's lost and confused and angry.

Those are the prices you pay and.

What a waste of time, productivity. And in the bottom line, of course it shows up.

Exactly.

And in your research and throughout the book, was there a company or organization who you think really has done this? Well, they have a really hybrid work model that's successful.

Absolutely. There's a firm called Goto that I really appreciate how.

They weren't working remotely that much. But then after the pandemic they realized that that was the way to go and they're working in a hybrid environment. One of the things that they did that for me is critical going back to the beginning of our conversation is this is not a one size fits all. When you ask me about what's hybrid and this company, they identify five different Personas. So young professionals who want to build a career, parents who have children, caregivers, and they define different work Models based on those different Personas, their different challenges, needs, and aspirations. So making hybrid a more interesting kind of proposition.

Yeah. So what I'm hearing is that there's hybrid and then there's actually different shades of that color. So it's like for this person, here's what the model might look like. For this person who has these circumstantial situations, this is what it might look like.

Absolutely. And for example, another company that really was doing a great job when I interviewed them is Slack. We mentioned Slack now, not the app, but the company that manufactures, that sells the app. And basically, they also identified that different teams require different frequencies of getting together. For example, the sales team meet more often because of their energy, because they want to compete against each other. They want to share leads, they want to share best practice.

Young team members need to be a coach, and they need to learn by watching other people sell. While in other teams, like marketing, they can collaborate and develop social media assets more remotely and then get together when they need to brainstorm on huge campaigns, for example.

Yeah, that's.

That's great.

And I guess the hybrid workplace environment, it's not going to work for every industry. So like the construction industry, they've, you know, somebody who's actually building a property or a commercial property, they've got to be on site. Like, working hybrid is just not. Not possible. So this only applies to companies where it's actually possible, right?

Absolutely. But also, I always challenge the beliefs and say, well, if my wife is architect, so in the past, you had to go to the construction site every day or stay there for now. There are technologies and ways of working that doesn't need you to be there as much as you used to be, for example. So the different things that can work in a new way, considering the technology and the process, but also the mindset, because I think that the pandemic opened everyone's eyes to explore different possibilities.

It really did.

It did.

What would you say are some of the biggest mistakes that companies make when implementing a hybrid workplace model?

The mistake is making decisions based on assumptions and not on real data and information. So, for example, when the Elon Musks of the world say, everyone back to the office because he just wanted to send a message that he was smarter than the former Twitter CEO, that wasn't based on any fact. It wasn't based that really the company wasn't doing a good job or information was just personal preference. And many leaders were born and raised in that environment. They feel more comfortable in their corner office because that's the power play. They have everyone around them, so they like to be in the office. And also their spouses don't serve them coffee and things like that. So they want to be there because they have all those perks. Joke aside, they're imposing them. So the problem is, rather than involving the team in decision making, leaders making decisions based on their own preferences without supporting data. Lastly, one thing that's important, we talk about one size fits all. We need to give every team the freedom to determine when and how they want to work. Because in DNS, the question that we should be asking is not how many days in the office, but what way of work is going to help us as a team do our best work. We need to focus on the work, not on the schedule.

And what I hear you say there is like Elon Musk in this situation, actually let his emotions and his ego play as opposed to looking at the data and the science, Right?

Absolutely. And the point is, there are many other interests now. For example, if you own a real estate, you want people to go back to the office and all the businesses that surround that presence. But there's a lot of conversation and if you ask people, they say, now everyone's back in the office. That's a perception. The other day, the New York Times, for example, published regarding New York, an article that there's so much empty space in the city that it can fit like 30 real.

Empire State buildings altogether.

Wow.

So get.

But that people don't talk about that people talk about all years because that's the headline, that's what sells. And we need to go deeper beyond the headline, the catchy headline, and try to understand the phenomenon and do our homework rather than rush into fully remote, fully back in the office or whatever without considering what's best for your company. Yeah.

And slow is good. So for the company leader that's listening right now going, okay, how do I figure out what's right for my company? Do you have any advice in terms of where they would start? Maybe what questions they might start asking for?

Sure. One of the. In the book, I have a lot of tools that people can use. And one of the. For me, most important, revealing when I work this tool with leaders is about a culture reset before jumping into what's the solution. It's about reflecting on what used to work before the pandemic, that we want to continue having practices, decision making, models, whatever, what stopped being relevant because the world changed then during the pandemic, that we were forced to work remotely and adapt to that new reality, what are the new things that we uncovered that actually help us become better? And what are the things that happened there that we don't want to carry over to the next phase and integrate those phases? Looking forward to how the future could look like for your company.

And I imagine rather than a leader saying, hey, I'm going to follow Elon Musk and I'm just going to make a decision, me personally, it might be better for them to say, hey, I'm going to sit down with my leadership team, my senior leadership team, and actually discuss what you've just talked about. Do you feel it would be important to have a discussion with your senior leaders rather than make an executive decision as an individual?

Absolutely. And also it would involve different teams to get their input as well, because once again, some companies want to move to other extreme, fully remote, but they're young employees or people that don't want to be at home. So we need to integrate the different perspectives. I know it's hard, but in the end, when you crack the code, it's much more effective for the company. There are a lot of studies that show, for example, companies like Spotify, Airbnb that have provided that level of flexibility have increased not only business results, but also, for example, diversity in numbers that are unbelievable. Slack now. No slack, sorry. Spotify has now four times more women in senior executive positions than before the pandemic because of this new arrangement.

That's incredible. So there's actually a direct link with Hybrid and DEI getting more diversity in our companies.

Totally. There's another company, it's, I wouldn't say small, because it's a U.S. which is big, almost, but it's a regional U.S. insurance company that was kind of traditional, called All State. And now they move into a almost fully remote hybrid, very flexible, and the number of candidates that they are getting that come from African American, Latino and so, and more women, et cetera. So they have diversified by 30% of their workforce, really, because of changing those rules.

That's incredible. And let's look at the other side of it just for a second. Gustavo. So let's say we're at 80% remote work. That's like we're 80% people are working from home or wherever. Have you found any connection or correlation with mental health in terms of loneliness, in terms of being feeling disconnected with the team?

There are some elements, but once again, there's also a lot of elements that show that many people feel either attacked or psychologically unsafe in the workplace. And now working from home, they Feel much better. There's some interesting information that people that are working hybrid, they are working one or two more hours per day. However, they're also allocating more time for personal care and personal health because they're saving the commute time. So I give my company a bit more, but also I'm taking more time for myself. So, yeah, there are certain cases of loneliness, but in the end, the majority of people, according to the research I've been reviewing the past few months, shows that they are taking more care of themselves, eating better, practicing more sport, going more out, taking more breaks at work. Of course, to your point, to wrap it up, companies need to monitor and make sure they can anticipate if people are in isolation, people are not connected and take care of that and provide the right support.

Yeah. And for the company that wants to, like, actually measure, do we have connection? Do we have belonging? Do we have, you know, happy team members? How can they measure that?

That's a great question. There are many tools that companies are using to track that, I think. I'm not saying that we shouldn't measure, but I think sometimes we put too much emphasis or companies in measuring and not so much effort into making sure we're doing the right thing. You know what I mean? So for me it's if you do the right thing, like in a relationship, you don't need to measure, hey, how, what's the percentage of love that you have? For me today, you know, that kind of stuff. Because we want to track it. I think it's like, are you really having conversations? It's like feedback now. Companies do performance review once a year and it's a little bit too late to understand how things are going. Having one on ones like leaders with your teams on a weekly basis is just 15 minutes. Minutes. Take care of your team, talk to them, how are you feeling, what's going on? That it's much more effective because you're getting the pulse, but you can act immediately rather than when you get stats across the team. And they need to know exactly who's the person that's actually going through some problems.

Yeah, 100%. And in terms of, say, leaders or managers, what role do they play in ensuring the success of a hybrid team?

It's interesting because we've been seeing a shift in the role of leaders and I think it's perfect for today's world. We need leaders that rather than try to be the hero that have all the answers or the solutions, we need leaders that are good facilitators. They facilitate the Right culture, they facilitate the right conversations. They also know how to facilitate good meetings and conversations with their teams and make sure they provide the right context. Because in the end, people know how to do their work. The role of the leader is to set the right directions, provide people the right instruments, technology, resources, and then kind of manage when they need to be involved and when they need to get off the way. Finding that balance as well is great.

Yeah. And that's not always easy. And I guess ego kicks in sometimes as well with that and micromanaging. So how do you think that this hybrid workforce will actually change the future of work in the long term?

It's a very interesting question. I'm going to take a deep breath before.

There are two things I think that there's a generation that's getting used to. You know what? I don't need to work where I live. So they're embracing the. I want the flexibility to be able to travel, to explore and work in any organization. I think that's going to have an effect. And regardless of what companies do, this is going to happen. The level of loyalty, so to speak, that people used to have for a company, it's going to erode. But I think it's not just because of remote work, is because, I mean.

20, 30 years ago, people stay in the same company for 30, 40 years, they got that golden watch and stuff, and that had been eroding. Now I think that the flexibility gives people not only a realization that my personal life comes first, but also the flexibility. If a company doesn't give me options, I'm going to choose somewhere else. On their hand. I think that companies are going to realize that they need to adapt a more global mindset. Even if you operate in a single market, your talent pool is not limited to that single market.

Yeah. So if someone was based in Ireland and they had a company based in Ireland, they could be hiring talent in Chicago, where you are, or here in New Zealand. So really not basing all of your talent pool in one geographical area.

Absolutely. And one thing that's a shift too is that in the past, people hire talent in other countries because of cost. So when people hire remote workers in India or in Uruguay or you name it, it was, for example, in the tech business, it was because they were able to access to great talent at a che cost. Now it's about finding talent that brings the diversity, the complexity, the experience that you wouldn't have if you weren't able to hire remote people.

Yeah, I can see that from my own business model. For the last four or five years, I've had team members in the Philippines, in India, in other parts of North America. And it's been great. There's been challenges, there's been communication challenges, there's been expectation challenges. But actually, once we work that out and improve the communication, that level of flexibility for me has been great.

Absolutely. And I think it's important also the moment you're working with people that have different languages, different backgrounds, different experiences, they live in different weather, the conversations get richer because to your point, for you, it's like, what, two, three, what time is it for you now?

We are 11:00am No, 11.

Yeah, sorry, I was making the wrong. So it's 11 for me it's six and something PM and for your. Starting today, I'm kind of wrapping up with this nice conversation. So it changes the mood. I think it brings a great energy to teams, a lot of things that we can learn from each other 100%.

And for the listener that's listening right now that's about to go and buy your book and really go deep with what you talk about, what are the benefits for their company? Where could they see these benefits show up if they actually read the book and implement your incredible strategies?

One thing that people like about the book is like, it's not like a recipe or a manual that, oh, follow one, two, three steps and you're going to get over. It's actually a framework that helps each organization reflect on their own culture and design how to get there. And I provide lots of facts, insights from different people, not just for myself, but also exercises and activities from something really simple that you can implement right away for more, for more structural things that you need to kind of take more time and change the way you operate.

Great. So it's going to impact their level of culture, their engagement, of staff retention, maybe productivity, I imagine bottom line revenue, all those things.

I hope so. Decision making, for example, norms and rules. So a lot of things that are involved into team performance and productivity that if you, you get them right, then you're going to get the right results financially and humanly speaking.

It's incredible. Well, as I say, I'm going to put the link to that. I'll also put a Link to your LinkedIn profile for any leaders that want to connect and learn more about your work. But just before we go to wrapping up, I've got one question I really want to ask you. And if we were to fast forward into the future, way into the future, let's say 40, 50, 60 years, it's your last day here on earth and you know it's your last day. And someone very young, maybe 10 or 11 years old that you love, they come into the room and they say, gustavo, how can I lead my life on purpose? What would you say to them?

I would say follow your heart and take risks. And rather than ask for of things, do what's what you feel is right and things are going to come for you in the right time. One thing I mentioned, when I work in corporate for over 20, 30 years, I never asked for a promotion or for a race. I always say like I'm going to do what's right and then people, the things are going to come and if they don't come, they're going to find a way. So I think that's the most important thing. Sometimes we're too focused on the outcome that we forget to put what's the right input. So for me it's focused on that. Take risks, you're going to screw up. But the worst screw up for me is dying with regret. Oh, I should have tried that. And I think that in my case, I won't say that because I was taking the risks.

Yeah, no, thank you. Price gotta pay the price. 100.

Yeah.

And thank you for sharing that. That's great advice for our listeners. And remote, not distant. I hope that our listeners who are listening in from New Zealand, from South Africa, the uk, all over the world, I hope that they hit that link, go and check out the book. Because we are moving into a world that needs a hybrid workforce that's gonna, it's just, it's what's gonna happen. So why not get prepared, get ahead of the curve and make the most of it. So thanks for doing all the research for us, people who are running companies and running teams. I appreciate it a lot. You're fast tracking our learning. So a massive thanks also for taking the time to share your wisdom.

My pleasure, James. I'm really excited to be sharing this conversation with your audience and hopefully if people want to reach out and have questions, we can continue the dialogue 100%.

Hey Gustavo, thank you so much.

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