Sandra and Leonardo discuss leading remote teams through COVID burnout. They describe a change curve from remote work's initial honeymoon through despair toward innovation, and stress that leaders need to grant permission for breaks, foster storytelling, and ask why questions to rebuild creativity and prevent their own anxiety from spreading to teams.
Chapters
Yeah, no problem.
Rich conversation about a really important subject, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
Right. I'm gonna start with this. As we mentioned and as we've talked about, leading a remote team is more than leading a team that's remote. We're leading a team through crisis, and it really comes down to empowering the right leaders. to challenge those underlying assumptions so that organizations have the capacity to steer toward opportunities and away from threats.
Mm-hmm.
And as we've talked about, you know, really that measure between the human side and the business continuity side, and, you know, given how clear the economic challenges are right now, we're seeing there is such an incredibly Strong emphasis on the business continuity side. Many of our conversations are revealing, you know, layoffs that have taken place within organizations and all of those kinds of things that, that have people inclined to prove their work and prove their productivity. Tell me your thoughts on that. Sandra?
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, this week I was telling you, I don't know if you were recording at that time, but I was telling you, you know, it's been a really busy week for me, which, you know, in some way I'm grateful for because, you know, as you were saying, there's a lot of people who are, you know, have lost their work and pretty much, well, very quickly, you know, being given notice or being put on technical, what do you call, unemployment, or, you know, whatever the terms are in the different places. And yeah, it's a blessing. And it's also all the people that I'm hearing who are in work, they're all saying we have more meetings than before, we are tired, you know, we work from like 6 o'clock in the morning to 11 o'clock at night. It's just crazy. But at the same time, you know, I was hearing, I had a message earlier from another contractor who was in the same organization as me and was, you know, was let go last week or yeah, when I was on holiday. So not last week. Yeah, last week, sorry. And she messaged me today to say that she found another gig and I was really pleased. You know, that's a positive message in times like where we hear millions of people have filed for unemployment and things like that. And there are opportunities out there. And I think it's a positive message. And in terms of leadership, I think what this tells us is that you have people who lead with empathy, you have people who will let you go. If you're a contractor, like in my shoes, people will let you go with, a day notice to 2 weeks notice. It really depends on where you are. But then you've got your personal leadership that can take you through this in terms of, you know, what do you stand for? Do you know who you are? And this is what's going to take you through, you know, working that— working during that period. And you can still make connections, you can still find work during that time.
I think you're right. I think we have to— couple of things to share in that regard. And this is, you know, we wrote this mantra for the organization a long time ago. And sometimes it's funny how things gather new meaning, you know, given what's going on. But, you know, leading remotely and being remote— I'm gonna bring Leonardo in.
Hi.
At this place in time, it's really— we're not going back to where we were at. There's a, you know, that notion as we've talked about is that, you know, business as usual. And, you know, we believe, you know, quite certainly we are at a place of transformation and there will be opportunities, particularly for those leaders that are the most creative, the most resourceful. and able to create opportunities in the midst of this. But the way that our conversation began, I think, is a threat to the type of creativity that we need to have. And that is something that is quite universal. I just shared in chat— Welcome, Leonardo. I hope you can hear us. I shared in chat an article that said in the United States, people are averaging an additional 3 hours of work per day.
Yeah, yeah, I'm not surprised.
Right, an additional 3 hours of work per day. So, and what that means is that we're now facing burnout. So I love this piece here, and this is something that I think is worth thinking about, is that despite the fact that what we're going through doesn't, in our mind, doesn't seem like it ever was a honeymoon phase, but the truth is there was novelty that was involved with working remotely and sort of reorganizing ourselves around something new and different. And so But we've moved out of the honeymoon phase and we are in the disillusionment phase. We're in that phase where we've seen our colleagues perhaps being let go. We're seeing, you know, and reading about articles of so much uncertainty and unknown end to what we're experiencing. And this is really leaving us in this place. Place of A, we're working so hard, and B, we are not taking the time to replenish ourselves and not taking the time to restore ourselves. The disillusionment phase is very common in change management, noted as the trough of despair. This is the point where people become You know, have despair and negativity. And if you've seen a lot of the things that are being shared now really speak to that tone, there's a darkness to it. There's a heaviness about the conversation, which is further adding to this place where we're working so hard and we're really not restoring ourselves well.
Right.
What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, and I think it's also forcing people to make decisions that maybe they wouldn't have made if we didn't have that disruption. You know, I was talking to somebody today. I'm actually taking over from her in a slightly new role in one of the projects I'm involved in in the organization. And she was saying to me, you know, it's all a bit too much. I don't have that balance anymore. And I know we, you know, it's been a long time since we can talk about work-life balance, right? And I think that term is now not relevant anymore for the way we work and this blur between home and work. But, you know, she had to make the decision to— she was reaching burnout and she had to make the decision to take some time off. And I mean, I think it's probably the right decision for her. at this point in time. But at the same time, you just think, well, why did she have to do that? You know, could we have prevented that? Because she feels she's been pushed so far that she can't find that balance anymore. And she has young children, you know, and she feels like she's not, you know, able to, you know, to balance the work that she has to do and that family time. And at a time where you know, she's at home and unable to, you know, kind of ignore the problem because, you know, she can't put the kid at school or, you know, and just forget about it, right?
Right.
So I think it's an interesting one because it's always a phase where it's really hard to kind of pick up and go up the rest of the change curve. And that's where I think that's during this time that leadership or leadership, you know, is really important to— and what can we do to, you know, not get to the bottom, let's say, and start climbing back up?
I think you're absolutely right. I think that that's— and that's really precisely where I was hoping to go in our conversation today, is how can we ensure that we really empower leaders to make the best decisions about both their work and their life and make sure that there are restorative opportunities in there. Because what I'd like to really drive to is that creativity often is born out of these, you know, the creative solution, creative ideas really born out of You know, taking a walk, having a conversation with a family member that we care about, that we're checking in on, and or, or, or some sort of creative pursuit. It is in those times that we're not focused on the work that we're actually able to, you know, be very, very creative. So the point that I'm making is that the next phases where we're building and also moving into what I'm reading a lot about is the Renaissance phase where we're creating what is next. Leonardo, are you there?
Yes. Do you hear me?
Yes, we hear you. Excellent. Tell us your thoughts on this.
I think it's very interesting. This is a phase of basically reconstruction. There is a shock and awareness, and then leaders are key elements to basically restructure the situation. And this is very important. What is happening inside of the leader or the manager is not eventually spread around. Basically, if there is confusion, uncertainty, and lack of understanding of the situation, you somehow, as a leader in a leadership position, you have to basically reshape your— the situation in the mind of your followers. Otherwise, it can be chaos. And good leadership emerged in this circumstances. And also you see, as I said last time, lack of leadership also appears in this situation that are very hectic and uncertain. I think it's very interesting. We had last semester, we have a crisis, social crisis, social unrest in Chile, and we had exactly the same situation. Basically, people were completely confused. And, and we have again this situation. I am not sure if in a developed country this happens very often, but in Chile or in developing countries, we have this situation very often. Like every 3 years we have a big crisis and it's more volatile and you have these changes. So people seem to be more oriented to the present and also adapt, I would say, much easily than in developed countries. This is my impression. I think it's—
Well, I think we can make a case. We can certainly make a case that once you've been through something, you know, the next time that you encounter it, you know, we're better with it. And You know, I— one of the things that we have pondered and thought a lot about is, A, you know, is it possible that we can, by way of awareness and understanding, that we can circumvent the disillusionment phase and really help people focus on that reconstruction, that generative, that creation phase? Is that possible by way of engaging and creating awareness around things, or can we mitigate the amount of time in that disillusionment phase? Because right now, as you note, there's a lot of people— I'm going to jump to the next slide here and speak to, you know, as I've mentioned, we'll focus on one challenge and we're alluding to it here in our conversation, is I'm working night and day. And this, you know, interestingly enough, I had a friend that sent me an article and I posted it in chat here if you want to grab it and take a look at it. But what the article identified is that the average American worker is putting in an additional 3 hours of work a day. And there's just a lot of situations where people are, you know, literally rolling out of bed and jumping right into work, and they're Days are extended and they're really not playing a role in that restorative side of their life, that connection with their family, that walk if they can take it, yoga, whatever it might be, whatever it might be, that those things that, you know, really restore us. And, you know, here's a personal story that relates to this. And it's— I've been reflecting on. A year ago, I had a bad injury that I sustained. I was a road bicyclist and I took a fall and it didn't seem very bad at the time that I fell, but what followed was really bad and it was incapacitating nerve spasms and, you know, had me on my back for the summer and, you know, 9 months of reckoning with this. And I asked the practitioners that I was working with that were helping me get through it, I said, is there anything that I did or might have done that really set the stage for this? Because I didn't have a bad fall, but I had a bad injury. And really what it came down to is I used to just grind it out every single day. I would start working and I worked out in the morning, but once I started to work, I would work all day long, 10, 11 hours, literally just bring lunch to my desk and just work, work, work, work, work and not get up and move around. Of course, we've all seen the reports on what happens and the dangers of that.
Right.
And so when I recognized— and on top of it, when I would sit all this time, I would sit on one of my feet. Like, I'd swing a leg up and sit on one of my feet, something that I started doing as a young child because I'm shorter and it would just elevate me a bit. If you can think of sort of what was going on with my spine when I was doing this and not moving. And it was really clear to me that, you know, that that was very unhealthy And what I started to do is to start my day with a walk and take several walks throughout the day, short walks or a little bit of yoga. And something really amazing happened is that while on those walks, I came up with the most creative ideas.
Hmm.
While I was taking a moment for restoration, and this comes back to how our conversation started. We get this notion that you need an hour or you need, you know, we need so much time to do these things. And what I've come to recognize, it's not about time, it's about the restorative nature of things. So I'd love to hear from both of you, you know, your thoughts on how do we make sure we take back Our lives and the connection with doing so, with actually being able to recreate our organizations, our, you know, communities in the way that they need to be and really get to that place where we actually contribute positively to, you know, let's consider a Renaissance era. Of innovation?
I think probably the first step, I mean, I can speak for myself in this case, but, you know, the first step is to give yourself the permission to take that time back. Because I think a lot of the time the pressure comes from ourselves. And I'm not, you know, getting a get-out-of-jail card for leaders, you know, in a company who puts pressure on with milestones and things like that. But I think there is definitely a lot to say about giving yourself the permission to say, you know, I'm working 15 hours a week— a day. A week sounds— 15 hours a week sounds quite nice. 15 hours a day. If I work 13 hours or even 10 hours, it's actually enough. I'll probably be much more focused, and, you know, in those 5 hours or whatever, I can go for a walk, you know, spend time with my daughter and, you know, still do quite a lot during that day and then probably be more productive. So I think it's about less guilt and giving ourselves that permission and giving ourselves that space. And I think the second spontaneous thought that I have is around helping each other out. You know, I mean, we often work in teams and even as a, you know, as a contractor, you work with people in the teams, and not everybody is going to have a bad day at the same time, right? And I think it's important to be able to share that when it's your turn to have a bad day or a bad week, and then be able to offer support when you're having a good week and you can support somebody else who's having a tough week. And I think through that, through that teaming in a true sense and not just, you know, from a structure perspective or roles and responsibilities and all of that, but more at the human level, being able to recognize that we all have, you know, these moments and, and just help each other out, you know, to carry on on the journey and recognize that, you know, we might not be able to deliver everything. But some of the stuff, we're definitely going to give it a good go and we're going to help each other out.
I think so, and I also think that I think we can actually produce more if we take some breaks.
Mm-hmm.
I think we can, you know, just, we can come back with a new sense of energy, a new sense of kind of what we're working on, however we might be able to take those breaks. What can we do? Now, Leonardo, I know that you are really shut in, So, that makes it hard. But hard doesn't mean impossible. I mean, what are your thoughts on this?
Yeah, I think it's basically, what I believe is you have to accept the loss first. Be aware and accept that you have lost something, basically mobility eventually if you have an accident. or eventually a personal loss, or— and then focus your, your framework, mental framework, to the present, basically, and focus on the small gains. Especially when you don't have much certainty about the future and long-term or midterm, basically focus your, your action and your your strength and effort to the present. And small gains, I think, reinforce your behavior in a new situation. I guess this is something that you can share with your team, with your group, and your organizational units. So you keep moving, basically.
Right. I think it's an important piece. And I really love this quote. And I think it relates to what we're talking about when it becomes more difficult to suffer than to change, you will change. And, you know, I will never swing my leg up and sit in a discombobulated way as I did again because there was suffering that resulted in it. And I think to draw the analogy that leaders are feeling burnt out, they are putting in more time And at the same time, I think we're gonna accomplish more and actually be more productive if we have that discipline. And I think it does come down to a discipline of whether it means we put it on our calendars or we track it or whatever serves us well. But I also like, Leonardo, how you mentioned this is a time where we have This conversation. We have this conversation with those around us that here's what's happening, and it's really understandable that people are focused on business continuity to prove their worth, to prove their productivity, to show they are the ones that will be, you know, maintained. And of course we want that. But this is a long game. This is a long game that we're in, and I would like to challenge, challenge us to really look at our days and to build in, even if it's small bites, of exercise, of being in the outdoors if we can, of creative pursuits, of learning something new, of Yoga, meditation, whatever it might be, but things that either, you know, bring us joy, bring us rest, and that we build them in for the next couple of weeks very, very intentionally and then pay attention to how we feel about that work that we're doing, how it impacts that work, the outcomes, and even the creative solutions. And really what I'm driving at is that I, I'd like to believe that in so doing, we will be better at producing creative solutions. Because if you think about any of us when we're really, really fatigued, is— are we at our most creative? Talk to me about this, either of you.
Well, definitely not. But I think also the— probably the challenge for leaders is, you know, keeping themselves in check as well as keeping the team in check. So it's almost like a double you know, double burden.
Right.
And at the same time, you know, making sure that as a leader you don't transfer that pressure or that stress to the team and being able to let some things go, as Leonardo said, and help the team focus on what's important. Because I see a lot of frenzy and activity and projects to keep things going and show that we're moving forward.
Mm-hmm.
We're moving forward, but are we moving in the right direction? I don't know, you know, on some of these projects, just because we have to show that we've done something this week, even if we're in lockdown. And well, of course we've done something. And actually, you know, we, we're still here, you know what I mean? And we still thinking about what's gonna happen next. But yeah, if you've got, you know, meeting after meeting, pressure of building slide decks for the next meeting, and you— it's just not gonna give you the space, as you said, to be creative and find solutions to some of the problems. Because at the end of the day, you know, there are problems which are not going to disappear just because there's COVID and lockdown, right?
Yeah.
There's still some things that need to be done and some solutions that need to be found. And but being effective means, yeah, finding that balance. It is not anymore, you know, the work-life balance. It's that personal balance about knowing when we reach our limits and when, you know, we are at our best. And yeah, I think everybody knows what their thing is, you know, whether it's creativity or exercise or both or connecting, you know. And sometimes just as simple as it's not going to give you your sleep back or something, but, you know, connecting with somebody and having just that human connection, you know. Yeah.
It's never been more important. So you think about, you know, now weeks in to isolation and physically connecting with our, you know, essentially our families and maybe a small extension beyond them, but very little, you know. So I think connection, and I also love that you brought up sleep, a very critical— as in our last conversation, we talked about hypervigilance, that behavior that we have when we're in a crisis. You know, really does often make it difficult to have very restorative sleep. So one of the things that we always build into our processes, virtually every one of them, is the sharing of stories. And one of the things that I have always said is the most powerful way to influence others is, is by sharing a story.
Yeah.
And this is a wonderful example and this is where I think we'll sort of bring our conversation to, is to create our own stories in the next couple of weeks. Have that discipline to restore ourselves in the ways that we know serve us well. And be very disciplined with that and then pay attention to the ideas that we come up with, the creativity that we have. And the point that you brought up, Sandra, was what I'm fearful we're doing and what I want to really build into this process and is built into this process is that we stop when we encounter a challenge and we ask. What is our natural— we call it a knee-jerk reaction to this challenge, and let's make sure we're pausing in that moment and we're carefully considering if that knee-jerk reaction makes sense anymore.
Yeah, and I'm definitely trying to do that in one of my projects at the moment, just to say, you know, with that frenzy of activities, why Why are we doing it? You know, let's go, let's take a step back and think about the why. Is it important? What is it going to give us? What value is it going to add? And why are we doing it? Do we really need to do it? And not because, you know, I'm tired and I don't want any more work, but just because, is it really worth everybody putting all that effort and energy into something that we might not need? You know, maybe it was needed at a point in time. But, you know, take that time to really think about whether certain activities are needed.
And creating value, right?
And creating value, because at the end of the day, you know, yes, we can always show that we've been doing things, but what value is it adding? You know, are we just creating more work for the sake of creating more work? And that's just not effective in the long term. So I think, you know, and it's, it's, it's a, you know, it's part of my role, obviously, but it's something that we have to do more, I think, as leaders in teams and in companies, just to say, why, why are we doing it? It's always important in change, but it's even more important, I think, in a time of crisis, just going back to essential. And there can be lots of discussions about what's essential and whatnot, but it is being able to ask the difficult questions as well.
And stop and pause. Leonardo, what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, it depends on the phase where you're experiencing. Basically, I would say when there is too much uncertainty and there is a— people are in shock mode. And I would say that you have to input all type of— give some signal of action to continue moving just to recreate your routines, even though those don't eventually make sense in the long term. And later, I would say the leader, the manager, should prioritize and put priorities to different activities, but it depends on the stage that you have. If you have basically a change of circumstances, a sudden change of context, the leader should eventually create structure. Otherwise, the people— you get chaos. And you create structure with routines, and routines lead to action. My impression is that it depends on the stage, and I— I think that's good. I agree also with Sandra concerning the self-management, the divide, you as a leader and the group, especially in this moment. You have to search for help eventually, like a coach or something in this situation. Otherwise, you start transferring your own anxiety, uncertainty to the group, and that is not functional. So you have to put the wall between your behavior that you— the behavior that you show to your group, to team, and your own personal situation and try to channel that through external help. I think external coaches or some colleague that is expert or has experienced something. This wall that you build is functional when you have the crisis. Later on, it's not, but—
That's a good point. That's a really good point and a perfect place for us to sort of pull all these pieces together is that I think most of us would agree that in the beginning having work to do and to be able to focus our energies on those projects really is helpful in the beginning of significant change. But then when we get to the point where we have been so focused on that and hyper-focused in the environment, now with a remote environment sort of lends to that overemphasis on the work side and less of a focus on the restorative side, on the life side, that's when we need to be having these discussions, speaking openly about them, and truly sharing Our own stories and the stories of others that, you know, that came to the same realization and are now, to all of these pieces, taking some time to restore and in so doing, pausing and asking those difficult questions so that we'd be— so that we're sure now as we're going forward that we're working on the right things. We're answering— the right challenges. We're coming up with the opportunities for our organizations to steer away from a challenge or most certainly to create opportunity. I think we'll see a lot of really innovative things beginning to emerge now. Ideas, solutions, and you know, how do we foster that with those that we work And I love, Leonardo, that you said tapping into the support of a coach, someone that can help us gain perspective in our situation. So here we are. I make a promise of trying to bring our conversation to a close in 30 minutes, and so we're just a titch over that, but a good conversation.
Quick comment from each of you as we close about what you're going to do with what we've talked about and Yeah, definitely need to rebalance a little bit next week and maybe shift the focus on others and not just, you know, about, you know, my feeling and my struggles, but just like being open for you know, the broader impact and also how others are feeling and, yeah, achieving that balance, not trying to find all the answers myself, I guess.
You know what I love about that is what if the answer is in a completely different industry from someone way outside of what you're doing? I think sometimes they might. So those calls that we make to others, you know, surprisingly can bring us creative solutions, right? As well as restoration. I love it when we can have a couple of things come out of one activity. Leonardo, how about you?
Yeah, I think to create narratives or stories, I believe it's the original way to teach. It's a very old way to share share knowledge even before the printing system. I think it's very useful and always more impactful, especially if it's related to your own situation and it's some story that you experience yourself. I think it's a very, very useful way to share know-how, how to deal with situations. I normally in my teaching or my I don't use stories because I don't want to involve myself with the— but I think it's a good point. You, if you share your own story, your experience, and you connect with a concept that you are trying to, to, to teach or to, or to, to share, you get a better result.
Beautiful, beautiful. Well, I encourage you To really be thinking about having the conversation, really bringing the conversation forth about where we're at, and the unique opportunity there is for us to bring more restorative activities into our day, and that that will enable us to better creatively come up with, you know, ideas and solutions and connect with our team. So I look forward to hearing about what your findings are, you know, with stories and with really, you know, speaking openly about where we're at and to consider what rebuilding looks like and what, you know, potentially renaissance might look like, innovative new ways of operating.
Mm-hmm.
I appreciate your time and I wish you all the best. Like I said, it's not It's not just about leading a remote team. It's not just about leading a remote team through crisis. It's really about empowering leaders to innovate, to come up with creative solutions, to recognize that a lot of the underlying assumptions that have served us all well, they're being redefined right now. So this is our time, really.
