Episode #21:  How to Increase and Build Trust Remotely

Computers now have primary control of critical vehicle functions.

Welcome to the IBM Keep It Simple Technology Podcast, where each episode we discuss technology, but in a simple way. We keep the explanations simple, but what we spend our time on is emphasizing what this technology means to you and how you can best utilize this technology for you and your business.

Welcome to the IBM Keep It Simple Technology podcast. I'm your host once again, Thomas Anglero, with another amazing guest. Now, this guest was impossible to get a hold of. Um, I can't tell you how difficult she was to get a hold of, but we won't go into those stories. I'd like to welcome to the show none other than Trine Strømsnes. She is the CEO of Cisco Norway And because she blew me off for so many meetings, she must be the most wanted person in all of Norway. Welcome to the show, Trine.

Thank you, Thomas. You give me a lot more credit than I deserve. Except that it's impossible to ask to meet, but that's finally good, good, good.

Yeah, it's amazing. Usually what's hardest to get is usually best. So this is going to be the best episode ever. Tadina, let's jump right into it because you have a perspective that is unique and that everyone should have, right? So we're all stuck at home or some people are starting to go back to the office. But we realize that the way we work will never be the same and that working remotely is it. That's going to probably be the new norm and going to your office will be probably a little bit odd. But there is no other person you yourself who has 20 years of experience in this remote working world. You're the CEO of Cisco in Norway. Your point of view, your experience is valuable. I mean, the listeners that we have out here are leaders from all over the world, and they're trying to figure out what's the best way for me to balance out this new culture in my company. Tina, the floor is yours and welcome to the show finally.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much, Thomas Anglero, and great to be here finally. So, so I was thinking in perspective. So, so I've worked like we're doing today due to a pandemic. I worked like that for 20 years when I started in Cisco. And it's really embarrassing to say that I started 20 years ago, but I've had numerous roles within Cisco, both in Norway as well as internationally. And When I started, I got a PC at that time and I was labeled a mobile worker, but basically it didn't have anything to do with where I was, whether I was in the office or whether I was working from home. I had everything on my PC, no papers. And we had at that time, we had some good tools. That's 20 years ago. So it's kind of, But the really, the thinking is that you can work wherever you want, whenever you want. And basically, it doesn't have— you don't need, you know, you don't need to sit at your office to do great work. So that's a cultural thing, right?

So you're saying Cisco, working remotely has been part of Cisco's culture for at least 20 years?

For at least 20 years.

Okay, got it.

It's pretty amazing when you think about it in retrospect, but reflecting on where we are today, trying to jump directly into it, but we have Cisco is the world-leading video conferencing company. So, we started off with networking. We started off our history started in 1984 with a couple at Stanford that basically connected connected to data systems. And from there on, we've continued to connect the world. And we, we have today, we have a number of acquisitions, but one of the most important ones was Tandberg. And Tandberg we acquired back in 2010. And Tandberg at that time had a world-leading, was world-leading in video conferencing based out of Norway. And then we had our own systems, world-leading video conferencing, and we basically acquired a company and continued to innovate. So today we are world-leading video conferencing vendor in the world.

So let me challenge you. I'm sorry if I interrupt you because a lot of people out there are going, Cisco's world-leading? I thought Zoom was the world-leading video conferencing company. I'm doing this on purpose to piss you off. This is payback for not not connecting with me for so long.

Yeah, I know. I think we are in terms of one thing is that the number side, we're definitely world-leading in terms of market share. But I think what is important is that, and I'll get back to that and the perspective of what is really working remotely or working on using video as your tool to work and basically communicate and connect to coworkers or people around you. Today I see many, and I won't name them, even with our own tools, the tool, the technology is not really important, but when you use something that you connect to someone, one important thing is that you actually have to see people. So if I connect to someone and I don't turn on my video, then it's basically the same as I use my phone. So what we do when we develop video conferencing solutions is that we say it needs to be 10 times better than a physical meeting.

But how do you make that happen? What does that mean?

10 times better means that You need to be able to connect to people. You need to see them in the most natural way. Like you, when we started off in 2010 or back even before that, we created something called Telepresence, which was, it looks like you're sitting in the same meeting rooms, but it's over video. And we've continued taking that experience because it's an experience and our people developing this They think about the user experience more than anything else. That means that I need to see people the way, the natural fit, the natural size. The audio needs to be 100% similar to sitting in the same room. It can't be distorted. It can't be poor. The video can't be poor or distorted. So you need to optimize and you need to make it natural. And even that looking into a PC with your PC camera, that is not a way, natural way. You'll not come naturally across because you'll look up your nostrils. The nostrils are the worst. Exactly. Yeah. But also it's something around when you share something, as an example, you need to do it the same way you would do it in a room. So normally what you'll see today is that people share something and the first thing they will say, do you see what I'm sharing now? That doesn't, it shouldn't be necessary. The same thing is around background noise. So the most annoying thing is that you start crumbling your food paper, right? Yeah. You should remove that because what needs to come across is your voice. What needs to come across is—

So you're saying that You've technologically, you've created an ambience, I guess, in voice that the user's voice is what is dominant and all the background stuff, all the side stuff, so it feels as if we're having a one-to-one face-to-face. That's what you're saying.

Exactly. You will not care about the background noise when you meet someone face-to-face, right? But you will when you do it in video if you don't remove it. But as you say, the voice is what comes across.

Okay, so let me be an antagonist, or I guess that's what I've always been since we started this call. I think a lot of people today, when the panic happened back in March, we just said, okay, what solution can we use? And a lot of people being cheap said, what's free out there, right? And Zoom just took off and Microsoft Teams took off and Google did something, Google Meets, right? And so, I'll throw out all the names. So, they're all over the market. But that's not enough. That's not right. What is the right way to do it? Because a lot of us are going to be doing this for the next few years, maybe the rest of our lives. Can you give us some lessons? Step 1, step 2?

Yeah, so I think, and I'm not going to promote my own company for that because first of all, I think it's great that what, so never waste a crisis, as someone said.

Yep.

And that's really true because we've been thinking, how the heck are we going to get people to use video conferencing? Because not enough are using video conferencing, whether it's called Zoom or Cisco or whatever.

Yeah.

Now we have that experience and now we need to look at how are we actually using that? Is it good enough for me to sit and look into a web camera or a camera on my PC? Is it good enough for me to work from home the full week or even 2 or 3 days a week? So we need to improve that experience. So it's actually something that I'm comfortable sitting for a full day at home, working from home and connecting. And I have the same working relationship with my coworkers. I get the same thing done basically. So you need to look at something that makes your experience the best. And it replaces, it replaces a physical meeting. But what we have, what we have when we went into this crisis, just, um, because we are 600 people here in Oslo, uh, whereas 200, um, do sales, various roles and functions, 400, they're focused on developing, uh, video conferencing systems. So they are engineers, engineers. They need to see each other and meet. So when we got a 12th of March or something around mid-March, we needed, we needed to move everyone to home office and we had the best possible solution because we already were used to it and we had the best possible video solutions. So it should be fairly easy, but it wasn't that easy because you have teams sitting in the same room doing design development, doing design thinking, doing development innovation work, they are normally, they're used to sitting and seeing each other. So, and you miss all the great kind of ideas that come up when you meet at the coffee machine, or you just a quick meeting, 5 minutes. So, you have to replace that in some way. So, we did come up with various ways of doing it. It's, but it needs to be kind of the video virtual coffee. You had various ways of doing it. What we, I think what we are seeing today is that you will not go back to, or I actually, this is my opinion. I don't think we will go back to working from home 5 days a week. Some will do it, but I think most of us would want to see our coworkers. Of course. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And, but we also need to establish the opportunity to have the virtual coffees, the serendipity that you really need to make sure that you, you make that culture alive with having the opportunities not only to look at your PC and have business one-to-one meetings or business many one-to-many, but you really need to create these opportunities to both collaborate at work in your workplace, but also when you're sitting from home.

By the way, Tina, what you keep talking about Cisco, just a company, but what is the name of your solution that you have that you're referring to that has decades of experience and knowledge built into it?

So it's called Cisco Webex.

We haven't said it throughout the whole show. I just want to make sure people know what we're referring to.

Yeah, so Cisco Webex is the biggest cloud based collaboration tool. It is, it is everything from chat to video endpoints, video endpoints. And you'll see these in many, many rooms across different enterprises today. But basically they are high-quality video conferencing devices with the optimal best sound. The best video and the best, I would call, innovation built into it. And so you have everything from what you have in Microsoft Teams today, what you have in Zoom, but you also have the video endpoint solution. So, and that is what we, the main, the core of what we develop here at Lyseka in Oslo. Is the endpoint solutions because that will put all our audio people, video people, and great innovation companies that we acquire to be part of this also into these devices. I don't know if that answered that.

Yeah, it does, but I'm just thinking to myself as I listen to you, and you're, you're coming from the technology side, and that's great. And so let me ask you, is— so is it possible that me, the end— so I'm a normal employee. I know nothing about technology, right? Say I'm an accountant or whatever, and I'm not picking on accountants, just throwing it out there. And what you're saying is a solution like Webex has taken so many things into consideration that I can almost simulate the experience I had in the office, almost without the physical human interaction, because of the technology built— you built into the solution. Are there— is that correct? Is that what you're saying?

Yes, correct. You're good.

Okay, so the question I have for you is, are there some things— what, do you have some stories around the world that things, advice that people, companies who are online and being remote that they should be doing that they're not doing that would enhance their experience? Do you have anything like that?

Uh, many examples. Um, I, I think the First of all, I think when you— if you want to have— when you think about how you want to do this, you need to think about it not only from a technology side, right? You need to think about what is it that you actually want to achieve.

Right.

So, you have people working from home or people working from remote offices, and they need to have a good enough solution that basically around the audio and video and the bandwidth and everything needs to be okay. And it needs to be good enough because, again, if it's not, it's not a good experience.

Let me interrupt you. What is good enough? How much bandwidth are we talking? And is using my mobile phone's 3G, 4G connection, is that good enough?

It's good enough, actually. So one example is I'm moving down to the to the cottage we have down at the sea. Actually, still, I'm not going to the mountains today or this week, but I'm going down to another cottage where we have 4G.

Okay.

And 4G, if you use your cell phone and you use our Webex solution and you can even do Microsoft Teams or some of the others, you'll see that actually the video that you get on that screen is actually good enough. But it's very small. So, but I use 4G and an endpoint, which is a smaller one, which is like a screen. It's like a second screen, but it has a very good video encoder in it, which makes the sound and the video perfect. So it does something with the video that your PC in many cases cannot do. So that it takes away everything else because when you sit on your PC, you'll have the Outlook, you will have everything else data coming across and that will potentially distort your video. When I use that endpoint, nothing else comes across. And whatever you do, video and audio needs to be perfect. Nothing else comes across.

And let's simplify this thing. You said the word endpoint. Is endpoint an actual program I'm running on my PC? Can you just make it more simple? What is the endpoint? Endpoint? Is that software? What are you talking about?

So you have physical endpoints, which is a screen. So it's an extra screen as an example, which is called— it's called a Webex device. It's the best I can say. So it's a big screen, a small screen. It's actually a video conferencing unit.

Oh, so you're talking about an actual physical separate video conferencing piece of hardware?

Sorry about that. That was maybe not clear.

Okay, no, but I mean, I'm, you know, that's why this podcast goes keep it simple. I'm just trying to keep it extremely simple. So what you're saying is you're at the cottage or you're wherever you are in the world, you have your PC and stuff, but the optimal solution is actually to have a dedicated device that is fully optimized for this experience, right?

Yeah. So if I wanted to just have one video conference and that's it for the week, or maybe one a day, and it's a short one, I don't need to do anything else than just basically listen to a voice, then you would suffice with having your PC. But if you sit and have several meetings today and you need to also connect to your co-workers, just have a good conversation that you normally would have in the office, then the PC is not good enough. Then you need to have something that makes the video and audio perfect, and that is a video conferencing unit. And it can be small or big.

So let me back up what you're saying. I'm in agreement with you. I think there's people out there going, "What is she crazy? I've been using this. I've been using this product for 6 months, 8 months. It's more than good enough." Let me agree with you and let's correct everybody out there, right? So I'm also hosting a lot of video shows all over the world for different productions, right?. And they actually shipped me a suitcase. It is a portable studio. And in it, they gave me, of course, this huge 2-meter-long background and professional lighting, a professional webcam. And they included a 20,000 kronor— what is that in US dollars? I don't know— $3,000, $4,000 gaming PC. And its sole purpose is to do the processing for the video.

Yeah.

So what they were telling me was you need to have a dedicated device that's extremely strong and powerful, and then their engineers set up the PC just only for video. So what you're saying is 100% true. If you're going to do it right, if you're going to be doing it all day long, hours and hours every day, having a dedicated device that is— that's its sole purpose is absolutely the best. So Yeah, I completely agree with you. And I think we've all been lazy with using the software, and it's good enough. But if you truly— well, I'm talking a lot. I apologize. But I've been doing this for a while. If you're a leader and you want to make an impression on your employees, or you have a 1-to-1,000 people, you're leading 1,000 people, you should have an optimized, as you say, endpoint device. Correct?

Correct. Completely correct. You're good.

So why was it so hard to get, you know, to have a date with me on the podcast?

We didn't do the video.

Next time we do a vlog. That's it. That's the trick. I told you podcast. Next time I'll tell you vlog. You said you had some stories. Can you share some of the stories that you have? Because people learn a lot through stories. And, you know, lessons learned are beautiful. Can you share a couple, please?

Oh, where do I start? I think around this topic, there is, again, went back to when we went into this situation of of the pandemic, that you learn how do you actually lead from a distance? Because even if we had, even if we had, we've done this before. So many of our employees work 3 days from home, and they have the best tools and everything. When you're forced to go home, you're forced to sit from home, you're forced to basically cannot meet your employees. How do you, how do you then lead from home? And that was a different experience, I would say. I thought I could do it. I thought it was very easy because I've done it before. I've led a team over one year without meeting them physically, but it's something else. How do you keep the team together?

How do you, how do you keep the team together? How do you motivate people when you never see them for 365 days?

It's something. And you felt like you lost basically a little bit of that control, which is a bad word, but you couldn't see everyone at the same time. So, what we did was one thing we've done, and pretty sure that many others have done the same, it's not unique, but we had this away from keyboard events, AFK, which is every month Friday we had wine tasting. We had, of course, every day we had yoga on video. We had wine tasting. Of course, every day we had yoga.

Of course. Of course.

Yeah. So many have done that, but we actually had it every day at noon. So you basically had yoga because that would take away the stress from sitting, sitting at your desk all the time. But then wine tasting, we had food cooking. We had, we had every month we had something new. And my experience is that team is, the team is actually closer together. And you get, you get this magic thing with— because our employees brought their families and friends into these events. So you get a peek into people's home. You get to meet people's companions, kids, dogs, cats. And that was a really great experience. And it just gets better every time. And it's like a Friday, it's a Friday kind of go after working hours, but it's even better because it's with your families. So that's one story to share. Also, the trust between us and the community feeling is so much better by doing something different. You still do it on video, but that's one thing. But it's, it was, of course, it was a pandemic. It was a special situation.. But you feel like the company and the team is really tightly knit together.

So you're saying this is really important, the last point. Everything you said is important, but this last one is really important. You mentioned the word trust. So you're saying you were able to increase trust and sometimes probably create trust between people because of more digital interactions that were informal?

Correct.

And that included people outside of the work circle, but actually including people in your own inner circle, and letting them interact with other people's inner circle. That brought down the walls. And that brought up— that increased trust. Correct?

Exactly. Thank you. Thank you for summarizing.

No problem. Do you need somebody to help you at work? Just let me know.

So I think you don't give too much thinking around it. So But it's something that we had to kind of reinvent. We had to think new. We had to think about how do we make this, how do we keep this company together, this team together and do their best and work their best in the time of uncertainty and basically sitting at home. And that meant also creating these opportunities to meet informally, but also bringing other people into the community, the rest of the family that was It was stressful to them as well.

You have no idea what the magnitude of what you're saying, because there are many companies out there that are saying, oh, my, uh, my employees are working from home, I don't know what they're doing, I gotta make things even more stringent, more tight. And in matter of fact, look at the United States, and I could pick on the United States because I'm American, right? And that is the employers there, some of them are installing software to monitor the employees so that the webcam has to be on all the time and they're actually monitoring the keyboard strokes and all that. But what you're saying is the opposite. Include the family. And that's where you actually can make a better company and improve the culture of the company. That's a big deal what you're saying.

Yeah, but it was also a very special situation. And everyone felt stressed at that time, right? The whole family felt stressed. But it's the right thing to do, right? It's a natural situation. And we felt from the top, actually, from our CEO, Chuck Robbins, who did exactly the same. We had informal check-ins. We had visitors, guests, and we had the family joining in as well. We have various ways of doing that, also keeping the company together, not only the team in Norway. So It is, you need to think differently, you need to innovate, but also making sure that it's something you need to do something, you need to not disrupt yourself, but it does, you can't, you cannot control your employees. It's impossible to control your employees. And if that's the way you lead, if that's what the employees feel, It doesn't create this level of trust. I need to give the people the trust that they are doing their best, but also need to be supported. And that's maybe one thing that we've done more than we've done before. We reached out and called. And I had skip-level conversations and I called people. If I don't call them on video, I call them on the phone. How are you doing? And that you do that so much more often. And just keep it informal. Not, not, uh, how, how much work have you done today? How are you doing at work? But basically, how are you doing? And, and that is something that is really, really appreciated.

You have no— the advice you're giving is, is priceless. Because at the very beginning of this podcast, I asked you, do you have any advice to how to improve things? And what you said is, one, have a superior technical product. But two, most importantly, be real, be social, be yourself, and include your— the definition of self is family. And what I wrote down here, and I'm really happy to say it, is make sure you do yoga every day at 12 o'clock and make time for some wine tastings as well. Yes, I wrote that down. I wrote down wine tasting as well. The question is, is it the wine tasting first, then yoga, or yoga, then wine tasting?

I would advise yoga first.

Okay. Is any particular color yoga pants that were favored by people so we could start a new trend or something?

No, I don't think so. Come as you are was the term.

Tina, we have only a few seconds left. You've really provided a lot of great insight for other leaders because they're thinking that they're nervous that their employees are away from them. They can't see them in the hallway. They can't see them in the cubicle. And what you're saying is Cisco has actually made Cisco's culture even better by doing all the things you said. And we've repeated this several times, and it makes for a better company. And again, you know, some companies may go back to normal, probably not, which is me going back to the office. So, if your people work remotely, all the advice you've given is great. Is there any last words of wisdom that you would like to share with all of us, please?

No, I just want to pick up on what you said. I don't think we will go back to the normal again. I think it will be a new normal. The faster you basically adapt to that and start thinking around how, how is it that you want to run your company in the new normal, the faster you get results, I would say. So it is, it is. But don't trust me. I'm not, but the way I see it now, there is so many customers that are of ours that want to stay as they are, maybe adapt a little bit. And I think this is, this is great opportunity actually, because one thing is with, um, with the collaboration tools is that you actually reach so many more. So you have the opportunity to, to do more. You have to do, you can do things more often. You can reach more people so you can include more people. You don't need to be there physically. So see it as an opportunity. New normal is there. I would say just make sure that you adapt to it.

And don't forget the yoga pants. Trine, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Thomas. That was good. That was good. Good ending.

I had to throw it in there. Trine Strømnes, CEO of Cisco Norway. Personal friend of mine who doesn't like contacting me or returning phone calls. But we won't get into that at the end of this podcast. Thank you, Gina. As always, absolute pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much for sharing. Like I said, so much great advice from a person who is at the core of the entire remote working from a technology point. And also sharing your experiences as a CEO who successfully improved the culture of your company and most importantly, increase the trust amongst employees when everybody's remote. And a lot of people listening to this podcast, I would say thank you for them because that was priceless. Ladies and gentlemen, Tina Subnes, CEO of Cisco Norway. Thank you for tuning in. This podcast is on Spotify, iTunes, Google Play. It's everywhere. Share, pass it on. We thank you very much. Till the next time, everybody. Tina, thank you. Everybody out there, thank you. Thanks for listening. See you all next time. Bye-bye for now.