Episode 225 Transcript:

0:00:00 Ramona Shaw: Welcome to this episode of The Manage Track podcast. Today I have Lotus Buckner with me. She is an HR leader and an author, and we’re going to talk about how to improve workplace dynamics and create thriving, high performing organizations. And in this conversation, we’re going to talk about a few specific things that she recognized. Get in the way of leaders showing up effectively and doing the best that they can with the resources that they have, especially in challenging times.

0:00:30 Ramona Shaw: We’re talking about making hard decisions, doing uncomfortable things. We’ll talk about a hybrid and remote work environment. We’re talking about relationship building and trust, as well as communication and a few additional things. My goal with this episode is to bring a fresh perspective to some of these challenges and to hopefully prompt some insights and some thoughts for self reflection to you, as we do with every episode of The Manager Track podcast.

0:00:56 Ramona Shaw: So I’m going to welcome Lotus to the conversation, and let’s dive in on how to optimize workplace dynamics. Here’s the question. How do you successfully transition into your first official leadership role, build the confidence and competence to lead your team successfully, and establish yourself as a respected and trusted leader across the organization? Welcome to The Manager Track podcast. I’m your host, Ramona Shaw. And I’m automation to create workplaces where work is not seen as a source of stress and dread, but as a source of contribution, connection and fulfillment.

0:01:28 Ramona Shaw: And this transition starts with developing a new generation of leaders who know how to lead so everyone wins and grows. In the show, you learn how to think, communicate, and act as the confident and competent leader you know you can be. Lotus, welcome to The Manager Track podcast. I’m excited to have you here and join us for a conversation around mindset shifts and leadership, as well as current workplace challenges.

0:01:54 Lotus Buckner: I’m so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

0:01:56 Ramona Shaw: Let’s dive in with a question that is obviously something that you think about a lot, and I think about a lot, which are challenges that people face in the workplace. From your perspective, what are some of the challenges that you notice and also sort of an add on question. You wrote a book and that recently got published, where you’re addressing some of this. So what challenges do you see and then what specifically inspired you to write a book?

0:02:25 Lotus Buckner: Oh my goodness. Well, the first one with challenges. That’s such a loaded question because I think we are living in a time right now where there’s just so many, it’s almost hard to prioritize. But, you know, things that come top of mind for me are just attracting and retaining talent. So that’s a big challenge for workplaces right now, the speed and the complexity of technology, like AI. Right. There’s just so much tension there right now. Do we adopt it? Do we not? How do we adopt it?

0:02:53 Lotus Buckner: Ensuring deep work and Dei continues despite the attacks on these issues, both socially and politically, and then navigating the continuing tension, I think, that exists in hybrid work models. You know, there’s still a lot of tension there. I don’t think we’ve landed kind of on that topic yet. And so there’s a lot of tension of what do we do? Do we bring everyone back in person? Is that really the right way to do it? Do we allow people to continue 100% remote? Is there something in between?

0:03:21 Lotus Buckner: So I think we are in a time where we’re just facing a lot of high priority challenges.

0:03:26 Ramona Shaw: What are some of the pain points that you recognize? And you thought, I got to write about this because I think the world needs to rethink it or think differently about it.

0:03:35 Lotus Buckner: Yeah, my inspiration really came from, you know. Cause I had a list of topics. There’s so much, like I said, going on that I could have written about. But one thing I’ve noticed since the pandemic especially, is that there’s been a lot of burnout in the people and HR space, because starting with a pandemic and then social unrest and then these math layoffs and then kind of these political and social attacks on the DEI space, adding AI into the mix, it really burned a lot of HR leaders and professionals out because so much bell to the shoulders of HR over this time, and there was really no break. All those things that I said were kind of in order, and there was really no break from that.

0:04:22 Lotus Buckner: And so I. Everyone I was talking to in the space was talking about this burnout that they were having. A lot of people, a lot of my clients wanted to leave the field of HR completely and leave the profession. Some of them just left their jobs. Some of them took a break or went into entrepreneurship and myself included in that. I experienced some of that burnout myself, and I remember reinvigorating my joy for HR. That’s the name of the book, and how I did it and how I really had to refocus myself into what’s meaningful in our space and how I can really make an impact for workplaces.

0:05:02 Lotus Buckner: And that really helped bring back the joy of what I’m doing and not forget about these distractions, but really be able to make an impact again and not let some distractions pull me away. From what the meaningful work is. And so I really wrote this book for two reasons. One, to help other HR professionals kind of reinvigorate that love for HR. But the bulk of the content is really targeted towards all executive leaders and senior leaders within companies and how the executive team can better partner with HR, and how do we really build positive experiences for our employees and really help with all those issues right in the end, because the culture matters to talent, attraction and retention.

0:05:49 Lotus Buckner: It helps with all these technology complexities and really focusing on what the right thing is, and certainly from the DEI perspective and just culture in general. So I think leadership is so important to that. So that was the inspiration.

0:06:04 Ramona Shaw: Beautiful. Well, one thing that you shared here that I want to call out is the mindset shift that you had or the changing perspective from looking at the things that are draining and are difficult that’s made you lose energy or enthusiasm for the profession versus then looking at what is it actually that got me into space in the first place. Our minds are not built to look at the joyful things first.

0:06:28 Ramona Shaw: They are built to look at the threats and the negative aspects first, because that’s part of our survival instinct. And just, I think for everyone listening, we all gone through times where it was hard and we recognize, like, I can either continue to focus on the hardship like a point of inflection, and it will continue to go down that spiral until I can’t no more, or I have to take a step back and say, like, okay, hold on a second, what am I blinding and shutting out that is actually there and that is good.

0:06:58 Ramona Shaw: And I think, especially in the HR space, building relationships and having connections with people and supporting the organization across different departments is so important for many people that I find exciting about the space. And that is one of your suggestions, like building relationships outside of your team. And I love to start there because that’s something that not just HR needs to cultivate, but all leaders across the organization need to remember that despite a lot of fire drills and urgent things on their to do list, investing in relationships matters a lot more than we often realize.

0:07:35 Ramona Shaw: What’s your take on that? And how do you help leaders do that?

0:07:38 Lotus Buckner: Absolutely. I think that is a constant and a strategy that actually stands the test of time. Right. There’s so many nuances in how we solve problems, but that is one thing that if you can build relationships, that will help you when times are good, that will help you when times are tough. I don’t care how smart you are, how much experience you have, what credentials you hold what fancy university you might have went to. In the end, you can’t get things done without people and relationships.

0:08:07 Lotus Buckner: And if all you have are relationships within your team, you can’t connect the dots as well, right? You can’t collaborate as effectively with others. And really in business, the team is the whole company. Like, you need to be collaborating across the company and not just within your own silos and within your own department. It takes every single department to Tango. So you really have to know people to work with them better. You can accomplish this through things like proactively meeting with others in other departments. You can shadow different departments. You can find projects that you can work on together.

0:08:41 Lotus Buckner: You can be really proactive in whatever it is that you’re working on within your teams. You can be very proactive about asking for cross functional feedback and involving people cross functionally, I can guarantee you that those projects really are cross functional. They’re impacting more than the people within your department. And especially when you think of these business functions like HR finance, you’re impacting the rest of the organization in almost everything you’re doing.

0:09:07 Ramona Shaw: And I’d add that for many senior leaders who are evaluating and observing advancing managers who’s climbing up the ranks or new managers, they check for their understanding of the bigger picture and the company at large, whether they have the ability to critically think through the implications of actions on their team, that then what does it mean for other departments and how does their team strategy fit into the bigger strategy, and how well do they connect dots?

0:09:37 Ramona Shaw: And I think for those leaders who spent the time in other departments, who cultivate these relationships, who ask really good questions of leaders in other departments on where they’re going and what their challenges are and how well that their team and this other team work together and so forth, they’re able to demonstrate this skill of big picture and strategic thinking so much more. In addition to also just being better equipped to come up with creative solutions or to pinpoint risk factors that others. Maybe not, maybe not. Absolutely, they have the blinders on, right?

0:10:12 Lotus Buckner: I mean, even if you think about it, right, when you get a new job or you go into a new team, you have a wealth of knowledge on that team. Often, not always, but often you have a team, right? So unless you’re HR department of one as an example, you’re usually walking in and you potentially have other people within the HR function, even if they don’t do exactly what you do, who are going to be there to support you.

0:10:39 Lotus Buckner: When it comes to learning the department and learning HR we don’t often include other departments in the orientation of our new employees. Right. It’s really important for us to be reaching out and not just getting to know people, but really getting to know the work that they do too. You know, if you meet with someone from finance, really starting to ask questions about what they actually do, and starting to learn a little bit, even about finance, so that you can get to know the business when you meet with operations, learning how the business runs, learning what they do day to day.

0:11:12 Lotus Buckner: When I was in healthcare, it was like shadowing all the different clinicians and understanding more about how each department runs and all the nuances and how healthcare operations run to really understand the work that they do. So that when I’m pushing out initiatives, I know how to do that better and get that buy in, because I understand how it’s going to impact their work. Right. So it’s definitely important to get to know people, but it’s not just about that. It’s about really getting to know their work too, so that you really build that business acumen and you’re not just unconsciously pushing out these initiatives that might fail on delivery.

0:11:52 Ramona Shaw: I like how you mentioned there how our initiatives impact other teams. And I remember a conversation I had with a technical employee who said to me, I understand what you do with the data. I’ve seen you work, or I’ve seen your team work. And so I know that one of the challenges you might be having, or one of the questions you have is, how do I do XYZ, when the technical team makes certain changes to the dataset.

0:12:19 Ramona Shaw: And I felt so understood, it was like a moment of like, yes, they see me, they understand. And my trust level that I had towards this person took a huge jump right there with that one statement that this person made. And I think these are opportunities, low hanging fruits almost, that we can really leverage in order to build trusted relationships across the organization.

0:12:42 Lotus Buckner: Yeah, it’s an investment of some time and effort that’s gonna pay off in the long run.

0:12:48 Ramona Shaw: Now, speaking of identifying problems and addressing them well for the larger organization, another aspect that you’ve call out that I can really resonate with, and I think it’s important to talk about, is this ability to identify problems and solve problems. What is your main message there that you wanna share and would be useful for the audience here?

0:13:10 Lotus Buckner: You know, as humans, we often make decisions and come to conclusions based on the information that we know. Right. Our brains have a limited amount of information, though. If we don’t have certain experiences or we’re not exposed to certain things, we won’t be able to process that information in our heads because we just literally don’t have it. So that’s where asking questions, staying curious, and genuinely being open to other ideas, beliefs, opinions and perspectives can be really helpful.

0:13:36 Lotus Buckner: I think too often we seriously believe that we know the answer. When revenue is down, everyone has something or someone to blame. When employee experience scores are down, everyone has someone or something to blame. When layoffs are conducted, everyone has someone or something to blame. But often it’s not the right thing and certainly not the right person. It’s usually not about a person. I mean, we just saw this in the news. So there’s a company that will remain nameless here that recently laid off about 1000 people and blamed it on the fact that all of these thousand people were not meeting expectations.

0:14:18 Lotus Buckner: Like what? There was clearly no root cause analysis done here. And it’s a prime example of clearly addressing the wrong problem. I obviously don’t work there and I do not know all the nuances that went into their decision. It does leave me with questions. Right? A lot of them. How in the world do you have that many underperformers and you’re just addressing that underperformance now all at once, for all 1000 people? And in the same exact manner.

0:14:46 Lotus Buckner: Like, why were these issues not addressed before to prevent some future problems? Why were there not other approaches taken to address performance issues for each individual? Because the way you address performance for one person is not the same that you should use for another person. And why are we commuting such a subjective view of a thousand people’s performance into the world and making it so much harder for these people to find their next job?

0:15:11 Lotus Buckner: And also, by the way, ruining your own reputation and the reputation of your company, right? Why was this even necessary? So the strategy that I really recommend to answer your question is to do a root cause analysis before making drastic or quick decisions and jumping to solutions for problems. We really have to dive deep. And I like to say channel your inner five year old, like my five year old, who just constantly asks why. Right? That’s really that fishbone diagram strategy that you learn about in lean six sigma training is you ask why and you kind of just keep asking why until you get to the root cause. And I think that’s really important to go through that exercise when we’re faced with a problem, because otherwise we’re solving for assumptions and we’re solving for things, problems that don’t actually exist, right? Because the problem on the surface may not be what the real problem is underneath. Right. We might say we have a turnover problem, but, like, why? Like, what is the real problem that’s creating the turnover?

0:16:09 Ramona Shaw: Which I find it interesting. And it’s like one of those messages that I feel I need to hear and channel myself all the time because I have such a bias for action that when I see a problem, I immediately get motivated and this, like, energy to act. I feel like I can just serve up the wave, you know, and ride it all the way in because the problem seems so clear that then actions come really easy to me.

0:16:36 Ramona Shaw: But that is one of those overdone strengths that I’m dealing with. You know, the strength of having a bias to action actually helps me a lot. I forget that there are problems that I actually don’t know the solution for, and I might be addressing the wrong problem where I’m not spending enough time to really understand the problem and see all of the implications and then prioritizing as a result of that. And so I appreciate you calling this out for me personally and anyone else listening who can really.

0:17:03 Lotus Buckner: Yeah, and it’s a great thing. Like, I don’t even, I don’t want to downplay, like, the bias for action. Right. Because it’s a great skill to have, but it’s not just taking a pause and saying, okay, this is the problem I think I’m solving. But why does this problem exist? Like, is there any more whys that we need to ask?

0:17:20 Ramona Shaw: It’s actually interesting when it comes to coaching conversations, and I’m talking about my experience as an executive coach, but also the same applies to coaching conversations that managers have with their employees, the skill of staying present with the problem. It’s interesting how, in the process of coaching, I find that fascinating, how someone may explain to me a problem, and from the outside, objectively, when we’re not the ones who are, like, feeling like we need to solve it, we are so much more capable to take a step back and say, hmm, is that so? Like, let’s really look at the root cause. And I think when managers lean into this role and identity of a coach, not 100% of the time, but when applicable and when useful, to then take themselves out of it, like, distance themselves from the problem and saying, okay, let’s challenge the assumptions at play here. What my employee shares is the problem and what others perceive it to be the problem.

0:18:21 Ramona Shaw: Is that actually true? How can I take that objective perspective versus immediately connecting to the problem with the employee?

0:18:30 Lotus Buckner: Exactly.

0:18:31 Ramona Shaw: But staying objective more for longer and because of that asking better questions?

0:18:36 Lotus Buckner: Yeah. I mean, we all need people to check us. We all need people to hold us accountable. Right? Like, accountability partners are so important, coaches.

0:18:43 Ramona Shaw: Are so important, and outsiders can just do this better than we do in the midst of things.

0:18:48 Lotus Buckner: I mean, like I said, we’re biased, human. Like, we see in this little box of ourselves.

0:18:54 Ramona Shaw: When I’m in the midst of the buyers, I’m ready to go. Like, wait a second, slow it down. Like, yes, coach, I got you another one that often comes up. And most definitely we have an overlap in the world of HR leaders and leadership development and growth as well as, you know, from my perspective of supporting leaders with that growth. Is this thing around discomfort, this big elephant in the room? What was the reason? I’m actually curious because it’s a common challenge for most of us, but for some reason you added that to the book because you think it’s really relevant and how you see workplace issues come up or challenges for people.

0:19:31 Ramona Shaw: Tell me more about what inspired you to put that into the book.

0:19:34 Lotus Buckner: When I think about not just the world of HR, but what’s happening in our world right now, what’s happening in our country, what’s happening in our politics, what’s happening with leaders of countries throughout the world, it’s not just us. In the US, a lot of countries have been challenged with leadership as well. Like, and there’s just this divisiveness and polarization that has existed. And then I look at how does that impact our workplaces?

0:20:01 Lotus Buckner: And we’re seeing it right now. We’re seeing leaders making these assumptions about what’s going to happen and changing their decisions and going back on decisions that they made before. And so instead of focusing on doing the right thing, we focus on doing the thing that’s going to cause the least tension at the moment. Right. When after George Floyd, you saw, as an example, all these companies jumping on the Dei bandwagon. I hate to call it that, but a lot of the work was performative. Right.

0:20:36 Lotus Buckner: But you saw the additional head count, more companies standing up these functions, more work being done. So there’s also really good work that wasn’t being done before that started happening because of that, which I think is great. What are we seeing now? We’re seeing equity being diminished. We’re seeing DeI departments being the first to get laid off across companies that put out these statements just a couple years ago, claiming that this was a huge commitment for them. So all of these things, that’s just one example, but there’s just a lot of questions I have around the motives of leaders as I think about what’s happened over the last several years. And that’s kind of the motivation behind it. Why I thought it was really important to include here, because it’s really easy to say do the right thing. And I think, I really believe that most people try to do the right thing.

0:21:40 Lotus Buckner: And when it’s easy, it’s easy. So that when we do it, it’s when times are tough and when there’s a really challenging situation that we’re presented with, that’s when discomfort sets in. That’s when it doesn’t feel as easy or as comfortable to stand up or step up or speak up. And I think that’s when it’s the most important, because there are going to be people who may not feel comfortable stepping up or speaking up at the time who something’s impacting, right? So they need someone. We need. We all need allies.

0:22:18 Lotus Buckner: We all need people to step up when things are really challenging. And so, you know, my advice there is to do it scared. I get that fear comes with standing up for something, but you have to do it anyways. And you know something? I used to work in healthcare, and in healthcare, doctors take an oath to do no harm. Maybe I’m wrong or maybe I’m onto something here. But what if leaders had to take a similar oath before they were allowed into such a position of power? But since I’m not some certifying body, I’ll leave it as my advice that we as leaders can take our own personal oaths to do no harm and do whatever we can to step up and do the right thing, even when it’s hard.

0:22:58 Lotus Buckner: It doesn’t mean that you’re going to be perfect. I’m not perfect. No one is. Even people who have been doing this work forever aren’t perfect. But if we can really make that oath to ourselves and make that commitment to our teams, I think that our workplaces would be better and we would see stronger leadership. We throw management titles around these days, right. Like it’s candy at a parade. And we wonder why so many people don’t succeed at it, right?

0:23:24 Ramona Shaw: Yeah, I mean, you definitely speak to the core of our Covid mission with equipping leaders to do well and be successful, not just in their own eyes, but in the eyes of those that they lead. What you’re pointing out here with doing the right thing and doing no harm, I think it’s an interesting one, because we have to differentiate what is the harm, the perceived harm in the moment thinking about sort of the short term consequences versus the long term consequences, because sometimes as leaders, we have to do those right things, that there is an easier way out, there is a more comfortable way out. There is a less harmful in quotation marks way out by as simple as not providing the feedback, not delegating the work because maybe this turns into a struggle or because they would feel challenged, or they might say, why me?

0:24:14 Ramona Shaw: Why am I having to do this? Even if we think that would be the right decision to pass it on to this employee? And so dealing with the fact that we have to consider in any moment, am I optimizing for the short term because I don’t want to have that sort of perceived harm or because I don’t want to do something that’s uncomfortable and someone’s not going to like me, so I’m trying to manage my own emotional health along the way, or am I actually doing the right thing? Because I think no matter what, this will be better for everyone involved over the course of the long term.

0:24:47 Lotus Buckner: But all those questions you just asked, right. That’s exactly what we should be doing as leaders. Those questions will help us with that root cause analysis and being more thoughtful about our decisions. Right? Like, there’s no situation even I’ve been doing this for so long, but every company I go to, every new team I go to, there’s nuances and my solutions there would be so different. And so you’re always going to have that nuance, right? There’s no one size fits all solution.

0:25:20 Lotus Buckner: But I think as leaders, what we’re missing these days, there’s a lack of intention. We need to be more thoughtful. I think about the decisions that we make, and it is asking all those questions because again, you’re right. Like, depending on the situation, like, one solution may work here, but it might not work there.

0:25:40 Ramona Shaw: Is it a title and is it a privilege or is it a responsibility? And if we talk back about this oath and doctors who really take their responsibility seriously, they know why they’re putting all their training, the hours of practice, the critical thinking, the reflection, the debriefs and all of that, versus in a leadership role, if we don’t take our roles as seriously and we don’t recognize that the way that we show up, even our mood as we say hello in the morning, is directly impacting how the people on our team will feel.

0:26:15 Ramona Shaw: The email that we send, the slack messages or teams messages that we send out, have way more weight than when we’re on IC as a leader, that all carries so much more weight, and it’s a responsibility that. So, speaking to the oath, I actually agree with that. We should anchor in.

0:26:32 Lotus Buckner: Yeah, I really think that there needs to be something, and maybe I don’t have the perfect solution, but there needs to be something there, because I do think we throw these titles around a lot. And what makes it worse is we don’t offer people an easy way out. So once you get that promotion, there’s no easy way out. Can you make that salary? Can you back down without feeling like you let your entire team down, that you’ve let your department down, that your reputation is going to be rude? We don’t have these paths for people to change once they get in and they feel stuck. Right. Like, what happens if I get promoted? And of course, some people have demoted themselves, right? Like, people have stepped out of leadership roles. But more often than nothing, I see people get in there and they feel stuck, and they feel like that’s the only path to success, career success, is to just continue down that leadership path.

0:27:22 Ramona Shaw: I agree. And especially if they feel they’re not supported and that it would really be a chip on their shoulder if they did demote, even though they realized that’s not what they wanted. And that’s okay. Not everyone supposed to be a leader. There’s a lot of expert leadership that doesn’t have the people responsibility. That can be a very fulfilling and rewarding career. Let’s move on to the topic around getting in the team’s way of them being successful. Definitely something I spent a lot of my time on. Unblocking how leaders may inadvertently, although with the best intentions, actually make it harder on the team.

0:27:58 Ramona Shaw: How do you see this show up? And what is your advice for leaders here to detect those moments?

0:28:04 Lotus Buckner: Micro management is waiting. Our workplaces, there’s just a lot of micromanagers out there, but no one wants to believe that they’re a micromanager. But it’s very common and I don’t know anyone. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist. But I don’t know anyone who likes to be micromanagers. So even micromanagers often don’t like to be micromanaged. So I think it’s really about. I think self awareness is really critical to leadership. I think there’s a huge gap there. I think that is a skill set that I would like to see more and people who take on these leadership roles to really be more self aware and aware of others. Right. Knowing your audience, all of that, and knowing who you’re talking to, knowing how you show up, knowing what really your pet peeves or what kind of things are upsetting to you, knowing what things excite you, all of that. And really doing that holistic self reflection and then giving people the benefit of the doubt we sometimes default to. We default to micromanagement. And I almost wish we’d flip that.

0:29:13 Lotus Buckner: Right, default to giving people trust and then holding accountable. And remember that you can hold people accountable without micromanaging them. Right. Build the trust, set realistic expectations, provide the right support, as you mentioned, I. And then manage that performance effectively. All of that can be done without us getting in the way of people doing their jobs. But build trust, because I think without trust, all those other things aren’t going to go well.

0:29:40 Ramona Shaw: How does this show up in a hybrid or remote environment? Because the trust factor, and I hear this often, is like, I know I’m supposed to trust, but how do I trust if I don’t know, I don’t see them, I don’t know them well. They joined in a remote environment. I’ve never met them in person, and so I have a hard time trusting. How does that play out?

0:29:59 Lotus Buckner: Yeah, I get this question a lot. And the reality is that relationships are built on trust, and success at work requires us to have effective relationships. This is simple, yet hard. So those two things can be true together. If it were easy, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We wouldn’t have the problems we have. Right. And this really applies to all environments. It doesn’t matter if you’re remote, hybrid, or in person. When Covid hit, I Leddez 100% team in healthcare, we were running Covid efforts. We were there much more than 40 hours a week. We’ll just leave it at that.

0:30:33 Lotus Buckner: And then I also led a team where some people were 100% on site, some people were 100% remote, and then a third group was somewhere in the middle. They were doing some form of hybrid. After that, I went to another company, and I led a fully hybrid team where everybody did a couple days in the office and then the rest remote. And then I went to a fully remote where 100% of my team was completely remote. Till this day, I haven’t met any of them in person.

0:31:04 Lotus Buckner: And sure, the tools I used change, and the avenue in which I met with people or communicated with people changed, but my leadership approach never changed. And the results and success that I had never changed. I think we sometimes just go back to the root cause. Right? We have these assumptions that you can’t lead in a remote environment, you can’t build relationships in a remote environment. And we have to start asking, why? Like, one, why not? And two, well, how?

0:31:34 Lotus Buckner: Right, we’ve always done it this way. You can’t do that. And all the problems that could exist, which is great, we should know what problems exist so that we can solve for them. But we also don’t ask enough. How can we make this work? And I think if you change, if we have that mindset shift of, okay, I’m now in a hybrid environment, and now I have 100% remote team. How can I make this work? How can I ensure that their experience is still a positive one? How can I ensure that my leadership is being personalized and customized for them?

0:32:07 Lotus Buckner: And I also want to address that real trust and real relationships can very much be built online. So I think asking how can we do something? Is sometimes a more helpful question.

0:32:20 Ramona Shaw: And what is your answer to that? And if you have to reduce it to a couple of things that people can start doing right now, what would those be? To start building the trust with remote employees?

0:32:29 Lotus Buckner: Yeah. I think it’s really getting to know people like you would in person. What I always tell people is tell. Or what I always ask people is tell me what you did to build relationships when you were in person. Right. So I get a lot of. I meet with them one on one. I get to know them. We go out to coffee. You know, some people say happy hours, which we could have a whole podcast on that. There’s a list of these things, you know, I go shadow them in their department.

0:32:57 Lotus Buckner: All the things we talk about in. How do you leave, like HR or leave your department, get to know other departments. All those things come up. I was like, how can we do all of those things in this new virtual environment, right? You can still have one on ones. You can still ask those same questions. You can still talk to those people. In fact, in some ways, it’s a little more personal now because I’m in my home. Like, I might see something in your background and be like, tell me about that book you’re reading on your show. Right?

0:33:26 Lotus Buckner: It’s in some ways a little bit more personal for meetings. And then why not introduce coffee to it, right? If I find out that you’re a coffee lover. I’m a coffee lover. Like, our next meeting, like, what about we just catch up over coffee? Like, you can still do that virtually, right? You can still get to know people both personally and professionally. And so that’s how we build trust. That’s how we build relationships.

0:33:50 Lotus Buckner: And I just want people to shift their mindset. Like, if it seems like such a struggle to think about, like, oh, I don’t.

0:33:57 Ramona Shaw: I’m not.

0:33:57 Lotus Buckner: You’re not physically next to me. Great. But how can you recreate that same experience with this new challenge, if you will? Right. Because often people who say that feel like the virtual environment is challenged. So how do you do that with this new challenge?

0:34:13 Ramona Shaw: I like the openness there to explore. How can you do this without letting the remote setup get in the way? And it almost circles back to the very beginning where we talked about when things get negative, how our minds immediately jump on it, sort of with the microscope to look at it in detail. That’s how we’re wired. And even in the remote environment, we look at all the ways it’s harder and all the ways it’s a different and that we can’t trust. We may totally miss the opportunities on the other side to build relationships in a new way and to leverage the fact that we’re actually seeing each other in our homes and we have kids run by or loud or a dog bark or whatever that might be.

0:34:54 Lotus Buckner: Yeah, I think it’s personal. It’s personal. Change management, is how I would put it, is think about how you manage changes for your organization. And when you’re feeling like you’re having a hard time adapting to a change, how can you adopt some of those strategies and do some personal change management?

0:35:12 Ramona Shaw: Right now, as we’re wrapping up, what is something that you’d like to share? And you think it’s important for people to sort of be reminded of or some food for thought that you want to share with the audience that we haven’t yet talked about?

0:35:26 Lotus Buckner: You know, I really think that all of this, I can talk about tactics and strategy all day like we did, but in the end, I think it really boils down to intention. So be intentional in your leadership. I like to call it give a shit leadership, because I think that if you care enough to personalize the experience you’re having with your teams and those around you and those that you have to work with, the rest comes a little bit easier.

0:35:54 Lotus Buckner: Get to know people as individuals and how to best work with them as individuals and as teams, because fair is not always equal. Right. You can have two people in the same exact role, but, you know, we used to have this mindset that the right thing to do is to treat them exactly the same. And I used to have that, like, that’s how I was taught. So I used to believe that until I really did some deep reflection on that concept and realized that’s really not the right way because we don’t have the same starting point, we don’t all come from the same circumstances, we don’t all learn the best way, we don’t work the same ways.

0:36:26 Lotus Buckner: So how do you really get to know people as individuals and customize that experience for them?

0:36:32 Ramona Shaw: Gosh, I love this give a shit leadership. I mean, that’s another book title.

0:36:36 Lotus Buckner: Yeah, there you go.

0:36:38 Ramona Shaw: Next one. Planting. Is it awesome. Thank you so much for being on and sharing your perspective on this. I think it always is interesting to hear other people have gone through their own journey. Like you just said, we’re all having different perspectives, different points of views to hear them. And at the same time as we’re listening to someone else to channel some of this back and think about yeah, how do I show up? How do I and where in my workplace am I currently doing the right thing? Or am I leaning a bit more into the comfort zone?

0:37:09 Ramona Shaw: And usually our internal guidance will tell us that to look at how am I maybe micromanaging or leaning too much into a control mechanism because the trust is missing? Or then, like we talked about earlier, what are relationships that are important and I’m not cultivating? Where do I have opportunities to really get to know someone a bit more as well in the organization? Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us on The Manager Track podcast.

0:37:35 Ramona Shaw: Tell the audience before we wrap where they can learn more, where they can get your book and connect with you and the work that you do.

0:37:42 Lotus Buckner: Absolutely well. My website is talentremix.com. the book will launch on August 8. You’ll be able to get it through Amazon or reach out if you want to do a book purchase. And I’m also active on LinkedIn so connect with me there. Make sure to send me a little message though with your invite because my inbox definitely does get crowded.

0:38:03 Ramona Shaw: Well, thank you for being on. We will drop all those links in the show notes. Elotus, all the best to you and good luck with the book of lunch.

0:38:09 Lotus Buckner: Thank you so much.0:38:11 Ramona Shaw: If you enjoyed this episode, then check out two other awesome resources to help you become a leader people love to work with. This includes my best selling book, a confident and competent new manager, which you can find on Amazon or@ramonashaw.com book, and a free training on how to successfully lead as a new manager. You can check it out@ramonashaw.com masterclass these resources and a couple more you’ll find in the show notes down below.