Transforming Work with Sophie Wade

Daan van Rossum is Founder and CEO of FlexOS where they are building a 21st Century work experience that enables people to learn, grow, connect, and thrive at work. He also hosts and runs the “Lead with AI” podcast, course, and community. Daan shares his tech-driven early education and jobs that underpin his emphasis on AI and integrating AI teammates and advisors effectively. He explains his proactive career steps working internationally, developing cultural understanding and tapping into ‘What If’ creative energy to achieve more fulfilling work experiences. Daan describes his learning journey and how we can all intentionally engage in meaningful work and achieve greater happiness.     TAKEAWAYS   [02:28] At 15 years old, Daan decides he prefers working to being at school.   [03:17] Daan persuades his parents and the government and gets an exception to leave school.   [04:22] Daan begins his career at an ISP help desk then an early online food delivery business.   [05:59] After producing a family ‘newspaper’, Daan’s online help page gets attention and lands him a digital media job.   [09:13] The transition to Ogilvy is motivated by a desire to land a ‘real job’!   [09:54] After moving to New York, Daan wins an internal talent competition asking ‘What If?’   [12:36] Daan makes proactive internal moves at Ogilvy to Chicago, then Singapore.   [14:00] Using his strategist skills, Daan transitions internationally learning about local cultures.   [15:15] Daan is entranced by Vietnam’s young society and optimistic, high energy.   [16:20] How Singapore developed fast integrating behavioral psychology nudges.   [16:53] Daan moves to Vietnam and discovers the two-world experiences of young employees.   [19:17] Co-founding a venture, Daan focuses on workplace happiness, fulfillment, and wellbeing through storytelling and courses.   [22:13] Daan studies wide-ranging topics relating to happiness, psychology, leadership, and more.   [23:13] The happiness-related content business is not viable in a developing market.   [23:55] The monetizable model integrating well-being content into coworking spaces.   [25:54] Key learnings about happiness to incorporate into DreamPlex's workplace offerings.   [31:16] Ensuring services align with what Gen Zers want in Vietnam.   [33:00] A 4-month pandemic lockdown in Vietnam affects Dream Plex and how they got through it.   [34:55] The challenges of hybrid working models in Vietnam compared to Singapore which was highly-digitized before 2020.   [38:35] Transitioning from agricultural to professional work settings and trust issues at work.   [42:10] The opportunity to align personal goals with organizational needs.   [43:15] The importance of intentionality in career and life decisions, especially now.   [45:30] Creating happier, productive workplaces by listening to employees and optimizing workflows.   [48:15] Self-awareness surfaces personal work preferences allowing alignment with job roles.   [52:20] Understanding how companies work reduces misunderstandings and misplaced entitlements.   [53:45] Optimizing time at work and using AI to not waste valuable hours.   [55:40] AI as your senior advisor, especially when no one else is around!   [56:15] How/what kids are learning differently now and AI’s potential future role/integration.   [58:12] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: To improve work experiences, go back to the core. What you are doing and why. Are you doing it well? Do you believe what you are doing is meaningful? Practically, empathize and listen to your team members discovering the joy and toil in their workflows to map out and solve issues together.       RESOURCES   Daan van Rossum on LinkedIn FlexOS.work Lead with AI podcast, course, and community Laurie Santos Martin Seligman books     QUOTES "Could we ask 'What If' more? Instead of trying to focus on all these new channels trying to be innovative. Could we make this even better? So it was really more about the core of creativity and about curiosity." "You have to find your happiness in the here and now. If you slow down and look around, all your conditions for happiness are already here…Happiness is very makeable. It's not something that either happens to you or you're born with it. It's something you determine almost 100% yourself." "If two years from today someone makes a movie about your life, what would it be called? What would it be about? What would they showcase as your journey and what you've achieved?" "There’s this concept called the hedonic treadmill... once you have [achieved a goal], there may be a temporary moment where you feel good. But the deeper sense of happiness has to come from something bigger." "See AI as a coworker that first and foremost can take over all the parts of your job that you don't like doing and are not getting you closer to your goal." "AI can start to be a senior advisor. It can be someone that co-creates with you, especially in those moments where you're on your own and need guidance or a second opinion."  

Corinne Murray is Chief Strategist and Founder of Agate, an organizational transformation and workplace strategy consultancy. Corinne brings her formative experiences in commercial real estate, workplace strategy, and pre-pandemic implementations of remote and hybrid work models. She shares the benefits of empathizing with employees’ and executives’ different work experiences and explains how experiences inform culture. Corinne advocates for incremental, measurable steps to reduce workplace friction, improve performance, shift mindsets, and build momentum to effect change.     TAKEAWAYS   [02:18] Corinne studies religious studies and philosophy learning about different cultures.   [03:31] Leaving college at the end of the Great Recession, Corinne starts in real estate.   [03:53] Corinne focuses on market research and repositioning older buildings at CBRE.   [05:22] It’s déjà vu with real estate trends!   [05:34] Moving to American Express, Corinne shifts to workplace strategy and culture change.   [06:37] Amex facilitates workplace flexibility and remote working in 2013-2014.   [08:14] Corinne help employees transition to remote work addressing home setup challenges.   [10:22] The Blue Work program aims to create consistent brand experiences in all Amex offices.   [12:09] Post 2008, real estate strategy focuses on efficiency and densification.   [13:32] Workplace design and environments are adapted to different teams’ needs.   [14:10] Desk booking capabilities are implemented to reduce friction and improve flexibility.   [15:12] Reinstituting Blue Work with user-friendly changes and active listening.   [16:16] Desk booking is eliminated having caused—rather than eliminated—friction.   [17:39] Neighborhood seating naturally supports teams and flexible desk usage.   [19:15] Corinne join Gensler to explore the external advisory role.   [20:48] How UX/UI is applicable to workplace strategy.   [21:31] Joining WeWork, Corinne helps prepare the company for the Future of Work.   [24:16] The holistic employee experience extends beyond the physical space.   [25:07] The importance of good employee experiences to increase productivity.   [26:32] Frameworks for improving workplace environments through UX principles.   [28:23] Ensured basic workplace needs are met to reduce mental load and enhance productivity.   [29:58] Joining RXR Realty in February 2020, the pandemic impacts Corinne’s intended work.   [31:42] How Activity-Based Working supports different work activities.   [33:06] Corinne’s understanding of city dynamics changes her view of Central Business Districts’ viability.   [36:24] How reduced foot traffic affects commercial real estate.   [38:02] Corinne recognizes the shift in employee sentiments and work-life balance priorities.   [41:55] Executives different work experiences lead to their challenges with hybrid models.   [45:06] Millennials are driving change because of where they are in their careers and need for balance.   [52:02] Executive resistance to hybrid work can be reduced emphasizing data and gradual change.   [55:36] Corinne encourages an incremental approach to effect organizational change.   [56:20] “Hybrid work is broken” — what does Corinne mean by that?   [58:03] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Consider the dynamics of hybrid work and why it happens rather than just where it happens. Sequence and shuffle the puzzle pieces to figure out what needs to be decided first.     RESOURCES   Corinne Murray on LinkedIn Corinne’s company Agate’s website   QUOTES (edited)   "We can't decide what a culture is. We can decide what an experience is and what that collective experience amounts to is the culture."   "We are getting stuck focusing on where things happen, not why they happen, or how they can be done better."   "Executives lived experience is so radically different than everyone else in their organization, and yet they're the ones who are dictating how everyone else should be behaving."   "If we just assume that everyone wants to be productive, even if everyone's definition of it is different, how do we get stuff out of the way so people can do more of it."   "Hybrid is broken....Our application of it is what's broken. And why it's broken is because we have been almost exclusively focused on where hybrid happens rather than what are the dynamics of hybrid work."

Tim Oldman is the CEO of Leesman and Founder of the Leesman Index - the world leader in measuring and analyzing the experiences of employees in their places of work. Tim is an expert in user experience of the built environment. He explains why we need to be considering whether work environments are supporting employees’ activities, needs, and satisfaction. Tim brings his wealth of knowledge to explore and reveal how workplaces—wherever people work—are tools for organizational performance and how we can measure that.      TAKEAWAYS   [02:25] Having always enjoyed building things, Tim studies interior design at college.   [02:51 Tim opts for a shorter course in interior design admitting he is impatient!   [03:22] Tim would love to study at university now with rapid prototyping and other advances.   [04:00] Encouraged by his uncle and tutor, Tim secures his first design job at 16.   [05:36] Tim first works in transport design, realizing the impact of design on bus stations and airports.   [07:06] The attention and detailed science in every aspect of airport design, including signage legibility.   [08:08] Tim wants to apply more and more rigor and science as his career develops.   [09:33] Tim discovers retail design is more numerically driven that he had understood earlier.   [11:27] The shift in retail emphasizing the shopper's brand experience.   [13:26] Tim's time at Vitra exposes him to extraordinary design history and expertise.   [14:20] It was a mind-boggling experience to work on the campus every day for five years!   [15:10] The user-centric design of a new distribution center makes Tim energized and very curious.   [17:22] Using transport examples to illustrate the importance of employee-centric office design.   [18:48] Developing the Leesman Index, Tim encounters naysayers to begin with.   [19:46] Initially provocative, “space is a tool in organizational performance” sticks.   [20:59] How space is a tool in organizational performance.   [21:48] Contrary to expectations, the design community initially resists the Leesman Index.   [23:07] A friend’s referral leads to the first successful deployment of the Index.   [23:36] The index reveals engineers’ preference for compressed, energetic workspaces.   [24:41] The facilities management industry becomes a key user.   [25:02] Executive leadership teams appreciate data-driven insights.   [26:43] Tim describes the Index's methodology and its impact on workplace design.   [27:50] The Leesman index measures employee activities and their satisfaction with workplace features.   [29:41] ‘Sentiment Superdrivers’ are crucial to accommodate to achieve workplace satisfaction.   [32:54] The importance of supporting individual focused work.   [33:29] The pandemic highlights the inadequacies of traditional office designs.   [35:52] Many organizations are now seeking to improve their offices to better support employee needs.   [36:44] The rise of video conferencing underscores the need for better acoustic and visual privacy.   [38:12] Organizations increasingly seek to create offices that employees genuinely want to visit.   [39:45] Tim’s new venture aims to help clients improve both remote and office-based work environments.   [42:31] Commute satisfaction correlates with the quality of the office environment.   [45:28] The shift towards higher-quality, more amenity-rich office spaces.   [47:40] Standard Chartered Bank exemplifies successful office space reduction while enhancing quality.   [49:24] Tim advocates for clearly articulating the purpose of office spaces.   [52:15] How Facilities Management can create more technologically advanced, smarter buildings.   [54:09] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Use evidence and be real, conversational, human. Find out what impacts the human experience as the human dynamic is motivational guidance. Live a day in the life of a frontline employee, experience it yourself.     RESOURCES   Tim Oldman on LinkedIn Leesman’s website     QUOTES   "Whether it's an exhibition stand that you're building that's only up for five days, or it's a retail environment, or it's a bus station, or as we now are looking at the impact of office design on the organizational performance of the companies that we're working with.”   "I would leave work in a day feeling more energized than I arrived there in the morning. And I wanted to know why, fundamentally, I couldn't work it out. And that was really where the ideas behind Leesman and the idea of a measurement protocol started to seep through."   “It's all economics driven. Whether it's an exhibition stand that you're building that's only up for five days, or it's a retail environment, or it's a bus station, or as we now are looking at the impact of office design on the organizational performance.”   "Having thought about your day at work in the way that you have, can you tell us what you think about the following things in relation to your workplace? So, does it enable you to work productively? Are you proud of it? Do you enjoy it? Do you think it supports your organization's environmental sustainability standpoint?”    I think the bigger a workplace gets, the harder it is to satisfy everybody, because the more people are in it, the more variability there is in the work that they do and their personalities and their size and their demeanor and all the other things that make us different than individual human beings."

George Bradt is the Founder and Chair of PrimeGenesis, an executive onboarding and transition acceleration consultancy. He has authored many books including “The New Leader’s 100-day Action Plan.” George brings his international senior management experience, including witnessing and welcoming new leaders and team members into many large multinational corporations. He shares his experiences highlighting the importance of corporate cultural assimilation and relationship building for new hires. George explains when and how onboarding optimally starts and ends and how to update the process for a distributed workforce.   TAKEAWAYS [02:30] After studying economics, George starts in sales working for an industry leader.   [04:02] George brings a successful, different approach to selling.   [04:54] George moves to Procter and Gamble, the academy company for marketing at the time.   [06:36] The success of a multi-step process for his sales team at Unilever starts George realizing what onboarding means.   [08:39] At Procter and Gamble, it was all purposeful, disciplined onboarding.   [07:05] How ongoing support and alignment are crucial for the success of new hires beyond the initial onboarding period.     [09:10] He challenges the traditional notion of onboarding being limited to the first day, week, or month.     [10:30] Deliberate efforts are necessary to build relationships and company culture in distributed work environments.     [14:00] George's Forbes article gets much feedback about corporate cultures with distributed workforces.     [17:02] Onboarding new hires effectively is essential for productivity and retention.     [20:30] Coca Cola does not have a copy strategy while George is there.     [21:50] George explains his shift towards focusing on onboarding after realizing an unmet need in the industry.     [23:11] The four main ideas of effective onboarding.     [24:35] Why a structured onboarding plan before Day One matters.     [26:00] Consider an onboarding scenario, highlighting the different sentiments and expectations.     [27:20] Building relationships before starting a new job to set a positive initial dynamic.     [28:45] How leaders can onboard new team members, aligning and accomodating them.     [30:10] He suggests companies allow new hires to conduct due diligence before officially accepting a job offer.     [32:00] Transparency and providing necessary resources are crucial from Day One.     [33:25] George shares his experience with Procter and Gamble's rigorous and specific onboarding process, including the one-page memo format.     [34:50] After six years at Procter and Gamble, George contemplates staying forever.     [38:00] George explains experiences at Coca Cola that led him to focus on onboarding.     [39:40] He notes that despite Coca Cola's history, they had a flawed onboarding process for new hires.     [41:10] The importance of understanding and co-creating the ideal future culture with your team.     [42:30] He suggests that leaders should pay more attention to onboarding and actively create personal onboarding plans for new employees.     [44:00] To support onboardin cultural rituals are important to understand.     [45:15] He emphasizes aligning new hires with the current culture before co-creating an ideal future culture.     [46:30] George points out the lack of attention to onboarding by leaders and the need for their involvement in the process.     [47:50] He concludes by highlighting the importance of focusing on culture and relationships in a hybrid work environment.     IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: As soon as possible after someone accepts their new position, before Day One on the job, get their manager to sit down with them to co-create the person’s own personal onboarding plan, particularly emphasizing culture and building relationships.      RESOURCES   George Bradt on LinkedIn Prime Genesis website George’s book “The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan”     QUOTES   "The one most important idea is you have to converge into an organization or a team before you try to evolve it. You have to become part of the team and evolve it from the inside."   “If you're onboarding somebody who's working remotely, you've got to be incredibly deliberate and invest so much time in building the relationships."   "Give them the time, give them clarity of direction, give them the resources, and then eventually give them the authority they needed to do what they needed to do."   "All that matters is relationships. Any question, any meeting, you know, the answer to any question is you're caring about building relationships."   "Acquire them in the way that's going to work going forward, accommodate them so that they can do work, assimilate them so they can work with others, and then stick with it and help them accelerate."   "Ultimately, culture is the way people behave, the way they relate, their attitudes, their values, the environment. What's different with remote work is how deliberate you have to be about relationships."

Allison Vendt is Senior Director, People Operations (Virtual First, People PMO, People Analytics) at Dropbox. She shares key reasons and research behind Dropbox’s transformation to ‘Virtual First’ starting with an office-centric culture. Allison discusses insights since the initial design phase and implementation including the change management required. She explains the ongoing evolution of the company’s virtual first approach to the Future of Work as they continue to pilot, learn, and iterate. Allison describes how they create high impact employees’ experiences with emphasis on culture, connections, and community.     TAKEAWAYS   [02:38] Allison quickly discovers law school is not for her and finds American studies fascinating.   [04:00] Allison wants to do something creative and starts working in media planning.   [04:55] Wanting more daily impact on people, Allison does a graduate degree in education.   [05:16] Allison was a student athlete herself – a swimmer.   [06:20] As an academic advisor, Allison runs orientation, tutoring, and development programs as well as coaching and counseling.   [06:48] Intrigued by Silicon Valley, while at Stanford, Allison runs a technology-integrated program for entrepreneurs.   [08:46] Parallels between high-achieving student athletes and Allison's current coworkers.   [10:19] Starting her first job in tech, Allison feels at home at once thanks to Dropbox's culture.   [11:24] While the L&D group transitions, Allison is open to experimenting and shifts role.   [13:18] Exploring how employees can own their careers through personal growth plans.   [14:08] More current focus on mentorship and skills.   [15:30] Pandemic shifts give Allison ‘Virtual First’ as her first strategy and operations project.   [16:40] Before 2020, Dropbox explores remote work while having an office-centric culture.   [18:02] The company's mission is relevant as they become intentional about reinventing what modern work looks like.   [20:44] Mindset shifts for virtual first, prioritizing human connection and adopting asynchronous by default   [22:22] Research on effective distributed work principles focused on an asynchronous by default mindset and upskilling everyone.   [23:48] Needing to reinvent everything, one work stream is dedicated to culture and community.   [24:57] Investing in cultural tethers and touchpoints that connect people and drive belonging include a neighborhood program with local relevant events.   [26:53] A mentoring program helps build weak ties, reinventing core elements for Virtual First.   [27:54] The empowering essence and elements of Dropbox’s self-serve mindset and strategy.   [29:48] Investing in training managers who play a critical role in distributed work effectiveness.   [30:52] Iterative ongoing piloting and learning with an open source Virtual First toolkit.   [32:19] Research drives the decision not to choose hybrid to avoid creating two employee experiences.   [34:06] Being transparent about choices and principles, Virtual First still wasn't for everyone, but some have returned.   [34:46] Virtual First is executed with a learning mindset, just like Dropbox builds products.   [35:26] Change management is critical for the organizational transformation.   [36:30] Onboarding is overhauled and refined—identifying synchronous and self-paced aspects.   [37:29] What are the frameworks for success? How to make Virtual First work for you.   [39:14] The potential for AI to reduce friction at work starting with AI training.   [40:40] Potential AI opportunities as behaviors and tools must go hand in hand to get more focus time and flow time.   [42:35] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Consider virtual first over hybrid. Whatever the size of your organization, you can adapt the core framework appropriately. Try a virtual first approach with one unit of your company to see if it could work. The benefits of happy productive employees outweigh the challenges.     RESOURCES Allison Vendt on LinkedIn Dropbox on LinkedIn Dropbox on Instagram Dropbox on X     QUOTES edited   “We really had to take this opportunity to reinvent what modern work looked like.” “We wanted to do our due diligence. We came up with a set of guiding principles that four years later continue to guide the work. It was really important for us to be intentional about what we were doing to have a solid design to kick us off.”   “Virtual First means we work remotely, that's our primary orientation of work. But we do prioritize human connection. We really believe there's just no replacement for that face-to-face in-person connection.”   “We had to reinvent how we work. All the research that we had done on effective distributed work principles was leading with an asynchronous by default mindset that we had to get really good at.”   “We try to think about meetings being for debate, decision making, and discussion, not about status updates, for example, which you can easily do asynchronously.”   “We were very clear we need to reinvent everything, including looking at our culture.”   "We've done a lot of transformation around the knowledge management piece. So much about Virtual First is about empowerment -- individual empowerment."    “The role of the manager is so critical in any workplace, but certainly in a distributed environment. So we've invested a lot in manager training, making sure that all of our Virtual First principles, research that we're learning and insights that we have are getting are embedded into our manager training.”   "We deliberately elected not to adopt a hybrid model that was based on the research that we had done. Ultimately, we felt like leveraging a hybrid model was going to create two different experiences for employees."

Ryan Anderson is Vice President of Global Research and Insights at MillerKnoll leading research and providing workplace strategy and application design advisory services. He also hosts MillerKnoll’s “About Place” podcast. With much experience at the intersection of workplace research, innovation, and technology, Ryan discusses evolving working needs un/tethered by technology. He explains how urban landscaping concepts support human-centric office-based design. Ryan recommends incremental office improvements to match evolving work needs and change management to support any facility update.     TAKEAWAYS   [02:19] A random decision to study marketing, however Ryan finds he loves the audience focus.   [03:55] In furniture product development, Ryan finds the commercialization process tough, but learns a lot.   [04:24] Ryan is drawn to the conceptual phases, empathizing to understand unmet needs.   [06:07] How West Michigan has a concentration of workplace design companies.   [06:54] Ryan grew up thinking furniture was boring but learns how much more there is to it.    [08:35] In Chicago, Ryan meets his wife and studies purpose-driven business and ethics-based leadership.   [10:27] Ryan transitions to a corporate/design role as technology integration changes work settings.   [11:19] Commercial interior design and Ryan respond to employees’ new technology setups.   [13:14] A history lover, Ryan describes key design people and an office landscape movement.    [13:37] The fascinating use of urban planning principles for office landscaping.   [14:30] Desk-based workers’ needs drive workspace planning and fuel industry growth.   [15:00] The original goal of the cubicle—to provide workplace variety!   [16:08] Workspaces need to evolve to keep in tempo with work.   [17:07] Tech trends dictated earlier workplace constraints and are now releasing us from them.   [18:36] Understanding evergreen needs while envisioning and maturing ideas through experimentation.   [20:00] Ryan moves company to align with designing for the tech user not the technology.    [21:42] Mid-2010’s, The Living Office anticipates and amplifies the consumerization of technology.   [22:52] Partnering with big tech companies to revisit office landscaping for the modern era.   [23:40] Exploring ‘prop tech’ – the technological evolution of the building – smart buildings.   [24:30] Sensors and other tech enhancements start to personalize office experiences.   [25:00] The SaaS business model interest Ryan who joins a fast-growing prop tech venture.   [26:18] Ryan shifts focus to changing digitized work experiences rather than tech integration.   [26:59] The workplace ‘product’ must support diverse teams’ evolving digitalized work needs.   [31:08] Douglas McGregor’s framework of Theory X and Theory Y management.      [32:45] With distributed work, designing spaces to supervise work is unrealistic.   [33:58] Community building and urban planning are enabling an ecosystem of people.   [34:51] Optimizing for office-based work activities, such as for longer form collaboration.   [35:53] What do offices best provide – structured collaboration and focused concentration?   [37:03] Understand teams operating in a facility to address their changing activities and needs.    [38:25] Not many organizations are supporting their employees’ home working settings yet.   [39:51] The prospect of major projects and expensive capital are stalling renovation plans.   [42:03] Service As A Space concepts also involve investing in space that evolves over time.   [43:55] AI has the potential to create safer, healthier, smarter buildings.   [44:56] The possibilities of AI tools to augment the design process.   [48:28] Work is best determined by a social contract that’s beneficial not location-based or too restrictive.   [49:52] Ryan shares how his team updates their team working agreement protocols.   [50:49] Rewind assumptions to consider old and new ideas to support teams’ needs.   [51:10] Neighborhood-based planning allows connectedness, attachment, and scalability.    [54:18] New office landscaping uses neighborhoods similarly to 15-minute cities.   [55:00] Why strong and weak ties matter.   [50:49] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Real estate strategies follow talent—so develop incremental office improvements that purposefully encourage connection and interaction. Create in-office neighborhoods to support teams’ sense of community and belonging with flexibility for regular updates responding to evolving work needs.     RESOURCES   Ryan Anderson on LinkedIn MillerKnoll’s website MillerKnoll on Instagram HermanMiller on Instagram Knoll on Instagram HMInsightGroup on X MillerKnoll on X Douglas McGregor’s framework of Theory X and Theory Y     QUOTES (edited)   “We're all looking at what is the post desktop, post cubicle era of working looks like.”   “You design for the technology user, not the technology. You have to understand the patterns of behavior, even though the tool sets evolve.”   “Recognizing that our work experiences are increasingly becoming digitized and virtual, the work is becoming digital, but that we're physical beings and physical spaces. We need to figure out how to allow people to exist in these physical spaces and use those tech tools in a really healthy, fun, productive way.”   “Facility managers and corporate real estate leaders are product owners that own the product—the workplace. The focus is on helping them better understand their teams, the diverse nature of those teams, the evolving nature of the work, and trying to conceptualize a space that gets better over time.”   “Regardless of your inherent perspectives on management, the thought of using a space to supervise work in an era of digitized distributed work is extremely unrealistic.”   “What can this space do to help our employees to collaborate in new ways, offer them experiences they can't have at home. That is a healthy and better approach. It's just complicated. It's more complicated than saying, well line 'em up in rows so that I can watch them effectively.”   “It’s urban planning. We’re taking these principles, we’re bringing them inside the building. We’re enabling an ecosystem of people.”   “Any facilities project is a change management project, and any real estate strategy has to follow talent.”

Jenny He is the Founder, CEO, and licensed contractor at Ergeon, a construction company making home renovation easier for consumers and contractors. Jenny combines her strong engineering, technology, and consulting background to convert and facilitate contractors’ construction projects as well as to manage Ergeon’s fully distributed workforce. She applies a consistent, rigorous approach to contracted project progress and outcomes as well as to evaluating individual employees’ task and teamwork results. Jenny shares her thoughtful analysis of how productivity can be assessed and tracked appropriately for specific disciplines, teams, and individuals.       TAKEAWAYS    [03:15] Jenny is born in China to parents who are both engineers.     [03:53] Jenny moves to the UK at 10 years old as her father pursues research and his PhD.    [04:48] The family moves to Canada and Jenny studies electrical engineering at college.    [05:24] Enjoying solving hard problems, Jenny's PhD optimizes Internet routing protocols.    [07:23] A random situation results in Jenny becoming a consultant and joining McKinsey.    [08:37] Learning leadership and soft skills, Jenny follows good managers, not projects.    [09:34] The hardest part is not solving the problem but defining the right problem to solve.    [11:42] Jenny discovers insufficient technology is built to support skills tradespeople.     [13:00] Jenny proposes a useful solution for a skilled field tech—how else can she help?    [13:59] EZ Home’s app gamifies workflow for gardening service providers.    [15:28] The CTO/Founder of EZ Home also co-founded Odesk and has great relevant experience.    [16:22] Tackling physical work projects is even harder than Odesk’s business.    [16:48] Why the technology needs to be more mature for the new venture.    [19:29] Jenny wants to empower high skilled trade entrepreneurs.    [20:50] Renovating her home, Jenny plans and uses technology and has a positive experience!    [23:02] The name Ergeon captures the vision of the company.    [25:07] Measuring customers’ experiences is a key productivity metric.    [28:12] Jenny takes project complexity into account and assesses contributions to set prices.    [29:09] How Jenny's business takes care of most front- and back-office construction coordination.    [36:06] Creating a scalable, full distributed factory with an iterative communication process.    [31:02] Scalable groups perform tasks with construction knowledge embedded into the technology.    [32:28] They identify specific skills to hire for and teach the rest.    [33:25] Is the unit of productivity the team or the individual?    [34:55] To measure productivity, there often need to be sufficient similar jobs to compare.    [36:44] Onboarding is very deliberate since Ergeon hires many people with no experience.    [37:32] In the first few days, new hires are trained about processes and best practices.    [38:44] Role-playing in initial weeks’ boot camps increase knowledge and confidence.    [40:25] Onboarding timeframes and programs depend on the type and complexity of the role.    [42:30] Distributed working issue #1: Building trust is hard.    [43:15] Transparency is important to avoid a tiered system of senior execs and everyone else.    [44:12] Distributed work issue #2: Mitigating time zones using async methods and alignment.    [45:13] Distributed work issue #3: Interpersonal connections need purposeful nurturing.    [47:03] How to evaluate individuals whose productivity is measured at a team level.    [50:34] Technology progress leads to reskilling, evolving roles, and supported outplacement.    [53:27] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: To measure productivity, start with performance and assess variation between identical roles. Address systematic challenges hindering goal achievement including employees’ access to suitable tools before identifying productivity measures and ensure people have the training and support to focus their efforts.    [54:48] Jenny is revising for multiple exams so Ergeon can operate in many more U.S. states.        RESOURCES    Jenny He on LinkedIn  Ergeon’s website  Ergeon on Instagram  Ergeon on X  Ergeon on Facebook        QUOTES (edited)    “Often the hardest part isn't solving the problem, but defining what is the right problem to solve.”  “We also have other teams in the company like supply ops because it's a small team. we're looking at the team level targets and productivity versus the individual. Because I do believe, unless you have say five plus people doing exactly the same job, they can't be having some different variants of the job.”  “Building trust is hard, and it is harder in a distributed environment.”  “We are trying to create a scaleable factory where no one’s co-located.”  “We do a lot of async communications and make to make [work] sustainable for people. We're generally thoughtful about hiring for specific roles where async work is easier.”  On connection, “It's not even just about distributed or not, it's if everyone is co-located, it happens somewhat naturally. When you can't not see other people and have casual conversations, it has to be then very purposeful to create that environment. To give people that opportunity to connect.”  “Start with performance, before you think about productivity. Understand how much variation you have within the exact same roles. If the delta is huge, what is causing the delta—are there systematic challenges that make it difficult for people to achieve their goals?”   

Dart Lindsley is Strategic Advisor, People Experience at Google. He is also a writer, speaker, and host of the Work for Humans podcast – on a mission to humanize work. Dart share insights about his realization that businesses are multisided marketplaces where employees are (overlooked) customers of work and work is a product. To better design the work product, Dart recognizes teams’ agency and ability to allocate their attention among themselves to complete tasks effectively. He discusses a flipped org chart with managers in supportive, rather than authoritative, roles. Dart advocates for more leadership closest to the customer.       TAKEAWAYS   [02:05] Dart is an undergraduate for seven years partly because his brother told him never to graduate!   [03:47] Dart explores unpopular forms of writing which makes earning a living hard.   [04:37] Being a criminal defense investigator rearranges Dart’s soul.   [06:45] After a master’s degree, Dart becomes a recruiter to earn more as he starts a family.   [08:34] Dart’s family are scientists, so his career transitioned to analytical work after a recruiting downturn.   [09:49] Dart inserts himself into the team doing strategic work designing the new staffing system.   [10:52] Finding a home in analytical disciplines which are less burdensome and emotional.   [12:26] Dart explores tooling, UX, change management and Six Sigma, ending up with organizational design.   [13:36] Facilitating business architecture resonates with Dart who is very interested in how large systems create experiences.   [15:03] Companies are ‘n’ dimensional: humans cannot observe them or handle more than 3 dimensions.   [15:49] Human Resources had not been analyzed from a business architecture point of view before.   [17:03] Business architecture is only needed for companies going through significant transformation to discover new operational capabilities needs and how they interrelate.   [18:08] Translating strategic capability requirements into tech systems and architecture is not easy.   [20:48] Business architecture change derives from either market changes or new tech capabilities—as now.   [21:20] The pace layer of technology is usually the slowest thing. Not now, so much experimentation is needed.   [22:35] Dart initially subscribes to the traditional model of HR where employees are the inputs of production.   [23:48] Employee has happiness has not been a concern—only productivity which Dart finds ethically flawed.   [25:10] Dart notices ‘employees’ show up in two places—inside (production inputs) and outside (customers).   [25:59] Working on a patent for Cisco, Dart explores multi-sided businesses and realizes employees are also (forgotten) customers.   [28:25] If employees are customers, what are we selling them? We need to design work better.   [29:03] Do people want only autonomy, mastery and purpose? Dart finds 35+ more answers!   [30:15] People usually want 8 things from work. Only 4 likely overlap, so how to optimize individually?   [31:05] Lack of autonomy is a cost of a job, like social anxiety and threats to health and safety.   [32:33] Managers are key to a design-centered solution.   [33:28] Design is about empathy, understanding employees’ needs, scaling with managers below on the org chart.   [34:10] Managers are brokers between demand for the team’s labor and the market for work—the work people want to do.   [37:10] A team can act as a smart organism allocating its attention to work and delivering value.   [38:32] Color coding how rewarding work is—green, yellow, and red. What happens when colors change.   [39:41] The range of issues and solutions affecting the cost side of work.   [42:14] How do we design our lives so as not to be ‘inputs of production’?   [43:31] How a team agrees on what business value is and the core mission.   [44:25] Is the manager winning the work the team wants to do? And the type of client the team wants?   [47:10] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: To enable a dexterous organization, let the edges closest to the customers lead. Giving more agency to the agents will facilitate guided emergence, while anchoring your organization with values, purpose, and focus.       RESOURCES   Dart Lindsley on LinkedIn Dart’s website Dart’s Work for Humans podcast Bill Burnet’s book “Designing Your Life”       QUOTES (edited)   “if you're an input to production and my main objective is to make you productive, then if I can make you productive by being happy, great. But, if I can make you productive and you're miserable, great. It's not a concern.”   “The only reason I'm going to care about a human is because of what they give me as a company? It just struck me as like ethically flawed.”   “For the first 10 years of working in HR, I subscribed to the traditional model of HR which is that employees are inputs of production who must be acquired.”   “If employees are customers, what are we selling them? We’re selling them work. If work’s a product, then it’s a design problem and we can design it better.”   “Managers are designers, even ‘product’ managers. [They act] as a broker between two markets. One market is the demand for the labor of the team—so the value that flows towards the traditional customer. The other is the market for work and the work that people want to do.”

Melissa Puls is the Chief Marketing Officer and SVP of Customer Success at Ivanti which provides software solutions that elevate and secure EverywhereWork. Melissa brings deep experience building and leading decentralized teams. She shares her critical learnings that have enabled effective teamwork and successful outcomes. Melissa discusses key principles when implementing flexibility, the importance of change management, and how to identify non-performing remote team members. Melissa describes the holistic support distributed employees need, especially including IT and security.     TAKEAWAYS   [02:27] Melissa studies communications and psychology not realizing their connection with marketing.   [03:40] Melissa’s mother is head of marketing at a tech company teaching Melissa women can do anything.   [04:17] Her entrepreneur father becomes mayor wanting to do good things for their country city.   [04:50] Her parents partner well, managing to prioritize Melissa and her sister, and demonstrating the importance of workplace flexibility.   [07:15] As her mother exits Kronos, Melissa feels purposeful in her starting role as a fulfillment coordinator.   [08:55] Melissa’s mother put the human element first in building teams, embracing different points of view.    [09:35] After setting up the fulfillment center, Melissa’s time is freed up. Should she relax or solve new problems?!    [10:15] Melissa pitches a promotion to help out the stressed-out marketing managers—her boss says yes!   [12:05] Wanting to live and raise a family by the ocean, and tired of commuting, Melissa leaves Kronos and moves to the Cape.   [13:16] Melissa lands a lead marketing role at a local tech company which then rolls up into a billion-dollar global organization.   [13:55] Maintaining her boundaries, Melissa stays remote, managing her teams based everywhere.   [15:26] At times, Melissa commutes in part of the week when certain leaders didn’t share her mindset.   [16:56] The first, critical principal is to give people the benefit of the doubt that they will do the right thing.   [17:10] Put people in an environment where they can do their best work and respect their boundaries.   [17:51] Many leaders don’t trust people to do the right thing. How to identify the few employees who don’t?   [18:57] Every employee must understand their purpose, how it relates to the bigger picture, and have clear metrics and expectations.   [19:40] What people say and how they react if there isn’t a good fit.   [21:28] Melissa learned from her father that some choose to set their boundary at doing the minimum work.   [22:42] Melissa joins Iron Mountain for an integrated growth marketing role.   [23:25] Highly corporate centric when she joins, Iron Mountain decides to move and shrink their office space.   [24:39] Employees get two choices: all in-office with a dedicated desk or flexibility with a shared desk.   [26:30] Motivated by costs, Iron Mountrain creates great new space and supports others’ change to work flexibly.   [28:16] Engagement goes up, people are more productive opting for the environment they can work best in.   [29:41] Iron Mountain is set up for success with a strong culture, purpose, and good performance management principles and protocols.   [30:17] Not everyone is on board with the change—which is natural.   [31:19] Ask, not assume, if people can meet your needs.   [32:21] Impressions can be misleading. Set your boundary and have the tough conversation.   [34:36] Melissa's current company is paving the way for flexible work everywhere—internally and for customers.   [35:44] Leaders support flexible work, but are IT and security professionals set up to support them?   [35:15] In new work situations, what new risks are employees under that need to be addressed?   [37:56] Silos between security and IT are decreasing their effectiveness.   [40:32] Frontline managers need to buy in fully to the value of flexible working, not be ‘told’.   [42:09] Deploying flexible work principles: holding people accountable and respecting their independence.   [42:58] Every industry, company, and job is different, so flexibility differs.   [44:23] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Put people in an environment where they can do their best work being clear about purpose, roles, responsibilities, outcomes, and deliverables, and ensure there is alignment between IT and security teams so they can provide and support the right tools for flexible work. Then trust that employees will do the right thing.     RESOURCES   Melissa Puls on LinkedIn Melissa on X Ivanti’s website Ivanti on X Ivanti on Instagram Ivanti’s 2024 Everywhere Work Report     QUOTES (edited)   “We understand flexibility is not only about what the company needs, but also what the individual needs.”   “It takes time and effort and energy and focus for an organization to bring along the right frontline managers so that they understand the purpose of what they're doing and making sure they deploy those principles of flexible work.”   “Hire the best people for the best job it really doesn't matter where they're located.”   “Most important is to give people the benefit of the doubt that they're going to do the right thing.”   “Every single person in your organization needs to understand what their purpose is and how it relates to the bigger picture, vision, and mission of the company and what they can do to contribute to that.”   “Only upside for the company financially—they were in a better spot, less space, more flexible. And the people that opted for that were in an environment where they felt that they could do great work.”   "The importance of having alignment between IT and security, where they have real insights into how the business is operating so they can provide the right tools and really maximize flexible work."

Juliette Powell is Founder and Managing Partner of Kleiner Powell International, a consultancy working at the intersection of responsible technology and business. She is co-author of “The AI Dilemma: 7 Principles for Responsible Technology.” Juliette brings rich technology research and innovation experience to evaluate our evolving landscape as we anticipate AI integration. She explains her core concerns—what we need to pay attention and lean into. She discusses the importance of personal data ownership, creative friction, digital trust, and logic. Juliette explains how diverse contributions diminish divergent, asymmetric trajectories, so we all need to be actively involved.      TAKEAWAYS   [02:30] Monopoly is Juliette’s favorite game as a kid, showing how you can change your circumstances.   [02:50] Juliette studies finance and international business to understand global interconnectedness.   [03:15] At university, Juliette develops a TV career focusing on the business side of media.   [04:32] Interviewing Janet Jackson and Nelson Mandela reveals juxtaposed insecurity and confidence.   [07:30] Juliette’s first book results from her involvement with TED’s original founder producing the conference and meeting visionary thinkers.   [08:10] Transitioning from TV, Juliette explores technologies and the rise of social media.   [10:25] Citizen journalism and political messaging delivered using digital channels fascinates Juliette.   [12:10] Juliette tries to lead as her whole self, seeing people disconnecting their work/non-work lives.   [13:20] Where engineers can experience misalignment making decisions in their AI-related work.   [14:20] Juliette highlights those who live holistically as fully integrated people in her first book.   [15:00] Integrated work/life experienced early on meeting a couple working remotely in Thailand.   [16:50] Early career motivation to find work thinking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.   [18:58] How the internet extended possibilities beyond someone’s local geography.   [19:50] Ecosystem pressures raise mental health issues and people trying to survive not thrive.   [20:50] Navigating uncertainty—personally and professionally—requires having Plan A, B, C, and D.   [21:44] Juliette founded the Gathering to ensure diversity and avoid past mistakes in tech development.   [24:41] At TED, there is no separation between the expertise on stage and the audience.   [26:04] Turing AI and WeTheData.org focus on the personal data ecosystem, ownership, and ethical use.   [27:48] Research reveals four grand challenges include digital trust and digital infrastructure/access.   [29:30] An ‘eBay for data’ to aggregate and monetize personal data as Finns do.   [31:31] Research on Americans’ and Europeans’ different attitudes to their personal data.   [35:26] Most of Juliette’s NYU students are terrified of the potential impact of AI on their skills.   [36:25] Students’ potential questions ‘Will I have meaning? Can I contribute anything?’   [37:40] Juliette teaches students research methods to reduce fear and build confidence.   [41:30] The importance of creative friction to reconnect across seamless technology divides.   [42:45] Taking a moment to rise above the sand, things have changed a lot, probably within yourself.   [43:40] Diverse teams earn the most as they take the longest time to deliberate.   [44:45] With diverse debate, deliberating longer, with ongoing feedback, we can create better AI systems.   [45:53] Bias is part of human nature, so how we can reduce asymmetry of power?   [49:00] If we wake up to the power we have and give away, what we can do with that power.   [50:08] Juliette is excited to be alive right now when we are shaping the future such as digital infrastructure, digital literacy, and digital trust.   [50:40] Historically, curators of knowledge have been our sources of truth.   [53:05] We must be able to manage all this uncertainty on the individual level as a community.   [53:45] The Four Logics framework: government, corporate, engineering, and social justice logic.   [54:35] Increasing awareness of misalignment between employees’ morals and employer brands.   [55:47] Checking on personal values, culture, and vision that enable fulfillment.   [56:33] How reducing human biases with AI leads to other biases.   [57:27] Encourage employee experimentation with AI and launch internal challenges.     RESOURCES   Juliette Powell on LinkedIn Juliette Powell’s website Kliener Powell International’s website The AI Dilemma: 7 Principles for Responsible Technology" co-authored by Juliette Juliette’s first book. “33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence, and Run a Successful Business with Social Networking” Juliette’s co-authored book “The AI Dilemma: 7 Principles for Responsible Technology.”       QUOTES (edited)   "I've always been of the perspective that I'm a whole person. There are many different parts to my whole person, but nonetheless, I try to think of myself holistically as I navigate the world."   "Creative friction can only come from deep diversity. The more diverse, the more they produce questions, the longer it takes to deliberate, but the better the outcomes."   "We need to take responsibility and intentionally co-create with AI to ensure diverse perspectives are debated, increasing initial friction to reduce asymmetries and improve capabilities and relevance."   "Digital trust is kind of key. If we want data, personal data, to work for everyone on the planet, and not just the usual suspects, we need to address digital trust and infrastructure."   "If you feel that your personal morals are being confronted by what you're being asked to do at work, now is the time to recognize that disalignment and seek a place where you can be fulfilled and work on meaningful things."   "I'm excited about shaping AI's future because we are the generations that get to shape it. The decisions we make now will determine where digital trust will be in the next hundred years."   “There is expertise in the everyday person. We don't necessarily reward financially or recognize that, but that tacit knowledge is invaluable.”   “If we take longer to deliberate around our AI systems in their specific use cases and context, bring in the various communities that will be affected before we start building them, and deploy them constantly incorporating that feedback, we'd have much better systems that would work for far more people.”   “If we all woke up a little bit more to the kind of power that we give away, then we could also realize the kind of power that we actually have if we decide to do something about it.”   “We have to be able to manage all this uncertainty on the individual level as a community.”   "If you feel that your personal morals are being confronted by what you're being asked to do at work, now is the time to recognize that disalignment and seek a place where you can be fulfilled and work on meaningful things."   "I'm excited about shaping AI's future because we are the generations that get to shape it. The decisions we make now will determine where digital trust will be in the next hundred years."   “There is expertise in the everyday person. We don't necessarily reward financially or recognize that, but that tacit knowledge is invaluable.”