Greg Voisen
Welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. And joining me from New York City is Julie Kantor, PhD. And she has a partner on this book to our co author, I should say, Felice Ekelman. And when you get the book, my listeners, you'll see why the two of them teamed up and how, why it's such a good team. Because Thrive with a Hybrid Workplace: Step-by-Step Guide. There are elements of the legal side and elements of the psychological side have to be dealt with. And Julie is the one that deals with the psychological side. Good day to you. How are you?

Dr. Julie Kantor
It's great to see you. And thanks for having me.

Greg Voisen
Well, it's a pleasure having you and this is a topic that I think many people especially in the business world want to learn more about. I wouldn't say that the fake it until you make it park but some of them kind of are, but I'm gonna let them know a little bit about you. So, Dr. Julie Kantor is a seasoned executive coach and consultant and transformative coach. With over two decades of experience. She is the go to catalyst for change in both individual and organizations offering a unique blend of business acumen, psychological insight and systems analysis. Her clients span the spectrum from small partnerships to Fortune 500 Giants, making her the ultimate executive resource. Her mission is to help craft efficient, profitable and trust driven workplace cultures through her tailored training programs. Julie's expertise spans leadership transition team building and addressing performance challenges. She's also a trusted ally for managers striving to turn around tricky situations and individuals. She's a frequent Forbes contributor on leadership coaching and employee engagement. Julie's insights have even graced the paces the pages of The Wall Street Journal, and her latest book, which we're talking about right here right now. Oops, turn it that way, thrive with a hybrid workplace, step by step guidance for the expert. Well, Julie, let's just kind of kick it off, because you know, this whole thing. I'm not saying it did or did not exist, but it certainly didn't exist as much before COVID. Okay, or the pandemic, not as much as we've seen today. And it's thrust people into this ever evolving environment. And the whole dynamics of it has changed the way people work drastically, could you speak with the listeners about some of the major issues faced, really, in trying to design, implement and succeed with a hybrid workplace.

Dr. Julie Kantor
script play place to start? I think the first piece, that if we talk about the issues, if we're talking about employers, and we're talking about employees, we're talking about big, there's a big difference between the two issues. So, if we start with the employers, because they're the people who are signing the paychecks, there issuing in, you know, if we boil it down three years later, and I say that no small point, because this is still evolving. I can't tell you the end of the story, because we're living it as we speak. But so, what are employers dealing with employees are dealing with it, the bottom line is productivity. I mean, that's how I keep the lights on is having employees who are producing whatever their quote unquote, product is, and it may be intellectual property and services, which is a big part in terms of hybrid, the hybrid world, you cannot have hybrid work for people who are creating a thing, if you're working in manufacturing, but for the senior level leadership, hybrid is not a viable option. So this is really about people who are intellectual workers. And so they're facing issues of productivity. They're facing issues of morale, and engagement. I contend we had the great resignation in the very beginning of the pandemic, because there was no connection and if I didn't like you, when you were my boss, I could didn't have to see you. I didn't have to speak with you. I could send you a text of two words and says I quit. So where are we? A few years later? Now employers are facing that challenge and how do we get our employees engaged and productive? The shift for employees first of all, we'll be in lockdown that was a whole world unto itself and given the scope we have to talk about like has meant a whole lot of time have locked down because luckily it was a slice of time. But employees have gone through having to quest Jim, what had been an established way of living for a long time. And so the good news is, is people found the joys and some balance. And if I could be so crass, they're not working as hard and and we can get have a whole other conversation as to whether employees should or shouldn't be working as hard. But it was really employees went through a questioning of what is the balance of my work and my life in producing it, as well as how am I getting the work done it? And I think we'll get into this conversation more, but it's not when you look at hybrid, we're looking at things like where's the work done? When is the work done? And how is the work done it? So, these are questions that are all up in the air. And if I could also just fill in another piece, it's been an overlay, which is mental health. Yeah. It's a big one. Because you know, before we're in the hybrid world, good, bad and ugly, we're all in our own pattern, you know, you got up in the same day you stopped at, you know, you hit the snooze alarm, the same amount of times you stopped at the same barista, et cetera, et cetera. And believe it or not, that actually decreases stress to be in that regular pattern. And so now all that's up in the air. And so that addition, those additional changes occur, causing a lot of stress for people plus just the whole formula of how they're living and figuring it out. Well,

Greg Voisen
many years ago, you may not be aware of this, but I wrote a book called wisdom, wellness and redefining work, thriving in a world of ever increasing complexity, that complexity seems to be the issue. But to thrive in it is about flexibility. How can they be more flexible, because everybody's looking for higher levels of engagement, they're looking for higher levels of innovation and productivity. They're looking for higher levels of camaraderie, meaning people working together and teaming up. And, you know, this whole workplace is in such a dynamic state. And I think it has been for some time, this just didn't start with the pandemic, right, it started way before the pandemic. But you state that the ongoing debate of the business world is this remote, or remove or remote or office, right? Speak with the listeners about the debate, and the myth of this separate world that we live in work life and personal life and our beliefs about separating the two because, look, I've always been an advocate of, I'm going to just say it, I used to attend events called spirituality in the workplace. And, you know, we bring our whole selves to work, whether we go from the bedroom to the office that we work in, or we go from the bedroom to the office that we drive to. But the reality is, for a long time, we weren't even able to show up as our whole selves.

Dr. Julie Kantor
Right. And so let's say if I was talking about the term with separate worlds pre pandemic, you and I would be both coming in nine to nine to five, I'm using that word in quotes, because many people will argue to me that it was eight to eight or whatever, but we'll call it nine to five.

Greg Voisen
Dolly Parton would say nine to five, right.

Dr. Julie Kantor
But what was the place, if you go back in time in with knowledge workers is you came to work and you started work, like you said, people weren't bringing their whole selves to work. And so the fact of you being the same person that perhaps didn't, you know, get a good night's sleep because you were up partying or didn't get a good night's sleep because you were up with a crying baby, or you had a fight with your partner, etc. You came to work, and nobody really wanted to hear those things. Maybe if you had one BFF that you were talking with, but it really wasn't part of the life in the same way. On the other end, if you had to get home for something, right? Chances are people at work, we're not using it as well as if you had a bad day at work. Family and friends are not necessarily interested in hearing that but you are the same person who is coming back and forth. And so, again, if we're talking about this pre pandemic, that's what I would have been talking about what's happened over time with the with the pandemic, sort of all bets are off and for the individual who is you know, working at home right, for one thing, how do you create some boundary you know, I talk a lot in the book about boundaries and the need for them. You know, when your kitchen when you're prepping dinner and your office are three feet away, there is no boundary and so how do you separate them and that's another piece in terms of You're hearing in terms of mental health and people working late and they're not separating any of this thing is weird driving. The other piece in terms of from a psychological standpoint that people are not experiencing now, with this really not a blend when you're working from home, is there are no what I call microtransactions. Again, so we talked about overall level of coping, there is something to be said, when you had to go through a commute that you have this transition, literally of leaving, work, and, you know, commute to work as well as home. I mean, I remember when my kids were younger, you know, the message was when mommy's out of her work clothes, you know, mommy's mommy, right? So give you sort of that two minutes of sort of literally changing your role, if you will. And so how do people create those when you're at home working. And the other piece that has happened is that we're now bringing home to work more. So it's not only just workers at home, but we're coming to work and what is being your homes, and one of the things I've been hearing from managers, as people not only bringing their whole selves to work, they're bringing you the whole personals, issues. And I will tell you, if Elise was on the call, the first thing she would be saying like employers, you don't want to hear all this because you may be hearing about things that you're going to start dealing with in terms of disabilities, etc. But on a more organic level, I've heard managers say to me things like Julie, this is way above my peak, pay grade, because this this separate world is not as separate as it used to be. People are bringing it in. And so managers and sort of like, maybe I'm getting a little bit more than I asked for. And so employees are the people who sort of having to negotiate these changes.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, well, you know, Julian, a lot of the work today from bigger companies, even smaller companies is, is being done by I'm just gonna call them freelancers, right. So their sub contracting with a lot of people that maybe have five or six gigs, they happen to be one of the gigs. I do get the, you know, the world of HR and hiring has really changed. And you mentioned that your point of view is to embrace flexible options. I think if I go way back, this whole thing around freelancers didn't exist very much at all. What do employers need to consider when allowing such flexibility? And how does the issue of trust now here's another one, right? If I hire somebody has a subcontractor to do work for me. It's actually should cost me less money. But I don't really know if they're getting everything done on time, but I've hired them for a certain amount. How does this trust issue play into the decision to allow for hybrid workplace, and I'm just gonna throw that in, even people that are freelancers working for me.

Dr. Julie Kantor
I totally agree with you on this. And I think in terms of a few things, one is inflate bracing, flexible options, you know, gets out of the bag, like employers really don't have to have a choice about it. People have experienced it. So now the question is, you know, how are we making it work? You know, I do think we're going to meet maybe getting ahead of ourselves, I do think we're getting back to more people FaceTime in the office. But so FaceTime is an issue in terms of right, when you see trust, we used to measure productivity by if you were sitting in your seat in the office, right? You could have been shopping for you know, somebody's holiday present versus you know, somebody else is actually doing work. But trust you here trust initials, like, you know, employ employees saying, Well, you need to trust me. Well, at the end of the day, again, the lights need to stay on and you don't want your paycheck to bounce. And so they're running a business. And so trust really works two ways. And it fundamentally is, are you meeting the deliverables? And I hear you in terms of people who are gig workers, you know, part time, etc, that one of the burdens that are sitting under management is to defining the deliverable. That takes work, because if you're going to build trust, then you have to, it's reasonable for a manager to expect people meeting those deliverables. I will tell you an extreme and this is I see this shifting a lot as we're moved. It had really been an employee's work environment that I didn't like it, Greg, I could quit and I could find a job across the street. Not so much the case anymore. It's becoming a little bit more of an employer. Market, but market right now it but part of what I've seen is managers being afraid because they're hearing trust me, trust me, trust me, managers are being afraid to set expectations as simple as responding to an email. I mean, and I'm talking about bosses, I mean, direct reports report responding to their bosses, an email, I mean, that's I don't know, isn't that written somewhere like, your boss emails, you, you respond back to them? And so, you know, it's one thing to say, trust me. And it's another thing for a manager to expect you to meet deliverables. And so I am somebody who sort of doesn't by the, just trust me, you know, what's the expression you need to earn trust? It's really about, you know, understanding what is expected? Did what is the product, if you will? And is the employee meeting that? Well,

Greg Voisen
you know, what, Julie, I've seen it, there's a true dichotomy, I get that. Somebody like Elon Musk, who kind of says, hey, look, you're all fired, and we're going to clean house. And we're going to bring people in, who aren't going to just be here part time, they're going to work, and you're going to show up and go through the door, I get that. The dichotomy is we spoke about this, you have your vancian art, when you look at the levels of productivity, where the culture is embracing what we're talking about, and has found the right formula to embrace flex work hours, give people time off, let them be more creative. So this concept is not new, in your estimation, what are the pros to this flexible work schedule? And what are some of the cons? I mean, I think I've seen you know, look, Amazon, dictated back again, to employees to start coming back to work. That was a while ago, but we've seen the migration back. My son's company, Adobe, the same thing. with Salesforce, I mean, I've watched many of these companies, like move back to more of hate come to work versus be away from work.

Dr. Julie Kantor
Right, right. Well, well, you know, it's interesting, you saying, come to work, and you said it really nicely. One of the when I'm working with clients, one of the things I've suggested them shifting is saying you have to come to work, right. And you beautifully didn't say that, right? It's like you have to come in as opposed to the days you come in, right? You know, when you say you have to it's almost sounding like you you're setting it up that it's a punishment, versus it's just the state of affairs, which is you come into the office these days. So I don't know if you realize that, Greg, but you said it in a really nice way. terms in terms of NORC, making it sort of a, an a norm, if you will. I think the first piece is looking at the word flexible and flexible initially meant, like, come and go as you want like and you know, we sort of had this argument had the, you had the big banks initially saying come in five days a week, and literally the employee just didn't comment. So now we're trying to find some meaningful way. But I, you know, the other shifts that I'm seeing, and I'm really working with folks is is getting away from this determination of flexible based on the number of days in a week, you know, is this a two day in office week, company or three days. And if that's what the conversation, the policy begins and ends, it is a meaningless policy. Because if you come in Mondays and Tuesdays and I come in and Wednesdays and Thursdays, and you and I on Mondays are and they are communicating via zoom, there's no reason for you to have been in the office. And so you know, one of the things in terms of defining what flexible is, and initially flexible law, the power is sitting with the employees in this site, that means I can come and go on I want just to trust me, I'll get my work done. And now what we're seeing and what we're advising is you have to have some purpose of somebody coming into the office, there has to be a reason because if there's no reason, then most people will say I'll just work at home. So

Greg Voisen
you're saying that that has to be part of the policy.

Dr. Julie Kantor
That right and

Greg Voisen
so what what is an example Julie of somebody you've worked with that during all this chaos with COVID emerged through this the other side, and really created a culture and environment where they are thriving in a hybrid workplace.

Dr. Julie Kantor
One of the ones that comes to mind and they've really done it beautifully. Is there is a large architectural firm building the likes of the tallest buildings in the world. So they're not renovating your kitchen or my house. So this is clearly you're you're building buildings. like this, there's a lot of collaboration that needs to be happening a lot of creativity, like you were saying, you know, your son was mentioning, and what they did coming out of COVID, which was really phenomenal. And they had a decent culture before COVID, they did a complete, I'll call it an internal rebrand. And in that rebrand, they not only defined who they were, as an organization, they defined everybody's contribution to that. And so they started with a, they tapped into everybody's individual needs and value and said, We value you in and part of us creating a hole is that each and every one of you matter. And so and I mean, it was really powerful, they spent a lot of time and and creating this, we worked on, you know, very carefully wordsmithing it. So it wasn't just about the big hole, it was about everybody's connection to the whole, and then they work towards Okay, let's step back. And again, working at getting alignment, which is a really important piece that you see, sometimes employers do a great job of defining what it looks like to be collaborative, but they don't take the time to make sure that the employees get it in and buy into it. They spent a lot of time working in small groups and teams having them talk about their quote unquote, product that they write everybody, you know, you have the engineers, you have the designers, and helping them through it own the fact that they are again, part of a whole?

Greg Voisen
Well, I think I think, look, if anybody in HR, or a CFO, they know the human capital value of their company, meaning it's on the balance sheet. And there are people that work in partnership with them. I mean, they use this term, column, their employees, call them what you want, but they really need to become partners in the business and look at it that way. are the ones that are really going to make the difference on what I would call an exponential growth and exponential new product, something that's going to change the face of the company, whatever it might be. And you talked about the role of this leadership, and you use the term called interpersonal glue. In in the chapter on connecting, right, you provide the readers with some action steps and building interpersonal glue and direct reports. And the team at large, we're just talking about teams and collaboration, speak about some of those action steps, it was very clear in your book, and I thought it was a good part to highlight. Yeah,

Dr. Julie Kantor
no, totally, we'll give you some specific examples. In a moment, I just want to also sort of share with the listeners about the importance of interpersonal glue, and connections. It is it is an operational word personal interpersonal quote, it's not just about us connecting on the work. Because if we have a personal relationship, that we will be able to plow through the good times and the bad, you and I are working on a project and we don't agree, but we like each other, we will work through that. And we will get to the other side. And so when we were in the office all the time, it was the proverbial water cooler, I could just stop by your office and say you want to grab lunch. And so it happened really organically, you know, I'd walk in I passed your desk, we talked for a few minutes. So we don't necessarily have that now. So let's talk about what are some of the ways that that can happen. And so first of all, thinking about interpersonal glue, from a leader standpoint, there are three things sort of got bulk areas they need to think about. They need to think about their personal glue with their direct reports. They need to think about facilitating the direct the interpersonal glue and connections within their team. And they need to ultimately think about creating opportunities for individuals to be building their own interpersonal close. So again, we have to now think creatively because they can't just stop by so what are so this is these are working on the premise that we are not located in the same place. Because obviously, if we're in the same place, then we could use the good old fashioned ways, right? So what does it look like for a boss to set up some what I'll call rituals. And this is, you know, personal, you know, in terms of the frequency, some people it's every day, some days, it's week. I mean, it sounds kind of simple, but just take the time to reach out to somebody send them a slack. How you doing? I mean, literally, it can be short and sweet, but it's a way of sort of you're on my radar. And so as simple as that. And so let's take it a little bit more advanced, if you will. So, what does it look like to create and this does sound good author I shouldn't, but I can tell you it is not. Frequently the norm is have a regular, scheduled meeting with the person, you know, good old fashioned one on ones, they don't necessarily happen as frequently as they should. I know many, many managers like, Yeah, we don't have anything to talk about it, we can skip it. Well, that's not how the employee experiences it. So take that time to be conscious of, of, you know, when you're available on a regular basis. The other thing I suggest is, what what did open office hours look like, right? We don't most of us experienced it when we were in college, or in high school, right, where your teacher set a block of time, every day that they were in their office, or whatever frequency you could just stop by. And so I've worked with leaders to create a time of office hours where, and practically it's literally about leaving open your Zoom, or your teams or whatnot. And so anybody knows, is a standard link, that between, say, 12, and one every day, the boss is available for a quick question or whatnot. Bosses, nobody's calling, and they can do their own work or eat lunch or what have you. But again, creating some forum where there's a natural flow every day to be connecting. It also could mean, and this is, again, the personal side, and we're gonna get into the team flowing is like, what are some rituals that the team can do that the boss could facilitate? One of the things I talk about is a pre meeting. So if we were all in the office, and we have a two o'clock meeting, chances are some people will show up at five to two, some people show up at two, some people show up at 10 After two. And so during that practice span of 15 minutes, most people don't quote unquote, start working. They just start, you know, catching up, how was your weekend? And you know, did you find any good restaurants? How's your partner, etc? And that's building that into personal glue. So what do we have now? And how do you create it in this remote world? So in consciously what I call a pre meeting, I mean, you know, these days, if you're one minute late for two o'clock meeting, it's like, I'm sorry, I'm late. If you're three minutes late, I'm really sorry that I was late, right? There's no time for those pre meetings. And so how am I, you know, with it, first of all, allow the group to have permission to spend the time and the only rule about this is it's not work basis, does and, and so some clients, they just set that and they've got a chatty enough group, that they don't have to structure anything, and they know, people automatically will sort of keep things going. And other places, they come up with something more structured, you know, the good old fashioned icebreakers that you'd hear about, if you're doing some kind of team building, but come up with some structure, and they could be there lots of different ways you can do it. Just come up with some fun things, I can try to create some structure for a team that would naturally flow into it. One of my favorite ones recently, is everybody sharing, you know, the last two things you bought online? I mean, it's amazing how interesting, but much, I did it with a group recently. And there's one woman who was buying, you know, child favors because she was having a five year old, and there was another person who's buying doorknobs. And so for the first person, you know, people were learning, she had young kids, and for the second person, they were learning, the person just moved. And they were renovating their apartments. So again, creating some structure for the structured, if you will,

Greg Voisen
I think one of the things about building a community no matter what it is, and I recently had Charles vocal on here is that we care. In other words, one thing to say social medias community is another thing that we're trying to help one another in some way. Right versus that now, I think that that process, you just talked about pre meeting, it needs to happen, kind of naturally, it needs to happen where people can express themselves some way and feel like they're being heard, and being heard by other people that care that they'll really want to hear, versus just talking about trivia or something like that. And I don't clearly know how exactly to set that up. But I think that there is probably a divine way for that to be created. You're calling it interpersonal glue. And I think that that's good. And I think the pre meetings are a great idea. They're, they're certainly a good idea. I'm staying on this thought about leaders. You talk your book throughout is about intentionality throughout the book. So that's like this is my intention. How can you help leaders get off of automatic pilot regarding how they communicate. And especially having effective communications in the hybrid workplace. Because I think what happens is doesn't matter if it's a zoom call, or it's some other slack, or it's how we're communicating with somebody, people get into a pattern. And they kind of keep that pattern. And they don't break it. They don't change the mold. They are who they are. And they think it's not that we want them to change, but we want the result to be different. So it's like I come to a meeting is and why I don't want to go to another meeting, I want there to be something meaningful that happens at that meeting.

Dr. Julie Kantor
Right, so the so the first part of what you're saying the second part about meetings are two different things. And actually, in the book, I have a whole thing on meetings. Meetings are one of the things I say, don't get me started on because I've never been anybody who said I spent too much time in meetings, and half of them are useless. So the first piece and on that one that I talked about is do what I call a meeting inventory, which is start with looking at the meetings that you're having meetings are expensive. I mean, if you put a couple of personnel in the same room, then you're multiplying what their salary is in that one hour. Again, there's a full, very specific guidelines in the book, but just throwing out some of it is starting at looking at who was invited to the meeting. Is there a reason for it? What is the purpose? You know, get out, you know, get away from the you know, Monday more, I can't tell you how many people I hear about Monday morning meetings, and everybody's like, dreading it because it's a complete waste of time. It's like, well, what is the purpose of it? And so that's what I'm saying in terms of being intentionality is you have to start questioning things that you've been haven't questioned in the past. I think in general, I put it that way. And so in terms of communication, the good news, the bad news is we have a gazillion modes of communication, we can slack, right? We can text, we can use mirror boards, we can use Google notes, we can email like, the list goes on and on. And what happens with with as a breakdown of the communication is people are doing the same thing. I literally was in a team meeting yesterday, and during before we got started, one person said to the other day, you haven't responded to my email, and the other person, I don't read emails, it's all in Slack. And so you I mean, it was so obvious that that's, you know, one of the reasons the breakdown of communication, they literally were, were communicating differently. And so one of the things that I talked about is sitting down as a team and coming up with a communication charter. So start go up a level, right and think about how do we need to communicate? And what ways do we need to communicate? The good news is the boss is you have a little bit more weight in terms of how you're done finding it for using email or slack or whatnot. But come to some common agreements. The other thing, again, very practically, is have conversations about if you have multiple, and let's just say simply, we have email, Slack and individual phone, so let's just simplify it for that. And you literally say, if you need an answer in the next 24 hours, shoot an email, or if it's factual base, you need to documentation, if it's something you need in the next hour, shoot me a slack. If it's something you need in the next 10 minutes, you can text me and if it's something you need in the next minute, you can call me but use that very, very sparingly.

Greg Voisen
I think I think your your questioning about meetings is very, very valid. And I thought that in the book. I also would probably throw in there, Julie, why? Why are we meeting most people who are at senior levels and are trying to have meetings, or wanting to know what the why is. And you know, if you keep digging down, you'll probably find a lot like you said a lot of times there isn't a significant reason. But I'm not certain and I know this might sound confusing. Sometimes there doesn't need to be a reason. The reason is that we are collaborating together, that we're coming together as a team that we're having time to speak about, like you said somebody had doorknobs and somebody else was buying things for five year old. Some people may not want to come to that. So make it voluntary, right? They don't want to hear the pre meeting stuff. Right then just come to the meeting. Right?

Dr. Julie Kantor
Actually going to I'm actually going to sorry, interrupt you and push back a little bit on that one. Go ahead. If you say by definition I as a lead or think that it's important for my team to connect the why you're going to give somebody a pass for showing up to that meeting, it can give you a pass, they don't have to talk. Right? You don't have to force people to talk. But if you're saying you don't have to come to the meeting that I value connection, but you can opt out for that, what is the leader saying?

Greg Voisen
I didn't say the meeting, I said the pre meeting.

Dr. Julie Kantor
All right, but But I'm saying even the pre meeting, I'm saying you're creating meeting with a smile, lovingly pushing back. Okay. All right. Again, I don't, I wouldn't ever suggest anybody for somebody to come. Right. But if the message is you would just saying it's about connecting. I think your messages you need to be there. Okay.

Greg Voisen
All right. It's valid, that's certainly valid. But let's talk about this in the context of collaboration. You define collaboration as being connected with communications, you state that it includes interpersonal glue, and giving and receiving? Talk with a listener about the five elements of communications, which you outline in the book. And I think those elements are important, because you were just talking about some of them a minute ago. And you know, we all have different communication styles, but we don't always know what the other person's communication style is. You just said one guy said he was on Slack, and the other guy's waiting for you to respond to the email. Right? Like, that's a pretty good one that should be in a policy, or in some kind of guidelines.

Dr. Julie Kantor
Right, yeah, totally. Um, and I think there's other, you know, you probably can see more generationally, I mean, again, I'm generalizing. But typically, folks who are older, prefer email, they've been doing it for a while. And folks who were younger, prefer slack, folks who are older, do remember that if you pick up this thing, that's about three by four, it's called the phone. And you actually can call somebody, although most people don't even do that. And you talk to somebody who's younger, they never want to talk on the phone. So one of the things in terms of the five elements, again, this sense of intentionality is think about what they are, and what's the best way to, to communicate. And so the five elements, and I'll give you a little word on each of them, but the words, how it looks, how you sound, what's your body language, and the overall appearance. And so the words are literally what's on the paper. And I think we all know of times when there's been a miscommunication, if it was my preference, I would have emojis become Business Standard, because it is our attempt to put emotion into the words, you know, so if I'm saying something, and I'm joking, I can put a smile. Whereas if I don't put that in, again, it's not really used. So but but if without it, you don't may not know if I'm serious, or I'm yelling or mad, or I'm happy or joking. So so, you know, the good news about verbal is it's you can document it, and it's written, or it's obviously when you when you speak, but before we get into the speaking, because that's brings any other components. But when you use things like Google Docs, and emails, and word etc, you just have the words that you're communicating with, then you add the visual. And the visual is everything from a piece of paper, where again, you talk to the architects, or creative folks, they're thinking they have visuals a lot. But let's talk about the visual first for your body. And this is where I get to folks about, I've been coaching people in terms of just zoom. Right? So you and I are not sitting in the same room, but we can see each other we can see that we're both not wearing T shirts that we rolled out of bed. And so we're both making a visual impression. I've speak a bunch of the book about, you know, zoom, and how you're looking on the camera, because those things matter, people, people, you're communicating something if you're sitting there sort of slacking and your eyes are half closed, and you're looking elsewhere you're communicating even though your words may be the same. The next component is your voice. And if you look at our mediums, we went from the written word to some pictures. And then if you pick up the phone and you're talking voice to voice, your voice qualities, the how fast you are, whether you're yelling, whether you're soft, whether you're, you know, using a lot of punch and emphasizing, you can communicate a lot of things right you can tone down whether it's sarcastic or you're joking just with your vocal qualities. And so just even getting up to there. That's where it's sort of pick up women when you have folks who are you getting this the email or the slack and they're going back and forth and There's no interpersonal glue and you're feeling some tension, pick up the phone. Chances are there is some breakdown in the communication, the collaboration. And when you add in the vocal qualities, a lot of this can be dissipated. The body language is everything from Are you smiling, how you're appearing, or your hands crossed? Are you moving a lot, we communicate a lot of that, which is part of the reason of the beautiful part of zoom, right that we've added. On top of the verbal from the phone and the qualities, we've now added body language and a lot of, of a lot of the qualities of how we communicate or how our bodies move. And the appearance is the overall sort of, you know, how have you coming across. And it's everything from your dress again, I mean, I have been working, I was working with somebody recently, they were in a, you know, large media company, a young population, we were talking about presence on Zoom. And somebody was like, you know, I really don't want my camera on, because then I need to think about if I've showered in the morning, and if my T shirts wrinkled, I'm not making this up. This is true. And so he wants to leave his camera off. And it's like, you're not going to connect with anybody. And oh, by the way, they're going to be doing layoffs. And I promise you if this guy's never present and has no appearance, probably going to be the first person on the layoffs list. And so putting these all together really communicate your presence. Well,

Greg Voisen
and I I'll say a word for silence. Silence is a communicator. Just not saying anything. Right. The question is, people are wondering what you're thinking or what, what is going on. But it is a big communicator, and oftentimes, it's a positive one, depending on how you choose to frame it. And why No,

Dr. Julie Kantor
I was just gonna say absolutely, because the other piece about Silent is you're presumably listening. Well,

Greg Voisen
in being a podcast interview, frequently. I'm silent over here, and I have to be listening, cuz I'm listening for cues for what someone's speaking about, or the next question, or is it time to kind of interrupt because it's gone on a little bit too long. We need to go here. We need to go there. But I will say for my listeners, go get a copy of Thrive With a hybrid workplace. And the last question for you, Julie is this. You know, the book is filled with great advice. It's really well laid out I want to tell my listeners and if you want to go find out more about it go to Julie ju li e Kanter que en dr.com forward slash book, you can see just by clicking book, there, you can actually see the table of contents, you can look into it. It's really well done website, that page in particular about the book is awesome. What big three points would you like to leave the listeners with regarding creating a productive, creative and engaging hybrid workplace.

Dr. Julie Kantor
The first thing I would say is not all days are created equal. The whole purpose of hybrid and flexibility is have a nice intersection between what you have to do at work, how you're getting your work done, and when you're getting it done. And so if you're going to be splitting time with work, so the time that you spend at home, should be time that you're doing quiet work, right, reading the book, writing a document, and then when you're in the office, there's times we have to be mindful about connecting with those. I mean, I've heard people like you know, I went into the office and I didn't get any work done because I was talking with people all day long. Well, in fact, that is getting work done. And so if you tie to this intentionality piece, you have to now think about the fact that it's Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, which is most common days people are in, that's how you're going to be civet spending your time. The next piece is about interpersonal glue, connect, connect, connect, connect. It's, you know, it's, you know, by debt, you said this earlier, you know, we are social beings in terms of creating a culture, I have yet to see a culture where nobody connects and everybody's in their own little zone. And so what does it look like to connect with the people around you both as a group as a team, as well as individual one on ones. And the last piece I would say is about balance. And the balance is between both you and your work. Sitting looking at it from a home perspective as well as from a work. One of the things I see a shifting in terms of where hybrid is going to land is it's not all about you and personal and if fact, part of hybrid is you within a team, you within an organization. Because at the end of the day you want your paycheck to clear.

Greg Voisen
Very true. Well, you given our listeners a lot to think about. And I think the important thing and kind of hybrid to me would be really sensing that. You know, I think most people today are looking for work with more meaning you said, Oh, it's now more of an employers hiring environment, I still believe that if you're going to do work, have worked, it's meaningful for you have something where it doesn't feel like work, the word work sometimes brings up connotations of negative things. What I would like our listeners to think about is, is the work that I'm doing making a contribution to society in general that whole does it have a meaning for me personally? Does it give me fulfillment? Do I get joy from it? Am I ecstatic about the people that I work with? Because it's a great bunch of people? And do I have a love for the work that I'm doing. And I think if you go to work, if you're going to call it work with that sense, you're never going to look at work as work. You're going to look at it as something that's enjoyable in a vocation. I

Dr. Julie Kantor
love it. I love it. And the piece I would, you know, so nicely talk about is the partnership between people bringing that love and passion and wanting purpose, and an employer who can help meet them and match them and do it. So they're sort of singing together.

Greg Voisen
I just hope that more employers realize the importance of their HR department in communicating and onboarding, so that there isn't high turnover. And people do get that from their workplace. That is really a key to it. Right? It's like okay, I on boarded. But did I have a good day onboarding or a good week? Or was I being mentored by people or what did it feel like? I think that's so important, but you've given us a new unique perspective on all this. Everybody go out and get the book. Julie, appreciate having you on. Felice. Even though she wasn't here today. I want to give a big shout out, shout out to her because she had a big contribution in this book as well. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And

Dr. Julie Kantor
great. It's great talking with you. Thanks for the opportunity. Oh, you're

Greg Voisen
quite welcome. You have a good rest of your day. Namaste to you. Thank you.

Dr. Julie Kantor
Bye bye. Thanks.