Islin:
Today I’d like to talk to Glenn Tranter, who is a work from home coach and productivity coach based out of Melbourne, Australia. He is a productivity consultant, and we met each other for LinkedIn. So I’m excited to have him talk with us on the most prominent working from home challenges.
Glenn:
Hi Islin. Great to be here and part of your show today.
Islin:
Thanks, Glen. It’s awesome. How, how are you doing?
Glenn:
I’m doing well. It’s been really interesting. Like many people, my business literally changed overnight. So when COVID-19 happened, I had two months’ worth of work that was a mixture of work that I would do online supporting people, whether they work from home or work from an office. It was speaking engagements; it was face to face training sessions, and a bunch of that disappeared overnight. So that gave me an opportunity to focus on where the need was, which was something I’d already always done was helping people to work from home.
Islin:
Oh wow. That’s awesome. So do you now have like an even bigger list of clients that you help working from home currently?
Glenn:
Well, and we don’t want to really talk about the opportunity with everything. The devastation has happened around the world. My, my business went for where I was helping people working from home around Australia in New Zealand. Um, it’s now expanded across the globe. So virtually anyone that can speak English then I can help from a work from home. Um, so it’s just new ways of working that we’ve all had to adapt, and working from home is quite different from working from an office.
Head Start in Working from Home
Islin:
Well, why don’t we go into some of those very fundamental differences? Cause I think everyone’s experience is a little different in that.
Glenn:
Oh, absolutely. And, and it’s like we’re playing against, with a stacked deck of cards because some people have already worked from home. They’ve had that luxury before. Like some roles. If we, if you were to think about anyone who’s a consultant, in a sales representative, people who are around who are mobile workers, you’ll find that they work on their client’s side. They might work in a, in a coffee shop, they might have to do some work from home at times. Some other people, many leaders whom I work with, will typically work from home, maybe once or twice a week. So they’ve had a bit of a headstart. What we do know is that working from home is quite different than working from an office. So just because somebody worked effectively from an office doesn’t mean that they work effectively from home.
There was one stat that I saw out of Cardiff University said that 39% of people work longer hours when they work from home. So we think we’ll get more done and we’ll take fewer hours to work. But it’s the other way round that for many people it’s taking them longer because they haven’t built up this rhythm, this mindset, this routine of how to work from home effectively.
The Mindset in Working From Home: Work Hours and Dressing for Success
Islin:
Wow. So what, what is the mindset necessary to work from home and get everything done in eight hours versus working 12 hours and gaining the same amount?
Glenn:
Well, I think it varies based on the individual, first of all, based on do you have young children at home because that’s a different dimension. Absolutely.
I think it varies on the individual, based on their family situation. So somebody who’s got a young family might get a bunch more interruptions throughout the day from the young family because I can’t really just close the door and block them off. After all, I might have to feed them and look after them and from time to time. So they might have to be working in smaller sprints and actually getting creative of giving their children some things to do versus somebody who doesn’t have any children at all. And I can sort of focus on the work. So there needs to be some flexibility based on family situations.
But the first area that I start with is a mindset because the mindset is so important. After all, I almost have a bit of a giggle when I hear people say, “Oh, this is going to be cool working from home. I can stay in my pajamas all day, I can work from bed, I can work from laying on the couch, and it doesn’t work like that.”
That won’t give us lasting success. So what we do need, we actually need to think about what’s going to determine the start of work? What’s going to determine the end of work? What do we get dressed in? I’m a believer in getting dressed for success. Now that doesn’t mean we have to wear a three-piece suit cause we’re working from home. But the logic I go by is that if I’m comfortable answering the front door to a stranger, then I’m okay to work. And for me, that’s certainly not just being in my pajamas. So I’ve got to get this mindset to say, well, I’m going to get in work mode.
Now I’ve got to get very deliberate to say, so what am I work hours, when will I start? When will I stop? What’s going to be that trigger to me to say, Hey, I’ve locked into work mode. So part of my triggers are like I, I get up at six 30 I’m doing my social media posts by 7:00 AM I’ve got myself, I’m already dressed, but I’ve got myself a cup of green tea that gets me in work mode. It’s just that thing of starting with a green tea that gets me locked in my work mode throughout the day. Awesome. So, so that’s how you start as if a cup of ground tea and breakfast, I will have breakfast and it depends on how my coaching arrangements are throughout the day—so being a consultant. So I’ve been a consultant for 20 years, so I’ve been this mobile worker for 20 years.
Fitting Customers Around Mealtimes
So I’ve always had this approach of fitting customers around mealtimes, fitting customers around. Quite a bit of flexibility because, as a consultant, you want to maximize your billable hours. So that’s a mindset that I’ve always been equipped with. Most mornings, I’ll have breakfast. As soon as I get up at 6:30, I’m dressed, I’m ready to go. When I turn my computer on, there’s a cup of green tea in my hand, and then I’m going for it. But you know, I might have throughout the day I might have a customer coaching session or a customer training session that falls within my lunchtime, but it doesn’t mean that I miss out on lunch. I just adjust the hours of when I’m eating. I’m also someone who puts in does physical activity every day. So that means going for a run or lifting some weights or doing some sit-ups or even just going for a walk.
Fitting Customers Around Staying Healthy
So it’s something along those lines. So I need just to build my work hours and what I’m trying to do to stay physically healthy, which is important for my mental wellbeing to factor that all that it in and keep that around. So it needs a level of flexibility of working from home.
Working from Home with Many Meetings
And when you were able to do that, working from home is enjoyable. Working from home is sustainable versus people who are struggling to get gearing with it. So there are people at the moment who are just slammed date with back-to-back Zoom calls all day. There’s no time actually to do their job. So they’re doing their job after hours. They’re finding that there’s not something that starts working and stops work for them.
So it’s a bit like them being in the office where they had back to back meetings all day, or now the organizations just replace that with back-to-back Zoom calls all day. And that’s not leveraging working from home, that’s not harnessing flexible working. So we’ve got to change our meeting culture and the effectiveness of our meetings to reduce the number of meetings that we have.
Islin:
Wow. So you’re, you’re saying that you should reduce the amount of meetings and then that way have some time to get real work done instead of like logging in at like 9:00 PM when all the kids are asleep and then getting real work done then.
Glenn:
Right. The average professional will spend 61 meetings or will be involved in 61 meetings per month. Let’s think about how many of those meetings are effective versus ineffective and furthered length of the meetings. Like why are meetings an hour long? So when we fully embrace working from home, we’re talking about embracing a different way of communicating and would organizations and people who do this well are just way more effective.
Getting the Mindset Right to Integrate Work and Family
They spend more time doing their work, and they’re able to integrate their work and their family. So it should be a win-win situation. But for many, it’s an absolute failure. It doesn’t work for them because the comm strategy is wrong or with how they’re working isn’t quite right as well. So part of the thing is I say we’ve got to start with a mindset. Once we’ve got the mindset, we’ve got to have a cadence of how we work, and a cadence is just the way that we work.
Doing Work Quickly and Right the First Time and Dealing with Distractions
Glenn:
So we do our work quickly and right the first time. So anyone who’s worked in a large office will come, will share how frustrated they are of the number of interruptions I get. If they’re working in an open-plan office, they’re getting slammed with interruptions. Now we’re getting some of those interruptions working from home. If we’ve got some form of instant messaging because we’re replacing those interruptions.
But what comes in more at home are distractions cause we’re at home, it’s time to do our work, and then we get distracted. I’ve got to do a load of washing, or I’ve got a stack the dishwasher, I’ve got to do something as what’s the latest thing on tick-tock, or there’s this great thing on Netflix.
The list is endless, and this is part of the reason why many people get to the end of the day or towards the end of the day and go, “Oh, I haven’t achieved much today. What’s happened to my hours throughout the day?” So we’ve got to manage distraction. So part of the thing that I do with working from home when we’re working on someone’s mindset, we’re working on what’s getting their attention. How do we have the start zones, these stop zones of working from home so we can truly leverage it instead of wasting time away?
How To Stay Focused: Processes Aren’t Habits
Islin:
So it’s more of an attention issue. So how, how do you stay focused?
Glenn:
It’s about building good habits, and it’s about setting yourself up for success. And this is part of the thing we w working from home sort of goes a little bit astray. If someone starts with some bad habits, guess what? They tend to stay.
Now organizations are doing a great job in publicizing to say, “Here are the processes that we’re going to follow when working from home.”
The processes aren’t habits. Just because I’ve read something doesn’t mean that I’m going to embed that. I could read how Tiger Woods hits a golf ball but doesn’t mean I’m going to be Tiger Woods because there’s a whole heap of different variabilities that come around: strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. So what we have to do, we’ve got to work with the individual of how the individual best works and we want to set up, build some really good habits.
- Step 1: Part of that is removing the distractions, understand what they are, let’s name them. Let’s have some strategies around each of those.
- Step 2: Narrow down the procrastination. People tend to procrastinate more when they’re working from home, and it doesn’t make any sense, but because they don’t have that reassurance, that safety net there that they’re arming an airing about making individual decisions or which pieces of work they’ll focus on. So we’ve got to focus on narrowing down our level of procrastination.
Now, these are basic personal productivity techniques, but someone who doesn’t have good personal productivity techniques, that’s how they die, tends just to disappear while they’re trying to work from home. So let’s start with reduce distractions. Let’s also reduce the level of procrastination, which sort of leads us to, so how do you get very deliberate about what you’re going to do?
What to Do in a Workday
Glenn:
And there’s a whole range of scheduling techniques we can do, or we can use. And I’m very flexible about what works best for the individual. I liked the timeboxing approach myself. So the time boxing approach for me is I will put it in my calendar, the meetings that I have to attend throughout the day, like this session that you and I are having, that’s a meeting in my schedule. But I’ll also put in my calendar the actual pieces of work I’m going to do myself. What are the things I need to deliver?
So whether that’s one, two, or three things, you pick the number, whatever that is based on, you get very deliberate about what I’m going to do and when I’m going to do it. You’ll find when we do that, where I will reduce the distractions because we’re focused on the work, and we’re reducing the level of procrastination.
So I want to get very deliberate. Now, if you would decide to me, I don’t like using my calendar, or like using a manual to-do list, I’d say knock yourself out. Just don’t have them on your manual to-do list. Don’t make it a wish list that has got a hundred items on because where’s the priority? Where are you going to do is toss, bounce.
You could start your day off, and you could say, “Here are the three things that I want to deliver.”
Here are the three things I want to deliver from a business sense. My three must do’s. I must do from a personal sense so I can blend the two of those together. So we’re really talking about working from home is work-life integration. Some other people, what they do is they’ll put up a straightforward Kanban board. So like on this, I’ve got a piece of paper hanging up there.
I could have three columns: to do, doing, and done to focus me so I could put that on one of the team tools that we use. So whether that’s Microsoft plan or any of those tools like that, I’m very agnostic to what the software is, but we want to drive focus because we want to reduce the opportunities that there is just to waste time.
And when we’re getting achievements, what do we feel about ourselves? We feel good. You know the difference when you talk to a family member or a partner at the end of the day, and they say, “How was your day?
And you go, “Fast, busy.”
They go, “Why didn’t you do you go now?”
And I, the day just disappeared.
Versus those days when they ask, “How was your day?”
And you go, “It was great.”
And they go, “What did you do?”
And we talk about what we’ve achieved throughout the day.
It’s a different tone, that conversation. It’s a motivating conversation, and we want to set ourselves up for success. So we almost have these perfect workdays every day. That is not something that just happens once in a blue moon.
You say, “How did that happen? I wish every day were like that.”
Why not make every day like that? And to make every day like that, we’re going to focus on what we can control and which is our personal productivity. So we need to get very deliberate about what we’re going to achieve. And that’s not saying yes to everything because the easy answer is to say yes to everything. So we over promise, under deliver. So it’s not good for our mental wellbeing. We get really frustrated with it, and we’re extending the window of hours that we’re working.
How to Have a Perfect Work Day: Go with Your Strengths
How we work needs to be scalable. It needs to be sustainable. And, and that’s why just throwing processes at people. It doesn’t work. It’s got to be tailored for the individual. How do they work best? What’re their strengths? How can we leverage their strengths? What’re their weaknesses that we either need to stay clear of all we need to develop a little bit and what’s their preferences are their preferences based on their strengths or based on their weaknesses? You know, the funny thing is a lot of people’s preferences are based on their weaknesses. They don’t realize that they can’t see it, and that’s what dampens or reduces their productivity levels.
How to Focus on the Hard Work: Making Cold Calls
Islin:
Oh wow. So I guess I had like a more specific question. Like, say you’re a sales professional working from home and, and you hate making those cold calls every day, but know you need to make those cold calls. So how, how do you focus, your time so that you make those two hours or three hours of cold calls that you have to make every single day. Like how, how can you do it or how, how can you somehow like grow business? You know, I’m saying like grow business another way.
Glenn:
Yeah, certainly. So I support many salespeople, particularly in regional areas who are working from home to that. Fear of, and maybe fear is the wrong word, but of that resistance to pick up the phone and make the cold calls, that’s whether a salesperson is working from home or working in an office. So work is what we do, not where we do it. What’s tougher for a lot of salespeople at the moment is the industries that they’re working in.
There’s been a real slow down of the economy, so they’re getting a lot of no responses, which impacts levels of motivation. So that’s a challenging situation for now. What we do with salespeople about making calls, we get them focused on their metrics because what we know with the traditional sales funnel that there is, we know we’ve got to be putting new leads and prospects into the funnel and trying to convert them down through the funnel.
So we get them really metric focused on the number of calls they need to be doing, the number of follow-ups that they need to be doing, the number of customer care. So customer care versus new business calls that they need to be doing. What we also do is we get sow’s teams to have power hours, so calling hours where we get a wind board. So we game a fight as such. And these are especially important things to do when, when times are challenging, when times are tough, because when the moments between or the period between success can be a little bit longer than what it typically is. And it’s true.
Islin:
So you want to, you want to try and demystify the process and have everyone do calls may be at the same time?
Gamifying Work and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Glenn:
Hey, I like gamifying work said to me, work is just a game. It’s something that we do now. My, my mindset wasn’t always like this. So and, and part of my background is that I worked in it for 20 years. And I worked very hard. And as I grew up through the ranks, I started getting promoted, my areas of responsibility started growing. My logic was to work harder and harder, and I was quite successful at it. So my divisions typically had double-digit growth every year. My wife used to tell me, though, and I couldn’t keep it up. I was looking after the Southeast Asia division. So I was traveling two out of every three weeks, and in 2006 it all got a bit much when I’d burnt out.
So I used to have this mindset that I wanted. I didn’t want to work for long. I’d work hard; I’d retire early. I developed chronic fatigue syndrome, and I didn’t work for 15 months. So my mindset is so different now. What I realized when I wasn’t working for those 15 months that I enjoy work. I enjoy social interactions. I enjoy challenging my mind, seeing my brain tick. So now, what I want to do is I want to work for as long as I can. I see myself working well and truly into my sixties because I enjoyed it so much. But I want to get the right balance each day and each week with how I work. So this concept of working smarter is so much more important to me than working harder even now. And it doesn’t say I don’t work hard because I do, but I’m actually, I work smart now.
Working Hard and Having an Off Switch
I’ve got an off switch. I never used to have an off switch because up until I was 40 years old when I’d go for a five-kilometer run, which isn’t us as I think about three miles, I’d go for a personal best every time I ran. That’s how I’m wired. I’m someone who played semiprofessional basketball. So I’ve got this real, real drive.
So after I went through and burnt out, ever since then, I’ve been helping people work effectively because why should we make work harder for us and what we have to, it just doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever.
And from my productivity consultancy, what I do, typically my average customer, improves their productivity by a hundred minutes a day. So adding a hundred more minutes a day on what they define as important to their role, and that’s got a huge ROI attached to it. So productivity, it’s going to get us out.
It’s going to help us instead of this for a short period where everyone’s working from home. Why don’t we look at this with a lens to say, well, this is an opportunity to fully embrace flexible working where many people won’t need ever to go back to the offices because they’ve been able to integrate work with their family. They’ve been able to work far more effectively that our productivity has increased instead of decreased. So I think this is, the glass is overflowing the opportunity at the moment. What we’ve got to do is give people the chance to learn how to do it properly. That’s an excellent opportunity that we have right now.
Emerging from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Back to Work
Islin:
So I guess like how did you emerge from chronic fatigue syndrome after 15 months?
Glenn:
There wasn’t one silver bullet. So and there was a whole bunch of small things that ended up getting me better and, and one of those things was meditation. So, and it took me six months to learn how to meditate cause it was sit down and thinking nothing. So I would try hard to think about nothing, and that was just counterproductive whatsoever. So I had to learn to get control of my mind actually to let it go. So mindfulness was really important to me.
I focused on my diet and just building up my strength again. And then I got a job just working for a company that was a time management type company, and I just enjoy it. I love helping people.
I’ve got this side of me that’s also, that’s the business side. I love the ROI. So to me, productivity is never meant fewer heads. Productivity has always meant what can we do that we should be doing anyway that we just don’t have time to do? So how can we make a more significant impact and amplify what we’re doing while making work easier with how we work ourselves? So it was a, it was a slow process, but I loved the subject matter that I do. It’s all, it’s all-around a productivity lens, so it’s really easy for me to jump out of bed each day.
Islin:
That’s wonderful. And I guess what, how did you find that how did you find the path, I think, to get to where you are now as a consultant where you were working for a big corporation before? You crossed the dark night of your soul with chronic fatigue syndrome, and then how did you get into doing the time management?
Glenn:
Yeah, yeah, it was really interesting. So it wouldn’t have happened without the support of my family, so it always starts with my wife. But where I was going to do meditation, the head of the monastery, so it was a, a Zen monastery that I would visit just twice a week. And I’d go there once a week where we’d just sit down and talk. And the head monk, and I think he was referred to as the Abbot at the time.
He said to me, “I think you’re starting to get better.”
I said, “Absolutely.”
He goes, “Have you thought about what you’re going to do when you go back to work?”
So all of the negative thoughts came flowing out of my mouth. I told him, what are the things I didn’t want to do?
I didn’t want to go back to doing what I was doing.
And he said, “I think you should help people.”
And I’ve gone, how could I help people? I was one of those grasshopper moments where he goes, “Time’s up.”
And he left me alone for a week. And within a week I had worked that out. It was working in personal productivity about helping people. When I went to meditation, what I’ve discovered was that 70% of the people were suffering from stress, anxiety, or depression because they couldn’t cope with their job.
So something that I thought was just a “me” situation was; actually, it was far more compelling than that. And what was interesting when I went into chronic fatigue, my mind was sort of comfortable with it because it was something that athletes have known athletes have gotten before. So I thought it was a physical element. When I came out of it, I realized it was a form of mental illness that essentially my brain just shut down and said, I can’t keep up this pace. And I think it’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me as in a mindset shift that I’ve had. So I just think I’ve got far more balanced now than what I’ve ever had in my life.
Getting the Right Success Criteria in Your Schedule
Islin:
That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful to hear. Oh my gosh. And you’re teaching other people how to, how to have less stress and less depression, hopefully, less anxiety at their jobs by increasing their productivity.
Glenn:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s so, so whether that’s, that’s less of those things or just driving results because I’m a natural high achiever. Like I’m calm, I’m a conscientious person. And there are many people out there who are like that, but they just don’t know the path to take.
They don’t know how to get the results. So they’re working work hard but then not working effectively. So we strip it right back. We dumb it right down to say, in your role, what is it you need to do to be successful? And many people that tell me these things and some of it might not be all that accurate. So I’ll go through a vetting process and we, we, we get those finite criteria, and then I ask them to show me their schedule and guess what? Typically that criteria is not in their schedule.
So that’s where we’re busy, but we’re not effective. So we need to focus on what’s going to make the most significant impact.
Now what do, what do people focus on? They focus on what’s the most urgent, who shouts the loudest? So that’s why they’re getting pulled from pillar to post throughout the day. And they’re busy but not effective. So we’ve got to get this sort of focus to say, what is it that’s going to make the most significant difference? What’s going to be the greatest impact?
Now it doesn’t mean we’re going to have a perfect workday every day, but we’ve got an opportunity to have more perfect workdays than what we don’t. And when someone gets onto that road, it builds up some momentum, and it’s great.
And when someone says to me, you changed my life, and there’s not a more rewarding thing to say. It is just unbelievable the number of people who’ve said that to me and how good that feels and not for my ego for them because it’s all the power to them. After all, they’ve made the changes, they’ve seen the light. And now I’ve implemented because there’s such a big difference between just getting some information versus implementing the doing piece.
And we’re all good at being armchair experts here. I get that, but I do something different. So it’s a matter of streamlining it and customize it for the individual because we’re all different in our own unique way. We’ve all got unique strengths, weaknesses, and preferences.
Coaching Engagement Programs
Islin:
Wow. So I guess can you talk me through coaching engagements for workers and I think like how long does that last? How does that work?
Glenn:
Yeah. I’ve got a bunch of different programs. So if we start, if I start at the top. My executive program runs over six months, and it’s a session once a fortnight, so an hour long. So micro training sessions and I like phasing out session. So have a two-week gap because we’ll go through some content.
So I’ve got this whole my master model that sits behind everything. I think everyone’s got what I call a working rhythm. Everyone’s got a way in which we do our best work. But what makes that up is the cadence of an effective workflow that we’ve got to focus on the content, focus on the criteria that matter. It makes a difference for ourselves and that we collaborate with others. We’ve got to work together with people. So this is the team side of things.
And, and when we get that, if you think of that as a Venn diagram when we understand that working cohesively together, the working rhythm is the piece in the middle. So how do I work well? How does the teamwork? Well, how do we maximize our productivity throughout that? So I’ve got a training program, so there’s a whole heap of material I’ve got underneath that. So my executive program, six months, a session every fortnight, and we step away through the criteria. But before someone works with me, they fill out an online diagnostic. So a questionnaire, just a brief 15-minute questionnaire. So we pick the eyes out of where the greatest need is. So rather than just take a cookie-cutter approach, we customize it to them and give them some information to support them throughout. Plus, this is about change management. So I’m also there to be their unreasonable buddy.
So I’m there to support them, but I’m also there to hold them accountable because we won’t get change or improvement unless we’re held accountable. So that’s my executive program.
I’ve also got what I refer to as a fast track program, and the fast track program is for any level within the organization. One of my customers came to me and said, hi, I love this executive program you’ve got, but we just fundamentally can’t afford to put all of our teams through it, so can you do something for the rest of our team? I said, well, I’ve got a team-based program. And I said, no, but we want to, we like a coaching model, so we want to do a coaching model. So that got me to scratch my head, and I came up with this, what I call this my working rhythm, and my fast track program, it’s three sessions.
They’ve stepped in two weeks apart from each session. So they stepped in over a month, and they’re in an hour and a half. And what we do is we go through some content and implement it. So we implement as we go review period after two weeks. And what I do for anyone whom I work with, they can contact me any time between coaching sessions cause I provide the support mechanisms throughout there, and I check in on them. They’ll get quite shocked when I get a phone call from me to say how are you going? What’s working for you? What have you tried? What haven’t you tried? So it’s really driving that accountability pace, which is so, so essential to make the difference. So you’ve got an executive model, we’ve got a fast track model, we’ve got a team training program that we can put the masses through and where they learn together as well.
And then for working from home, I’ve got some customized working from home programs that are just stripping the bigger working rhythm program. Just making that, stripping it right down to be some bite-sized training for working from home. Whether that’s for an individual or whether that’s for a team.
Adapting the Same Backbone Content for Different Individual Needs
Islin:
Oh wow. You have many programs for a lot of different personas that need them. That’s awesome.
Glenn:
It’s the backbone. What sits underneath it. It’s assigned content. It’s just through a different lens and adapting to different needs.
If you use the example before, if it’s working with the sales representatives, then we’re looking at when we’re setting up the schedule, we’re looking at what their targeted goals are for a week, and then how many customer meetings they’re getting, how many goals that they’re making. So we get that very metric based.
If it’s a leader, then we’re looking at the number of meetings I’ve got versus the strategic initiatives that they’ve got to be delivering versus the work that they need to do themselves. And they one on ones that they need to have with their team. And that’s typically out of balance. So it’s about getting a grind, a balance, so we can focus on what’s going to drive the highest return.
So just it varies by individual. I’m, I’m not a fan of one size fits all approaches. My experience with them is that it might work for up to us as much as 70% of people. But what happens if you’re in that 30%.
So it’s like I, I liken it to if you, for whatever reason that you didn’t have shoes for the day and you had to wear your friend’s shoes and they had the same foot size as you, except they’re an older pair of shoes and you put them on, and you say,” Oh, well they fit, they’re a little bit uncomfortable, but they fit.”
I go walking along throughout the day, and the shoes start to hurt me a little bit because it’s just exaggerating that they don’t fit quite right. And if you think about how we work, why would we copy has someone else works because it might not fit our strengths and our weaknesses. We should customize how we work based on us, providing its good habits that we’re putting in place.
Islin:
That’s, that’s very true. Yeah. You’ve kind of customize it for everyone or a particular individual’s strengths and weaknesses. You can’t just go at it and do it all. That is true.
Glenn:
And by the way, that logic is quite different from how many people think because of economies of scale as a consultant. They can get economies of scale if they can cookie cut this thing.
I’m focused more so on the outcome for the individual. That’s what gets me excited. So I think we enter the cookie-cutter approach, and I work for a company that’s had that approach before. It’s sort of works and sort of doesn’t.
So I want to have an approach that’s flexible for everybody. I want to have an approach that engages my mind to get the best outcome for the individual. And it’s me; it’s how I’m driven. It’s like I, I played semiprofessional basketball. I was a basketball coach for many, many years. And the difference between coaching, of customizing the experience for the individual versus telling is significant. It’s significant. So, I just love seeing people reach their potential.
Reaching People’s Potential
Islin:
That’s great. That’s, that’s what I think. That’s what drives many consultants, and different people are to see others reach their potential and see where they can go.
Glenn:
Well, it matches your purpose. Connect it to me. It’s got to connect to your values. It’s got to connect to your purpose. And it’s just far more interesting. So I’m someone whom I will take coaching notes when I have a coaching session. So if I’m locked in having a coaching session with yourself, I want to pick up the ball straight away at the start. Get that session right. Here’s where we’re at. What did we do that we said we were going to do? What didn’t we do? What’s outstanding, what you got challenges with. So we’re focused on you, so you maximize that hour that we’re together. So you’re getting the most impact from it.
Islin:
That’s awesome. That’s, that’s how coaching should be.
Glenn:
Yeah. Oh well, I think it is because they’re the types of coaches that I’ve loved. So I would, I want to mirror people whom I like, not processes that I don’t like.
One Piece of Advice for Those Working from Home
Islin:
That is true. And I guess as we wrap up here, what is one thing you’d like to leave people who are working from home right now? Like what’s one piece of advice that they can, I know it’s all individualized, but, if you’ve been struggling to work from home, what’s one piece of advice that you can implement tomorrow?
Glenn:
Make small changes. So I would start with a mindset. We’ve got to get our mindset about when are we going to start work when we’re going to finish work. I would get very deliberate with the work that I’m going to do, and then I would want to be, make sure I’ve still part of the team.
So I need to understand the tools that we’re going to use to collaborate as a team and which tool for which purpose. So there still needs to be that water cooler. Talk as part of the group cause otherwise, I’m going to feel isolated. So and, and that my main at the start of team meetings. There are five minutes where the team’s just talking about a movie.
We’re still keeping that level of rapport happening. That’s so, so important. And as a leader, I might need to buddy up some of my team so they’ve got someone they can call if they need to, whether it’s called just for a chat, whether it’s a call for support, whether they say, “Hey, I’m struggling here. I need you to hold me accountable today because I feel like I’m falling behind a little bit.” Whatever that is.
So start with the mindset, get very deliberate, and then with our teams, make sure we’re working together as a team because whether we’re working from home or working in an office, we’re still part of a team. And when we know when teams come together and high performing teams, they drive great results.
Islin:
That’s true. That is very true. Well, thank you very much, Glenn, for talking with me and talking about the hour to talk about the best practices behind working, not only working from home but reaching your potential.
Glenn:
Yeah, thank you so much, Islin, and I’ve enjoyed it and, and I hope you’re working from home effectively as well.
