future of work

 133: Sophie Wade I realized it was a flexibility issue

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast. Where we uncover the leadership like hat that help you to experience break out performance faster and rocket to success. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

The number one thing that contributes to customer loyalty is emotions. So move onward and upward faster by gaining significantly deeper insight and understanding of your customer journey and personas with emotional intelligence. With your empathy mapping workshop you’ll learn how to evoke and influence the right customer emotions that generate improve customer loyalty and reduce your cost to operate. Get over your emotional hook now by going to empathymapping.com to learn more. Okay, Fast Leader legion, today I’m excited because we have somebody on the show today who gives us insights into really what we need to do in order to prepare for the future. 

Jim Rembach:  Sophie Wade was born and raised in London, England. Her older sister Tanya lives in Scotland with her husband Andrew and two dogs and her parents. Divorced later on after she left college but both still live in Oxford, England. After majoring in Chinese in university she went on to live in Hong Kong. Far away in Hong Kong, Sophie did not have her parents guiding her career in a more traditional way since phone calls were very expensive at that time so she made her own logical decisions about her job progression and career overall. Also actively responding to encouragement from her parents to travel and explore and learn as a result after a few years in Hong Kong, Sophie went to INSEAD Business School in France and then back to Hong Kong then moved to Germany and most recently came to the US which she has now been in for the past 15 years.

During her career, Sophie has applied her finance and strategy skills along the spectrum of media communication and technology rather than having a traditional linear career in just one discipline and sector. By chance she has played out an early example of the new diversified and skills rather than discipline based careers we are used to. She also has transitioned to her new career focused on new ways of working the so called future of work. When her younger child turned three and started complaining that she never saw her, Sophie started by exploring a new three-day workweek arrangements so she could spend more time with her kids and was catalyzed to research workplace flexibility realizing how many other people must want the same arrangement she did. In 2001 she started her own that would connect people with companies for flex jobs and project work as well as writing about and advocating for new ways of working. 

Sophie later a vaulter company to focus on the whole of the future of work field of which flex working is just one part as she saw how significant and challenging all the changes were both ongoing and ahead. Her work and her new book, Embracing Progress: Next Steps for the Future Work are part of the legacy that she continues to develop in that regard. Sophie, currently lives in Manhattan, New York. She is divorced with two kids Liam and Gigi two dogs and two chinchillas. Sophie Wade, are you ready to help us get over the hump? 

Sophie Wade:  I sure am. Thanks for having me. 

Jim Rembach:  Thanks for being here. I’ve really enjoyed looking through your book and I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better?

Sophie Wade:  I have to say my current passion really is the future of work and helping employers and employees and independent contractors really transitioned through a difficult time that’s ongoing right now and that’s ahead. I use this technical term which is messy and I actually think that the next two years are going to be pretty challenging across the board but there was so much opportunity ahead and that’s what I’m passionate about helping people through. 

Jim Rembach:   I really appreciate the book that you’ve put together, Embracing Progress because for me I think it was a very nice framework that gives people an understanding of some of the things that they need to focus on. In the book you talked about four priorities and six pillars that people must focus on. Can you just name those real quick?

Sophie Wade:  Yes. So, the priorities are Engagement–engaging employees; Personalization—and that’s the reason in focusing on individuals; Integration– really a lot of technology integration both integrating all the elements of the workplace and Choice—the choice is moving along and continuing from the employers to employees in giving a lot more choice. The pillars are really just sort of the big areas of an organization that covers a lot of what happens in operating practices to really identify where the attention or where people need to sort of focus on first. And pillar of technology, cultural mindset, leadership transparency and hierarchy, productivity performance and creativity, policies frameworks and environments and Korea’s freelancers and learning so it really is very, very broad but it’s sort of grouping them in ways and they can be grouped slightly differently depending on the organization. Instead of saying what are we doing in each of these areas? And how we’re trying to evolve them to what’s ahead and just giving it a kind of framework, as it as you said.

Jim Rembach:  For me, as I was reading through the book I started thinking about how important it was going to be for an organization to really create a coaching type of environment and as I was reading through your book I then found where you mentioned it, you talked about creating a mentoring culture. To me it seems like that’s where a lot of organizations haven’t really focused for a very long time. Instead, here’s your job description here’s what I need you to do and then I’m going to evaluate you on that particular performance. But really, we’re talking about actually developing. 

Sophie Wade:  Absolutely. Culture as you read is the key to everything, it’s at the core. It’s matching more and more in terms of what the values are of an organization and what it’s resonating with the employees. Certainly boomers and X’ers haven’t really focused on culture because they were told, come in do your work, we’re telling you what to do and go home when you’re done. For the younger generation who don’t see as much, they don’t see the linear career progression that has been traditionally and they don’t see the same material rewards ahead they’re really looking kind of like—I want them to—something that I care about right now. And in a quite a squirrely environment where you don’t have these linear career tracks and it is much harder to navigate that type of mentoring culture, that coaching there’s a there’s a lot of focus on managers being coaches rather than just of directing people and instructing people. And that’s hard because managers are doing their job and trying to—KPIs and objectives and coaching is a whole different thing it brings in a psychological aspects as well and really helping people develop themselves personally and professionally and that’s another addition to their job description. So that’s going to be extremely helpful going forward and it’s starting to come out in many companies but not nearly enough.

Jim Rembach:  I’m glad you shared that because for me—and that’s one of the things that I started  gathering as I was looking through the book is that you organizations are going to have to become as a whole more emotionally intelligent. They’re going to have to understand themselves better that means both as individuals and as a collective, and knowing what they need to do in order to be more adaptive. Because otherwise the change that needs to take place, this whole messiness, it will go on forever until one of the things that’s you’re brought up—which I love in the in the introduction where a question was asked, how do you like riding a dinosaur?

Sophie Wade:  Yes, exactly. When Steve said—then I was like “Oh my goodness, I have to quote you on that—the quote, what’s it like riding a dinosaur” and he was talking to somebody who I will not give the name—who was in a very, very big organization and he believe that the company needs to change a lot or it will be extinct. I think where we’re going is the key thing in fact I was talking at work—human—the conference in Arizona last week and the key element that only a few people touched on is exactly what you highlighted there—is that we need to know who we are first and how we work. And in to be able to be  grounded and deal with a lot of this change but also to be able to be given the opportunity to create a flexible work strategy and model then it’s kind of like, how do I work? And when do I work best? I’m good at working at home, because some people are not working at home it’s not the best environment for them. So, it’s really better for each of is individually and managers and employees employers in terms of some of the great organization to really have much better understanding. And when that understanding does increase you end up having a very different relationship between employers and employees which is much more trust base much more respect based on an individual basis and that really changes the dynamics. It’s reciprocal, it’s a more intimate and personal relationship and I think that’s a very powerful piece of the future of work. 

Jim Rembach:  It really is. Ultimately we do have—some of the guest show talked about the basis of our relationship is really that employment contract piece. But the fact is that you have to have the emotional contract piece as well, you have to have both of those. And even though we talk about that older generation having not typically been focused on that they still do create those emotional contracts and those relationships it’s not in the forefront of their mind. Now they need to move it from the back to the forefront otherwise they’re going to be that dinosaur.

Sophie Wade:  Yes, and this is the challenge. The reality is we were—the Prussian factory school system which was introduced 200 years ago that was specifically developed in order to create compliant factory workers and for people to be linear focus and to just do their job and get on with it. Now enabled by technology and driven by technology we’re in a very, very different plates and so we’re needing people to step forward and be very proactive. That’s something that I care about and really focus on it in terms of talking about because bringing that self forward and it’s that whole thing bringing yourself whole self to work but everybody needs to do that and which makes it sort of messier as well.  But in order to be able to bring that emotional side rather than saying I take lead of my emotions and everything I just get my work done and I’m so this two dimensional we’re all the same this is what’s needed and it’s complicated. 

Jim Rembach:  That’s why we need the system and the framework? That’s why we need four priorities and the six pillars—that’s going to help us get through it. Another thing that stood out to me because of some of the other research and learnings that I’ve had in the Fast Leader show for me personally has been a huge learning opportunity is that, we actually right now have a creativity crisis in our modern cultures. We’re talking about that Prussian education system and the way that it was created we essentially strip out a lot of the creative thinking because we just need you to get the work done. And we’re going to need people to be more creative in their thinking and then collaborate better and bring their whole self in order for us to have the creative thinking which therefore leads into innovation. Right now when you start looking at the return on investment of

R&D it’s down 35% percent long-term, and when you start thinking about the amount of overall disruption that occurs because of that, it’s quite tremendous and it adds to the messiness we’re talking. But I see a risk as we go to this Gig economy, we may be losing a lot of that subject matter expertise because people—Yeah, they know a lot or a little about a lot of things but they don’t know a lot about something which where does that creativity has to come from. What do you see that companies need to do to make sure they don’t fall into that trap?

Sophie Wade:  So two things. First specifically on the on the creativity in terms of productivity slows it was declining for the first three quarters of 2016. Engagement is very low it’s 32 or 33% and non-engagement is 55% and that basically means that people just don’t really care about the decisions they’re making and they’re not putting their best ideas out there and not bothering. So, changing that dynamic and really addressing people as individuals and allowing—the whole idea about engagement or happiness some people are talking about really means that people will be more creative and helping with that putting them in a culture that actually helps them to innovate and be more comfortable to be who they are and really sort of extend their capabilities that’s one element of it. And then on the on the side of expertise and subject matter experts we’re really moving to a very different composition of the workforce which is fewer full-time employees or employees just generally and many more freelancers and independent contractors and I think that’s being a win-win for both sides insofar as there are many people who do not want to. 

There are a lot of people who lost their jobs with the Great Recession but they didn’t come back into the full-time workforce even though those jobs were there because as I said—I want to have, as a lifestyle choice, I wanted to have a different way of working. So they are now sort of working independently and then choosing to work at different companies and offering up their expertise there and I think that does help with the creativity. It means that companies will have to get used to that they don’t kind of like own that person but if they can attract those people to their organizations they will get a lot of benefit out of it. So, it’s a very different mindset and you have what I call sort of less defined corporation that’s not defined by a time and a building. It’s much more dotted it’s much sort of looser and you have these extended talent pools which includes fantastic subject matter experts who may be located far away whether it’s in another state or the other side of the country or yes, internationally as well. 

Jim Rembach:  I think that’s a very good point. It seems to me that companies like you said have their part of the priorities and pillars and things like that have to make sure that they include that we’re going to get outside support, outside mentoring, outside coaching and it’s part of our standard regular practice as well.

Sophie Wade:  Yeah. And that will help in the transition because it’s very hard. What I talked about is how to—the future looks so different—it was interesting in McKinsey article publishes 2 ½ 4 years ago now saying that the future is going to look so different it is very hard to use the past to project into the future. And so it really is—what I talked about is that he’s using a first principles approach and that is stepping back, seriously stepping back not thinking about how can make incremental improvements? But really, if I could wave my magic wand and make this business happen in a way that make sense for the people that were serving with our products or services, how would we do it? And I use example of the Taxi-Limousine Commission on Uber, Uber notwithstanding all kinds of issues there. The Taxi-Limousine Commission had made some small incremental improvements. Texting when the car that was about to arrive and different things like that but Uber sat down said, how can we best serve the customer? Which is allowing them to connect as directly as possible with all the people who could serve them

in the immediate area and that’s where they still with the premise that they started with. So, for businesses to be able to step back from how they’ve been doing things they try not to think about legacy habits and really kind of go what really is the best way of doing this? And then is the technology that we can actually use and what are the different models this often is disrupted in the immediate term and that and that’s challenging.  

Jim Rembach:  You Chip and Dan, he talked about the curse of knowledge because if we’re only looking at it from our perspective then we’re going to miss a really critical and important point and that’s our customer. If we’re not customer focused why are we making these changes anyway because ultimately we have to have those to survive otherwise that whole dinosaur thing comes back into play. With all of these—the messiness, the extinction, the transformation, all of these things there’s a lot of emotion wrapped up in this and on the show we look at quotes in order to help us have focus and maybe gather some inspiration. Is there a quote or two that you can share?

Sophie Wade:  There are couple in the book. I do like the range that I, I quote Spock, one has to I quote how and various other people some interesting women as well and Anne Rand, who I like very much. Two that really resonate with me, one is Confucius, which is, “If you find the jobs you love you’ll never do a day of work in your life.” And that does actually speak—he a doer type of person and he believed very much in study but the fact that he actually focuses on this idea of through finding your passion. And there are so many studies to prove that if you’re engaged and you’re speaking to your strengths and doing the things that you are really focused on the productivity goes up and people work better and are healthier and all the rest of it. 

The other one is Frank Zappa and his quote is, “Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” So, that it is really kind of saying the traditional way of doing things, they haven’t actually been doing so great and with productivity low and engagement and all the rest of it so let’s do things that are different and it’s going to be different from the norm and that is kind of uncomfortable. And so one of the things that that we are needing to get used to is the fact that changes is constant now. If try to be grounded in that idea that idea that it is going to be changing a lot going forward and people are already getting used to the fact. It’s uncomfortable but as you start to understand this is going to be our standard it’s easier to not be so destabilized by it. And I think that’s a key thing as we move into this time of tumult.

Jim Rembach:   That’s a great point. So, disruption is the new norm so then the choice is whether or not you want to be the disruptor or the disrupted.

Sophie Wade:  Exactly. Exactly. Being proactive, proactive with your career, proactive with your company, proactive in the choices you make and sort of the self-awareness the emotional intelligence and self-awareness like trying to understand what it is that you want that’s going to be good for you that’s going to be good for the business all these different decisions so it actually is taking a lot more on board. It was uncomfortable in terms of having these very rigid structures but it also meant that we don’t have to think so much about it, it just sort of happened. And every now and again we might have to make some big career choice, occasionally but the rest of it just sort of unfold and we got on with stuff. But new society changes and different economic situations are much more challenging. Forty percent of households with children under the woman is the primary or sole breadwinner. 

The labor laws don’t really help with this kind of stuff and so these changes have been long needed. And many other changes as well from an economic basis with living much longer. So, retirement is actually proposed in the book that maybe retirement is actually an unhealthy idea. And of course if we love our jobs why would we stop?   Not only will it deplete our savings but it’s actually going to—the more you keep active both mentally and physically the healthier you will stay. I think getting used to and understanding how things are changing is going to be more helpful to really recognizing that there was this amazing opportunities as we’re moving forward even as sort of destabilizing as it may seem at the beginning.

Jim Rembach:  Absolutely we have a lot to learn, we have a lot to do and change and to do different when it comes to our own  leading out self as we look at the stories of others and times when they’ve had to get over the hump. Can you share one of those with us so we can learn?

Sophie Wade:  Yeah, sure. I had a fixed full time career for a long time and then it was my younger when she was three complaining she never saw me and that was when I first started kind of thinking, oh well, maybe work three days a week so I did for a while and started to research and understand how all the many mother people like me who want to work less. And so I did a lot of research, first of all I thought it was a woman’s issue and then I realized it was a flexibility issue that’s where my company started, the aha moment was when I was like, well either it’s going to take me a year or year and half to try and find somebody who I can persuade to give me the kind of job that I want or I set up my own company to try and make this happen. Advocating for it, educating people trying to connect people and companies with flex stops and so it was really at that moment when I also said and I realize how passionate I was about it and having taught to many, many people and seeing how much the idea resonated with them I was like this is actually something that I would want to take as being my work that’s actually going to be my work rather than how I work. And so that was the big thing and it actually turned out to be my passion and that’s what I used to bring to the table every day.

Jim Rembach:  Well thanks for sharing them. One of the things that I started thinking about is that when you made that transition to go to that three-day workweek when you’re going at that point in making that move I’m starting to think that you received a whole lot of grief and pressure from people who were either colleagues or even the people that you reported to that we’re saying, hey you’re going to damage your career you’re going to do all of these negative things by doing this all because  you want to spend more time with your kid which is just a temporary thing. Did you have some of those things happening to you? But that’s kind of run through my head.

Sophie Wade:  Well actually I did the three-day week at another company and so that pressure becoming know that that would certainly have been a huge challenge and for me too so, the challenges were more in my head all those voices saying exactly those things and I’ve thought about it temporarily it looks like, okay I’m just going to do this for a bit. Because with two kids working from 8:30-7:00 my weekends was spent rushing around doing all the other things that I couldn’t get done during the week and so I had no time for my kids and family so that was very tough and so I just thought well let me just ease it up a bit for a while and then I’ll kind of go back, and of course now I have my own business I’m working all the time but it’s fine. So I think changing, luckily the stigma is our changing in terms of people feeling, colleagues making those comments or people feeling that they can’t do that and that’s a very good thing because that has very much been preventing people and I guess part of the aspect that sort of led to the stigma changing was the Great Recession so many people lost their jobs and the only work they could find was freelancer, independent contracting. 

And then as I said earlier they actually found that this is not such a bad way to live, actually so many people were doing it that it became kind of more okay and then more okay to say actually I’m going to stay with this and this is going to be how I’m going to live my life. So luckily those voices the feeling that I’m not as worthy a person because I don’t have a full-time fixed job in a big corporation those things are changing. And also enabled by technology so people can much more easily start up a business or have a very viable consulting independent contracting or freelancing career based out of their home or all this co-working spaces that’s really changes dynamics you don’t have to be isolated when you’re doing it you can be working in a group setting with lots of other people. A lot of the things that are changing in terms of technology support in terms of co-working location things like that are changing the dynamics overall.

Jim Rembach:  Well when I started thinking about all this, reading your book, looking at some other materials of yours, I started thinking about a lot of different things that you have on your plate—mom, chinchillas, dogs—all those things, but when you think about a goal what would be one of them?

Sophie Wade:  My goal is honestly is really helping change the world place to be—I honestly think we’ve been in a situation around the world but also in this country to be surviving and certainly there are lots of people who have a very difficult job situation but for people who are able to be in a situation where they’re thriving more we haven’t done a great job of treating people as human beings in in the workplace at all. And also as automation comes along you trying to excel as human beings means the creativity that you were talking about non-incremental thought, gut feelings, the type of things that robots can’t do, computers can’t do and really understanding people’s strengths and not trying to teach them like the machines of the Industrial Age that will be a better thing all-round. 

So, my goal is honestly to try and change that for my kids and as I see them coming to the workplace if they will have a much better environment. I do remember coming to the workplace—if you enjoyed your work you probably worth being paid, that was kind of like the concept. The great thing that I do see of the younger people is they’re ambitious they want to succeed. If success is defined differently they want to develop their potential but they also in that sort of hard work and hard work also means enjoying it, and that’s fantastic. I think that’s really fantastic for all of us and we all actually want that we just didn’t assume that that could happen. So, if I can be part of the helping contribute to that change for my kids and the workplace overall, that’s my goal. 

Jim Rembach:  And the Fast Leader legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor. 

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Jim Rembach:  Alright here we go Fast Leader listeners it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Sophie, the Hump Day Hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So, I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us a robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Sophie Wade, are you ready to hoedown? 

Sophie Wade:  Absolutely.

Jim Rembach:  Alright. What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

Sophie Wade:  Listen more and sometimes stop talking.

Jim Rembach:  What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

Sophie Wade:  Recognize and bring out the strengths of others.

Jim Rembach:  What was one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Sophie Wade:  My energy and passion for what I’m doing.

Jim Rembach:  What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

Sophie Wade:  Having an open mindset and being able to accept change, it’s critical guys for going forward.

Jim Rembach:  What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners and it could be from any genre, and of course we’ll put a link to Embracing Progress- Next Steps to the Future of Work—on your show notes page?

Sophie Wade:  There are many but there’s a very interesting book called U Theory and it’s by Otto Scharmer I believe and it’s about unlearning and I think one of the things that’s going to be helpful as we go forward is to unlearn some of the things that we have been taught because they’re not very helpful for embracing progress.

Jim Rembach:  Okay Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/sophiewade. Okay Sophie this is my last Hump

Day Hoedown question. . Imagine you were given the opportunity go back to the age 25 and you’ve been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything back you can only choose one. What skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Sophie Wade:  Being right doesn’t matter. If you’re trying to achieve a purpose and that’s the goal then how you get there and I’m also saying any means possible but it doesn’t matter about being right if that is about trying to achieve your objective.

Jim Rembach:   Sophie it was an honor to spend time with you today, can you please share with the Fast Leader Legion how they can connect with you?

Sophie Wade:  On my website, sophiewade.com. You can follow me at Twitter which is @asophiewade, I tweet a lot of interesting articles all about this as well as sharing my own articles—those are the best places.

Jim Rembach:   Sophie Wade thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot! 

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over a fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster. 

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