Overcome the Challenges of

Leading From Home

TLDR - The Challenges We Had To Wrap
Our Minds Around
MindShift! How to have work/life balance Purpose
when work and life collide? You'll understand the three
Hack: Drawing a (virtual) Line biggest mindshifts our
MindShift! Zzzzzooom Fatigue, Tired
survey respondents
of Teams, Worn out on Webex!
discovered when learning
Hack: Empathy has flatlined! We
need to give it CPR how to better lead and
MindShift! Self-determination work from home. And some
Hack: Choose to be at Cause rather powerful neuroscience
than Effect
hacks to help ease
Get the Hackers Guide to Being at
Cause or Effect:
transition to the new
Same Storm, Different Boat normal in working.

Overcome the Challenges of Leading From Home 1

 Process
I'll share the top MindShift!
results from our survey and
highlight the most pertinent
aspects of leading from
home shifts and how virtual
veterans are winning over
the difficulties with some
powerful hacks.

Payoff
You'll quickly realise that
you are far from alone with
the difficulties you face
and learn some hacks
about how to overcome
the obstacles and get
better results.

TL:DR - The Challenges We Had To Wrap

Our Minds Around

https://view.genial.ly/5f76b5a7f7d95a0e61949e98

Working and Leading from home was new to many people and few
organisations were prepared for the transition. We had to face the challenges
of virtual working with little support and colleagues who were equally
clueless.

Those with kids at home found both the joy of more family time and the
tremendous difficulties of more family time. We discovered that even with

Overcome the Challenges of Leading From Home 2

 powerful technology at our fingertips it wasn’t equitably distributed, that there
were no standards and juggling home-schooling with endless conference
calls and the nerve-wrecking experience of being on camera on a cranky
laptop was hardly the utopian ideal seen on the adverts.

We have to establish clear boundaries between what is work and what is

home, often on the same table where we eat and the kids fight for laptop time.

We soon discovered that our schedules were back to back video calls on a
never-ending deluge of new conference platforms, messengers and the
emails kept piling in. It seemed that no-one realised just how stressed we were
becoming.

What perhaps you didn't realise is that working virtually is genuinely

exhausting for your brain. And empathy - that unconscious understanding of
the other person's intent and how they are truly feeling - well, it's almost
missing because our Mirror Neurons don't work at all well in the virtual space.
Empathy has flatlined in the virtual world and we need to implement CPR
immediately. All of our communications need Clarity, Purpose and
Responsibility.

Then we discovered that it was down to ourselves to make this work. That no
one was going to fix anything soon and “normal” — well “normal” had gone for
good and in spite of feeling like someone had unplugged our motivation
completely, we had to find it in ourselves to reach out, to be proactive, to get
disciplined and determine for ourselves that we needed to take control. Even if
it was just to turn the camera off every now and then and choose our
priorities.

We learned that we had to be at cause for something and stop being at the
effect of a virus no one understands and that actually, no one else knows what
they are doing either.

We're learning that we're all in this same storm together, but we've realised
that we're not all in the same boat. Some of us are in luxury yachts, many
more are in old row boats and many are clinging onto a piece of driftwood.

Visit bit/ly/LFHResults2 for more and to ask me how to do CPR on your

communications to revive your influence, sales and leadership.

Overcome the Challenges of Leading From Home 3

 MindShift! How to have work/life balance
when work and life collide?
Here in Singapore, staff are being allowed to return to their office to work.
Albeit with a pretty rigorous set of rules and practices in place. I've spoken to
many who are intending to return to their office in the coming days, some with
glee, others with resignation. The potential joys of socialising with colleagues
is unlikely to manifest in quite the same way with social distancing and mask
wearing a requirement. At least lunch at the local coffee shop or hawker centre
might expose some juicy gossip.

Meantime, the UK and Europe prepare for a new round of lockdown measures
and a return to working from home.
And for many, the new new normal is hybrid teams. With half the team in the
office and the others at home for half the time and then swap over. But what if
you;re the team leader, do you stick with one half or divide your time in the
office between the two half teams, and do you run meetings for those in the
office or those at home, or both? And what happens if your boss isn't
coinciding with your office time, do you miss out on making your presence
felt? And does this mean that your clients are ready to meet in their office or
not? And what if that's a day you're meant to be working from home?
The future of working and leading is a moving feast and we are all learning
how to rapidly wrap our minds to whatever change this week will bring.

Our survey revealed some very common mindshifts that working and leading
from home has required. And the top 3 mindshifts registered almost exactly a
third of each: Setting boundaries between work and home life 34%; dealing
with the challenges of virtual communications 33% and being self-
determined 29%.

Hack: Drawing a (virtual) Line

The need to set clear boundaries between work and home is the #1 mindshift
and the #2 tip and the biggest concern for respondents. Significantly, for
those who like working from home over those who dislike it.
Whilst the survey did not explicitly ask about children in the home, many
respondents with children mentioned the issues they had in finding ways
around the problems of needing to home-school, entertain, feed and look after

Overcome the Challenges of Leading From Home 4

 children whilst working and often keeping young children especially away from
video conference calls.
Many had difficulties setting up their home working environment dues to a
lack of suitable space, furniture and equipment. Several respondents have a
partner, school and university age kids all trying to work at home and Wi-Fi
and internet bandwidth became a serious problem.

Establishing boundaries and the new rules of work in each household caused
great stress and very few companies appeared to have real empathy or
consideration for the difficulties faced by their staff. Very few companies had
a workable plan in place for the shift to working from home and HR policies
had to play catch-up real fast.

📌 Whilst some have said it in jest, wearing pants to work and changing
can help your unconscious brain recognise that this is "work time".
Changing back into something casual tells your brain (and your kids),
this is family time.

It's something you can learn with AdvantEdge Hack #8 The Secret Keys to
getting (the right) Stuff Done.

MindShift!: Zzzzzooom Fatigue, Tired of Teams,

Worn out on Webex!
"Zoom fatigue" as it became known is a common phenomenon mentioned by
many and is a very real problem, mentioned by 27%, with back to back web
video conference.
In part this is caused by a continuous state of low stress induced by video
conferencing. Your brain continuously monitors your body position space and
the positions of everything else (it's call proprioception). Your face on my
screen is normally within 1 metre, but your head size makes you look further
away - as my brain cannot reconcile this with the real world, it induces a state
of low stress continuously as our unconscious critter brain is being forcibly
overridden by our executive brain.
Your "Critter brain" Limbic and Brain stem) is inducing a state of freeze, flight
or fight, whilst your executive brain (neo-cortex) is continuously reminding

Overcome the Challenges of Leading From Home 5

 yourself that this is a video conference and your boss is not a nearby giant
monster with a tiny head.

We can help our watching colleagues calibrate by "dressing the set" (as tv and
movie directors do) to make the human in a setting fit with the size of the
person as seen in the environment. For example, pictures on the wall behind
you. Or sitting on a sofa (as in Friends) with the sofa in the frame. Few
companies had any suitable training or coaching for staff to better work in
virtual environments and, surprisingly, many still do not and seem to be
assuming that there will be a return to “normal” soon.
Some veterans of working remotely have established clear rules for their
participation in video conferences and how they participate. Deliberately
blocking schedules for “my work time” to prevent others automatically
assuming that if your schedule says you are “free” then they can fill it with
another meeting.
Veteran virtual leaders establish ground rules for all communications and
ensure that team members are properly trained and coached in best
practices. Such as AdvantEdge Hack #16 Leading with Presence

Hack: Empathy has flatlined! We need to give it CPR

Zoom fatigue is just one (very real) phenomenon of the challenges of virtual
working environments. Now that people have shifted minds to use video
conferencing and learned how to schedule better, the biggest missing piece is
empathy.

Empathy relies on the mirror neurons in our brain. That is we unconsciously

sense that someone is distressed, our mirror neurons reflect the signals, and
we “feel” their distress — this enables us to consciously choose how to act to
show the other person empathy.
In virtual environments, our mirror neurons are severely hampered. The signs
that your unconscious mind feeds on are almost entirely absent. The subtle
facial clues, and the hands — where are the hands???? What weapon are they
holding? In the days of live presentation skills training we would remind you
that "pockets murder rapport" — now it is our lack of camera presence that is
killing rapport.

And if we do see the hands, they flicker and flash because the camera is
adjusting the focus or the virtual background pixelates and the amoeba glow
disrupts, and we miss the signs.

Overcome the Challenges of Leading From Home 6

 “The office is a very effective place to solve ambiguities because you have
more social cues - It's easier to talk with someone else … the people who are
stressed out by ambiguity will struggle a lot in this new normal,” said Dr Marco
Minervini, an expert on organisational design from INSEAD Singapore.

We need to learn to make up for our inability to respond unconsciously to

the usual social cues and become much better at communicating, now we
need to remember AdvantEdge Hack #15 Give Your Audience CPR — that
every interaction to be crystal clear, a stated purpose and who is
responsible to achieve the stated intent by when.
That is, in EVERY virtual interaction:

CLARITY in your communication: No sarcasm, no ambiguity, no nuance, no

subtlety. In Yorkshire, we call a spade a shovel — that is we tell it like it is.
This is what I want, and this is when I want it. WHAT

We must also know why we want what we want. It has a clear PURPOSE :
Usually it solves a problem or overcomes an issue or takes us to a place
where we can solve a problem or overcome an issue more easily. WHY

Lastly, we assign RESPONSIBILITY to someONE Even when you assign it

to a team, ONE individual is chosen to be responsible for ensuring it gets
done, and specifically by when it needs to be done. "Next week" is too
vague. "Friday" is too vague. Friday 13th Oct 2020 at 1700 SGT is precise.
WHO and WHEN

The virtual world is emotionally less satisfying — it's the emotional equivalent
of Pringles — you have to keep delving into the tin to get more, because a few
don't satisfy. You have to become crystal clear in your mind what you intend,
what you expect, why you expect it, from whom and what you require by
when. You can empower them with the "HOW".

MindShift! Self-determination
For many a significant 29% of respondents, their biggest mindshift was having
to be self-determined about their work and life.
Several new to remote working, mentioned that their schedule, priorities etc
were previously driven and determined by others — their boss, assistants,
teams, clients and so on. At the beginning of the WFH initiative worldwide,
many suddenly found that they had to assume control for themselves and

Overcome the Challenges of Leading From Home 7

 have sufficient discipline to focus on work and not the many (more
interesting? distractions of home.

This is one aspect of their lives that they felt they could control and this
increased their general locus of control sufficiently to cope with the
unprecedented situation. This can be especially important for those with
younger children and many who had to home-school during the various
lockdowns had to be even more disciplined. Several mentioned that night shift
work was particularly gruelling with the lure of a comfortable bed and easy
access to a hundred TV channels competing for attention.

Veterans of working from home learn this lesson early but stress that it doesn't
get easier just because you know to do it, everyone in the team needs to be
on the same page - their mindshift was that many were not at all self-
disciplined — and many worry that productivity is low because team members
are not as motivated to be disciplined. These are the bosses who require your
constant presence in a video “meeting” so they can “pop by” your desk with
instructions or guidance. These are the bosses who insist that you have to
work in the office even if you would be more productive at home.

Hack: Choose to be at Cause rather than Effect

It's what you can learn with AdvantEdge Hack #3 Choosing to be At Cause for
Your Life, not at Effect. If this COVID19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is
that the world leaders are stumbling around in the dark just as much as you
and I. The leaders who are emerging stronger have chosen to address the
obstacles, to experiment and experiment again until they achieve their
desired results. They will be amongst those who celebrate and become
creative in their vision rather than disappointed and holding on for survival.

Get the Hackers Guide to Being at Cause or Effect:

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/5f36eaa
05e0646e199af-bce0d57a6f99/Are_you_at_Cause_or_Effect.pdf

Overcome the Challenges of Leading From Home 8

 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/8320e2
12787647d3-a377-bf127e5df4b1/Are_you_at_Cause_or_Effect_Templat
e.pdf

Same Storm, Different Boat

We're learning that we're all in this same storm together, but we've realised
that we're not all in the same boat. Some of us are in luxury yachts, many
more are in old row boats and many are clinging onto a piece of driftwood.

Purposefully reach out to someone today and ask them how they're doing and
how you can help them. You just might be lifting them out of the water and
giving them a chance to choose a better response. Why not share this with
them?

Overcome the Challenges of Leading From Home 9