Remote Work Is Here To Stay

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The question is, how to make it really work for you? A few secrets of success from a company that has been remote right from the start.

This has been a significant year of change across the globe, particularly in the workplace as we have all had to adapt and rethink our workforce strategies. As we look to find the answers to the right, wrong, and most effective ways to move forward in the new normal in 2021 and beyond, one thing is for certain: remote work practices are here to stay. Whether your team is fully remote or is a hybrid of remote and in-office, the workplace has forever been affected. Major companies like Facebook and Twitter have already set a precedent by allowing employees to work remotely, permanently.

As a remote-centric company with 750+ employees spanning 35 countries, remote work has been ingrained in our DNA since Auth0 was founded in 2013. Over the past seven years, we have found success in giving our team the freedom to do their best work on their own terms, regardless of location. Here are a few key lessons we learned on how to make remote work successful.

1. Learn to love remote work

It is important to first recognize that we are in a very unique time and the past several months have not been ‘normal’ remote work settings. People are not only adjusting to new work practices such as working remotely, but there are many other factors to consider right now—in a normal remote setting your kids are at school, your partner is at work, you are not cooking all day, among other things.

For companies forced to work remotely during the pandemic, there is great risk in rushing to  “see this doesn’t work” judgment, not giving it the time it needs, or just thinking remote work is just a thing for tech startups. Be slow to make decisions and have the flexibility to adapt and make changes where needed. There is an adjustment time required if you have not previously been predominantly remote.

2. Hiring for talent unleashes a greater talent pool

The constraints of hiring for one location puts you at a disadvantage. Being open to the idea of a global and remote workforce naturally unleashes a pool of talent that otherwise would not be available. By enabling your team members to do their best work regardless of location, you will be able to hire a diverse mix of people from different backgrounds and skill sets without having to compete with other companies within a certain region; a team that is also naturally closer to your customers across the globe.

3. Remote work is not a cost-cutting measure

At the end of the day, remote work should not be looked at as a cost-cutting measure—a program centered on this thinking is doomed to fail. Remote work requires more work, not less. You can’t just hand out laptops, send employees on their way and join sessions on Zoom. Or randomly except your team to ”collaborate” by chat on Slack. \You have to be deliberate about how you communicate, and how you align teams behind common goals. And you must support the well being of employees from a personal, professional, and regulatory perspective.

4. Communication is your most effective tool; use it

With the obvious lack of face-to-face communication, trust and a philosophy of work based on results and not on chair time are at the heart of a successful remote culture. Multi-directional communication is critical as trust is built from the bottom up and from the top down. And especially during times like right now where human communication is missing and feelings of isolation are high, be aware of different video and communication tools like Zoom and Slack and create virtual spaces that facilitate idea exchanges, bonding, and socialization to keep your team engaged and connected to each other.

5. Create a routine, set boundaries

With remote work, there are many things to take into account and the lines between personal and professional life are blurred. Working remotely requires discipline, structure, and boundaries—you could very easily burn out if you’re not setting good practices in place and creating a routine for yourself. When you work remotely it is important to complement the ‘start/stop’ ceremonies like commuting and leaving the office. It takes effort, but if you do not have discipline, your life is all work, which is not good for anyone. Encourage your team to devise their own schedules, so they can complete their work when feeling most productive and collaborative.

While the benefits of remote work and flexible work options are endless, it is important to recognize that everyone operates differently and you have to figure out what works best for you and your team. As the benefits of remote work continue to be seen, you will realize how a remote workforce can be an integral part to your success within the increasingly competitive industries you play in. Looking forward to 2021 and beyond, remote work will likely be a large part of the future of business—and for good reason. It works if you are willing to put the work in.

Source: Chief Executive

12 Leadership Lessons from DocuSign CEO Dan Springer

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by Jason Nazar

In Comparably’s ongoing series in partnership with Entrepreneur, If I Knew Then: Leadership Lessons, I host virtual fireside chats with high-profile CEOs of major brands from, Nextdoor and Blue Apron, to Waze and Warby Parker. As the host, I ask talented leaders to share some of the valuable lessons and practical career advice they learned during their career trajectory. These rare, candid insights into the lives of remarkable catalysts for success in the business world are accessible as a resource of inspiration for current and future entrepreneurs and are not to be missed. When CEOs get transparent, you can’t help but lean in.

For the latest episode, I sat down with Dan Springer, CEO of DocuSign, who leads thousands of employees globally, allowing DocuSign to modernize organizations by making every agreement 100 percent digital. Driving innovation and growth in technology and the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) industry exemplifies Springer’s executive leadership and experience for the past 25 years. Prior to DocuSign, the Harvard MBA graduate served as chairman and CEO at Responsys for a decade, where he revolutionized and grew the business from a private startup to a leading cross-channel global marketing automation platform — resulting in Oracle’s $1.6 billion purchase of Responsys in 2013.

As a veteran of Silicon Valley, Springer holds honors as both the Bay Area’s Most Admired CEO and Best CEO. He is also a 2020 recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award, sharing this accolade alongside top U.S. infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, as well as San Francisco 49ers Colin Kaepernick, for his leadership on social change during these trying times. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bono, and the late Representative John Lewis have also received this award, catapulting Springer into the company of greatness.

Among other topics, this conversation covers Springer’s origin story — from “winning the ovarian lottery” to attending the famous Lakeside High School with alumni such as Bill Gates and Paul Allen — laying the foundation for his early life before becoming a serial entrepreneur. Here are the 12 essential takeaways from our chat:

1. Successful business leaders don’t all come from the same mold 

Everyone has a different background and path in life; use that to propel you forward. Springer shares that he grew up with a single mom in an affluent suburb, which might have given him a chip on his shoulder in the early part of his career at McKinsey. However, he turned that initial insecurity into something positive by excelling and overachieving. Continue reading →

Managing the COVID stress crisis with finesse, compassion

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By: Tracey Ferstler

With the pandemic causing new anxieties, employers need to rethink their benefits to provide a better mix of tools for managing stress, burnout and depression.

Everyone faces stress in their life, but the ripple effect of COVID-19 has caused new sources of financial, social and physical stress that go far beyond the norm. These stressors are lasting and pervasive, piling up to the point where they pose a significant threat to employee well being if left ignored.

According to a new MetLife mental health study, employees say that their top stressors are financial issues (81%), job insecurity (77%), fear of catching the virus (60%) and social distancing (47%), followed by concerns about the presidential election, social justice issues and not having access to healthcare because of COVID-19. On top of this, separation of work/home life is increasingly blurring, especially for parents trying to juggle children at home.

Never before have employees had to cope with so much at one time, and never before have benefits programs been tested across the spectrum of holistic health, including physical, financial, mental and social health. Per the study, nine in 10 employers say their organization is not completely ready for a mental health crisis, although one in five say the United States is in crisis right now.

This is the perfect opportunity for employers to rethink their benefits approach to provide a better mix of tools for managing stress, burnout and depression. This will not only help employees become more resilient and productive, but will also improve long-term business recovery.

Start with understanding key stressors

Anxiety is at an all-time high, with 5.5 million employees saying they no longer feel mentally healthy and 38% of adults reporting symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders, an increase of 27% since 2019 (pre-pandemic). In addition, 41% of employees say they feel stressed, burned out or depressed at work on a regular basis.

Financial stress is the No. 1 driver of overall mental health stress, up 29% since 2019. The biggest sources of financial stress rest in concerns about long-term savings and medical bills/expenses followed by fears about stock market volatility and retirement plans.

These concerns, combined with all the other top stressors listed above, are creating a workforce at the tipping point. This is compounded by the fact that not everyone can “self-diagnose” the warning signs of mental health. When asked, employees don’t always think they have a problem but say they have specific symptoms. Most employees report at least five key signs of burnout—such as feeling emotionally and physically drained—and at least five signs of depression, such as feeling tired, hopeless or unable to sleep.

Next, create an environment of support

As they plan for business recovery, 76% of employers say resilience is very important. Compared to least-resilient employees, those who are most resilient have better mental health, are more likely to be holistically well, and are less likely to be burned out or stressed.

To help return employees to good health, benefits plans should try to span every area of holistic health since financial, mental, physical and social health are interrelated. Organizational support tools can include effective tools like employee assistance programs that offer everything from financial consultations; to counseling for stress management, work/life and substance abuse; to childcare and legal support. Employees with EAP access show 17% more resilience than employees without EAPs.

Insurance programs (like life, disability, hospital indemnity, critical illness) may also help employees boost financial security.

It is one thing to offer the right mix of tools, yet quite another to create an open culture that makes mental health a priority. This culture also should build awareness about available resources, educate employees about the warning signs and remove the stigma of asking for help.

The ability of employers to manage the looming mental health crisis with finesse and compassion can only help drive loyalty, productivity and long-term success.

Source: Human Resource Executive

Human After All: Organizational Change’s Critical People Factor

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Creating the right organizational chart is just the first step. Behavior change must follow.

Why do companies change their operating model? Often they wish to become more agile. Sometimes they hope to increase collaboration. Almost always it has something to do with behavior. But as the overhaul gets underway, facts and data become the focus instead. And by the time organizational charts are drawn up, rolled out to teams and explained, management is exhausted.

Then someone remembers: We did all this to change how our people act. Oh, and those people are worried. Worried the changes aren’t good for them and that they are going to lose some of their power.

In the end, organizations don’t change, people do. And that tired management team still has a lot of work to do.

Cognitive biases’ role in organizational change

Behavioral science teaches that change triggers biases in the way humans process information and perceive threats. We are averse to loss, fear losing control and tend to view everything as a zero-sum game. We perceive losses more acutely than we anticipate gains. It’s quite natural, then, that any new organizational structure immediately sends employees into an examination of their position relative to peers. The new org chart becomes a scorecard: Some people are winning, others are losing.

Even when we understand intellectually that change is for the greater good, we balk when it diminishes our personal authority. One CEO broke down these tendencies by using a sports metaphor. “We’ve been operating like a golf team,” he said, “but now we have to play basketball.”

Metaphors can be clarifying for businesses in transition. Think of moving from a swim team to water polo, from track to soccer, from instrumental soloist to a jazz band, or even from stand-up comedy to membership in an improv troupe. In each case, strong individual performers shift from an environment that tracks and rewards independent effort to one of interdependence, in which success is determined by cooperation.

This CEO’s company still needed and appreciated great talent, as the metaphor helped make clear, but everyone needed to accept the critical importance of contributing to the team.

Anticipating the tough moments critical to organizational change

For any company to reap the full value of an organizational overhaul, its people will need to behave differently than they did in the old system. If they fall back to their old ways of working, the value will be lost.

Transforming behavior requires focusing on a few critical moments during which people will choose either the new behavior or their old habit. These moments of truth can be predicted and planned for. Leading companies do this early in the process, working with employees to anticipate the tricky moments and then ensuring everything from streamlined reports to employee support is in place to encourage adoption of the new way of working.

When a global consumer products company recently updated its operating model, one of the organizational changes was to bring all digital marketing into a centralized marketing department. It was simply too expensive for each business unit to build its own digital capability. This is quite consistent with the direction many organizations are headed today as they look for ways to build interdependencies and move away from autonomous silos. But it can lead to feelings of losing power and control, especially at the business unit level, where marketers now must turn to the center on digital topics.

The company’s executives and staff carefully anticipated which issues were likely to create discord between the business units and the center, talked them over, and decided how they would address them. Business unit heads understood that the solution rested in their hands: By modeling collaboration with the center, they would set the example for staff to do the same in their own work.

It emerged that the moment of truth for the business unit heads would be when they were asked to referee a disagreement between their team and the central digital team. Would they always side with their team against the center, or would they try to find a constructive solution?

To support choosing the constructive solution, the company created feedback loops that ran the duration of the transition. In that feedback, executives sought not only information about how the process was going but also what they themselves could do better. Over time, a pattern emerged in the data. Leaders who learned from this upward feedback and improved were rewarded with strong increases in employee engagement.

Moving forward

In the New York City Marathon, there is a hill at the 15-mile (24-kilometer) mark—the crossing of the East River from Queens to Manhattan over the 59th Street Bridge. It’s one of the greatest challenges of the race, but as runners finish their descent and head north up First Avenue, they know that 11 more miles (18 kilometers) remain.

For executives who have put months into studying what functions their organization needs, how it will be organized, and who reports to whom, it may be hard to accept that they have only finished the first leg of the race. There are many hard miles yet to go, and getting to the finish line depends on helping the humans in the organization change their behavior, too.

Source: Bain

Continue reading →

5 Characteristics of Real Leadership, According to Two of History’s Greatest Leaders Real leadership requires particular qualities that may not be for everyone.

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By Marcel Schwantes,

In this Covid crisis, leaders are faced with changing conditions as never before. Social distancing, wearing facial masks, restrictions on frequenting bars, restaurants, gyms, (foreign) travel, and much more.

So naturally, employees and followers check whether their leaders also walk the talk and show the way. Two weeks ago, the government of the Netherlands imposed heavy restrictions on foreign travel. At the same time, King Willem-Alexander went on vacation in Greece. A huge outcry followed and the king was forced to return the day after he had arrived.

This illustrates that in times of crisis, more than ever, people look for authenticity in their leaders; they should set the example for their followers in attitudes and behavior.

Jan-Benedict Steenkamp, author of the new book Time to Lead: Lessons for Today’s Leaders From Bold Decisions that Changed History, explains that “truly excelling in authentic leadership–as opposed to demonstrating a ‘normal’ level of integrity and honesty in one’s behavior–requires particular qualities that may not be for everyone.”

In his book, Steenkamp looks at some of history’s greatest leaders. Below, he explains how two of them–George Washington and South African President Nelson Mandela–excelled in exemplifying authentic leadership.

Authentic leaders have strong values about the right thing to do.

Many founders start their businesses to serve a higher purpose or cause. They operate through conscious capitalism–whereby decisions are guided by their personal and organizational values, some of which are non-negotiable. Steenkamp says both Washington and Mandela emphasized that it was the cause–independence and democracy–that mattered. Given the adoration and praise showered upon them, it truly takes strong values not to be corrupted, as it does with being an entrepreneur or leader.

Authentic leaders show consistent integrity across all spheres of life.

Steenkamp writes that Washington and Mandela could not be bribed, corrupted, or compromised, despite repeated attempts by their adversaries. They exhibited unwavering integrity right until the end and made the big sacrifices many leaders find so difficult to make these days.

Authentic leaders exercise self-discipline.

Because authentic leadership is leading by example, everything the leader does or says matters. Both Washington and Mandela possessed an iron self-discipline, including tight control over their emotions.

Authentic leaders are willing to pay the price.

As business leaders, we are often approached by offers and partnerships that don’t serve us well and often jeopardize our mission. Mandela refused three times an offer of release from his lifelong prison sentence because it came with conditions, which he saw as prejudicing the cause of freedom for Black South Africans.

Authentic leaders establish meaningful relationships with followers.

There’s no question that effective leadership comes with great relationships. This fully applies to Mandela, but Washington did not really forge deep personal relations with his followers. This shows that even seminal leaders cannot have it all.

5 questions to ask

To assess whether authentic leadership is a style that suits you, Steenkamp proposes that you reflect on the following questions.

1. Do others generally regard you as a person of high integrity, or is this not one of the traits that come to mind first when they think about you?

2. Are you comfortable leading by example, covering all spheres of your life? In other words, is your public persona aligned with, or different from, your private persona?

3. Do you have a tight grip on your emotions?

4. Do you have a strong, long-term guiding purpose in your professional life that supersedes self-interest, for which you are willing to pay a high price if required?

5. How are your relationship-building skills?

Source: INC