Executive Podcast #216: Work from Anywhere Best Practices with Joel Manby

Joel Manby is the former CEO of SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment and former President and Chief Executive Officer of Herschend Family Entertainment, the largest family-owned theme park corporation in the United States. 

Joel hosts the Maxwell Leadership Executive Circle, a 12-month group and individual mentoring program focused on Executive Leadership for those who are or desire to be C-suite leaders. 

With the challenge of leading a hybrid workforce (working from home and the office), Joel shares five best practices of a work from anywhere culture.

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Perry Holley:

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell Leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:

And I’m Chris Goede, executive vice president Maxwell Leadership.

Welcome and thank you for joining. Just as a reminder before we get started, if you want to download the show notes from today, maybe you have a future question or a leadership challenge that you’d like-

Perry Holley:

Please.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, Perry creates all of our content. He definitely would love your help to have some ideas flown his way. Please visit maxwellleadership.com/podcast. Even if you’re interested in bringing one of our executive facilitators or coaches to your team and helping, whatever that might look like, we would love for you to fill out that form and our team will follow back up with you. Once again, that is maxwellleadership.com/podcast.

Well, I am super excited. Today’s topic is Work From Anywhere Best Practices. This is an issue that is becoming very, very relevant. Matter of fact, John Maxwell has told me that the number one question that he gets now in all Q and As used to be, how do I work with millennials back in the day?

And he is like, now it has switched from how do we handle this remote workforce and people are working from anywhere. And not only am I excited about the title and where we’re going to go today, but also that we have Joel Manby joining us for a couple of episodes. So I hope you’ll not only listen to this one, but a couple in the future. Joel is part of our thought leader team. And obviously for us, he comes to us as a CEO of SeaWorld and author of Love Works and a bunch of stuff that’s really important to us. But Joel, so grateful that you’re here.

Joel Manby:

Thank you.

Chris Goede:

Welcome. Take just a second and tell our audience a little bit about your journey here to Maxwell Leadership, maybe a little bit about your journey. Just to get to know you a little bit better.

Joel Manby:

Absolutely. Well, first of all, I grew up in Michigan. I’m a Michigan fan.

Chris Goede:

Yes, yes, yes.

Joel Manby:

Chris is of course a Georgia fan, so we may face each other in the playoffs if we’re lucky. But I grew up in Michigan.

But from a career standpoint, I’ve been CEO of four different companies over a 25 year period. Basically. Started with, Saab cars North America, and then went to an Amazon startup, we actually sold cars on the internet back in 2000 through Amazon. Amazon used to sell cars. We had to sell that to our biggest competitor. Then I switched to theme parks and ran a privately held company called Hersh Enterprises for 15 years. We’re most notably known for running all of Dolly Parton’s parks. And she’s just a fantastic lady. That’s a different topic for a different time. And then finished up at SeaWorld and was involved in that turnaround.

But privately and personally, I have a wonderful wife named Shannon and four incredible children. So, that’s the more important thing.

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Perry Holley:

Yeah, we’re glad you’re here.

Joel Manby:

Well, I’m excited to be here.

Perry Holley:

Yep. Well, I know that Chris and I just did a podcast not too long ago about a topic that came up, we get a lot of our fodder from TikTok apparently, and somebody had coined the phrase productivity paranoia. That a lot of leaders are paranoid that people aren’t in the workplace they’re not being productive. I told Chris I’ve seen a lot in the workplace that aren’t being productive, but that’s another podcast, another time.

You talk about this idea of work anywhere, best practices as something that you’ve worked on, we’re excited to reopen that topic and say, what is it we need to know about work from anywhere? Best practices, never heard about this.

Joel Manby:

Well, it came really out in necessity as Chris and I have worked together on something called Executive Circle where I mentor CEOs. And it’s one of the great things about being part of the Maxwell organization, which I didn’t address, and I should have, I’ve always admired John and really wanted to join up with him in some way, shape, or form. But in teaching Executive Circle, we have 12 months of content and is over a year. And what I found is one of the key things people want, just as you said John’s hearing, is work from anywhere is just not working for people. Either the employees don’t feel that they are being trusted or the manager doesn’t feel trusted. So I came up through talking to CEOs through reading through just my own experience five best practices.

And the first one is what I would say Communicate. Communicate and communicate. And as much as we all are kind of sick of Zoom calls, and I think we all have Zoom exhaustion-

Perry Holley:

Fatigue.

Joel Manby:

Fatigue. It is absolutely critical that we keep doing that, at least weekly with everybody. And I think this is intuitively obvious, but the research is showing it when people leave or quit, they are filling all the silence. They’re filling the gaps with uncertainty and distrust. If they’re not on a Zoom call that they used to be on or they’re not part of a decision they used to be on, then they feel like something’s wrong-

Perry Holley:

They’re left out.

Joel Manby:

Yeah. Doesn’t care about me anymore. And so as much as we tire of it, the main point is really, really communicate, and I would pay real special attention to people who are skipping calls. They used to be on, they’re not there anymore, or they used to be part of a decision when they were in the office and somehow they’re getting left out. Just really pay attention to who’s on each call, who’s not showing up. The main thing, no matter what don’t start canceling meetings because of fatigue.

Chris Goede:

It reminds me of a comment that I heard, I think it was from Andy Stanley, a pastor, dear friend of yours, where during the time as we began to shift into this remote workforce during the pandemic and now I think it’s going to be a blended approach for most organizations going forward. The statement was made, hey, your people, they just want to hear your voice. They don’t care what you have to say. I think that that is so relevant. I think Andy was on something there.

I think where I was just going with what you said was it’s got to be the same way coming back. Leaders, you need to hear your people’s voice. You may not really care what they have to say, you should, but just to hear their voice. And when you don’t hear their voice, to your point, you need to be communicating, communicating and communicating and checking in on them.

Joel Manby:

Give them a call. Reach out to them.

Chris Goede:

And I know too, and Perry, I’ll throw it to you here in just a minute. In the Executive Circle where we see an individual, an executive that hasn’t made a call or two, you’re the first one on the call to go, I didn’t hear from him. I’m going to follow up personally with him and just stay engaged. Because all of those we do virtually as well so they can take this call all across the world. So just to be proactive about that, I think it’s extremely important during this time.

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Joel Manby:

Well, and if you don’t mind, what you just said leads perfectly into the second best practices, which is focus on socialization, camaraderie, and even mentoring. I don’t love this one myself because I’m not built to be a social animal, I’m a A type personality. I’m a driver-

Perry Holley:

We hate it too, don’t [inaudible 00:08:28]-

Chris Goede:

Yeah, we’re the opposite. We got to be like, hey, is there a party? Yeah, let’s go.

Joel Manby:

I don’t tend to want to be on a Zoom call to socialize, but what we are finding, just to your point, is really important to interact with people and it doesn’t always have to be about this week’s numbers or agenda. Now, some people in some organizations have tried a social call on a Friday afternoon. I’ve read mixed results. I’ve had mixed results when I do them. And I know the Maxwell organization does a great job of that, your Tuesday calls trying to create some camaraderie there. But I don’t think anything can replace just picking up the phone saying, hey, I’ve missed you. I haven’t seen you. What’s going on? Because let’s face it, I think official mentoring, most executives don’t have a lot of time for that. So I think it’s just really important to have those informal social gatherings, even though they Zoom and maybe you as a leader don’t feel like it’s your best use of time.

Perry Holley:

Do you have a best practice for that? I mean, I know a lot of the leaders we speak with are, they think, too busy to connect with others, but they know it’s important that, do you just make yourself, you force yourself or do you have a routine?

Joel Manby:

Thing I’ve heard work best is a Friday early afternoon, not at 4:00 or 5:00-

Perry Holley:

Because no one’s going to show up.

Joel Manby:

No one’s going to show up. But just have something where the agenda is. Anything but business like this weekend, it would be, let’s talk about the football playoffs. What does everybody thinks going to happen? What’s somebody’s favorite television show, talk about, what have you, Yellowstone, the new Yellowstone premier. That allows people to relax and be comfortable. But having said that, I still think the best thing is, which we’re going to get to in best practice number three, is just to reach out to people frequently.

Perry Holley:

Let’s go there. So best practice number three you say is focus on performance, evaluation and compensation to assure employees know where they stand.

Joel Manby:

I’m going to focus mostly on the performance part because it is so important when people are remote. And again, they’re filling in the blanks with the negatives that we make their key success factors really clear. Whatever you want to call them, key performance indexes, what I call them, KPIs. Make sure that’s extremely clear and make sure they know where they stand. But here’s a really interesting tidbit that I’ve just learned about in the last six weeks here. A lot of companies are getting away from the annual performance review or the quarterly performance review, especially in remote work because, again, they’re filling in the gaps and A, it’s not frequent enough. B, it tends to be too negative.

And Cisco went away from quarterly reviews and annual reviews and they switch to just an informal weekly phone call. They demand or request that every leader calls all the people who work for them once a week for just 10 to 15 minutes and they have three simple questions. First question is, what did you love about the week? Second, what did you loathe about the week? And then thirdly, what can I as your leader do to help you be successful next week? It’s so simple and yet their engagement scores went up 72% by eliminating quarterly reviews and interviews and going to this weekly phone call.

So, I think it’s probably the best tidbit of all these five best practices because you try to have as many Zoom meetings as you can. You try to socialize with them, but there’s nothing like just reaching out. But the other thing that that does that’s so important is, sometimes I see organizations where the CEO’s trying to take on too much or the senior leaders to have all employee meetings all the time. That’s not enough to really find out how someone’s doing. So that weekly call with the people who report for you is really, really helpful and really powerful. So when we talk about focus on performance evaluation, it’s those weekly phone calls.

But the other question, I said those three questions, we should also ask how we are doing as leaders. So when we call our folks and we ask them how they’re doing, we need to say, how am I doing as your leader? What do you need from me that I’m not giving you?

Chris Goede:

I like that. We tend to use a statement around that of what’s it look like to be on the other side of my leadership? And it’s a creative way to just to say, am I leaving bodies in the wake or am I ignoring you or whatever it is. But I think you got to have those, and this is not intuitive for those that are leading bigger teams or executives because to your point, Joel, when you think about the time and now they have to do it virtually and they got to get on a screen and all these things, but it is so important to be doing this. The other thing, I like what you were just talking about, what Cisco’s doing, is that that weekly check-in keeps people from getting off course even on a quarterly review.

I don’t know how many of you are listening that loathe quarterly or even annual reviews, whether you receive them or do them. So this is a great way to say, yeah, I talked to Joel 52 times last week, we’re good. We’re in alignment. So I love that idea for people to start engaging in that.

Perry Holley:

I was just wondering, hearing a lot about employee wellbeing that the pandemic and people being away and not in the office and kind of feeling forgotten maybe that their mental health or employee wellbeing was suffered. I wonder if that ever played anything you’ve seen as far as, I like this weekly check in that’s not really business related so much as it is personally related.

Joel Manby:

Yeah, I think it’s a really good point, Perry, because I think it needs to be both. The three questions of what did you love about the week, loathe about the week? Those are work related. But to your point, mental health issues are at an all time high. People are feeling isolated. They feel alone. They feel like they’re not being successful. So I think one of those questions should be, hey, tell me really how you’re doing. Everything with your family? Everything with you? Sometimes people aren’t always honest to that question, but I think you bring up a really, really important point, this is not just about how are you doing from a work standpoint, but how are you doing, period.

Chris Goede:

We skimmed over. One of the things that I want you to unpack a little bit and kind of your research and what you’re learning with these different executives and senior leaders where you said focus on performance and touch base what Cisco’s doing. But let’s talk about this compensation word. In the title we say focus on performance, evaluation and compensation to assure employees know where they stand. The market out there, and it’s shifting, it’s moving right as we speak and as you listen to this, so it is changing every day, but there is a lot of conversations going around saying, well, you want me to come in half of the week, or you want me fly in once a month, but Sally over here is staying home and she’s making 10X or whatever and it’s all virtual.

What are you hearing? What are the struggles? What are maybe even some of the solutions that you’re hearing that leaders are working through around what’s going on in the marketplace when it comes to compensation and then the virtual part of being that? Because there’s a value to that and people need to understand that, but there’s a lot of that going back and forth and they’re like, okay, hey, I’m out. You want me to come in, I’m out. I can go down the street and work and maybe make a little bit more and be 100% work from anywhere.

Joel Manby:

It is very difficult right now. I do think things are starting to shift and as we head into a recession, I’m not sure, I hate that you use the word power, but the power is with the employee right now. But at least from what I’ve seen so far, people or organizations, they do try to say, if it’s a remote job and you are choosing where you live, then they pay geographically differently. So if you live in Oklahoma City versus San Francisco, you’re not going to make as much. And if there’s a complaint, you say, well, you’re making the choice to live there. If you want to work in San Francisco at our headquarters and come to the office, we will pay you more. That I see happening for sure.

As far as people leaving because they’re being asked to come in. I haven’t seen research on this, but, A, I think it’ll shift. But B, I think the company has to do, and all leaders have to do what they think is right. If they think their culture is only going to work and the performance is going to be excellent by having people in three days a week, then I think you just have to go there and you let the chips fall where they may. Because if you back down on people say, well, I’m going to quit if you don’t do this, that’s not going to create a great culture. And unfortunately people are going to leave and we’re going to have some turnover. But we’ve seen, Elon Musk did it at Twitter. Demanded that people had to come in, they’re going to have a lot of turnover-

Chris Goede:

A lot is an understatement.

Joel Manby:

Yeah. Well that’s for a lot of different reasons.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

Joel Manby:

Maybe a better example would be like Apple just did it. Google. My daughter works for Google, they just said three days a week you got to come in and some people are going to leave. But I think we have to.

Chris Goede:

We have too. And the other thing too is maybe you’re a team member and you’re listening to this, you also have to understand the consequences on the organization. Meaning you and I have been on an executive circle call with one of our leaders over the last couple months and they made an interesting statement. They’re a very large organization in the State of Florida and they said, well, we have a work from anywhere policy, as long as it’s in the State of Florida. You have to understand from tax consequences and employee home base and all that stuff comes into play. It’s not just as easy as saying, hey, my company is based out of Florida, I’m going to live and work out in New York and you should be okay with it. There are consequences to that as a business they need to be aware. So you need to understand their perspective when it comes to having those conversations on both sides about compensations.

Joel Manby:

I’m so glad you brought this issue up because it actually leads perfectly into the fourth best practice, which is clarifying expectations. And I’m sure you guys see it and you see it in your coaching. What’s rampant out there is confusion, and I’m not sure what to do. And either the employee doesn’t know it or the leader doesn’t know. What I’ve read, and in my own experience and talking to other CEOs and other executives, things have to be clear. As Renee Brown says, lack of clarity is cruelty and without clarity there is not urgency. You got to have clarity.

So first of all, what are the remote jobs and what are the jobs that are going to be in the office? And just define it. Some jobs can be remote, some jobs can’t. If you’re going to have a hybrid be clear on which days are in the office, which ones are not. Organizations to your point, Chris, are having a hard time putting their foot down. I don’t believe that’s the best practice. Also the best practice when they do say, come in three days a week, they define the days. I know that sounds simple, but to me to come in any of the three days you want doesn’t get the synergy.

Chris Goede:

[inaudible 00:20:37] that’s right. I think it’s great. I think that’s spot on.

Perry Holley:

Yeah. They want to know, you said earlier about KPIs, so what am I responsible for? What am I accountable for? And then what are your expectations of me if I know what our goals are, what you expect me to do, and what the standard is we work to, doesn’t really matter where I work. If we have a standard, then just tell me the standard and people feel it brings a psychological safety almost to say, this is how we do things here and we’re all good.

Joel Manby:

But you hit the nail on the head, Perry, clear expectations not only of the remote issues, but also what your job is and what does success look like. And I know in Executive Circle I’m helping coach a CEO through that right now and it’s just really evident he doesn’t have his team lined up for success and they don’t exactly know what their job is. So I think it’s a really important point under clarify expectations.

Perry Holley:

That takes us number five, which is even though I think kind of sums all this up, which is trust your employees are doing their job. Trust is a big word.

Joel Manby:

Well, you started with the paranoia on your last podcast. And again, some of this sounds intuitively obvious, but it’s really tough to trust people when they’re working remotely. But there’s been a lot of research on this, and I’m not a research person necessarily, but all this software out there to try to control people. When you’re on your laptop the company can see it or when you check in the company can see it-

Perry Holley:

Move your mouse, [inaudible 00:22:05] mouse moves.

Joel Manby:

Well, it’s proven not to work. In fact, the US government had one for their patent attorneys that they have. They tried to do that software where it can checked them in, checked them out whenever they were on their laptop. It didn’t improve productivity at all and it made everybody upset. Instead, back to your point on KPIs, they just said, how many patents did you approve in a week? And they changed to that KPI and trusted them, and the results went through the roof. So, trust your employees, and when they don’t hear from them, just as long as you had the KPI set up, like you said, they’re going to be doing their job. Will you be burned sometimes?

Perry Holley:

Absolutely.

Joel Manby:

Absolutely. But as John and his philosophy, you start by trusting people and treat them that way until you’re proven wrong and you’ll be proven wrong now.

Chris Goede:

And then it goes back to the statement of that happens when they’re in the office too by the way, right? We have the same issue with what’s going on there.

Well, I think one of the things you can just hear as we talk about this, you can hear Joel’s heart and the principles of which he’s led by for so many years. Public organizations, private organizations, smaller, larger, and all of that is in your book, Love Works. And I just want to remind those that are listening at maxwellleadership.com on the store there, you can grab Joel’s book.

Joel Manby:

Thank you.

Chris Goede:

It’s incredible book. Also, as we wrap up, this is an opportunity for us as leaders. We asked Joel right before we started, we said, Joel, are you enjoying being retired in this time? And he just said, man, leading in this time would be really hard.There are all kinds of factors. And this is one of the things that we started Executive Circle for was because Joel’s passion is to be… He told me one time, being an executive leader, a C-suite leader, is a lonely place. And he understands that and he wants to take that journey with him. So a lot of this content’s coming right out of what he’s learning and having conversations with leaders around the world. So if you’re interested in that and even just being a part of our next group at maxwellleadership.com/executivecircle, we have a form there and you can fill that out and our team will follow back up with you.

This is so relevant. We appreciate your time. I know you’re coming back. We’re going to talk about it a little bit more in the next one. But I would just encourage you guys as you go back over the show notes that we provided for you, as you listen to our conversation, really begin to think internally where am I struggling in these areas when it comes to leading a virtual team and what do I need to put in place to become a more effective leader in regards to that? Just these five are very, very powerful. So Perry, why don’t you wrap it up?

Perry Holley:

Yeah, terrific. Having you with us has been a really great, as Chris said, very timely topic. Yeah, I think we’ll get a lot out of that. Just a reminder, the show notes will be on maxwellleadership.com/podcast. I will put the five lessons we spoke about, also links to Executive Circle and to Joel’s book. We also have a place there for you to leave a question or a comment for us. We always love hearing from you and we’re very grateful you spend this time with us today. That’s all today from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.