Episode 98 -You Had Me At Remote, with Mari Anne Snow

Mari Anne Snow is a remote work/distributed team leadership expert with over 20 years of experience helping organizations operationalize work processes that maximize productivity within remote /distributed teams. Her two companies Sophaya and the Remote Nation Institute (RNI) provide operational support and specialized professional development training for employers with dispersed, remote, or hybrid teams and flexible workplace programs.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Leadership Principle:    Work with a plan, but with an eye on the future.

Habits: 

1. Daily reflection
2. Sense of humor
3. Flexibility and agility

Green Flags:

1. Can you stay curious?  You can’t know everything. If you’re going to make it, accept your own skillset and bring it to the table. Confidence even though you don’t know everything.
2. Are you open to learning?

Advice:   

1. Don’t get overwhelmed by all the things you need to learn
2. There are more universal themes than we care to admit. 
3. Adopt a global perspective - everyone is a friend you haven't met

Where to find Mari Anne:

LinkedIn: Mari Anne Snow
Website:  Sophaya
Website:  The Remote Nation Institute
Website:  Remote Nation

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:02

You're listening to Intentional Optimists, the podcast for unconventional leaders, where you'll find inspiration, learn to discover and develop your own strengths, and hear from inspiring women just like you who are making a difference in their community. Who knows? You just might find yourself stepping up as the next unconventional leader right where you are. I'm your host, Andrea Johnson, the original intentional optimist. Welcome to episode 98. If you worked remotely during the COVID pandemic shutdown, are you back in the office? Do you feel like your own productivity fared better or worse based on where you were? Well, believe it or not, studies show that working remotely at least part of the time, even just a few days a month, can increase your productivity by up to 77%? Less interruptions, fewer meetings, and increased accountability, yep, you heard that right, increased accountability are just a few of the things that account for that giant number. I had a staff member who did not want to go remote during COVID do a complete about face when she realized how much work she got done without people constantly stopping by her desk. Well, today's guest, Mary Ann Snow, has made it her life's work to help companies optimize productivity as a remote work and distributed team leadership expert. Her two companies, Sophia and the Remote Nation Institute, address both sides of the equation: the company structure, leadership and technology, and educating and building the skills of the employees. To say I was excited to have this conversation is an understatement, and I can't wait for you to listen. It's packed with leadership wisdom, practical guidance, and even an option for you if you're tired of being told to quote, come back to work, meet my new friend, Marianne Snow. Hey there, Marianne. Welcome to the show. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks, Andrea, for having me. You know, when you reached out to me, um, I took one look at your profile and you had me at remote.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Well, I was gonna say um one has to be a bit of an optimist, I think, to be a long-term remote um professional. And um uh so that was what immediately draw me to, drew me to you.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Well, I tell you, I can't wait to hear um how you got there. But I would love for our guests to hear, I mean, for our listeners to hear a little bit about your story, who you are and where you come from and what you do now that is, like I said, remote, that is so unique and different because that's a hot topic in the United States right now.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

You know, and it's interesting because I started my remote journey in the 90s. And um uh at the time that I got started, I was um uh working with technology that was pretty antiquated, something that you would think of because uh, in order to be able to get your your face out, I was actually going into a television studio, recording on VHS tapes, putting it into an envelope. Can you imagine this? Putting it in an envelope, sealing it up, taking it to the post office and sending it out to people all over the United States because I had a team of people who were uh uh across the continental US. So having uh platforms that we have now that are at my disposal in my current work, it's just there's no uh comparison because you know I was doing video conferencing um when video conferencing wasn't a thing. The only tool was Skype. You couldn't do groups, so um, you know, there's it's just um it's a world of difference. I've watched the evolution, I've been completely fascinated by it. And um I just I love the environment because it makes me a global citizen. I get to work with all sorts of folks, even though I'm a very small company now. Instead of working in larger companies, I can still have global reach.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Well, let's just get a definition of what you actually do. What does your company do? Tell us about your company.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

So we have a company that has two components. So FIA is our business-to-business consulting company, and we help organizations optimize productivity in um remote or distributed team environments. And so if you've got a remote workforce, if you have a distributed team force, and that just means that they're not sitting in the same place, we can help you with team engagement, and we can also help you with team productivity. And the second component is the Remote Nation Institute, and this is looking at the skills that are required to be highly successful in an environment where you have to build relationships, you have to encourage productivity, and you have to do it primarily at a distance through technology. Um, it's a different set of skills, it's a different approach, not only to the leadership and management end of things, but also to the individual contributor end of things.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Well, as somebody who managed people in March of 2020 and had a team of 13, that doesn't sound like a big team, but when their administrative assistants and grants administrators and fiscal techs and clinical research coordinators, when I was tasked with moving them all off grounds, off campus to work, um, some had the skills and some did not. A year and a half later, even though we had bought cameras for everybody, some were still not on camera. Yep. And um, so just that awareness that it's not just handing someone the technology and it makes it work, right? It's the skill set. I love that you you not only do you say, here's how you set up Joe Company, um, here's the how you do it, here's the technology, here's the best practices. By the way, your people also need to be trained because so many times the reason why it doesn't work, and I that's basically what I was told is this isn't working. And I'm like, but you haven't trained any of these people. And you know, that got falls on deaf ears when it's a very large organization, because the needs of the many will outweigh the needs of the few, or the needs of the powerful will outweigh the needs of the not powerful. But um, so which one started first, the training or the setting up of the organizations?

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Well, um, it actually what started first is uh I was working in international financial services and I was working on a global basis. And so the scope of the projects that I was working on, Andrea, was um, you know, I had to figure out ways to connect 28,000 people in 32 countries across across 11 lines of businesses in a highly regulated uh industry. And um uh and so not only um did I get exposed to technology that was coming into the market early, and I was working with Microsoft's um uh SharePoint uh uh team as Microsoft was simply a beta version at that point. So they weren't even um a full-fledged promoted product. Um they were just something that was really on the back burner. And um, you know, in that environment, we were really, really fortunate because I had a big budget, which meant I could play. I had a lot of opportunity to really kind of think about what we can do um if we have the capital to be able to invest in an infrastructure. And what does that infrastructure look like? So it really started in um, as I mentioned, the 90s, the 2000s, and I was in a corporate setting right up until 2009 when um during the financial crisis, they were defunding all of the really fun projects that I was working on that were the things that could actually make the future better, right? Right, right. And um, so we had um uh not only been setting up the infrastructure and the operating models, but uh we also launched a global learning university that was um serving the needs on the education side. So we were really looking at it. I was my team and I were looking at it holistically. Um, and when I left in um 2009, and I really left because all the fun stuff was going away. So I said, you know, geez, this is the rise of digital media. You know, what's gonna happen next? So I left corporate America, I went into higher ed, and for three years I taught um uh digital media marketing, uh digital media business, and was really at the the vanguard of what was happening with the new technologies that were being introduced. And that was just, I had so much fun. It was just amazing.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Um so how did you go from being like completely immersed in this whole digital technology to my understanding is that you start doing you started doing research on how teams needed to work remotely, and what kind of transitioned you into that? This is how we're going to make my own company and meet the needs of, I'm gonna assume, smaller businesses.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Um, not necessarily. I mean, we work with we work with Toyota, um, we work with Novardis, we work with um national insurance companies, we work with healthcare um centers, we work with uh financial services, we've worked with um international energy companies. Okay, but we but we also work with small nonprofits, we work with school systems, we work with you name it.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

So this works across the board. Across the board. Principles. Imagine that, universal principles.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Universal principles. And think about it, because if you work in a very large company, the likelihood that you're gonna sit in one place, right? I think um the thing that the biggest thing, Andrea, is is um, you know, if you put it in the context of large organizations don't sit in the same physical location. And that got me really thinking about how are we defining uh remote work, right? Remote work is not work from home. It is really uh, we've come up with a standard definition, and and it comes down to three things. Remote um work has to do with you're not co-located, you're not sitting in the same physical space at the same time. Um, you tend to work towards a shared goal, but you're gonna do most of your communicating and most of your work through technology. But there are people, Andrea, behind the teams, humans that have to work in these situations, manage in these situations, supervise in these situations, accomplish things in these situations, and they need the skills to do it.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah, and I think that this is so desperately needed. And um, I am so excited. I get to talk to you who's actually doing this. So clearly, this is something I am passionate about. I mean, it literally I famously, this is the reason I left my corporate job because after having success in doing this and knowing full well that I could manage my team and that my team could manage well, um, in a situation where literally there just isn't enough room, right? I mean, you were in the Boston area or are you still?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

I mean, it just so I'm in Providence or I was based in Boston, but now I don't have a commute. It's so nice.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Well, but you know, I was in Baltimore for years and now I'm in a smaller university town, but space is limited, right? It's when I was at Johns Hopkins, it was like constant just gobbling up pieces of the city, looking for more place to put people because you you want a university like that to grow, you want institutions to grow, but with no space and telling people we don't have space to put anybody, you know, it's like we don't have space to put faculty members, let alone staff, right? But yet you have to come back on grounds. And and it was basically it wasn't actually said straight out, but it was almost or lose your job or find someplace else to work. And I read between the lines and said, okay, well, I can do that. I've been I've been kind of figuring out how I might could do that anyway, because I was, but that was my thing. So for me, championing this whole idea is really, I think is is important. And I think um I I love that that this is the way that you've chosen to make a difference in the world, and you clearly are a leader in this area. So let's actually talk about some some of the aspects of leadership that it takes to do stuff like this. Um, because you shared some really interesting things with me. Um I have a wonderful questionnaire, and I never know what that I ask guests to fill out. And I've gotten everything from so-and-so's assistant filled it out, and I don't know how to answer these questions, to like tomes. And um, so some of them are just really, really um helpful. And one of the answers that you gave is that you've never been a command and control type of leader, but you ask people to stay curious and keep learning. Is that like a basic concept in the way you teach in this um remote nation institute?

SPEAKER_00 14:19

It is because um you know we've developed some really fundamental principles around an accountability cycle, which requires everyone to assume response adult responsibilities. And uh whether we're talking about Should we have to say that? Yes, I guess adult reason. And I think that's an important concept because, you know, um, and I'll give you a very uh a very um interesting experience I just had. I went to my first in-person networking event um in support of a friend of mine, and I walked in and it happened to be uh, you know, uh the majority male. And the testosterone testosterone in the room was uh was off the charts. And part of that was, you know, um now we're together, now we can visibly show each other who's the big cheese and who's not the big cheese, who matters and who doesn't matter. And um I was amused by it because part of what happens when you're working in distributed teams is everybody's got to take accountability for themselves. And that means that um collaboration has a a different focus. That means getting the work done becomes the focus.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

And now you're gonna evaluate based on performance as opposed to some of the other measures that are that are used in an office, right? Yeah. So um, you know, our accountability cycle is set up where it starts with um very practical steps. Uh, you know, what do you expect of me? And what can I expect of you? And then once we've set expectations, then um how are you gonna hold me accountable, you know, as my boss, but how are you gonna hold yourself accountable to what you told me you were gonna do? And now it's shared responsibility. So how do we elevate people's ability to have resilience, um, uh to be their best selves? And once you do that, then things like um, is it necessary that we work nine to five? Or is it okay if I take my dog for a walk? Um, can I come on Zoom and have my kitty cat and my kid on my lap at the same time? And, you know, so uh ironically, I think that COVID allowed us to be able to bring person our personal selves. And I thought it was interesting because, you know, I've I mentioned I've been doing this for a really long time. I've in literally interviewed people all over the world um uh who have engaged in this type of work for for extended periods. And the majority of the world has actually been on board with this stuff um long before the United States has. And um frankly, um you know, the the plain fact is is that um when it comes right down to it, uh, you know, people who are successful at remote work tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Yes. Um uh people who live in an office who tend to look at things in relation to if you're out of sight, you must be screwing off. Yeah. Right. And they tend to over-romanticize the office because they assume line of sight equates to productivity, which we know it doesn't. Um uh and we also know that um people who are uh gonna fool around in an office are gonna fool around at home. Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

So it's like if they're working hard at the office, yeah, if they're working hard at the office, and that's what I found, is that my staff were all basically good hard workers at the office. Yeah. So what I discovered was that they were putting in more hours at home because they were like constantly looking over their shoulder, can concerned that somebody was going to think they were goofing off. And I'm like, you have to turn off your phone. Here's I'm answering phone calls at 10 o'clock at night. Why? You wouldn't do that if you were at the office. I know, but I'm like, no, turn it off, right? And so I literally had conversation after conversation with the people above me about the simple fact that if you don't trust them at home, why do you trust them at the office? And it turns out they didn't trust them at the office either. And which was crazy because you could actually see that things were happening and getting done. And um, so how do you work with companies? Well, let me rephrase the cut the question. Do any companies come to you who are interested in making the remote working or hybrid working, whatever situation better, but just are desperate to have a better mindset about it? Or are they all just like sold and they just want your help to get it done?

SPEAKER_00 19:22

You know, it's interesting because not everyone is our client. Uh, and I think that that's um really important that you understand that um we work with folks who see the value, right? And they are trying to move their teams to uh a better place of productivity and also maintain engagement long term. So I'll give you a specific example. We work with a national insurance company that tend to be very people-oriented. And um uh we've been working with them on um special projects for years and years and years, and they've never thought of themselves as remote work. They thought of themselves as kind of a distributed team model because they're national. Um uh we started working with them because they were consolidating offices, and um uh when they consolidated offices, that meant that um a boss was going to be in one place, uh, an employee was gonna be in another place. And that was a that was a problem they didn't know how to handle. So we were actually working with them on that. And we our conversations started to span not only the operational structure, not only um some of the the uh talent management considerations, but it also spanned um the leadership skills, right, as well as the employee skills. So they were um not sold on remote work, but they were understanding of the fact that from a practical perspective, if you have a boss in one place and you have an employee in another place, it there are um different variables. And um, we worked with them for two years without ever saying the word remote work until COVID. And because we just talked about distributed teams and we talked about uh things that were relevant to them. But when COVID hit, we took all the principals, all the work that we had done, and they sent 4,000 people home in less than three weeks. And they never skipped a beat, Andrew. Productivity-wise, all of this sort of thing. And now they're struggling with the fact that their people don't want to come back to work. And many employers are struggling with this. And here's the thing the thing is that um trying to force people back into the office after they just spent two and a half years being productive, being effective when all the social structures structures were gone, when they had to homeschool their kids, when going

SPEAKER_01 22:00

the grocery store was hard when daycares were down and now you're telling me you don't trust me um it's insulting to your best employees thank you and i you said the phrase that just literally sets my hair on fire you need to come back to work and i'm like are you saying that for that we none of us have been working right and and you know they they would always oh but that but that's not what i meant you mean i mean back in the office no no you said what you meant you know and so before we move into because you already touched on it specific leadership stuff but before we move into that really quick um what about these bigger companies that are hauling all these people back in i mean even Elon Musk is like hauling them all back in it's just of all the people in the world I don't know if we can speak to any of that and we probably don't have any bounds you know we need to say it in our lane but the big companies that are doing this that have access to all this technology and should if they can send somebody to the moon why can't they understand that people can work remotely? I don't understand. And I think it's really difficult for the people sitting in the desk that they've curated for the last two years at their house how do we understand that? How do we reframe that?

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Well um uh you may not know this but Elon Musk is actually backpedaling already because um uh he's backpedaling already because many of his um most talented people are saying fine we'll leave and um uh and so appreciate that that if you've got leadership that is going to stake out of position without strategically thinking about the implications and tying it to what's happening in the world today from a talent management and talent retention point of view, then here's what's going to happen Andrea what's going to happen is big company small company you force people into a situation um you're either going to turn them into bad employees bitter employees or you're going to um force them out the door and and that's absolutely fine because I've got a portfolio of clients that will hire you in a second um and do it with flexibility and value you so um that was my next question eat uh so fine my clients my um folks my tribe in my community will um eat your lunch and you know um appreciate it will have impacts long term okay so y'all listening here if you're not happy with your current situation Marianne's information is in the show notes and she has a posse full of clients that are looking to hire people that want to be productive that want to make a difference that are willing to be flexible is that fair to say absolutely so y'all go find let's so I used to say I'd love to leave my job as the Pied Piper and just take all these people with me.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

And you know I I'm not a W-2 worker anymore. That's just not who I am I've realized I'm an entrepreneur. But there are plenty of people who would follow a Pied Piper to another W-2 that would actually do it for them. So this I have literally I have cold chills all over me just because this is some of the best news I've heard in a really long time. Sometimes we just don't know what questions to ask or where to look so we're gonna send them your direction.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Yeah yeah and um uh I actually have a book coming out at the end of September called the Remote Work Handbook and um it not only from a business perspective if you're a business owner it talks to you about how to set up the infrastructure some of the um uh you know just the the uh practical factors and also talks about the operating model talent management and uh the accountability cycle that I mentioned to you earlier.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Well we will most certainly be interested in helping you promote that book yeah like I said you had me at remote so let's shift gears and let's go way back to Marianne and your earliest as a leader because you know you even said you're not really a march to my order or march to the beat of my drum kind of leader, but you are clearly a leader especially in this kind of interesting field and you help other people develop leadership skills. So when you talk about or look back at your earliest leadership memory uh that could explain kind of how you landed where you are today, what do you think of well I can take you back from day one.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

I'm the the oldest daughter of five children. So um uh I was immediately tasked with um uh you know um subparent responsibilities right the the adjunct parent responsibilities and I think um you know that made an impression on me because when you're coming from a large family and you happen to be the first in line and you also happen to be a daughter then you know you learn how to cook uh you learn how to do domestic chores but you also um learn about logistics but you also learn about um you know taking care of um uh you know your team and enlisting support because just because I had the duty doesn't mean anybody's gonna follow me unless uh they decide to literally just recorded a podcast about that it's this whole idea of do you just want people to follow you or do you want to lead them right because you can't make people follow you there is no cajoling or beating it's like the beatings will continue until morale improves. Um so at we like oldest daughters around here my um I'm an oldest daughter my podcast producer's an oldest um and um so what does that I mean you said it contributed to you uh and your ability to enlist and all that kind of stuff but you what else did it contribute to your career is it contributed to a mindset that you have I think part of it was um decisiveness right and um understanding that you could make decisions and um and they they needed to be to be um made in a way that um would afford other people an opportunity to participate but at some but at some point somebody's gonna make a decision so things can move forward and um you know so when you're time pressed you're trying to get things done but at the same time you want to enlist um uh engagement then you know it's a fine line uh you know let's face it andrew i i you know dictating to your point is you know command and control is long dead it never worked anyway but um you know but people were more compliant but we've hit a societal inflection point where try and be command and control with uh a uh a a younger generation coming into the workforce right at this particular point in time not going to be very effective no um uh and it really wasn't effective with most of us but um we were socialized in a way that um I think we were more um we were more accepting um than we are today so um it's just a different time and I think um success breeds success once you get into a work situation and you know even as a young person who was going to college you know waitressing on the side because I put myself through school well of course you're in waitressing and um somebody says we need somebody to train new people and guess what you know make Marianne do it right and you know and then it just sort of snowballs there's a messy situation who's going to fix the problem and so the more that you the more that you apply those skills and the more that you are seeing results from the skills that you're applying the more they reinforce and then you build on that and and it just gets more and more complicated as um your career moves forward.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Yeah I was just talking with someone the other day and they said I was reminded they said when you get it to a higher place you only have bigger problems. But the nice thing is you've gotten to that higher level where you already know how to solve the bigger problem. So it's not, you know, and it's good to have challenging things but that's just a really great way to say it the more you apply the principles the more principles you have to apply and the more things come up for you. And um I love how that kind of you kind of followed through with the the waitressing thing and learning how to teach and learning we a lot of times we think oh man those were wasted years or I look back and and say why did I spend 23 years in corporate I really wanted to be an entrepreneur. Well the things I learned in corporate taught me how to do what I do now taught me where I to how to be who I am now and what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Yeah and I think part of that's recognizing life lessons right uh you know um when I was a waitress I I um you know obviously didn't necessarily necessarily see the value of that until you talk to the busboy who sits there and says I can't you know geez I wish I could be away person because you know um at least you get tips or at least you get to do this and and it starts to impress upon you that there's already always someone looking at you who is saying I wish I wish and and I think for me personally because many of my years I was the only woman in the room so I was uh I was getting more senior I was taking on more leadership responsibilities but I had a role model role because I was the only woman in the room but I was the only woman at the room at the enterprise level so suddenly every woman in the company would know who I was just by virtue of the fact that if the leadership team walks in there are you know 15 people looking the same and me and I didn't look the same. Pros and cons to that right so I always said to myself you know if this is the case then I can't change what I can't change but how do I leverage it? How do I take advantage of this but how do I accept responsibilities that come with it. I love that it sounds like you take role modeling very seriously I I I um learned that from a very young age people watch what you do and um yes I think it's really important because I think that um if you are fortunate enough and um smart enough to move forward then appreciate you have a choice you can you can um do it in a way um that provides a good avenue for people to follow in your footsteps um or you can um take on a different role and I know that I've had plenty of bosses who've taught me things in a negative way but um I I prefer to be the person who says you know um rising tides lift all boats.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

I literally use that quote in my last podcast. Yeah seriously yeah well and and I that can be applied in so many ways um but I just I I love that you have a choice when you're in that kind of role to provide an avenue for others to follow. I love that um because you know it's like we want to say people want to follow in our footsteps when I think of avenue I think of a beautiful tree lined street that's smooth and that the a 14 or 15 year old could learn to drive on and because it's wide and there's no cars and it's easy to walk down. And I so I appreciate the wording that you use there a lot. And that beautiful picture at least it's the picture created in my mind. So um as a leader um I'm sure you have one of these because you seem very intentional and very thoughtful but almost every leader has some kind of a principle that they operate by do you have a principle that kind of helps you stay in this bigger place of service on a daily basis I work with a plan but I um work with an eye to the future and so um I am saying to myself if I'm going to act in a particular way how does that contribute to forward movement?

SPEAKER_00 35:09

How does that contribute positivity to the circumstance? And so consciousness mindfulness deliberateness but also um really kind of tying it to what I'm trying to accomplish long term because um we all know it's it's really fun to dream but we also know as um folks who have been entrepreneurs startup people who have gone from um have had success in corporate america but also now have to build ourselves up from the bootstraps it's very different. Very very different and if you want to accomplish something that means you got to connect your daily actions with your longer term goals.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Absolutely and this is you'd think you'd read my tenants or something the tenets of intentional optimism because this falls right in there with optimistic you know being able to look at the future and see the hope but also having a being very intentional about it. You've got to have a plan. If you don't have a map you know who leaves their house anymore without maps or ways or whatever because we need to know where we're going. Nobody pulls out you know like Clark um in America you know the vacation movies you know it's like when he pulls out the big map and it covers the entire windshield nobody does that anymore. We know where we know we're going and we trust that we technology is going to get us there. Why don't we do that in our decisions for our lives? Why don't you know and it there's always abilities to re this the opportunity to reroute but um to not have some kind of a plan um I love that I work with a plan but with an eye to the future um and that's just that's really smart. And that will do you have a habit or anything that helps you kind of stay in that mindset on a daily basis there's uh a couple of things.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

I tend to be an early bird so I get up and um really that first um couple of hours is kind of a reflection time. And that's my time to kind of gather myself and really kind of think about what the priorities are but also to reflect what um have we accomplished so far? Are we on task? Are we not on task? You know what's coming up? How am I going to prepare for that? Because you know the other thing too sense of humor and flexibility, right? Because um uh no matter how good your plan is you need plan A and plan B and plan C and plan D and flexibility and you know not getting too flapped when um things don't go quite according to your dictates.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Absolutely um being able to be in the words in the in the product and project management world you know being agile right it's like being able to take feedback at regular intervals and with you doing that daily reflection I do much of the same. I do it on a weekly daily basis on a weekly basis monthly quarterly and then you know um because otherwise I can get I know myself I can get completely lost in the clouds and as an entrepreneur who is I am still in my first year of getting everything completely launched it's so easy to do that. And if I don't look at where I've been and I mean there's still I'm still throwing a little bit of spaghetti against the wall here right so there's a few things that I'm choosing to say oh okay well upon reflection not so much. And um this looks like a really good avenue I'm gonna go down that one. So um I think that's that's really really helpful. So as we start to wrap things up you know in in our world it's very easy for people to talk about red flags things that we oh if I had seen that red and boy we've done that before I had no if I had seen those red flags we would never have whatever right why didn't I see those or dang I saw them and I just didn't do anything with them. But on here we like to talk about green flags what we're looking for in ourselves that will help us step into that bigger place. And it's always interesting um when I talk to different guests because not many people are going to start a company like yours. But figuring out which kind of green flags we want to share because I want people to be able to look at oh this is the type of personality I have that makes it easy for me to do X, Y, or Z. What have you got for us do you think?

SPEAKER_00 39:39

There's a couple of things. I think you know um staying curious and um and accepting that you can't know everything um really kind of battling against perfectionism in the sense that um we live in a really complicated world and um if you're gonna make it today you need to accept your own um skill sets and bring your skill sets to the table but um be confident in your skill sets even though you don't know everything, which means and I can give you a very specific example. So um recently I was fortunate enough to become part of a group of people who will be um doing a project with NASA. And um I don't know anything about NASA. I've never been on a rocket ship other than you know maybe in my you know imagination somewhere. And so now I'm coming to um conversations with vocabulary with um uh different contexts than I've ever seen before and it's really easy to get overwhelmed but um you know if I um uh got overwhelmed then that means I'm gonna go into that circumstance shut down. I'm not gonna be open to learning I'm not gonna be curious about things I'm not gonna focus on my skill sets are my skill set I will apply them appropriately to this circumstance um and not get overwhelmed by the fact that there are lots of things I'll need to learn along the way because I have a track record of success. I need to bring that track record of success with me and not be intimidated by new contexts.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

Oh my gosh that is so important. And even just this shout out to anybody who wants to leave their I must be in the office kind of job to remote work there's still plenty to learn there. And I'll bet there is a learning curve for I've been in this industry for as many years as you know for like for me I was in that specific industry for 23 years. How do I tell these other companies I have these skills they just look like they're specific. So I love that don't get overwhelmed by all the things you need to learn because you have a track record of success because you've been doing something already.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Yeah there's more universal themes than um we care to to um admit and as somebody who has had an opportunity to work with a wide variety of industries companies um uh different um cultures different um countries different regions one of the things that I'll tell you is that that we're more the same than you think there are certain universal themes no matter where you are and if you adopt a um global perspective and understand that everybody is just a friend you haven't met and um uh go to the to the party assuming positive intent and not personalizing um uh then you'd be amazed at what can happen.

SPEAKER_01 43:02

I love that everybody is just a friend you haven't met. Um I many times um quote Bob Goff where he says that he has I think he had a limited podcast but I I love him anyway. I'm not sure if you know who he is but um he's an author and um he's just this amazing positive person. And he said I only interview my friends on my podcast and he he had some pretty famous people in there and I'm like this guy's got some amazing friends until it dawned on me every person he meets is his friend and it's like oh there you go it's like he may not have met them before but now they're his friend and it's it's easy to see something in that context and say oh I get how you can do that but you know if we just say everyone is a friend I haven't met yet everyone wants to do well everyone wants to succeed um I think that's a great mindset to have well think about it most people most humans do not get up and look in the mirror and say I'd like to fail

SPEAKER_00 44:00

today that's that's not typical and uh and i think it's disingenuous for us as um uh in leadership roles um to assume that um even people who are having a bad day even people who are struggling that um that there are no redeeming qualities because you know my view is is um you know what's the larger context have we actually provided not only um the expectations but have we provided um the the training necessary so that they the training and tools necessary so they can succeed but have we also given them the skills and then have we provided them feedback and given them honest open feedback so that they know where they stand in our heads in relation to other stuff and if they you know if a person fails on my watch then I gotta know that um you know I've done everything I can to contribute to their success and I'm gonna hold people accountable to their adult responsibilities and if they understand and we've done our best and they're still choosing um uh then then this I accept this I accept that this could happen but um uh at the same time maybe it's just not for them. Maybe I just need to place them someplace else and they'll be successful.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:39

Um you know I don't have to condemn them as a human.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

Right, right. And that's really easy to do especially when we're being held to metrics or expectations that they have some kind of part in. And um so and part of that is just learning how to lead, right? That's a leadership role.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

And um so um so before we close um where the best place to find you is going to be best place to find me is LinkedIn or you can email me directly at masnow at sofiya so p-a-ya dot com I'm excited about um future collaborations and all kinds of interesting stuff we're going to learn.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Before we end here, we always ask our guests what is the one thing you can always be optimistic about even when others may think you're crazy.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

Oh gosh I think um the one thing that I can always be optimistic about is um in the darkest times there is something that um you can see humor in, right? You don't have to be a victim. And I think that um uh personal choice is probably the thing that that I always am very optimistic about. I can make a choice about how I view um what's happening to me, what the circumstances, um how I respond. And I have full control of that. There are many things I have no control over but that's something I can control. So on the heels of that were you a jokester growing up I mean I see you I hear you giggle and I hear you chuckle um so how does this humor showed up for you or is it just being able to see the humor I and I was really very fortunate because um I have a partner um who he is he's the jokes more of the jokester in my family. Okay but I can appreciate and uh I may do the logistics and uh I may be the person who is um keeping us on track but he's the one making sure we have fun along the way.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

Oh that's great. So you may not be the one generating the humor but I'm the strong oh perfect. So it's the pen and teller kind of thing. I love it. Oh you know what this was a delightful conversation and it met all my expectations and so that's the feedback I want to give right um and so I because I've been listening and I really appreciate you did I leave anything out did we leave anything out fantastic. Well um I am excited about your book coming out and um I hope that people will flock to you and your clients to help fill their um their rosters with people who want to work in a remote way and be in a situation where they are trusted to do a good job and and cared for and honored in those types of situations. Thank you so much for your work. Well uh you know that was you asked what the inspiration was that was the inspiration I saw really talented amazing people um I had them on my team I had them as colleagues I felt that way myself and um they um were always undervalued and and I um kept saying to myself this is an untapped resource um this is you know untapped potential and it's only gonna get bigger because company is more complicated than they were before and and now you just have to do it um through different means but look at you you're making friends differently you've made this transition yeah you're transmitting um you know and communicating in completely new and different ways well and I hope that I am lifting up other women who are doing similar things and leading I mean it's called unconventional leaders for a reason it's like this is not the kind of stuff that we automatically think of they're a leader right because we I use the word socially conditioned and or trained and we have our own social conditioning that that does we've been trained to think a certain way and um one of my goals is to help us think differently. And so I appreciate you and your contribution to all of that. And um thank you so much for being on here today.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

My pleasure you take care of yourself Andrea and I look forward to future conversations.

SPEAKER_01 50:06

Absolutely bye bye oh my goodness we could have talked all day clearly she and I see eye to eye. She truly is offering unconventional leadership to the world of work even as so many organizations are trying to hold on to what used to be she's literally in the business of offering the future to any size company. Honestly I have a hard time seeing how anyone would turn it down. But what I'd like to do here is point out how Mary Ann exemplifies the tenets of intentional optimism. Now if you were paying attention you heard her mention one key word after another she's so in tune with this style of leadership so the hard part is narrowing it down. But I do this for every guest because we all live unique and different lives and while what we do is different intentional optimism is how we do what we do. It's the attitudes and mindsets that we employ and embody to live out our own goals and dreams with excellence. So let's look at optimistic Marianne is truly focused on the future. She has been since the early 90s oh my goodness VHS tapes in an envelope mailed across the country I'm shaking my head. Present she says that staying curious has helped her give herself permission to insert herself into new and novel situations, which is where she discovered those universal themes that we talked about. They apply everywhere in life. Energetic oh my goodness talk about creative solutions her companies are based on offering something new and different and helping people flourish as a result. For courageous she's one of the few people who feel the same way about accountability as I do. It helps build resilience. When you help others become more resilient they can give their best to the situation or the project. And why is she knows that what she does isn't for every organization but she curates respect by modeling what she believes will help in the future. An intentional? Marianne is a planner and you know I love me a good plan. But she made it clear that her plans always have an eye on the future. She regularly reflects and adjusts to ensure that her plan will get her where she wants to go. Marianne is unconventional in her leadership because her passion to offer a different yet more productive work model for any sized organization is a reflection of her core values of things like curiosity, the value of a good team and positivity which make her a great role model for women who want to make a difference in their work and career even if they're the only woman in the room. Unconventional leaders lead at every level in any area using their unique gifts now what aspect of Marianne's story inspires you is it that she has always worked on the cutting edge? Maybe it's that she truly understands the value of every position she's been in because she understands that somebody's always looking at her thinking I wish right is that the kind of leader you want to be? If so let's chat. If you need a greater understanding of your own strengths and skills or just a gentle accountability group to keep you focused on your own plan with an eye on the future all my information is in the show notes. So hop on my calendar for a 30 minute consultation and let's get you a strategy in place. Are you ready to work in a more remote or flexible way? You need to take her up on that. She gave out her email address on the air and all her contact information is in the show notes. If you'd like to hear more from her she and I will be live the week this episode airs on my guest speaker series. The YouTube channel link is in the show notes so even if you don't catch it then you can catch it on the replay. Of course gifting us with a five star rating and review will help other women find this podcast but even better share it with that friend you know needs to hear this episode. Until next time hey thanks for spending your precious time with us today if you love this podcast and find it to be uplifting and helpful follow us or subscribe then please take a moment and leave a review in one of those amazing five-star ratings. You can also snap a screenshot right where you listen share it to social media and tag me. This helps others find us and we'll have an even bigger impact. If you're curious what it would be like to work more closely with me or to step up as an unconventional leader yourself, schedule a free discovery session and we'll chat. But maybe you're an entrepreneur looking for a support team I'd like to personally invite you into my collaborative community Launch from the beach. It could be just what you're looking for. All of my contact information and all the links are included in the show notes. And don't forget you can always connect with other intentional optimists in our Facebook community. You can follow my Facebook or Instagram page or even connect with me on LinkedIn. Additionally I invite you to subscribe to my newsletter Optimistic Living it's good stuff delivered straight to your inbox on a not so strict schedule but always from the heart. Remember unconventional leaders lead at every level in any area using their unique gifts and you my friend are a leader. You are the future of leadership and the role models for future generations. Until next time