Episode 71: Hybrid Work Series: Virtual vs. In Person Work Culture: The Great Debate with Matthew Confer
Happy Wednesday, improve it! Fam! It’s the final episode of our hybrid work series, and lucky for you, you get to hear from special guest, Matthew Confer. As you enter the new and improved world of hybrid work, this inspirational leader talks to us about:
How you can make hybrid work effective for your employees
The pros and cons of virtual and in-person work
How to guide your team to go back into office.
Enjoy and let us know what you think!
Show Links:
Send a screenshot of your review to info@learntoimproveit.com to receive a free gift from Erin!
Connect with Matthew Confer:
Matthew Confer is the Vice President of Strategy at Abilitie, a Leadership Development company based in Austin, Texas that provides immersive business simulations to a global client base that includes over 50 members of the Fortune 500. In the past three years alone Abilitie’s leadership programs have been delivered to over 20,000 corporate professionals in more than 30 countries. Matthew has spoken on the topic of decision making at the TEDx Conference and he hosts the Learn To Lead Podcast where he speaks with authors, professors, creatives, and business leaders about their leadership journey and how they are working to develop the leaders of tomorrow.
Connect with Erin:
Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
Episode 71 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Hello improve it fam. It's ya girl Erin Diehl practicing my singin lessons. But today I am so excited. I've gotten some lessons and I've also received a very special guest to round out this hybrid work series. So today you are going to hear from fellow podcast host, father and VP of strategy and business development at ability Matthew Confer. So let me give you some insights on how Matthew Confer and his company ability are improving. It. Ability is a leadership development company based in Austin, Texas. Let's keep it weird that provides immersive business simulations to a global client base that includes over 50 members of the fortune 500. Now in the past three years alone, abilities leadership programs have been delivered to over get this 20,000 corporate professionals in more than 30 countries. How cool is that? Matthew has spoken on the topic of decision-making at the TEDx conference, which is awesome.
Erin (01:13):
And he hosts the learn to lead podcast where your girl was recently a guest. And there he speaks with authors, professors, creatives, and business leaders about their leadership journey and how they are working to develop the leaders of tomorrow. We talked about so many interesting topics on this show, but I've got a quick rundown for you just in case you want a little taste of what's to come. So speaking of taste, you're going to hear all about how Matthew was in or almost in a McDonald's commercial. We're going to talk about how you can make hybrid work effective by meeting employees where they are at. We're going to discuss the pros and cons of virtual work, the pros and cons of in-person work. We're going to give you some thoughts on guiding your team to go back to the office full time. And then also Matthew gives us his own improv knowledge of yes and which spoiler alert he nailed.
Erin (02:15):
He said he's not an improvisor, never improvised before, but he has a great understanding of the fundamental of Yes and, and how you can use this approach to the hybrid world and how this can help your organization. Now, before we get started, I just want to give you a reminder to go on our website, learn to improve it.com, grab your PDF that goes along with this series, all about hybrid work. You can find it on our website, or you can click the link in our show notes here. Now let's get to improvin it with Matthew Confer.
Erin (02:54):
Are a leader or change maker inside of your business organization or corporation. Are you looking for new, innovative ways to drive morale through the roof? Are you looking for fun and exciting icebreakers, team-building exercises and activities that will foster team growth, friendships, loyalty, and completely transform your organization from the inside out? Have you been searching for a fun and unique way to create change instead of the same old dry, boring leadership books and icebreakers that aren't actually working? Hi, I'm Aaron deal, business improv edutainer failfluencer and professional zombie who is ready to help you improve it. My mission in life is to help you develop teams and leaders through play improv and experiential learning. And this podcast, we will deep dive into professional development, team building, effective communication, networking, presentation, skills, leadership training, how to think more quickly on your feet and everything in between. We have helped everyone from fortune 500 companies to small mom and pop shops transform their business, their leadership, and their people through play. So grab your chicken hat. We are about to have some fun, welcome to improve it! The podcast.
Erin (04:28):
Welcome to the improve it podcast. Matthew Confer, thank you so much for being here.
Matthew (04:36):
Thank you for having me.
Erin (04:38):
Well, what is one fun fact? I always like to start off with this for the improvement fam, what is one fun facts that we couldn't find on your bio, your Twitter? Cause I told you prior to recording, I did some lurking on the social media. I'm all about you or on your LinkedIn profile. What's one fun fact that we couldn't find on any of those places.
Matthew (05:05):
Oh man. I guess I got to go with, I was almost in a McDonald's commercial, probably the funnest fact about me that very, very, very few people know.
Erin (05:16):
Okay. For what? Like what product, like the happy mail, the, you know, court, I don't even know, like big Mac fish filet. Tell me what it was.
Matthew (05:27):
So I went to a, like a consumer research study that we didn't know at the time they paid us for our, you know, our opinion on different topics, which this one was food. And my now my wife and I went to this, tasted the food, talked about it, did all the whole thing and come to find out it was actually an undercover casting couch where they offered you the opportunity to potentially be in a commercial later. I ended up making it through, I guess, what, what you would consider the first round. But then it was denied at the next round. So I was good enough, but not great enough, I guess, to make it all the way to the commercial.
Erin (06:08):
I'm not loving it. Okay. But I'm not loving that. That is very fun fact. And also, can I tell you like a really disgusting yet, like kind of a dream for me would have been, if you would have said, you know, that filet of fish commercial they used to have back in the day gave me that filet of fish, that fish, do you have any, do you remember that at all? Okay. One of my old coworkers prior to my improve it! Days, she had the singing filet of fish, like a mantled filet of fish in her office. And I truly like, if you were to tell me it was that commercial that you were auditioning for, I would have been so excited, but I'm also not loving that McDonald's, didn't give you this gig. Okay. Like Matthew, this was supposed to be yours.
Matthew (06:55):
I know I I'm still bitter about it, but you know, I think I wasn't going to quit my day job anyway so.
Erin (07:00):
Well, speaking of that day job, you have a great day job at ability, but you were also the host of the learn to lead podcast. And I was recently a guest on your show, and now you are joining me here and talking to the improve it! Fam, which as I hope they know I've included into this show that we are so excited to have you, but I'm going to ask you, cause I know why I love it though. Why do you love podcasting as a medium?
Matthew (07:31):
I think it's a really personal way to interact with individuals. I listened to somebody who once said that they're an individual that does podcasts. They do YouTube videos, they do blog posts and they can tell when they interact with somebody, how they found their content, you know, whether they were into the, the video that they shared or a blog post or a podcast. And I think blog posts are wonderful. Articles are wonderful, but they have a very, almost like transactional aspects to them. You're going to the blog post to just get a piece of information. There's something about a podcast that feels personal. You know, we probably have people listening right now who are walking outside or at the gym, or maybe cooking dinner, doing something you feel much more as though you have a personal connection to those that are listening. And I have to say as a listener and as a host, I really enjoy that.
Erin (08:25):
That is so interesting. And I, you know, I say that to our fam here too. Like if you're on a walk, if you're in the car with the kids, like it is true. We're with them. And I listened to podcasts very similarly. I also heard an author once kind of relate that to like, my book is going to sleep next to you. It's going to be on your nightstand. It's a very intimate experience, both you know, for the, for the written word in a book because you're being vulnerable there. But I also think people get to know you through podcasts, just like you said, and it becomes this like intimate experience. And I think that's why a lot of people tuning in are very excited to hear your take so improve it fam as you're going about your day, maybe you're getting groceries right now. Maybe you're walking the dog wherever you are. We want to chat with you about this virtual versus in person work culture. So Matthew, I know that pre COVID your team at ability was 60%. In-Person 40% virtual, but now, and I'm hoping this is still true. Cause we talked about this maybe two weeks ago, you were still a hundred percent virtual. Is that true? Are you still a hundred percent virtual?
Matthew (09:46):
That is true. So yeah, you're correct. Before COVID, when we would deliver one of our trainings, there was a six and 10, maybe even seven and 10 chance that the client that was bringing us to deliver one of our simulations would fly one of our facilitators to an in-person training. And that has obviously gone from 40% of our training only being virtual to now a hundred. Okay.
Erin (10:10):
So what has this shift been like for your team and for your organization as a whole? What is this felt like over the past year and a half?
Matthew (10:21):
Most likely unsurprisingly back in February, March of 2020, it was petrifying. I mean, it was scary. It was not knowing what was going to happen. It very quickly became one of the best things that ever happened to our business. And there were a few reasons because of that, when you have to fly everybody together to do a training, there is a logistical challenge and you could probably say logistical nightmare associated with that component of a training. Our, our, our trainings tend to be immersive and team-based, and there is a level of competition and comradery and collaboration. So all of those things mean that an in-person experience is incredible, but there's a lot of headaches associated with that as well. And what we found was that the transition to virtual, when people are at, at home and looking for connection, if you can deliver that in a virtual space and they don't have to travel, they don't need to go to the airport. They don't need to, if you're the one planning, it deal with all of the hotel reservations and all of that, there, there are some real benefits and we very quickly said, how do we need to scale up our operation to take what was a relatively small part of our business to the main part of our business. And I think thankfully our team really delivered and we were running smoothly very quickly and the craziness and the scariness abated very fast.
Erin (11:53):
Yeah and it's almost like, do you think right now, if you've been asked to do some in-person things like I'm actually doing for me. So my team has done some in-person events, but I haven't done any in-person events as of March of 2020. Do you find that like getting back to in-person right now is almost harder? Like, it's almost like why were we working? Do you feel that way? Are you excited to get back to the in person?
Matthew (12:19):
I'm excited. I think we're going to be much more deliberate about what needs to be in person and what can be, or, and should continue to be virtual. A good deal of the work that we do is not just doing a one day or a two day simulation. It's actually working with our clients to design a three, a six or a nine month leadership journey. And we're starting to think about in a more hybrid world, what parts of that journey, shouldn't be the ones where it's worth getting people together. And as a result, they're going to enjoy it more because the entire program isn't in-person and then when they're at home doing the virtual simulation training or some other training, they're going to be more engaged in that because they know that are in-person things still to come.
Erin (13:13):
Totally totally. Okay. So a lot or all, I will say our, most of our improvement family work in corporate America and you know, we've got people from all different industries, all different departments within those industries. But the one thing that is the common ground is that they are all leaders. And I know that we work in a similar space where we work with the people who care about the people in the organization. And I know you've mentioned to me that your clients have started talking about how do you make this hybrid work effective? So for their teams, right. And what does the virtual versus the in-person versus the hybrid mean for our culture? So I, like I said, I did some slew thing, Matthew. Okay. And I saw an article that you wrote for medium, which we will link to in the show notes here, but there was a statistic in there that I found very interesting. You said that 60% of HR leaders surveyed by Gartner said that they are planning for a hybrid work future. And only 1% said that they expect all of their workers to return to work full-time in the office. So what are you seeing with your clients? And then how are you encouraging them to make hybrid work effective?
Matthew (14:33):
The first thing that we're hearing from clients is that people are pretty happy with it. And so if you want to disrupt, what has, it's crazy to stay, become the status quo. You have to have a really good reason to do it. So if the bulk of your employees are telling you that they're relatively happy with how things are you're going to need to, if you believe it should be different than that, you're going to need to have a pretty compelling reason for it. I also think though, it's very dependent on where you are in your career. I think about myself when I started my first job out of university, it was with Deloitte consulting and some of my fondest memories are interacting with people in the office and learning from people above me that I could to use the cliche, run into them at the water cooler, for those that are later in their career, who have developed those relationships with other people at the company, but also with their clients and with leadership.
Matthew (15:41):
It's pretty easy to jump on a quick video conference with somebody who you had interacted with in the past in person and keep that relationship going. And as a result, you don't have to commute. You don't have to deal with being in an office and all of the both good and bad things that come with that. So I think our clients that are doing best by their employees are thinking strategically about the fact that not every employee is in the same state of mind in terms of what they want out of an office or a remote culture.
Erin (16:15):
Yeah. I love it's meeting the employees where they are at. Right. And that makes so much sense to me. And it does make a lot of sense to me, just from the clients that we work with and the people that I know who are leading teams. And I know a lot of teams were preparing to go back to work this fall full, you know, three days then, or maybe full-time back in and things that sort of shifted as we've seen this Delta variance take place. And I know that there is going to come a time when we shift back to a mostly in-person culture or maybe we won't. So I wanna, I wanna, I want to ask you this, what do you think are some of the pros to an all virtual work environment? Because at ability you're all virtual right now. So what do you think are some of the pros?
Matthew (17:05):
I think the pros are, you don't have to deal with the, we've got three people in the office, six people virtual that are dialing into this call. Is it going to be less productive for the six people who are virtual because the three people who are huddled around one computer in the office are just inevitably going to take over more of the conversation, or even if you do it wonderfully. And it's split between those who are virtual and those who are in the office, the people that were in the office, they're going to walk out of the room and, and continue the conversation. And as a result, the six people who dialed into the call are going to be less kept up. So there's something to really be said about the, all virtual environment, what we do with our trainings, if there is a hybrid component, so many of our trainings might have 20 or 30 people in one session, we do some events where five of those 20 might be in the same office together. If that's the case, those five people need to log in independently. So they each need to be a box on the Brady bunch screen. Like it needs to make sure that everybody is at the same level when it comes to their virtual interactions with everybody. Even if some people are co located in the same location.
Erin (18:25):
Okay Matthew I loved this number one, because you said Brady bunch screen. And I thought that that was just me. So thank you. I also say that gallery view on zoom is Brady bunch. Okay. number two, this is so true. And we do the same things until they make a hologram where we can show up and have a visual of everybody in the room. I just, I feel like this approach is so true, especially for people like us, who train teams. You need everybody on that same playing field, but it's also really important I think for people who are listening are failed it or failed it. That was the old name of our show matt or Matthew. So I keep, and now I've had two slips. Matthew failed, it we're improve it. And this is Matthew. Okay. but we really have just leaned into this approach of getting everybody on the same playing field in terms of platform.
Erin (19:23):
So improve it family. If you're thinking about having this hybrid approach, I really want you to listen to what Matthew just said, because it is so true. Everyone needs the same experience. And if you've got those five people in the office and you've got everybody else sitting at home, the people sitting at home are going to be definitely at a disadvantage. So I agree with that wholeheartedly. Let's flip to in-person. I want you to, if you could, in your thoughts, what are some of the pros and cons of being an all person office or an in-person office? I should say all in person.
Matthew (20:01):
A big advantage is I think you don't have to be as deliberate when there will be some interactions that will just happen spontaneously. That's a big advantage in some sense. And there is something to be said with this, person's going to share their screen because we're all virtual and we can't get around the same screen and just talk about it. And work is more distracting when the, you know, the laundry's going or dinner is ready to, you know, get started. And all of those things potentially take people away a little bit, my dream scenario, or I think where we're heading as for our organization. And I'm talking less about the work that we do, meaning the simulations we deliver for our clients. I'm more talking about how we operate as a company. I think we're going to be much more deliberate with company off-sites. I wrote an article that said that company offsites are going to be, become the new brainstorming on-sites because what I think is what we're going to have to do is we're going to have to say, okay, the world is going to be much more virtual, much more hybrid than it ever was.
Matthew (21:14):
So we're going to have to be more deliberate that when we get together, it's at the point of the year that we do strategic planning, because that was something that actually worked really well when we could sit around a whiteboard and brainstorm together and go to lunch and get off site and do the types of things that help that sort of work. But that requires a really intentional scheduling at the beginning of the year, when you have people coming in from all around the country, in all different parts of town, making sure that their calendars are blocked long in advance. So they know when the onsite in-person time is going to be.
Erin (21:51):
Yeah, I feel you on that so much. And I think that's resonating with a lot of people. And I think that we've found in this new virtual world that we can get a lot of work done autonomously and then come together when those brainstorms need to happen. So what would you say to a leader who's listening today who might be pushing their team or, you know, gently guiding, pushing seems mean gently guiding their team to go back to the office Full-time what's what would you say to them?
Matthew (22:26):
My first question would be, have you had individual independent conversations with everybody on your team? And do you feel like you have an accurate assessment of what they think? Because I do know that there are people on our team who hope that we get together more in person, whether that's at coworking spaces, at coffee shops, whether that's back in an office setting. And so we're trying to think really strategically about what teams should get together in person when, with what context and what should our entire team do in terms of getting back together. So my first question or conversation point with that hypothetical person is do you feel like you have had appropriate conversations and you have an accurate representation of what your team would want in a perfect scenario? You can't please everybody all of the time, but I think the first step is to really understand what people would want.
Erin (23:26):
Yes. Amen amen, sometimes you get a church Matthew on this show that was your church choir. Okay. Flipping the script a little bit and I'm going to take away the script. Have you ever done improv before Matthew?
Matthew (23:46):
I have not.
Erin (23:48):
Okay. Do you know any of the fundamentals of improvisational comedy
Matthew (23:53):
Potentially, but I would necessitate a refresher.
Erin (24:00):
I love that. I love that. Okay. So let me ask you this, knowing like that you, you probably know the rule of yes. And in the world of improv, you might know that obviously improv is going without a script being present in the moment, postponing judgment, allowing others to share ideas from what you know of improv and from the show on your podcast, which I'm going to plug learn to lead that you and I did. What would you say to anybody in the improve it! Family about how you could use the fundamentals of improv in this new hybrid world? What are some of the ways you can use this knowledge of what your limited knowledge of improv is to help people in this hybrid world?
Matthew (24:45):
I'd go off the first one that you said with the yes and. So let's hypothetically say that you're a leader. You take my advice and you start to have conversations with everybody about what type of work they want going forward. And somebody gives you what you would probably best describe as somewhat of a canned professional answer, because it would be scary for me as a young professional to share with my leader that given that I'm an introvert and I hate my commute, I'm really pumped that we're still all remote and I kind of want that to continue. So as a leader, if you got some sort of a canned response of, I will do whatever the organization says and I miss my coworkers and obviously I love everybody. And I would, that would be great to get back in person and drink crappy coffee. Then I would say something of a yes and where maybe you could structure it as yes they can. But honestly, if we just stayed fully remote, would you be okay with that too? Or in a situation where we designed a more hybrid approach, what would you want a hybrid approach to look like? And I think if you show as a leader that you're open to dissenting viewpoints, or you want to brainstorm with somebody, all potential outcomes, I think you might start to hear the passion in their voice when you start to ask them about what could be their ideal situation.
Erin (26:08):
Yes. And I mean, they're singing on the show, you're getting it all right now, Matthew, but I love that answer. And you nailed it. That's exactly what yes. And is you're listening to other's ideas. You're making them feel heard you're coming to the table with ideas, but allowing others to add ideas on top of it. So I would say you should bump up the category of improv knowledge to intermediate. Okay. I'm going to give you an intermediate skill level of improv. You nailed that. We also say here at improve it, that it can mean so many different things to so many different people, but what would you say is your it, or the one thing that you feel like you're put here to do on earth? This is a philosophical question, but what would you say is your it?
Matthew (27:02):
Big pause before that one? I would say to have fun and make an impact. I believe that there's an element of balance that's necessary, no matter what you do. And to me, a big part of the balance is I don't want to do anything where I'm not having fun, but I realized that that needs to be balanced with hard work in order to open up more opportunities for fun. And in the same way, everything that I do is not going to make an impact, but I do want to balance that with the stuff that's necessary to get done when you're not making an impact, I want there to be some elements where that opens me up to be able to have a bigger impact.
Erin (27:47):
I love it. And as you know, we hate fun around here, but I will say this. I think that's a wonderful it. And I love what you're doing with this, this approach. Not only within ability, but with your clients. So I really think this conversation about virtual versus in-person work, the great debate as we call it, Matthew, but I don't really think we debate it. I just think we're giving the pros and cons on either side. So it's so important. I'm so grateful we had you, but I have one final thing before we go. This is called back from our failed it days is a little something we call fail. Yeah. And it's a lightning round of just fun questions for you. Okay. So there is a rule and improv comedy that there are no mistakes, only gifts. And we celebrate the failures. So if you're a leader listening at home and you feel like, oh, oh my gosh, I feel like I'm failing at this in-person thing.
Erin (28:44):
I'm failing at this virtual thing. Or I'm failing at this hybrid approach. That's okay. It's all a part of the scene. We're all learning as we go. So to celebrate that, we're going to do the failure lightning round. So Matthew there's no mistakes, only gifts. I'm going to ask you a series of questions and we want you to respond by we, I mean, me with a one word answer. And if you say more than one word, that's okay, but I'm going to give you a big fail. Yeah. In that like creepy, weird voice. And so this is just fun. It's a lightning round. So our team and our improve it! Family can get to know you. Are you ready for the fail? Yeah. Lightning round?
Matthew (29:23):
I believe I am.
Erin (29:25):
Matthew. Here we go. What is one word to describe your early leadership style?
Matthew (29:33):
Learning.
Erin (29:34):
What's one word to describe your current leadership style?
Matthew (29:38):
Collaborative.
Erin (29:39):
One word to describe your favorite boss.
Matthew (29:42):
Fun.
Erin (29:43):
One word to describe your least favorite boss.
Matthew (29:46):
Non-Dynamic.
Erin (29:48):
Oh okay. Fail. Well, is that a hyphen? I'm going to give it to you. There's a high, there's a hyphen. That's fair. Okay. One word to describe your work from home style.
Matthew (29:59):
Decent.
Erin (30:01):
One word to describe your speaking style.
Matthew (30:05):
Interactive.
Erin (30:06):
And one word to describe this interview.
Matthew (30:11):
Enjoyable.
Erin (30:12):
I'll take it. Thank you, Matthew. Big round of applause. You didn't fail. Yeah. You nailed it. You didn't fail it, but I want you to tell our improve it! Family how they can find you on all the social media things.
Matthew (30:28):
Well, I really appreciate it. I had a lot of fun. Matthew Confer is on most of the socials. I'm definitely the most active on LinkedIn and Twitter. You mentioned the podcast that's learned to lead. Your episode will be coming out soon. I had a wonderful time chatting with you more focused on you and your leadership and putting you on the spot. So you can definitely find that on learn to lead. And if you're interested in hybrid work and decision-making and all of that, I had the honor and privilege to deliver a TEDx talk on the topic of decision-making about two years ago. So you can find that by searching Matthew Confer and before you decide was the name of the talk.
Erin (31:07):
I love it. And we will link to that in the show notes too. I have to say, Matthew, this has been a hybrid of both fun and education edutainment. So might say so. I want to tell you, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and talents with us on the improve it! Podcast hybrid work series. Thank you, Matthew.
Matthew (31:29):
Thank you.
Erin (31:38):
All right. Improve it. Fam. If you took anything away from today's show, it is this virtual versus in person work is here to stay. There are so many different ways to look at the pros and the cons, but overall, making sure that listening to your team is so important. Improving how you listen and implement changes based off your team's needs is how you're going to retain your talent for the long term. Quick reminder, if you didn't grab the PDF that goes along with our hybrid work series, the link to that is in our show notes, or you can find it on our website, learntoimprove it.com. I'll go out there, my improve it fam and improve it because the world needs that special. It that only you can break. See you next time.
Erin (32:39):
Hey friends, thanks for tuning in to improve it. I am so happy you are along for the ride. If you enjoyed this show, head on over to iTunes to leave us a five star review and subscribe to the show. So you never miss an episode. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Now, if you're really feeling today's show and you've improved it even just a little bit, please take a screenshot and tag me @keepinitrealdiehl on Instagram and share it in your stories. I'll see you next week, but I want to leave you with this thought, what did you improve today and how will that help your future successful self? Think about it. I am rooting for you and the world needs that special it that only you can bring.