E5 | The Importance Of Work Agreements | Nancy H. Spiegel

Welcome to lead with a coaching mindset, a podcast where every conversation sparks new ideas on how the best leaders unlock their followers potential. I am Dr Damian Goldberg, and I am here to inspire you to become the best leader you can be be sure you subscribe and rate us. Let's jump right in. Today. We have with us, Nancy Spiegel. Nancy has been with Kaiser Permanente for 30 years, and currently She's the executive leader for medical education, leadership, development and wellness, and it's great to have you here. We have known each other for a few years, and I really respect you. Admire the work that you do, and it's great that we are lucky to have you here with us to share a little bit about your experiences as a leader, and I know that you're very aligned with many of the ideas presented in the book I live with the coaching mindset. And when we were planning for the podcast for today, we decided to focus on one of the chapters that is about contracting and how to build effective relationships. So first of all, Nancy, welcome to our podcast.

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, for inviting me. I loved your book, so I'm excited to talk about it.

Great. So when I share with you the book and I ask you, you know what chapter sound interesting to you? You tell me, I want to talk about contracting and building relationships and clarifying expectations. What made you choose that chapter from the other ones?

That's a great question. I think contracting is so basic, so important, that if you don't contract, well, you're already in the hole. It's hard to get out of it. It messes up everything else. So I think if you don't do it, and if you don't do it properly, nothing else is going to be as good as it could be, and you may wind up actually having some damage to the relationship to the work. I think, to me, it's just foundational. It's a must,

when you get word, foundational made me think about a house. You know, the house has a foundation, and when the foundation is not good, the house will not be in a good place. There you go. Think that you had word foundational. I really agree with you. Now, many times leaders don't spend enough time thinking about that or realizing how important it is. My experience is sometimes they give it for granted. They hope that things are going to work out well, and they are not intentional about contracting. And here it's important to clarify. When we're talking about contracting, what we are talking about is our clarifying expectations. We are clarifying how we are going to be working together. What do we expect and what do we need from each other to make this work

exactly? And I think it's also nice to throw in some other things. What's my preference? How do I want to be communicated with? How do you like to be communicated with? What can you expect when you send me an email? Will you get an answer immediately or maybe a day or two later? What's my work style? How can I typically get a hold of you if we have a conversation and you express an opinion? Does it mean that's an order or that's an opinion if we disagree, is that fatal, or is that an interesting difference of opinion? Recently, I was in a meeting with someone at work, and this person is an expert in communication, and I wanted to include something in someone's speech, and they disagreed with it. This woman has had some very difficult bosses. You can hear her shaking in her voice, where she's trying to tell me, I don't think this is a good idea. Instead of just clearly saying this, she said, Well, you asked for my opinion, so I'm just answering your question, and she's trying to disagree, and it's perfectly okay. She's being paid to be an expert in communication, in speech, writing. I want to hear that opinion. She's not used to that, and no one's ever said when I ask your opinion, I need you to answer honestly. I don't want all the prior trauma that she's experienced to get in the way of her expert opinion. I really want to hear that expert opinion, but she's not had those experiences. So afterwards, we talked a little bit about like, why were you so nervous? To say this, and she's had a lot of bad stories where people prior weren't clear about are you allowed to disagree with

me? That's a great story. And I think that clarifying what we need, particularly, for example, about disagreements or about conflict, to the extent that we can have big conversations when they happen, we are ready. They're not surprises. But I think sometimes people are afraid about talking about that. They think that we have an expression in Spanish that is called when you open the umbrella before it's raining. You got something like that in English. But sometimes people think that way. Say why we're going to be talking about the things. But I agree with you, to the extent that we can clarify expectation, people may feel more confident. For example, disagree, you know, being in another ideas or, you

know, it's funny that you say that, particularly around conflict, because one of my contracting questions, typically is inevitably, you and I are going to disagree. How will we handle the disagreement? And you know, Damien, I get a lot of nervous laughter. People don't even want to talk about it, let alone disagree and have an argument. They don't even want to talk about the possibility. But how would it be possible for people to be in a long term relationship and not have a conflict that doesn't seem like an actual human relationship? So it's inevitable. It's going to happen. Let's plan before it happens, just the way we plan before the rain happens, we should buy the umbrella. We should get that ready for us. But it is interesting to me how people don't like to talk about conflict, but people don't even like to talk about contracting or having some work agreements. It seems like you know, the belief is, if you're the manager, everyone should, I think it therefore, you know, you should be able to read my mind. We don't have to talk about any of this. And it's very odd to me how hesitant people are to talk about this and to make our expectations clear to one another? I always thought Damien and maybe I'm mistaken. I'm working in healthcare with a lot of super smart physicians. I think they think everybody knows this. Why do we need to talk about it? Or the other thing that I see is, let's just get into it. Even. What is the task? What are the expectations? What's the goal of the work? Just, let's get into it. Let's just immediately get our hands dirty and we'll get into it. And then afterwards, we can, once we're in a knot, then we can talk about it, but let's just get right into it. That doesn't seem to be an a practical way to work.

I agree with you, it's not as effective. I have seen over the years that for many leaders, this may be a blind spot. Sometimes I say we don't know what we don't know. We cannot action and do things in areas that we cannot see, but when we're intentional about setting relationships for success, we create a context where we intentionally clarify what we need, what is appropriate, what are the expectations and what are the needs. And you're saying we may have different styles. So sometimes when we're starting new relationships, the leader may be able to choose the person, sometimes not the case. But when there is an interviewing process, the questions and they you start building the relationship and getting to know each other from that interviewing process, right? So here again, how assertive and how intentional either leader in coming up with a question that will help them to find the right person, because many times there are conflict and things do not work because it was a wrong choice. Yeah, sometimes people may have the skills, but may not be a good match for the organization,

absolutely. And we see that because, you know, people want different things, and it's not right or wrong, it's just different stuff. And there was someone fairly recently at the School of Medicine that we interviewed, and she really loves project management, and that came out in the interview when we started asking some questions, and we tried to create, you know, she was in this job, and it wasn't really project management, but we tried to give her some projects so that she could exercise those skills. But in the. Long run, it just wasn't the right fit. It wasn't a project management job, and we kind of knew we weren't surprised when she left. This just wasn't what she asked for. So sometimes you try to make a fit, but in the long run, when someone's not happy, we don't want her to suffer. We don't want to suffer. It was just better to depart.

Yeah, now, in terms of setting up for success a relationship, one of the questions that you just asked, I really like it, too, is what success look for you so you can have it picture about the desired future together. What do you need? Like, I heard another question that is helpful. In this case, you see, what do you need from me as a leader? Because different people need different things. Yes, and not give for granted that what we want from our leaders is what people working for us want from us. Yeah. So clarifying that I do believe that makes a big difference. It's for leaders knowing what people need from them,

absolutely. I mean, not only could it be different, sometimes I've asked that question of some people, they've come up with things I never would have even imagined. So not only is it not necessarily my preference, I never thought of it. And they're interesting things. They're legitimate things, but it just wasn't anything that I thought of so like you in Myers Briggs, I'm not a detail oriented person. I wouldn't have thought of those things, but they had some good things that they wanted, and I can deliver those things, and it makes them happy. That's all good, good to know

there is anything else that is coming up for you around contracting that you would like to share? Good

Well, when I train leaders coaches, anything that they do is mandatory to have the camera on. Okay, good, good. Because that means that they are there. If the camera is not on, they may be doing something else, multitasking that we had all became experts during covid, and that's maybe they can be doing both things, being in the meeting and doing something else, but the presence is completely different. So when you're turning the camera means okay, you are there, you cannot be doing something else, even though sometimes people I see that they have two computers and they're looking at other computer and doing something else. I still see that, but, or you can listen, you know people writing and doing something else, but they do believe that this is again about clarifying expectations. Yeah, in the beginning, yes, this is an organization who have not done that. I work with other organizations who are not effective in contracting and clarifying expectations. So these meetings, half of the people are not expecting them to turn on their cameras. So it's tricky, because it's their homes. But you can have a background. You can put a different background. Doesn't have to be your house. So the issue that you cannot see the background of your house. You can manage it. But I do believe that hybrid work doesn't be that people are doing other things, but it may be the case where there is a contract where they work from home and they can take a break to take the kids to school or to do other things, but that's part of the contract. It's clarifying. There is clarity since the beginning. Okay, this is how you're going to work. You're going to have one hour for break, for lunch. I may have 30 minutes in the morning for break, 30 minutes in the afternoon to take the kids to school, and then my day finish one hour later. So that's part of contacting so it's expected, so people are not using their work time to do something else, because that is the main issue, I think, is, what are people really working on doing something else? Right? I remember a year ago, I read an article in the newsletter in the newspaper that says people. Were having two jobs, working for two jobs at the same time. So there is a percentage, small percentage that may take advantage, yes, yes, she's a way of working. And many times, because of that small percentage, a bigger percentage may get in some way penalized in terms of rules or ways of working, but at the end of the day, Nancy, I think that when you are clear about how you're going to be working, what is expected for some jobs, it's not important how many hours people work by the quality of the work. Because you may be working for a document and working in a great document, you may can make it in two hours, and a colleague of you may take the whole day to do it. So what at the end of the day? What is the quality of the document? What really matters? How do you manage that? That's tricky.

I agree with you. It's funny. You mentioned a few things that triggered some other conversations I've had with people. People are at home. Some of my folks have young children or cats, and sometimes in the camera, their dog walks through. It's been very interesting to see some people's reactions where it's like, Oh, my God, this is terrible. And or sometimes the little kid comes in and says, Mommy, look, I just did this to me. I find all of that charming, and they're very embarrassed, and I want to let them know don't be this is okay. And you know, if they were at work, they might show me a picture of their child, and that would be lovely. This way we get to say hello on the camera. I get to see their pet, and it makes the relationship a little larger. What I don't like, and I have said and, you know, I don't know why, one I'd like and one I don't like, but it's funny to me. It's sort of like someone's at home. Of course, the pet is going to be walking by, or the kid's going to be walking by. That's normal. Why are we pretending that we're not at home? What I don't like, though, is we've had some people in their cars going to and from and picking up things and shopping and in the grocery store, and there I find, you know, that's like, one step too far. I

agree with you. I agree with you. I have seen people in pajamas in their beds, even when somebody went to have a shower and got naked with a camera. Oh, that's not very common thing, that the the issue is respecting the other people. And I believe that sometimes people do not have good ideas about how to be respectful of the other people. So for example, in my programs, when I work with anybody, I said, if you need to eat, it's okay. I don't care if you're eating in the meeting, like it will be together, and when it's eating, it's okay. You may turn off the sounds I don't hear you, you know, like you are eating and see, but they don't need to listen how you eat. But no public places or not in movement, because even people who are not driving, somebody is driving, then they're going to airport. Still, you see the movement. And that's not right to see somebody like with a lot of movement in the background. Or if you're in a restaurant, is very noisy with a lot of people around you, yeah. So one of the things I consider important is to clarify that not public places for meetings to be in a public place and you need to attend. In that case, turn off your camera, turn on your sound. And sometimes it may or may not be appropriate for you to even participate. Sometimes people need to go to meetings, and not important for them to have the camera on or the microphone only, it depends on the context, but if it is expected for people to interact and to participate, I think that that is, again, part of contracting.

I agree. I like that distinction, not in public. It's just too distracting.

Or even somebody in the treadmill like they were, like, you're working in the meeting. And I said, please don't do that, because for us, it's like, come to the meeting like you will go to a work meeting where you dress up. You don't need to use a tie or a coat, but go to a meeting, dress up for a meeting, not from your bed like you know you're watching TV. Like this sounds common sense that is not so common, you know.

And some boundaries, some professional boundaries, right? The other thing that you wrote about, that I really liked in this chapter was the notion about it's hard to collaborate when you're remote. Maybe make some. Play time intentionally in your meetings. One of the things that I've noticed with remote work is at a certain time the meeting is on, everyone turns on, and we just begin the meeting, and then the time is over, and everyone presses leave, and the meeting is done in real life, in if we were in person, I might get there five minutes early. You might get there three minutes early. We're looking at each other, we're talking, we're chatting. We discover we like, you know, we're the same, Myers, Briggs type. We do a little bit of bonding, some small talk. The meeting is over. I don't get up immediately. You don't get up immediately. We're talking a little bit longer. We're just in remote work. That doesn't happen that way. So I've tried where I can to build in some of that. Sign on at this time. We won't get started till that time. We're going to be doing some things, just so that people have a little bit of chance to talk to one another and to use it. Quote, the downtime, which isn't really downtime, it is bonding time. Get to know you time. You know, we can make use of that. One of the things I've done is, at the start of some meetings, just ask people, find a cartoon, find something that describes how you're feeling today, and everyone signs on with that, and then we look at that for a few minutes and talk about it, so that people have a chance to get to know each other. Get a chance to bond. It's hard to collaborate when the meeting starts and then it's over, and that's

it. What is another example Nancy about being intentional, about creating the kind of culture in your organization that you want. So when you have some time for people to socialize, get to know each other. Team building can be exercised when you start your session. Like every time that you start, you spend 10 minutes doing a check in sometimes there are different techniques, like what you are saying. Other techniques, for example, using metaphors today, like the weather. For example, if there will be a weather, what kind of weather are you today, or different feelings with faces, and you have to choose one that represents how you're feeling today. And it depends on how people know each other, what you can ask sometimes, if it is Monday, you may ask people about the weekend, whatever they want to share, or anything that get people to know each other better, where they have also space to share as much as they want, without feeling any pressure that they have to disclose, that they may not want to disclose, but just as an opportunity to connect. So this is what you're sharing. Is another opportunity to connect before meetings, because many times working virtually that not allow for that level of connection, exactly. And in the book I comment on a article about loneliness, I could just bring this up. Yes, people may feel very lonely at work, even though they may have these meetings. And Harvard Business Review has an article about it that I'm mentioning in my book, and talks about that, it's how lonely people feel because they don't have that connection. So sometimes even some leaders organize happy hours. So social time, Friday, one hour, join us to catch up to talk about, how about your week in a relaxed space, so as a way of connection. So looking for different ways to connect people in creative ways.

Exactly It is really sad. The Surgeon General Report on loneliness. It's so prevalent, and the remote work situation doesn't help it very much.

No, yeah. Nancy, thank you very much for your time, for your support. Anything else you want to say before we

go? Just again I'm going to repeat I really enjoyed the book. I think it's just chock full of wisdom.

Thank you. Thank you very much for the feedback, for being here with us today, and I look forward to having you back in the

future. Thank you. Thanks again,

and that's a wrap up for today's lead with the coaching mindset. I am Damien Goldberg, thrilled to have shared this time with you. Don't forget to subscribe and give us a rating. Stay excited for more episodes. Take care and keep living with the coaching mindset. You.