Joanie Connell: The Evolution of Remote Work
In this episode, Sarah Tenisi speaks with Dr. Joanie B. Connell, President of Flexible Work Solutions and development expert focused on career and leadership consulting. Her mission is to help technical experts transform into leaders comfortable with managing people and through emotionally-charged situations.
She is the author of the two books Consulting to Technical Leaders, Teams, and Organizations: Building Leadership in STEM Environments and Flying without a Helicopter: Preparing Young People for Work and Life.
Listen in as Joanie does a deep dive into leading remote teams in a post-lockdown world. She talks in particular on how to speak with introverts versus extroverts, and how leaders can create a culture of thorough communication and accountability without individual team members losing the ability to stay creative and flexible in their work
Joanie also offers tips on onboarding employees for remote teams, as well as providing feedback to employees who have fallen short of the mark.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- [01:54] Establishing Flexible Work Solutions during a time when remote work was uncommon
- [05:16] How COVID transformed work
- [07:55] Different employee types and their different needs
- [11:05] Introverts and remote work
- [14:56] Onboarding employees for remote teams
- [17:36] Joanie’s journey from engineer to leadership coach
- [22:28] About Joanie’s books and podcast, Reinventing Nerds
- [26:50] The importance of empathy in technical leadership
- [29:02] Getting “big picture” leaders to appreciate the details
- [30:26] Managing introverted and extroverted employees remotely
- [34:15] The importance of accountability and setting expectations with employees
- [38:56] How being hyper-focused on numbers negatively impacts culture
- [44:03] How to check in and give feedback to employees that need improvement
Key quotes:
- “Flexibility isn’t just about managing family responsibilities. People in San Diego want flexibility so they can surf in the morning! You have different generations of people with different challenges and interests.”
- “When onboarding people, one of the things that is really challenging in any context, but especially remotely, is giving people tacit knowledge: unwritten rules about your company culture and norms.”
- “As a leader, the best thing you can have is a good reputation to attract other people to your team.”
