Tyler Sellhorn (00:02):
Hello everyone. My name is Tyler Sellhorn and welcome to another episode of The Remote Show, where we discuss everything to do with remote work with the people who know it best. Thanks so much for listening. The Remote Show is brought to you by We Work Remotely, the largest community of remote workers in the world. With over 220,000 unique users per month, We Work Remotely is the most effective way to hire.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (00:21):
Today, we are blessed to be learning out loud with Dallas Henry. Dallas is a high energy junior tech executive at Google with 14 years of Army experience, and he is the founder of Henry Engagements, a firm focused on team building and executive coaching. He currently serves as an executive officer in the Army Reserves, and while on active duty, Dallas served in Afghanistan, completed ranger school and competed on the Army's international running team.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (00:46):
As the founder of Henry Engagements, Dallas teaches his open heart leadership model, which focuses on inside out growth and developing authentic connection. Dallas and his team lead various team building sessions, offer one-on-one coaching and are proud to work with a diverse set of clients making growth easy. Dallas lives in Austin, Texas with his wife of 11 years, Asher, and their three year old daughter, Evelyn. So Dallas, tell us, how have you been able to use your experiences as an Army officer, as a technology executive and a business coach?
 
Dallas Henry (01:15):
Tyler, thanks so much for having me. Really excited to be here today. As I think about this question, it actually came up with a conversation just yesterday with one of my mentors. It's be the best version of your own leader. What do I mean by that? So much of my time in the military, Tyler, and then starting out at Google and then as I see myself in interactions and coaching junior executives now, it's been folks playing the role of a leader or trying to be like that commander or like that senior director and communicate just the way she did.
 
Dallas Henry (01:44):
It's about removing the imposter syndrome and it's about serving those around you, your team members, your faculty, your staff, your leadership with the skillsets that you were hired to utilize. No one's brought onto a team to be someone else. They're brought on a team to be themselves. Stop trying to pretend to be someone else. Tyler, I cannot tell you how many times I thought, "Ooh, I like the way Major [Dresh 00:02:06] does that. I can do that. Ooh, I like the way Jennifer does that. I can do that." No, remove the imposter syndrome. Serve others with the gifts you have. Don't try and adopt the gifts you see others utilize well.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (02:17):
Awesome. Well, shout out to Major Dresh and Jennifer.
 
Dallas Henry (02:20):
That's right.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (02:21):
We appreciate your model.
 
Dallas Henry (02:23):
Thank you.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (02:23):
As we've been growing together. So you said a phrase there that I happen to be a huge fan of, right? It's even kind of part of my mission as a leader, right, is to say, okay, how can we hold the space for others to choose their best selves? That's my version of be the best version of your own leader, right? You kind of gave us a hint at it when you said imposter syndrome and kind of removing some of those sort of behaviors of trying to be somebody else when you're showing up as a leader. But what does it mean to be the best version of your own leader?
 
Dallas Henry (02:59):
Yeah. You and I have had some offline conversations, but I think it goes back to authenticity and there's lots of good research out there about that, but how are you being authentic to yourself. Something that we talk a lot about with folks and that I try and practice is I used to always ask my teams to be agile and adaptive. Early in my management career, I was asking my teams, "Hey, I changed the model a little bit with me. I'm a little bit different. I speak slightly differently." Then I realized. No, no, no. I need to be the agile. I need to be the adaptive one. So finding what was my best version of leader was one that was incredibly mobile to what the team at the time needed.
 
Dallas Henry (03:33):
That can change by the day of week, that can change by the timezone, that can change by whether you're remote or live. So I think for each of us, it's a very unique thing, but it starts with remembering you're perfect just as you are, you belong to be here doing what you're doing. You have to trust the people that put you in that position, the folks that hired you, the manager that selected you. You have to trust them and you have to bring all of the skills that you have. For me, it's being agile out and adaptive to the needs of those I've been asked to lead or the needs of those that I've been asked to work under.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (04:04):
Really cool. Because you said it again there at the end. I'm hearing you say that being agile and adaptive, right, is something distinct from pretending to be something that you're not, right? What I'm hearing you say, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, but what I'm hearing you say is that as a leader, if I'm going to be agile and adaptive to serve the needs of the people that are working with me, right, I can't be projecting some version of myself that isn't authentic.
 
Dallas Henry (04:33):
Absolutely, yes.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (04:34):
Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. So when you think about analogizing your experience is in Afghanistan as a ranger, as an athlete, right, what are the things that you really have carried forward for yourself when it comes to business, right? This is something that happened when I was serving on a tour of duty, or this is something that I experienced in ranger training, or this is something that I experienced as a runner or as a running coach. What are the things that you bring with you that show up every day?
 
Dallas Henry (05:11):
Yeah, for me, it goes back to, and you'll hear me say this a lot today, Tyler, it goes back to servanthood and service. So I'll tell an old war story from ranger school. The general construct of ranger school is it's a 60 day a training event where you're partnered with a group of peers you don't know. No one wears rank. So you could be with a colonel or a private, you don't know. This group of you, you do continuous missions out in the woods or in the mountains or in the swamps. I had a particular skillset that I could serve my group with, I was very good at writing what we call the mission orders. So whoever was in charge, they could select one scribe. So I always went and I was the scribe.
 
Dallas Henry (05:45):
Well, while you're the scribe and while you're getting the mission, you're either eating or you're doing hygiene or [inaudible 00:05:52] you're sleeping if you're someone else. I did this for about 56 days straight, and not every day, but five out of seven days, you're conducting continuous 24 hour mission sleeping very little. I was happy to be the writer. I was happy to ingest. I was happy to use my tactical savvy of military training doctrine to put together the best plans for my peers who were in "leadership".
 
Dallas Henry (06:12):
Then my final day of my mission where I was in charge, I had to pass this so I could graduate school, right? If you don't pass ranger school, you go back to the beginning. So I've written dozens of orders and missions for my friends. I got to the point where I was so exhausted and had slept so little and eaten so little. I absolutely do not remember, and it makes me emotional to be telling the story, I don't remember my final we call it patrols, Tyler. But somehow I graduated. Somehow I made it through. I truly have zero recollection and it's not fun to shine and tell the story, "Oh, I kind of remember."
 
Dallas Henry (06:44):
No, no, no. I couldn't tell you a thing about it. But what I learned was my friends picked me up, my friends took care of me, my friends that I took care of for the last 60 days wrote the mission order for me. So what do I take and fast forward into the tech space, into private consulting? Serve as long as you can, however you can, as hard as you can. At some point, you won't be able to. You'll be in a room where you don't understand the problem. You'll be in a space where you don't know how to read that type of code. You'll be in an area where you don't understand that series of funding or how to secure that level of funding.
 
Dallas Henry (07:15):
I understand series B, how does it differ from series C. Then those around you who you have taken care of previously and served previously will pick you up. Again, let's take this all the way back to that first question about being the best version of the leader as you can. Play your role as well as you can, for as long as you can, then you can't step back, be agile, pick up a new role and then learn. That's what it was at ranger school. I did everything I could for as long as I could until I couldn't.
 
Dallas Henry (07:40):
Then when I was out and down, everyone picked me up and made sure I still passed because I did that for them. I do that in the tech space. I do that in the private sector and I continue to do that. My Army career is at some point you have to hand over the reigns, at some point you need others to help take care of you and they will. That's been really, really fun for me to see public and private.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (08:00):
Yeah. I just want to draw out some of the words that you used there. Having an orientation towards service and servanthood. Even the way that ranger school was organized, right, to say that, "Okay, we're going to dismiss any sort of previous hierarchy that existed amongst this group of people. We're going to say everybody's flat. Rangers are going to have to get the job done wherever they happen to be dropped out." For those of you that aren't familiar with Rangers in the United States Army, they are special operations soldiers that are given wide latitude to choose the initiative that they are going to be completing as soldiers. There is obviously a scope of work to be done.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (08:43):
In fact, this is my favorite analogy for remote working, generally, right, is that I think that Naval officers were some of the very first successful remote workers, where it's like, okay, you're going to go off and you're going to be completely separate from the command and control structure of the Navy. But now, you've got to figure out how to navigate to the end goals and objectives, kind of those sorts of things. So that experience of you working together with your ranger cohort is to say, "Okay, we are counting on one another to lift one another up, to be able to complete this as a group." Obviously, there are individual outcomes of am I a ranger or not at the end, right?
 
Dallas Henry (09:24):
Yes.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (09:24):
But there is the collective that's required to be able to go there. I guess maybe that's what I'm interested to hear you talk more about is to say, well, how do we balance those two ideas, right? You've got this idea of servanthood, right, and others centeredness, right? But then also there is the individual outcomes that are desired. Everybody's there at ranger school attempting to become a ranger, right, and that outcome is going to be for each individual, not necessarily for the cohort itself. So how do we balance those things even beyond just ranger school, but thinking about what's in it for me, but then also we have this responsibility to one another? How do you think about that?
 
Dallas Henry (10:04):
Yeah, it's an incredible question. A lot of the struggle with this even in industry and private life of, well, I still need to take care of me and I still need to take care of my family. I'll tell you another just quick story. I was a pretty good athlete. I was a pretty good runner in college. I really, really enjoyed working with my team. I was always really good on my relays. I was always really good during cross country, which were all team events. They're scored as a team. When I was running professionally, I was fine. I hung around. I qualified for U.S. championships, but nobody was showing up to watch me and it was because I didn't have a team and I realized no one's relying and you'll give up on yourself far sooner than you'll give up on a team.
 
Dallas Henry (10:41):
So back to your point of, well, when do we take care of our own ends, if you will, as opposed to the team? What I find is when you serve only yourself, when you only take care of your grade, your promotion, your rank, gosh, it just kind of feels empty. Sometimes I'd rather work through a loss with a team than celebrate a win alone. A key methodology that I practice and that I teach a lot is, first of all, serve down. That doesn't mean you need to be a manager, but there are folks underneath you inherently that need your support, that needs your mentorship, that needs your coaching. Start there.
 
Dallas Henry (11:11):
Serve down, take care of those, to your left and your right then up. If you're taking care of those, and again, think about yourself in the middle of this ladder, those beneath you, those to your left and your right and those above you, if you take care of those folks, well, goodness gracious, you're going to be fine at the end of the day. If you're not, one, you'll be able to live with it. Two, go find another organization and you may be in the wrong organization.
 
Dallas Henry (11:33):
So how do I balance it? I have done the individual accolades. I have had high achievement individually. It really feels empty. If you can't do it with others, if you can't share that connection in that community, gosh, it just ends up feeling empty quick. I think there's always a balance. Of course, you've got to make sure that you're employed, but doing it and doing it together is far more satisfying.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (11:56):
Cosigned on choosing the team. Some of you that have been listening for a while know that I'm a huge team sports person. One of the phrases that I think is really useful is that there is no I in team, of course, but there is an M and an E that somehow finds its way back to you, right? In the way that Dallas is suggesting that serving down and serving laterally inside of the organizations you belong to is going to be clear to the outcomes that are produced by the group that you belong to.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (12:26):
You mentioned running and you've also done some running coaching yourself. When you think about those sorts of experiences, can you draw out some lessons for us to learn as it relates to just what you're talking about with serving down? Serving the student athletes that you've coached, what are the types of things that you think about would be useful for the audience when you think about coaching in a running environment? We just talked about the whole idea of in track and field, there's one person with the metal, right?
 
Dallas Henry (12:54):
Truly.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (12:54):
But so often that training is done inside of a cohort.
 
Dallas Henry (12:58):
It is. Yeah. So a couple thoughts come to mind real quickly. Running is a beautiful analogy for a lot of things in life. There is one person wearing the metal and I'm okay to say for a lot of my life and a lot of my career, I was that person wearing the medal. Then I got to a point where, well, I wasn't that person wearing the medal anymore. There's always someone better. The first thing I found was if we're measuring winning by who's owning and who has the medal at the end of the day, we might want to rethink it.
 
Dallas Henry (13:22):
What about the person who shows up every day? What about the person who gets the maximum out of their gifts? What about the person who enables everyone else's success? Maybe they're the slowest leg on the four person relay, but if you didn't have that fourth person, you wouldn't have a relay. So this is something, and I've got a few friends that jump out as I think about it from university that when I first got there, I was kind of looking down at them. I'm like, "Man, you're not as good as I am. You should be on the march like I am." Then fast forward four years later as seniors and I grew to almost despise and looked down at a few of our very high-end athletes who were skipping practice, who weren't running every race and you begin remeasure what success and what winning looks like and it's about getting the maximum out of what you physically have.
 
Dallas Henry (14:02):
If the only person that was good at running was the person that won the Olympic gold, well, you would not see the droves and droves of middle school, high school, collegiate and then local runners out there because it's a personal challenge what's the most I can get out of myself. So that's the first thing I think about is I love it because it's the easiest to identify who won and who lost, but then you flip on your head quickly and see some of the races I won. I wasn't the top performer because I didn't get my maximum out. I didn't run the best race. I just happened to be slightly more gifted for some reason and so I got to win. But did that mean I was the winner? So that's one thing that I've really, really used to coach a lot of people, some great adages there.
 
Dallas Henry (14:38):
The second thing that I think we can take in life, in business, personal coaching is the same model doesn't work for everything. If you and I show up Tyler to the first day of practice, well, I should be on a training plan and you should be on a training plan. If we just rubber stamp, hey, everybody's running nine miles today and nine miles tomorrow and nine miles the next day, that'll generally work for the mass, but it will not work for everyone. It's the same thing in our relationships. It's the same thing in business. It's a very tailored, let's go back to earlier, an agile and adaptive approach, meet Tyler where he is, what do you need?
 
Dallas Henry (15:08):
Wow, Tyler, your speed is great. You just need endurance. Let's work on your endurance. Dallas, your speed's awful. Your endurance is great. We need foot traffic time for you. So that's the other thing I really enjoy to coach is tinkering and learn and understanding what does this young athlete need. Maybe it's just the mental side of the game that some athletes need. So as a coach, we have to be very, very adaptive to meet the needs of the individual, to maximize them, to allow them to unlock it on the field of play, on the course or on the track. I love those adages because they come right along and they work in business as well. I have a blast using some of those lessons.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (15:41):
Oh, thank you for that segue already. I was just going to ask, okay, so let's zoom into the business application, right? Can you think of any examples of where this has popped up for you in your coaching practice or as an executive?
 
Dallas Henry (15:55):
Blind spots is the first thing that comes to me and giving up on yourself, right? Let's stay with the running, because I'm in that zone. You got me in the zone now, Tyler. Let's stay in the running zone. A lot of times you'll see people choose to slow down in a race or they'll give up slightly or they'll say, "Well, okay. I'm okay with fifth." When you say I'm okay with fifth, you're not only making a decision for you, you're making a decision for everyone in front of you. Meaning, well, none of them are going to slow down, I can't catch any of them. No, no, no. Force them to decide things later. You keep pushing.
 
Dallas Henry (16:22):
What am I saying? Don't sell yourself short. I have a really, really close friend, been doing some coaching. She's a VP at a distribution company in LA and she just continually comes to me every now and then with a problem. I'm like, "Mindy, there's not a decision point yet." I use the adage, develop the situation. Make small decisions. Don't make big decisions. Well, do you think this is a good client to move forward with? No. Why? Well, they don't reflect our values. Well, then that's a very easy decision. Well, do you think that client's a good decision? Well, I don't know enough about them.
 
Dallas Henry (16:49):
So develop the situation. Continue to foster the relationship. Oftentimes people will make big decisions far too early in a process. Again, whether it's a own career navigation, I'm not sure if I'm right for that job. Well, who said you're not right for that job? How about you go interview? You don't have a decision yet to make, Tyler. When you go to the interview, you're offered the role. You see the offer letter, you're offered the location, hopefully remote. Then you have a decision to make.
 
Dallas Henry (17:13):
So very similar, running. The biggest presence that I see is decisions that remove them from the running, pun intended, whether it's with a client, whether it's for a role, whether it's for a promotion, whether it's for a career pivot, whether, again, it's for a series of funding raise. Well, what if we don't have any investors? Well, that's not a decision for today. Let's go solicit and see if we have any investors. So for me, it's developed the situation and make small decisions, not big decisions, gather additional data as you go along to make a more informed decision later.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (17:45):
Outstanding. Okay. So Dallas, you've already gotten us into the Henry Engagement side of things, right? You're hyping us a little bit. A big part of our audience are remote job seekers. When you think about what to say to people that are seeking a remote position, and we're kind of trying to shed some of that imposter syndrome that you mentioned earlier, what are some of the things that we need to keep in mind as we think about, okay, yes, I can be successful in this new way of working?
 
Dallas Henry (18:11):
Yeah, I think it's exciting. I think it's challenging. The first thing I would say is don't try and flush those feelings, don't try and run from them. They're real. It's fine. Be in that space, feel them and then decide what you're going to do about it. I've got a very, very, very good friend and mentor, really, really trusted his background and trusted his education, and for five years he was remote, orgs reconsolidate, they transfer and they kept telling him every year like, "Hey, this is the year. We've got to have you move out to California. You got to come to Silicon Valley." He said, "Sure, sure. Just let me make it through the school year."
 
Dallas Henry (18:42):
Every year at the end of the school year, they wouldn't ask. Or he was just saying, "No, I'm not going to go. You'll have to fire me and find a backfill. But you probably, they want to give me at least six months to close my projects." So they gave him six more months. Lo and behold, he's still exactly where he is. He's still in Austin.
 
Dallas Henry (18:56):
So let me go back to removing the imposter syndrome. How can I be successful in this remote environment? Know thyself, right? Sun Tzu, The Art of War. Know thyself, know that enemy. What about it is making you nervous? Are you worried you won't be able to focus? Are you worried you won't have a good setup? Are you worried you won't be able to sell your skills? I think you can address all of those with rehearsals, with practice. I brought multiple hard documents that I made in the military to my interviews at Google. I brought the most beautiful Gantt chart you've ever seen.
 
Dallas Henry (19:25):
I'll still not forget it. My friend, Ryan [Quinland 00:19:27] took it. He's like, "Can I take this? I'm showing the staff." I'm like, "It's all yours, Ryan." How can you do that in a remote environment? Can you show that I'm very engaged, I can communicate very well, my setup is very, very supportive. Timezone, I'm not worried about the timezone. What can you do to showcase maybe it's the whiteboards behind you where you have your bullets you want to talk about, maybe it's a personalized message to who you're meeting with. Decide what you think the people you're connecting with or interviewing with may have as a prejudice of working remote and then knock out every one of those targets.
 
Dallas Henry (19:56):
I tell folks all the time, and I've done interviews recently, and where I maybe wouldn't be qualified to come out and say, "Hey, listen, I haven't done a sales job before, but let me tell you why that's not going to be a problem. I've done this in a very similar fashion and I've done this. Now, if you have other folks that are more qualified that haven't done that, by all means you should hire them. But I think you're making the right choice when you choose me and here's why."
 
Dallas Henry (20:17):
Address what you think their concerns will be. Do not run from them. Acknowledge the elephant in the room. Hey, I'm willing to travel. I'll see you at least once a month or hey, I'll see you once a quarter or, hey, I'll be on a VC anytime you need me to. My standard working hours are your working hours. I work the timezone you're in, manager, boss, whatever it may be.
 
Dallas Henry (20:35):
So I think that's my biggest encouragement is decide what you're worried about, make sure you've knocked those out, whether it's work-life balance at home, or maybe you get a remote office twice a week where you can really have quiet time and not have any interruptions. Or maybe it's the prejudice you think the interviewer on the other side of the video conference might have. Address all of those and bring work examples or bring practical examples of, hey, this won't be an issue. If anything, this is actually going to be a strength.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (21:00):
Really cool. Thank you, Dallas. Okay. Let's flip that around, right? Let's imagine ourselves as that remote hiring manager. How do we make sure that we communicate to those that are seeking a job from us that we really are doing this remote thing? This isn't just 2021 pandemic land, right? No, we're serious. We're in this idea for the long haul. How do we make sure we communicate that clearly to remote job seekers?
 
Dallas Henry (21:23):
Yeah. I think it's a couple things, right? The easy answer is, oh, well you could have a stipend to help them set up their office or, oh, you could have a remote travel policy and tell them if and when they'd have... Eh, all those are kind of canned [inaudible 00:21:34]. That's easy stuff. I think it starts with a level of candor and it starts with a level of example setting. When people tell me, "Oh, we're fully remote. Where are you right now?" "Oh, we're in the headquarters." "Okay. I'm remote. You're not." Right?
 
Dallas Henry (21:48):
So that's always an interesting one. But I think it starts with a commitment to communication platforms. I think it starts to a commitment of expectation setting. Discipline. Discipline's a super fun thing, Tyler. People crave it, but they very rarely seek it out. It's okay to say, "Hey, you can work remote, but you'll working Central timezone hours. Do you support that? Are you okay with it?" That's a real thing. If it's true, then say it. So I think it needs to go beyond the words. It needs to be the actions.
 
Dallas Henry (22:19):
Where are you working from? How often do you expect me to be in a central location? What timezones do you expect me working? What is the communication strategy? How often do you expect me to be on that communication strategy? All of those things are okay things to state and to bring because you have them in the live work environment. Example given, hey Tyler, you sit there. Hey Tyler, here's your laptop. Hey Tyler, that's the conference room we use. Hey, if we have a meeting, we're expecting you to be in that conference room. Why not give structure and rigor the same as you do a live setup as you would a virtual and a fully remote setup, all of those things, timezone?
 
Dallas Henry (22:50):
Hey, expectations are, hey, I need you to have a good mic. Hey here. Here's the wifi bandwidth minimum you have to have. Go beyond just the, hey, this is very 2021. We're very, very though we're moving forward. We can do this. No, no, no. This is our business model and here's how we're going to succeed at doing it. Add a bit of rigor. Make it hurt just a little bit. Make it hurt just a little bit and people were really, really buy in just a little bit more.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (23:13):
That's interesting to hear you use the word rigorous, right, and to say, okay, this isn't something that we can do by accident, right? We have to apply the rigorous evaluation of what it is that we're doing. I'm also hearing you rhyming with the original head of remote, Darren Murphy, just that remote is a forcing function for intentionality, right? That we're going to have to be clear on what kind of example we are setting with our behaviors. We're going to have to be intentional about which types of communication norms we're going to be expecting, right?
 
Tyler Sellhorn (23:52):
You rattled them off, a few different ideas of how we can communicate clearly about what the expectations are, and in a remote environment, where are you expected to sit, right? What tools are we going to use? How do we come together when it's a conference room situation? How does that analogize to this group that is now not going to have a physical conference room anymore? What are we going to do in that space?
 
Tyler Sellhorn (24:18):
Okay. So my favorite question here to kind of conclude with our guests here recently has been to kind of zoom out, pass the nuts and bolts of like, okay, these are the things that we're doing now, but to kind of say, okay, for you, Dallas, what did you think about remote work in 2019 and before, right? Then how do you think about it now during this moment of enforced kind of work from home orders, right? Then what do you think about what is coming after say in 2022 and beyond? Give us a compare and contrast of this moment that we're in of the before times and what we're in right now and what's to come.
 
Dallas Henry (24:58):
Yeah, the before times, 2019, Dallas, I would say is full of bias, very traditional. Remember, I come from a place where you and in front of your soldiers and you salute the flag and there are detention, a very physical, tactile leadership. So 2019 Dallas full of bias, I was in Seattle. The majority of my team was in Silicon Valley and I was flying to Silicon Valley once a week because I was a very tactile leader. It was a very top down vision of culture for me. You're on my team. Now we sit. Here we go eat there. We go play putt-putt after work there. So how is it now and then we'll get to the future?
 
Dallas Henry (25:35):
Now, I think it's really been fun in that, we've talked about this earlier, too, another one that has been flipped on its head, the model of culture is now bottom up. I now meet my team where they are. Again, that's very, Instagramy Vogue to say. No, I literally meet my team in their location, Australia, Zurich, West Coast, East Coast, United States. I'm now part of their culture. They bring their culture to the office remotely by you're in my office, you're going to live my culture. It's really, really enjoyable to see let them work, how they want to work, let them communicate how they want to communicate.
 
Dallas Henry (26:06):
Some of my teams, a lot more offline, a lot more just right the white papers. Others just want to jump on the VC. What I find is it's working. We're incredibly more efficient. I find it's much easier. I can tell if I watch closely, it's much easier for my teams to get into their flow state, especially when I'm working with clients. I don't meet them live. I challenge them to go remote with me because I want to see where they are in their comfortable space. I don't want to see them in the suit. I don't want to see them in the blazer.
 
Dallas Henry (26:33):
Now, I'll go on site for a coaching visit if we're going to review a warehouse or something like that together. But I challenge most of our consults to be remote because you'll find that people are a little more disarmed and it's a little bit easier to connect and the room is more balanced, especially as a manager or as a coach. Why? Because I'm in my comfortable space. I have my coffee right here. I've got my backup headset right there. I'm in my space.
 
Dallas Henry (26:55):
Where's the future? We've talked a little bit about this offline. We're in the great resignation right now and that's very challenging. I was speaking with a senior leader a few weeks ago about how they're handling that in their company. My take on it is we're not in the great resignation. It's really just the great re-imagination of what life can be.
 
Dallas Henry (27:13):
Well, they don't need a commute 75 minutes each way anymore. You don't have to live in that exorbitant cost of housing bubble so you can work at that one place. People are re-imagining what do I need make, what do I need to earn, what kind of job do I want to have. Now, it's turned into what kind of work do I want to do, what kind of organization do I want to be a part of, how do I want to represent myself in this space. I think what the pandemic caused a lot of people to do is step back, and one, help people curtail some spending, potentially, two, help them realize this is what's really important to me, whether it's closer to or whether it's a community group or whether it's a religious group.
 
Dallas Henry (27:46):
So we're calling it a great resignation. No, we're calling it a re-imagination of life. What I think the future looks like is far more remote. There'll still be some people that prefer live and that's fine and I support that just as much I support remote. You can't support remote if you don't support live. It's about supporting the manner with which people want to work best. But I think, and I actually want to steal your words from our offline conversation is, I think it's going to be much more about ownership, whether it's a stake in the company or stake in their work.
 
Dallas Henry (28:11):
I have people truly, I say, "Hey, I've got this opportunity. You've got this business meeting. Do you want to come?" "Nope. That's not inspiring to me. Nope. That's not challenging to me." "Okay. Well, what would?" "Oh, I'd really love to unpack something like this data science problem with one of your clients." "Great. I'll bring you along when I have that. Let me know if you need me." It's going to be much more invitational in bringing people along and I think you'll see people do that and I think you'll see do that at multiple companies.
 
Dallas Henry (28:34):
I think this notion of nine to five, one company, no other endeavors, no other passion areas, I think that will go by the wayside and I think removing commutes, I think removing four or day off sites where you really just do like a day and a half of value add, you start to give time back and people are getting into their flow state better and you're getting higher quality of work as you allow people to work into their space.
 
Dallas Henry (28:55):
I have a friend, lives a quarter mile from the office. He loves going in. Goes in early, gets his work done, leaves at 10:00. But he might as well be remote. No one's there by 10:00. It's going to be much more about people taking ownership, and again, to steal some of your words, making this process of work and making this process of inputs to a community invitationally based.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (29:15):
Awesome, Dallas. That's a fantastic way to conclude. Thank you so much for learning out loud with us today.
 
Dallas Henry (29:20):
Thank you so much. I had a blast.
 
Tyler Sellhorn (29:24):
Thanks so much again for listening to the show and be sure to check out weworkremotely.com for the latest remote jobs. If you're looking to hire a remote worker, We Work Remotely is the fastest and easiest way to do so. As always, if you have someone we should talk to, any advice you have, or if you'd like to advertise on the podcast, please reach out to us at [email protected]. That's [email protected]. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.