Rebecca: Welcome to Creating Your Happy Place, a podcast that explores what it takes to create your happy place, and then empowers you to do whatever it takes to get happy at home. I’m Rebecca West, host of creating your place and author of the book happy starts at home. And I’m so glad you’re here today. Now our guest today works in the corporate world, helping startup executive teams who may not have the skills they need to create high performing long lasting company cultures.

Now. That might not seem like the kind of topic that fits into creating a happy home, but here’s the thing. First of all, we, Americans spent a lot of time at work. So if we’re able to have a happy place at work, then our homes don’t have to do all the heavy lifting of being your only happy place. Second, many of us are working from home these days.

So the concept of company culture is changing. We have to figure out how the work from home office fits into the corporate culture puzzle, because really when you think about it, each of us has suddenly working from home is the manager of their own little branch of the company they work for. And that means we’re responsible for creating an effective workplace, oftentimes with very little help or guidance from our employers.

So today among other things, we’re going to explore what we can learn from both healthy and unhealthy corporate cultures to make our work from home time as successful and productive as it can be and set us up for success. If, and when we all get to go back to the office, I’m delighted to welcome to the show.

Currently living in a two bedroom apartment with her partner. AEMO’s here in Seattle, Washington, chief strategists at the MC Laughlin method. Katie McCaughlin welcome, Katie.

Katie: thanks so much for having me today, Rebecca, I’m excited to chat.

Rebecca: this is going to be fun. Now, before we actually dive into what we can do to build healthy, productive work environments, no matter where they are, tell me what got you interested in helping tech executives develop those motivational leadership skills in the first place.

Katie: Well, I had spent, I kind of actually stumbled into the tech startup world. I have a theater, I have a theater background. My degree was in theater and I also immediately after college did a bunch of volunteer and education, , based jobs. And. I was in a state where I needed to kind of join. I needed a job.

I moved to Boston and you know, I joined the company that became Wayfair and back in Boston. And at that time, you know, these startups they’re on the verge of rapid growth and many of them look to their customer service and sales and other customer facing positions as a way to Find their future, you know, managers, their future executives, et cetera.

It’s a really great recruiting funnel for them. And that was my first stop on the startup software related tech company space. And I found that as I got into corporate learning and coaching. That I could move pretty nimbly between different startup companies, because there was a very similar structure.

There were a lot of similar expectations and I just needed to learn the product. And so. what drew me to those cultures was the promise of opportunity, the promise of innovation and creativity and being part of something. And that’s a really big recruiting tool is you get to be a part of something.

And especially in our world today, that is a really big factor for millennials and younger generations. To belong, right. And to feel like their work has meaning and they’re making a difference in some way. And so I totally bought into all of that Kool-Aid and have loved it. And what I found in my experiences at those companies is that sometimes that message would be only.

About recruiting and  you might hear executives or managers or other influential people within the company saying that we want you to belong, that your opinion matters that you have the opportunity to do new and different things here.

And then there. Actions would show otherwise where it would be, you know, there would be late nights scrambling to fix something. All of a sudden, right there didn’t seem like there was a, a concept of kind of stepping back and looking at the long term perspective on our duties. Choices, make sense. And so that disconnect really rubbed me the wrong way.

And also several of my colleagues and turnover can be really high in some of these startup environments actually at most companies, but especially I found in this startup environments because when that initial glow or luster of starting an edit new company and, you know, feeling like this is a great place to work that can really.

Erode pretty quickly based off of your experience, working with different leaders and different executives and whether, whether a company, you know, intends to most of the startup world, I would say. They are trying to break down barriers of the kind of standard corporate hierarchy and bureaucracy, but there still is an assumption that the people at the top, so the executives are the ones that are making the decisions and modeling the behavior that.

Is accepted in that workplace. So for me, that’s why I work with executives because it allows me to help them realize their power in what they are modeling and that everything can count. And it might not be counting towards what you want it to be counting towards when it comes to building your culture and the experience of a employee.

Rebecca: it’s interesting that you talk about modeling because, it sounds like if you’re saying the our corporate culture is about, you know, work-life balance, for example, but the executive at the top is working super, super, super long hours. Then there would be maybe an expectation, like, okay, well, they’re saying that we should be able to go home and spend time with our families, but they’re showing us that actually that’s not the culture.
Is that what you’re describing?

Katie: Exactly. Yep. And I would say that that same example, right. Can be played out in how people are recognized at the company. So many of the companies that I’ve worked for have had a, you know, employee of the month or a spotlight at an all hands type meeting of employees that really made a difference. And nine times out of 10, the person who made a difference was the one who stayed up all night, was willing to put in all these extra hours. and because that continues to get praise, that behavior is the one that is praise worthy, right? Rather than praising people who have taken the time to create really good work-life balance and still achieve great results for the company.
That’s something to be praised.

Rebecca: Right. If it’s interesting, because of course, as you know, I’m always thinking about, okay, well, how does this show up in our home life? And since we are working from home, we think about modeling. If you are a work from home parent right now, you are demonstrating to your children right now, a lot of life lessons that you may not be aware of as well.
Just like an example.

Katie: Affectations and drawing some conclusions about it. And that’s essentially the fundamentals of human behavior. You know, whether that shows up in parenting or at home, or whether that shows up, you know, in the workplace.

Rebecca: So it’s hard. It’s a hard balance, right? Because you know, let’s say you’re a parent, you’re trying to put food on the table, get your bills paid, get paid by your employer. And if you’re a CEO, you’re just trying to make this a successful, lucrative, profitable company. Because in the end, if it’s not those things, you’re not going to be able to employ your workers anyway.

So. It’s a, it’s a hard balance to maintain. So when you work with somebody, who’s in a position where they might be demonstrating something that’s unhealthy, but they feel like it’s the only option. You know, how, where do you begin in helping discover alternative options that might be healthier or more aligned with the values that either the CEO or the parent might have.

Katie: Usually I find that the first and the biggest hurdle that needs to be taken is that level of awareness of that disconnect. Right. We have to take the pause and the moment to reflect back on ourselves. And that’s part of why I bring theater into the work that I do because. Theater at its most fundamental breakdown is the presence of an actor and a spectator.
And so if we can think about ourselves using that same model, right, we often think of ourselves as being actor. Most of the time, we don’t always take the moment to step into being a spectator of our own lives. But if we can take that moment to really look back and reflect on. Our experience on what we are wanting out of our workplace.

What are we wanting out of our homes and ask, is that in alignment with my values, right? Is that an alignment with my actions and. That usually is the biggest body of work that we have to start with because taking that time to really define the difference between my actions and my values and the kind of gap between them, then we can start to make an action plan, right.
Because it’s only when we know the, to the spectrum that we can actually start to make a plan. Yeah.

Rebecca: right. I remember when I was a young girl talking through some problems I was having and my stepdad brilliantly pointed out that. Identifying the problem is like 90% of solving the problem. The other 10% isn’t easy, but it’s a smaller percent first identify the problem. Cause otherwise you have no chance of fixing it.

Katie: right. Well, and you know, I’ve been in my own life. I also do a lot of you know, self work and the concept of acceptance has been a really big concept, I would say for, you know, 20, 20 and. But there’s a whole lot of things that we don’t want, but if we are just focused on resisting that thing rather than accepting as it is, we’re not able to make some changes or respond to what is, if we’re only focused on resisting it.

Rebecca: Yeah, there’s one of my most favorite books in the whole wide world. I don’t know if you know it, but it’s who moved my cheese.

Katie: Yes.

Rebecca: I mean, it’s a classic and that book for me has been a touchstone for accepting change, moving forward with a positive, hopeful mindset, instead of just sitting there, grinding your teeth and frustration, that things, aren’t the way you want them to be, because I am the queen of being frustrated, that things aren’t the way I want them to be.

So when you think about the physical spaces that we work in, How do those in a corporate environment affect some of the success that you’d like to see? So I know like there’s a trend towards open spaces. There used to be the trend towards lots of cubicles. How did the choices that companies make affect the productivity and the culture of the environment?

Katie: So the open concept. Office, if we take that completely objectively, some of the reasons for putting that in place are that there’s not a closed door to the people that you want to access, right? That, that there’s this concept of that. It’s easier to step across someone else’s boundary and you know, there’s not actually a physical barrier between you and your coworkers, you and your leaders.

Rebecca: You and your spouse in these

Katie: Right. So what I’m finding is that despite those open cultures, many folks will retreat into conference rooms, into phone booths, right. For that privacy or not even just privacy, but for that focus time, right. We have to remind ourselves that at work, we’re not just machines. Right? So that’s part of the departure from cubicle bland is the notion that we’re not just robotic and kind of following a very prescriptive plan, but we still need the ability to set a boundary energetically time-wise priority-wise. So that way we can really focus. And I know for me, Some of my best work and the way that I show up best in the workplace is after I’ve had some time to really kind of be in my own mind and to think through a problem. And I’m not an extrovert. I mean, I’m not an introvert, excuse me. I’m an, I’m an extrovert and I still need that time to. I really think, I think through a problem and I actually probably get the most the best ideas, like when I’m out for a walk or when I am in the middle of something else, that’s completely not work-related.

Rebecca: it makes sense to me because if you’re in a space where you have to have an alert or a radar on at all times to be prepared to deal with anything, right? Some anybody coming to ask you, it means that you can’t have your entire brain. On the task at hand, you have to have at least a little part of it, always set aside to be ready, prepared to address whatever.
And that also sounds really stressful when I say that out loud.

Katie: Exactly. Well, and if I think about the fact, like we’ve been talking about how we’re all we’re, most of us are working from home now. if I need, if I know I need some of that dedicated time, I might not be as willing to prioritize that. Especially if I have other obligations at home, if I have family, children other folks that I care for.
Right? Yeah. I might feel bad about being in my office with my door shut and using that time for thinking work. We, we de-value that kind of work. We value in our culture right now, the productive. And I put in that in air quotes kind of work, we have this expectation of what does productive mean.

Rebecca: right. How are you supposed to log your time for thinking, like, how is that even measured? But it’s a fairly important part of at least most creative fields.

Katie: Right. Absolutely. And especially if we think about managers or leaders, that is part of what’s valued is being able to have the big picture thinking and, you know, we have to. Block and tackle with our calendars a little bit too, right. To make sure that we carve out that time. Otherwise we’re just going to keep feeling like we’re on this hamster wheel and going from meeting to meeting, to meeting, then making dinner for the family, then cleaning up after the family then collapse.

Rebecca: Yeah. And that doesn’t even take into account the idea of rest and self care, because we’re even, we’re still even just talking about quiet time to address work. There’s also the need for quiet time to address, not work.

Katie: Right.

Rebecca: So if you find yourself in an open work environment, cause I know a lot of at home people are in that situation, they have not found a good at-home space where they can close a door. What are some tools that you have found that can help open-space employees and managers create some of those boundaries and focus?

Katie: So I find that a really important piece of setting those boundaries is expressing them. Right. You have to actually take the action to let others know what means focus time, right. Or. When am I actually available? And what I found is that most managers in a physical workspace will only be at their desk when they’re willing to be interrupted. And now that we’re at this, I’m at home in my own home and trying to create a place where I can focus. I think we have to rethink about what does productive time look like? It’s important that that time be able to bleed into other times, right?

Maybe it is when you go for a walk with your family and you have this kind of moment of inspiration, and maybe you quickly email yourself from your phone, so you don’t forget it. Or I’m also known to take, you know, voice memos on my phone if I’m driving somewhere. So that way I’m being safe. But I find that some of those moments tend to be. Ripe. It’s really helpful and healthy for our brains to take a break and to step away. And we forget to value that in our corporate culture. And I think we really forget to value that at home now because we’re in our work and live space all the time.

Rebecca: well, and I, wonder if people are aware of the habits they used to have in a corporate space, right? Getting up to go over to the water cooler, having a social moment where having that conversation might spark an idea. Honestly, just getting out of your house, walking to your car, driving to work, walking into work, like a lot of that, those physical habits that punctuated the Workday, right.

Are gone right now for folks. And so instead they, a lot of us I’m, I’m pointing these fingers right at myself. Well, end up sitting in the same chair with no breaks, you know, the kitchen’s right there. So you can have lunch at your desk and you have  so much less physical movement and social interaction that would have normally punctuated your Workday. That’s all gone right now.

Katie: absolutely. And I think we forget that. All of that time has value or would count as work time. Right. If we were in the office, meeting up with a coworker in the break room and just casually chatting. Oh, Hey, did you see that message or how is such and such thing coming along?

Rebecca: or this client’s driving me crazy. And you just vent it out a little bit for a second.

Katie: exactly right. You know, all of those little actions would count as work time. We wouldn’t necessarily stay later at the office because we’d had 20 minutes of a casual conversation around the water cooler, not typically. And, but I find that most people at home are finding that they can’t. Still count some of that time that they have to be able to account for every single one of their hours, even if they’re not an hourly employee.
So even if you’re a salaried employee, you’re not obligated to complete a specific number of hours, it can be difficult to try to figure out how do I even just feel good and in integrity with, did I work enough today?

Rebecca: right. Totally. So do you, are you finding that employers are doing a good job of, of helping their employees navigate, you know, some of those expectations and standards? And are they communicating standards around like. How you should be dressed for a zoom meeting or what your book backgrounds are allowed. Like how, how are they navigating this? And are they being supportive in your experience?

Katie: In my experience, there are. Some companies that are doing, I would say actually most companies are doing the bare minimum from a legal standpoint. Right. That’s that’s where a company’s mindset usually is at first to protect the business. So have we actually given our employees policies about what to do, if you, or someone in your household are exposed to COVID-19, right. Like, so that’s kind of where the initial focus is.

Rebecca: Makes sense. I mean, you got to triage this stuff. We suddenly found ourself in an emergency. You got to stop the bleeding first.

Katie: right. Yep. Well, and now we’re multiple months into this and, and now it really is about taking that intentional time to think about. Okay. We may still be going like this for a while. And if that’s the case, how does our, how do our values, how does our culture come into our homes? How do we want our employees who are no longer.

At a central workplace and can’t experience the culture because of the physical space that we’ve created. How are we going to do that? Virtually what are our options? And I’m seeing more companies think about that. And I’m seeing also more technologies come up that are enabling more casual type conversations.

Rebecca: What kinds of things are you seeing?

Katie: Yeah. So even the newest version of zoom allows participants to choose a breakout room rather than just be assigned to a breakout room.

Rebecca: giving people a little bit more agency about their experience.

Katie: Yep. Yeah. So that could be an interesting way. If you’ve got, say you’ve got maybe a brainstorming or a strategy session that you wanted to do, and maybe there were a couple of different topics. You could have a breakout room titled for each topic and then people could freely move in and out of those breakout rooms. Just like in the workplace where we, we ended up creating these kind of unwritten rules of once you’re in the conference room, you don’t leave until you’re done speaking. Right.

Rebecca: better be an emergency bathroom break.

Katie: Right. Yeah. But the, otherwise, like we have to do the same thing in our virtual spaces. So if we’re going to do, you know, something like that, where it’s a virtual brainstorming session and people have the agency to move in and out, you have to still set those expectations. Right. what is the role you want people to play? Do you want them to say something when they switch rooms? Do you want them to say something when they join a

Rebecca: Yeah, I love that because I often liken this kind of conversation to being a flight attendant. Right. So you’re on a plane and your job is to help put all the passengers at ease, both in the, in the case of an emergency or just in the case of a flight that goes the way it should. Like, where are the bathrooms? When can you use them? Where are the emergency exit? You know, are the people who are sitting in those rows capable of helping you out of the plane. Like it, it sets everybody at ease understanding what the boundaries, rules, and expectations are. And then of course, people can choose to ignore them. There’s always the person who gets up to use the bathroom before the little light turns off and it annoys everybody else.

But it’s because there’s actually this three hour flight culture where we all understand the rules of engagement, which allows us to interact more comfortably. And so that, and it’s true. Like if you go get a massage, you kind of want the person giving you a massage to say how much you should address, how long they’ll be gone.

Like how long do you have to be naked to get on the table for, they’re going to walk in on you. So all of these things help us go, okay, I know the rules. I know I’m not going to get caught in an embarrassing moment. I know how to navigate this. And the less we have that guidance, the more it’s on us, the more exhausting it is because we feel like we’re guessing.

Katie: And we’re not only guessing, but we’re guessing based off of the like paradigm and lens and perspective that we have. So what I’ve been sharing more recently with some of my coaching clients who are managers or leaders of people is to help them remember that in some ways, at first, when you’re building a relationship with a new employee, It doesn’t actually matter how good of a job you’re doing as an, as a manager, because what you’re actually working against is all of their baggage of past manager interactions.
So you have to actually work a little bit harder to be setting those expectations, to be challenging their current worldview and perspective of what does it mean to be a manager and, and what does. What does your expectations of them look like you have to be really repetitive, especially when forming that relationship in order to make sure that you can counteract their expectations and worldview if needed.

Rebecca: Yeah. I love that. So if you are an employee and your managers, aren’t helping you with some of these questions, are there some ways that an employee can proactively ask for help and support and, and how can I do that? Most effectively?

Katie: absolutely. I think that as an employee and as an individual at work, you. Have more power than you think you do. And I would say that I say that first, because a lot of my work has to do with power dynamics in the workplace, and there’s a lot of implied power dynamics. And it’s really important that you don’t forget as an individual that you have.
Power in these relationships, you have the ability to set your own boundaries and to communicate up to your manager and let your manager know where you’re struggling or where you need help. And so my first ask to anyone who might be struggling with their relationship with their manager would be to set a meeting, have a conversation, and. If you feel like you need to, cause it may not feel initially safe to just kind of bare your soul and say, Hey, I’m struggling with Batman managing the work-life balance components. Right. But you could also you know, start with, just make sure you get to know them as a person. You know, the challenge with power dynamics is that we can assume that somebody in power is removed from us. When in fact they’re just a person

Rebecca: They’re just humans. Yup.

Katie: Yeah. And they’re also dealing with the crazy nonsense world that we live in right now. And. Maybe they’re doing it. Well, maybe they’re not. And so my first ask to you is to remember that they’re a human ask for what you need, and if you don’t feel safe, do what you need to in order to feel safe.

So if you need to talk it out with a peer and ask what they have experienced, that might be a first step towards feeling safe, too. Maybe be a little bit more vulnerable with your manager. You might also have the same kind of conversation with HR or your talent organization. I know that it can sometimes feel like the talent or HR organization is only concerned about the business, but I know a lot of talent and HR professionals out there and they care about people first and foremost, they might need to be reminded of that.
But I think it’s really important that you start taking a little agency for yourself to ask for what you need.

Rebecca: Even if you’re dealing with an HR department who really only has the company’s best interest in mind, having a disgruntled employee is not going to help the company. So even if they’re only helping you to help the company, they’re still going to probably seek some sort of a reconciliation or an action because they want a company that’s not going to be okay.
No, and obviously in the worst case sued, but I also wonder, you know, you mentioned maybe talking it through with a peer. I like that idea because especially if a problem has gotten to the place where it’s making you really emotional, then you may not be in a, you know, in an adult place where you can just have a Calm collected. Here’s what I’m experiencing. I need some solutions kind of a conversation. And obviously because your manager or whomever is, is a human, they’re not going to respond well to feeling attacked. You know, even if they legitimately should be correct, they’re not going to respond well. So even though the, I don’t think the onus should be on the employee to be more mature than their employer.
Sometimes that’s simply going to be the situation. And so going in rehearsed unemotional, well, rested have breakfast. We’ll generally set up any kind of conversation, whether it’s with your boss or your spouse and, and give you a better outcome.

Katie: Exactly. Yeah. Taking care of yourself and setting yourself up for success. Right. I think that’s something that, especially in this blurred work life, home world that we live in right now, taking that pause, taking that moment of separation. Can be so important in, in any of those interactions, whether you’re interacting at work, you’re needing to interact with your kids or your family finding, it’s almost like we need to create that little mini commute for ourselves

Rebecca: I love that idea.

Katie: Right. So we can shift gears from work mode to home mode.

Rebecca: totally. Yeah. I, I mean, I love that idea that that is not a brand new idea, but it feels fresh. So off the top of your head, what are some ways that you could imagine creating a mini commute for somebody who has nowhere to go.

Katie: So couple of things that you could do could be kind of physical routine based like I have in my office space here, I do both client work and I sometimes will also. Rest or relax because my partner is working in the rest of the apartment. And so, you know, I have two different spaces for that and I will make sure that if I move kind of to my couch area to maybe watch some TV in this room, that I will close my computer, turn off my extra monitor.

And maybe I’ll put on some music. Other things that you could do would be to. Do a little like centering breathing exercise before moving from one action to the next. If you’re in that kind of open home environment where you don’t have an office and you can’t kind of announce your presence back to the family, maybe you take a little, a few moments to go into the bathroom. You don’t have to be using the bathroom
Rebecca: As every mom knows.

Katie: Exactly. Yep. You can use that. Yeah. As a moment to recenter yourself. So I have been really enjoying the presence of essential oils in my home. It’s been helping me to feel more calm. So that might be something to consider as well as like, could you set up a little.
A self care routine for yourself, even in the bathroom that you’re going to do, that will help you recenter because for some of us, we need that alone moment. Some of us, we might need to actually process something. Right. So we might need to write or journal or call a friend, but finding those little moments that you can to create your little mini commute before you dip back into the home space.
Rebecca: as you list all those things, I realized that there are some tools I’ve put in place, which I hadn’t yet. It’s silly, done consciously. But I know physically, if I sit at my desk for too long, my right shoulder will start to seize up and I will get this headache.

So I know that I need to pause at least occasionally, and I will do What my massage therapist recommended. It’s a supported fish pose from yoga to open up those shoulders and pull them back. So I will try to punctuate my day with some physical action that contradicts. My sitting action. And then I also have an accountability partner and every Thursday we check in with each other with a quick text and we say, Hey, it’s right in time.

Cause that’s when we write our blog posts and social media stuff. And at the end of that hour, we check back in and go, how did it go? So these touchstones, where I can reach out to somebody who is not in within the four walls of my home, And have that accountability and that relate-ability, that we’re in this together are just a couple of things that I’ve put into place, but they weren’t necessarily intentional, but I re I recognize them now as part of the ritual of me working from home effectively.

Katie: definitely, you know, I think about how, especially because we are. Sitting at home a lot, whether that’s sitting because we’re at our desk, if we’re sitting, because we’re at the table, eating dinner, we’re sitting on the couch to you know, watch something with the family. We, spend way more time sitting now. And even before all of this happened, there was a lot of research going in about the health of sitting all day.

Rebecca: a lot of company gyms were kind of cropping up in some of these startups and stuff like that.

Katie: Exactly. And I really think about how. You know, sometimes I have to remind myself that I spend so much time with my arms just kind of down by my sides, that that’s been kind of, one of my new physical routines is to make sure I just kind of like stretch and like move my arms in a way that I don’t normally.

And that’s something that I also do in my theater work with my clients is to introduce some movement and expression that is. Outside of our kind of societal norm to remind ourselves that we have more physical and emotional faculties than we use all the time.

Rebecca: right. Wait, wait. You mean more, more than just people who type on a keyboard.

Katie: Yes.

Rebecca: That reminds me of a question I wanted to ask. So I know that because of your theater background, a lot of the work that you do in the corporate space is physical. And some of what you have described to me is, is really interesting.

And I’m wondering how that translate slates to this world. Are you finding ways to actually do corporate trainings via zoom?

Katie: absolutely. Yeah. So zoom and the like gallery view have been really helpful for continuing to do this work. And what I have found is that you know, typically I used to do. Work where people would kind of pair up and would kind of create using their bodies, using movement would create expressions of workplace scenarios, like your typical team meeting or the physical expression of you and your manager in a meeting.

You know, say, I ask people to create an image using their body of themselves in a meeting with their manager. We could see the similarities across all. The people in the conversation that there may be even groupings of the expression. And the reason why that’s helpful is that we can remind ourselves that all of us come from different backgrounds and we’re all responding to the same prompt.

We all have similar experiences. When we go into a meeting with our manager where we might feel a little on edge or I’m a little afraid, right. And. That I find is actually a really great part of like the inclusion related work. When it comes into actually embodying some of the diversity equity and inclusion principles that are really present in our workplace today, the first thing we have to do is recognize the same menace in our lived experience.

Rebecca: Yeah, that’s quite nice because I think that when we start thinking about diversity and inclusion, we, a lot of us immediately jumped to, okay, how are we different and how are we going to bridge that? But you’re saying start with the bridge. The bridge is that we’re maybe not that different and that’s really beautiful.

So you said that you’ve been working from home since long before COVID you’ve told us a little bit about what you’ve put into place for yourself and your space. But tell us a little bit more about that. What have you learned from working from home that you find both to be effective and that also influences what you recommend to your clients?

Katie: so I find that I have to be near a window near some outside kind of bright space and. That I also previous to that pandemic, I would go outside of my physical home space pretty frequently. And that’s the same kind of thing that I would do if I was working in an office. I love those offices that have the open casual environments.

I bring my laptop over to a couch and kind of be working over there or now at home. I have all these, you can’t see them, but behind, behind the camera are all these big, you know, huge sticky post-it papers that I use for kind of my brainstorming, my, my physical white boarding. That was something I would do frequently in a physical space.

So kind of getting up and moving around, even in my own home. And the other thing that working from home for. About four years now has taught me, is that I have to be willing to leave the work alone at different hours or times a day that align with my value set. Right. So I try to not work on the weekends, which can be harder to do when you are working and living from home. So it does require a certain amount of boundary setting with yourself that you can put work away. So if you can use your work desk or work space, in other ways, maybe you are a creative person and you do crafts, you could still use your physical space. That is your workspace for non-work things and, and that’s okay. So you may need to like move your computer off your desk and move all of your work notes. I know I do that periodically to just kind of refresh and remind myself that this space is not just about work, that it can also be a space I can use for my personal life.

Rebecca: It sounds like, like you’re describing a lot around really habits and discipline, like going back to what are the start of our conversation where you said first identify the misalignment between new values. You say you have and the lifestyle that you’re living and then identify the habits that are out of alignment.

Ideally change those and develop habits. That aligned with your values, but it really comes down to the discipline because none that’s not easy. Like what I said was simple, but executing it as hard. So when you think about this in terms of when you’re helping your executive clients and stuff, how do you know? They say it takes 30 days to change a habit or something? Right? What’s the work that goes into establishing the new culture or the new routines?

Katie: so there’s a couple of steps to establishing those new routines. Like you said, that first step realizing where the. Value set. And the expression of those values is out of whack. Right? We have to first define that. And then we have to ask ourselves, do we still want that idealized culture? Right. as an executive team, this is why I do team-based work. The whole team needs to be setting that vision. So we have to do some common group agreement work in order to make sure that, yes, we still want this. And then we actually go through and we role play and define from not just the macro level, like our corporate values, but go down into the micro expressions of culture the day to day and define what we want that experience to look like.
If you’re in a meeting with your peer and you have a disagreement, How would you want your culture to be expressed in that kind of moment? And we define that we use the theater embodied work to feel that out as well. And see, does that feel aligned with how we want people to feel. And, and then we document it and we put in some plates and structures in place to socialize that throughout the company and mind games with companies tend to be over a couple of months.

So that way we have time to do some of this work and to set up the structures and the accountability in order to make those habitual changes.

Rebecca: so I’m hearing important words like accountability there. So if somebody were trying to take the same concept and apply it to their. They’re a little home branch office right now. What ideas do you have for people to build in some of that accountability for themselves? If they don’t get the pleasure of working with you?

Katie: Setting aside the time for yourself to do a check-in, maybe that’s a weekly check-in. I know many folks who do a monthly check-in cause it’s a, you know, it’s a new month. You can check in with yourself and say, Hmm, do I want things to go the same way in the next month as they went this month and set some new goals for yourself.
And make sure that it’s something that you can actually achieve. Like rather than saying, I will spend X number of minutes a day, you know, doing X, X exercise or, you know, habit. Maybe you can say that I will do one thing each day that is in service to my personal needs. Right. This is an opportunity where you can start to get a little selfish. A little bit of selfishness is not a bad thing,
Rebecca: yeah, it supports the greater good is what we’re

Katie: Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, take that moment to really ask yourself, is there one thing I could do a day that would help me feel more balanced, helped me feel more aligned with who I want to be and how I want to be at work or how I want to be at home with my family.

Rebecca: Cause it sounds like you’re saying it’s exactly the same process. So you start by identifying the misalignment, you document the new habit or the new system that you want, and then you have some kind of a check-in or tracking or accountability system so that you don’t, you know, go six months ago. Oh yeah. I remember I kind of randomly had that goal, you know? Yeah. That makes sense. Is there anything else you would want people to know about. Building a good company culture for themselves or for other people.

Katie: I’ll close with this, that when I was trying to name my business I really latched onto a concept of people outcomes first, that if we really focus on the people, outcomes, the, whether or not people are able to. Perform do their jobs. Well, feel good about the work they’re doing. If we focus on that first, the business outcomes will follow. And too often we’re focusing on the business outcomes. How many dollars in revenue did we capture as an individual? How much money am I bringing in from this job? And we’re not focusing enough on the people outcomes. Am I getting to be my full expression of myself at work? And I. Feeling accomplished and feeling satisfied.

And part of something, if we focus on those things and take actions that are more in line with those, we’re going to get the business results. We’re going to start making more money. It’s just a natural cause and effect because people want to be around and people who are alive and doing their work and feel good about their work.So that’s going to be a very attractive value proposition for employers, for customers. And for your family.

Rebecca: it sounds like a pretty big shift though. I mean, I wouldn’t necessarily call it un-American but you know, Americans are so bottom line, so profit focused. it feels like a, a corporate shift, a culture shift. what’s that leap of faith? How can people go into this with the faith? That what you’re saying is true.

Katie: So there’s definitely data out there around the cost of turnover, the cost of acquiring new customers. And these are business metrics that companies are tracking right now. And they’re always looking for ways to lower their company turnover, lower their costs to acquire new customers and. This is a sure fire way to do that. Companies that have better engagement, a better employee, belonging they have 41% less absenteeism, so more people are showing up to work. That’s a first part of product productivity, and then they’re having. More profits because people are wanting to do the right thing and wanting to work hard rather than the active disengagement, which is, you know, people cashing in a paycheck, but not actually performing at their best.

Rebecca: so you’re saying, even though you come from a theater background and this can sound really touchy, feely, the data is there. This is science, not just woo woo.

Katie: Exactly. Yup.

Rebecca: Excellent. Where can people find you if they want to connect with you?

Katie: well, you can connect with me@mcglaughlinmethod.com and also on LinkedIn.

Rebecca: Perfect. And to our listeners, I hope you enjoy this episode of creating your happy place and that you feel a little bit more encouraged and empowered to make, not just your home, your happy place, but also your workspace so that all the hours of your day are filled with joy. As much as possible. If you feel stuck creating a happy home environment, please do check out my book- Happy starts at home. It’s full of exercises that are meant to help you figure out why your home might not be working for you and help you identify practical, actionable steps towards making that shift. And of course, if you have a specific design dilemma in your home, you can also reach out to my team at seriously happy homes, because thanks to the magic.

Of the internet and zoom, we can help folks anywhere in the world in the meantime, no matter where you call home, no matter where you’re working from. I hope that those spaces make you seriously happy until next time