Categories
Innovation in Compliance

The Real Cost of Returning to the Office With Dr. Gleb Tsipursky


 
Dr. Gleb Tsipursky is the thought leader and CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts, a boutique future-of-work consultancy that helps tech and insurance executives drive collaboration, innovation, and retention in hybrid work. Currently, he is focusing on normalizing hybrid and remote work, which he further discusses in his book, Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams. Tom Fox welcomes him to this week’s show to talk about Elon Musk’s misinformed views on remote work and why working from home is better for productivity levels. 
 

 
Remote Work v. Working From the Office
Tom asks Dr. Gleb what drove him to write the article entitled, Elon Musk’s back-to-the-office order will undermine Tesla’s future. It was his response to Musk’s announcement to abolish remote work on the grounds that it made his employees unproductive, Dr. Gleb tells Tom. He has been researching hybrid remote work since the beginning of the pandemic, and found that remote workers are much more productive. A study at Stanford determined that productivity improved by 5% as office workers worked remotely. “They [workers] don’t have to do the unpaid labor of the commute and they can focus more on productive activities because they’re not interrupted,” Dr. Gleb explains. 
 
Authoritarian Workplace
Tom asks Dr. Gleb if he believes a top-down command and control approach to leadership would work in 2022 and beyond. Dr. Gleb replies that this kind of leadership can only be successful in narrow environments. He believes that it is most successful in environments like warehouses “where you don’t need to be skilled, or a kind of manufacturing job where …you don’t need to do much innovative work.” However, since Tesla is an innovative company, command and control will undermine Tesla’s future. It is a company that requires knowledgeable and creative thinkers and those types of people would suffer under micromanagement. He also points out that demanding his employees to return to the office because he believes they are not working remotely, signals a lack of trust which is a very dangerous corporate culture. 
 
The Fate of Tesla
Many of Tesla’s employees are innovators and creators; these include research and development staff and software engineers. Throughout the pandemic, these employees have been successfully and productively working from home, but now they are being forced to go out to the office. Naturally, these accomplished innovators would seek employment elsewhere, where they have comfortable working conditions. This leaves Tesla with employees who are conformists, who are okay with the authoritarian culture being imposed on them, and these people are less creative and innovative. Over time this will cause Tesla to lose the edge that makes them unique, Dr. Gleb argues.
 
Resources
Dr. Gleb Tsipursky | LinkedIn | Twitter 
Disaster Avoidance Experts | Book – “Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams” 
 

Categories
Innovation in Compliance

The Disaster Avoidance Doctor with Dr. Gleb Tsipursky


 
Dr. Gleb Tsipursky is an expert in the field of disaster avoidance. He joins Tom Fox on this week’s show to talk about his work, including how he helps leaders avoid decisions that lead to disaster.
 

 
Avoiding Disaster
“Avoiding a disaster is always preferable to recovering from it. So I believe to avoid disaster we have to understand where disasters come from. There are only two things that lead to disasters, and they both come from our decisions,” says Gleb. “…One is an active decision where we make a decision ourselves that leads to a pretty disastrous situation… The other type of disaster comes from when we fail to make a decision that we need to make to avoid a disaster.” Glen says that his mission is to help leaders recognize and overcome the cognitive biases that lead them into making disastrous decisions. These cognitive biases are the decision-making patterns that we fall into because of how our brain is wired, he points out. Our instincts are not wired for the modern environment. 
Magical Thinking
Tom asks Gleb to describe the top three judgment errors – ‘magical thinking’ – leaders make that lead to disaster. Gleb responds that these are: 

  1. Overconfidence bias – research shows that the more confidence a leader exhibits, the worse their business performs. “When we should be confident is after we make a very carefully considered, data-driven, informed evaluation and then implement that decision,” he says.
  2. Sunken cost bias – leaders tend to stick with a plan even when evidence shows it isn’t working, and they should pivot.
  3. Confirmation bias – looking at the world in a way that confirms their beliefs, instead of letting evidence inform their vision. 

Stakeholder Engagement
Gleb outlines three social intelligence methods leaders should employ to achieve their leadership goals. These are empathetic listening, rapport building, and curious questioning. These skills will help leaders influence and engage stakeholders. “People are not nearly aware of how much their emotions drive them,” he comments. He emphasizes that the essence of leadership is stakeholder engagement.  He and Tom discuss helping leaders fight unconscious biases in their organizations. He shares practical ways leaders can overcome tribalism personally and within their businesses. 
Resources
DisasterAvoidanceExperts.com 
Free video modules: Wise Decision Making Guide
Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters
The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Bias and Build Better Relationships

Categories
Compliance and Coronavirus

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky on Disaster Avoidance During Covid-19


Welcome to the newest addition to the Compliance Podcast Network, Compliance and Coronavirus. In this episode, I visit Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, who is known as the Disaster Avoidance Expert. He has over 20 years of experience dramatically empowering leaders and organizations to avoid business disasters by addressing potential threats, maximizing unexpected opportunities, and resolving persistent personnel problems. Dr. Tsipursky is a bestselling author of several books, including on avoiding disasters in business.
Some of the highlights include:

  • The top 3 questions Dr. Tsipursky is getting from clients now about business reopening in the era of Covid-19?
  • What are some of the top challenges in the business reopening phase from a disaster avoidance perspective?
  • What should business leaders be considering as we move into Q3 and Q4 of 2020?
  • What is the risk profile of WFH and has it changed from a disaster avoidance perspective?
  • How should a business think through the changes in its risk profile now?

For more information on Dr. Tsipursky, check out his website here.