Sophie Wade v2: Digitalized, Multi-Gen, What Is | Work 20XX Ep44

Sophie Wade returns to Work 20XX with a powerful reminder, the future of work is digitalized, multi-gen, and human-first. And that’s not a typo, it is a process of work being broken down, and digitalized, and to quote Sophie, ‘the tech driven world and operations is changing how we work, not the other way around.” In person, from Running Remote in Austin, Sophie shares deep insights on how empathy, adaptability, and trust are reshaping workforce dynamics. 

Please join me in welcoming Sophie Wade back to the Work 20XX podcast from Running Remote.

As founder of Flexcel Network, author of Empathy Works, host of the Transforming Work podcast, and creator of the Work in Progress Report newsletter, Sophie has been a relentless advocate for designing work experiences that prioritize empathy, people and performance. Literally hundreds of thousands have attended her LinkedIn Learning classes in pursuit of a more responsive, flexible, and inclusive workplace. And breaking news, she’s launching a new series of classes on Sophie Wade dot com this month. The first one, Selling with Empathy. Lots more in the show notes. 

Recorded April 30, Fair Market, Austin
Special thanks to Liam Martin, Egor Borushko, Ana Maria Bennett & Team Running Remote

Sophie Wade v2: Digitalized Multi-Gen, What Is | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep44 from Running Remote

YouTube - Click Here 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWXG1mNidpg&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt&index=1

Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here 

https://www.work20xx.com/episode/sophie-wade-v2-digitalized-multi-gen-what-is-work-20xx-ep44

 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Okay.
So we're ready to go.
So I’ll count us down
in 3, 2, 1.
Hey welcome back everybody
Jeff Frick here.
Coming to you from Austin, Texas
for a special edition of Work 20XX
we’re down here at Running Remote
with hundreds ofthe leading minds
that areinvolved with,
remote work and the future of work
and hybrid work and distributed work.
But what's really important is

(00:21):
most of the conceptsare pretty general
and can apply no matterwhat your work situation is.
So we're really excited to haveone of the OGs in the field.
She's been publishing podcastsat an incredible rate.
She's has LinkedIn Learning classes
she's got a great newsletter.
So welcoming in
I guess not from DC today or New York
but herein Austin.
Amazing.
Sophie Wade, the Founder of Flexcel Network,

(00:42):
the author of ‘Empathy Works’
and a podcast,‘Transforming Work’
and a newsletter the ‘Work in Progress Report’
How do you find time to come to Austin Sophie,
you’re a busy lady.
Well, because this is actually super effective and efficient
because everybody's here,
so many of the people herethat I want to talk to.
I want to interact with,including you, Jeff
Right
are here so this is how to make it work.

(01:02):
Yeah. Because as Brian [Elliott] says right.
Distributed doesn't mean never together.
And it actually adds
[Jeff] so much more[Sophie] Absolutely.
When you do finally get together.
Exactly, well this is the distributed
bringing people together because
people havebeen working before
and after the conferenceand in the middle
and taking time off.
And you're working right now.
So this is exactlywhat it looks like.
Right
So you got some exciting news.
You've got a LinkedIn Learning class

(01:23):
that you've had for a while,maybe a couple
but you've got some newlearning assets coming out.
So tell us a little bitabout the new
Sophie Wade classes
Right. So these video courses.
Yeah, so I've got five courseson LinkedIn already
[Jeff] Five!
625,000 people have taken them.
Wow
[Jeff] I’m so jealous[Sophie] Yeah, yeah
Yeah
I feel actually validatedthat so many people

(01:43):
actually really enjoy my courses.
[Sophie] And that's good.[Jeff] Yeah, that’s great.
And that has given me the confidence to say, okay, fine.
So I've shot a bunch more courses
and those are going to be coming out.
There are going to besome shorter ones
with some sort oflike nano type courses
and then longer oneswhich are more, you know
and all of them you cantake in bite sized chunks,
[Jeff] Okay
which are going to be about
leading a multi-generationalworkforce.

(02:04):
And, buildingtrust and productivity.
Well we're developingdifferent ones
in sort of combinations
there is going to be one
which is going to be selling with empathy.
So we do the empathy one
which has been my biggest LinkedIn course,
hugely successful and is really has been
not just salespeoplebusiness development people.
Anybody who has an externalfacing, an external facing job.

(02:27):
So that I've really sort of leaned into and
developed it now for where we are now
in a very different environmentpost-Covid, all that.
[Sophie] So[Jeff] Right
So that's been that's excitingand it's been a lot of work
getting it there.
And with the news of relaunching my,
Work in Progress newsletter
in order to be ableto really focus in on
where weare now

(02:47):
and helping companies scalein a very digitalized world,
not digitized
but digitalized, where operationsand processes have changed.
So many things have changed at the same time,
which you know so much about in terms of AI
and how this tech driven worldand operations
is changing how we work,
not the other way around.
Right.
So the multi-gen thingyou've been leaning into a lot,

(03:09):
and I don’t know if I saw a headline recently
that I think maybe Gen Z is
you probably know the facts
the biggest population
now in the workforce
as the baby boomers are all aging out?
So I wonder if you can share
How did you get involvedin this multi generation focus?
And what are some ofthe things that you find
as you dig inunder the covers?
So I got into it originallywith millennials

(03:30):
when it was millennials
were the oneswho were being
sort of maligned and lamented about.
and like oh my God,
those dumb millennials and they want
promotions after six monthsand all the rest of it.
Well, it is the sameas for Gen Z
and so far as
they are reactingto what is.
They're coming into.
They were coming intothe workforce
saying, but we've got these smartphones,
we've gotlaptops.
Why aren't we working differently because we can?

(03:52):
Which is very logical way to responding to it.
Now, Gen Zs,it takes it to another level
because they are really,truly digital natives.
They've been growing upwith smartphones
with access to extraordinary information,
which has taught them like
there are different ways to do this
or different strategies,
or different ways of approaching math
which they are taught in school.
Or flipped classrooms.
So how does that changehow they then respond to

(04:13):
when they go intothe work workplace?
And most Gen Z's,
only the oldest ones
ever had about two years of work experience in the office
before the pandemic arrived.
So returning to the office is not RTO
they have not been in the office,
so they are learning about this
relatively hostile environmentfor the first time.

(04:34):
And even if they were,they were living in,
you know, with four other people in their
in a bedsit type thing,
it is still not, you know, more comfortable
and friendly than a cubicle,a gray cubicle
with which is, you know,
not a comfortable environment.
It is not aplace where
is as their social
welcoming place, which is why there's so much

(04:56):
stress about
hey can we change how the office is?
How can we,
how can we network,how can we collaborate better?
Because the cubicle environment
with a few conferencerooms is not it
Right, right
Ironically when it's done well
it's the younger folks that love the office
that crave the social interaction
that want to gobecause
they're at that stage in their career

(05:17):
where they need it.
But it's not to
But they’re not going there to do Zoom calls and email.
You know, it’s a different objective for the time.
Exactly.And the thing is
there were, I mean, there was another thing
posted in the FT [Financial Times]
which was,
Gen Z’s are leading the charge back to the office.
Well, that was writtenby a clickbait
[Sophie] heading writer,[Jeff] back to the click bait headings
but theyes, exactly.

(05:37):
We have enough of those.
The point is, yes,
the Gen Zs absolutely
are wanting to be more in the office.
But it's like 2.5 days per week.
They want to be working from homerather than three something.
It's not.
The differential is not that much.
However, they do want to still it
on their own terms.
They wantthe flexibility,
but they also realize there's no
there's no rhyme or reason as to why

(05:57):
it has to be fixed days.
Right
We as a team shouldorganize it together
so that we're making effective use of our time.
And we do that,have that socialization moment.
And I, as a Gen Z,want to be able to
see my boss or see my boss's boss or,
or meet other people across the organization
[Jeff] Right
who I canlearn from.
And that enablesthe talent mobility
that internal talent movementwhich is really hard.

(06:19):
And the only way I'm going to be able to do that,
which I understandis really the key to my future.
And if you wantme to stay here,
I'm going to need tomove internally.
I need to be ableto meet those people.
But then at the same time,
those people needto be in the office, too,
when I'm there.
Right? Right. Yeah, it’s interesting. My
both of my daughters graduatedfrom college not that long ago.
And to your point
they never knew anything else.

(06:41):
I mean they finished college in Covid
They started their careers in Covid.
So for them, you know,
this engrained office culture
and as Brian would say,
the executive nostalgia of what the office used to be
they don't even have any
[Jeff] feel for what that is.[Sophie] no, nothing
And so one of mybig points about
the younger, the youngest employees
is they can teach uswhat is

(07:01):
they have no
but they're not tryingto disrupt anything.
They're just responding to what is
we have so many filters
about what we were used to
and how we used to work
and what was expected of us.
And we couldn'twe couldn't speak up
because we literally didn't know anything.
If you have an accessto a smartphone
and have had since you were ten,
you actually knew a lot more.
And so the thing about it
if we can watch what they're doing

(07:23):
and how they'reresponding and,
and ask more questionsabout that experience,
then we can actually learn much, much more
about the future of work,
how modern workis evolving.
And, okay
there's a lot to dowith their tone
that could be,you know,
could like be adapted
a little to bea bit more
you know, helpful to,you know
collaborative workall of us together.
But we all need to bein this conversation.

(07:44):
Right, right
It's interesting.
Adrienne Rowe
who’s been a long timeworkplace professional
she’s recently retired she was at Raytheon
and she said
we should stop worrying so much about the young
about getting the young kids toadapt to the way it used to be.
And we should be way moreconcerned about the old folks.
Are they up to speedon the new digital tools?
Are they the ones, to you pointlearning the new ways.

(08:05):
Correct
Versus trying to bringthe new kids and
throw them back to the, the old ways.
It is challenging and I do
I mean, I certainly empathize with
with older Gen Xs and boomers because
there's a lot that that can feel terrifying.
I mean, oh my God, AI, is it going to take my job?
Gen Zs and boomers and Xersare all worried about
AI taking their jobs,

(08:27):
but trying to adapt to so muchthat is changing and disrupting.
I mean, you have
Imagine if you have a manager as a Gen Z
or somebody older saying,
use AI, it's going to disrupt your job.
Like that's a reallyI mean, psychologically
that's a challenging thing.
Like I'm going to use this,
it’s going to help me,it's going to augment what I do.
But then it means I'm goingto be doing something different

(08:48):
and morecomplicated,
which I may be okay with, but I may not.
So we've got a lot ofof technology and human issues
that we need to be dealing with at the same time.
Right.
And AI is going to change itmore than, say,
the laptop did or the mobile phone.
In terms of theway that individuals
can impact their workand add to their work
And now at least at this stage of the game

(09:09):
the variability of utilization is so so high
between people that are jumping in with both feet.
I talked to another persontoday that said
he uses ChatGPT every daysince it came out
versus still the amazing amount of people
that still haven’t even tried it
Yes. And that is a huge issue as well.
The thing that I do findis one of the

(09:31):
sort of practical logistical benefits of AI right now
is it is breaking, causing, forcing us
to break down work into tasks
and we break downwork into tasks
we can start designing it.
We can really startfocusing on work design
and startunderstanding it.
And that will help everyone.
So I thinkthere are
it's chaotic.

(09:51):
It's very disruptive.
And the unevenness is going to be very problematic.
But you know
we have been uneven in how we're using technology
in all kinds ofdifferent ways and
so I think they'llmaybe more gravitation
towards different types of jobswhere you do or don't have to.
And there will be, let's face it
I mean, Jeff, you know more than I do
that there aregoing to be
more friendly interfaceson some

(10:12):
things likethose
super prompting will bewritten into the interface.
It already is to some degree.
Right
So the people who don't knowhow to prompt really well
don't have tothink about it.
Right.
Well the good news is
my buddy Charles Corley said, don't worry about prompts.
just start talking to the thingit’ll talk back to you
Right.
Okay, I'm going to put your feet to the fire.
When can we expect these exciting new
new classes to hit?

(10:33):
In May.
In May?
Yes.
[Jeff] Wow, that’s bold[Sophie] Yes
[Jeff] Now we got it on tape, in May[Sophie] I know, Ahhh!
[Jeff] It’s like, Okay[Sophie] the first one at least.
We won’t say May 1rst
maybe, towards the end of May
Yeah. Mid-May.
Okay
Well, Sophie it is so greatto see you as always.
And congrats on all the new,exciting developments.
That's great.
I can't wait for the next
I can't, five LinkedIn Learning Classes.
you’re that’s crazy.

(10:54):
I know in multiple languages,lots of different languages.
Like it’s in 26, I don't know,8 or 10 languages.
But now it’ll be availableto everybody.
[Jeff] Not just the LinkedIn audience[Sophie] I exactly, exactly.
So good to see you, Jeff.Thank you
You too.
All right.
She’s Sophie, I'm Jeff, you're watching Work 20XX.
We’re coming to you from live
from Austin, Texas at Running Remote.
Thanks for watching.
Thanks for listening on the podcast.
We’ll catch you next time,

(11:15):
Take care. Bye bye.
Boom
[Applause]
Hey, Jeff Frick Here
big shout out to the podcast audience.
Thanks for listening in.
You can get show notes and transcripts at Work20XX.com
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(11:35):
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