Navigating Work Today: Coaching, Delegation & Virtual Communication

Introduction

Nolan: Welcome to the Learning and Development podcast sponsored by Infopro Learning. As always, I’m your host, Nolan Hout. Joining me today is Professor Hayley Blunden, who is an Assistant Professor of Management at American University, Kogod School of Business in Washington, DC. The first thing we need Professor Blunden to tell me is how to say that name. Through her research and teachings, Professor Blunden seeks to improve people’s ability to navigate workplace interactions, which can be quite tricky sometimes.

So, it’s nice to have somebody who understands the science behind some of these norms that we see. Today, we’re going to be talking to Professor Blunden about a lot of different things: workplace interactions and mentorship, coaching, and delegating work. The list goes on and on. And here I am again, going on and on. So, without further ado, let’s welcome our guest to the podcast, Professor Hayley Blunden. Thank you for joining us.

Hayley: Thank you so much for having me on. It’s just such a pleasure to connect with you about these topics because I came into this world with the same type of curiosity as you did. I came from industry thinking, Wow. This is really challenging to navigate these interactions at times. And that really motivates me a lot in my research. So, I’m excited to get into it. I will help you out with the questions you asked. It is Kogod. That is how you pronounce our business school name.

I am very grateful to the Kogod family for all the sponsorship they have provided to our school, which enabled me to conduct this fantastic research. So, it all comes together.

Nolan: Wonderful. Well, thank you. And I have to say, before we get too far, big congratulations to you on being named the best 40 under 40 professors by Poets&Quants. Absolutely amazing accomplishment. Congratulations on that.

Hayley: Thank you so much. And it was such an honor because I care so much about my students. It was really encouraging and exciting to make an impact that way.

Hayley’s Journey from Consulting to Academia

Nolan: Phenomenal. Well, before we begin, can you talk a little bit about how you got into it? That’s how we start every podcast. It is just learning a little bit more about how you got into the spot you’re in today. I mean, you obviously weren’t always; you don’t wake up and become an assistant professor. You had a long journey to get there. We’d just love to learn a little bit about what sparked your interest in this field and how it led you to where you are today.

Hayley: Yes, certainly. So, you’re right. It took me a bit longer on the road than just waking up and pursuing academia. But I started consulting, and through that, I became really interested in getting inside an organization. So, I worked at a medium-sized and growing New York startup called The Ladders. It was a great team there. And what I really observed in that role, which was on the finance and strategy team, was that workplace interactions have a really central role in driving organizations and their success and people’s experiences of them, right? We spend so much of our time at work, and much of it is made up of these interactions. I went back to get my MBA to return to the industry and work on people’s strategy.

So, I wanted to influence some of these interactions, some of the processes from a people’s perspective coming out of that. But along the way, I got really excited about management research and what I saw on the academic side of things. So, I spoke with some of my professors there, and everyone was extremely supportive and patient, which helped me earn my PhD and get to where I am today. And coming out of that, I went straight from my PhD to Kogod. And here I was, very excited to join this community because it is such a supportive community. And you really can see how a lot of this research I’m doing on workplace interactions and the positivity they can create, right, is reflected in my everyday interaction with the faculty, administration and staff.

Nolan: So, something that I’ve always been fascinated by is what drives some people to say, I want to learn more about that. So let me learn about it, but I want to stick to my career, even though I want to learn about this so much. I’m willing to invest a lot of time and maybe some money along the way, and possibly a lot of time and money to become an expert in this field. Do you think that is how you’ve always been? You’ve always been a curious person; you really had to be thorough and get to the bottom of things. What do you think drove you to dig so deeply?

Hayley: That’s a great question. And I don’t think that I’ve had one too often. So, to some extent, yes, there’s a curiosity I have always had, but I wasn’t as passionate about the topic until I discovered this field. But I will say a lot of it was honestly about reading the studies being carried out and thinking; I want to do that. I want to go and get on the inside of organizations, collect data, test hypotheses, and see if we can make improvements through the scientific method.

Research On Advice Vs. Feedback

Nolan: Yeah, well, a great segue. One of the first topics we’re going to talk about today is your research on advice and mentorship. And this combination of giving advice and feedback, and you did a study on this, involves a couple of different things. So, I’d love to know if you could set the stage a bit about what your research was and how it’s applied to the workplace.

Hayley: Yeah, absolutely. So, I came into this field with a strong motivation to do work that applies to the workplace because that’s where I was driven and got excited about these phenomena. But I think from a broad perspective, right? I view organizations as the sum of many different relationships, and relationships as the sum of many different interactions. So, you can think of each of those interactions bubbling up and up and at the top of it, you have an organization, right? So, I do most of my research at the interaction level. So, by taking the integrative parts, pulling them apart, and examining how people interact in these types of situations, how do we make that more productive? So, as you alluded to, some of my research is on how to make developmental workplace interactions more productive.

So, the other part is often virtual interaction. I think we may have some time to get into that as well. But when we think about workplace development, right, I’m typically thinking of this as how we can improve, right? How can we get the information that we need to improve? And historically, this may have been information that was provided by the task, right? You are on the shop floor, maybe, and you know your production rate, along with some good test feedback. Many people know that their experience is not entirely accurate, and the information they acquire about their performance often lies in the minds of their colleagues. And that’s related to our performance being within the eyes of our colleagues, right?

Many of us have more subjective roles. Even in some roles, it’ll have a mixture of both. In a sales role, you’ll have a target and know whether you hit it or not, but there are certainly elements of the role that are evaluated by our colleagues and managers, right? So, how do we get the insights that those around us have into how we can improve? Knowing that ultimately, if we work towards that information, that’s going to improve performance because it’s subjective and it’s in their eyes.

The Impact of Feedback vs. Advice

Hayley: So, I have several projects in this domain, and I’m really excited about a recent one, which connects the concepts of advice and feedback, which I think you alluded to. So, my research team and I had this simple idea: feedback often, right? We often hear discussions about feedback being unhelpful, right? People often say it’s unhelpful because they don’t know what to do after they get this feedback. If you have this conversation or receive written information, it might be abstract. It might be challenging to have that conversation. So, people might abstract up a level and not share the specific insights that help us know what to do, right? So, a huge element of this was the observation that feedback is often not specific and concrete enough to enable people to know what they can do to improve, right?

But I also understand that their colleague who’s delivering this input was paying attention. Being more specific in your input can give you a certain level of credibility, right? I was attentive and understood what specifically your performance can be improved, right? So, in this project, our main dependent variable is concreteness, or the specificity of the developmental input that people are providing. And so why am I tripping around this developmental input word when most of us often will just call this feedback, right? What we find is that most organizations ask for feedback when they solicit this. Well, it’s because the intervention we introduced into these processes was to reframe that input as advice.

So, really, a simple way that we were able to get people to be more specific, rather than asking them to give feedback, we asked them to give advice. And we found that through several different studies, this propelled people to think more about the future, and that future-focused thinking really helped them be more concrete in their delivery.

Nolan: That’s fascinating. And I guess I realize I could be part of the test cases when I just stop and think for a second. If somebody said, can you give me some feedback on my performance? I would say, “What have they done?” What did they say? Hey, can you give me some advice on how I can perform better? I would be looking at the opportunities these people have, rather than the weaknesses I’m trying to pinpoint or call. And if I look at which one I would prefer, I will prefer advice over feedback.

Hayley: Yeah, no, and you’re completely right. We find that people who subsequently look at this input rate find it more useful. So, an independent set of raters said this was going to be more useful. It was rated as more actionable. So, we do find there are these likely benefits to having this future-focused orientation. In another part of this study, we considered future-focused feedback. And that didn’t move the needle as much as asking for advice. So, there’s something about that really pulling you into the future, as you mentioned, that encourages people to be more specific and provides developmental input that’s ultimately probably more useful.

Nolan: So, if it wasn’t the idea of it being in the future, do you think it’s more just a connotation of the word, when I hear advice, I think a mentor would give that to me, a coach, my parents, somebody who I trust, versus if I hear the word feedback, I think more like just my boss, more callous, like I don’t have an emotional connection to that. Is there anything about just how our minds, when they read the word of advice, versus when they read the word feedback, elicit a different part of their brain or some type of emotional response?

Hayley: Yeah, I think that’s such an interesting question. And it was something that I certainly had been thinking about when we first ran this study. And we studied this with an organization of over 50,000 employees. We’ve also studied it with several follow-up experiments. And in those, I did try to investigate a certain emotional role. And we didn’t find that that was the mechanism by which this was operating. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not there, right? What we consistently found is that this future focus is ultimately helping people be more concrete. But there is a possibility that the way we examined it didn’t reveal part of that emotion, because it feels like it would be there, right? That’s part of why we examined it.

Turning Feedback Insights into Action

Nolan: And so how does that apply when, I mean, you know, I’m sure that organization you’re working at, maybe they did, maybe they didn’t; you even have it in the word, like these 360-degree feedback, feedback, feedback, feedback. How, what was your, I don’t know, it seemed like you were more studying them, but like, if you were to put your consulting hat back on, what, how does that change how organizations try to implement some of these programs that are designed to either capture, you know, feedback or give advice or whatever it is?

Hayley: Yeah, so I mentioned we tested future focus feedback. We also tested input. We just asked people for input, and we again found that that was not as effective as asking for advice. So, I think that’s the beauty of it: there are some interventions that we as researchers will implement that require a bit more effort and a bit more cost from the employer side. This is not one of those. This is a readily implementable, relatively low-cost intervention that we have found can help people receive input that is more specific. So, I think this is relatively straightforward. Yes, I think this is relatively straightforward. And that’s exactly what we did in our field experiment.

Nolan: So, is it just like a simple flop of the word, just like you use feedback? Use advice.

Hayley: That was the change that we made. Is it going to have an enormous effect? I wouldn’t expect something enormous, but when many people contribute over many comments, it can add up to helping our employees, which is ultimately what we want to be doing.

Nolan: Yeah, I mean, especially a lot of the people that we have on the podcast and probably a lot of listeners are in larger organizations as well, where we know moving the needle a small percentage across so many touch points, a 50,000-person organization like you’re in, makes a really big difference. We rarely have these in corporate training where there is a low-hanging fruit with very little to zero costs associated with it. Those quick wins don’t really present themselves too quickly. So that’s a fascinating thing.

Hayley: Yeah, beyond that, some of my co-authors, Ariella Kristal and Michael Yeomans, have posted our code. So, you can run this experiment within your own organization and see, right? You can test this yourself.

Nolan: Wow. Awesome. We’ll include some links for those who want to get it, run it, and explore the topic. Another fascinating topic we wanted to discuss on the podcast is the role of delegation. I have read a little bit of your research on delegation and specifically its impact on interpersonal connections.

Delegation and Interpersonal Connections

Nolan: When you ask people to help you with decisions, and then all other components of that. A lot of us these days are in; I find delegation hard my entire life, I guess. I think we all have a hard time understanding, what do I give away, what do I keep? So, I think we could all take away quite a bit from learning more about delegation. Tell us a little bit about what your research has been into and what some of the fascinating takeaways have been of that.

Hayley: Yes, certainly. So, some of my research in this area focuses on interpersonal consequences. So, we have these interactions. It may be asking for advice. It may be trying to delegate, right? And we care about that ultimate decision and whether it’s correct. But we also care about the effects of the relationship afterward. And that’s the orientation of this body of work. So, I worked with Mary Steffel, who’s a fantastic researcher in the decision space. This project is really focused on delegating decisions.

So, when we think about delegating work without making decisions, we’re not really giving up control. We’re just giving up effort. So maybe we wouldn’t expect people to welcome that as much. But when we’re delegating a decision, it can often be framed as something that’s really empowering. We’re going to empower our colleagues. We’re going to give them control. So, some of Mary’s work findings are that it can be very burdensome for people. People are often reluctant to make these decisions.

And what our work looks like is, well. When we are delegating these decisions, what are the interpersonal outcomes of those? So specifically, we look at whether people would want to work with them in the future, right? What is the main goal that you may have when you are working with your colleagues, right? Maintaining this positive relationship. And what we find is that in certain contexts, delegating decisions is going to be more positive. And in other contexts, it’s going to feel more burdensome.

And that feeling, right, that this is empowering or something that I should be taking on, versus you’re shifting that burden onto me. You’re shirking about your responsibilities, which can lead to perceptions that this will be a willful relationship, right, one that I might choose to continue or not. So, in those situations, we find that delegating a decision may be valuable when the person you’re delegating it to has some type of expertise in that arena. That’s one situation in which it can feel less burdensome. This could be a simple matter of either providing them with insight into that, so they have expertise before delegating it, or framing it in that way. It could be valuable as you delegated that decision.

Nolan: To share that this is related to your perception that they have expertise in that area. Whether it’s perceived expertise or real expertise. So, if it doesn’t, though, if we start with the negative, right? If I came to you and I said, ‘You know, Professor Blunden, I really want to open a plumbing business in North Idaho. I’m on the fence, what do you think? That, from what I understand, you’re saying that that would create a negative instead of you being like. Let’s talk about this. You would feel it would somehow erode our relationship. Is that what I’m understanding?

Hayley: Well, almost, except that you wouldn’t say, do you think? You might say, “I would like you to make this decision for me.” And that’s decision delegation when you are no longer making the decision, right? You’re taking responsibility for the decision.

Nolan: So, this is pure, this is not a, you know, bring, let me bring you along with me on this. Let’s decide together. Let me get some input before I decide. Here’s my input. You make the call—that kind of decision.

Hayley: That’s right, which we know, you know, that can be valuable when you’re a manager giving that type of control to your employees. We will talk about employee participation. This is something we know is often valued by employees: being empowered to make those decisions. But you’re right. In that case, I would feel burdened by having to make this potentially consequential.

Nolan: Yeah, because then you would go out and try to research everything about plumbing when you’re like, I don’t know about plumbing. Why did you even ask me about this? But it’s funny that when I look back, I must admit that I sometimes feel like I’ve given the burden of decision-making to somebody. I must admit, probably because I was too lazy to do the work required to make the call myself. And I’m like, hey, it’s easy. And I can understand what people are seeing through that. I can see how that would create it when you’re just passing it off. So, remind me, what is the right way to ask someone to make a decision and make them feel empowered? Remind me of that.

Hayley: Yeah, so I think it’s going to be contextual, right? So, we’re going to start with a huge question: who does the decision affect? And if it primarily affects the decision maker, well, we see that that’s a valuable time to delegate a decision. So, if you are a manager trying to determine what people’s schedules will be to return to the office, I know many managers are in this situation right now.

You know, we find it’s much more valuable to delegate that decision when it primarily affects the employee rather than the rest of the team or other employees.

Return-To-Office and Virtual Work Dynamics

Nolan: Yeah, it’s fascinating. Just today, I had a colleague, more like a friend, who got displaced for the, you know, return to work. She just said, “I don’t really care about going back to work. So, I don’t care about going into the office, I should say, which makes total sense. Have you done any research? This is a complete topic. I’m kind of putting you on the spot here. Have you done any research or anything about the return-to-work mandate, the return to work, whatever you want to call it, mandate, movement, whatever?

Hayley: Yeah, it’s certainly an interesting topic that touches a lot of what I’m doing. I think that some of the work that I have done that would speak to that, it would be work on virtual work, right? Because we hear that people are returning to the office. So, what is the alternative? What’s the counterfactual? Working virtually, right? So, it’s looking at how we do that effectively? Can we do it effectively, or do we need to be in the office?

I think there are certainly conflicting perspectives on that, and you’ll hear them reflected in managers’ discussions. But back to the delegation piece, right? So, if we are a manager and we are required to do this, well, perhaps, and this is going a little bit beyond my work, but it wouldn’t be, I think, too much of a stretch to think that we may be able to empower our employees with that scheduling decision. That might be a bit of making it somewhat true.

Virtual Impression Management

Nolan: Yeah, well, it’s interesting. You talk about the virtual world we work in, which is something you have insight into. And that’s obviously top of mind for many of us who are working virtually, including myself. I’d love to unpack a bit more into virtual work—one of the things I read about you with this virtual impression management. A couple of areas you mentioned had issues, which I know I am so guilty of. So, I would love to understand the role of typos. We had this debate internally recently on when typos are okay. Is it okay with an email? If it’s short, is it okay over Microsoft Teams if I’m just chatting with one other person?

If I’ve got 10 other people, is it okay? So, these are all just conversations from a bunch of people who haven’t done any research on it. So, I’m really excited to hear from somebody who has dug a little deeper into it to get maybe better answers to those things. So, tell us a little bit about your work in this area, then maybe I can guide you down to some of these areas that I selfishly have an interest in.

Hayley: So, I have long been interested in virtual work. I like to say I was interested in virtual work before it was cool. But in the wake of the pandemic, it was a wonderful time to dive deeper into this space because suddenly everyone was doing it. So, this most recent paper is actually co-authored with my fabulous author, Andrew Brodsky, whose book I have here, Ping.

If you’re interested in more secrets of successful virtual communication, it’s a fun book, but also very science based. But basically, what we’re looking at is that even when we are back in the office, we’re increasingly interacting via virtual means. So, this isn’t just about working remotely, right? This is looking at interactions like you, and I am having now — over video, over email (which we’ve been having for a long time), over text, right? By examining the findings through research, we can make a good impression and start to create some of those positive relationships that I mentioned are the basis of organizations. This involves looking across those findings and having some insights that we can learn from the research.

Typos and Their Impact on Credibility

Hayley: You mentioned the role of typos, right? And I do have a separate paper that is specifically on typos. But yeah, so the bad news for you and your colleagues is that I haven’t seen a study where typos don’t decrease perceptions of intelligence. You’re always going to take a little bit of a confidence hit, but there are some benefits.

Nolan: Maybe you don’t. Now, maybe it still doesn’t help, but did you research? I would call them intentional typos. Like when I say, hey, I need you to call me, but I only need one “e” and two “c’s” as one word instead of separated because I’m just typing, clacking away.

Hayley: Right. Yeah, so in my paper, right, I think this could fall under what we study, which is when you are perceiving that the author of the message is emotional. So, if I’m perceiving this message and I’m thinking, you’re terrified of something, right, or you’re very afraid, right, because that’s why you’re writing, maybe your manager asked you for something and you need to ask for some data from me, so you’re writing this so fast. And we do find that when in emotional contexts, there is less of a competence penalty.

So, you take less, there is still an effect, right? But it is mitigated when you’re not in an emotional context. I will say, a lot of this is about us looking at impressions over time, right? If you’re interacting with the same people over time, that can mitigate some of this, right? So, for example, you know this person, you worked with them, and they’ve created many presentations. I don’t think you, with your very excellent colleague, are going to think that because they’ve written you a typo that they’re less intelligent. We’re more focused on contexts during the impression formation stages than on that typo scenario.

Nolan: That definitely plays into it. What are these other fascinating bits of virtual communication or virtual impressions that are obviously so important to us? We talked about typos: don’t be like me, check your work, and don’t hurry or rush.

The Role of Eye Contact in Video Calls

Hayley: Yeah, so one effect that I think was surprisingly consistent across many contexts was the role of making eye contact or being seen to be making eye contact, and I’ll explain that in a minute, in video communications. So, through virtual teaching interactions, video interviews, and virtual interactions with their psychologists across various contexts, people perceived those who made eye contact more positively. But interestingly, right, making eye contact in a video actually means you’re not making eye contact because you’re looking at the camera. So, I’m going back and forth now, looking at you and not just testing this out.

Nolan: I read this; I read that before I came here, and I, so I’ve been like, I’m just staring right in the center, and I have a weird setup. So, you’re in the middle of two screens. So, I have half of your face on one side and half of the other. So, I read it, and I’m like, I need to look at her eyes, but now I can’t focus on what she’s showing, especially when someone’s presenting a slide. It’s well, where do I look? Yeah.

Hayley: That’s right. I mean, this is not going to, I’m not saying you can never look away because we know that it’s not normative to maintain eye contact for more than like five seconds anyway. But I think it is interesting that I came across many different contexts where that value was evident. What I tell my students who are often preparing for video interviews is that, for most organizations, the first round is virtual at this point. If not recorded, let’s put our notes near our camera. Let’s move our video of the other person closer to the camera so that we can at least try to benefit from better resolution. Maybe that’s a little piece that puts you over the edge.

Nolan: Did you do any research on that? Because I know a lot, virtual facilitation has become important. And that skill with COVID became even more important. Now we’re seeing some work moving back into the classroom on our site. Did you do any work or study when you’re facilitating a classroom or to a large audience? What are some of the things that you can do to make a bigger impact on those crowds? Did you do any research into that?

Hayley: Yeah, so I think my research has not focused specifically on that, but my experiences as a faculty member certainly can speak to this. So, I think it was interesting when everyone needed to teach virtually. So, all my colleagues, some with very short timelines, suddenly adapted their teaching to a virtual world, stayed there, and grew into that role as time went on. And I think there are certain ways that we can try to keep our audience engaged, right?

So, I think increasing the level of engagement is valuable. If there are things we can click into, I would use a lot of communal whiteboards that we could all access and work on together, fostering a sense of community. I’ve seen interesting exercises where you use the screen to guide people to touch the outside of their video and clap their hands that way. That can bring an audience together. So, there are creative ways to make people more engaged, because it’s very easy to check out when you are on video. Something I tried to implement, which may have a research basis, is the idea of audio.

Audio Vs. Video Vs. Text in Communication

Hayley: So, I think that when we look across the findings in virtual work and working via electronic means, I think that I perceive an undervalued role of audio. So, some research by Professor Juliana Schroda, one of my co-authors, really examines and breaks down the role of audio, video, and text. So, for example, in one of her studies, MBA students will pitch themselves as job candidates. And on one condition, recruiters will read it. In one condition, they’ll see the video. And in one condition, they’ll just hear the audio. And what they found was that perceptions of people really were boosted between the text and audio conditions.

When people heard the pitch instead of just reading it, it had a huge impact on their impressions of the candidate’s higher ability. But there wasn’t much extra from the video. So, audio voice was playing a significant role in communicating people’s competence and linking that back to perceptions that the person speaking is human. Because when we speak, we have vocal variation, and we have pauses, and we have these verbal cues that make us seem like we’re thinking of sentient beings. So, I think that that’s really fascinating and leads me to want to use audio more than I maybe would have otherwise.

Nolan: Yeah, I, so this mic I got, I think maybe six, seven months ago, because I had, I just realized when I was listening to other podcasts, it was just capturing the depth in a little bit of a different way. And so, I switched to this microphone. I mean, it was, and it was a minor adjustment, right? It was a hundred dollars, like nothing big. And it didn’t take anything to set up, just set it up.

But instantly, the engagement went up, and people commented. It’s interesting you say that people pick up on it because I get feedback all the time, like, That audio is phenomenal or a lot of people say you have a radio voice, and I say, well, that’s a diss at me because you’re seeing me face to face. And when you say somebody’s got a face for the radio, it’s not the compliment you think you’re giving somebody.

But I agree that I never really know. I try to remove my bias because I realize that, especially in a virtual world, much of your audio quality depends on the equipment you have. And the visuals as well, right? Like I’m shooting this on a Canon DSLR, the video quality is great. Cause I switched away from my webcam because I thought it wasn’t good. I have a lighting system set up. I’ve got this mic, so I am over-engineered to come off virtually. But just because somebody doesn’t have it doesn’t mean they’re any less than; it’s just that it’s probably not part of their job.

Did you do anything about it? Have you seen anything about the bias people have when it’s a fuzzier video, a grainy video, or when the bandwidth is slow, or things like that? I can’t help but look into my bias — I’m sure it’s there.

Hayley: No, that’s so interesting. And now that you’re mentioning this, your mic looks very professional too. So, from a visual perspective, you’re getting the double plus there. But so in terms of video quality, right? So, we do see there’s one study looking at backlighting. And so you talk about lighting, you got it right. And that’s the right thing to do, right? When you have backlighting that can lead to worse impressions, right? Another couple of studies have looked at backgrounds, too. So, you have a nice, professional-looking background. I’ve got my books right there, including my co-author’s book.

But what this research really is, I think I can sum it up by saying that if it’s not too out there, pretty much everything will be okay. So, they tested it like the background of a living room that was blurred. They tested something like a setup, like I’ve got a bookshelf. I mean, these are specific conditions because I’m not going to go beyond studying, because I don’t know what other things I would have done. But the only thing that performed worse was a picture of, I think, a narwhal. It was a picture of an Arctic animal.

And that somehow didn’t perform as well. However, other studies do show that there’s value in sounding similar to your colleague when you’re speaking. So, if you know that your colleague is a narwhal enthusiast, perhaps that background could generate some positive impressions. But I think that would maybe be the only context.

Video Quality, Backgrounds, and First Impressions

Nolan: So, I can tell you firsthand that it is a big, big component. It’s overwhelming when I try, so you can’t, which is the downside of the DSLR. I’m focused on my face, which isn’t as big a downside as you might think. But the biggest downside is that u can’t see my artwork or anything behind me. So behind me, I have artwork, a turntable, some records, and things like that. And just a hundred-year-old typewriter, like all these things that I used, always just to get comments on.

Because somebody would, somebody would, and it wasn’t intentional, but I feel like somebody could connect with something there, right? Like it was either like, is that a typewriter, or you like vinyl, or that’s interesting artwork, like where did you, and so yeah, it’s interesting you say that it really does, that background can create like a conversation point that you would get to help create that icebreaker if you would like as a virtual icebreaker.

Self-Disclosure & Building Connections Virtually

Hayley: Yeah, I think that’s a great element. So, the research that’s out there isn’t necessarily looking at that, but there is this role of similarity. But I think that you’re right. I think that other research in the area suggests that the more you can connect and disclose about yourself, the more you’re able to create valuable interpersonal connections with others, especially on a new team.

Flexibility and Response Time

Nolan: So, I know we must hop out. There’s one thing that I wanted to talk about in this virtual impression. I didn’t read the entire study, so maybe it didn’t cover this, but I noticed some research was done on this idea of flexibility, which I think you participated in. And I think for me, when I look at virtual, that’s, it’s this weird thing. I think there was a book, it was either like Sapiens or The Brief History of Nearly Everything. It was one of those really popular books that talked about how we have this tendency to invent things to make our lives easier. It makes our lives harder, like when you don’t have to handwrite an email or a note, pay to put a stamp on it, go to the post office, deliver it, and then wait seven days for a response when the person does the same thing.

We thought we could do it digitally for free, and it’s done instantly via email. This is going to make me save so much time. I’m going to save so much money. And then the next thing we know, we’re getting emails from our boss on a Sunday night asking, what’s going on? And like, I wish I could just ignore it. Like I wish I could just pretend it didn’t happen, whatever it was. And now we have text messages, and we’ve surrounded ourselves with this stuff that allows us to be flexible and work remotely but also has the downside of always being on. Did you investigate that? Because I saw flexibility as one of the keywords, but I wasn’t sure if you dug much into that.

Hayley: Yeah, so there’s some really great work on this arena, and it’s, it’s not even that new, right? So, I think there was a great article that came out in 2013, when people had blackberries and everything. But it wasn’t post-pandemic yet; we weren’t in a world where everyone worked virtually, right? Having this always can be both a burden and a benefit, right? Making us feel more comfortable, things are taken care of and that we are reachable. So, I remember when I entered the workforce, it was during that period where, like all senior people, I had a blackberry, but none of the junior people did. But they would still email us asking for things at all hours.

So, I remember going into a store to check for emails in the evening to see if I needed to do anything before going out, and that was a real burden, right? I mean, it was the worst of both worlds. You can’t; both of you are expected to be always on, but you don’t have the tools to do so. So, I was definitely very happy when, well, I don’t even think —I think that was the end, the last of the corporate-sponsored devices era. And then it was you’re on your own. But I was grateful for that opportunity.

So, I think it does cut both ways. But there is some recent research by Laura Gerge and Vanessa Bonds, a great paper, looking at response time expectations. And what they effectively find is that people are overestimating how quickly others expect them to respond. So, people will receive an email, and they’ll think, My goodness, I had to reply to this right away. I just received this from someone senior, my manager. I need to get back to them right away. Not thinking, oh, well, that’s one of 50 emails that that person is going to send, and they’re not even going to read your response for a while, right?

So, people do overestimate the extent to which they need to reply quickly. I do think that setting clear responses and expectations is a real norm that managers should work to establish with their employees to relieve them of the burden of being concerned that they need to reply right away. But also, just because there are instances when you do need to reply right away. So, I don’t want to give people carte blanche to pause all those responses. But I think it’s in a conversation that needs to be had more.

Brevity In Emails & Improving Response Rates

Nolan: Yeah, especially, I mean, I am bad. I don’t do it as badly at work, but somebody texts me, like while I’m in the middle of this pot right before the podcast, if somebody sent me a text and I read it, but then I was like, shoot, podcast time. I probably will never respond to that person again, unless they text me or I go to text them something. And I see it kind of creeping into my work life as well, where I’m so inundated with engagement that the ability to think back, somebody wrote something to me, and they’re now asking again, but I haven’t even answered the first thing. I agree that a manager needs to be aware of this and help their team decide what the bar is that you’re shooting for, because I think it’s almost impossible to please everyone at that.

Hayley: What’s your urgency calculus? Similarly, it leads us to valuable research by Todd Rogers and one of his colleagues on how to get people to reply. And basically, what they find is there’s just enormous value in being brief. Enormous value. They ran a series of studies on this. In some of their studies, they would cut out whole paragraphs so that the email didn’t necessarily make as much sense anymore, yet they still found that the shorter email got more responses.

Nolan: I just reviewed an email from somebody yesterday, and they said, “Hey, can you look at this?” and I said, “You know what I love about this email?” It doesn’t seem like anyone else would look at that email, and they said it’s a great email. It looks like somebody was like, “I’ve got 10 minutes, I’m just giving you the important stuff, and I’m sending it.” I think I’m there, so there is something to the brevity of it, and I feel like for me, when I read it, I’m like, the person took the time just to cut the crap and give me exactly what they need. right? There’s a famous quote from somebody. I didn’t have time to write you a short note. So, I wrote you a long one. I think that is so true. It is so true.

Hayley: Yes, absolutely. And maybe this is way beyond research. I’ve never tested anything like this, but does AI play a role in helping us do this? I wonder.

Nolan: Yeah, I mean, I must admit, I took your research articles that have abstracts, right? It’s not like it wasn’t written, but I went into Claude and said, “Hey, summarize this for me, because I know how I want it summarized.” So, I’m summarizing a summary by leveraging AI and its ability to condense even someone’s condensed version, which is astounding to me. So, I think absolutely. If you find yourself being too verbose, plug it in.

I must admit, I’ve tried this so many times, and it isn’t great yet because it just takes so much to say in one sentence instead of 200 words or four bullet points. You need to know what is so important to put in that one sentence. And it’s like you need to know the person well enough to know what they’re going to find valuable. So that’s where I think a little bit of work needs to be done. needs

Hayley: That’s true, prioritization really can matter. Yeah, trust but verify.

Closing Thoughts

Nolan: Absolutely. Well, Professor Blunden, thank you so much. We’re completely well out of time, way past time. Thank you so much for giving us so much of it. It has been such an eye-opening experience. You’ve talked about a lot of things that I know I probably need to correct in my own management and even in our performance management system, changing some words around there. So, thank you for spending so much of your time with us today.

Hayley: It was great to have this conversation.

Nolan: Yeah, likewise. We’ll talk again soon. Thank you.

Hayley: Thanks.