Ep 78: How to Maintain Company Culture with Remote Workers with Michael Arena, Ph.D.

How do you maintain company culture with remote workers? Special guest Michael Arena Ph.D. thoroughly explores this topic.

Michael Arena Ph.D. is the chief science officer and co-founder of the Connected Commons, a research consortium that brings together business and academic thought leaders to develop and apply organizational network solutions. He is also a faculty member in Penn’s Masters in Organizational Dynamics program. Arena most recently served as the vice president of talent and development at Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he leveraged network analysis to enable employee growth, organizational culture and innovation. 

Prior to joining Amazon, Michael was the chief talent officer for General Motors Corporation where he helped to facilitate the business transformation, which is highlighted in his book Adaptive Space. Michael also spent two years as a visiting scientist with MIT’s Media Lab researching human networks and he acted as a design thinking coach within the Stanford School.

Main Takeaways:

• Arena’s research centers around networks, how people interact with each other and how remote, hybrid, and in-person work environments impact employees and social culture within organizations.
• About 50% of daily influencers are identified as the informal networks within organizations and the influencers who may not be high on the organizational chart are often  highly trusted and valuable assets to their team and company.
• The two types of connections are bonding and bridging connections. Bridging connections are those who link up teams. Remote = a 30% loss of the bridge connections and building back in a remote environment has been a struggle.
• The debate of back in the office vs remote can be decided with science.  Arena says  employees love remote work and the flexibility, but  some companies have eliminated the remote model. A hybrid model can be good for well being, productivity and life balance. 
•  Looking  at data at the time of need is key in the debate about work models. A disconnection from workmates can occur with remote only, but a blend can contribute to connections being reestablished.
• A large amount of people want to work remote but also want to reconnect with colleagues. The autonomy to choose and have flexibility is what most desire, but it’ll take time to work the anxiety out of the in-office, remote or hybrid model debate for each company and team.
•  We are social beings that communicate through social signals and we lose that with remote only work.
• Moderation is needed to find the smart  balance for social connections within both remote and physical offices and teams and still enjoy our human existence.
• Hustle vs Human Experience… don’t let your soul be stolen by organizational goals. You can’t lose you in the midst of your success. Don’t let it override you. You have to set boundaries, goals and commitments to yourself. 
• In your career, don’t be scared to create personal boundaries.
• If you’re not pushing up against  that boundary of failure you’re not being your brilliant self. 
• Failure isn’t the opposite of success, it's part of it. 
• If you don’t dance with the boundary of failure you’re not breaking through. Push through and flirt with it and see what will happen. 
• The way you show up in your network matters as much to your success as your ability to perform and can account for 30-40% of your performance. 
• It matters to your career who you are around. Find the energizers and you can create a much better effect.