Fixable: Why is Amazon dragging its employees back into the office?
TED TechDecember 20, 202421:5820.11 MB

Fixable: Why is Amazon dragging its employees back into the office?

This is an episode of Fixable, another podcast from the TED Audio Collective. The evidence is clear that hybrid work is good for both people and organizations. So why are companies as big as Amazon now asking employees to come into the office all five days of the work week? Could “magical hallway conversations” actually make teams better — or is this a leadership play based on nostalgia and wishful thinking? In this provocative "Unsolicited Advice" episode, Anne Morriss and Frances Frei debate what Amazon’s new return-to-office mandate means for the company’s future.


Frances Frei is a Harvard Business professor. Anne Morriss is a CEO and best-selling author. Anne and Frances are two of the top leadership coaches in the world. Oh, did we mention they're also married to each other? On Fixable, Anne and Frances move fast and fix stuff by talking to guest callers about their workplace issues and solving their problems – in 30 minutes or less. Both listeners and guests will receive actionable insights to create meaningful change in the workplace – regardless of their position on the company ladder.


You can listen to Fixable wherever you're listening to this.


If you want to be on Fixable, call our hotline at 234-Fixable (that's 234-349-2253) to leave Anne and Frances a voicemail with your workplace problem.

Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is an episode of Fixable, another podcast from the TED Audio Collective. The evidence is clear that hybrid work is good for both people and organizations. So why are companies as big as Amazon now asking employees to come into the office all five days of the work week? Could “magical hallway conversations” actually make teams better — or is this a leadership play based on nostalgia and wishful thinking? In this provocative "Unsolicited Advice" episode, Anne Morriss and Frances Frei debate what Amazon’s new return-to-office mandate means for the company’s future.


Frances Frei is a Harvard Business professor. Anne Morriss is a CEO and best-selling author. Anne and Frances are two of the top leadership coaches in the world. Oh, did we mention they're also married to each other? On Fixable, Anne and Frances move fast and fix stuff by talking to guest callers about their workplace issues and solving their problems – in 30 minutes or less. Both listeners and guests will receive actionable insights to create meaningful change in the workplace – regardless of their position on the company ladder.


You can listen to Fixable wherever you're listening to this.


If you want to be on Fixable, call our hotline at 234-Fixable (that's 234-349-2253) to leave Anne and Frances a voicemail with your workplace problem.

Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

[00:00:02] What does the AI revolution mean for jobs, for getting things done? Who are the people creating this technology and what do they think?

[00:00:11] I'm Rana El-Khalyubi, an AI scientist, entrepreneur, investor, and now host of the new podcast, Pioneers of AI.

[00:00:20] Think of it as your guide for all things AI with the most human issues at the center.

[00:00:26] Join me every Wednesday for Pioneers of AI.

[00:00:29] And don't forget to subscribe wherever you tune in.

[00:00:41] How will humans and machines work together in the future?

[00:00:44] We spend so much time discussing how the world's changing.

[00:00:48] It would be absolutely absurd to believe the role of the CEO is not.

[00:00:52] This is Imagine This, a podcast from BCG that helps CEOs consider possible futures for our world and their businesses.

[00:01:01] Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:01:04] Hi, TED Tech listeners.

[00:01:11] Today we have one of our favorite episodes this year from another podcast from the TED Audio Collective.

[00:01:16] It's called Fixable and it's hosted by Anne Morris and Frances Frey.

[00:01:21] Anne and Frances are leadership coaches and business experts.

[00:01:25] On their podcast, Fixable, they offer indispensable advice for people up and down the leadership ladder, from entry-level employees to top CEOs and everyone in between.

[00:01:35] Fixable also features special unsolicited advice episodes where the duo break down some of the most talked about issues from the business world and offer solutions unasked and unpretentious.

[00:01:47] In this edition of unsolicited advice, Anne and Frances have a lot to say about office policies and remote work.

[00:01:55] We hope you enjoy it.

[00:01:56] To hear more insights from Anne and Frances, you can find Fixable wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:02:02] Learn more about the TED Audio Collective at audiocollective.ted.com.

[00:02:07] Now, on to the episode, right after a quick break.

[00:02:16] Hi, everyone.

[00:02:16] Welcome back to Fixable.

[00:02:18] I'm Anne Morris.

[00:02:19] I'm a company builder and leadership coach.

[00:02:21] And I'm Frances Frey.

[00:02:22] I'm a professor at the Harvard Business School.

[00:02:24] And I'm Anne's wife.

[00:02:25] On this show, we believe that meaningful change happens fast.

[00:02:28] Anything is fixable and solutions are often just a single brave conversation away.

[00:02:33] Usually we either hear problems from the listeners or we bring in a guest that's amazing at having solved lots and lots of problems.

[00:02:41] Today, we're diverging in our favorite way to bring you another installment of Unsolicited Advice, our recurring segment where we indulge our inner meddlers and tell a company that hasn't asked us what we think they should be doing differently.

[00:02:55] So if this sounds like your idea of a good time, check out our episodes on Boeing and Starbucks from last season.

[00:03:01] And here's the tricky thing that we're going to do today.

[00:03:04] We're giving unsolicited advice to one of the most successful companies in the world.

[00:03:08] The audacity.

[00:03:09] I just love it.

[00:03:10] I love it.

[00:03:11] Frances, do the big reveal.

[00:03:13] We are talking about Amazon.

[00:03:16] I'm sure I have boxes outside our door right this moment.

[00:03:21] Yeah.

[00:03:22] So in the last couple of weeks, as you've probably heard, Amazon's acclaimed CEO, Andy Jassy, announced a new five-day return to office mandate for the entire company, at least the entire executive corporate team.

[00:03:36] In a significant pivot away from its current hybrid three days in the office policy.

[00:03:43] In this same announcement, Frances, he also talked about reducing the number of managers at the company.

[00:03:52] Hilarious is my first response.

[00:03:54] That sounds like a layoff.

[00:03:56] Yeah.

[00:03:57] But by someone who didn't want to call it a layoff.

[00:03:59] What problem is Andy trying to solve with this work from where I tell you to work mandate?

[00:04:05] Yes.

[00:04:06] And include a, we're going to assign you some seats as well.

[00:04:09] So according to the memo, his rationale is that coming back to the office every day is going to strengthen company culture, improve team effectiveness in various ways.

[00:04:20] And I think it might be useful to parse out these various ways because I think it's going to be relevant to today's conversation.

[00:04:26] So in this announcement, he wrote, we have observed that.

[00:04:30] A.K.A. no data for.

[00:04:33] Yeah.

[00:04:33] We have observed that it's easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture.

[00:04:41] Collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective.

[00:04:45] Teaching and learning from one another are more seamless.

[00:04:48] And teams tend to be better connected to one another.

[00:04:50] So much data counters every one of those claims.

[00:04:53] So what I love is that he at least didn't say research shows because then we could have shown him where he was wrong.

[00:05:01] And he's saying we've observed that might have been more truthful if he said, I'd really prefer that.

[00:05:07] Yeah.

[00:05:08] It's an interesting choice.

[00:05:10] The phrase we've observed is doing a lot of work in this memo.

[00:05:14] But I think what's interesting is I'm sure there is internal data on at least some of these metrics.

[00:05:21] He didn't share any.

[00:05:22] This is one of the most rigorous companies in the world.

[00:05:26] And it seems oddly fuzzy to me that there's no evidence as part of this narrative.

[00:05:33] I'd love if you can just give folks a sense of what does the research say so that we can hold it up at the same time as holding up Andy's memo.

[00:05:41] Yeah. I mean, there's a ton of great work being done on these issues from really outstanding scholars.

[00:05:49] There's more every day as companies continue to experiment with new ways of working.

[00:05:53] I think one of the main headlines that's emerging, it's fair to say, is that a hybrid model with some organized overlapping days for teams in the office is going very strong as a way to organize work.

[00:06:07] This is an arrangement with relatively few downsides, according to the research, and real upside.

[00:06:14] I just want to put names to this research because these are some of the most rigorous, articulate, and awesome scholars on the planet.

[00:06:23] Sadal Neely, Harvard Business School professor, amazing thinker.

[00:06:28] Nick Bloom out of Stanford who knows more about remote work than anyone and is like the central source for the research.

[00:06:35] And Lily Zhang, and they think so deeply about all kinds of organizational things.

[00:06:42] All three of them, and they don't collaborate, all three of them have contributed to this research, which is pretty clear in its messaging.

[00:06:50] Yeah, well, let me try to sum it up because one of the things that we have learned in the last five years is how much people really value flexibility and control in setting up their work lives.

[00:07:03] It's coming in only second to compensation in a lot of these studies.

[00:07:09] Which is incredible to me that this has risen to be the top thing.

[00:07:13] And when you said people, I think it's important for us to double click.

[00:07:16] Like, which type of people are we talking about here?

[00:07:19] Yeah, it's a great question.

[00:07:21] So according to Gartner, who did a really great study on this, the categories of people who particularly value flexibility are high performers, women, and millennials.

[00:07:35] Right?

[00:07:35] So these are...

[00:07:37] So unless they're not important to you.

[00:07:39] Right, so irrelevant Gen Xers like me, not a problem.

[00:07:44] Got it.

[00:07:45] Got it.

[00:07:45] We don't need high performers.

[00:07:47] Yeah.

[00:07:48] I mean, all workers value the flexibility of hybrid according to...

[00:07:53] It's like a really astonishing data.

[00:07:54] It's something like 98% love it as a way to work.

[00:07:58] But I think the issue here is that your best people particularly value this kind of agency and flexibility.

[00:08:05] And for instance, the difference between five days and three days for these segments is a big deal.

[00:08:12] So in one of Nick Bloom out of Stanford, in one of his recent studies of, you know, 1600 tech workers at a Chinese tech company trip.com, a shift from five days to three days in office reduced attrition by 33%.

[00:08:29] Which also, by the way, saved the company millions.

[00:08:32] But this is a big...

[00:08:33] This isn't a small deal.

[00:08:35] Yeah.

[00:08:35] This is a big deal to people.

[00:08:36] And this three to five, I can't help but think it's all leaders' ego.

[00:08:41] Yeah.

[00:08:42] I mean, it's an emotional topic.

[00:08:45] I, as you know, I have a freedom fetish.

[00:08:47] This would be a very hard shift for me.

[00:08:50] And even without getting into attributions of kind of what's really going on interpersonally, I think we can have a very healthy debate and make a very persuasive argument around why this is a bad decision.

[00:09:02] Even Amazon can't afford to chase away top performers, women and millennials, even Amazon.

[00:09:08] So here's how people have responded.

[00:09:11] What we're seeing on social media, what's being reported by the news media, many employees are not happy with this change.

[00:09:20] Some have tried to fill in Jassy's data gap with their own anonymous survey.

[00:09:25] And the verdict so far seems to be that people don't feel great about this, at least among the people who responded to the survey.

[00:09:32] And this is the response we would predict based on the research.

[00:09:36] Every single bit of research.

[00:09:39] Yeah.

[00:09:39] So I think the company is doing, again, we're talking about one of the most successful companies in the history of the world.

[00:09:45] I think it's fair to say it had a rocky 2022 like much of the tech sector.

[00:09:50] There have been rounds of layoffs since then, which Wall Street seems to light the stock prices up more than 20 percent this year.

[00:09:58] I think this also reflects a focus on their high margin businesses like AWS, which continue to deliver.

[00:10:05] However, I think there are open questions about the longer term costs of this drip, drip, drip of layoffs in terms of morale and culture.

[00:10:13] Those are, of course, harder to quantify.

[00:10:16] But, Francis, I think the question for us today is what should Jassy do now?

[00:10:23] Like, what's in the choice set of options based on where we are?

[00:10:27] What advice do we have for him and senior leaders at Amazon?

[00:10:31] And then what should our listeners do, if anything, in response to this news?

[00:10:36] So I love that.

[00:10:37] I love that agenda.

[00:10:38] And so let me get let me let's get into other ways we might solve the problem.

[00:10:54] OK, I'm exasperated.

[00:10:56] I'm a CEO.

[00:10:58] I don't know what to do, but I'm observing this culture challenge.

[00:11:02] I'm observing this lower engagement.

[00:11:04] Yeah.

[00:11:04] These things like learning, modeling, mentoring.

[00:11:08] Yeah.

[00:11:08] And again, I'm already we're already meeting overlapping three days in the office.

[00:11:14] Right.

[00:11:14] So the theory of the case here is that two additional days and I'm not telling you.

[00:11:18] It's going to skyrocket our learning, modeling and mentoring.

[00:11:20] I'm not telling you what to do on those days.

[00:11:22] I'm not organizing those days.

[00:11:23] I'm just saying those days we're going to co-locate you and all this magical stuff is going to happen.

[00:11:28] So let's say, right, I want a more precise instrument and I'm trying to achieve these outcomes.

[00:11:35] So what else can I do here?

[00:11:37] Well, let's so let's just go down the list.

[00:11:39] So learning is learning in corporations better in person than remote.

[00:11:46] No.

[00:11:48] It's not.

[00:11:49] One.

[00:11:50] Why?

[00:11:50] Because in person is just the people that happen to be in person.

[00:11:53] And so I have to coordinate and you have to fly in and you have to fly because it's not like everybody is in the same location.

[00:11:58] Right.

[00:11:58] Right.

[00:11:58] Or so I'm either going to have like small local learning in person.

[00:12:02] And if I can like reserve the room or I can have on Zoom, bring in the best people, have a great instructor.

[00:12:10] Everyone gets to learn.

[00:12:11] And not only am I learning, but I get to use chat and I get to use all of that beautiful technology.

[00:12:15] So there's learning in person at the Harvard Business School versus learning remote at the Harvard Business School.

[00:12:20] I think you could have a conversation of which is better.

[00:12:21] I still think I can teach remotely just as well as I teach in person.

[00:12:24] Maybe that's not true for everyone.

[00:12:26] But I assure you the learning that is going on in organizations that don't have rooms that are curated for learning and the curvature of the stairs and the bend of the classroom.

[00:12:34] So even this notion that learning happens more in person is I would have no problem saying no chance does learning happen better in person than if you can do it remote when we're all get to log in and we all get to do it.

[00:12:48] So that's, I think, the first one.

[00:12:49] So, for example, so like Gallup did some really interesting research actually trying to get at this.

[00:12:54] And one of the things that fell out of it was that meaningful feedback, right, was four times as impactful in driving increased engagement.

[00:13:05] Yeah.

[00:13:06] And mandating that people are co-located in a specific geography.

[00:13:09] Yeah, of course.

[00:13:10] Right.

[00:13:10] Because feedback is amazingly important.

[00:13:13] But let me ask you this, Anne.

[00:13:14] You do a lot of coaching.

[00:13:15] In fact, I'm going to go ahead and say I think you're the best coach in the world.

[00:13:18] How much of that coaching do you do live and in person?

[00:13:22] Oh, 90% of it is remote.

[00:13:24] At least.

[00:13:25] At least.

[00:13:26] At least 90% of it.

[00:13:27] Yeah.

[00:13:27] Would you be more effective if it were live and in person?

[00:13:30] No, no, no.

[00:13:31] But I think that what that is, I think, is a beautiful example is if you want to improve coaching, if you want to improve learning, if you want to improve mentorship.

[00:13:38] Improve coaching, learning, and mentorship.

[00:13:40] Right, right.

[00:13:40] Don't give me this constrained optimization when the constraint is going to make us worse.

[00:13:44] Right, right.

[00:13:45] And I think another example is this culture of meetings that I think has infected many organizations.

[00:13:55] Oh.

[00:13:55] Like, and we have found in our own experience of this just bringing a little bit more intention to how we're designing those meetings wherever they're happening.

[00:14:05] Wherever they're happening.

[00:14:07] Bringing a little bit more intention.

[00:14:08] Gives wildly better outcomes.

[00:14:11] I mean, what's the most recent company we work with?

[00:14:13] Right.

[00:14:14] They spend 50% less time in meetings.

[00:14:17] They have better meetings.

[00:14:19] They have more time available because they optimize meetings.

[00:14:22] They didn't say, let's mandate that you all have to be in the same room at the same time and then we're going to do things.

[00:14:26] Right.

[00:14:27] No, don't do that.

[00:14:28] Right.

[00:14:29] Optimize meetings.

[00:14:29] Right, exactly.

[00:14:30] The directional point is if you're trying to solve for increased engagement, there are much more precise tools that we know are going to have an impact than again from this very blunt instrument of telling smart people how they are allowed.

[00:14:45] Where to.

[00:14:45] Yeah, where to work and how they're allowed to interact.

[00:14:48] I'm going to give you a subset of them and then I'm going to ask you to compete against people that have all of them.

[00:14:51] The more we are talking about it, the more outrageous it feels to me.

[00:14:54] And I want to just also say another thing about in person.

[00:14:57] Also underestimates the power of the phone.

[00:15:00] And we, that technology of picking up the phone and talking to someone and you can do it with intimacy that I'll go for a walk, you go for a walk.

[00:15:09] It doesn't have to be the same time.

[00:15:10] I don't want to be walking next to you.

[00:15:11] But we're both having that deep, meaningful, intimate conversation.

[00:15:17] Much harder to do in person because everybody keeps stopping by my freaking office.

[00:15:20] I don't want you to stop by my office.

[00:15:22] As I look through his list of the four things with the sub bullets on each one, and you just say yes, no, in person reliably makes it better.

[00:15:32] I'd love to see the evidence.

[00:15:33] I think the point here is not only that returning to the office doesn't solve your problem here.

[00:15:40] There are also other things you can do that solve these problems much more effectively and efficiently.

[00:15:45] And I think that's what I'm really pushing on.

[00:15:46] And so now what advice would I give Andy?

[00:15:49] Well, I'd say, look, your diagnosis is correct.

[00:15:51] You need more learning.

[00:15:53] You need more modeling.

[00:15:54] You need more mentoring.

[00:15:55] You need more mentoring.

[00:15:55] So he got it half right.

[00:15:57] He got to the core of the problem.

[00:15:58] Yes.

[00:15:59] And what he's not doing is experimenting with solutions.

[00:16:02] And his first one out of the game is not going to work.

[00:16:05] You know what?

[00:16:05] No problem.

[00:16:06] But don't pour liquid cement on it.

[00:16:07] Yeah.

[00:16:08] And now which ones are likely to work?

[00:16:10] Well, let's start experimenting and let's do that with openness.

[00:16:13] And by the way, don't have the mandates coming up.

[00:16:15] Have your teams experiment and find out who's got the best learning climate.

[00:16:18] How are you doing it?

[00:16:19] Who's got the best mentoring?

[00:16:21] Who's got the best coaching?

[00:16:22] How are you doing it?

[00:16:23] And then on those three days a week that we do come in because we're coming in three

[00:16:27] days a week.

[00:16:28] We're just talking about the extra two days.

[00:16:29] We're just talking about the extra two days.

[00:16:30] That's a lot of time.

[00:16:31] Oh my gosh.

[00:16:33] Let's design that time impeccably.

[00:16:35] Impeccably.

[00:16:36] Right.

[00:16:36] Let's make sure that in those times we are solving for learning and connectivity and

[00:16:41] shared creativity.

[00:16:43] And well, but by the way, I'm not convinced that the learning shouldn't be happening on

[00:16:47] the days we're not in the office.

[00:16:48] But still, I want us to just be pristine about the design of things in doing it.

[00:16:54] So what should an organization do that is struggling with engagement?

[00:16:58] Here are things that I think are unconditionally a good idea.

[00:17:02] Invest in learning.

[00:17:03] Yes.

[00:17:04] Invest in mentoring.

[00:17:05] Mm-hmm.

[00:17:06] Invest in role modeling the way to do things.

[00:17:09] Yes, yes, yes.

[00:17:11] And here is unconditionally a bad idea.

[00:17:14] Mandate where I do it.

[00:17:16] Yep.

[00:17:17] Yep.

[00:17:18] A hundred percent.

[00:17:19] A hundred percent.

[00:17:20] I love that.

[00:17:21] I love that.

[00:17:21] And I love that I've gotten you so worked up in this conversation.

[00:17:25] Imagine if you were on the Amazon payroll.

[00:17:27] But yes.

[00:17:28] And I think to the question of how should you respond?

[00:17:34] If you're not Amazon, how should you respond to this new?

[00:17:37] I say get out that recruiting clipboard and fire up the machine because I think there's

[00:17:42] going to be a lot of great talent that is going to decide that these are not terms of

[00:17:48] work that they are willing to accept at this time.

[00:17:51] You know, when I talk to the people leaders at organizations, they say the hardest job they

[00:17:57] have for high performers is getting them to not pick up the phone when recruiters call.

[00:18:03] Well, this was just made a whole lot easier Amazon.

[00:18:06] And I think one of the reasons I take it so personally is Amazon, they're one of my heroes.

[00:18:10] They have done things the right way.

[00:18:11] I'm a basketball fan.

[00:18:12] When people say, oh, I play the game the right way.

[00:18:14] And it means they've done it with experimentation, with rigor, with optimism on behalf of customers.

[00:18:19] They're obsessed in really beautiful ways.

[00:18:21] They've done it the right way.

[00:18:22] And this is so clumsy.

[00:18:25] And my real problem with it is other people are going to say, well, Amazon did it, so I

[00:18:31] should too.

[00:18:33] And that to me will be the real devastation.

[00:18:36] Yeah.

[00:18:36] This is a company that has shown the power of this adult to adult engagement between employer

[00:18:42] and employees.

[00:18:44] And this is such a deviation from that on a whole bunch of levels.

[00:18:50] And this is not the decision of a leader at the peak of his confidence.

[00:18:56] This is not.

[00:18:56] I'll say that.

[00:18:58] That's a nice way of saying it.

[00:18:59] If you look at other tech leaders in this space, and I think Microsoft stands out to me on this.

[00:19:05] Could you imagine Satya Nadella coming up and saying this?

[00:19:07] It would, like, it's impossible to imagine him doing such an unrigorous, pessimistic thing.

[00:19:12] It's impossible to imagine.

[00:19:14] And I think, listeners, you can go and hear his comments on, he's not commenting on Amazon's

[00:19:19] decision, but in general this question, and how he and his chief people officer, who's

[00:19:25] wonderful, Kathleen Hogan, have kind of moved through.

[00:19:28] These are hard questions.

[00:19:29] These same questions with similar dynamics, and have reached the conclusions that we have

[00:19:34] seen work in other organizations.

[00:19:36] Yeah.

[00:19:37] And one of the threads you'll hear from the Microsoft team is also what we have seen emerging

[00:19:42] as a best practice here, which is to really push the decision rights around this out and

[00:19:48] down, because it's a very local decision.

[00:19:51] So it depends on the needs of sometimes very specific teams.

[00:19:54] And those needs may evolve over time.

[00:19:57] Yeah, this notion that one size fits all is just crazy.

[00:20:00] It's absurd for a company this size, this complex with so many different lines of business.

[00:20:05] What we see really work is push, again, pushing those decision rights and figuring out the team

[00:20:09] level or the function level, and then learning from whatever happens next.

[00:20:13] And informing your next move with the results of this experiment.

[00:20:17] We are building a new world of work.

[00:20:20] We are designing new ways of working.

[00:20:22] There's no question that the future is anywhere, anytime, work, where, you know, the boundaries

[00:20:29] of time zones and geography dissolve.

[00:20:32] I mean, it's a very exciting world.

[00:20:34] And it's a very powerful signal that Amazon is saying, you know, we're not going to lead

[00:20:40] the way into that world.

[00:20:42] We're going to follow and we're going to grip the steering wheel as we go because we're

[00:20:47] not sure how to navigate this space.

[00:20:50] One of the reasons that we use Microsoft as a comparison to Amazon is geographically industry

[00:20:56] category.

[00:20:57] They're very, they have very similar access to people.

[00:21:00] They have very similar challenges.

[00:21:04] And Microsoft is killing it by loosening its grip.

[00:21:10] And that's why it's so conspicuous that Amazon has always loosened its grip, not on should

[00:21:16] we have obsession with the customers, hold on tight, but loosened it on how you delivered

[00:21:19] the result.

[00:21:20] Right.

[00:21:20] And now they're tightening the grip on some of the things and it just doesn't feel like

[00:21:25] it's going to work for this set of employees.

[00:21:28] But we're, we'll find out.

[00:21:30] I like that we're going to have this out there on the record.

[00:21:32] And Andy is in, and now we're on a first name basis because we've been yelling at you.

[00:21:37] Andy is an incredible executive.

[00:21:38] Unbelievable.

[00:21:39] World class.

[00:21:40] Incredible results.

[00:21:41] And it is not too late, sir.

[00:21:44] It is not too late to rethink this decision to really partner deeply with your employees

[00:21:48] on a better way forward.

[00:21:50] And so that is my advice.

[00:21:52] In fact.

[00:21:52] Is to slow this down.

[00:21:53] You don't have to do it publicly, right?

[00:21:55] Just slow down the implementation of this and use it as an opportunity to do a real listening

[00:22:01] tour with your best employees and listen and figure out together the best way forward

[00:22:07] here.

[00:22:11] Thanks for listening, everyone.

[00:22:12] If you want to figure out your workplace problem with us here at Fixable, please send

[00:22:15] us a message.

[00:22:16] You can email fixable at ted.com.

[00:22:19] Call us at 234-FIXABLE.

[00:22:22] That's 234-349-2253.

[00:22:25] Or because we're so modern, just shoot us a text.

[00:22:29] I want a phone call, to your point.

[00:22:31] I think the phone is underrated in our modern workplace.

[00:22:33] Please give us a call.

[00:22:34] For me, you can text.

[00:22:35] This episode was produced by Rahima Nassav from Pushkin Industries.

[00:22:42] Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Izzy Carter, Ban Ban Chang, and Roxanne Highlash.

[00:22:48] This episode was mixed by Louie at Story Yard.

[00:22:52] I help.

[00:22:52] I help.

[00:22:52] I help.

[00:22:52] I help.

[00:22:52] I help.

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