Remote Work: John Hackston of The Myers-Briggs Company On How To Successfully Navigate The Opportunities & Challenges Of Working Remotely Or From Home
When we have in-person meetings, we can rely on cues from people’s speech, behavior, and facial expressions to detect if the communication is flowing. However, this becomes significantly more challenging when working remotely. In a small video window on my laptop screen, it’s difficult to accurately discern whether someone is experiencing emotions like happiness, anger, engagement, or boredom. It is important that everyone is heard and that communication channels are always open for improving dialogue and solving issues.
As a part of our series about the things you need to successfully work remotely, I had the pleasure of interviewing John Hackston.
John Hackston is a chartered psychologist and Head of Thought Leadership at The Myers-Briggs Company, where he leads the company’s Oxford-based research team. He is a frequent commentator on the effects of personality type on work and life, and has authored numerous studies, published papers in peer-reviewed journals, presented at conferences for organizations such as The British Association for Psychological Type, and has written on various type-related subjects in top outlets such as Harvard Business Review.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?
It goes back a long way! I was born in the North-East of England, and went on to study psychology at university, mainly because it sounded interesting and different from anything I had done at school. I began work as a researcher in occupational psychology (usually called I/O psychology or organizational psychology in the US) and moved on to work in training, consultancy and thought leadership. And I’ve just become a grandfather for the first time.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
That’s a difficult question! Here are a few suggestions, take your pick. Maybe the time I got rather drunk with Ronnie Wood (of Rolling Stones fame) when he was staying in the same hotel. Or the time I suddenly found that I had two translators giving out simultaneous translations after every sentence I uttered when I was running a face-to-face training program. Or maybe my answer to your next question…
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I was facilitating a breakout group on a training course being run in a hotel. I went to collect the keys for the breakout room, and the person and the front desk could not find these, so they gave me the spare key. I led my group up to the room (the hotel used unbooked bedrooms on various floors as breakout rooms), unlocked the door, and marched into the room with my group… to find that there was still a bed in the room, and the bed still had people in it. Fortunately, they weren’t doing anything particularly intimate at that moment. What did I learn? Never assume, be very wary when hotel staff seem confused, and always, always check everything, including the rooms, before any training session.
What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees thrive and avoid burnout?
They can start by seeing each worker as an individual, not a number. What are their motivations and needs, what are they good at, what do they like to do, what are their areas for development, their greatest challenges, and what elements help them perform at their best? They should always remember that not everyone has the same needs, motivations and behavioral style as they do. With deeper information, it gets easier to assign people activities and tasks that keep them satisfied, engaged and motivated. Organizations can see the benefits of it by having higher levels of productivity and retaining talent.
Another tip would be to allow people time to disconnect. Is your company adopting the always-on culture? Do people have to keep up with their emails and messages even after their work day is over? High levels of stress come from the overlap of work and someone’s personal life. This affects our well-being in general, sometimes leading to burnout.
Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Working remotely can be very different than working with a team that is in front of you. This provides great opportunities, but it can also create unique challenges. To begin, can you articulate for our readers a few of the main benefits and opportunities of working remotely?
The pandemic changed how people work and made some organizations more flexible. The sudden change in the shelter-in-place days was an adjustment for workers and organizations, but now, three years after the initial lockdowns, both individuals and companies had the time to digest the situation. Organizations had the opportunity to create their own guidelines and policies and understand how workers felt about it. But still, the work environment is in a constant state of flux, and managers, leaders and their teams will need to be highly adaptable.
In the remote and hybrid research study that my company conducted in 2022, people were asked about the best things about working from home. The top three were: 1) No commute; 2) Flexibility, freedom, convenience; 3) Can focus, less distractions, more productive. This shows that workers appreciate certain aspects of working from home that are linked to their quality of life and how they spend their time. Of course, this is not true for everyone.
In the same survey, people were asked about the best things about not working from home, and the ranking was: 1) Able to socialize, talk, be around co-workers and others; 2) Better collaboration, communication; 3) Separation between work and home. This emphasizes our social nature as human beings. In the aftermath of the pandemic, the quality of work relationships has declined. This could be attributed to the human inclination to establish mental, physical, and emotional bonds through face-to-face interactions. Throughout history, aside from recent times, these connections have primarily developed in person, leading to the belief that virtual interactions do not foster the same level of bonding. As companies increasingly navigate the challenges of remote work, it becomes vital to incorporate social networking and engagement into every team.
Can you articulate for our readers what the five main challenges are regarding working remotely?
1 . Communication
2. Keeping a sense of inclusivity and recognition among employees
3 . Personality type preferences and the home office environment
4 . Finding work-life balance
5 . Dealing with conflict
Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges? Can you give a story or example for each?
1. When we have in-person meetings, we can rely on cues from people’s speech, behavior, and facial expressions to detect if the communication is flowing. However, this becomes significantly more challenging when working remotely. In a small video window on my laptop screen, it’s difficult to accurately discern whether someone is experiencing emotions like happiness, anger, engagement, or boredom. It is important that everyone is heard and that communication channels are always open for improving dialogue and solving issues.
2. Helping remote employees feel included and valued is crucial for fostering a positive and productive remote work environment. Some initiatives that are helpful are promoting team-building activities, clear communication of goals and expectations, providing professional development opportunities, having useful communications and collaboration tools, seeking feedback and making adjustments whenever needed.
3. For example, those who prefer Extraversion may have a more difficult time working alone from home, as they direct and take their energy from conversations and the external world, while Introverts will prefer being quiet and focused. This can affect how you will set up your home office. Will noise keep you motivated or deflect your attention? Being aware of it and creating strategies to have a more productive work routine can help employees perform at their best at home.
4. When the physical boundary between work and home is blurred, it can become difficult to discern when your professional responsibilities end and your personal life begins. Establishing routines can be beneficial in such situations. For instance, setting specific times to begin and conclude your workday, dressing up as if you were going to the office, and enjoying a cup of tea or coffee at the start can provide cues that assist in separating your work and personal spheres.
5. In the remote workplace, the rules of engagement aren’t always clear, and people’s behavior isn’t so easy to interpret. This is especially true when it comes to conflict. We all have our own way of dealing with conflict and often tend to assume that other people approach conflict in the same way as we do. This can lead to misunderstandings and fractured working relationships. One tool that could be helpful in understanding how you and your teammates deal with conflict is the Thomas-Kilman conflict modes Instrument (TKI).
Do you have any suggestions specifically for people who work at home? What are a few ways to be most productive when you work at home?
Something organizations and employees could consider is personality type preferences, as I mentioned above. In research conducted by my company, we looked at how people with a preference for Introversion had different views about working from home compared to those who prefer Extraversion. Creating an environment at home that could suit these preferences would help fully remote workers do their jobs in a more satisfying manner.
Can you share any suggestions for teams who are used to working together on location but are forced to work remotely due to the pandemic? Are there potential obstacles one should avoid with a team that is just getting used to working remotely?
One interesting aspect that came up in the hybrid and remote work research that I mentioned above is virtual meetings. Over a quarter of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they found video meetings boring, difficult, or frustrating. Over a third agreed or strongly agreed that if they join by video but others are physically in the room, they find it difficult to make themselves heard.
A few tips for leaders to make sure remote workers are heard are making sure that every participant is equally engaged; giving the opportunity to everyone to express their thoughts and opinions; reviewing your team’s and your own communication style and how you facilitate meetings. Tools like the MBTI can be extremely helpful to understand a team’s dynamics, especially in remote scenarios where we don’t have the physical cues.
What do you suggest can be done to create an empowering work culture and team culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?
One of the most important things a business leader or a team leader can do is always ask never assume. People have their own needs and are motivated by different things, but we tend to assume they’re the same as us. For organizations, one of the most hurtful things they do for their employees is to create blanket policies. They should not do that unless there’s an excellent reason to do so. According to our hybrid and remote work research, if a company mandates that all employees return to the office, this could result in the loss of valuable team members. This is an example of how creating a work culture that is open to worker’s needs and to listen to them could foster a workplace of collaboration and innovation.
You are a person of great influence. If you could spread an idea or inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
It’s not a new idea but it’s a surprisingly difficult one to learn, or at least internalize. People are different from you, you are different from them, and that’s fine. It doesn’t make you or them right or wrong, it’s just different. And if we can recognize that, and pool our skills, knowledge and different approaches, the world would be a better place.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
This is a question that I find difficult to answer because I don’t have a favorite quote or saying. I know that many people find them useful, and that’s great, but, for me, life is a bit too complicated. I guess that’s part of the reason why I find personality frameworks like the MBTI so useful.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
They can follow the Myers-Briggs Company’s social media channels:
Thank you for these great insights! We wish you continued success.
