Productivity expert Maura Thomas joins Brian to tackle this #truthbomb:
Your team's biggest productivity barrier might be you.

Through engaging stories and practical examples, Maura reveals how leaders unknowingly create chaos through their communication habits and "always available" mentality.

Learn simple yet powerful changes you can make as a leader to transform your team's effectiveness, including why "I trust your judgment" might be the most important phrase in your leadership vocabulary, and why being too available to your team can be just as damaging as being unavailable.

The Video

The Audio/Podcast

References In This Episode

• Maura Forbes Article on defining Open Door Policy - 10 Things Leaders Need to Get Right For Happy & Productive Employees

• Harvard Business Review Article, The Downside of Flex Time, the Communication Guidelines chart Maura mentioned in the interview is down at the bottom of the page.

• Maura’s Forbes article: What Does Work-Life Balance Even Mean?

• MauraThomas.com
  

Episode Digest

Breaking Your Team's Biggest Success Barrier: 7 Simple Changes

While many organizations still frame productivity challenges in terms of time management, the real barrier isn't time – it's attention. Maura Thomas said it best:

"We've all had days where we said to ourselves, 'My gosh, that was such a good day. I got so much done.' And we've all had days where we said, 'My gosh, I was busy all day and somehow I got nothing done.' and in those two instances, same 24 hours."

You can't solve a distraction problem with a time solution. The real challenge lies in how organizational culture, particularly leadership behavior, shapes productivity.

Here are seven specific changes leaders can implement to transform their team's productivity:

1. Be Specific About "Responsiveness" Expectations On The Different Communication Types.

When leaders tell their teams to "be responsive," what they're really saying is "be fast." This creates a culture where employees feel compelled to monitor every communication channel constantly, making it impossible to prioritize effectively.

Instead, clearly define what responsiveness means in different contexts and establish realistic response-time expectations. State these somewhere so staff can point to them and reference them.

2. Create Clear Communication Channel Guidelines - What Type Of Communication Goes Where & When.

Organizations often introduce new communication tools without providing guidance on how to use them effectively. This results in redundant messaging (like sending a chat to say "I just sent you an email") and information overload.

Establish clear guidelines for which communication channels should be used in specific situations. Examples:

—Your “bat signal” - Which method is your “stop everything, I need you right now, it’s an emergency” channel?
—What’s worth a phone call?
—What’s a Teams/Slack Message for? Or an email? What’s the difference?
—Do we text message for work? If so, for what, when, and why?

"If you communicate urgent or time-sensitive issues the same way you communicate every other issue, then that creates a real problem in your organization."

3. Have a system for how work flows to/through your team.

Rather than having team members field requests from all directions, establish clear processes for how work flows into and through your department.

This doesn't mean all requests must go through the manager, but rather that there should be organized systems for handling different types of requests.

This helps prevent the constant "emergency" mode many teams operate in.

4. Use These Responses To Remove Yourself as the bottleneck to your team’s productivity. Empower them instead.

Instead of always wanting work to flow through you, and always being available to answer questions, use empowering phrases that build confidence and autonomy.

Rather than saying "Don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions" (which still implies the need for you to approve), try:

- "I trust your judgment"

- "I will support your decision"

5. Set Clear After-Hours Boundaries On work communication. Do Not Break them.

Despite what leaders might say about not expecting responses after hours, their behavior sets the real expectation.

If you're sending emails at night or on weekends, your team will feel compelled to check and respond. You can still choose to jump on after hours if you want, however all communications you send during this time should use the “schedule-send” feature so it will arrive during the next work day.

This capability is available for all major platforms so if you don’t know how to do it, google it and find it. Follow your established clear protocols from #2 above for genuine emergencies which require communication after hours.

6. Define Terms Explicitly

Common phrases like "open door policy" often mean different things to different people. Some interpret it as "interrupt anyone at any time for any reason," while others see it as "be available for important discussions."

Explicitly define these terms and their practical implications for your team. Top examples from Maura include:
—Work Week: What days and hours is this?
—Vacation Time: Does that mean you ARE or AREN’T available?
—Communication Hours: Is this the same as Work Hours? What times are messages to be received and processed?
—Emergency: What constitutes an emergency? A financial penalty above $#,###? Bleeding? Legal remifications? Something’s going to be on the front page of the newspaper?
—Open door policy: If you have one, what does that mean? Doors can’t be closed?

7. Model Work-Life Balance

Perhaps the most powerful quote from the discussion puts it simply:

"You can't get a fresh perspective on something you never step away from."

Research shows that working between 38-45 hours per week is optimal for productivity, happiness, and health outcomes.

Leaders need to model this balance, recognizing that scrolling through work emails while watching TV still counts as work.

The Impact of These Changes

These changes might seem simple, but their impact can be profound. When leaders recognize how their behavior shapes team culture and make conscious adjustments, they can transform their department from a reactive, always-on environment to one where people can do their best work.

Key challenges many teams face today include:

- Constant interruptions disguised as collaboration

- Difficulty prioritizing when everything feels urgent

- Burnout from always being connected

- Inefficient communication across multiple channels

- Disempowered team members who feel they need approval for everything

By implementing these seven changes, leaders can create an environment where their teams can feel satisfied at the end of each workday, knowing they've accomplished meaningful work rather than just staying busy.

Recognize that being too available to your team can be just as problematic as being unavailable. True leadership means creating an environment where team members can grow, make decisions, and manage their attention effectively – not just responding quickly to every request that comes their way.

Most importantly, remember that creating change doesn't require a complete organizational overhaul. Start with one area, such as communication protocols or workflow management, and build from there. The goal isn't perfect execution but rather conscious improvement in how work gets done.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Productivity and Success Barriers

11:06 The Impact of Communication on Productivity

19:19 Strategies for New Leaders to Foster Productivity

26:09 Preventing Fires: A New Leadership Approach

34:30 The Power of Clear Communication

44:25 Work-Life Balance and Personal Well-Being

Today’s Guest

Maura Thomas

Speaker, Trainer, & Author on Productivity

Maura Nevel Thomas is an award-winning international speaker and trainer on individual and corporate productivity and work-life balance, and the most widely-cited authority on attention management. Her proprietary Empowered Productivity™ System has been embraced by the likes of the NASA, Comcast, and Google. She’s ranked in the Top 10 Time Management Professionals in the World, and was named a Top Leadership Speaker by Inc. Magazine. She’s also a TEDx Speaker and the author of six best-selling books. Maura is frequently featured in major business outlets including Business Insider, Fast Company, and the Washington Post, and she’s also a regular contributor to both Forbes and the Harvard Business Review, with articles there viewed over a million times. 

MauraThomas.com

Why Subscribe To The Email List: Brian shares separate hacks, tips, and actionable learning exclusively for his email subscribers. Sign up so you don’t miss out!

About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. After spending a career hands-on in the trenches as a leader at all levels, I now help others to level-up through my Productivity Gladiator training. Graduates wield time management & life balance superpowers, activate a laser-guided ability to focus & prioritize, and implement a sniper-precise approach to task & email management. If what you’ve seen here intrigues you, reach out, let’s chat!

Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.

Transcript

Brian Nelson-Palmer (00:03.156)

I'm Brian Nelson Palmer. On this show, I share personal, practical productivity skills. And in this episode, we're talking about the simple changes that you can make to break your team's biggest success barrier. And with me on the show today is Maura Thomas, who is a speaker, trainer, and an author on the topic of productivity. So I can't wait to have this discussion. Maura, thanks for being here with me.

Maura Thomas (00:28.683)

I'm happy to be here, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (00:31.094)

Now say a bit about your background. said productivity, but we're going to be talking about success barriers and such. So tell them, tell how your background relates to that topic.

Maura Thomas (00:41.471)

Yeah, I've been in the productivity field for my whole professional career. I started out for a decade working for a company that sold paper-based planners and training to go along with them. And when I left there, I started my business a really long time ago. So my whole professional career from my first job out of college, my entire professional career has been in the productivity industry and helping people.

achieve more of what's most important. The definition of the word productive that guides my work is achieving significant results. And that means anything from what's most significant to today, to this week, to this year, to this lifetime, and really anything that you consider important in between.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (01:33.388)

I love that and you talk about paper planners and it's so funny because I I tell people did not use paper planners because online is even better. So it's just so funny that that's the like man. We're going back in time to the paper planner days like yes, that's what we're talking about now more a lot of people talk about productivity. So what would you say makes you a little different from all these other people that talk about productivity?

Maura Thomas (01:59.125)

Yeah, I think most people still translate productivity into time management. Most people frame their ability to be productive in terms of time management. And I think that that phrase has far outlived its usefulness. The reason that we don't achieve, the reason that we don't achieve all the things that we want to achieve is not because we don't have enough time. We've all had days where we said to ourselves, my gosh, that was such a good day. I got so much done.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (02:19.0)

Mm-hmm.

Maura Thomas (02:27.989)

And we've all had days where we said, my gosh, I was busy all day and somehow I got nothing done. And in those two instances, same 24 hours. We didn't have more time one day or less time another day. And also everybody knows that we cannot manage time. It doesn't, we can't slow it down. We can't back it up. We can't get more of it. We can't bend it to our will in any way. Our biggest challenge in the 21st century is not that we don't have enough time. It's that we have too many distractions.

You can't solve a distraction problem with a time solution. The antidote to distraction is attention. And so I think it's time to kick the phrase time management to the curb and start thinking about how we manage our attention. Because the more we talk about attention management instead of time management, the more aware we become of how distracted we are. And the truth is, while we can't manage time, no one but you

can manage your attention. And when you get distracted from the things that are really important to you, unfortunately, we have lots of stories that we tell ourselves, but the truth is it is 100 % in our control. And being a control freak type A personality, that frame works much better for me. And I think it's much more relevant to the world that we live in today because the techniques of time management.

created in a world that no longer exists and is never coming back.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (03:59.816)

I mean, I did. You say that and I'm I'm I'm laughing. Cause on the one hand I'm like, wait a minute. I'm the guy who did a Ted talk on the value of your time and like time management is a thing. But at the same time, the whole premise of my talk is about spending your time more wisely and how you spend it and the value of it, which is really kind of exactly what you're talking about, which is you can't make more of it. So you have to choose how you spend it, which I am so excited for this conversation. OK.

Maura Thomas (04:09.803)

Thank

Brian Nelson-Palmer (04:29.088)

So let's talk about it then. So what is our premise for today is the simple changes you can make to break your team's biggest success barrier. let's spoil the surprise here. What is the barrier? What is it?

Maura Thomas (04:47.455)

Yeah, well, I know that you are a primary audience, is recently promoted people managers. And so I think one of the biggest mistakes that even seasoned CEOs make is not recognizing how much influence you have on the people who report to you. And the way that you behave creates the culture. So when I say culture, the culture of an organization or the culture of a team,

I just mean the way everybody on the team behaves. so that means every single person on the team contributes to the culture, but nobody contributes to the culture more than the leader. Because people look to you to how to behave. And so when I talk about culture, I talk about the culture of productivity, right, as I'm sure you do as well. Are you creating environment where your team can really, really do their best work?

or are you creating an environment where your team is reactive and distracted all day long and leave work every day saying, my gosh, I was busy all day and yet I still got nothing done. And so I guess I have to get my work done when nobody's bothering me. Well, the only time people are not bothering you is at 11 o'clock at night or 4 a.m. or weekends or holidays. And...

What I have found is that the biggest obstacle to the team's productivity is often the behavior of the leaders. and the culture of the organization or the team. so Recognizing how much influence you have is really, really important.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (06:22.476)

Whoa.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (06:29.01)

my gosh, so just had this reaction like, my gosh, so we're going to pull out the guns and go after the senior leaders now. Is that what's about to happen? Heck yeah. Okay, let's talk about this Maura. Yes. And everybody, whenever you, the ideas that she gives you, you can blame Maura for all these ideas that we're about to point at the, no. Okay. So it just kidding. But that said, so it's ultimately the biggest barrier is the culture. Is that what I'm taking away here?

Maura Thomas (06:34.678)

I'm not sure.

Maura Thomas (06:56.125)

One of the biggest things standing in the way of the team, I mean, there's lots of things, certainly. Like a lot of people just simply don't have the skills to manage the realities of business today. We live in an unprecedented time with constant distraction, a fast pace, technology advancing faster than we can keep up with it.

And so it is a difficult place to live. And back in the day, for those people old enough to remember, I mean, when you, if you got a corporate job, like an office job, when you got out of school, you, you got sent to the time management class and you got your leather binder with the zipper and all the pages in it. And you got taught like, this is how to be a grownup. And this is how you manage a life. And now you have lots more responsibilities and this is how it goes. Well,

Brian Nelson-Palmer (07:44.952)

and

Maura Thomas (07:53.095)

The world is way more complicated than it was back then. And we don't get that anymore. Most companies don't send their people to that kind of training anymore. And even if they did, a lot of those techniques are outdated and not relevant anymore. So it's a real, really challenging. Most people simply don't have the skills that they need. But even when they do have the skills that they need,

so many cultures, the culture around productivity is so dysfunctional. Most organizations have a culture of urgency or a culture of chaos or a culture of distraction. Everything is an emergency. Everybody needs everything now. And we're drowning each other in communication and we're drowning each other in messages of all kinds. Everybody's telling everybody everything.

And it's just impossible. Every minute that somebody on your team has to spend in an inbox is a minute that they don't get to spend doing something that feels important and meaningful and like it moved the needle because nobody goes home at the end of the day and says, my gosh, it was such a good day. I read like 200 emails. It was amazing. Nobody says that.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (09:14.328)

It's so true!

Maura Thomas (09:19.691)

And, but we tell all ourselves, all these messages and all these stories about why we have to spend every day in our inbox. And, and it feels true because if I miss, God forbid I should miss an important message from my boss, I'm in big trouble. Even though my boss sends me 70 messages every day, there's one or two that I really couldn't miss, but it got buried in the 68 others that I was sent.

And then the hundred that other people sent me. so it's, know, team communication is overwhelming and the leaders just sort of go, well, mean, I guess I figured out how to do this kind of. I guess everybody just needs to figure it out, know, figure it out. Everybody wants to do more with less. That's a, that's a wish, not a strategy.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (09:53.592)

Hello.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (10:11.906)

Gosh, yes. I mean, the focus and the prioritization is such, that's what, I mean, that's what productivity Gladiator is about is, all right, you just got that promotion. Welcome to the team. And what most companies do is they just say, congratulations, you're promoted. Good luck. And then figure it out. And like, so they do a really good job with onboarding training is a thing that a lot of organizations focus on.

but then they kind of leave out the training for the next step promotion or the one after that. Like what goes with that? That's a real opportunity. And so you're preaching to the choir with me and I'm sure you listening can absolutely relate to the chaos that she's talking about and the last minute culture that she's talking about. so if the culture of the leader is that, how big,

Maura Thomas (11:02.537)

behavior of

Brian Nelson-Palmer (11:06.092)

Give me an idea of how big of an issue this is, Maura. We both work in the space. We both work with different organizations. So like, what is the difference? Many people have no frame of reference beyond the place that they're sitting right now. So what is the difference when the culture is different? How big of an issue is it?

Maura Thomas (11:26.943)

I mean, so a lot of people talk about a culture of safety and a culture of trust and a culture of accountability and all that stuff is great. I'm talking about the culture of productivity. Are you creating an environment where your team can feel satisfied at the end of the workday? And so many leaders prioritize things like, for example, okay, here's a real concrete example.

bosses, supervisors, managers often say, we need to be responsive to our clients or we need to be responsive in our communication. And so if you just tell me that, what I hear when you say we need to be responsive is you need to be fast. You need to be fast when somebody reaches out to you, when somebody sends you some sort of message, voicemail, email, text, we need to be fast.

And if I want to be, I don't want to just be baseline at my job. I want to be really good at my job. So I want to be the best version of fast. And that means immediate. And so if in order to be, if I hear you saying, we need to be responsive without any other context. What I'm going to try to do is answer every message immediately. And then I'm going to get the gold star. But if I have to answer every message immediately, then I have to monitor every

every message on every channel as soon as it arrives. And so then how do I prioritize anything? Because everything that's coming in might be an emergency. And so if everything might be an emergency, then how do I do anything else? Because I have to monitor all of the information. And so that language on its face, it sounds pretty good. We need to be responsive. Sure, we need to be responsive. What do you mean by that?

And why, why do you want to be responsive? Do you just want to, I mean, are you competing on fast? Is that like your differentiator? Because anyone can be fast. What does good customer service mean to you? And what kind of expectations are you setting both internally and externally to provide whatever your definition of good customer service is?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (13:37.111)

Mm-hmm.

Maura Thomas (13:53.092)

So that's just one example. Another example is people... sorry. Yeah. Yeah?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (13:56.404)

my gosh, Mark, wait, can I yes and? Can I yes and you on that? Because while we're talking about this, I just had this debate in a session with an organization last week and it was so relevant to me because on this topic specifically, they say be responsive, right? And so people think, sometimes I engage and you've engaged and I know you listening probably have met the people that are glued to their inbox. Like they just, they can't close it, it's up all the time.

in the middle of a meeting, they will interrupt the meeting because something came in an email, which is disrespectful anyway, but they're just on their inbox all the time. And the conversation that we had that was so funny as you're saying, let's be responsive, which means let's be quick. But then on the flip side of that, how fast if that boss expects responsive, that organization expects responsive, how long do you wait before you follow up

on an email that hasn't been responded to? Because in my experience, you generally have to give the person, and this is general, so every situation is different, but generally, a couple of days. If they don't respond the next day, you might wait two days before you ping them again and say, hey, just checking in. And in some organizations, if you were in two days, they'll be like, listen, it might be like three days or something. So on the one end of the spectrum,

They want you to be responsive in a matter of minutes or hours. But then if somebody doesn't respond to you, you have to wait two days to follow up with them, to be, to give them time to process. So it's just this funny juxtaposition between the expectation of response time and the expectation of how long they get to respond to you. So as a supervisor or a leader, as we're talking about this, it makes sense to make those things even.

Right? Let's balance that expectation so that the amount of time that you give, the grace that you give somebody else, you're also allowed yourself or something like that. That was, it was just a really interesting conversation on that.

Maura Thomas (16:04.863)

Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure about balancing those things, but I think that another mistake that organizations make is that they don't provide any guidance. We have all these different ways to communicate inside organizations, and we keep introducing more ways to communicate and share information inside organizations, and we never provide any guidance.

that says we use this in this situation and we use this in this situation and we use this in this situation. And so what happens is it becomes personal preference. And so I work with, I have 10 people on my team and this one likes email and this one likes chat and this one likes voicemail and this one likes to have meetings and I can't remember what everybody likes. So I'm just gonna send all the things in all the ways.

And so now you end up with the chat that says, Hey, I just sent you an email. Right. And so now you have, now you have two messages about one thing instead of one message about one thing. And now you can see why everybody is drowning in too much communication. And when I talk about defaulting to personal preference, people say to me, you can't dictate these things. I mean, everybody's different.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (17:06.68)

huh.

Maura Thomas (17:26.559)

Yeah, everybody is different, but you have policies at your company that this is how you do things. You don't let every new employee just say, do things however you want here. It's fine. Whatever you want to do is fine. We don't have any policies. You don't say that. Communication is one of the most important things because it is something that

people in the organization spend the majority of their time on, at least those people who work in the office, right? If you're not actively like building things or on the manufacturing floor or seeing patients or directly serving customers, then a big part of your job is communication. And yet we have no policies around how we communicate. And so...

Brian Nelson-Palmer (17:54.786)

Yes.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (18:14.946)

Yes.

Maura Thomas (18:15.795)

And so I have to treat every incoming communication as an emergency because it might be. And so that means every new thing has to be the priority until I know that it isn't the priority. And so then I can't prioritize really anything. Leaders call me in and they say, my team doesn't know how to prioritize. I need you to do a class on prioritization. And what I find is that the team knows how to prioritize. They just can't in this culture because everything feels like a fire.

that they have to put out right now. And so that's a culture problem.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (18:50.124)

Yeah, gosh, for sure. all right. Well, let's I think we've all right. We've declared we're at the point where let's talk about culture and that thing. So what? What do you do? What what what are what are Maura's thoughts takeaways on? What do you do in that scenario? Let's say and the people like you listening, the people that that I talked to and about on this show is generally not you are not the CEO.

You are not the very top. You're either the person, the troops on the ground, or you're the first or second level above them. You've got a team underneath you, but you've got people above you. So you can't issue that policy that fixes all of it, but now what do you do? What are your thoughts, Maura?

Maura Thomas (19:38.655)

Yeah, many, many things. mean, the first thing is that as the new leader, you have to be brave enough to set the example. And so that means you have to manage up as much as you have to manage down. And so you want to make sure that you are protecting your team from the dysfunction in the organization to the extent that you can.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (20:04.055)

Huh?

Maura Thomas (20:04.425)

So if you're so it's helpful, for example, to have a conversation with your boss about how is work going to flow through your department? Because probably most people on your team get emails and other communication from everyone in the organization about everything. And

And how do they prioritize? And all of those emails, by the way, are typically another thing to do, right? Here's something that's really is going to be a to-do item for you. And so if you as the leader are not paying attention to how your team receives work, processes work, and pushes work out of your department, then it's going to remain chaotic.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (20:41.432)

True story. Yeah.

Maura Thomas (21:04.509)

And if it's not the leader of that department figuring out how the workflow is going to happen, then who is it? There's no one. And so recognizing how your team receives their work and therefore how they can prioritize it is a super useful thing to do as you take over as a new manager of a department. And that will protect your team from

feeling like they're pulled in a million different directions. That's one thing.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (21:39.68)

I love the it's ultimately it's managing the work right so and can I so I want to ask you a clarifying question on that then because there is this what you don't want to do is shut down the communication but at the same time where do you draw the line of what they can go like so I mean I mean the example I have is let's say somebody has a question about something question goes directly to the person they answer the question.

Hey, a question about this policy, a question about this thing, whatever it is, questions are fine. If it is, to answer the question sometimes takes a little bit of work, but if it's just a clarifying thing, that's one thing. If it is a task, then the task goes through the manager, or is it a task under a certain amount of minutes, or is it just that the person on your team knows to let the boss know or log it in some system? Where's the line between

what does go through you as the boss and what still goes straight to the person.

Maura Thomas (22:40.619)

Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that everything has to flow through the boss, right? I definitely don't want to, I mean, the boss shouldn't be the gatekeeper. The boss should work, the head of the department should work with their boss to figure out how the work of the department is going to flow through the department. And then,

getting support in terms of, know, every salesperson can't, shouldn't be going to every member of my team with everything that they need, right? We need a way to sort of, to centralize and prioritize requests because every salesperson is going to think that their thing is the most important and my team is in a position to decide for themselves. so every, so,

Right? So a lot of times people feel like they report to many different bosses. And so it's not to say that every request has to come through the boss. It's just to say, what process are we going to encourage, say, the sales team to follow when they need things from our people? Are they going to go directly to the person? Is there going to be a ticketing system? Who's going to be in charge of what? Does somebody have a finite number of accounts that they service?

just stepping back and taking the big picture view of how does this department operate and how does work come to us and flow through and go out so that people individually in the minute of their day saying, I just got five different emails from five different salespeople who need five different things and each one of these is going to take me an hour to do, but I already had my own plans for the day. So how am I supposed to know what, right? And just feeling frustrated. That doesn't mean that

Brian Nelson-Palmer (24:38.199)

yet.

Maura Thomas (24:39.339)

that every request has to go only to the boss. It just means to take the big picture view of how are we going to handle this? Because we know this is going to happen.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (24:48.15)

And you know, I almost think about it as like necking it down. Oftentimes when you describe that, that scenario, people, you come into a new position maybe, or a new manager of a team, and you feel a little powerless because the way that it's been running is the way that it's been running. And so you don't want to ruffle feathers. You don't want to be the one that comes in, but at the same time, you do need to get your hands around the work. And so you as the boss are in charge of the work.

That is your, you're in charge of the people and approving vacations, but reality is you're in charge of the work. So even if that means getting your hands around the big picture requests, even if just start there, like the advice is, my God, please start somewhere. Like start with the big stuff. And then once you figure out the big stuff, the little stuff might be running around all crazy still, but you got to start somewhere. So start big.

and then come down to the medium stuff and get a good system in place for those and then move down. But don't just look at it and go, well, I can't fix this all at once. So let's just not fix it at all. That's not going to be effective. So please don't do that. Please start somewhere. And I love your idea, Maura. How does the workflow? That's a really good one. I like that.

Maura Thomas (26:09.279)

Yeah, a lot of times recently promoted people and sometimes even seasoned leaders will view their job as the one to fight the fires. And I really think that the leaders should be the ones looking at why the fires are starting to begin with and preventing them. When I ask, when I go into a leadership group, often the first question I ask is,

What is the one thing that is most likely to derail your plans for your day? And they say unexpected issues that pop up. And I say, okay, unexpected issues are the most common thing. So this happens every day. Yeah, it happens every day. Well, doesn't that mean that it should be expected then?

And why are there so many unexpected issues? Because that tells me that you don't have processes for how things should operate. I mean, I understand everything doesn't always go according to plan, but if you have unexpected issues every day, then you should start expecting them. And you need to start to think about why they're happening to begin with. So thinking about your job as the one to prevent the fires instead of the one to fight the fires is a...

way that you can be a really powerful contributor to the organization because a lot of people don't add value in that way. They just put their head down and do their job instead of thinking, how can we get better every day?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (27:45.432)

True story. I love that. Prevent the fires, not fight the fires. And that's really hard because you as the supervisor are often held responsible for the fires. So you basically have to stand there on fire and try to figure out how to prevent this the next time, which is counterintuitive, but also super important. Like, don't forget to, if you put the fire out, make sure that it doesn't start again. Like, yes. Love that. True.

Maura Thomas (28:00.754)

You

Maura Thomas (28:15.371)

And you know what? Yeah. So that leads me to another one, which is kind of related, which is that leaders, mean, everybody really, everybody wants to be helpful, but especially people in leadership positions, they feel like it's their job to be, we've heard this idea of being a servant leader, right? And being, everybody wants to be helpful. Everybody wants to support their team. Everybody wants to answer questions and, you know, be the mentor and be the person that their

Brian Nelson-Palmer (28:15.564)

What else?

Maura Thomas (28:45.269)

team needs, but here's the truth. It is just as bad to be too available to your team as it is to be completely unavailable to your team. Because if your team is always coming to you with, for guidance and answers and help and support, they're always interrupting you for these things. And you always allow the interruption

and you always provide the guidance and the sounding board and the support and the answers to the questions, then at best, at best, you are teaching your team to be a little lazy because they're sitting in their office thinking, you know, I could probably figure this out on my own, but if I just ask Brian, he'll tell me what to do. that's the most efficient thing is just to go, is to go ask Brian at best, you're making them a little lazy.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (29:34.025)

Right.

Maura Thomas (29:41.893)

at worse, you are disempowering them. You are teaching them that they have to run every little question, every little issue by you to get your input. And some people recognize this. Some people, they recognize that they need to teach their team to be independent. And so they usually say one of two things. And I think both of these could be improved upon. So when they realize that being too available, perhaps

is making their team a little lazy or disempowered. They'll say either, don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions, right? Well, my response to that is if they know the problem and they know the solution, why do they need to come to you at all? Right? Or they'll say something like, what do you think we should do? But both of those things still imply that

Brian Nelson-Palmer (30:22.018)

Right.

Maura Thomas (30:40.521)

that the leader needs to bless this, right? Come to me with solutions and I will tell you if that's a good solution or not, right? Or what do you think we should do so that I can tell you thumbs up or thumbs down on what you think we should do. That still disempowers the team. So I have two phrases that can be super powerful, especially even for seasoned CEOs, but especially for new leaders.

Try one of these. The first one is the one I always use and somebody just last week gave me a really good one too. So try this phrase instead when your team comes to you. I trust your judgment.

I trust your judgment is a much more useful thing to say because it empowers the team member to take ownership of their job and to be more accountable and to solve problems on their own and to learn and grow and take responsibility. I trust your judgment or.

That's the one that I've been using for a long time. Somebody last week gave me another option, which I also love, which is, I will support your decision.

both of those empower your team. And so remembering that being too available is just as bad as being never available and trying one of those two phrases will help your team to learn and grow and feel empowered and take responsibility and accountability. And the benefit to you is that you will be interrupted less often.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (32:19.382)

Last off. Yep.

Maura Thomas (32:20.841)

and you'll more time to get your homework done.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (32:23.532)

That's true. If you think about the supervisor, when you read every position description ever, well, ever might be a strong term. Now I'm getting extremist with my language. if when you read most position descriptions, the supervisor position description does not say be available to answer your team's questions within moments or at any time that they have them. That generally doesn't say that.

Maura Thomas (32:51.989)

Well, it doesn't say that, but here's another mistake. When I talked about words have power, we say things that we think mean a thing and other people think they mean something entirely different. So here's a phrase that the job description doesn't say that, but how many companies say that they have an open door policy?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (33:11.384)

true story.

Maura Thomas (33:12.381)

And what do, if you say we have an open door policy, what most people think that means is come on in any time. Anyone can interrupt anyone at any time for any reason. If you say open door policy, that is probably what your team means. Or I have worked with teams who, when I talk about controlling your attention and maybe close your door to get work done, and I have had people say to me,

We are not, we have an open door policy here. We are not allowed to close our doors. And when the leader of the team heard that in the training, it was like a face bomb moment, right? Because we think that everybody has the same definition of the words that we use. I wrote an article for Forbes called 10 terms that you need to explicitly define for your team. And open door policy is at the top of that list.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (34:07.496)

Nice. OK, I will search that and make sure in your notes for this episode, you can check out that one because that sounds like an interesting read more. like that. OK. So we we all right. So encapsulate, we just went down. We had some good anecdotes there. What is the bottom line? That bottom line piece of advice was.

Maura Thomas (34:30.411)

Well, we said a lot. be very clear with the words that you use and make sure everybody's on the same page with what they mean. Like culture. Culture means how everybody operates, how everybody behaves in the department. And so when you talk about culture, if you, for example, never respect a closed door and you always knock, knock, hey, do you have a minute? Then everybody's going to do that.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (34:42.882)

Okay.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (34:49.132)

Right.

Maura Thomas (34:59.217)

If you yell over cubicle walls, everybody's going to yell over cubicle walls. If you email people after hours, everybody's going to email people after hours. So understanding that you're all on the same page with words, words like culture, words like open door policy, words like vacation. What do you expect from your team when they're on vacation?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (35:22.047)

huh.

Maura Thomas (35:25.803)

because most people say that they expect nothing from their team when they're on vacation. But the way they behave implies that they actually expect quite a lot more from their team when they're on vacation. So, so words have power and understanding the words that you use, that's, that's one thing. Having a, a big picture view of how your department operates.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (35:40.045)

they take.

Maura Thomas (35:53.831)

so that there's a process for things, so that all of these unexpected emergencies that really should be expected then get handled more efficiently and then you're really adding value by improving the way that the department operates.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (36:02.02)

huh.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (36:08.973)

Yeah.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (36:12.684)

And I wanna go back to one, Maura, that you said, or one thing that we talked about, which I think is important for you and I to talk about now, and that is we talked about all the different communication mediums. And you had said that, you mentioned earlier, and it just jogged my memory about how culture, there are all these different mediums, and people say, we can't put a policy around those, or we can't necessarily.

you as a supervisor, you as an employee can create expectations around those things. And so the example that I have is many organizations now have something like a Microsoft Teams or Slack in their organization. And what's funny is the organizations brought in this tool, but then they never talked about communications and how that's routed and setting expectations around it. So for example, for me, when my organization brought in Teams,

or Slack, to me, the very, if you actually go read the studies and you nerd out on productivity like I do, and I'm sure you do, the beautiful thing about Teams and Slack is it allows you to communicate internally without blowing up somebody's inbox and email. So the simple line would be email is external and Teams and Slack is your internal communications. That's an easy way to do it. Now that's not always true.

But what I find happens is that organizations just now have two mediums when they used to have one and they use them both the same. And then people have different expectations around it too. So for me, if I treat it like email, except this one's internal and this one's external, then that means if 24 hours is how long you expect, by the next day you'll get back to somebody on an email, then that's also true of your team's message. But organizations don't necessarily.

that expectation or they might not have done that. So you as a boss with your team, you don't have to dictate this, but at least sit down and have the discussion about how are we best going to use these platforms to communicate, whether it's teams or Slack or I don't know about you, but I've gotten text messages from my boss on or client or whoever. And so now there's texting phone calls. So what is that and create an expect or a norm?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (38:29.976)

Create a norm for your team if nothing else. But I don't know, what are your thoughts on

Maura Thomas (38:35.967)

Yeah, I mean, I think an expectation of response times can be helpful, but to me, the first step is which tool in which situation. So for example, I mean, at the very minimum, the way that I like to put it is that you need a bat signal, right? Like what's what's the like, this is urgent or time sensitive, right? Because if you communicate urgent or time sensitive,

Brian Nelson-Palmer (38:56.184)

Okay.

Maura Thomas (39:03.751)

issues the same way you communicate every other issue, then that creates a real problem in your organization. So at the very minimum, you need a bat signal. You need a bat signal internally and you need a bat signal externally. If it's time sensitive, do this. But then there's also some communication guidelines and there's an article out there probably

I think it's Harvard Business Review that I wrote in this one with a chart, a sample chart of communication guidelines, because it's not just urgent time sensitive. It's also during work hours, after work hours. Because sometimes things come up after hours, but most things that get communicated after hours really could have waited. So how do we communicate then? Also,

If it's another problem that we have, especially with some younger folks, is that they tend, sometimes people tend to hide behind email. And so they try to communicate a very sensitive or, you know, complicated issue by email because it's easier to do it by email than actually looking someone in the face and telling them like they're not doing a good job or they are disappointed.

what they said or something like that. And email is not appropriate in that situation. identifying the different ways that you have to communicate in your organization and providing some guidelines around if it's urgent or time sensitive, do this. If it's complicated or sensitive, do this. If it's routine questions, whatever, do

So there's a chart in that HBR article about that that is really useful. And also after hours versus during work hours. And this comes down to recognizing how much influence leaders have and what that does to your team. It doesn't matter how many times you say to somebody like, don't worry about this. Sometimes I'm up late at night or Sunday.

Maura Thomas (41:25.371)

mornings, I'm sending emails. I mean, don't even worry about it until Monday. It doesn't matter. You can say that until you're blue in the face, but if you're the boss and you're sending email after hours, your team's going to be reading email after hours. And that's affecting their life. And there's all kinds of really powerful studies about that. I'm afraid that we're running low on time, so I don't want to go too far off the rabbit hole.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (41:46.59)

my gosh, can we? gosh, Mark, can we just say that it is please if you are a supervisor, if you are over people or, you know, honestly, even if you're not a supervisor, if you want to correct that culture of you need to be checking your email all the time, it's called schedule send.

And with the latest version of iOS, you can now do that with text messages too. So if you don't know how to schedule send in Slack or schedule send in Teams or schedule send in your email, it's in Gmail. It's an outlook.

And now I'm pretty sure on every platform you can Google it. There is a way to do this. You should know that if you're going to send something, it's fine that you think of something at eight o'clock at night. I nerd out on things and think about it at nine or 10 or whatever. And you want to get it off out of your head. So you write it down or you send an email to that person. But instead of hitting send, hit schedule, send and schedule it to arrive at eight o'clock the next morning so that you are not the person who's emailing.

at 10 o'clock at night. Please, please, please, unless like you said, it's urgent, unless it is urgent, please don't send emails after hours. Not even that. Call. Yeah.

Maura Thomas (43:00.617)

Definitely even, okay, Brian, I gotta disagree with you here. Yeah, don't send an email in the case of an urgent issue after hours because I have to check it to know, right? So what's the bad signal for after hours? What's the bad signal for after hours communication? People need to feel like they can disconnect at night. And so there needs to be an understanding that like if there really is an emergency and let's face it, most people's jobs do not require

Brian Nelson-Palmer (43:11.778)

Fair. True.

Yeah.

Maura Thomas (43:29.0)

after hours communication. If you're like a middle level manager and you've got a team of customer service people reporting to you, there's nothing that needs to that they need to be acting on after their work hours. It can wait until tomorrow.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (43:44.844)

Yeah. And in most cases, generally, it can wait until tomorrow. And it's fine that you just want to get it off your plate now because you got a lot to do tomorrow. But schedule, send that thing. Please do not send that message like, gosh, yes, I love. And the bat signals are great. I love that metaphor. That's a great metaphor. You need it. You need a signal that cuts through everything when you need it and you only use it when it's necessary. Don't be the boy who cries wolf. You know, kind

You know, now one thing I want to ask you is what does this mean for you personally? Clearly you're pretty passionate about this. You've been doing this for a long time, so talk about what this means for Maura. Why? Why? Why is this so important to you?

Maura Thomas (44:25.663)

Yeah. So I work with super accomplished, super dedicated, super motivated people who have very busy lives by choice. And what I find from these people is that they are, they're able because they're driven and motivated and passionate. They are, they are offering so much value to the world.

They're offering so much value. you know, they're volunteers, they're family people, they're community members, they're employees, they're leaders, they aspire to improve. And that is great. So they're offering so much to the world, but they're offering it at a very high cost to themselves. They're offering these gifts to the world in a way that is exhausting and depleting and...

and stressful. And I mean, you've maybe heard the expression busy is the new fine, right? How are you busy? Or people, what I find out I'm hearing people say is either bit, how are you either busy or tired, exhausted, right? And so the re the

Brian Nelson-Palmer (45:34.635)

I dunno.

Maura Thomas (45:47.871)

The reason that I do what I do is to help people bring these amazing, these driven, motivated, smart people, is to help them bring these gifts to the world in a way that is inspiring and energizing and motivating instead of in a way that is depleting and stressful and overwhelming. And that's why I do what I do.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (46:08.598)

Yeah. Have you? Have you talk about a time you've hit that point in your career and what's your do you have like a bat signal for yourself when like, OK, all right, I know I've reached my threshold. Now it's too much. How does it work for you?

Maura Thomas (46:29.067)

Yeah, I mean...

So I succumb to many of the problems that I help my people manage. Like I am easily distracted. I sometimes am on a device when I should be present in something else. And sometimes I'm not giving people my full attention even when I intend to or want to, or sometimes I am that person.

that, you you've ever seen that person somewhere at the grocery store on the plane and they're just on their phone and they're just oblivious. They're in the way. They're yelling there. Right. And everybody's like, dude, hang up the phone. Right. Sometimes I'm that that person. I admit it. But one thing that I I think that I have dialed in is the whole idea of work life balance. And I wrote an article

because words have meaning for Forbes about what does work-life balance even mean. And some people talk about work-life balance as if it's convenience. Like, I like to work at home because then I can, you know, start dinner or take the dog out for a walk or run an errand real quick. Well, that's convenience. That's not work-life balance.

Or some people say, like, I need to run out and deal with the kids and I don't have to ask anybody's permission if I'm working from home. Well, that's freedom. That's not work-life balance. And so the one definition that I have found for work-life balance, and, you know, I don't agree with this, like, work-life integration or work-life harmony or whatever. I think that

Brian Nelson-Palmer (48:10.666)

Yeah.

Maura Thomas (48:14.941)

I think that the more that we, I mean, we have one life, no question about it. Sometimes you do work stuff at home and home stuff at work and that's way it goes. We only have one life, but there is reams and reams and reams of research that shows that.

working too much is not only bad for us, but it's bad for work. you are more, we are healthier, we are happier, and we are even more productive at work if we don't work too much. So the definition that I encourage my clients to use is for work-life balance is simply don't work too much. And if you want to know what work, what too much means, the research shows that on average, now,

Every business has crunch times and I get that. But on average, somewhere between 38 and 45 hours a week is optimal for productivity, for happiness, for engagement, for health outcomes, for all of those things. And even if you love your job, you will still be better at your job if you don't do your job too much. if you're scrolling...

Brian Nelson-Palmer (49:27.304)

us. Preach. Preach.

Maura Thomas (49:29.393)

scrolling your email from your couch when you watch TV at night, that counts as work. And so that's one thing that I really take seriously. It's the whole like, you know, put your oxygen mask on first idea. Like nobody's any good to anybody if you're exhausted and burned out and overwhelmed and stressed and you're not good to your family, you're not good to your coworkers, you're not good for your organization. It's not even good for your career advancement. If this is how you

Brian Nelson-Palmer (49:35.063)

Yes.

Maura Thomas (49:58.897)

operate. I can't sometimes the best thing that you can do for your work is not work.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (50:07.554)

So true. And knowing that line, I love what you said there because I feel like there is this misnomer that many people have jobs and they have careers. And then, you know, the concept is, well, if I won the lottery, I wouldn't do this job. So this isn't my life's work or something like that. It's that that miss. I think that's a misnomer. The reality is we do jobs that are interesting to us and can be interesting for us.

And having that balance is so true because I'm here to tell you right now that I have met and spent time with so many people who were doing their life's work where it doesn't feel like work. And you know who gets burned out? Those people all the time because they work too much and there's a limit to that for that person too. So I love the balance has to do with not working too much and balance is about.

having a personal life that is not necessarily your work life. You can't do them all together all the time. That that still isn't good. You as a human being want to have different dynamics, different angles. There's different things to you. So balance means you're not just a one trick pony. You don't just have that one thing that you do and that's your that's it. So I, I'm sorry. I get really motivated about this stuff. I love it, man. I love what you said there, Maura. That is that is awesome.

Maura Thomas (51:25.865)

And here's another way to put it. You can't get a fresh perspective on something you never step away from.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (51:33.078)

Ooh, ooh, that's that's sexy. I like that. Yes, absolutely. Step away from it and look back at it. Get little sassy look back like yep. Look at that over there like yes, dude. I don't that wasn't sexy at all. What I just did there if you're watching the video. But anyway, that's what I was going for here. OK gosh well Maura. Here's what I love. I love that you are doing your life's work in a way and at the same time I love that you just told us.

Maura Thomas (51:42.987)

Ha

Brian Nelson-Palmer (52:00.836)

that 38 to 45 hours is your life's work and the limit on what's good for you too. And yes, we're all gonna fall off the bandwagon and all of that. And I love that you own it, but then you're teaching people to do it better. And you know, we just keep trying and each time we try, we get better. And I love that you're helping these people do that. And I love that you shared some time with us to share some of these ideas. So thanks for being here. Thanks for doing this.

Maura Thomas (52:27.507)

It was such a pleasure. Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (52:30.336)

And if people want to keep in touch with you, what are the best ways to keep in touch with Maura?

Maura Thomas (52:35.625)

Yeah, mean, everything you need is at maurathomas.com. There's a page called Free Resources where you can get like a guide to controlling your tech and for getting out from under your email and for decreasing burnout. And there's discussion guides for the books. You can learn about all the books there. I've written, in addition to my Forbes and my HBR columns, there's probably 300 or more articles on my own blog.

So there's all kinds of resources at MauraThomas.com.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (53:11.096)

Got it. Check that out. And if they have never met you or heard of you and you were going to tell them what is the first thing that they should check out of yours, what's your favorite? Where do you send people first of all those things you just listed?

Maura Thomas (53:25.129)

Well, we have designed, well, we've got a new website coming out and we've really designed it in a way that helps people figure out where to get started. So I would say at moratomis.com, that should help you find the path for what will help you the most, whether it's independent study, whether it's support for your team, whether it's just a book or an article or a specific problem that you're trying to solve, you should be able to get to what you need.

pretty quickly by starting at maurathomas.com.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (53:58.52)

And that link is in your notes. So check that out. Very cool. And for you turning in, do you have a friend or colleague who struggles with the culture of productivity in their organization? Or does this remind you of a coworker or someone that you've worked with where you hit some of these issues that Maura and I talked about? Because I know my request for you is would you share the link to this episode specifically with them? Because I know Maura and I

would love to know that our conversation today touched people that are facing that issue with the barrier to success and culture and productivity, a culture of productivity and how they can do that. So a few texts back and forth with you directly because you thought about them would be so meaningful to them and would go a long way to filling up both of your cups. So please do that if somebody came to mind for you with this episode. And whether it's...

just your first episode or you've taken the step and joined my email list or you've joined my membership. I love sharing Productivity Gladiator with you because together these productivity skills are going to change your life. That's a wrap.