Office Hours Special: The Future of Work Part 1

In today’s episode, we kick off our special 3-part series where we’ll be answering your questions about the Future of Work. Today is all about time management, knowing when to fire people, and why young people should choose the office over remote work. We first hear from a CEO who is struggling with work-life balance and managing difficult legacy employees. Then, Scott gives recommendations to a listener who has too much time on their hands. Finally, we hear how to best approach hybrid work. Music: https://www.davidcuttermusic.com / @dcuttermusic Follow the podcast across socials @profgpod: Instagram Threads X Reddit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Northwest Registered Agent. Your business identity is everything that makes your business legitimate and professional. With Northwest Registered Agent, you don't just form a business. You start a complete foundation built for privacy, credibility, and growth. That includes registered agent service, a business address, operating agreement, domain, website, professional email, phone number, and built-in privacy. In other words, your home address, personal email, and phone number stay private. Don't pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for what you can get from Northwest for free. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/profgfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com/profgfree.

• 0:56Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to the Prof G Pod's Office Hours. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. Today, we're kicking off a special three-part series answering your questions surrounding the future of work, something we've been covering for the past several years.

• 1:13Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, I've always thought when people say, what's the most enduring change from COVID? I've said it's remote work. It just, it feels like we're not going back to the before time.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  Most everybody likes some sort of hybrid model. The number of people, the percentage of people who want to never come into an office again is pretty small.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  There is some disconcerting evidence that we tend to promote narcissists consistently because we mistake their confidence for competence.

• 1:39Scott Galloway?

  Also, also, what makes a good manager? Accountability. You hold people accountable.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Connections to people matter a lot. So, you know, if you have a choice, and increasingly we do, between being in the office or being home, your career is quite likely to suffer if you are home and your peers are in the office.

• 2:02Scott Galloway?

  The best way to get leverage if you want to make more compensation at your current role is to get another offer from an outside company.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  It turns out the best managers are not the people who are the biggest brainmakers in those individual contributor jobs. They're the people who are the most collaborative in helping their colleagues sell.

• 2:18Scott Galloway?

  I find it's almost impossible to build a culture remotely.

• 2:28Scott Galloway?

  So with that, let's bust into our first question. Question number one.

• 2:32Speaker 03

  Prof G, two years ago, I was hired as a CEO from an outside company to take the helm of a firm with 251 employees. This firm is a subsidiary of a large privately held company. I'm facing significant friction with some legacy team members who aren't meeting performance expectations or aligning with our evolving culture. Given your expertise, what strategies would you recommend for implementing large scale cultural change and enhancing performance among a legacy team? What successful strategies have you seen implemented that create a unique culture for subsidiary companies while remaining respectful and cognizant of the parent organization's own cultural goals? Separately, I'm 44 years old with four young kids, eight and under.

• 3:14Speaker 03

  I grew up with parents that ran a company together and often, and understandably, brought work home. I'd like to have a clear delineation between work and family life. What are some things you do to separate work from family life to remain in the present moment? Thanks for all you do.

• 3:28Scott Galloway?

  Okay, anonymous. All right. CEO of a company with 250 employees. Significant friction with some legacy team members who aren't meeting performance expectations or aligning with our evolving culture. I'd fire them. I know that's not a Hallmark commercial. I would figure out which of them are a bit wary, but really good at what they do. And like, you're the CEO. You know, it's, quite frankly, it's not, and this is not going to sound aspirational. It's not, it's not your job to get along with them. It's your job to understand them and motivate them, but it's their job to get along with you. And if you find that a couple of members of this team, for whatever reason, are just not signed up, I'd fire them. And hopefully, your board would support that decision.

• 4:11Scott Galloway?

  At the same time, what I also like to do when I've come into a strange situation, senior to other people, a couple of times I've taken on leadership roles from a board level, the person who thought they were going to be CEO, if they're good, I try and elevate them and give them compensation such that, look, I know you didn't get the job, but I'm going to figure out a way for you to make a lot of money here. And, and then when I move on, maybe you're the CEO. I, I think you have to assess the situation. And if you're spending a lot of energy and time trying to get people on board, kick them overboard. And I know that's not aspirational, but you're in charge and you're the CEO and you've got 250 people. So it's not like it's, you know, a firm of only eight or 10 people. In terms of the work-life balance.

• 4:55Scott Galloway?

  I don't think there is. I just think that's really difficult. The CEO of a 250 person company, this isn't again, that's probably isn't the answer you want. Your inbox is never going to be empty, especially starting. You got to prove yourself. You got to make some progress. You know, what I would suggest is that you carve out certain time, turn off the phone, turn off your notifications. But there's just no getting around it. I didn't really see my kids much before the age of three or four. I was just working all the goddamn time, but either did my wife. She was working at Goldman Sachs at the time. And we decided, we made the conscious decision to trade off time with them then, so we could have more time with them now. And it worked out, but I don't know if there's a secret.

• 5:39Scott Galloway?

  My sense is kids like consistency and ceremony. So I would always with my oldest, when he was a baby, I would come home and bathe him. And then I'd go back to work. And then I would come back for bedtime a couple hours later. And fortunately, I could, I lived around the corner. And I had this practice where I would stretch him and I would, you know, I do all these, I used to do a lot of yoga when I was younger. And I would do, take him through these series of stretches. And he would look out at me and I thought that was actually quite bonding. And he would, a couple of times, and I wish I had video this. Late at night, I'd get him and I'd lay him out and I'd change his diaper. And he would start putting one leg over the other because he knew he was about to be stretched. He'd start doing his own stretches. But I think kids love consistency and ceremony.

• 6:23Scott Galloway?

  So if you can, if you are in a position to always have uncertain nights, family dinner. If you're, if dad always prepares their lunch, I'm really enjoying now my 13 year olds at home. And every morning I see him off to school and I really like it. And we have a little bit of a ceremony. I wake him up. He acts like an asshole to me, like I'm really enjoying waking him up. But I make him breakfast. I put his jacket, I heat it up in this like weird thing here in Britain. And then I give him this jacket and he's off to, he's off to school. But I think that ceremony is meaningful to them. My hack is to be in the present of my kids when they're not looking directly at me. What do I mean by that? When I sit down and talk directly to them, I think this is more true of boys. I think girls have an easier time making a social connection.

• 7:06Scott Galloway?

  But what I try to do is I try to never miss an opportunity to be in the presence of my sons when they're not looking at me. What do I mean by that? Walks, car rides. I don't mind being the Uber driver on weekends because I've found that if you're in the car and you're not supposed to talk and they're not looking at you or you're not looking at them expecting anything, that occasionally some interesting things spill out of their, spill out of their mouth. So I like asking them to come to the store with me, taking walks with them, but trying to find situations where you're in their presence, but not necessarily doing an activity and not necessarily demanding or expecting any sort of engagement and things

• 7:48Scott Galloway?

  kind of, things kind of come out. And then the other thing I would say just in general is trying to identify, trying to identify a hobby that they're into and then really lean into it. I, I could give a shit about sports and I am now really into the Premier League because my kids are into it. And then my final thing, try and, try and carve out time, and this isn't easy with four kids, but try and carve out one weekend a year for each of them where it's just you and that kid, right? I, I take my kids to different Champions League games or different football games across different cities in Europe and I say to them, all right, this weekend's coming up, you gotta pick it. And we do

• 8:28Scott Galloway?

  stuff, or it can be something else. My youngest really wanted to go to Universal in LA, but every year you're going to have overnight somewhere with just that one kid. I find that the dynamic is so different, mostly when the kids aren't around their mother, but also when they're not around their siblings. But I think if you can manage to do those things, which isn't easy, you're going to be fine. But also forgive yourself. You're working your ass off. You're the CEO of a small company. It's a big opportunity and that opportunity is to perform well and for dad to be happy and feel relevant, but also to create economic security for you and your family. So if you're not around all the time. You're just gonna have to sacrifice shit.

• 9:12Scott Galloway?

  I miss spring concerts and, you know, put a strain on my marriage. And it was, but forgive yourself. So the reason you're doing this, this is a means to the ends. And the end is that you're gonna have the economic security and the achievement such you can spend a lot of time with your kids. Appreciate the question. Question number two.

• 9:30Speaker 04

  Hey, Scott. Spencer from NYC here. First off, a huge fan of the show. Always take your advice as gospel and would follow you into war without hesitation if I could. Seriously, thanks for everything that you do. I'm a 29 year old going on 30. I'm about 10 months into a job that I'm really proud of as a PR manager at a Fortune 500 tech company. The hitch is I work almost 100% remotely, alone in a studio apartment. And I've deduced I work on average about three to four hours a day, simply because there just isn't enough work to go around. I think while some people might be envious of that, I'm actually finding the pressure

• 10:12Speaker 04

  to capitalize on all of this free time and to do something productive with it is kind of eating me alive. So the question is, what would you do if you were in my shoes and at my age? You know, I don't have any kids. And I know you're not a fan of side hustles. Definitely don't want a second, you know, job on the sly. So that's about it. Just having a lot of analysis paralysis right now. Would really love your thoughts. All the best from Manhattan and thanks again.

• 10:40Scott Galloway?

  Well, first off, Spencer, it's good to meet you. And also the fact that you'd follow me into battle, I would like you to, if you can, enter into a romantic relationship with Gisele Bundchen or Emily Ratajkowski, or maybe, who else is super young and hot? Justin Theroux. Have about 40 kids with them and then all of us are gonna take over Australia where I will be king of Australia. Not sure I got any of that. Anyways, okay, so this is such a good fucking problem. Uh, the first thing is get ridiculously fit. Six days a week, at, at the age of 29, you're gonna look back on your bone structure and your double twitch muscle and your reflexes and your balance. You're gonna go, oh, my God, I was just a specimen. Get one of these apps, get a personal trainer, whatever it is,

• 11:24Scott Galloway?

  and take this period to just get insanely fit. And for you, that might be different. You might decide I don't want to be insanely flexible. I wanna be insanely lean, or I want to be insanely strong, or have incredible endurance, whatever it might be. But there's no excuse for, for you right now not to get in absolutely the best shape of your life. Is there an opportunity to go much, much deeper into your domain and take some of that spare time? And either take online courses, or I, I like the idea of going to school. I don't know if going back to school, but it sounds to me like you need to get out of the house a little bit. Is there a place where you can go and start learning? You know, as an MBA, an option, as a master's in anthropology, shit, I don't know. What, what inspires you? But go

• 12:08Scott Galloway?

  take advantage of this free time and go become a master at something. I think that mastery or the ability, being young with the neuroplasticity you have, with the discipline you have, uh, living in New York, with the access to all this incredible domain expertise. Think, how could I become a master in something? You said that you're, I think, a PR manager. Start writing and start trying to communicate and develop a brand in that domain. I started when, about 15 years ago, we rented a house in the Hamptons for the summer. And I thought, okay, this Twitter thing, I need to build my footprint and my profile. Every day, I'm gonna follow 300 people, which was the max at that time before they boot you off the platform. And at that point,

• 12:50Scott Galloway?

  60% followed you back. So every day I got another 180 followers. And now I have, I don't use Twitter anymore because I think the person that owns it is not a nice man, but. I think I have 500,000 or 600,000 followers there. And I started doing the same thing on LinkedIn. Then I started doing the same thing on Instagram. And I started writing and creating a ton of content in my area, brand strategy, and then how technology disrupts traditional industry. What is your niche? Start writing about it. Start posting about it. Start doing videos. Whatever it is, right? You're in PR. You understand this shit. But start building a brand and a profile for yourself across all of these different platforms, whether it's LinkedIn, whether it's Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Medium.

• 13:32Scott Galloway?

  But take that extra time to get ridiculously fucking strong and ridiculously present in your field. Make your footprint bigger and bigger and bigger and take advantage of all these platforms and your ability to build your footprint, your brand, your reputation, such that when some big job comes along, they think, well, what about that crazy dude in New York who keeps writing about crisis management in the pharmaceutical industry? He's an expert. Or maybe you write, start writing books on it. Or maybe you get speaking gigs. And maybe you move to the UK and start doing edibles. Well, anyways. Spencer, again, this is a good problem. Thanks for the question. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us.

• 14:13Scott Galloway?

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• 14:57Scott Galloway?

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• 15:32Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Question number three.

• 15:33Speaker 05

  Hey Prof G. With companies starting to mandate some form of return to office, many employees' sentiment is anecdotally against this motion. I think the gap today is a lack of proof or measurable results that return to office is making a meaningful impact to a business, ultimately causing a disconnect between leadership and their employees. If you were a leader in a company, what metrics would you look at to measure the success of return to office? How would you communicate this to the employee population? And does it matter?

• 16:03Scott Galloway?

  It's a really interesting question. If I were going to start over in academia, I would focus on the intersection between human capital and the workplace. How do you measure it? That's a really interesting thought. Data from the US Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey indicates that the prevalence of remote work in the US households has reached an all-time low since the onset of the pandemic. Today, 26% of US households have someone working remotely at least one day a week, a drop from 37% peak in early 21. So it has, it has gone down, but it's still holding pretty strong. According to Gallup, employees favor being in the office for two to three days a week. That's, we talked about this. I feel like everyone was acting as if it was remote or all in the office. Of course, it was going to be mostly hybrid. So what are the benefits

• 16:48Scott Galloway?

  of going into the office personally? Work-life balance. According to a 2021 study in the American Psychiatric Association, 2/3 of employees working remotely reported difficulties and disconnecting from work at the end of the day. And also just human connection. We're mammals. We need to be around other people. The same 2021 APA survey found that 2/3 of people working from home feel isolated or lonely, at least sometimes, and 70% do all the time. So, you know, my rap on this is that remote work is a fucking disaster for people under the age of 30. I believe there should be two classifications. There should be a remote worker, that's the wrong term, a care worker. Once you have kids, aging parents, struggling with your own health, your own mental, mental health, I think

• 17:30Scott Galloway?

  that person should get a different classification and be offered resources and opportunities to work remotely a lot. Before you collect dogs and kids, oh my God, get back into the office. Friends, mentors, potential, one in three relationships begin at work, for God's sakes. Where are young people supposed to meet? You know, partners, wives, other founders, great friends, you know, it's about, it's about hitting the pub after work. It's about grabbing a coffee and getting advice from someone. Nothing wonderful is ever going to happen to you over Zoom, in my view. Anyway, what are the metrics? I would also say retention. Something I'm very proud of at Prop G, we let people do what they want. It's interesting, the young people actually want to work in an office. First thing they do, a couple of our star employees moved to London. I said, fine, move to London. The first thing they did was they got an office.

• 18:14Scott Galloway?

  They got a co-share, what do you call it? A work share? Uber? No, it's not Uber. It's WeWork. Adam Newman. Anyways, they got a shared office space. And the young people, because they're exceptionally ambitious, all wanted to be in an office together. Definitely is some sort of electricity or joie de vivre, or whatever the fuck you want to call them, unknown about getting everyone together. So I would focus on employee satisfaction and I would focus on retention. And I would try, if possible, to try and make it a pull, not a push, that people want to come into the office. And you already see that Class A office space has actually never been stronger. The best office space is actually sold out because people are coming, they're deciding to get people back in the office.

• 18:59Scott Galloway?

  We want it to be nice. And then what I would also do is even if you can't get everyone back in the office all the time, I would take some of the money you save from a smaller commercial footprint and I would spend it on retreats where you get everyone together. I think it's just so important that people feel a sense of connective tissue. And I think that can only be established in person. But the bottom line is, I think 80 to 90% of firms will end up with some sort of hybrid structure. Thanks so much for the question.

• 19:24Scott Galloway?

  That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to [email protected]. Again, that's [email protected].

• 19:44Scott Galloway?

  This episode was produced by Caroline Shageran. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod on the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy No Malice, as read by George Hahn, and on Monday with our weekly market show.

• 20:01Speaker 06

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