Recorded on 01/20 in Galway, Ireland, at Portershed. Founder of Operate Remote Shauna Moran was a really accommodating companion when Remoter first arrived in Galway. Operate Remote offers consultancy and coaching practices, helping remote/distributed teams with engagement, performance, communication, and overall effectiveness with emotional intelligence and her background on psychology. Being a remote worker herself, she’s lived, researched, and now helps remote teams solve problems to develop effective teams and leaders by helping them reach their full potential.
Recorded on 01/20 in Galway, Ireland, at Portershed. Founder of Operate Remote Shauna Moran was a really accommodating companion when Remoter first arrived in Galway. Operate Remote offers consultancy and coaching practices, helping remote/distributed teams with engagement, performance, communication, and overall effectiveness with emotional intelligence and her background on psychology. Being a remote worker herself, she’s lived, researched, and now helps remote teams solve problems to develop effective teams and leaders by helping them reach their full potential.
Support Us!
Please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcast & Spotify!
Tweet us @Remoter Project.
Follow us on Instagram @RemoterProject.
Give us a like on Facebook @RemoterProject.
Check out some other creations:
The Founding and Growing Remotely online video course with informative details about going remote-first.
If you have any additional questions, feel free to e-mail j@remoter.com.
Josephine Tse 0:00
It's time for season two of the Remoter Podcast. I'm your host Josephine.
Josephine Tse 0:05
As a continuation from season one with Alex and Andres, I had the opportunity to interview some remote work leaders, ranging from companies, consultants, advocates and more to add to Remoter's stash of free resources and human-centred stories, enriching our educational platform about remote work. This podcast is sponsored by Torre, a new kind of professional network that automatically connects talent with opportunity. Founded by Alexander Torrenegra, our goal is to make work fulfilling for everyone find the job of your dreams by visiting torre.co. That's T O R R E dot C O.
Josephine Tse 0:49
It had taken me almost two days or it felt like two days to get to Galway from Toronto. It didn't help that there was a huge snowstorm when I left Toronto. It didn't help that my flight path was really stupid. And if there's anything I learned from this experience is that give yourself more leeway, especially if it's for business endeavours. Just give yourself a little bit more time, just in case. So when I got to go away, I was just thinking, am I going to do Shauna's story justice in T-minus 10 hours? The next day we met up at McCambridge's for a short breakfast before heading over to PorterShed, the co-working space where we recorded our content. So this is the story of Shauna, a young, hard working and passionate professional spreading the word about remote work and the importance of emotional intelligence for leaders.
Josephine Tse 1:42
I am here with Shauna from Operate Remote for this episode of the podcast today. Shauna, how's it going?
Shauna Moran 1:50
It's going really well and it's not raining in Galway, not raining. So that's you don't realise how lucky you are that it's not raining in January.
Josephine Tse 2:00
It's actually really nice outside. Yeah. And considering that I just came from this huge snowstorm. It's really, really refreshing.
Shauna Moran 2:07
Yeah, we just had a storm here last week, so incredibly lucky. Yeah.
Josephine Tse 2:11
We're, I'm here today, with Shauna, because she runs Operate Remote, which I mentioned prior.
Shauna Moran 2:19
Yeah, yeah, I'm a, I'm a business consultant, and I'm a coach. So I'm an accredited leadership development and business coach. I focus a lot on emotional intelligence, and developing ourselves to build wonderful human connections. I work a lot with teams about how we can tap into certain skill sets to effectively manage ourselves and each other no matter where we're based.
Josephine Tse 2:43
So Shauna, could you tell me a little bit about how you got started in this field. I'm guessing that you had done something else before finding your niche of you know, focusing on leadership and coaching and all that.
Shauna Moran 2:55
It's been a long time coming, right. It's not just I woke up one day with this idea. I went to university and decided I want to study psychology, because I was always fascinated by people, and the way that we behave, the way that we show up, the way that we interact with each other. And I started working for a company called Shopify. And I headed partnerships for them throughout EMEA. So Europe, Middle East and Africa. So I was working remotely for Shopify, I was on so many different time zones. My team were based across 10 different time zones, and I've had some challenging experiences with that, and working in those environments, which led me back to university. So I had tonnes of questions around how as an organisation, we could scale effectively, remotely. So I studied innovation management and based all of my research around remote teams. Fast forward to working with a couple of clients all over the world. And I realised that you know what, it's not just these strategies, these processes, and there is no one size fits all. And if I want to make a bigger impact on my clients then there's something else that I need to do here. And that led me down the path of coaching.
Josephine Tse 4:05
So on top of the leadership coaching and business consulting that you do within Operate Remote, what else do you do? Or is that the main crux of it all?
Shauna Moran 4:14
Yeah, that's that's the main crux of it all. I mean, I do a lot of one to one coaching. So mostly focused on founders kind of founders moving from a founder to a leadership position.
Josephine Tse 4:27
Getting founders to leaders, I had thought those were synonymous, but I guess not. The people that come to you, they're interested in kind of doing both properly.
Shauna Moran 4:35
Yep. Absolutely, doing both properly. And I think, you know, with a lot of founders that I work with, there's a, there's a complete mindset shift in in being able to adapt to that. And remote is just a part of that, right? It's okay, how do I mitigate the risk that is associated with hiring a remote workforce? I've spoken to so many businesses that have said, yeah, we've tried remote, but it's not for us. And when I dive into that, I think okay, well how did you actually, you know, what did you put in place to make sure that that was successful? Well, we hired somebody and you know, we let them off. But of course, that's not going to work because you've had people in an office and you've people working remotely and you haven't built that bridge for that gap. You know, for me, what I do with businesses is mitigate that risk and minimise that learning curve.
Josephine Tse 5:20
I think that's like, probably, I would say, that's one of the most difficult things trying to wire it into other humans to do it. Yeah, like, old habits die hard. And yeah, I think that's, it's really about tackling all these I'm not I wouldn't say they're issues, but they're things that are, you know, ingrained, as you said, behaviours within people and trying to change them and adapt them to this kind of new work environment. So that that's basically your, the the challenges that you face?
Shauna Moran 5:48
Yeah. And I don't think that you can change people. Mm hmm. You know, and I think if we...
Josephine Tse 5:53
Mold them differently? Would that be...
Shauna Moran 5:54
Hmm, I think that comes down to the hiring, I'd say, and hiring the right people. I don't think that we should try and change anybody. We can't. And we shouldn't, because that's just a waste of energy. So a lot of what I do is empower leaders to be coaches. It's about coming to the table with an agenda, I guess, in in a workplace environment. Yeah, I don't think that we can change employees or change their behaviours and we shouldn't try to. That's why hiring is so important. The thing is so many people want to work remotely now.
Josephine Tse 6:26
Yeah, but they need to know what they're signing up for as well.
Shauna Moran 6:28
They do. And I say to people that are looking for remote work, I get messaged all the time, remote work is not an end goal. Like it's not an end goal, you're still going to have to work hard, you're still going to have to, you know, meet objectives. If anything you need to develop other skills. You know, I always think that in remote environments, underlying problems or challenges surface more because nothing can really go unnoticed. Like if you are not a great leader, that's going to be noticed. If you are not a great communicator, that's going to be noticed, which is a good thing at the same time. But that's why it's so important for companies to hire correctly.
Josephine Tse 7:07
So speaking of coaching leaders and all that, one thing I wanted to focus on was leaders and leveraging their emotional intelligence in their leadership styles. I want to want to focus on that. Could you tell us a little bit about emotional intelligence?
Shauna Moran 7:26
The great thing about emotional intelligence is, let me just say that these skills can be developed. So it's not like IQ that, you know, you have an IQ, and that's really where it will, will stay. Emotional intelligence skills can be developed. It contributes to like, you know, over 50% of workplace performance. So it's incredibly high. And I mean, it's a fantastic tool that organisations can use, but it's, it's a fantastic tool to have as an individual. So I am an assessor. So I'm a practitioner, so I deliver tests to assess kind of where somebody's out with their emotional intelligence.
Josephine Tse 8:03
Okay.
Shauna Moran 8:04
So we look at a couple of different areas. So we look at the first area is called self perception. So it's really about what's going on internally with us. And so it's looking at things like our confidence, our drive for motivation, our pursuit of meaning, and our emotional self awareness. So how in tune actually, are we with the emotions that are going on internally. The second area is around self expression. So how we actually express those emotions, to the people around us, to the team, to everybody else in our company, to our family, to our friends. So how do we actually show up with those emotions and express them? It looks at things like assertiveness, so you know how able we are to come across in an assertive way to get our point across without being aggressive or under assertive, right? It looks at things like independence. So really important. for, you know, when we are working online, primarily on our own, so how independent are we to make decisions, to do the right thing, to take ownership of certain things. All of these areas I think are really important around working online in remote environments, that it looks at interpersonal relationships, so things like, you know, empathy, and social responsibility, but also how effective we are at building relationships with other people. So that empathy piece is something that comes up time and time again, in the with the leaders that I speak with.
Josephine Tse 9:35
Yeah, is there any anything you can share with them something new that's come up with coaching or that you are implementing in your strategies?
Shauna Moran 9:44
We work a lot as coaches with the energy of of the client. So we are listening all of the time what we what we kind of call, level three listening. So we're not just listening to the words, we're listening to the cues. We're listening to the body language. We're listening to the eye contact, we're letting you know we're listening to all of that. We're listening to the pauses, every aspect of the conversation. But there's, you know, there's an element of energy a client will bring to a session that as a coach, you have to match. So for example, you know, you and I are here today, sitting in this room having this podcast having this conversation. If I was super, super energetic, and you're not, for example, that's not going to match, right? So we're not going to be able to open up in front of each other to that extent. So I think that energy is really important. And for me, I do work and meet with my clients in person and try to do that before we actually start working together because that's a chance where we have that in person connection, and we can understand each other better. But a lot of what I do is online, right as well. So I am being tested with that all of the time, being able to create study environment that safe and trusted space in a coaching session online.
Josephine Tse 11:05
You have to read the energy read the energies through this screen.
Shauna Moran 11:09
Oh, yeah, yeah. And then you know if you have a bad Wi Fi connection, right? But, no lucky enough that doesn't happen too often. But when I deal with leaders around remote teams, and I coach with them and work with them, you know, I can empathise with them, because I'm doing that all the time. And I have done it for so long. So, yeah, it's it's constantly finding new ways to read that energy.
Josephine Tse 11:35
That's something I actually never thought of, like being able to match the energy of the person. You're talking to, like, never thought of actively, I think I think everyone tries to do it, but they definitely maybe they don't know what they're doing it because when, you know, when I'm on calls, trying to, you know, introduce the Remoter Project to people. I guess I'm doing the same thing like I have to match their energy and see where they're at. And, you know, can I keep this conversation going? Or is it like, oh, they look like they have a lot of work to do, five minutes it is. Yeah. So I totally see where you're coming up with.
Shauna Moran 12:10
Yeah. And that's interpersonal relationships. That's a skill within emotional intelligence. A lot of people are, say, as you just said, you know, I just naturally do it. And that's amazing that people are just naturally good at some of these things. And when people are naturally good at these skills, they don't see it as a skill.
Josephine Tse 12:28
Ah, yeah, I guess I... yeah, that's true.
Shauna Moran 12:31
So that's the other area that I work with people on is to bring awareness to those skills and those strengths. So there is that as well. It's not just focusing on where we need to develop. It's leveraging the strengths as well.
Josephine Tse 12:43
I should do this test. Yeah. I should, I should check it out and see where I'm at. I mean, the work that you do that, that's really cool about it, because again, I think the part that makes it really cool is that there's no one size fits all. It's very, as you said adaptable of situations that you work with. Yeah. What else are you doing within Operate Remote to continue to improve people's work situations today?
Shauna Moran 13:06
Mm hmm. Yeah, I guess, you know, I do I focus on a lot of different areas. And, you know, I'm I work with companies that are, are being proactive about starting their remote journey. I do a lot of workshops as well. And, you know, and I also, I'm also launching my podcast as well at the end of the month. So that is called the Human Behind the Screen. And I'm speaking to leaders and experts all over the world around how we can create that human connection online. And it's a broad topic. I'm speaking to different people that, you know, have founded companies that are leading teams, some of the big remote companies, like Automattic, you know, HubSpot, and, but also speaking to different experts, and I just hope to bring more awareness to this topic. And if I can inspire somebody to make a change or to connect with their employee or their teams on a deeper level, like I'm happy.
Josephine Tse 14:12
And well, when this podcast comes out, I'm sure Shauna's podcast is already out so we'll add a link in our description. I also want to ask you, what has working remotely opened up for you outside of your career?
Shauna Moran 14:27
Yeah, I think it's definitely helped with my health, for sure, because I can prioritise good food, make time for regular exercise. I think it's definitely helped improve my relationships. Yeah, I definitely think it's helped in that sense. There's also been a new sense of adventure, you know, and so it's opened up a lot of doors in terms of possibilities for me that, you know, I have some goals for this year.
Josephine Tse 14:58
And can you share them? Or are they?
Shauna Moran 15:01
Not yet?
Josephine Tse 15:02
Okay. Okay.
Shauna Moran 15:03
But yeah, I don't know when this podcast will be out.
Josephine Tse 15:07
We're looking I mean, it's gonna be after April. Okay. Yeah.
Shauna Moran 15:11
Yeah. Well, I might be there that stage. Yeah, it's opened up a lot of possibilities and opportunities in that sense. I have got to connect with, the biggest thing for me, is I have got to connect with people from all over the world and different culture, from different backgrounds, you know, from different countries that I wouldn't have connected with before. And I feel like I have somebody in most places, you know, like that. I could just say, hey, you know what, Josephine, I'm coming to Toronto, like, want to grab a drink? You want to get some dinner later, you know? And it's, I think there's something very powerful about that. And that kind of leads me on to networking as a remote worker, or a remote entrepreneur. You have to do that as well. And that's another layer of how do I do that? But, as we were kind of talking about earlier, like building your network, mm hmm, remotely, I think it's a combination of yes, it you know, in person and online, there's a lot of great LinkedIn groups. You know, there's a lot of great Slack groups, you know, that you can start to kind of build your network in that way. So I do think that technology plays a really great role in that. But yeah, for me, one of the benefits, definitely the most prominent benefit that's sticking out, it's been able to connect to people from all over the world, and very lucky to have that. So whether that's through, you know, different entrepreneurial groups that I'm involved in, whether that's different clients that I work with, or just people in my network from, you know, working on remote teams on an international level or, you know, different ecosystems of contacts, like, it is pretty incredible. And I think you know, when you find people that are that are on that wavelength as you, you can you can reach out to those people and say, hey, do you wanna grab coffee, 15 minutes coffee, and they know it's online. Yeah, don't have to feel strange, right? I mean, like, the funny thing is, I think my postman thinks I stay at home and play video games all day. And, and also my neighbours. Maybe my parents too.
Josephine Tse 17:15
Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
Shauna Moran 17:19
You know, have you had that too?
Josephine Tse 17:21
My mom's like, hey, can you set the table for lunch? And I'm like, yeah, I'm working right now though. Yeah, she's like, but you're right here. I'm like, yeah, but like, please, I'm on a call right now?
Shauna Moran 17:33
Yeah. It's, I mean, it's so funny. It's, you know, it's kind of like, oh, there's the girl that plays video games all day. Like, I'm pretty sure my neighbour is think that.
Shauna Moran 17:43
Yeah, for me, that's been the biggest win, is is having all of those wonderful relationships and connections all over the world. It's awesome.
Josephine Tse 17:52
Have you um, do you have any stories or moments of things that you've learned from somebody somewhere in the world that you just keep in mind, like, for example, for me, I work with a predominantly South American based team. A lot of people are in Colombia. So for listeners who don't know, which you probably don't, I just spent the last two months of 2019 in Mexico and there I picked up a little bit of Spanish because I was determined to communicate with my coworkers a little bit in their native language, you know. So, just being surrounded with so many Spanish speakers have has enabled me to want to learn the language a little bit more. And they've also been able to teach me a little bit of, I guess, like slang or like the that they would use or certain words or whatever, and I could add that to my vocabulary and stuff like that. So for me that that's been pretty cool. wondering if you had any like stories like that?
Shauna Moran 18:49
I love that. I think well done you for being curious about that, you know, and giving that a try. And I think that has similarly right, I've had some key learnings around that as well like working with different cultures where their first language isn't English.
Josephine Tse 19:06
Yeah.
Shauna Moran 19:07
And you know, it's to have an awareness I think of that when you're working in multicultural environments. As a native English speaker, it's very easy to just, you know, talk very quickly, and just assume that everybody knows what you mean. I think having that awareness of the people around you. Do I need to clarify anymore, does that make sense to you or, you know, just to check in with these people to make sure that you know, they are doing okay, but I think you know, doing something like you've done which is going that extra mile to understand where they're coming from, whether it be their language or their culture where they're based, but it's to be curious around around that and to understanding their slang or whether it is celebrating their national holiday, you know, as a team or you know whether it is checking in asking those questions on a recent conversation. That's all interpersonal relationships, like that is all. I think just how we build those wonderful connections. And when you do when you do lean into that those environments are the most exciting that I personally have ever worked in.
Josephine Tse 20:19
Yeah, are you the same? Yeah, I feel the same about it. Like even though Yeah, I've never met any of them. I find it so interesting... yeah, I found the culture really interesting. And just learning the little nuances. Just like that, yeah.
Shauna Moran 20:31
Like, even when I worked at, one of the teams I worked on, we had people from all over the world. And we all submitted short kind of videos just on our phones of inner local environments, just having a chat saying hi to everybody. And you know, what they were up to for the weekend or something or what went on in the week, and we had like one of my colleagues walking in the street in India. You know, I was in the west of Ireland. So I was walking down a street with stone walls and cows and sheep. You know, there was somebody else walking down the street, a street in the city of Mexico, there was somebody else in New Zealand. And it was, it was just to get that, wow, they are, they are there. And that's what it's like for that. And we can find something in common in between all of that like, right, it's understanding and being willing to understand and giving it the time, giving that time as a priority. Because as a team, that's what's going to does the thing that's going to be the glue, you know, no matter how spread out across time zones you are or locations or language, right, and that's where the magic happens, I believe.
Josephine Tse 21:39
That's the one part where I'm really excited to continue exploring with my with my team at least, and hopefully in the future, whatever happens because I really love learning about different cultures and meeting people around the world as well. And yeah, this opportunity, I mean at least for Remoter, I've definitely talked to a lot of people from all over the world. And I'm really thankful for that. Yeah, I only have one more question for you, unfortunately. But we continue talking today. Do you think that Operate Remote's, story, mission and values will help encourage and enable more leaders and companies to go and transition to go or transition to remote first?
Shauna Moran 22:23
Hmm. I do hope so. I do hope so. As I said, though, I don't I don't think it's for every single company. And I don't want to be the remote advocate that pushes it, right. And because I'm not, I mean, you know, the clients I work with, I want the best for them, but it's not for every company. But I do hope that from today's discussion that the companies that are doing it, or that are considering doing it are implementing it, that they're going to find time for the people as well as the process.
Josephine Tse 22:52
Mm hmm.
Shauna Moran 22:54
And that they're going to see the benefits in developing a workforce. and developing the skills within the work force to manage this as they continue to scale. And, and that they do, you know, start to understand emotional intelligence as well as IQ in making it successful within their organisation, or at least they understand what emotional intelligence is from this conversation and the ways that it might show up under, you know, within their team. But yeah, I do hope that there's been some golden nuggets of information in there.
Josephine Tse 23:29
I think they're, I mean, I hope yeah, same. You never know. I hope there is as well. Well, with that, I just like to thank you so much for being on whatever episode this is of the Remoter Podcast.
Shauna Moran 23:41
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Josephine Tse 23:47
Remoter Podcast season two is recorded, produced and edited by Josephine Tse. It is mixed and mastered by Stephen Stepanic and Vanesa Monroy. Graphics and visuals by Valentina Castillo. The music track used is Skip by OBOY from SoundStripe. Follow and subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple podcasts wherever you listen to your podcasts. Don't forget, we've recently made our Founding and Growing Remotely online course completely accessible and listed on our site. Visit us at remoter.com, that's R E M O T E R dot com for more relevant content. Follow us on social media @remoterproject to stay up to date with our latest initiatives and collaborations with other remote first companies around the world. We'd also love to hear your thoughts about each episode, so feel free to tag us on socials anytime. And remember, we're here to make work fulfilling, so what part will you play in shaping the future of work?