Diane Mulcahy is an advisor to both Fortune 500 companies and startups, is a regular contributor to Forbes and is the author of the bestselling book “The Gig Economy: The Complete Guide to Getting Better Work, Taking More Time Off, and Financing the Life You Want”
Diane was early to the party: When she started teaching MBA students a course on these ideas, some people thought she was talking about Computer Memory. But what made me really want to talk to her was how she decided to go deeper into the topic via teaching - one of the most powerful ways to learn anything! And then to learn more about how she helps organizations work with these trends, rather than against them - I wanted to learn about her approach as a coach and advisor. And you can see, her secret is slowing down conversations.
The future of work is more than gigs on Lyft and Uber or Taskrabbit.
Barbara Soalheiro, of the consultancy Mesa, in our conversation on the podcast back in season three posited that the best and the brightest wouldn’t want a full time job in the future...which is why she’s designed her innovation sprints to be one week - to help brands bring the best brains in for short sprints.
This is why Diane finds tremendous opportunities to coach and advise organizations to adapt to and survive this transition in what people want from work.
Traditional orgs need to put significant effort into shifting their cultures on:
Trust in Management- Facetime isn’t the same as work (ie, Clock and Chair Management doesn’t work in this new world - for more on this, check out Diane’s Forbes article on Trust)
Projects over Jobs - Define clear outcomes and break up jobs into clear projects and deliverables.
Processes and Systems - Internal systems have to adjust to be more nimble and customer-grade.
We talk about the importance of slowing conversations down when there’s internal resistance:
Diane relates her sense that Orgs seem to be saying.
“We know these things are happening. We know we have to respond,"
...but then it turns out, they want to respond without really changing anything. Diane points out that that's not possible.
The way through is patient conversation, and Diane gives me some deep pointers on shifting challenging conversations with silence.
We also reminisce about travel and I try to get her to tell me what her next forward thinking, trend-setting MBA course will be on...spoiler alert: It’s about the future of food, a critical industry, ripe with challenges that were laid bare at the start of the pandemic.
Learn more about Diane at dianemulcahy.com where you can find links to her other books (she also writes about venture investing) and to many of her online articles.
Links, Quotes, Notes and Resources
Diane’s excellent book on the gig economy
Diane’s Interview with Nayla Bahari on Career Resilience
Nancy McGaw from the Aspen Institute on Powerful Questions and Powerful Silence
On the tension between knowledge and action in orgs...and the need from internal champions:
14:47
“We know these things are happening. We know we have to respond," but then it turns out, they want to respond without really changing anything. That's not possible.
15:52
There's really an opportunity within most companies to step up and be the person who becomes the intrapreneur, the person who says, "Look, these are the trends that are going on in the world. Here's all of the data that suggests that moving in this direction, hiring independent workers, opening ourselves up to the idea of remote and distributed workers, can bring enormous benefits.
19:50
On silence and getting the best details from people if you let them finish their arc
I have always been like that. I think it really comes from, one, being an introvert, somebody who is quiet perhaps to begin with and, two, I was a psychology major in college and I've always just been really interested in other people and hearing what they have to say. I love hearing people talk about issues that are important to them. I like to let them … People do talk in an arc, and if they aren't interrupted, often the best information comes at the end. If you're willing to just, again, sit in silence and let the answer play out, it's a much better answer often.
27:35
On the importance of taking time away from work
I did one year in college. I did one year in my early 30s, just dropped everything and went off to travel around the world in both years. I've also taken shorter periods of time off to do other things that were interesting to me, but I feel like those are the times when you put yourself in a position to absorb a lot of new information, gather a lot of new input, connect new dots, understand new frameworks. When you come back, you're much richer for it. Your thinking has expanded. It's more creative. It's refreshed. It's rejuvenated. It has new input in its current input. I think you're the better for it. I feel the better for it.
Full Transcription
Daniel Stillman:
Well, then, I'll kick things off. I will officially welcome you to the Conversation Factory. Diane Mulcahy, he thank you for making the time. I really appreciate it.
Diane Mulcahy:
Thank you for having me.
Daniel Stillman:
I want to start at the beginning like way, way back, because I feel like when people ask you about your book, The Gig Economy, it starts with the MBA course, but I want to know, how did you decide to do a course about that? What was emerging for you at that moment because that was a long time ago?
Diane Mulcahy:
It was. In the life of The Gig Economy, it was back at the birth. If you want to go all the way back to the beginning, I think the idea of The Gig Economy had been floating around in my mind without a label, really since I started working. Like a lot of college graduates, my first job was in consulting. I remember thinking, compared to college, I really did not enjoy many things about traditional office-based work and I always had in mind that, "Wouldn't it be great if there was a way of working that looked a lot more like college in the sense that you could have variety, you could be working on different projects, you could be challenging yourself in different ways? Wouldn't that be more interesting than having one steady job that you went to everyday?"
Diane Mulcahy:
That idea took hold very early on and just got parked on the back burner until much later when I was reading an article and I came across this term, the gig economy. I have one of those moments where I had little goose bumps on my arms and I just felt like that is the thing that I have been thinking about since I started working. Really within a week, I had a draft syllabus. The reason that I went in the direction of a syllabus is that it was a completely new and nascent trend. There was nothing out there on it, right? There was nothing to read. There was no source to go to.
Diane Mulcahy:
I had been teaching at the time and I thought, "Wouldn't that be a great way to iterate on this idea, like be in a classroom, be interacting with students, be in a university setting? What a great way to evolve my thinking about this topic?" That's how it all started was just creating this class as a way to further explore the idea that was very, very new.
Daniel Stillman:
That's so interesting that that was your … I think that's my response sometimes as well. It's like, "Okay, let's learn about it together, learning by teaching." I was looking at your LinkedIn profile and I saw that you are a first-generation college student. You belong to a, I guess, an organization at Harvard that was about that. How does a first-generation college student wind up teaching at a business school? That's an amazing leap.
Diane Mulcahy:
Yeah. I'm not even sure how to answer that question really.
Daniel Stillman:
Maybe it's not a question. Maybe, I'm just high fiving you.
Diane Mulcahy:
Thank you. I appreciate that. That's really nice.
Daniel Stillman:
It says something to me and what I'm just absorbing is your pattern-finding brain because you don't just teach you, you write a lot. I think what I'm trying to tease out is this process that you're going through of finding patterns and naming patterns as well and to tighten and elucidate them. I just think it's a very interesting component of what I'm observing as your psychology. Again, not a question. Just a comment.
Diane Mulcahy:
Well, I think what's so interesting about that is the timing is everything. One of my observations about my foray into the gig economy was that I was a little bit on the early side. When I first started teaching the course, people used to think it was a computer science class. They would say, "Oh, are you teaching something about gigabytes? What is this thing that you're talking about?" That's how you would do a Google search and there would be like one entry and that was it. By the time I had taught for a few years and then wrote the book, my timing was really spot on in terms of releasing the book, and then, it really did become a thing that everybody is talking about. Of course, now in the midst of this pandemic with remote work and people getting furloughed and laid off and working differently, it's incredibly relevant.
Daniel Stillman:
Now, I know you advise companies in this stuff. What are you finding that companies need to know that they don't know about this?
Diane Mulcahy:
I would characterize the advisory work I do in three main areas. One area is around remote work. It's really companies trying to come to, and this could be startup companies or large companies, but really trying to come to grips with the processes and the structures that they need to have in place in order to effectively recruit and manage a distributed workforce. That's one area. Another area is really around talent, and for companies that have relied entirely on a workforce of full-time employees, but are now thinking, "I'd like to incorporate some independent workers. I can see where having the ability to access the exact talent that I need when I need it would be beneficial to the company," but they really don't have any idea about how to work with independent workers.
Diane Mulcahy:
Again, it's just thinking through, "What are the processes? What are the tools? What are the structures? How do we do this best in a way that doesn't require reinventing the wheel?" I work with them on that. Then most interestingly to me anyways or most unexpectedly is that I've done a number of projects with companies that are really what I would call products strategy, where they're saying, "We see independent workers as a customer and we know that they need different kinds of products, whether it's insurance products or financial services products than traditional workers. We just want to try to figure out what exactly they need, what are their pain points and how can we help them solve the problems that they have in their life."
Daniel Stillman:
Like serving that audience.
Diane Mulcahy:
Yes.
Daniel Stillman:
Then reimagining how they structure their internal processes to be able to think about work in a different way. I love in your, in your book, you talk about this spectrum of work where on one hand, there's unemployed, and on the other side, there's this corporate ladder-climbing person and one side of that spectrum still exists and the other side of that spectrum exists less and less and everything else is kind In the middle, where you're working part time, you're working flex time, you're doing a side job. It seems like more and more companies do need to be investing in this reality. How should organizations be investing in this future of work? Because this is what we're talking about. This is where things are. It sounds like where things are going to continue to go. How should organizations be investing in their infrastructure and their way of thinking about the nature of work to continue to be able to tap, as you say, actual talent?
Diane Mulcahy:
There are a couple of steps that organizations can take if they're early on in adapting to the future of work which is really the now of work. One is spending some time changing their mindset. That's really the biggest issue. If I talk to CHROS or something or the C-suite at a company, it's trying to understand what their mindset is, "Are they willing to let go and incorporate independent or distributed workers into their workforce? Do they have the trust? Do they have the clarity into the work that they need to get done and the results that they want to generate to be able to work with distributed and independent workers? Do they have the management talent?" That's often where it falls apart. Even if the C-suite is completely convinced about the benefits of a different kind of workforce, oftentimes managers find it really difficult to change their management style to manage those kind of workers and then it becomes really difficult to implement.
Diane Mulcahy:
I think mindset is the first step and the biggest step. Then after that, it's easier it's execution. It's thinking about, "What are the processes we need to put in place? What are the tools? How do we make sure we preserve culture? How do we make sure that we have some centralized control in terms of standardized onboarding, standardized contracts, rapid payment, debriefing, making sure that we keep a network of independent workers that have worked well for us?" It's really just getting into the operational aspects of it.
Daniel Stillman:
It's interesting because there are these two real important sides. One is this digital transformation side of, "Do we even know how to …" I'm sure you've been on the other side of this like, "We need to get you into our internal system," and it's an absurd headache. I've been paid months after I've done work with clients just because literally getting in the system takes months and it blows my mind that the infrastructure of a company is so antiquated. Digital transformation is nontrivial, but this other side of trust and redesigning work into tasks, projects, needs and to rethink management, those are not trivial problem-solving skills.
Daniel Stillman:
Also, if you're listening at home, I just want to point out that Diane is an online meeting pro. She just muted herself while she coughed. If you didn't know that, that was a thing. It's a thing. Manage yourselves, people. Sorry, it's just everyone always asked me about remote work and I feel like I just need to point out the basics from time to time. Mute yourself if you know you're going to cough.
Diane Mulcahy:
That's good.
Daniel Stillman:
Should I? I'll loop back around, how do you help with these stickier pieces because it is hard to change those things, it's hard to shift the needle on trust?
Diane Mulcahy:
It's incredibly hard. I think the most effective way to change the mindset is to put it explicitly on the table. It's really just sitting down with teams and saying, "Look, if this is an issue, if you have somebody who is a micromanager, if you have somebody who is unwilling to let people work from home a day or two a week, you have some issues with either management style and/or trust. How do you work through that?" One is naming it. Naming it and putting it on the table for discussion. Then, the second, really what I have found effective, is to just engage in almost like a Socratic dialogue where you're really trying to understand, "Where is this person's thought process and mindset coming from? What is it that they're worried about?"
Diane Mulcahy:
Because generally, when people exhibit a lack of trust when they are micromanagers, that stems from some kind of fear, "What are they afraid of? What do they think their employees are going to do when they are working at home? What do they think is going to happen if they're not controlling everything?" and just trying to get underneath that. Some companies are better at dealing with that than others. They have executive coaches. They have other resources to help managers shift how they think about work, but it is a real change. It's a behavioral change. It does take time and effort at the end of the day,
Daniel Stillman:
Is that a part of what you do that you enjoy? Do you enjoy helping companies with that mindset shift? Of all the things you do, is that something that's like, "Yeah, that's"-
Diane Mulcahy:
I do enjoy it. I enjoy pushing the thinking. To me, watching somebody's thinking evolve and get past their current, their baseline comfort zone and getting them to a place that feels larger and more expansive is really satisfying. Equally, it's frustrating if I'm engaged with an individual or a company that is very set in their ways and not interested in evolving. That can be frustrating.
Daniel Stillman:
Especially since they called you. They're like-
Diane Mulcahy:
Or they're like, "We know these things are happening. We know we have to respond," but then it turns out, they want to respond without really changing anything. That's not possible.
Daniel Stillman:
No, it's not. Can you give us the illusion of addressing this challenge? I imagine that you give keynote speeches. That's one way that companies, we all participate in this, it's innovation or change management theater of like, "Hey, so we've got Diane in. She's going to give a talk and we're doing something about this thing," but that's obviously not enough, although it's a good start. People should definitely hire you to give a keynote speech, not arguing against that, whatsoever. I looked at your website. They all sound like really amazing topics and I'm sure you enjoy giving those talks. What's the next step that HR leaders and managers should be taking after they bring you in? What's the next step in the conversation?
Diane Mulcahy:
That's such a great question. What does Monday morning look like? I think for HR, well, really, whether it's an HR executive or whether it's somebody else from the C-suite, the next step is to really decide … There's really an opportunity within most companies to step up and be the person who becomes the intrapreneur, the person who says, "Look, these are the trends that are going on in the world. Here's all of the data that suggests that moving in this direction, hiring independent workers, opening ourselves up to the idea of remote and distributed workers, can bring enormous benefits. It can help us win the war for talent. It can help make us more efficient. It can help give us the skills and the expertise we need when we need it. It makes it much more cost effective for us to be able to step up and step out lots of data and reasons why this can be beneficial."
Diane Mulcahy:
Then, being the person that says, "I want to really run with this and here's the plan of what we need to do." Again, that plan is both thinking about what the mindset is and the culture and shifting that to accommodate this new way of working as well as attending to the operational aspects of changing your workforce.
Daniel Stillman:
You really need that internal champion of the thing to be taking it up.
Diane Mulcahy:
I think that's true.
Daniel Stillman:
I want to roll back to the moment, you're talking about the joy of pushing somebody's thinking and expanding their mindset. I'm wondering, my ax to grind is that we're designing our conversations all the time. How do you plan as a coach? There's plenty of people who listen to this who are trying to do more coaching in their role. I'm curious, what's your conversational superpower? How do you feel like you help people rotate their thinking and to coach people out of one way of thinking and into another?
Diane Mulcahy:
I'm not sure I've thought of it as a superpower, but I think in general, what works is asking good questions and listening. I am not afraid of silence. I think that that is really powerful in a conversation with somebody who is in the process of assimilating information that can shift the way they think. It doesn't happen rapid fire. This isn't a game of verbal volleyball. A lot of time these, these conversations are slower moving. They're reflective and people have to pull their thoughts together. You have to give space for people not to be reactive but rather to be thoughtful. Listening and being okay with that silence and that slow moving I think is really powerful because it's unusual.
Diane Mulcahy:
When you ask somebody a question and then it becomes clear that you're not going to say anything else until they answer it, you get a different answer than if you just realize, "Wow, that question is maybe a little bit uncomfortable. I'm going to paper over that. I'm going to rephrase it and make it easier or I'm going to just talk over it," which I think is a tendency.
Daniel Stillman:
Yes, it is. It's interesting. I've had some people on who talked about how my friend Nancy McGaw from the Aspen Institute talks about how powerful questions need powerful silence. How did you develop that skill? I'll be honest, I'm noticing that about you. There's some people, us Jews, for example, we do what's called collaborative overlap where we don't really let the other person finish their sentence because we're so helpful. How did you develop your … You have a more centered and silent style. Where do you think that came from? That's really interesting. I have noticed that about you just in the short time we spent together.
Diane Mulcahy:
I have always been like that. I think it really comes from, one, being an introvert, somebody who is quiet perhaps to begin with and, two, I was a psychology major in college and I've always just been really interested in other people and hearing what they have to say. I love hearing people talk about issues that are important to them. I like to let them … People do talk in an arc, and if they aren't interrupted, often the best information comes at the end. If you're willing to just, again, sit in silence and let the answer play out, it's a much better answer often.
Daniel Stillman:
I'm just practicing more silence, Diane.
Diane Mulcahy:
How is that going for you? It looks uncomfortable on the video.
Daniel Stillman:
It's tough. Well, it's interesting because this morning, I was interviewing Liz Stokoe. I think I might be mispronouncing her last name. She's also a former psychologist, conversation analyst, and interviewing her, she's rapid fire. It's a very different experience. I think I had a revelation while you were talking, I think of myself as an introverted extrovert. I don't necessarily understand the mind of the true introvert. I guess I feel like if there's a spectrum of work, I think everything's a spectrum usually. True extroverts are terrible people and true introverts are also terrible people, people who are just only interested in outward and people who are only interested in maybe themselves. I've never really thought of an introvert, and this is embarrassing, I'm saying this out loud, introverts as other-directed, right? The idea that an introvert can also be fundamentally curious about the inner lives of others is fasting fascinating to me.
Diane Mulcahy:
Well, introverts are a broad range of people. I don't mean to generalize, but that's definitely true for me. I'm absolutely curious. I think that's why I interview people and write about them. I think it really stems from, "I know my own thoughts on this, but I'm always curious what would somebody else say?" and I love to try to understand that.
Daniel Stillman:
Actually, I'm glad you brought up your writing because I was hoping to transition to, because you're fairly prolific, can you talk a little bit about your approach to writing, how you go from that interview to creating a perspective on the thing?
Diane Mulcahy:
I would say I do two kinds of writing. One is writing that is ideas, just so articles about things that I think and they almost feel like things that I have to get out because as any writer will tell you, writing is not pleasant. If I could avoid it, I probably would, but these are things I feel really compelled to write about. Interviews in many ways are easier because I generally am able to identify a topic that I think is really interesting, but then my role in writing up an interview is to represent what somebody else says for the most part. Usually, I've interviewed them because I think they have an interesting perspective. That's generally easier and the process of writing those kinds of articles is fun because you do get to have the conversation and then reflect on the topic. Generally speaking, if you're interested in something and you talk to somebody else about it, somebody else who is informed or who has an interesting way of thinking or a different perspective, it advances your own thinking. It's really a win-win as those kinds of articles.
Daniel Stillman:
That's one of the reasons why I do this podcast. It literally forces me to learn and I think this verbal process of engaging with somebody consolidates my thoughts. It makes me read your book without the pressure and shame of facing you. It'd be hard to get around to doing it. I feel like I would be remiss because I'm looking at my notes from your interview with Nayla where you interviewed her about the skills that are required to succeed in this gig economy. I feel like since we are all actually living in it, you and me included, I looked at these and I just thought they were just good human skills. What have you learned, not just from Nayla, but from other people, what does it take for all of us to thrive in this large spectrum, this uncertain future of work?
Diane Mulcahy:
I think what was so interesting about my conversation with Nayla, who I interviewed and wrote about in Forbes, is that her research indicated that the way that we should respond to changes in the way that we work, whether it's getting laid off or transitioning to working independently, is counterintuitive. What her research found is that things like having a reflective practice and spending time doing things that are joyful, that are nourishing, that are creative are important to the process of getting to a place where you will thrive. It was really powerful when she said that 100% of the people that had been laid off and ended up in a better situation, 100%, had some sort of reflective practice. I think that's so counterintuitive. It's like the conversational style.
Diane Mulcahy:
So many of us feel like, "I have to be doing. I have to be busy. I have to be productive. I have to have my nose to the keyboard if I'm really going to be serious about doing something." I think her research is so illuminating by saying, "No, that's not the right way. There is room to create time and space for reflection, for doing things that feel really nurturing to you personally, that fill you up, that give you the energy to be able to then put your nose to the keyboard and there really is a balance. Going 100% all day is not the answer, even though intuitively many of us have absorbed that message and feel like that is the way.
Daniel Stillman:
How is that true for you in your own practice?
Diane Mulcahy:
Well, in my own life and career, I've always needed a lot of time and space to do things that are different, right? This need for variety and change is something that you're hearing coming through. I have taken two separate years off ditching my life and saying, " I'm taking a break."
Daniel Stillman:
Wow.
Diane Mulcahy:
I did one year in college. I did one year in my early 30s, just dropped everything and went off to travel around the world in both years. I've also taken shorter periods of time off to do other things that were interesting to me, but I feel like those are the times when you put yourself in a position to absorb a lot of new information, gather a lot of new input, connect new dots, understand new frameworks. When you come back, you're much richer for it. Your thinking has expanded. It's more creative. It's refreshed. It's rejuvenated. It has new input in its current input. I think you're the better for it. I feel the better for it.
Daniel Stillman:
Where did you travel on that second trip? I just miss traveling. I want to hear-
Diane Mulcahy:
I know.
Daniel Stillman:
Let's talk about traveling for one second.
Diane Mulcahy:
It's so hard. I traveled with my husband and we decided to go to places that were hard to do in a normal life. We went to Asia to start and traveled all around Asia. We based out of Bangkok but traveled everywhere. Then, we went to Africa for two months, and then, we went to Australia for two months.
Daniel Stillman:
Favorite Place in Asia? I know these are impossible questions, but I'm going to ask these anyway. Totally relevant because I miss-
Diane Mulcahy:
I love Bangkok. I've been back several times. My husband spent some time there when he was a kid. I love Bangkok. It's a great city. An amazing culture. So incredibly exotic. Friendly. So different.
Daniel Stillman:
And delicious.
Diane Mulcahy:
And delicious.
Daniel Stillman:
I lived in Bangkok for, I don't know, almost a month while I waiting for a friend to show up and go to another country with me. I was eating noodles in the back corner, and then, there's like an Indian temple around the corner that was having festivals like every other week. It's truly extraordinary …
Diane Mulcahy:
It is.
Daniel Stillman:
… and diverse place.
Diane Mulcahy:
It's marvelous. It's a marvelous place.
Daniel Stillman:
What do you feel were some of the insights that you took into your next phase from that time?
Diane Mulcahy:
I think I really came back with just a much more global perspective that was informed by, one, the lived experience and, two, by the real world. I've never been much of a history buff, but when I went to China, I couldn't stop reading about Mao and that whole cultural revolution, I was fascinated. I would say, for every country that I went to, we went to Vietnam and I was like, "Wait, I need to revisit the Vietnam War because I feel like that was lost over in my AP US history class." It sparks interests that I think school might not have sparked because you're there. You're looking around. You're seeing what the environment was, where these events took place and it becomes much more of an interesting lively situation to look into.
Diane Mulcahy:
I felt so much better informed in a way of things that I had missed from formal study. I just feel like that brings a different perspective. After visiting China, I never looked at leadership the same way. These all become dots that you start connecting differently and integrating into what you already know.
Daniel Stillman:
Something that's just bubbling up for me is as we zoom back and think about the global perspective, the gig economy can look different from wherever you are in the world. There's definitely, I use Upwork and tap into a global network of freelancers to help me do my work. When I look at the pricing structures, there's people in parts of Europe that charge very differently than other parts of Europe. Then, there's people in Asia and India and all over, and then there's the gig economy in the United States. It seems like in one level, the gig economy is about privilege, but on the other hand, it's also about access because there seems to be this interesting tension and what it is depending on where you're looking at it from.
Diane Mulcahy:
Well, I definitely think it's about access. I think even within the US, what you're seeing is labor markets becoming much more distributed and what technology like Upwork is doing is removing the friction, around transacting with labor that previously would have been fairly inaccessible. If you're looking for somebody in the US to edit an article, you can pay somebody in New York, with their experience in their prices or somebody in Idaho that may look very different. I don't know if that's not a guarantee but on average. It allows for a wider selection.
Diane Mulcahy:
You can more specifically find the tradeoff between skills or quality and price that you're looking for because you do have this broad access and that's what companies are finding. They can access the precise skills at the price that they're willing to pay because now, they're not just looking in their local labor market where some skills might be in short supply or prices might be high. They're able to expand beyond that and decide for themselves what is the tradeoff they're willing to make. Are they willing to hire somebody with maybe less experience or less expertise or less formal training, but at a lower price or do they really want to look nationally to find the expert, the person Who's at the top of the field and then pay them whatever it is they charge? The choice is now available to everybody in a way that it never used to be.
Daniel Stillman:
We can really in a way design our workflow. I know I've worked with teams at some large global consulting firms that will remain nameless where they actually really enjoy, and it baffles my mind, but the 24-hour cycle of work. Because if you're in the United States of America, you can send something off to India, and then, India works and they send it back to you. Asia and the US can have the sort of seesaw continuous work versus wanting somebody that is if you are in Asia, that is in Asia, where you want to have on-demand access to them during waking hours.
Daniel Stillman:
I had somebody who was in Singapore who came to one of my facilitation master classes and I was like, "Oh, my god. This is from midnight to 3:00 AM for you," but he was like, "No, I really want to do this." I was like, "Okay, that's great." That's crazy. It's really interesting that there's this opportunity for companies to design how they collaborate and cocreate.
Diane Mulcahy:
Well, and it's no secret that companies value the arbitrage in time zones too, right?
Daniel Stillman:
Right.
Diane Mulcahy:
Those same consulting firms all have research staff and document production staff in Asia because when the US and Europe can send it when they're leaving and an Asia is just starting. It is a 24 hour work cycle for these companies. They now have access to that in a way that they didn't before.
Daniel Stillman:
Do you leverage that side of the gig economy? Obviously, we're all in it, but are you a consumer of gig folk and I'm curious how you make your team-
Diane Mulcahy:
Absolutely. I walk the talk. I walk the talk. I absolutely am. When I wrote my book, it was with all independent and largely remote workers, some of whom, I found them through different channels, but everybody was independent. I didn't have an employee. I worked with gig economy workers for everything from editing, to research, to graphic design, to helping me with social media, to my website design, to PR. Every part of that process from writing the book, to launching it, to post-launch, I used … The team changed and I think I'm also a case study of, "Access the exact talent when you need it." I didn't need a PR person until after the launch, but I need a research assistant before the launch. I'm able to go out and find the skills and the experience that I needed when I needed it.
Daniel Stillman:
That's amazing. I want to leave as much time as possible for this conversation about women in the gig economy. You have a series on Forbes where you write about this. Does the gig economy affect women differently? If so, why and how? In the interest of diversity and equity, I'm curious to unpack that a little bit.
Diane Mulcahy:
People ask me this question in some form or another frequently and it usually is around, "Does this make it easier for women to stay home and raise a family?" is what underlies it.
Daniel Stillman:
That's not what I am asking, but-
Diane Mulcahy:
Well, in the sense of, "Does it help women in a way that's different from men?" is usually that question is generally tied to family responsibilities. At the highest level, my response is, "The gig economy provides the same types of opportunities to everybody. Everybody who wants to work independently, who wants to put together a portfolio of work, who wants to work for themselves, has the same opportunity to have flexibility, to have autonomy, to have control over their schedule and their work, to create whatever balance is important in their life or to have no balance and work like crazy and maximize their income, right?" That's a choice everybody gets to make.
Diane Mulcahy:
What I do think is for women or for men, for parents, who have decided that they are staying at home to raise children, it does make it easier to also work if that's something that someone wants to do. Again, you can access all of those characteristics, the autonomy, the flexibility, the control over your schedule, so you can decide, "Look, I'm a night owl, I only want to do work that I can do between 10:00 PM and 1:00 AM," and you can do that. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. Maybe you're a guy who wants to maximize your income and you're doing that as a side gig. Maybe you're a woman with an infant and that's when you're up, right?
Diane Mulcahy:
It doesn't matter. The opportunities are there for whoever wants to access them. My students are active participants in the gig economy. I've had my MBA students say, "You know what? I'm driving Uber while I'm in graduate school and I'm only driving enough to cover my car payment and I just want that payment coming out of my normal budget." That's what they're doing it for. I feel like the opportunity is there for everybody. I don't know if that fully answers your questions, so feel free to refine it.
Daniel Stillman:
No, I think that is a perfectly legitimate answer. I didn't have the family planning aspect. I was just mainly curious because I know you have the series, and so in a way, I was curious about what was behind that if there was a direction that that was going.
Diane Mulcahy:
The reason I started that is I think for me, what I found interesting about the series that I write on Forbes on Women in The Gig Economy is giving women that I think are doing interesting, provocative things or thinking interesting and provocative thoughts, a platform to express those and to put those out into the world. I think there are many more platforms for men to do that still than for women. That was really my interest. Amplifying voices that I found interesting.
Daniel Stillman:
I think that's the other part that I … Maybe what I was thinking about is, and I'm blanking out on the names of the actual programs where micro loans are distributed to women in developing economies, where it really can be amazingly transformative to be able to start a business and the incredibly beneficial effects that has on larger society. In a way, it seems like maybe the gig economy opens up more of those opportunities.
Diane Mulcahy:
The gig economy absolutely opens more opportunities for people that have traditionally been on the margins of the labor force. If you think about people who are disabled or who have chronic illnesses, if you think about people who are retired, maybe they're not in the best of health or maybe they have basically enough money, but would love to just do something supplementary, either for income or to stay engaged, the gig economy offers opportunities for people like that in ways that the traditional workforce never did. The traditional workforce, one of the reasons I think the gig economy is catching on is that the traditional workforce just doesn't meet the needs of everybody. It's very black and white, either you're in it as a full-time employee, or you're out of it and you're unemployed.
Diane Mulcahy:
There's so many shades of gray in the gig economy. People who normally might have been out of the workforce, it allows them to step in at whatever level they want. Step a toe in, step a foot in, step a whole leg. I think that's one of the one of the things that's really powerful about this new way of working is that it does provide opportunities for workers who have traditionally been marginalized.
Daniel Stillman:
I've heard so many stories of how, as you said, people who are differently abled or mobility impaired that now that everybody's on video, it's like you can do everything and anything. These people really can participate 100% in what is now as of this recording the whole economy. With the small amount of time we have left, is there anything we have not addressed that we should address? What have I not asked you about all things, Diane Mulcahy, that we should unpack?
Diane Mulcahy:
That's a huge question and there's a lot of ways we can go with this and a lot of topics that I write about that we haven't covered. I think it would be remiss, just given where we are in the pandemic and in our economy, not to say something about remote work and whether that looks like, what's the future of that, especially given the resistance that so many companies have had to moving in this direction. My view really is that employees want flexibility. For some people, they enjoy going to the office, maybe not every day, but they enjoy being able to go to an office and that's a great choice for them, but for a lot of employees, they really prefer working from home or from a third space and having the flexibility to do that is worth something to them.
Diane Mulcahy:
I think what we're going to see as the economy reopens is that it's going to be very hard for companies to make the case to bring everybody back to the way it used to be if this has been working. If they've been able to deliver, if they've been able to meet the results with everybody working from home, the case for office-based work five days a week, eight hours a day, is going to be impossible to make.
Daniel Stillman:
I've heard this argument that we can't go back, that do finally flip the switch on the future of work.
Diane Mulcahy:
I think so. They say it takes three months to build a habit. We're well past that point and no signs of going back until probably the fall at the earliest. People have really gotten into a new behavior pattern. Again, there's inertia around that and it's going to be very hard to shift people back to the way things used to be. That will have been six months ago.
Daniel Stillman:
It is also potentially illegal. I was talking to one company where they were talking about maybe doing 10% every month starting after Labor Day, but they can't necessarily force people to come in. People may not feel comfortable to come in. We're looking at a situation where, "What is the office for?"
Diane Mulcahy:
That's it. If you're a company that is interested in attracting the best talent, how do you compete with all of these firms that have said, "We are going to go remote. People can be where they want. They can work from home if they want. We will get them WeWork Space or some other equivalent if they want. If you're somebody who's looking at an offer from a company like that versus a company that says, "Get your car. Commute every day. Be here by 9:00 AM." What's more attractive? Where are you going to go?
Daniel Stillman:
I think maybe it was in the article you wrote with Krystal Hicks where you talked about clock and chair management which I thought was just this wonderfully powerful visual. That's how we have been managing. It's like you're in your chair at a particular time. That's how I know you're doing your job and she's shaking her head, everyone.
Diane Mulcahy:
This is one of the conversations that I have with senior executives, "What do you really know about what your employees are doing at the office during the day? Tell me about what they're doing. Tell me how much time they spend in meetings. Tell me how much time they spend doing email. How much time do they spend on the phone? What are people doing during the day?" I have never heard a good answer. The real answer is we have no idea, but we can see them, so we feel better.
Daniel Stillman:
I have one more question maybe which is, what's your next course about? If Diane Mulcahy knows how to write it an MBA course that predicts the next decade of what's up, what's the next MBA course that you'd like to design that we should all go and take?
Diane Mulcahy:
Wow. I don't have an MBA course in mind that I'm designing, but one area that I have thought about doing a course is around entrepreneurship and food. Thinking about-
Daniel Stillman:
Really?
Diane Mulcahy:
Yeah, thinking about the food supply, the food system. I think those are issues that have really come up during this pandemic that just points to … Really just look at it as traditional work with an industry ripe for disruption and the gig economy came along. I look at the food system, the production food system and the food supply and it looks like another area, another industry that is ripe for disruption, lots of pain points, lots of inefficiencies. It's all about entrepreneurship, right? Where are the best opportunities? They're in the stayed, the most traditional status quo industries. I find myself attracted to those.
Daniel Stillman:
That's so interesting. Let's check in in a couple of years because I read a lot of those articles about, "We make five gallon buckets of pasteurized, blended eggs, uncooked, that we sell to institutions and institutions are all closed. I wouldn't know what to do with a five gallon bucket of eggs. Middle school does. All of those got poured down the drain." That's what I think of when I think about some of the opportunities for innovation in right food supply and food systems. I'm sure there's others that are tickling in your brain.
Diane Mulcahy:
Meat processing plants that are shutting down. They're just a different office that people go to produce work. Is there a way to think about that production in a more decentralized, distributed way? What are the benefits of that?
Daniel Stillman:
That's so cool. Well, that's for our next conversation.
Diane Mulcahy:
That sounds great.
Daniel Stillman:
I really appreciate you making the time, Diane. This has been a real pleasure. It's super eye opening. I learned a lot. If people want to learn more about all things, Diane Mulcahy, where should they go on the innerwebs?
Diane Mulcahy:
On the innerwebs, the best place is to go to my website which is dianemulcahy.com and I have my articles and interviews and other writings on the gig economy.
Daniel Stillman:
All right. Check it out. I really enjoyed your book. Thank you so much for making the time. We'll-
Diane Mulcahy:
This is a great conversation. Thank you so much for having me.
Daniel Stillman:
Thank you. We'll call Scene...