Attracting, Energizing, and Retaining the Best Talent with Maura Thomas

Do you feel productive? How do you measure productivity? Maura Thomas joins Kevin to discuss the pitfalls of constant busyness versus true productivity and the need for leaders to prioritize thinking. She shares that leaders and organizational culture can unintentionally hinder productivity. Leaders often underestimate their influence not only on employees' work lives but also on their personal lives, attitudes, and mental well-being.

Listen for...

• 00:00 Introduction
• 00:07 Importance of creating a desirable workplace
• 02:15 Discussion about Maura's journey into productivity
• 06:50 Focus on knowledge work and defining it
• 08:13 Challenges of measuring productivity in knowledge work
• 09:01 Impact of leaders' behaviors on organizational culture
• 10:31 People view leaders differently than they view themselves
• 12:19 Four quadrants of attention management: reactive, focused, daydreaming, flow
• 17:20 Task switching has a cost and disrupts productivity
• 18:45 The difference between being busy and being productive
• 22:07 It's not just about the tools, but how we use them
• 24:41 The volume of communication in organizations is too high
• 26:13 Agreements are needed for communication expectations
• 27:10 Resetting the culture of urgency is important
• 28:27 Importance of efficient remote communication
• 29:15 Tips for effective one-on-one meetings
• 33:11 Impact of after-hours communication on employee stress
• 37:23 Closing

Meet Maura

• Name: Maura Nevel Thomas
• Maura's Story: Maura Nevel Thomas is the author of 6 books, including her latest, Everyone Wants to Work Here: Attract the Best Talent, Energize Your Team, and Be The Leader in Your Market. She is an award-winning international speaker and trainer on individual and corporate productivity and work-life balance, and the most widely-cited authority on attention management. Her proprietary Empowered Productivity™ System has been embraced by the likes of NASA, Google, and Dyson. She is a TEDx Speaker, founder of Regain Your Time, author of six books, and was named a Top Leadership Speaker in Inc. Magazine. Maura is frequently featured in major business outlets including Business Insider, Fast Company, and Washington Post, and she’s also a regular contributor to both Forbes and the Harvard Business Review, with articles there viewed over a million times.
• https://maurathomas.com/

This episode is brought to you by...

The Long-Distance Team. Remote leadership experts, Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, help leaders navigate the new world of remote and hybrid teams to design the culture they desire for their teams and organizations in their new book!

Book Recommendations

• Everyone Wants to Work Here: Attract the Best Talent, Energize Your Team, and Be the Leader in Your Market by Maura Thomas 
• Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity by Gloria Mark

Related Episodes

• Leadership Productivity Principles with Maura Thomas
• Turning Culture into Competitive Advantage with Jeff Grimshaw

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