Heidi Hackemer of Oatly!
How To Build Trust With A Team You Rarely See In Person.
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 305: Heidi Hackemer
Hi. I’m Charles Day. I work with creative and innovative companies. I coach and advise their leaders to help them maximize their impact and grow their business.
Welcome to Season 3, which we’re calling, “Leading The Future”.
We’re living in an unprecedented time. An epoch in which the collision of science, technology and humanity is changing everything we thought we knew.
How do leaders lead when none of us have ever been here before?
This episode’s guest is Heidi Hackemer, the Executive Creative Director of OATLY! North America. She is intentioned and reflective.
Leadership used to be exerted through command and control. Identify the levers of power and pull them.
Rely on that today and you’ll soon discover if your company is built to unlock creative thinking and innovation. If people do what you say, it’s not.
Original thinkers aren’t interested in being told what to do. They want to be convinced. Which means that the key to successful leadership of the most talented people depends on a fundamental requirement.
Do they trust you?
Leading the future is going to demand that of leaders like never before. When are we in the office, when are we not? Who’s vaccinated? Why are we doing this? What will make us successful?
Add to that, the fact that each of us arrive in this moment having lived through an entirely unique version of this shared trauma, and the complexity of what we face is unprecedented.
We have no history, no evidence, no data to help us make the decisions we are about to make. We have only trial and error. And our instincts.
If we want people to follow us, we’re going to need them to trust us. And unlike creative thinking and innovation, trust is a finite resource. Use it up and it’s gone.
So step boldly into this new dawn. But with honesty and empathy. A lot of honesty and empathy.
Here’s Heidi Hackemer.
Charles: (02:07)
Heidi, thanks for coming back on.
Heidi Hackemer: (02:09)
Ah, thanks for having me back, Charles. I love it.
Charles: (02:12)
How do you look back on 2020?
Heidi Hackemer: (02:14)
In some ways, it was a confusing year, because some good things happened, as well. So, there's this internal tension of, I started working at a company that I really love, I got married, we adopted a dog. So a lot of good things happened in 2020, in the midst of a really strange context, of really contentious context that affected us every single day.
And so, in some ways, I'm reeling, just like everyone else is reeling, and in other ways, I look at myself and I say, "A lot of good things happened, as well." And I often have a hard time reconciling those two things.
Charles: (03:00)
Hard in the sense that it makes you feel what?
Heidi Hackemer: (03:05)
A little guilty, because so many people had such rough years in 2020, and our household was not affected from a health standpoint or from an economic standpoint. Yet you look out into the world, and there was just so much pain in the world, and that's really, really hard sometimes to look out and see.
We've had a lot of conversations in our household about feeling guilty about the fact that 2020 didn't decimate us. It didn't ultimately knock our lives off track. It was a frustrating year. It was a year that we struggled with.
There was definitely the winter. I thought I was... the winter was hard that year, but nothing crazy, nothing that I can say, "Oh, woe is me."
Charles: (03:57)
Yeah. I think it's a really important frame of reference, isn't it? Because I think those of us who thought we were in privileged positions before the pandemic have realized, to your point, that we are in extraordinarily privileged positions.
We were largely protected physically. We lived in places that were beautiful, and relatively isolated, or could move to those places that were, and I'm conscious as people start to come back together, how that creates a different set of challenges, from a leadership perspective, the ability to sense our own place in this story, and our ability to understand how somebody else's might be different than that.
Heidi Hackemer: (04:33)
I mean, I've found, for myself, I try not to talk about it too much. I was very lucky that I bought this old farm house outside of the city seven or eight years ago, and it's not this incredibly fancy farm house. There's nothing sprawling about it. In many ways, it's falling apart, especially after a third year being really lived in. But I find myself being careful to even talk about that, even though I'm talking about it on a podcast now, because I think I've gotten more comfortable with it.
But in the beginning, especially, I was almost embarrassed to talk about it, and being really cognizant of a lot of my team members, and a lot of people I'm around, did not have that luxury. So I try to minimize it.
Charles: (05:20)
How has your leadership changed over the last year?
Heidi Hackemer: (05:25)
It's interesting. I joined a company without having met anybody. I still have not met anyone in person. So I joined in September 2020.
I immediately had to lead a team, and also build a team. I had to lead a team that has been in pure startup mode, and that classic transition of early days, where it's all hands on deck, everyone wears every hat, a lot of people just working like crazy, to a company that needs a little more structure, needs a little bit more processes.
So, it's that transition from total scrappy to not quite systematized yet, but that middle space, right? I think something that I had to lean into more as a leader in the last year or so is really trying to listen, as much as possible, in ways that I don't think I've ever leaned in and listened before, try to come from a real place of empathy.
It has to be really cognizant of making spaces in a virtual sense, so that the bonding that happens in a usual in-person space has room to happen. And to make sure that the way that we're not interacting as a team is only about deliverables, get something done, the checklist, but somehow try to, and I would say inelegantly, create those coffee moments that just can't happen in real life.
Charles: (07:08)
So, was that done by design? Because, to your point, if you've never met somebody in person, you have no three-dimensional sense of them whatsoever, and everything you're learning about them is either through a screen, or through a written communication. How do you consciously start to build relationships where they're looking to you to lead them, and you've never met them?
Heidi Hackemer: (07:28)
I've had to be a little more vulnerable about things, because you just don't have that proximity where people can just see you walk down the hall. I have to joke a little bit more, share little tidbits about my dog, so people could feel like they’re allowed to do that.
Just try to lead by example, that it's okay, we don't have to talk about just work in every single meeting, and then also create new spaces. We've started a happy hour, it's nothing revolutionary. But what I realized when I got there was that every meeting was about getting something done. So I set aside this hour meeting every other week, where we just have nothing, there's almost no agenda. You just come in, and everyone hangs out.
I'm not saying that like, not a revolutionary concept, but I don't know if I would have been so cognizant of having to create that meeting, in an in-person space, because a lot of times that just would organically happen in a company.
Charles: (08:25)
Did you find you had to fill that space to begin with? Did you have to give people permission to sort of join in with you?
Heidi Hackemer: (08:33)
I think so, because again, the way my team is going through this transition where it was all hands on deck, everyone that worked together, before I got there, had been in real life together. So they had the intimacy of having worked in person before.
I think I was the first person on my team that came in, that didn't know the team beforehand. They were actually borrowing the equity of their past relationship. Then I was the first person that didn't have that equity. And I realized a couple of months in that I really knew very little about the people that I was working with on a personal level.
I started thinking, "Oh gosh, I'm growing the scene very quickly. It's going to be even worse for more and more people as they join." So we have to do these kinds of things to make it happen.
Charles: (09:20)
As you look forward, and you start to think about meeting your team in person for the first time, coming back together in some fashion, whatever that looks like for different businesses, what do you think are going to be fundamental to how your leadership has to show up?
Heidi Hackemer: (09:38)
Well, one is just showing your excitement about being back together. I think people are going to be naturally excited, but just making sure that we realize that it's special for us to be back together, and we're really excited about that.
Our company is not going back to a full-time work position. Right now, the plan is that we will have, no one will have a permanent desk. You rent desks, and... not rent, excuse me, you reserve your desk, you reserve your conference rooms.
And what's also happened with my team is that my team is mostly remote now. So, of a team of 15 or 20, only three of us are New York-based, because people moved out, and we hire people from all over the country. This is a really unique challenge for me, coming off of the pandemic is, how do you wrangle a team that is actually staying, for the most part, remote?
So the initial of what we're going to do is, my team, we're going to fly everyone in, once a month, for a week to be together. Then the other three weeks, people can work from wherever they need to work from.
The thing, the reason I decided to do that, as opposed to just doing a messier hybrid model, where people could come and go as they needed to, was that I have a really good friend, who's run a remote company for years, way before any of this happened, his team is fully remote. The word of warning that he said to me is, "You have to make sure that the decision-making is either fully online or fully in person."
The problem with companies, when you have remote workers, is when you have some that are remote, some that are huddling up, and making decisions in the hallway, and then decision-making processes break down. That's why I made the decision of, "We are all going to come together one week of the month, and then we're all going to disperse. And in those together times, the decision-making is going to happen in person, and in the apart times, the decision-making's going to happen on Slack."
That's just how it's going to work. Because I don't want there to be that weird breakdown of, because you weren't in the room, you weren't privy to the decision making processes.
Charles: (11:40)
I think that is fascinating, and so perceptive. Because I've been thinking about this, and in some of the earlier episodes in the season, I've been talking about this idea, that having a hybrid model has limitations exactly as you've described. My sense was that if you had some people at home... Right now, the Zoom clicks off, and we are all confident that nobody's missing out. The meeting is over, we've all gone back to our houses, and whatever happens then happens then.
But if you're going to do a hybrid model, where some of you are at home, or some of you are in the office, human nature is going to wonder, "What were the people in the office saying after we all hung up?" What happens then?
Heidi Hackemer: (12:13)
Exactly, exactly. And I had one employee, actually, we just had this conversation in the last couple of weeks. Her husband's job opportunities are outside of the city, so they're really thinking about leaving.
She actually told me, she was relieved when I told her about the week on, three weeks off model. Because she's like, "The thing I was worried the most about us moving away was FOMO. I was really afraid that the decision-making would start to happen in the office again, and I wouldn't be there.”
It actually relieved the weight off of her. It's helping her make better choices for her life holistically, because we're going to try this very, "strict" is a strong word, but I think I'm going to be pretty strict about this, that this is how it's going to be, on the weeks on, versus the weeks off.
Charles: (12:55)
What do you think changes because you'll have people together for a period of time that will be different, than it has been over the last 12 months? I mean, when we're all working remotely, and the rules are the same, and we've all had to adapt to that, now that you have the ability to actually pull people together, and then to your point, then separate them overtly and deliberately. What do you think changes in terms of how you lead? How does the group function?
Heidi Hackemer: (13:18)
I mean, in some ways, it's going to be way less efficient, right? Because everyone's going to be messing around, which is actually great. I'm really glad it's not going to be as efficient. Right now, it all feels so damn efficient.
I mean, I think I'm excited, because the thing that I've really missed as a leader is the in-between moments. I'm really looking forward to those weeks that we're together, where we can just have that in between, or, "Let's go run out and grab a coffee,” or whatever we need to do.
The difference is the messiness and the inefficiency. I'm really excited to embrace that because, especially when I know that we're going back to three weeks of being remote. We'll get it all done.
There's no issue of getting it done, but how do you make sure that those weeks together are actually super messy, kind of inefficient, very human? I think I'm going to be focusing even more on that, in those together weeks.
Charles: (14:11)
I'm really conscious that one of the aspects of the last year that hasn't been lived out yet is the grief that has to happen, when people finally come back together. I mean, the loss of half a million Americans, millions of people around the world, many of the people that haven't died are suffering from long term effects that we don't understand the full implications of. I mean, there is an enormous amount of grief and suffering that has not actually been expressed, because we haven't been able to be together.
Heidi Hackemer: (14:36)
Yes.
Charles: (14:37)
How do you think that's going to affect the workplace? Do you think that that needs to be addressed, overtly?
Heidi Hackemer: (14:45)
Let me just take that one step further into what you're saying. The thing that allowed me to have permission to feel grief about this past year was actually an article I read a few weeks ago, saying that we actually all have to grieve, and it's okay if your grief isn't one that surrounds death or something catastrophic that happened to last year.
It's okay to have a moment to grieve the lost vacations, or the lost times together. I think that that, for me, was really liberating, because I wasn't allowing myself to grieve those things, because of what we talked about upfront, because of my relative privilege, because we've been okay. So I think there's a whole lot of pent-up grief in the system right now.
What I would say is that, at least in the workspace I'm in, and what I'm seeing around the world, there's much more acceptance of having the conversations around mental health. We've talked about it a lot more, as a team, about staying healthy mentally during these times. My hope is that that extends into the times when we are back together, knowing that we do have this delayed grieving going on, just delayed being normal.
What is it like to touch somebody again? What is that going to be? I think we're going to go through this massive adjustment period, where we kind of figure out what it means to be together again. Of course, we need to have space to process that, and also forgiveness, if it's done inelegantly. Because it's inevitably going to be really awkward in the beginning, and just preparing for that, as a leader of saying, "It's going to feel weird. The first time we're together is going to be amazing. And it's going to be really weird, at the same time."
Charles: (16:26)
I think it's such an important point. We were sharing a drink outside with some friends last weekend, and two of us have both been fully vaccinated, and our two weeks passed. I touched her on the back, and we both recoiled, because we're like, "This is the first time we'd actually had physical contact in over a year." It was really bizarre.
So I think your point is really well made, which is that the dynamic of people coming from all kinds of different backgrounds and locations, and places and sensibilities, physically coming back together, is going to be a real point of navigation. And it also strikes me that providing real mental health support is going to be critical for companies, not, "Here's an 800 number, or here's a resource, but really getting invested and engaged in people's mental health is going to be fundamental, I think.
Heidi Hackemer: (17:15)
And doing it in a way that's appropriate, and not intrusive, also navigating those lines. That's something that I'm very thankful that there are other leaders in my company that will also be navigating that, because I don't know exactly how to do that, in a way that's the best way to do it.
Charles: (17:32)
Yeah. I think that raises a great point, too, which is the overt benefit of reaching out to each other, and saying, "How are you doing this?"
Which I don't think actually happens enough among senior leaders of different businesses. I think there's such a sense of competition and winning, that there is not relatively as much sort of information trading as needs to happen. I hope part of what happens among the leadership community is the willingness to say, "We've tried this, this really helped. You should think about that."
Heidi Hackemer: (17:58)
Yeah. Just to add onto that, just to double down on what you're saying, my company, I don't know if it was on purpose, or just happened to be that we are going through a whole company leadership training in waves, different leaders are going through different waves.
By and large, the most valuable part of that training was that they randomly put us with other leaders in the company that we don't work with. Actually, it wasn't random. They put us with people that we don't work with a lot, who are also leaders in the company.
Those pods became such valuable safe spaces for all the leaders in the last couple of months, because it was this place where... I mean, it got real in those pods, and people just really talking about what they were struggling with, and looking to each other for advice and for help in navigating things.
I think any company should really be looking into that lateral support that we can give one another. And it's crazy how effective it is. It was so effective, in our case, and our official training's over, but I still hang out with my pod.
I still throw stuff into them, and be like, "Hey, this is something I'm dealing with. Do you guys have any insight in it?" Just knowing that there are three other people that I can lob stuff to has been incredibly beneficial to me the last few months.
Charles: (19:15)
Yeah. I think the power of the community is going to be so important coming out of this thing.
Heidi Hackemer: (19:19)
Yeah, agreed.
Charles: (19:20)
From the standpoint of unlocking creative thinking innovation, which is obviously where you and I spend a ton of our time, what have you learned over the last 12 months that you think is going to go forward? What have the benefits been, coming out of the last 12 months, in terms of the ability to help people have original thought, and apply them in a business environment?
Heidi Hackemer: (19:40)
I've really been pushed on this by my Head of Creative Services. I used to think that remote creativity didn't work, that you couldn't have somebody over in Europe working on something meaningfully with somebody, say... I have a team. One is in Amsterdam, one is in San Francisco. Pre-pandemic, I would have said, "That's impossible, we can't do it."
My hope now is that I'm heading into an era, I know I'm much more open to, the talent can come and sit anywhere. And it's kind of embarrassing. I know that it was always said before, but I always was like, "Yeah, whatever," but not in creative, not in ideation, not in innovation. But actually, I've seen it work.
I'm really excited to be able to basically have the world as my playground, as to where I can get talent from, and get divergent thinking from. I am incredibly excited for my creatives to be able to have different stimulus than their living room.
I think that's been something that's been really difficult. I mean, I know that I'm somebody that really gets fueled by walking around and just seeing things, absorbing things, like we all do, as humans, having randomness, and curiosity at the fingertips. So I can't wait for my creatives to be able to just take a walk, and see a street musician, or see something beautiful, or some art that a kid made, and be able to work that into their creative processes again.
Charles: (21:08)
What do you think of the stories that we'll tell, in the years to come, about what we've all just lived through?
Heidi Hackemer: (21:15)
I think they'll be more diverse, which is good. Thank God. Thank God we won't be looking at this 30 years from now, just from a white male perspective, which I feel like, some of our past moments in history do only have that lens. And just now, we're seeing the other lenses.
I think that that's probably the most exciting thing, is that we are understanding that there's a lot of different ways to digest this. Like we were talking about earlier, I think the stories are going to be very varied. They're going to be wide. I've heard some people say, this is the best year they've ever had. It's mostly the introverts that are saying that, but... So I think those stories are going to range pretty wide.
Charles: (22:04)
What do you know now that you didn't know a year ago?
Heidi Hackemer: (22:12)
Hmm. I mean, personally, I've gone through a massive self-journey over the last year. The ability to stop, and not be on planes? I used to be on a plane every week. I don't think I laid my head on the same bed three nights in a row, for 15-20 years. So just stopping, and really spending time, and understanding myself and my body.
I used to blame stuff on planes. But really, it's more the way I eat. Really intimately knowing that now, because your variables are gone, right? It's like, "Oh, I'm having a stress reaction." I used to blame that on, "Oh, this thing happened at work," or, "I'm too tired. I've been traveling too much." But actually the stress reaction has to do with some unresolved stuff from 15 years ago.
I think cutting out many of the lifestyle variables helped me go deeper into myself, to understand just what makes me tick, what sets me off, what is unresolved? There's a lot of learning there, a lot of learning there, which, ultimately, I believe, makes me a stronger leader, makes me a better colleague, makes me better at what I do.
So that, for me, has been personally the big learning of the last year. Then there's all these functional learnings, like remote workers, and all that kind of stuff, right? There's a lot of functional stuff on top of it. But stopping like this, I think, for people who like myself, never stopped, never profoundly stopped, has been really enlightening.
Charles: (24:04)
You've always been really reflective and self-aware. One of the challenges, I think, of coming out of a period of such reflection, and I agree, I've experienced very much exactly what you've just described, which is, removing the variables has given me a much better understanding about what is, actually, I'm contributing to this story, and what is actually coming from the outside.
How do you take that forward, as whatever normal becomes changes, and we are suddenly re-exposed to a whole bunch of different dynamics, and our brains are actually forced to work again at multiple levels, not just in a straight ahead level? How do we take the recognition of that forward, do you think?
Heidi Hackemer: (24:41)
There's a part of me that really does not want to re-enter, for this exact reason. Because in many ways, I'm making more progress now. I'm good, in a deep way, that I haven't been good, probably my entire adult life, because of that, just profound reflection, and cutting the variables in the last year.
I hope that this means that we don't have to get on planes the way that we used to. I hope that this means that we're allowed to tap out, and say no to things. I don't think that's going to last. Just thinking of my last life when I was running a company, it all depends on everyone else stopping, too.
Because if the CEO of another consulting shop, like I had, decided to get on the plane to go see the client, and I don't, I'm going to be at a disadvantage. So I think it's going to be really interesting. I think we'll actually get back to the rush faster than we think we will. And there's a part of me that, talk about mourning? I will mourn that.
Charles: (25:51)
Yeah. And for once, I hope you're wrong.
Heidi Hackemer: (25:54)
Me too. I do. I really do.
Charles: (25:57)
Heidi, thank you so much for the great conversation.
Heidi Hackemer: (25:59)
Oh, thank you.
Charles: (25:59)
You've just, such insights, as always.
Heidi Hackemer: (26:01)
It was so nice. Thanks so much, Charles.
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