Jackson: Here’s a wild thought to start us off. A massive survey of over 20,000 office workers found they were only truly productive for 2 hours and 58 minutes a day. Olivia: Wow. That’s not a typo, is it? Under three hours? Jackson: Not a typo. Which really makes you wonder, what were we all doing in the office for the other five hours? And more importantly, now that the world has changed, can we finally do better? Olivia: That is the central question behind the book we're diving into today: Smart Work: How to create the high-performance hybrid team by Jo Owen. He argues that the pandemic didn't break work; it just exposed how broken it already was. Jackson: Jo Owen, right. He's not your typical business guru. This is the guy who founded Teach First, one of the UK's biggest graduate recruiters, and has been in the trenches of leadership for decades. I read he even got sued for $12 billion once, which has to give you some serious perspective on risk. Olivia: Exactly. His approach is incredibly pragmatic, born from real-world chaos, not from a sterile laboratory. He saw the forced shift to remote work not as a crisis, but as an accidental revolution that finally pushed leadership into the twenty-first century. Jackson: A revolution that started with getting rid of the control-freak managers. Olivia: Precisely. As Owen puts it, "The office was paradise for control-freak managers." You could see everyone, monitor everything. But when everyone went home, that paradise vanished overnight. And in its place, a new currency emerged. Jackson: Let me guess. Not Bitcoin. Olivia: Not quite. Trust.

Jackson: Okay, "trust." It's a word that gets thrown around a lot in business books. It can feel a bit… fluffy. What does it actually mean in this context? How do you build it when you can’t even see your team? Olivia: Owen breaks it down beautifully. He says trust isn't a single feeling; it's an equation with four key parts: aligning on values, aligning on goals, demonstrating credibility, and managing risk. And the values part is where it gets really interesting. Jackson: That’s the one that sounds the fuzziest to me. How do you "align values" through a Zoom call? Olivia: Well, Owen tells this fantastic story about a man named John Timpson, who ran a chain of shoe repair shops across the UK. Think about it—each shop is a tiny, remote outpost with maybe one or two employees. It's the original hybrid work model. Jackson: Right, you can't have a manager standing over the cobbler's shoulder all day. Olivia: Exactly. And Timpson had a problem. He was hiring skilled cobblers, people who were great at fixing shoes, but they were often terrible with customers. So he made a radical change. He decided to hire for values first and skills second. Jackson: That’s a classic business saying, "hire for attitude, train for skill." But how did he actually do it? Olivia: This is the brilliant part. He created a new interview form. On one side, it had cartoon characters from the Mr. Men and Little Miss series: Mr. Happy, Ms. Helpful, Mr. Honest. On the other side, it had Mr. Lazy, Ms. Grumpy, and Mr. Fib. He told his managers they had to describe the candidate using only these characters. Jackson: Hold on, a cartoon form? For a serious job? That sounds a bit silly. Are you telling me that actually worked? Olivia: It was genius! Because it forced the managers to stop talking about technical skills—which can be taught—and start talking about character. Is this person fundamentally honest? Are they helpful? Do they have integrity? As Owen says, "Many bosses hire for skills and fire for values." Timpson just flipped the process. He hired the Mr. Happys and Ms. Helpfuls, and then he taught them how to fix shoes. Jackson: And it worked? Olivia: It transformed the business. Because in that remote-first environment, he needed to trust that the person in the shop would do the right thing for every customer, every single day, without supervision. He needed values alignment. Olivia: And this ties into another one of Owen’s core ideas: credibility. He has this great analogy. He says, "Credibility is like a vase." Jackson: Oh, I think I know where this is going. Olivia: It’s beautiful and takes a long time to create, but it can be shattered in an instant. And once it’s broken, you can glue it back together, but everyone will always see the cracks. In a remote world, your word is all you have. If you say you’ll do something and you don’t, a crack appears. Jackson: That makes total sense. But what about the risk part of his trust equation? That feels different. Olivia: It is, because it’s about emotion, not logic. Owen tells a story that really drives this home, and it’s a famous one: the Titanic. Jackson: The Titanic? How does that relate to a hybrid team meeting? Olivia: Think about it. When the ship was sinking, what did the first-class passengers do? They were fighting each other to get onto a tiny, open lifeboat in the middle of the freezing North Atlantic. Now, is getting on that raft a safe, logical decision? Absolutely not. It's incredibly risky. Jackson: But the alternative was… staying on the Titanic. Olivia: Exactly! Owen’s point is that "all risk is relative." People will only take a risk—like trusting a new process or a new leader—if you can show them that the risk of doing nothing is even greater. The ship is sinking. Standing still is not an option. As a leader trying to build trust for a new way of working, you have to frame the change not as a scary leap, but as the only lifeboat available. Jackson: Wow. That’s a powerful way to put it. So trust isn't just about being a good person. It’s a combination of hiring for the right character, being relentlessly credible, and understanding the emotional calculus of risk. Olivia: And when you put all that together, you build something more powerful than formal authority. You build influence. You become the leader people want to follow, not the one they have to follow.

Jackson: Okay, so trust is the foundation. I get it. But once you have that trust, what do you actually do with it? Just letting everyone go and hoping for the best sounds like a recipe for total chaos. This is the 'Autonomy' part of the RAMP framework, right? Olivia: It is, and it’s probably the biggest mindset shift for traditional managers. Owen frames it as a paradox: to be a more effective leader in a hybrid world, you have to "manage less, and lead more." Jackson: That sounds good on a poster, but what does it mean on a Tuesday morning when a deadline is looming? "Managing less" sounds like abdicating responsibility. Olivia: It's about shifting your focus. Managing is about controlling the 'how'—how you do the task, when you do it, where you do it. Leading is about defining the 'what' and the 'why.' What is our goal, and why does it matter? Owen argues that in the past, leaders got bogged down in the 'how.' Now, they must delegate the 'how' and focus entirely on the 'what' and 'why.' Jackson: So it’s about giving a clear destination but letting the team choose the route? Olivia: Precisely. And the goal needs to be incredibly clear and compelling. He uses the story of JFK's moonshot as the ultimate example. In 1961, Kennedy didn't lay out a 500-page project plan. He said, "We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and return him safely to the Earth." Jackson: A simple, stretching, and crystal-clear goal. Olivia: It was everything. It was ambitious, it had a deadline, and it was inspiring. He provided the 'what' and the 'why'—to beat the Soviets, to advance science, to inspire a nation. He left the 'how' to the brilliant engineers at NASA. That’s leading, not managing. Jackson: A moonshot is a great example for a president. But what about a regular team leader at a software company? What's their moonshot? And more importantly, how do you give people that much autonomy without everything falling apart? Olivia: This is where Owen’s most practical advice comes in. He says that autonomy without structure is chaos. To make freedom work, you have to "fix the plumbing." Jackson: Fix the plumbing? What does that mean? Olivia: It means creating simple, clear, and consistent processes and routines that support the team without suffocating them. It's the invisible architecture of success. He tells this incredible story about a UK charity called Missing People. They ran a helpline for vulnerable people, and for years, they believed the entire team had to be in one room to ensure quality, provide support, and manage the emotional toll. Jackson: That makes sense. It’s a high-stakes environment. Olivia: They thought it was non-negotiable. Then the pandemic hit. They were given 48 hours to go fully remote. Forty-eight hours to completely re-engineer their entire system. It was their worst nightmare. Jackson: I can't even imagine the stress. What happened? Olivia: The quality of their service improved. Jackson: Wait, what? How is that possible? Olivia: Because the crisis forced them to fix their plumbing. They had to create new, better systems for communication, for support, for quality assurance. They couldn't rely on just overhearing a conversation in the office anymore. They had to be deliberate. They had to build a stronger, more resilient structure, and that structure enabled their team to perform even better, even when scattered across the country. Jackson: So the very thing they feared—going remote—actually made them better because it forced them to be more intentional about their processes. Olivia: Exactly. And this "plumbing" doesn't have to be complicated. Owen suggests one incredibly simple but powerful routine called the "YTH" meeting. Jackson: Y-T-H? Olivia: Yesterday, Today, Help. It’s a daily, 15-minute check-in. Each person quickly answers three questions: What did you achieve yesterday? What is your main focus today? And where do you need help? Jackson: That’s it? Olivia: That’s it. It’s not a status report for the boss. It’s a commitment device for the team. It creates rhythm, it surfaces roadblocks instantly, and it builds connection. It’s a tiny piece of plumbing that makes a huge amount of autonomy possible. It’s the structure that enables freedom.

Olivia: And that really brings the whole idea of 'Smart Work' together. The real insight from Jo Owen is that true, high-performing autonomy isn't about anarchy or a total free-for-all. It's about a powerful combination: high trust built on shared values and credibility, paired with smart, simple structures that guide the team. Jackson: It’s like building a playground. You want the kids to have the freedom to run around, invent games, and have fun. But you need strong fences and safe equipment. The trust is the belief that they'll play well, and the 'plumbing'—the routines like that YTH meeting—is the fence and the swing set. Olivia: That’s a perfect analogy. The structure doesn't limit freedom; it enables it safely. The heroic, do-it-all leader is a relic. The modern leader is more like an architect—designing a system where talented people can do their best work, together. Jackson: So for anyone listening, a manager or just someone on a team, what's the first step? It feels like a huge shift. Olivia: Owen would say to start small. The challenge isn't to just wake up tomorrow and "trust more." It's to ask yourself: what's one simple routine, one piece of 'plumbing' like that YTH meeting, that you could introduce this week to make trust and autonomy a reality, not just a buzzword? Jackson: I love that. It’s not about a grand gesture; it’s about a small, repeatable action. I'd be genuinely curious to hear what works for people out there. What are the 'rules of engagement' or the simple routines that make your hybrid team click? Find us on our socials and share your secrets. Olivia: Please do. We all have to learn, change, and raise our game in this new world. This is Aibrary, signing off.