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Dylan McAdams: Hello, my name is Dylan McAdams is October 13 12:03pm. And please introduce yourself What is your name? Kyle Stapleton: My name is Kyle Stapleton from Atlanta, Georgia, I work at Warner media in the studios group. I think you and

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do I have permission to record this interview? Yes, absolutely. Dylan McAdams: All right, let's get started. So first, just kind of tell me about what you do for your job, like what department you work for. and kinda like a little bit about what what

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you're kind of like your, what you do for your, your job. Kyle Stapleton: Sure, so my title is senior manager of culture and experience for Warner media studios.I sit on the operations team, and I am in people operations, essentially.

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So my job is to design and manage processes that help our creative people. So we're an organization of 300 or so production and post production artists, people with highly technical and specialized skills and great creative imaginations,

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right people that you want to, you want to find and hold on tightly to. So it's my job to design and, and sustain processes that enable their best work, remove obstacles to their best work, attract the next generation of people like them,

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help them future proof their skills, and generally create an inclusive environment where creatives can do what they do best. Dylan McAdams: And how long have you worked in this position?

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Kyle Stapleton: November will be four years. So I started the day before the last presidential election. So it's been very easy to count the days. Dylan McAdams: Definitely, yeah. So what made you choose this

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type of field to to go into? Kyle Stapleton: It's a great question i got i was a marketing undergrad, the first major that I ever declared in college was English. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, I was an art kid, I

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love to draw and paint and read. But I didn't necessarily want to make a living from that or try to, because it was an escape, and it was something that I loved. And when I love something, I tend to put my full, my full force of my spirit

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behind it and and, you know, tend to burn out occasionally as a result. So the things that make me happy and that I'm passionate about, I tend to kind of compartmentalize and keep separate, right. So finding the balance between how to make a

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living and how to make a life has always been a tension in my life. So I was a marketing undergrad, because that seemed like the best of both worlds between business acumen driving business outcomes and getting to be creative for a living. I

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graduated into the teeth of the recession in 2009. And I more or less immediately, I got a full time job at the university that I just graduated from, was very fortunate to do that and had a mentor that encouraged me to get my MBA, so that I would be more

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competitive coming out of the economic downturn. And he was right. So I got my MBA, and I worked for a real estate developer, because I thought that was just the kind of job you were supposed to get. And you had an MBA was like a

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really, really busy job. And I was wrong. And then I met somebody who had just left the journalism world and gone into the PR agency world. And she introduced me to this agency she'd started working at. And I'd never considered the agency

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world because I've heard horror stories about turnover and just the grind of billable hours and stuff like that. And it reminded me of some of the things that I didn't like about the idea of law, the other professional services around that I've

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considered. But this particular agency had amazing people and I met them and fell in love and wound up there for a number of years and worked on brand strategy and strategic communications and ads and digital and so I got to get my

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hands on a lot of creative stuff, but then got fixated on this idea of making work better and the future of work and org design type of stuff that I had studied and and really started to develop a POV around when I was in my MBA program wanted to

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be a management consultant that didn't have to live out of a suitcase, five days a year, four or five days a week for five to 10 years. So I was really fortunate that when Turner was reorganizing, few years ago, in 2015, a leader took over the

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studios group and had some strong ideas and bold vision about how to change the culture of this great organization to maximize its potential. And she did her homework around, you know, kind of was the cutting edge of cultural transformation.

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And she created my job description and made a case for the role and I was lucky through some, some community connections to hear about the role and I applied and was extremely privileged to fall into it. And that's been my life for the past

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few years is trying to think about the future of work and how to make it better. Dylan McAdams: That's very interesting. Um, so do you think now that you're in your career now, but your education kind of

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helped you a bit and getting to this position now? Or is this as long as you learned on the job? Kyle Stapleton: I have thought about this a great deal. I, you know, coming out of school into a recession and not feeling

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particularly marketable with a bachelor's degree. My initial gut at 22 was to have disdain for it and be like, Well, that was a waste of my time, I was on a full scholarship in undergrad. So I couldn't really be like, that was a huge waste of my

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money. I was so glad I did it. But I was just like, I don't know. The older I get, the more I feel like two things are really important for my education. One was I learned how to learn at a higher level, at a great, like really upper middle

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class public school education. I mean, I went to private school quality public schools, where I grew up. And I was always really fortunate there. And I've always loved to learn, but I think more open ended, not transactional, right? Dude, submit these

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correct or incorrect answers, get this result on a test, where it was more ambiguous, and you had to have a point of view and you had to be able to articulate that point of view. And you had to tackle conversations with no answers. That was the kind of

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like Socratic type stuff that I started experiencing in college. So I think very much that type of comfort with discomfort prepared me for a field that's always changing, and it's about humans, so there are no finite, universal answers. And then the

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other thing was, I went to Georgia State University, I went to one of the most diverse schools in the country and in the world. And so I got exposure to lots of different cultures and walks of life and lived experiences that were so alien

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to me. That that it truly did open my eyes in a way that I wish everyone can have that kind of experience in college, I think college at its best, can make you the best version of your young self, or can show you the possibilities of your best

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self. And that's one of the ways because it shows you who you are, who you aren't, what you what you have had, that you maybe weren't aware of, and other things like that. So just cultural competency, just learning to listen better, and

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appreciate people for who they are, where they come from, and having grown up in a fairly homogenous, suburban southern town. That was more valuable than I could have ever known, especially as our awareness of the value of diversity and

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building inclusion and translating that into equity and justice in our country as those conversations accelerate. You know, I've been very excited because I've I've wanted those conversations to come along for for a long time to come to the

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forefront of our society. So I think if you if you do it right in college, classroom, a lot of times this is still kind of whatever to me and, you know, all due respect to the academics in my life that I love. But it's it's what you make of all the

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parts between classes that can then make or break the quality of your experience and how it translates. Dylan McAdams: Right, interesting. Okay, moving forward a little bit. kitaen you kind of talked about a little

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bit about your job and your position. Can you kind of walk me through a what you do on a daily basis? Kyle Stapleton: No Two days are alike. Sometimes I wish they were, but every time I say that, I remind myself that I hate how

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much I hate being bored. You know, 2020 is a skewed that so much but I mean, you know, generally I am in the corporate world. So it's a lot of emails and a lot of meetings. But it's some some stuff between strategizing and moving big

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programmatic elements word. So I'll tell you about my day so far today. And that's maybe a snapshot. One, there's a lot of uncertainty in the world and in the workforce right now. And a lot of our anxiety around that has come from our junior

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employees. So our general manager has set aside time to do an Ask me anything ama with groups of, you know, Junior craftspeople by by the type of work that they do. So all the junior editors, all the junior designers, and then all the

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junior production people, all the junior operations people in a really intimate setting so that they can feel candid and safe in in asking questions and feeling vulnerable, and all that. So we have three or four of those coming up in the next

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few days. And earlier, we review the questions we've received so far in advance, we drafted a reminder email to send to them for what to expect. So just preparation for for a programmatic thing. The other big thing is we're putting on a

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huge, we're putting on our third annual big Adobe max inspired creative conference that's entirely for us and by us, where we do skill sharing and knowledge sharing. So typically, that's a three day all day in person thing like a true

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conference. But since we're all at our houses, we have been translating that to virtual. So I would say three to four hours of my day, every day, for the past two weeks, and certainly through the event itself at the end of this month. half my day

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or so is providing creative feedback on stuff like the graphics packages, providing the presenters with feedback on their sessions. copywriting descriptions are now this year editing my team's copywriting descriptions. Just kind of

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moving the ball forward status meetings, check in stuff like that just to ensure the overall creative product is what it needs to be so generally touching some part of big programmatic stuff every day and a lot of conversations. Since

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every project that is a recurring project for us, has new challenges and wrinkles, because of 2020. There's a lot of sitting on WebEx calls where we sit in silence a little bit as we try to work through the critical thinking in our heads

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of the tough questions, we're having to ask about stuff. How, how do we pull off x, y, z now, we're also building a talent development platform. So we're having lots of hard conversations around that. Just treading a lot of new ground

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asking a lot of tough questions doing that through collaboration, on video chat, and on a ton on Slack, share documents, stuff like that. So just, uh, you know, I could just generalize and say a lot, a lot of collaboration and

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communication type of stuff, but really just trying to like chip away at Big, big projects, every single day. And every day, it looks a little different, but but that's generally the shape they take.

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Dylan McAdams: How, how different is your day today now as it compared to what it was before 2020, before COVID really kind of started hitting the United States. Kyle Stapleton: At first, it was easy to say that it was

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extremely different. Certain things went away. So like, you know, we have a big beautiful studio facility in the town Atlanta with seven studios. And we were we were giving about 150 tours to Brand Partners to students to groups that we

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wanted to work for or with us or who or who did but just didn't know enough about us yet. So my team was doing a ton of that. And the last tour I think was March 9 or 10th. Before the day that we got the directive to start working from home. So

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that's a huge component that's been missing. Because, you know, we probably did three or four of those a week. There's a lot more communication and checking in, like helping our executives or leaders communicate and check in. Because they're, you know,

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they're people feel less connected, they are anxious about the work bill, they are actually working the same amount, if not more, as we keep trying to, you know, people are home, they want to content. So our people are working as hard

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as ever. So also helping our leaders keep a pulse on just like how our people are doing as people and providing our managers with the kind of middle management best practices around giving people grace and flexibility knowing that they

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have more real life stuff to deal with, or are like, kind of more intermingled in the work day than ever before. So we, you know, we did, I would say, we were on the right side of things with that, in general, culturally speaking with like

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letting people have their lives and doing right by them. But there's been a sharper focus on that. There should have been I'm glad that all that's been accelerated. But that's that's been the big change is just so much of my job is really an

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internal communications job right now, just helping people feel connected and formed, engaged, less anxious, reminding people how much is out of our control, but we will absolutely keep everything under control that we can communicate those

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things and that we understand when we validate what they're feeling. Human beings type work therapy work, I guess, has been the big change, I would say. Dylan McAdams: And you mentioned that your your work, no longer

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work in the office? Are you working from home full time or only part like only part time like going in every other week or so? Kyle Stapleton: No, we are I would say 95%, fully working

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from home, our entire workforce of a few hundred people. And that was a really big endeavor for us, because our people work on big specialized, you know, high powered technical equipment to do what they do. And our media management enterprise is

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massive, like big files got to move around really quickly, right. And if you're on deadline and your technology craps out on you, then that's, that's an exponentially bigger issue than if you're like a filing clerk. So that that was a whole thing.

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I think the latest that I have heard is that we will probably be in this configuration until mid year, next year, right until the circumstances change around cases. And or there's a vaccine that is scientifically reputable, and we you know, we

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can trust the scientific experts on it. And people feel safe getting that vaccine, and we have good protocols in place. The only people going into campus who are part of studios right now are people working on productions, primarily sports

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productions. And even then it's a skeleton crew compared to what it normally is anyone who can work from home kind of is and the people who are in we have tons of PE and protocols in place to keep people safe. And it's, it's really, really

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regimented, and it's really different. Everybody has to have special approval from like my boss's boss's boss, to be approved security clearance to come to campus. So they're taking that super seriously for people safety, which is great.

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But, you know, as a result, I would say maybe 5% of our workforce has even been to tech to our tech Wood campus. And this all went down. And that configuration will we won't be back at 100% people on campus all the time, maybe ever. You

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know, I think it's opened up new possibilities in terms of flexibility virtualization, people who have expressed desires to change the way that they work. And we can work it out with our partners at the brands and our company, the

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producers and stuff. We're going to find ways to to accommodate that and to make shifts, none of that would have, I think, been really permissible. Before all this went down, but this year, as you know, has totally changed the conversation.

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Dylan McAdams: And How has like the the new office dynamic been compared to how it was before COVID? Kyle Stapleton: I think we're still figuring that out. Um, you

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know, there were, there were a few months of the first probably three months where, okay, this is not normal, that, you know, we don't have to, like, adjust our rhythms for this, we're just reacting and we're surviving, and we're figuring it out. And

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then now that we have crossed the six month threshold, it's evident that this is we're gonna have to set new baselines around everything, right, and we're staring, we're in q4 of 2020, we're staring down the barrel of 2021, we're knowing that we have

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probably more than likely at least six months, like this before we start getting people back into the office and meaningful numbers. So we got to think about how to make this more sustainable for people, right. And some of that is in

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adapting some of the things that may in our culture or culture, like learning touchpoints and community building and mentorship, the mentorship and relationships thing is, you know, nobody I've talked to who does what I do has the silver

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bullet for for that, because you just can't replicate the like actual physical, physiological vibrations of being the error people, there's, there's a thing that can't, can't be manufactured around that, right. So how do you make the best of

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what you have. And a lot of that, I think just has to do with helping people feel seen. And, you know, when they want to be seen and connected to others and giving them the flexibility to like, be on their own, live their lives, have more time with

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their families whenever possible. Essentially, it looks like renegotiating the contract, so to speak, of what it means to be on our team doing this work together shared in the same purpose. Like, we got to think a lot more critically about, about

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what that looks like. Dylan McAdams: What was your first reaction when COVID like really hit the United States? Kyle Stapleton: I was one of those people. That I mean, it's

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surreal, right? It was surreal for me, and for the people around me just like, oh, wow, this really is a thing. You know, I don't think there's anything that could have prepared me to be told, you're going to be stuck at your house,

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you know, this is 1918, Spanish Flu level, the whole world is going to be stuck in their houses for most of the rest of this year. And like, you know, everything you had planned to do, music, festivals, travel, all that that's going to be

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canceled for the rest of the year. I just didn't, in, in my reptile brain believe that anything would be possible to take the pace of life totally off of its rails. You know, it just there's no way that I could internalize that thought. So for

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the first month or so, I was just taking it one day at a time. You know, I didn't really take any of my stuff home from my desk I it was a novelty the first few days and, and a day turned into another day turned into a week turned into two

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weeks turn in the four weeks turn into eight weeks. And then I was like, Oh my god, this is this is the way that it's gonna be for a while and you, I'm just one of those people. I don't know if like this, if everybody is this way, or they're more

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thoughtful, like the effects didn't start dawning on me. Except in retrospect, only after it had been a few months. And you know, you start sleeping in a little later and you you're, you just struggle to be productive at the same level

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because you don't get the same amount of energy from being around other people and running around all day. And normally My job involves a lot of running around seeing people checking in, in a physical space. And you know, now I sit in front of a

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computer screen all day and I'm much more sedentary than I was and it took me a while To realize the effect that that was having on my mental and physical health. To the point that like I had a breaking point, I bought a bicycle and I like, go out and

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spend spend a little bit of time on my bike every day, just trying to get some fresh air because like, that was so built into my unconscious routines that work just moving between buildings, spending time outside my quad on campus, like, I had

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to manufacture those moments, and my own day to day life now. And it's also hard not to feel guilty when you work and live in the same place. Like, you know, you got to step away, logically, everybody does that. But the temptation is there to start

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working earlier, stay working later, there's always stuff to do. And you just don't have any unconscious barriers, like a commute to help you separate. So you can end up whining, you can wind up developing some pretty bad habits pretty quickly. And I

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don't mean to say that any of that in like a, in a whiny or willful way, because I'm extremely fortunate to have this job and to be in a role where I can help. Other people do not have to go through that. But to some degree, we all have to go

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through that, because there's no real way out of it. You just got to do the best you can with the circumstances that you have, there's so much it's out of our control. But you know, I I've, I've struggled with it candidly, it's this is not, this has not

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been my jam, I think great things have come out of it, that will change the way that I work and live forever. And most of them ultimately will be positive, but they were born of super negative circumstances, but it will make me more

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thoughtful. As a person who designs how we ways we work. It will make me thoughtful and considered in ways I probably never would have been otherwise. Dylan McAdams: At any point, were you scared that you that

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your job may be cut from the company. lot of people were afraid with a lot of downsizing going on. Does that ever cross your mind? Kyle Stapleton: Sure. I still am. Frankly, I think, you know,

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economically the thing on this the the tail on this thing as long. So it's going to be a couple of years before we're able to recover. I think what happens politically at the federal level, and, you know, the macro economic forces that

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take shape in January of next year, one way or another will will continue to have an impact Bay. I don't think we're out of these woods for two or three more years economically, which will have implications on big companies like mine, right? So

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yes, but to some degree, I think change is a constant in all industries right now, especially in one like media, you know, where people are competing for subscriptions, and the kind of new new wave of the media industry with companies like

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Apple and Netflix and people like that. That, you know, it's the Wild West right now. And what happens in the next year or two in the industry is probably going to solidify the next five or 10 years of that business. So we're having to constantly

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change and pivot and adapt. And uncertainty is baked into pretty much every minute of every day. So yeah, I'm afraid but not to the degree that like I let it bother me. It's like if it happens, it happens. And I'll just put on LinkedIn that had

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happened and try to try to get after the next thing. I'm less worried about that. I mean, I empathize with anyone in their 20s in their first or second job. Who is much more vulnerable, but I think I'm right over that threshold where,

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like, I there's nothing that scares me that much. Because I feel equipped to just deal with it. I have the relationships and the network and, you know, the the resources to to figure it out quickly and bounce back. My You know, my focus is more on on

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our younger employees who don't have that framework. They don't have that safety net, and it's a much scarier prospect. You know, I want to everybody's got to deal with that at some point in their career. Just the, the anxiety around uncertainty and,

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you know, God forbid, sometimes the loss of a job But I want to take as much of the sting out of that as possible, and help people focus on just getting getting to do the job that they get to do.

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Dylan McAdams: So now that you can't be in person to like help people in your in your team, what are some methods that you have gone to kind of help them through this time. Kyle Stapleton: Everybody's experiencing zoom fatigue now.

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So some of the things we did early, the novel things to just get to see each other like, regular virtual happy hours. You know, that stuff is not really sustainable, right? Because you don't, you don't get the best parts of that which are

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physically being around people and just soaking up their vibe. So we've tried to be really careful with how much novel social stuff we do. We've done little gifts and acknowledgments to let people know that we are thinking about them. And we're

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grateful for the work that they've like, we just got a new, we just renamed ourselves as part of our company's transformation from Turner studios to Warner media studios, got a new logo as part of that. So since everybody's at home

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setting in their AC, we get branded hoodies for everyone and mailed them to everyone's houses. And that was well received. Mostly it's just providing mental health resources, letting people know they have options from the

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company in terms of caregiver support and childcare support, and letting them know the focus, you know, in the big kind of policy things and also in the soft, like, between the lines way that managers treat employees, as trying to create a

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culture of care where flexibility is the the big important part, we just communicate with each other, and we stay in touch. So the lines are so blurred between people's professional and personal life that just giving grace and space

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has really been the most important part of all this. It's hard to have fun, it's hard to focus on fun, you know, I'd love to get back to a world where we can focus on the fun more. But for now, I think the best that we can do is acknowledge how

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phenomenally people have adapted and tell the stories of the great work that people have done and the innovative things people have done, in spite of the new obstacles, and how it's actually propelled some of the best innovation we've probably ever

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done as a group. And to just let people have space. Other than that, let them know that we're, we're here for them. We're grateful for the contributions that they make, so that we, so we want to reward that in kind with just like letting them

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navigate their lives more easily helping them navigate their lives more easily, I guess. Dylan McAdams: OK, what do you think your greatest challenge has been so far with facing COVID?

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Kyle Stapleton: I'm just just living not to be glib. A lot of people have COVID stories, you know, it's it's touched everyone within a couple of degrees, right? So all of the, you know, that old saying you never know, just be kind to people, you

00:33:51.940 - 00:34:10.930

never know what they're going through. That's come to the surface for pretty much everyone. Right? We're all like, a lot of people are grieving different things and going through, like, highly extraordinary circumstances. So

00:34:10.930 - 00:34:21.610

the question when we're done, Dylan McAdams: What do you think your greatest challenge has been facing COVID? Kyle Stapleton: Yeah. I think it's just been challenging to

00:34:21.610 - 00:34:49.240

carry on. I mean, not at the risk of sounding morbid. Lots of stuff has happened to lots of people. You know, just there, there has been a lot of sickness and death in people's families. And so bereavement is more of a thing. And professionally, we

00:34:49.240 - 00:35:04.750

know the work has to go on, right? We got to keep the train moving. But personally, we all know as individuals, it's harder than ever to do that. So it's hard to stay motor You know, it's, it's tough, it's a tough time. But we recognize we're

00:35:04.750 - 00:35:23.320

really lucky to get to do the work that we do. So that paradox doesn't sit well with anyone, right? Like, we know, these multitudes of things are all true, equally at the same time, just a hard time to be alive. And figuring out, like, normally

00:35:23.320 - 00:35:38.020

having those kinds of conversations where you'd like struggle openly is a really personal and private thing. Like, generally, generationally or whatever, that hasn't really been an accepted facet of work, right? You do believe that at

00:35:38.020 - 00:35:51.790

the door, you show up, you do the job. And things are just so extraordinary that we can't really do that anymore, right? We have, we physically have access into people's personal lives, because we see their homes as the background of their

00:35:51.790 - 00:36:07.720

office. We know what's going on with their kids, and, you know, their parents and their siblings, because of times that it like takes them away from meetings and doing the job and whatever, and you have to be flexible on account for that. So

00:36:07.720 - 00:36:27.820

the line is so blurred now, for so many reasons that the challenges, we have to accept all that comes with that emotionally and spiritually. And that that makes both things. In some ways, it makes both things easier, but in some ways, it

00:36:27.820 - 00:36:43.930

makes both things professional and personal, harder. Dylan McAdams: Okay, switching gears a bit, talk about the company that you work for. What was a warnermedia is like first reaction when COVID hit.

00:36:46.870 - 00:37:03.610

Kyle Stapleton: A, you know, at every turn, I've been really pleasantly surprised. As I was a punk rock kid, I didn't think there was any way that a big capitalist enterprise could handle something like this with any amount of grace or humanity.

00:37:03.610 - 00:37:18.880

But I've been really present pleasantly surprised when there's been a choice to be made between the right thing for people or the right thing for the business, they've tried to make the people first choice. They've emphasized safety at

00:37:18.880 - 00:37:35.830

absolutely every turn, they've emphasized additional resources for helping people live their lives and tend to themselves and their loved ones, they've tried to create new cultural norms. Or try to amplify cultural norms that already exists, and

00:37:35.830 - 00:37:49.450

frankly, around flexibility and doing what you need to do and you know, not micromanaging each other and understanding that like, they're going to be times when you need to step in and do way more. And they're going to be times when you have to step

00:37:49.450 - 00:38:06.850

away to deal with your own stuff. But just like be empathetic, no matter which side of that coin you're on at a given moment. they donate a they donated a lot of time and money toward more actively and aggressively getting invested in

00:38:08.440 - 00:38:27.280

anti racism. Like I think our company has always had progressive values, but knowing that there was an opportunity to be more pointed and culture shaping, that's come more to the forefront. And that's, you know, they jumped right in. And we're

00:38:27.310 - 00:38:46.270

we're extremely frank and candid and raw about that stuff in a way that I didn't see other companies doing. So have I been perfect? Absolutely not. There have been a lot of things that I was like. But the big things, the big moments where they had

00:38:46.270 - 00:39:02.440

an opportunity to either get it really right or really wrong. I think they're kind they're really right. So I that has made me proud to be an employee. And that's meant a lot to me, just as a person.

00:39:04.510 - 00:39:21.850

Dylan McAdams: Do. Do you think that media companies, both other Warner media divisions, and other media companies have done a good job of handling COVID? If you know of anything? Kyle Stapleton: You know, for companies broadly, I think it's

00:39:21.850 - 00:39:47.920

varied drastically. It's hard to say. I think big media companies largely haven't had much of a choice because a lot of work that we do is so up close and personal. Just knowing that like all production, shut down completely for a minute and

00:39:47.920 - 00:40:06.070

we're just now figuring out ways to get get it back online. I know it has impacted everyone. Right and I think everybody has been mindful from What I've seen as the safety protocols, and I've shared across the industry best practices and what seems to

00:40:06.070 - 00:40:28.330

be working and what doesn't. You know, because we also share a lot of freelance talent that works across the different properties that we that we all produce. So I think we have a responsibility to our people to do the right thing. Now. I think

00:40:28.330 - 00:40:48.550

what we'll be really telling is in the next year, how different companies deal with the economic impact the revenue shortfall of the next year, right, and how humanistically they, they handle all that. So I, I haven't seen anything that that is really

00:40:49.420 - 00:41:08.860

super disappointed me from from any company so far, right? If everybody tried to do the right and human thing. But TBD. Dylan McAdams: How are you and your colleagues kind of like taking these changes to your company? Has there been any

00:41:09.160 - 00:41:23.080

pushback from any of your colleagues? Or or some of the changes that they're that they're making? Are these changes that you would have made as well? Kyle Stapleton: largely, yes. The interesting insight, for me

00:41:23.080 - 00:41:43.630

has been the different perspectives and life experiences that people bring to this stuff, right? If people have family members with immuno compromised, or, or they have their own immune situations, they are bringing a much

00:41:43.630 - 00:42:03.430

different perspective than somebody who lives on their own and gets all of their human interaction and, you know, a lot of the inner energizing in their day to day out of being around their professional colleagues. Those two people are going to

00:42:03.430 - 00:42:27.130

have a much different opinion on coming back to work, when and how to do that. And some people are really pushing us to try to get back into the office as quickly as possible, and some people want to hold out on that for as long as possible. So I

00:42:27.130 - 00:42:44.830

think just remembering that people aren't a monolith. And the so much of what they're asking about and suggesting is coming from like a very personal individual place. So trying to build policy that splits the difference, and also follows the

00:42:44.830 - 00:43:00.850

science is, that's a delicate balance. And I think overall, we've done that really well. But just getting people comfort, comfortable with imperfection. We're all just human beings who are dealing with something unprecedented and trying to

00:43:00.850 - 00:43:17.620

think critically the best we can, but there's really no paradigm for any aspect of us. Just we got to do a lot of reminding each other of that, but you know, my perspective of somebody as somebody who represents tries to represent

00:43:17.620 - 00:43:35.110

the voice of the people is I was surprised that the people are less of one voice than I thought they would be. Dylan McAdams: And How has COVID and like your jobs, new policies of working

00:43:35.110 - 00:43:57.460

from home kind of affected your relationships and family life? Kyle Stapleton: Well, um, so I have a brother with multiple sclerosis, and a pregnant wife and a sister who just had a baby and was was very pregnant when this all kind of came to bear.

00:43:57.490 - 00:44:18.610

So I had to be on the extra cautious side because of all of all of the vulnerable people to consider. So in those ways, it's brought us all closer because we've had to we've had to navigate those extraordinary circumstances with kind of a

00:44:18.610 - 00:44:39.910

heightened sense of responsibility or feeling of anxiety. I don't know. I think we all miss getting to see each other on a regular basis that we normally do. I really like being at home every day with my wife I'm, it's I've also enjoyed

00:44:39.910 - 00:44:59.560

being able to take 30 minutes to like go work on something in the nursery that we're building and when I've had a particularly stressful day, I go out in the driveway and take my leaf blower and blow the driveway and just having the clean off driveway

00:44:59.560 - 00:45:20.410

and getting To be barefoot in the grass is kind of a Zen thing for me. And I never took moments like that. In the in the day to day and you know, I still and to, to compress with meetings and stuff like that in the normal day, but the little stuff

00:45:20.770 - 00:45:39.100

means more with family and with home, the little stuff is a lot bigger than it ever was before. Dylan McAdams: Yeah, wrapping up to our conclusion questions. Um, do you believe that media in studio companies will be

00:45:39.130 - 00:45:52.960

different after COVID has passed? Do you think a lot of these changes will kind of stay in place? And you mentioned earlier how you think your division will find a way to really make work from home be a permanent thing for some people?

00:45:52.990 - 00:46:06.070

Do you think that will stick for everyone? Kyle Stapleton: Yes, I think the workflow, the way that content gets made, will change significantly the the genies out of the bottle now, we found new ways to do things, we've

00:46:06.070 - 00:46:20.050

compressed five or 10 years of innovation into six months, and it just would not make sense to go back to the old ways of doing things. So decisions we make around technology and workflow will change forever. And then I think the expectations around

00:46:20.050 - 00:46:43.690

what content looks likewill be different forever. Certainly more of an expectation of interactivity. And it doesn't have to be a 30 minute HBO quality, you know, feature film looking experience, I think, the more the more people can do with

00:46:43.690 - 00:47:03.130

less, the quality of the story will always shine through no matter what the tools people use. So I think it's accelerated democratize storytelling. And people finding something original to say, in a time where everybody was grieving and

00:47:03.130 - 00:47:18.100

trying to process the same life events at the same time. I think the search for original voices will be on in a way that it's never been before. Dylan McAdams: And you do think that this is going to be a

00:47:18.100 - 00:47:30.010

really good evolution for the field? Kyle Stapleton: I do I do. I'm super super bullish on it. I'm very positive. Dylan McAdams: And lastly, are there any questions that are

00:47:30.010 - 00:47:42.190

anything that you want to say that I may have missed? Or kind of just brushed over very quickly? Kyle Stapleton: No, you've been very thorough, I appreciate the opportunity to chat about this. Um, I think the only thing that

00:47:42.190 - 00:47:59.020

I would say conclusion is for people that are studying now and just starting in their careers, you know, I know economically, it's precarious politically, it's precarious right now. But the the world out there, especially in a creative

00:47:59.020 - 00:48:16.750

business, like ours is waiting eagerly for you. And I think the tone around young people has kind of shifted generationally, hopefully the millennials are the last people who catch a bunch of shit for being young and different. We're very

00:48:16.750 - 00:48:38.140

bullish on Gen Z, and Gen alpha, and how you can break down the anathema of the way we've always done things. And it may be tough sledding for the first few years just because the world's literally on fire and the economy is in a crazy place. But

00:48:39.670 - 00:48:53.590

do your best to push through bring your full self to the work that you do. And I really, truly do believe that you can be the ones to change the world for the better. Dylan McAdams: There's one more question, and are you still

00:48:53.590 - 00:49:11.320

happy in this field with all the changes going on? Kyle Stapleton: I'm as happy as a person can be in 2020 in full existential crisis mode. I still think being in a business where we bring people closer to the things that they love and the

00:49:11.320 - 00:49:26.230

things that bring them closer to other people. Getting to shape culture every day and an era where that matters more than ever before. Felt like what we're doing is central and vital. And I feel really privileged to be part of it. And

00:49:26.260 - 00:49:39.790

yeah, it's hard. It's challenging. But I remain optimistic that the juice is worth the squeeze. Dylan McAdams: Right. So thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. Your interview has been very enlightening, and

00:49:39.790 - 00:49:52.750

they're actually proud, a very valuable contribution to my understanding of the media and broadcasting industry in the age of COVID. Thank you very much. Kyle Stapleton: Thank you, Dylan. I appreciate you reaching

00:49:52.750 - 00:49:57.640

out and keep me posted on on the output of all this right