In the summer of 2018, I got a call that led me to jump ship from my marketing job at a food startup to build a new team for a globally distributed company without an office. The challenge was solid. Hire, onboard, and manage a team of about ten people from all over the world. Create a cohesive culture. Run creative and media teams “in-house” - without a house.
I’ve always harbored fantasies of having a life filled with surf and travel and food adventures, so I was intrigued. But anyone who knows me well could tell you that’s not the real reason.
I read a lot of sci fi and dystopic fiction - folks like Kim Stanley Robinson, Frank Herbert, and Neal Stephenson. So I tend to fixate on speculative future states. The one that seems most inevitable to me is the rise of the remote workforce. Between pandemics, natural disasters, and economic realities of commuting and buying property in concentrated geographies, it just feels obvious. Being able to manage a distributed team is going to come in handy, sooner or later.
So I took the job. Then took another job with another distributed team. And now it’s March 2020, and the world is scrambling to understand how to transition to completely new ways of getting shit done.
As someone who came from a butts-in-seats culture, and managed a lot of newly remote workers who also came from butts-in-seats cultures, I learned my lessons the hard way. So I’d like ease some of the pain and share some strategies for transitioning to this new WFH reality we’re all facing, many for the first time.
1. Working Remote is Not Working From Home
You and everyone on your team may now be free to roam. So don’t assume they’re all going to stay put. That can create some issues. Being proactive about putting policies in place will help everyone understand the etiquette and expectations of remote work.
Wi-fi is key. Research your destination - people LOVE to bitch about Wi-fi in reviews. Be prepared with backup connectivity, like toggling to your phone, a Skyroam, or a coffee shop.
Don’t expect others to flex to your time zone. Set a team-wide understanding of hours when their participation in meetings and timely response in Slack, email, or text is expected.
Wherever you are, find a quiet place to take your meetings, and mute yourself when you’re not speaking.
2. Make Headphones A Thing
Ambient noise is everywhere, whether you are working from home, your car, or a coffee shop in Bali. When you’ve got 12 people on a call, there are a LOT of sounds competing for attention. Set an expectation that all calls should be taken with headphones.
Offer your team some gift certificates or let them expense some nice new ones to make the policy a little more fun.
3. Video > Calls, Within Reason
You’ve spent years in face-to-face meetings. You can read expressions and gauge the temperature of a room like a professional poker player. And all of a sudden, all of your perceptive powers are stripped from you when everything is done over conference calls, Slack, or project management tools. Video calls help in so many ways.
You can see if people are paying attention. You can share screens. You can more easily create small talk while waiting for others to join. And you can perceive how others are receiving information much more accurately.
Pro tip: Set the video interface to gallery view, so you can see as many people as possible.
4. The Five Second Rule
Even on video, the signals that you easily pick up in real life meetings are much more muted. That’s where the Five Second Rule comes in.
After you finish speaking, whether it’s a question, or just wrapping up a point, wait five seconds before speaking again. And after others speak, try to wait five seconds. It will feel agonizingly long and uncomfortable. But it’s really important.
Why? In person, that pause would feel natural, to let everyone mull things over. But on a conference call, that pause feels like a dad joke gone wrong. Our brains take time to process words. Our faces and body language can reflect how we’re feeling far more quickly. Sometimes it takes a little time for the words to catch up with our brains. Waiting five seconds can help people process, gather their thoughts, offer feedback, and ask critical questions. And with video, it can also give you time to gather all the unspoken feedback you would normally receive instinctively.
5. Invest in Posture
After years of hunching over a laptop at a rickety table at my first startup, I discovered I had torn my rotator cuff in two places. The best advice my PT gave me? Put a sticky note by your screen that says “Posture.”
I just got my first standing desk. I’m all about it.
If that’s not an option, I’m a huge fan of the Roost laptop stand, along with a wireless Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Along with my various dongles and chargers, I store it all in a neoprene pouch that comes everywhere with me.
For a newly distributed team, this could make a great goodie bag to keep morale up and posture happy.
6. Create a Compassion-First Culture
This is the hard one. When we lose our office lunches, happy hours, and water cooler chats, we lose valuable opportunities to really connect with people. It’s more difficult to perceive when someone is going through a rough time, whether it’s work-related or personal. And it is too tempting to multi-task constantly in remote work settings, lending only half an ear when you would be fully engaged if you were in person.
We need to be exceptionally mindful about carving out the time and mental space to build and maintain real relationships in this new remote world. It’s particularly hard to develop those relationships from scratch, with people you may rarely or never meet in person.
How can we create a culture that leads with humanity?
Listen. Really listen. Tamp down the temptation to scan your messages or fire off an email while someone is talking. Hardest bit of advice I’ll offer all day. Taking notes with a real pen and paper helps.
Carve out time for small talk and fun. Whether that’s sending fun content in Slack or spending more time chatting about personal passions, make sure work topics don’t dominate 100% of every interaction. For instance, ask a new team member each week to share something that has inspired them to kick off regular team meetings. Show off your pet in video calls. You may need to force it, but once it takes, it can be beautiful.
Meet new hires in person, whenever possible. Schedule team offsites. Get dinner. Take a walk. Get away from the laptops. Schedule in more time than you think you should on fun, get-to-know-you activities.
Be mindful of the power of words. One negative comment can overpower ten positive ones. With so much communication through Slack, text, and email, we lose a lot of valuable context. So rather than jumping into your feedback, probe with open-ended questions. Read your words out loud before pressing “Send” - are you being respectful? Are you listening? Pick up the phone if the conversation requires more than three exchanges.
I’m very curious about the lasting ramifications of COVID-19 on the workplace. I think a lot of people are going to want to work remote, a lot more often. I hope some companies will realize the cost savings of unnecessarily large offices and the employee retention benefits of more flexible policies. I wonder whether people will question long-held convictions about work as they are forced into a new reality. I am confident that there will be some silver linings.
Stay healthy and be kind to yourself and others.