Over the last six years of working remotely for companies across the map, I have come to the conclusion that the key to successful remote work is not about moving your laptop from the office to your living room. If I had to give you the secret to successful remote work communication in one word, it would be: async.
Just like in open-source projects, we do not have everyone working on the same thing at the same time. In my experience, distributed work processes are much more effective than traditional work processes. As a result, the quality of life is much better for everyone involved. Async communication via tools like Slack threads or Google Docs eliminates the “you had to be there” experience. It makes the administrative overhead of capturing and moving information from one team to the next much easier.
Company culture is something very hard to define. However, having worked for various companies across the board, I have come to notice a few “unwritten rules” that make or break the success of a remote team, regardless of the industry you are in.
1. Default to async communication
Knowledge work is only possible when you have large chunks of time. A solid two-hour block of work is not the same as four 30-minute work sessions.
Each time your attention is diverted, whether it’s a Slack message pop-up, an unavoidable meeting invite, or a “hey, got a sec?” message, there is a huge cost associated with refocusing back into the zone. It’s the geek version of having to put on your gym gear, grab your water bottle, and drive all the way to the gym every time you want to do just one single push-up. It’s exhausting.
2. Use high fidelity real-time communication for what really matters
Tools like Zoom, Teams, Meet, etc., are super powerful when used appropriately. However, for many teams and companies, real-time live meetings are the norm. I have seen teams use real-time live meetings for sharing updates, for making decisions, which are both better done via async tools.
What are the latest sales numbers? Write an internal blog post. What architecture design should we use? Put it in a document and debate it out in the comments section. Use live video meetings for nuanced discussions that require real-time human interaction.
3. Be ruthlessly protective against noise
How much time does it take you to write a simple email or make a comment on a Jira ticket? 20 seconds? Think about the cascade effect, the pop-up message appears, the screen loads, the user has to get context, and then make a determination if they need to do anything at all. And you’re not the only one, what if 50 people are subscribed to this message thread? Just now, you’ve wasted 15 minutes of company time collectively. Was it worth it?
It’s worth thinking twice before sharing unsolicited opinions on matters outside your primary expertise, especially when you have incomplete context and aren’t willing to roll up your sleeves and do the actual work.
Only contribute if you are providing value to the conversation. If your response is just a basic ”👍” comment to a conversation that already has ten thumbs up emojis, you are just creating noise.
4. Keep the conversation logically separated
The beauty of async tools such as a thread in a discussion forum (as opposed to a messy email thread) is that we can naturally branch off when we want to talk about something else.
This ensures that we keep our conversations strictly focused on one thing at a time. In all the teams I have worked in, we keep our topics in separate threads so we do not create unnecessary noise.