Remote control: leadership in the era of remote teams

Remote work is an everyday reality that encompasses everything from production to marketing and team holidays. How to build such a work option effectively? Here's an example from Makeshift, a media company that often works with dangerous stories, covering them with what we call inconspicuous creativity. This is a team of 15 volunteers and freelancers scattered across 6 countries, plus a network of 350 article authors living in more than 80 countries.

“I’ll try to send you an answer within an hour. There are terrible problems with the Internet. ”

This was a message from Miles, one of the co-founders and editor-in-chief of Makeshift. As promised, a detailed answer followed regarding work on the latest version of the updated quarterly magazine. At that moment, he was in the crowd - with a laptop tied to a telephone - at a street rally in Mexican Apatzingan, where leaders of militia members discussed whether to conclude a pact with the government.

This is the interaction process at Makeshift, a media company that often works with dangerous stories, covering them with what we call inconspicuous creativity. This is a team of 15 volunteers and freelancers scattered across 6 countries, plus a network of 350 article authors living in more than 80 countries. Remote work is an everyday reality that encompasses everything from production to marketing and team holidays. And, despite the meager budget, the guys are creating a product that is being improved with each issue: in the last quarter, sales of the main print magazine have tripled. And also the channel on YouTube is launched.

In essence, business leadersfluctuate between remote and combined teams. The author of the latest sensation was Marissa Mayer, urging Yahoo employees to return to Sunnyvale (many remember her “no-home-work” memorandum, which was discussed in closed-door leadership circles in February 2013).

The truth is that remote collaboration is a reality (and often an advantage) of an economy built on a global network. And its consequences are more detailed than anyone would have thought when faced with such an uncompromising assessment. Makeshift adopted 4 key features of remoting :

• remote workers are more productive but less creative ;
• teams are better at performing their functions together or separately, but not when they are fragmented;
• Software is a new studio;
• meetings are still unpleasant.

Given these facts, the Makeshift team has become masters of remote collaboration, often cited as examples.

Fact # 1
Remote workers are more productive but less creative

One of the myths about remote employees is this: they sit at home, folded arms, and take off from work. For some, he is fair, but such people and in the office will play Snood. This does not apply to qualified team members who are motivated to fulfill their role in your mission. Indeed, a Stanford study has demonstrated that remote workers are more productive. However, the authors explain: "It seems to us that the higher the degree of automation of work, the more substantial the benefits."

In his previous position at IBM Design, Steve Daniels cherished the time spent outside the office. He was celebrated at morning meetings, and then every day hour after hour he ensured that the actual work was done. No difficulties! His superiors were also amazed, and he earned a reputation as a quick employee.

The problem is that Steve was missing out on real-time teamwork. Full-time brainstorming, understanding of body language, occasional skirmishes with colleagues. Creative insights do not always arise at the time you decide to meet with your team. Therefore, getting into a studio in Austin, Daniels was "flooded" by extraordinary meetings and clarifications. On such days, it seemed that he was not doing any “work”, but he was absorbing a lot of ideas.

In Makeshift, despite the tight budget, the results from freelancers and volunteers are very high, but sometimes the team becomes inert. Therefore, they harmoniously combine chaotic communication with synchronized brainstorming sessions. All scheduled meetings are held via video in Hangouts, not via teleconferencing. And at any moment, having felt that the project needs additional attention, you can send each other a signal in the chat, offering to contact via a video call. Tools like Sqwiggle create sustainable images of your team members all day long. Experiment with them to build a culture in which synchronization takes precedence over isolation.

In special cases, Makeshift gathers the entire team. After releasing the updated magazine last summer, the guys had a general video chat that could disable Hangouts. It turned out to be difficult to combine the schedules of 15 people living in 13 time zones, but this was necessary to inspire and coordinate everyone, as well as create a sense of a united team.

When a sufficient number of team members are in the same city, personal meetings are held. Typically, airbnb rents a home for this, and is full of workshops and cooking all day . The result is an incredible avalanche of new ideas, experiments, and proposed projects for discussion.

Fact No. 2
Teams perform their functions better together or separately, but when they are not fragmented

One of the reasons for the separation of teams is that at first most of its members gather in one place, and then exceptions are made. The lead engineer wants to move to Seattle, the marketer has small children, and she wants to work from home. Such a core and satellite model seems like a great compromise, but it can actually be harmful.
Most of the work in such a team takes place in the real world. The walls are filled with stickers with notes and prototypes, and the dialogs in which fundamental decisions are born are not fixed. Digital records or meetings with someone become extremely limited, so satellite employees are isolated.

A fully virtual team, on the other hand, embeds documentation in a network that provides work. Holding a meeting? You can be sure: Google Doc works, collecting all the ideas in real time. Ready to submit an artifact for review? Post it on the Podio internal network so that each team member can see him and express his opinion. Everything that is done and every decision made is documented for everyone.

Fact No. 3
software is a new studio

Most teams spend fabulous real estate budgets following interior architectural mantras set forth in books such as Make Space: a mix of open-plan space, a common meeting space, and personal or personal space. Studio design is now a mature (but still developing) art, and architects receive huge sums for increasing your willingness to collaborate.

At IBM, Steve Daniels made a small contribution to the creation of a central studio in Austin, copies of which are found around the world. He watched as architects and team members found fault with the smallest details. The result was a series of amazing spaces never before seen by IBM.

However, the available tools for virtual collaboration were disgusting at the time. In part, this was the result of a difficult IT policy and a practically non-existent budget. But the blame for this cannot be blamed entirely on IBM. Most market collaboration programs have a long way to go - even video chat.

At Makeshift, finances are distributed differently. Not a dollar is spent on real estate, leaving a budget for experimenting with tools and introducing those that will help optimize activities. These tools are the office of the company.

The main base is Podio - a project management tool that adapts to actions. The guys from Podio carefully thought out not only virtual work. This adaptation makes team members become a kind of “virtual workspace designers”, creating and integrating areas for interaction and organization of the workflow. It allows the team to dominate their space in the same way as studio employees do, rearranging tables and hanging bicycles to the ceiling in protest. In particular, Podio for has 4 main advantages.

Transparency. Each employee can see the work of the entire organization. Documentation is built into our network.

Democracy.Each of the employees can contact or chat with any colleague. Podio offers a horizontal hierarchy based on merit rather than personalization or status.

Responsibility. Any team member can give a task to anyone. Podio allows you to attach tasks and comments directly to each section of the work.

Openness. The public API implies that Podio works well with Google Docs, Dropbox and a host of other third-party applications.
There are many tools available, and others are probably better suited to your needs. The lesson is to allocate part of the budget for “weapons” and creating a culture that inspires your team to work on a virtual workspace, experimenting with new devices and improving the work process.

Fact # 4
Meetings Still Unpleasant

Virtual employees are not immune from the horror of meetings just like their colleagues in any office. Sometimes virtual meetings are even more unbearable. This is usually due to the dominance of one of the participants or the fact that they are in a teleconference mode. And if meetings are held infrequently, you strive to push all the discussion questions at one o'clock, and you cannot be completely sure of the result.

The reality is this: your remote team members, in essence, seek interpersonal relationships, and meetings are an opportunity to achieve mutual understanding and maintain interest. Imagine!

Makeshift completely adopted the face-to-face culture that Daniels helped build under the close guidance of IBM Design. The center of interaction is a structure consisting of 4 different types of meetings, and the evidence of which one you are participating in.

1. Flying - very short meetings for telling news about the situation and blockers. They are usually repeated daily or weekly. Working issues are not discussed.

2. Work sessions are longer meetings used to discuss ongoing work or brainstorming sessions. Usually they are attended only by those who are actively involved in the project, but the participation of clients and partners is also acceptable.

3. Parsing- job reviews for team members and co-owners (sometimes including customers or partners), which take into account the linking of the result to the market situation and perception by the target user.

4. Retrospectives - a review of the work of a team, usually taking place after the completion of a project or landmark analysis. The team shares what they liked or didn't like, as well as their ideas and questions.

If you accept this structure, it will help everyone make better use of time and will inspire everyone to further improve both work and the organization of the labor process. Meetings do not need to be planned; any of them can be started according to the situation using a signal.

Do not forget to have fun with your employees. When the teams are separated, you risk losing your sense of humor. Allocate a place in your virtual space for personal news, jokes and frivolous news. Your team will appreciate this step, and, thanks to this, their ideas will become better.

PS We recommend one more article on this topic - Awesome productivity: 5 ways to increase team productivity .

The author of the translation is Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of MBA Consult .