21st Century Work Life

Roberta Sawatsky is a "research storyteller". As well as running her own consultancy, SAM is Remote, she is a business professor at Okanagan School of Business, Canada with a focus on HR and management. She blogs at Probe and Ponder… learning from life and travels. Below are some brief show notes. For a longer summary, check out: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/hybrid-leadership-competencies Roberta's research is around remote work/hybrid work/work from anywhere. "You have to be willing to take the responsibility, if you're asking for the flexibility." Roberta has had an interest in and has been involved in leadership her whole adult life, leading teams, or in a volunteer capacity. Whenever people are in a position of leadership or something less formal, leading by relationship, they have a responsibility to take it seriously, as they are influencing people. Roberta's recent research started in 2019, looking at the core competencies of remote workers. She then decided to build on that research, but focus on leaders, so she extended her study leave. "Never underestimate the impact of culture shock." Check out Roberta's post. 16.00 MINS The research into leading hybrid teams Proximity equity: the unconscious treatment to give preferential treatment to those in our vicinity. Hybrid: Some people are colocated in the same physical space, or in the same town but not working in the office, while there are other members of the team working in other parts of the world. Robert Greenleaf's concept of servant leadership encourages questions like "Do those served grow as persons?" "Do they become healthier when being served"? 26.30 MINS In the end, the philosophy behind what we do is important. What is a leader's philosophy of leadership becomes important because of their impact over others' lives, so Roberta started to ask questions around that. She mentions the book "Humankind by Rutger Bregman". "Autonomy in the workplace is not about passively letting employees be independent, it's also not about working in isolation or doing work without guidance, boundaries, supervision or collaboration. What it is, is about allowing people to work the way that is most conducive to their own best performance." 42.24 MINS After covering the actions that leaders can take to nurture their teams and team members, Roberta turns to the leadership competencies. Someone leading a team can grow these competencies and be aware of what they are already good at. Link to Competencies for Successful Hybrid Leadership by Roberta Sawatzky Roberta hopes that this research will reach leaders and will be incorporating this into her classes in September, as well as her consultancy and coaching work. Connect with Roberta on LinkedIn and check out her research and company, Sam is Remote.

Thanks to everyone who commented on our 300th episode! You can now find all the interviews over at the new podcast Work Life Changes and Remote Work in Organisations. We kick off looking at "what might be going on". Maya has written "Virtual e-residency, a future in the metaverse?", a piece looking at the potential of emerging technologies, and how we might make use of them as part of work in the future. Will "hybrid" mean we use both the metaverse and the office? Will there be a place online where all Estonian e-residents and businesses can meet? And how will taxation work? 12.45 mins We bring in the voices of two of our guests from episode 300, for this section on asynchronous communication. (We like to practice what we preach!) Mark Kilby tells us about a new experiment he's set up using asynchronous video. He's using the app Volley to bring people together who are reading his book and have questions and comments. It was not feasible to set up online meetings to bring everyone together, as readers are spread all over the world. Following episode 294, where we covered a couple of articles on emojis, Ross Winter, our own "podcast polisher" has some further questions on the use of emojis: Why do we only have a handful of emojis? Should we ditch them? Are they harming the quality of our communication? What about predictive replies? Or is it just a matter of sending a quick reply vs no reply at all? 31.16 mins John Hopkins, has recently completed some research on hybrid work in Australia. It outlines the three main hybrid work structures, and how happy workers are with them. Pretty happy by the way. Back in the UK, two government politicians are determined to get everyone back in the office. One of our listeners asked for commentary on the news that an unnamed politician (we don't want to give him the space here in our blog, but we name him in the episode) has been leaving notes on civil servants' desks telling them they are much missed at the office. He wants everyone back and one of the reasons is that the tax payer is paying for the buildings. (Yes, you read right.) One of our listeners sent us coverage of this story, with his own thoughts about how the different departments in the civil service are still recovering from the pandemic backlog, are at different points in their "digitalisation" and how some jobs can be done remotely while others can't. 46.08 mins Finally, if you are looking for an activity for your team, check out these online puzzles from Google Arts and Culture. And let us know if you try them yourself! (Pilar heard about this in the After Hours podcast.) 47.30mins We have some things to report from our network, but before that, Maya is hosting a new podcast: The Future is Freelance ! Thanks to everyone who commented on the 300th episode! And remember we now have a new show: Work Life Changes and Remote Work in Organisations. Many thanks to Hans Gaertner for sharing episode 298 with Laurel Farrer, all about biases in the hybrid workplace, and to Zahra for letting us know that our work resonates at her end too. Nancy Settle-Murphy recommends remove.bg to remove backgrounds from profile photos and make quick edits, and there is still time to get a 10% discount on Penny Pullan's book Virtual Leadership, Practical Strategies for Success with Remote or Hybrid Work and Teams when you get it directly from the publisher's site. (But you need to listen to the episode!) Let us know what you think over at virtualnotdistant.com

Pilar talks to Brian Casel about asynchronous communication and how he uses his product, Zip Message in the day to day running of his business. Links: You can communicate asynchronously with Brian through his Zip Message page: https://zipmessage.com/brian And you can find him on Twitter too https://twitter.com/CasJam https://briancasel.com/podcasts For more show notes, check out https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/asynchronous-video

In this episode, we focus on the 21st Century Work Life podcast: how it's evolved and what it could cover in the future. And our guests have come wise words for you, our listeners. 00.00 mins Pilar shares how the show has evolved over the last 100 episodes. Some of the episodes she mentions are: episode 209 The Journey of the Remote Leader, episode 263 "Remote" is not the Only Challenge, episode 282 Asynchronous Facilitation and Online Collaboration, episode 286 The Challenges of Adopting Asynchronous Communication. 09.05 mins Bree and Pilar talk about the Connection and Disconnection in Remote Teams series and how the conversations around remote work in general changed during the pandemic. 15.39 mins We hear some general suggestions from guests about what they'd like a podcast like ours to cover in the future. Tim Burgess is first, he's been leading a distributed company for a few years - he would like to hear more "secrets" from people who are in the remote space. Then we hear from Theresa Sigillito Hollema, who as a guest has talked about leading global teams, her speciality. She's interested in the psychology of working away from each other. Theresa refers to My Pocket Psych, so its from its host, Dr. Richard MacKinnon, who we hear from next. He's also appeared on this show as guest, and as part of the Connection and Disconnection series. He would like the show to cover the "how to" for those new to the space (especially if it's evidence-based). He's followed by Mark Kilby, who's also been on this show a lot, (and who Pilar got to meet in person, in London!) and would like a mix of the "how" and the "why". Then we hear from Pinar Akkaya, it's the first time she's guested on this show. She's looking for inspiration and "what if" scenarios. 24.49 mins Other guests have more specific suggestions. Simon Wilson kicks this bit off. He'd like to hear more - and be involved in conversations - about what asynchronous communication looks like in those teams embracing it, plus deep conversations about organisational culture. We then hear from Ross Winter, our podcast polisher, who would like to hear answers to questions like, Why are we spending so much time looking for connection online? Eva Rimbau Gilabert suggest we cover the transition to hybrid (of which there are many versions), especially when we can back it up with academic research, while Bree encourages us to continue with the diversity of perspectives and deepening the conversation about the future of work. 31.32 mins Finally, the guests have some final words for listeners of the show, and Pilar. We hear from Maya, Simon, Eva, Pinar, Richard, Tim, Ross (and cat!), Bree, Mark, and Theresa, who leaves us with an inspiring aspiration. And thanks to Anish Hindocha, for contributing to the two other parts of this episode! (By the way, Pilar has "podcastinitis" and hosts many shows!) And we have some outtakes from 40.03mins for your amusement after our MANY THANKS to all of you!

In this episode, our guests talk about how their approach to their work and their work has changed, as well as how the view of work in relation to the rest of our lives has changed. 03.45 After an introduction to the episode, we hear from Theresa about how the delivery of her training and consultancy has changed, Pinar tells us about delivering her wine tasting workshops online and Maya reflects on what has changed at her end. 09.30 We hear from Richard about travelling less for work, Bree tells us how she's changed where she works from and Simon reflects on all the things he's gained from working more online. How about what's at the core of our work, ourselves as humans? How has the way in which we look after ourselves changed over the last three years? How about the way in which we connect with others? Mark points out the importance of "energy management", we'll hear again from Richard about using technology efficiently, and Eva tells us how she's expected at more meetings now than before the pandemic - although they're also incorporating more async. Tim and Pilar reflect on how the desired levels of interaction change. Bree, who hosted our season on Connection and Disconnection in Remote Teams, shares how working on that season made her more aware of her own needs. 20.52 What about our relationship with technology? Tim talks about how he experiments with different communication media as business leader and Ross tells us how the way in which he works with clients has evolved. 24.34 Pilar suggests that remote work can be a great option when we don't get on with our colleagues… And that we can control our communications more. Richard reminds us to take a break, Bree has started to experiment with her working patterns Richard has also developed fluid boundaries between work and non-work time and Pilar has swapped her Saturday for the Friday. Is it allowed, to work on the weekend?30.50 Eva describes how the difference between separators and integrators is now more visible, Pilar suggests the work-life balance conversation is out of date and Simon thinks most knowledge workers can change our relationship with work - and shares why he thinks he's "got it wrong".Mark talks about getting value from his work, Tim describes his new view of his role as a business leader, while Ross describes work as a mixture of insight, knowledge and experience.37.45 Eva shares how her own organisation has changed the focus of how they work. Anish would like to know what people are using the time they save in commuting for - building a new business or career, etc? Are we going to see the rise of the portfolio worker? Tim talks about cognitive consistency between who we are and who we see we are at work. Simon points out that the missing conversation at the moment is about how the working lives are going to be different.45.00 We tackle the broader question of what we're hearing from others. We start with the work from home experience. Mark has been thinking about the craftsmen working a few centuries ago whose workshops were tied to their homes, Richard has noticed how people have discovered the benefits of not going into an office every day, while Pinar suggests we're looking for more meaning in our work. Tim wonders whether we're closer to becoming a "self we recognise" at work, and this will lead to a better life experience. Ross wonders whether we're becoming different personalities when we are online. 50.31 The conversation around purpose at work, why we work, etc will continue. Pinar goes as far to suggest that the meaning of work is being redefined. Finally, Maya suggests that all the words we're using now to describe the location of our work and other aspects of it will disappear, and we'll just talk about work. Find us on https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/300-part2

This is the first part of the celebratory episode 300! Some of our guests return to the show to share how they see the world of remote work changing, how their own ways of working have changed and what they'd like this podcast to cover over the next 100 episodes (or is it next 300!). We'll hear from: Maya Middelmiss Dr Richard MacKinnon Mark Kilby Tim Burgess Simon Wilson Bree Cagiatti Eva Rimbau-Gilabert Theresa Sigilito Hollema Ross Winter Pinar Akkaya Anish Hindocha and your host, Pilar Orti 00.00 Pilar introduces the 3 parts and introduces the guests. 09.30 The guests start answering the question: What do you think is going to stay the same in remote work most knowledge workers for the next three years and what do you think it's going to change? Bree predicts lots of changes as people recover from the shock of being forced into working from home, and Simon has seen some organisations rushing back to the office, while some have embraced the possibility of working remotely. Theresa reckons the desire for flexibility at work will continue, while Maya says that this raised self-awareness is here to stay. 13.25 But there's also a less rosy view of what's going on. Anish gives us the devil advocate's answer (and what he's observing in the UK), Maya thinks many people are keen to have more "analog conversations" and some resistance to sustain the change, while Eva is seeing a reluctance in seriously adopting remote work in Spain. Mark has his doubts about whether hybrid is going to survive, while Simon has seen a polarisation in how organisations approach the ability to work in person and online. 19.00 What skills, mindset, behaviours will we need? Richard would like to see more sharing of what's working and what successful remote work looks like, Tim thinks collaboration, communication and burnout will still be a problem - as they are a fundamental part of work. Pinar reckons we have developed some of these digital skills we've been needed for a while, and improved our interpersonal skills. Theresa has seen micromanagers become more facilitative, and Simon reckons that the organisations that survive are those that will adopt asynchronous communication successfully. 28.00 Pilar does her usual rant about the need for understanding asynchronous communication. 30.40 Theresa specialises in global teams and is interested in nurturing cultural awareness and creating inclusion in global teams, and she shares how virtual teams have affected these. 36.45 Pilar reminds us of the "remote work for social change" conversation, which was lost during the pandemic. (But you can catch up with it in episode 212!) 37.00 What will be next on our minds? Maya reckons organisations and teams will consolidate their technology and apps, and look out for stuff like digital identity and blockchain. Meanwhile Ross, with an eye out on the parallels between social media and remote work, predicts a more decentralised way of working in many ways. Pinar reckons there will also be changes in talent acquisition and retention, while Theresa has seen an increase in interest in how to work better with international colleagues. We end the episode with a reminder about "subcultures" in organisations. Tune in for the second part, where our guests reflect on how their own ways of working have changed and how they view the world of work in relation to the rest of their lives - and what they're hearing is going on with others. https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/300-part1

In this episode, Maya and Pilar discuss the mental health challenges in returning to the office space, the evolution of communication in the workplace and the reasons why many people do not want to work remotely – in Spain and other places. The set up of a hybrid workplace continues with its challenges. In episode 106 of My Pocket Psych, guest Dr. Hayley Lewis talked about how she was working with a government organisation whose chief exec wanted to reduce the office space in order to cut down on public spending. However, when she looked into the living conditions of some of the employees, it was clear that asking (or offering) people to work from home would end up with some individuals working in difficult conditions. While we're making sure we can have the conversation so that people can work flexibly, there's also a need to help people speak out when they feel they can't use their homes for work. In any case, saving money by reducing the office space might not be as straight-forward as it looks. According to a set of yet to be released data that Maya's had access to, to make remote work permanent in some organisations, they will have to invest heavily in IT and cybersecurity, etc. Something they maybe didn't do during the pandemic. 09.45 MINSThe return to the office is bringing some unexpected challenges and this article covers a few of them: Everyone Is Not OK, but Back at Work Anyway. For example, the dynamics of a team that used to be colocated might have changed when it went suddenly remote. And now that they have to return to their previous workspace… it might not be easy. Many people have changed, and had different experiences of working remotely during the pandemic. We need to continue talking about how we're doing, we're still in transition. What medium people prefer for being open about how they're feeling might vary. For some, the best medium might be face to face, others might prefer to tell you how they are on Slack, there's great diversity in this. Different people and different teams will figure it out as they go along. What's common is that there is still a lot of uncertainty around what the future of the workplace will look like, and still around the pandemic. (And have you heard of "Schrodinger's Covid"?) 19.00 MINS On a lighter note, Slack has published this article about how written communication at work is changing and becoming more informal: From jargon to emoji, the evolution of workplace communication styles. Instead of business jargon, people prefer to adopt more informal ways of talking to colleagues, using GIFs and emojis. Is this a hangover from the way we were taught to write "properly" at school? Or is it that we communicate much more in writing with colleagues and therefore can adopt more informal and playful ways of doing so? However, we can't let informality bring a lack of clarity (Maya's words!) and we still need to adopt formal ways of writing when needed. Pilar doesn't like emojis that duplicate a message, like the article with a smiley face followed by "enjoying" in the text. Sometimes it feels like information overload. But some of these emojis have a lot of energy behind them, and they have their place. Different teams will evolve their own ways of communicating, even how you react to messages, or even having their own designs. (Let us know what you think of this!) 29.20 MINSWe move on to a recent article about how telework is being adopted now in Spain, post-lockdown, "Dos años después del confinamiento, ¿qué pasa con el teletrabajo en España?"(It's been two years after lockdown. What's going on with telework in Spain?). It's been written by regular guest on the show Eva Rimbau-Gilabert. (You can hear her talk about the state of remote work in Spain pre-pandemic in episode 214 The View from South Europe.) "The most prominent reason why there is not as much teleworking as possible is that a large part of the people who could telework prefer not to do so (58.5%). The reasons for wanting to work face-to-face include disadvantages of teleworking such as lack of social contact with colleagues, difficulties disconnecting from work or work overload. Added to this is the fact that the private home may not be suitable for teleworking."This reflects much of what we were talking about earlier and we're sure this is not the case only in Spain. It's still difficult to disconnect from work, this sometimes has to do with culture, sometimes with individuals, and mobile phones don't make it any easier!This research says 58.5% people don't want to continue teleworking, which is similar to what we heard from previous guest Laurel in episode 298, that the number of people in the US asking to work remotely hasn't increased, it's just their negotiation power has changed. "The majority of people who have ever teleworked indicate that, once the pandemic is over, they would like to telework every day (23.5% without ever going to the workplace, and 24.7% going occasionally), with an average preference of 3.8 days of telecommuting per week."Even though we hear that the main reason for going back to using the office is to see our colleagues, it looks like a decent percentage of people don't have a need to go back to the workplace. It's a minority, but it's there. (Maybe it was always there, but we didn't know about it…) Finally, the article talks about complex vs simple communication, and how they benefit from different spaces. It helps to define "communication" and "collaboration" when we're talking about how to best do it. Some people might prefer the office for complex communication, while others might prefer to do that kind of communication away from each other, taking their time. (Thanks to listener Pedro for this latter point of view, the conversation on LinkedIn is here.) Different spaces are more suited to different kinds of interactions, and these will vary between teams, and even at different stages of the work. Coworking spaces don't seem to have gone mainstream yet in Spain, even though they can provide a good alternative to working from home. To talk about all these different things takes time, so it's worth thinking about moving some of our more transactional, simple team communication to the asynchronous space so that we can use our time together to talk through the next iteration of how we work. Finally, a shout out to Omnipresent and Oyster for their April Fool's memos! They almost got us!

We welcome Laurel Farrer to the podcast, to talk about how to lay down the foundations to provide an equitable experience for our employees, in a hybrid setup. The conversation was inspired by Laurel's article 10 Habits to Ensure Equality in Your Hybrid Team. But before we get into the content of the article, we hear from Laurel about her aspirations for the adoption of remote work. In her LinkedIn profile, she says that she "leverages the power of workplace flexibility to impact business operations and socioeconomics." She named her company "Distribute Consultancy" – they're not just talking about working with people who are physically distributed, but they also champion the opportunity to distribute wealth and opportunity. Enabling remote work is about changing the way we work, and changing the world at an economic level. Laurel reminds us that the kind of work that happened during the pandemic, was not "remote work", it was a contingency plan. This has led to controversy about whether this has helped or hindered socioeconomics. How does "hybrid" fit into this? Laurel's research shows that the number of workforce requests from those who want to work remotely and want workplace flexibility has not increased since before the pandemic. What has changed is their negotiation power, having shown that it's possible to work productively even when you're away from the office. This can lead employers to feel pressured into offering flexible working, and offering this from a point of fear, they will be resentful. Whereas if they truly understand the benefits, like more efficient outputs, it can be a great option for everyone. 10.53 MINSLet's get to Laurel's article now and discuss the habits she mentions, under different themes. Mindset Management resistance is the first barrier to success in adopting remote work. There is a danger of people being seen as more committed just because they choose to work from the office and this can lead to proximity bias, where those closer to you are perceived as more valuable. In order to be successful as a hybrid team, we need to operate as a remote team. We need to stop talking about "location", it shouldn't be a factor in how your work is recognised. The more we can employ the principles of "virtual first", the more successful we'll be. The office can be seen as a tool, somewhere else where we can get the work done. It's not always the remote workers who feel left out. Laurel quotes Lara Owen, talking about the "coffee vs pants debate", where each type of workforce thinks the other side is better off. One of the conversations that is currently missing is why people need to come into the office and when, even if they're being given a choice of when to do so. Team members start to make decisions on where to work from, depending on personal life factors (e.g. having to pick up a child at a certain time), rather than thinking about what tasks and conversations are best had where. These conversations create a new type of value for the office, and the different environments. 20.55 MINS Blending workspaces: designing consisten workplaces We've been working in offices for a very long while and so there are aspects of the workplace we take for granted, like health and safety regulations which also make us more productive. If we shift from the carefully curated environment of the office to our home, (or a noisy coffee shop) we run the risk of being less productive. So as we are talking about having a choice of workspaces, organisations need to make sure that people working away from the office can still be safe, connected and access the resources they need to do their work. At the same time, office spaces need to be comfortable for people too, which is tricky as different people are comfortable in different environments. (e.g. Pilar is always cold in offices with aircon!) Some people might prefer to work from home, even if they miss the social connection, because they're more comfortable than in the office, so what changes can we make in the office so that it becomes a place where people want to work from? This is also a conversation worth having with employees. 27.32 MINSCollaboration practices In an office, one of the greatest channels of communication is implicit communication and observation. We can make small changes, so that remote workers don't feel left out of the hybrid experience. Having more explicit announcements and communicating in public channels rather than direct messages (e.g. in Slack) and paying attention to how we're using the technology, rather than what technology we're using. We need to be more deliberate about how we communicate, and pull back on its spontaneous nature, so it's difficult, and it's easy to resist it. However, what feels natural after many years of working in the same way, was at some point also intentional. In a way, we are creating our new "organic" way of working. We can still be emotional in our interactions, and facilitate empathetic leadership, but it requires intention. We are innovating in the ways we communicate and collaborate. And just because we used to do things in one way (e.g. monitor presence rather than output) doesn't mean that they were the right ways of doing them. Something for change advocates to hang onto. 36.08 MINS Inclusivity We are different in many ways, more than we've been used to thinking about. How we like to communicate, what tech we prefer, where we like to work from. Maybe before they weren't relevant, or that visible… eg many people are now asking themselves how to engage introverts in online meetings, whereas they'd never considered how this was being addressed in the in-person version… How can you design your rituals, communication practices etc to be as inclusive as possible? Global and standardised tools, including asynchronous communication, etc. We can let go of some of the systems and ways of working that might have held certain people back. Diversity needs to be turned into inclusion, by making sure different types of people are being recognised. When we talk about flexibility rather than "remote" or "hybrid" we can also look at the flexibility possible in jobs where location-independence is not an option. Schedule flexibility, access to the same digital tools and documentation as remote workers, etc are being explored by manufacturing companies worried about creating a gap between the different types of employees. Then we start to look at true equality. To wrap up, Laurel shares her thoughts and experiences on how remote work is being adopted by large organisations. Her company Distribute helps organisations explore high levels of flexibility, through helping to evaluate their tools, write handbooks and policies, create training programmes etc. Key to making the change scalable is how success is measured. By being clear in our success metrics, we can evaluate whether hybrid work works. You can find out more about Laurel through her website https://www.distributeconsulting.com/ or connect with her on LinkedIn. She also appears on episode 212 on Remote Work and Social Change, episode 189 where she talks about information isolation, and the series on Connection and Disconnection on Remote Teams.

In this bonus episode of the 21st Century Work Life podcast, Ana Neves talks about how she's structured the conference Social Now, which covers how enterprise social network tools can help organisations in the day to day, "rather than being an extra thing we have to do".Your code as listener to get the early bird discount until 8 April is WCL21.The conference started in 2012, and has a fictitious company at its centre. The people in the company have challenges that will resonate with most employees in organisations, and the conference is structured around helping people in the company. Ana blogs as a new employee in this organisation, so that attendees have a background on the case study through the blog http://houseofcables.socialnow.org/ Many organisations have implemented these tools, but are not making the best use of them, being used at a superficial level. Pilar was under the impression that online tools are being used efficiently and deliberately at a team level, but this is not the case. Ana talks about Social Collaboration Maturity Benchmark Report 2021, which shows that teams are still using online tools for videoconferencing and direct messages, but not for what the tools are best, which is working out in the open and documenting. The concepts of "working out loud" or "working in the narrative" are still not being adopted. Eg from I've done this document vs I'm working on this document. Work in progress can be useful to others in your team or the organisation, but of course to share this requires a lot of psychological safety. For example, if you're writing a report over a month, even the first sentences that you write down could already be of use to others. It's all about having the right culture, not just the right tools. Before the pandemic, the number of direct messages was smaller than during. Before the pandemic, the teams and people using these tools were already behind the concept of working out loud, whereas now they've adopted them because that's all they had. People are afraid of having their work in progress visible to all. At an organisational level, Ana has seen orgs try to compensate for the lack of being together in the physical space. However some of these ways of keeping employees "engaged" sometimes seem purposeless, and focused on the social. If this is not consistent with the organisation's culture, it jars with people and can be worse than doing nothing. These tools work best when they are used to listen to people and what they have to say, around topics that link back to business. What brings people together is their work, not just their social ties. Creating organisation-wide dialogues about things linked to work eg internal processes, new products is where these tools become valuable. For some employees, it's difficult to think about some of these spaces where we can have important conversations, not just "watercooler conversations". The spaces are informal, but you can have good conversations. The key is to evidence that you have been listening, else there's no point. These tools work best asynchronously and are great for documenting thoughts and ideas that don't get implemented. For example, "we've made this decision, and if you want to look at other ideas that were generated, have a look at this conversation". This also helps to see who was part of the conversation. It also helps to support the concept of "peer assist", where people learn from others when they're kicking off a project. Asynchronous conversations stay as a record for others to 1) identify the people who can help them, and then have a conversation with them and 2) to access thoughts of people who have left the organisation, through their posts19.30 mins Ana talks about the conference Social Now, on the different ways in which these tools can be weaved into how the day to day looks like in organisations. The focus this year is about enabling engaged and high performing teams, aligned with the organisation's values and culture. The conference is centred around the fictitious company Cablinc, and Ana is blogging as the Head of Marketing & Internal Communications at Cablinc. Through the blog http://houseofcables.socialnow.org/ she covers the challenges a new employee might have when joining a company, especially around the issues of knowledge management and communication. Regarding the content of the conference itself, Ana talks about the focus of some of the sessions, including Pilar's. You can find the whole agenda here: https://socialnow.org/agenda/ Some examples, how to run great hybrid meetings, and how to draft some of the posts to facilitate conversation in the enterprise networks. The conference will kick off with a "liberating structure", tapping into the knowledge of the attendees straight away. The attendees share common context from the beginning, with the case study providing a common language for all. And the names of the characters are memorable, so they become part of the conversation. This is a good example of using an external (and fictitious!) focus to talk about our own issues, even something that we can use in your own teams. As well as advice from the consultants for the fictitious company, there are also live demos of some online tools, showing how they can be used in the day to day. This helps participants to get a sense of the impact these tools can have in the day to day. (And if participants feel like they're being sold to, they can raise their flags!) The blog http://houseofcables.socialnow.org covers the challenges of the access and retention of critical knowledge, employee engagement, internal communication and teamwork & collaboration. Presenters, vendors and participants of the conference have access to these fictitious (but based in reality!) challenges, and on what everything is anchored. There is also a session which follows the format of "peer assist", whereby people in one part of the organisation can benefit from the experience of others in the organisation with similar experiences, or with experiences with transferable learning. The Social Now conference is taking place on 19 and 20 May 2022 in Lisbon. You can find all the details and book tickets here: https://socialnow.org/agenda/ And you can connect with Ana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ananeves/ And Twitter: And if you speak Portuguese, you can listen to the podcast that Ana hosts, KMOL: https://kmol.pt/category/podcast/

In this episode, Maya and Pilar discuss the different communication rhythms that remote teams adopt. They also cover the concept of documentation, as something that can help slow down a team's rhythm, or at least help it towards "burstiness", a characteristic of successful teams. Plenty here to reflect on.Communication in an online team requires a different mindset to that of when you are collocated, and requires different ways of interacting which might feel unnatural, or even uncomfortable. It all started with this tweet:https://twitter.com/PilarOrti/status/1499370551596527617 "Over the last years, I've worked & collaborated with a wide range of people online. 1 thing that strikes me is that the rhythm of communication & the speed of the workflow become apparent. I've noticed when somebody's rhythm clashes with my own. Is this something you've noticed?"Saskie replied that she also noticed when it WAS in sync, and gave this metaphor: "Musing on your tweet brought to mind an image of 3 legged races as a child. Just agreeing to begin with the outer leg first was a winning tactic. It wasn't about running faster – just about not falling over ourselves!"As external people, we notice this when we come into a team, but the team might not be aware that there are different rhythms of communicating. There are teams which communicate constantly, either because the task requires it, or because they're used to it. So this presents itself like constant tagging, and many near real-time replies; on the other hand some teams barely tag anyone, just post messages at some point, and don't require as much synchronous communication, neither to do their work or to feel connected. We explain the terms "asynchronous communication", "documentation" and "single source of truth". For more on this, you might want to check out this newsletter from Remote Fabric: http://newsletter.remotefabric.com/issues/push-vs-pull-communication-issue-2-696532 Teams can start by pulling together different bits of information and gather them in one single space, so that it's accessible for everyone. Think of it as a key area in your online office. You can also adopt the principle, thinking, "is this conversation or document something we want to keep for future reference, could it help someone?" It's about making it easier to find where the expertise is in the company, so this is not only about content but also about knowing who can help you in the company. Could this be relevant to learning and development roles? Shifting the mindset from how to run "engaging online workshops" to how can we curate the information and knowledge in the company? Technology is making this easier by the year… (For more on this check out next week's episode on Knowledge Management in organisations.) 19.00 MINS DIfferent teams have different rhythms and they are influenced by the nature and progress of task and task interdependence, perception of and real hierarchy and level of autonomy to make decisions and social culture.We begin talking about the rhythm around tasks and how this is affected by the nature of the task, the progress, and if we're in a project, the stage of the project. Eg kick off and brainstorming at the beginning might require regular lots of exchanges, then a slower rhythm and less interactions as everyone "gets on with it", and a faster pace. We can reflect as individuals and as a team whether the rhythm we have is useful to us. Also, don't forget about our wider context and how this might affect the rhythm in which we communicate. Task interdependence will also affect your communication cadence, as well as whether you have a space where you go to communicate your progress. (You can find out more about this in episode 239, or read the show notes.)By the way, creating documentation is all about creating the space for meaningful conversations, and conversing when it's the best way of getting things done together, not as the only way of getting things done together. It helps us avoid information being held in someone's head. Documentation is live, so that improvement to our processes can be communicated too. But none of this helps if we don't develop a culture of accessing documentation and other asynchronous communication. (We know, it can feel like a lot of extra work, but transitions are always difficult…) As team leaders, we need to change our mindset and focus on creating an ecosystem within which people can work rather than always being the main point of contact for information. It can be difficult to figure out which technology can help us best though… Another challenge… And of course, none of this works without psychological safety… 36.00 MINSThe sense of hierarchy and real hierarchy, as well as the ability and trust to make decisions on our own also can result in constant communication, as everyone feels like they need to check in. Presenteeism and the need to be seen as working really hard, can also result in lots of "push communication" when we complete the work – rather than the more calm cadence of making our workflow visible in an agreed way. If we don't have a system for communicating innovations and experiments, one person can end up in the receiving end of lots of information requests, rather than people going to a specific place to find out more about this. As team leaders, we can take the coaching approach and document some of the answers people might be looking for, so that they can access them on their own, rather than relying on you. Personality also plays a part in this, and the ability to figure out things on your own, or finding your way through information is a core skill for remote workers. 43.00 MINSFinally, let's look at culture.Is psychological safety as important in remote teams as in colocated? At least you have to know it's ok to bring things up. In teams where people have a need to feel connected physically or emotionally to each other throughout the day, we might also get fast paced communication. There was some research done on the rhythm of communication done a couple of years ago: Successful Remote Teams Communicate in Bursts by Christoph Riedl and Anita Williams Woolley, published on 28 October 2020 HBR online https://hbr.org/2020/10/successful-remote-teams-communicate-in-bursts Bursts of rapid-fire communication with longer periods of silence in between are characteristic of successful teams. Bursts help to focus energy, develop ideas, get closure on specific questions and condensing the synchronous time, can help those who really miss the 'buzz' of face to face interactions. Find synchronous time together and define it, rather than suddenly move to synchronous communication. This does not need to be set in advance, but can be built on what's going on organically or can be emerging by sharing availability. From the article, "The bottom line: Worry less about sparking creativity and connection through watercooler-style interactions in the physical world, and focus more on facilitating bursty communication." Let's not forget that artificial intelligence is making it easier for us to find information, including how real-time conversations are being recorded (in video, audio) and how they can be searched. We know none of this is easy – let us know if you need some help. 54.00 MINSWe'd like to share an article by our friend Jennifer Riggins which is both timely and evergreen: How to Support Teammates Living in Ukraine — or Any War Zone.The article offers examples of how to support people in crisis situations in both practical and emotional ways. It's very relevant to today's context, but can also help in the future. We hope you enjoyed the episode, feel free to send us some feedback or any other thoughts you would like to share with us and the listeners. Sign up for our monthly newsletter below as a way of keeping in touch, or join us over at LinkedIn.