The paradox of remote work in an industry that is sick.

This article is in response to a post I found on LinkedIn by Dennis De Clercq https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dennisdeclercq_deepwork-activity-7113080328214179840-vT08?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop.

The article is about interruptions at work and having to fight fires all day, resulting in not being able to get your job done. When I added a comment to work more remotely, Dennis replied with another article The hybrid work paradox & how to overcome it. Reading that article, which has some answers to a solution, was in line with an article I read the day before 5 Ways to Develop Talent for an Unpredictable Future.

I don't understand the complaints about remote work when organized well; this works surprisingly well. Of course, if you want to port an old hierarchical way of work straight to digital, you end up with the situation of today.

But there is another way. I have been working remotely for years. I have led teams from Belgium in Belgium, India, Spain, Brazil, and the Netherlands in the past. All companies outsource their work to countries across the world due to cost, not quality. But the people who have to manage that outsourced work should be at the office. I never understood that reasoning.

Due to working remotely for most of my career, there was no issue when Covid-19 hit. I saw people struggle and complain at the company, but in my team, we never had an issue. We did even more during Covid-19 at home than we got done at the office before. But it meant you had to adapt to the situation.

First of all, you have to realize that your biggest asset is people. People first, the rest later. You start building around people. That is also the reason that every team has its way of working. We all do, Agile, SCRUM, Kanban, Double Diamond, Design Thinking, SAFe. But every team has its flavor, its rules.

The first decision I made during Covid-19 was to implement the coffee machine gossip. I extended our Daily, and everybody had to put their camera on so we could see each other. This seems like a minor thing, but it was a great decision that drove innovation, communication, and we got to know each other much better. So, in a regular daily that should only take 15 minutes, this is the result.

Person 1 does her dance and says, "I have an issue." The standard response is, "I will take it up with you after the daily." Then the second and fifth person also have an issue. Now I have three syncs after daily, and with some luck, I can continue my work 1.5 hours later. By extending the daily and discussing the issues in the team, time-boxed, of course, this resulted in direct communication between everybody. I also asked everyone for their opinion, no matter what your role was or how junior/senior you are. Multiple times, we solved the issue in the daily, and everyone was aware of all the info at once, no lost-in-translation situations; everyone knew exactly what would happen.

Another benefit was that we were at the beginning free to use whatever we thought would make us more productive, no tools rules, no Ivory tower people enforcing us to use tools that were not productive. We used the Atlassian suite, Figma, Miro, Google drawings, Slack and even Google Meet when Slack messed up again. We used what we could to improve our communication and collaboration.

I also allowed the coffee gossip at the end of the daily; this could be whatever, like movie discussions, video games, hobbies, new technology, new methodologies, complaining about management, the weather, you name it; all was allowed. This resulted in knowing each other much better; we knew what people liked, hated, what point of view they had on things, and what they were doing at home. We knew who was divorcing, had illness in their family, or was tired because they are renovating their house in the evening and in the weekends.

When we had to innovate, brainstorm, or analyze things, we used Miro and video. Video is important remote; you need to see people's faces; the expressions on a face tell more than words. Whenever something was decided, we presented it in the next daily, asking for feedback from the team. This went back and forth for a bit until we were confident we had a good idea.

The next important tool in remote work is living up-to-date short documentation. Yes, maintaining documentation is a real task, a task we all did in the team. Guidelines were updated, project descriptions created, planning, tickets, everything. But it also got archived when out-of-sync or deleted. When all of this is done, we presented the idea to a bigger audience; we involved more stakeholders, did presentations throughout the company, all remote with video and the camera on.

When you have all this set up, don't think you're done. This is a process that needs constant improvement. The guidelines, the documentation, the rituals, meetings, workflows, responsibilities all need to be worked on. So we set up the Improvements meeting. This was a meeting to make a proposal to improve whatever; it could be code, rules in a meeting, the use of another tool. But not only that; we, as a team, also had different times to be productive. I work best at night; I can start at 10 PM and work until 4 AM in full focus. Others were morning people or noon people; it didn't matter when you worked or where you worked; the rule was to Get Shit Done at the time we had agreed. That was also the reason the daily was at 2 PM because then everyone was online. The daily even moved several times to 9 AM, then 11 AM, and even 4 PM.

The main thing is that you have to adapt and not try to keep the current way of working and make it digital and call it remote work. Everyone was equal in the team, even me; I only used my "extra vote" when the team could not settle on a decision. Everyone was allowed and asked for feedback, no matter your role or skill. The only thing I asked of people was to be eager to learn and handle change well and be respectful to each other.

This was confirmed in the second article. When you are eager to learn and have the ability to accept and support change, we can learn everything. Do not enforce people to do stuff, but make sure they do stuff they like, stuff they get motivated by, stuff that makes them study all night long. Ask people what they want what they don't want, what they want to learn, how they want to grow.

I see my teams as a stack of Pokémon cards; each one has their flaws, advantages, mental state, and productivity moments. And I know not everyone is the same; they are all unique individuals that should be treated that way. Today's industries think of people as resources, expecting they are all equal and do the exact same job.

They treat people as if they were Lego blocks, but they aren't. As a manager, knowing all of these "stats" about your team is, in my opinion, a huge advantage. As a manager, your task is to make them feel good in the first place, to help them, motivate them, and help them grow. To push them when they are stuck or support them if they want to go in another direction, even help them with their private lives or be a listener when they need one.

Innovation and creativity start with happy, healthy people who love their job. So no, there is no paradox; there is only bad management enforcing hierarchical structures with subpar tools.

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