Speaker 1: The crux of this is if you have your entire
Speaker 1: day pre booked with meetings, it leaves no room whatsoever
Speaker 1: for real life to happen. So if anything at all happens,
Speaker 1: if your child stubs their toe and you need to
Speaker 1: go address that, even for eight minutes of your day,
Speaker 1: it has a massive, oftentimes catastrophically negative impact on your
Speaker 1: mental health, on the schedules of many other people. And
Speaker 1: there's this cascading set of effects that could go well
Speaker 1: beyond the day for a simple eight minute ordeal at home.
Speaker 1: So I view that is a massive risk. And if
Speaker 1: you extrapolate that over an entire company, if you have
Speaker 1: everyone booked at one hundred percent, where is the room
Speaker 1: for ingenuity? Teams are worried about serendipitous conversations, let me
Speaker 1: tell you, being booked at one hundred percent is a
Speaker 1: guarantee that your company is going to have no innovation
Speaker 1: and no serendipitous conversations because there's no time for that.
Speaker 2: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics
Speaker 2: you used by the world's most successful people to get
Speaker 2: so much out of their day.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, doctor Amantha.
Speaker 2: I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 2: and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work date.
Speaker 2: How Loo, before we get into today's show, just a
Speaker 2: few little things from me. Firstly, I'm trying out a
Speaker 2: new format where I'm keen to hear from you as
Speaker 2: a listener and understand what are the questions that you
Speaker 2: have on your mind or what are the challenges that
Speaker 2: you're experiencing with work and productivity. Right now, I'm going
Speaker 2: to be releasing a few mini episodes that will help
Speaker 2: answer those questions. So if you've got something on your
Speaker 2: mind that you'd like me to answer or dig up
Speaker 2: some research around, just drop me an email at Amantha
Speaker 2: at inventium dot com dot com a you and my
Speaker 2: email is always in the show notes as well. Also,
Speaker 2: if you're enjoying How I Work, I would love it
Speaker 2: if you spread the news, Like, if you enjoy this episode,
Speaker 2: maybe share it with someone else or a few people
Speaker 2: that you think could benefit. That would be completely awesome.
Speaker 2: And finally, if you have left a review for How
Speaker 2: I Work, if you're one of the almost four hundred
Speaker 2: people I think that have done that, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: And if you haven't. If you're enjoying how.
Speaker 2: I work, then I love your feedback, So pop a
Speaker 2: review up on Apple Podcasts or whatever you're listening to
Speaker 2: this from. All right, let's get on to today's show.
Speaker 2: My guest today is Darren Murph and I was so
Speaker 2: excited to speak to Darren after someone on my team,
Speaker 2: Charlotte Rush, shared his profile with me. So, Darren is
Speaker 2: Head of Remote at git lab. That's right, that's his
Speaker 2: real title is head of Remote. And if you've never
Speaker 2: heard of git lab, it's the world's largest all remote company,
Speaker 2: with over thirteen hundred team members across over sixty seven
Speaker 2: countries with no company owned offices. So Darren has spent
Speaker 2: his career leading remote teams and charting remote transformations. And
Speaker 2: he also is the author of Gitlab's Remote Playbook, which
Speaker 2: I highly recommend you read. It is full of very
Speaker 2: practical and awesome ideas.
Speaker 3: I linked to that in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Darren also holds a Guinness World Record as the planet's
Speaker 2: most prolific professional blogger, having published ten million words.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: So, if you're working remotely at the moment, or perhaps
Speaker 2: if you're leading an organization that is trying to get
Speaker 2: better at remote working, or maybe seeing this as the
Speaker 2: future for your organization. I think you will love this episode.
Speaker 2: This is probably one of my favorite interviews this year
Speaker 2: that I've done. Darren was just full of really practical
Speaker 2: tips on how he has made remote working work. So
Speaker 2: on that note, let's go to Darren to hear about
Speaker 2: how he works.
Speaker 3: Darren, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure
Speaker 1: to be here.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to be talking to you. I was
Speaker 2: just saying that before we started recording. You've just done
Speaker 2: so many interesting things, and I feel like I've got
Speaker 2: a billion questions and I'll probably get through about one percent.
Speaker 2: But I want to start fortune of this mini article
Speaker 2: about you. And in the article, you said what we're
Speaker 2: seeing now isn't remote work, it's crisis induced work from home,
Speaker 2: and I want to know what is the difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's accurate. So remote work, when it is intentionally structured,
Speaker 1: is life's greatest cheat code. It enables you to to
Speaker 1: accomplish your bucket list decades before anyone else would if
Speaker 1: they were beholden to a rigid commute and they were
Speaker 1: simply trying to wrap what is their life around the
Speaker 1: rigidity of a daily commute and a trek into an office.
Speaker 1: But what we're experiencing right now is not that we
Speaker 1: have all been thrust into our homes by a tragedy
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. And on top of us being in our homes,
Speaker 1: none of us are adequately prepared even going out for
Speaker 1: dinner or drinks or going to get groceries. All of
Speaker 1: this is more complex right now. We're all a lot
Speaker 1: more isolated. There are a lot of things happening outside
Speaker 1: of our control that many people are conflating with remote
Speaker 1: work because it is their first experience with remote work.
Speaker 1: But I assure you it is not the same. And indeed,
Speaker 1: I've been encouraged by some people saying, even though I'm
Speaker 1: working remotely during a pandemic, there are some things that
Speaker 1: are very encouraging, and frankly, I can't imagine going back
Speaker 1: into the office full time. And that encourages me because
Speaker 1: if people can find the silver lining in remote work
Speaker 1: and work from home, now, just imagine how amazing it
Speaker 1: is once travel restrictions are lifted.
Speaker 2: It's going to be quite amazing. I must say, I
Speaker 2: feel like I was thinking about this the other day.
Speaker 2: I used to travel for work probably once a week.
Speaker 2: I'd be at at airport about once a week, and
Speaker 2: I was thinking, gosh, I barely remember what an airport
Speaker 2: or a plane feels like. That's just going to be
Speaker 2: such a novelty whenever restrictions are lifted. And in Melbourne
Speaker 2: at the moment when we're recording this, we're in stage
Speaker 2: four lockdown, so things are pretty full on here now.
Speaker 2: When it comes to remote work, you literally wrote the
Speaker 2: book on it, so so get Lab, where you're head
Speaker 2: of remote, has a Remote Working Handbook which is such
Speaker 2: a good read. I'm going to link to it in
Speaker 2: the show notes, and I want to pull out some
Speaker 2: of the things that I quite liked that were sort
Speaker 2: of like some little surprising gems, and then I want
Speaker 2: to hear from you what are some of your favorite
Speaker 2: pieces of advice or tips from the handbook, because there's
Speaker 2: just so much in there. So some of my favorites
Speaker 2: were to adopt a self service and self learning mentality,
Speaker 2: which I really like because I feel like often and
Speaker 2: I've experienced this myself with Inventium, which I've been my
Speaker 2: innovation consults here that I've been running for the last
Speaker 2: fourteen years where you can sort of sometimes make poor
Speaker 2: recruitment choices and people come in with that sort of
Speaker 2: helpless mentality and ask everyone else for advice as opposed
Speaker 2: to sort of taking things on board themselves, which is
Speaker 2: critical in a remote environment. I love make documentation everyone's responsibility,
Speaker 2: and that again, I think have a three thousand plus
Speaker 2: page handbook where I imagine everyone has documented rules and
Speaker 2: practices and all sorts of things like that. There should
Speaker 2: be no unwritten rules in remote culture. I might even
Speaker 2: get you to just talk a bit about what you
Speaker 2: mean there. And also one of my favorites encouraging the
Speaker 2: use of emoji so that you can communicate in motion,
Speaker 2: which I thought was really cool. So I don't know
Speaker 2: if you want to comment on any of those, they
Speaker 2: were some of my favorites, but I also want to
Speaker 2: know what some of your favorite things are in that handbook.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love all of those. It is so heartening
Speaker 1: to hear someone articulate those back. It's incredible. Documentation is
Speaker 1: the superpower of remote teams, and it's non negotiable. Just
Speaker 1: to give you an example, during the course of this interview,
Speaker 1: there are dozens, maybe even hundreds of people inside get
Speaker 1: lab and outside of get lab that are able to
Speaker 1: move their projects forward based on things that I have
Speaker 1: written down. So although I am conversing with you, my
Speaker 1: knowledge is at work with people all around the world
Speaker 1: able to tap into that and use it to move
Speaker 1: their projects forward. This is the power of documentation. Instead
Speaker 1: of someone having to tap me on the virtual shoulder
Speaker 1: and ask me a question, I'm able to proactively answer
Speaker 1: everything that they're asking with a link and then the
Speaker 1: get lab way of working. If someone were to genuinely
Speaker 1: ask me something that is net new and is not documented,
Speaker 1: I would of course get them that answer, but then
Speaker 1: I would immediately document it so that anyone else who
Speaker 1: has this question going forward would simply be able to
Speaker 1: find it online. This is a much more inclusive way
Speaker 1: to communicate and to scale knowledge. But it definitely takes
Speaker 1: a special type of person who thinks this way, because
Speaker 1: the human default that is to default to synchronicity and
Speaker 1: to default to async feels a little bit awkward at first.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes it feels a bit cold until you realize that
Speaker 1: by doing so, you're making everyone else's day much more efficient,
Speaker 1: and you're giving them more time back to spend with
Speaker 1: their family, with neighbors, with community members, all of which
Speaker 1: is a much more useful way to spend time when
Speaker 1: you're talking about the net impact to society versus asking
Speaker 1: someone a question for the five hundredth time, I was
Speaker 1: going to highlight a few of the favorites of mine,
Speaker 1: you listed a few favorites of yours. The get Lab
Speaker 1: Values page is an absolute treasure trove. If you google
Speaker 1: get Lab values, you'll find six core values. Probably words
Speaker 1: you've heard before, things like iteration, collaboration, results, but all
Speaker 1: of those terms in a vacuum can mean something different
Speaker 1: to each individual. Underneath each value are thousands of words
Speaker 1: called sub values, which substantiate and explain how each of
Speaker 1: these values are lived with no physical building that we
Speaker 1: commute into each day. There are a couple of these that,
Speaker 1: when strung together, are incredibly powerful. So a few of
Speaker 1: these in a row that I love are Kindness, assume
Speaker 1: positive intent, no ego. No ego is a huge one.
Speaker 1: Don't let each other fail. Blameless problem solving. This is
Speaker 1: amazing because it enables you to solve every problem knowing
Speaker 1: that there's not going to be blamed. There is no agenda.
Speaker 1: We are simply trying to solve the problem. And although
Speaker 1: this sounds extremely simple, this is very much against the
Speaker 1: grain in most corporate structure. And the last one that
Speaker 1: I'll share right now is short toes. This is the
Speaker 1: one that caught my attention when I first came to
Speaker 1: get LAB. I saw short toes and thought, what in
Speaker 1: the world could that mean? Well, I get LAB. It's
Speaker 1: not possible for you to step on anyone's toes or
Speaker 1: contribute to someone else's domain because everyone has short toes,
Speaker 1: and that creates a welcome atmosphere for all of us
Speaker 1: to put forth our best knowledge, regardless of what department
Speaker 1: of the company we're in.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I read that short toes one myself, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: hang on, what's that? Because the rest are kind of
Speaker 2: like you assume that you know what they mean. I
Speaker 2: do like that short toes one too. Now, you mentioned
Speaker 2: the idea of synchronous versus asynchronous communication, and I know
Speaker 2: you've spoken about what companies that truly want to do
Speaker 2: remote work well need to do is replace the default
Speaker 2: of synchronous communication. Can you explain what you mean by that, like,
Speaker 2: how companies do default to synchronous communication and what are
Speaker 2: the steps that a company needs to take to not
Speaker 2: do that, because it's so well entrenched into most company cultures.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to better understand this, you really have to go
Speaker 1: all the way back to grade school if you think
Speaker 1: about it early on. In our classical education, children are
Speaker 1: contained within four walls in a roof. We are conditioned
Speaker 1: from birth to operate in a synchronous manner in what
Speaker 1: is essentially an office for children. We are taught no
Speaker 1: other way, and so it's quite unusual to move projects
Speaker 1: forward or to build relationships when you aren't in the
Speaker 1: same place at the same time. You may hear things like, oh,
Speaker 1: but I prefer synchronicity. I prefer to be together, And
Speaker 1: most of that is because people don't have a solid
Speaker 1: baseline of how this could work well in any other fashion.
Speaker 1: So synchronicity is the default for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: They feel like reaching out and having conversations with people
Speaker 1: or tapping someone on the shoulder. It feels very productive.
Speaker 1: It makes you feel like you're contributing meaningfully to the organization.
Speaker 1: But in truth, these types of meetings and ad hoc
Speaker 1: interruptions are massively disruptive to the bottom line. They're massively
Speaker 1: disruptive to people's mental health. It's very difficult to get
Speaker 1: into a state of flow and make meaningful progress on
Speaker 1: any line of work if you're continuously being interrupted. There
Speaker 1: is a reason that Google is a machine and not
Speaker 1: a person, because if someone just essentially taps you as
Speaker 1: Google all day, you're going to get tired of answering
Speaker 1: those queries at some point. So it's a fundamentally more
Speaker 1: inclusive way to communicate your knowledge and to scale your
Speaker 1: knowledge by writing it down once so that it can
Speaker 1: be interpreted and used a limitless amount of times. But
Speaker 1: it takes a culture that is understanding of that. And indeed,
Speaker 1: if you look at the get Lab onboarding process, we
Speaker 1: lay out guides that explain exactly how to adopt a
Speaker 1: self service mentality. We even have a handbook guide on
Speaker 1: how to use the handbook. We have another guide on
Speaker 1: how to search the handbook. We are very prescriptive and
Speaker 1: articulate about the information infrastructure that we have set up.
Speaker 1: We essentially see the handbook as yet another product or tool,
Speaker 1: and so if you were coming into any company, you
Speaker 1: would expect an onboarding to get used to a key
Speaker 1: tool to do work. And we see the handbook as
Speaker 1: a key tool to do work.
Speaker 3: That's really cool.
Speaker 2: I want to talk a little bit more about meetings,
Speaker 2: and obviously at git lab you default to documentation instead
Speaker 2: of meetings, which I think is such a key like
Speaker 2: such a key point for listeners who are thinking how
Speaker 2: do we truly go remote to really think about because
Speaker 2: we are so conditioned to defaulting to meetings, it's the
Speaker 2: easiest thing to do. And I want to know when
Speaker 2: you do have meetings at get lab, what are the
Speaker 2: different rules that that you have in place, because I
Speaker 2: know there are some rules and guidelines for having meetings
Speaker 2: that get lab. Imagine that it is quite a significant
Speaker 2: thing if you're invited.
Speaker 3: To a meeting it get lab. Given it's not the default,
Speaker 3: is that fair to say?
Speaker 1: It is fair to say, and there is some context
Speaker 1: you need to understand here. It is easier for us
Speaker 1: to get away with this at get lab because people
Speaker 1: self select into get lab. You opt into get lab
Speaker 1: even in the interview process. You know what you're getting into.
Speaker 1: Everyone can read our handbook before they even apply here,
Speaker 1: and so people come here because they want to work
Speaker 1: this way. It is their default. And so we have
Speaker 1: a like minded group of people that want to have
Speaker 1: a bias towards a synchronous. In fact, bias towards a
Speaker 1: synchronous is one of the sub values of our diversity,
Speaker 1: inclusion and belonging value because it allows for a more
Speaker 1: inclusive course of voices to contribute to a project. So
Speaker 1: there's a five step process that, of course we have
Speaker 1: documented on questioning every meeting. The first is, what is
Speaker 1: the outcome I am trying to achieved that has led
Speaker 1: me to a desire to schedule a meeting. You need
Speaker 1: to write that down and articulate that. Number two is
Speaker 1: can the desired outcome be broken down into smaller tasks?
Speaker 1: If you can break things down to more incremental pieces,
Speaker 1: it's more likely that you can accomplish each individual element
Speaker 1: of that through an asynchronous means. Number three is can
Speaker 1: the desired outcome be achieved or work towards by dog
Speaker 1: fooding and using a get lab issue or merge request. Now,
Speaker 1: this is where it's important for me to point out
Speaker 1: that all of get lab uses get lab the product
Speaker 1: to collaborate. It is the heartbeat of our asynchronous workflow.
Speaker 1: So if you don't have a tool like this, you
Speaker 1: will need one. It is extremely hard to lean fully
Speaker 1: into a synchronous using a hodgepodge of phone calls, carrier pigeons,
Speaker 1: and email. You're going to need a tool at the
Speaker 1: heart of it. The fourth one is am I trying
Speaker 1: to gather consensus. If you are consensus gathering can be
Speaker 1: done asynchronously. Anyone can open up a get lab issue
Speaker 1: or a mural board or a Figma board and gather
Speaker 1: input and consensus, and then you can save the meeting
Speaker 1: until the decision making needs to occur. And even that
Speaker 1: decision making, which is step five, we ask people to
Speaker 1: consider can the decision be made asynchronous LEA And if
Speaker 1: it cannot, then we default to a synchronous meeting, but
Speaker 1: we will reserve that for the very end. And then
Speaker 1: if we have to have a meeting, we make it
Speaker 1: quite difficult for this to happen. Every meeting has to
Speaker 1: have an agenda attached to the calendar invite, so that
Speaker 1: temporal documentation takes place live during the meeting, and then
Speaker 1: the meeting organizer is responsible for transcribing and contextualizing any
Speaker 1: takeaways from that meeting into the get lab handbook so
Speaker 1: that the most amount of people can benefit from the
Speaker 1: knowledge that was gained in that meeting. It takes a
Speaker 1: cultural mindset company wide for this to actually work and
Speaker 1: be meaningful. But our people fundamentally believe that time is
Speaker 1: very precious and we would rather reserve that for informal communication,
Speaker 1: for coffee chats, for team wide trivia sessions and scavenger hunts,
Speaker 1: things that help us build bonds as a team, than
Speaker 1: just another work meeting. Now, of course we still have
Speaker 1: work meetings, but if we're rigorous enough to cut our
Speaker 1: meetings down by even fifty percent, most people listening to
Speaker 1: this would think, Wow, if I could have fifty percent
Speaker 1: fewer meetings, I think my zoom fatigue would go away.
Speaker 1: So we're not trying to eliminate meetings. We're just trying
Speaker 1: to have a thorough process so that you question it.
Speaker 1: Because if you're going to have to write down the
Speaker 1: takeaway anyway, we would love for you to start by
Speaker 1: writing it down instead of doing double work with a
Speaker 1: meeting first and then writing it down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, has so many good tips in there. I must
Speaker 2: say something that we've tried at Inventium, which I got
Speaker 2: from a guest I had on the show maybe a
Speaker 2: year ago. Brian Scoutemore from one eight hundred got chunk
Speaker 2: over in the state, and he says that he won't
Speaker 2: accept a meeting unless it's got a PAYO, which stands
Speaker 2: for purpose, Agenda and outcomes. So a little bit of
Speaker 2: crossover with what you've described there and something we're kind
Speaker 2: of experimenting with at the moment at INVENTINGM. I mean, granted,
Speaker 2: we don't have that many meetings, but if someone sets
Speaker 2: a meeting, they need to have a payout otherwise they
Speaker 2: can't put the meeting in the diary, which just acts
Speaker 2: as a nice little barrier for people to think, do
Speaker 2: I actually need this meeting or could this be done
Speaker 2: some other way. I want to pick up on a
Speaker 2: couple of things that you said there when you were
Speaker 2: describing that process, and you said you'll deliberately recruit people
Speaker 2: who have a bias towards a synchronicity or a synchronous communication.
Speaker 2: How do you assess that in a recruitment process.
Speaker 1: We hire for managers of one, and if you google that,
Speaker 1: as you would expect, you'll find a leadership page that
Speaker 1: lays out what a manager of one looks like. We
Speaker 1: hire for that, and we tell people straight up that
Speaker 1: you're going to be writing a lot, and it's pretty
Speaker 1: obvious early on whether someone is going to thrive in
Speaker 1: an environment like that. So we're just open about it
Speaker 1: and we say, do you love communicating this way? Is
Speaker 1: this how you prefer to work? Because this is how
Speaker 1: we work. All of our interviews are done over zoom.
Speaker 1: There is no in person element, so again, you're not
Speaker 1: going to accidentally end up here. You're going to be
Speaker 1: pretty sure of what you're walking into. But mostly we
Speaker 1: look for great storytellers, people that love to think through
Speaker 1: problems and communicate with high detail and low precision. We
Speaker 1: can do writing exercises, but a lot of this just
Speaker 1: comes through in storytelling. We love to ask questions of
Speaker 1: tell me a time when you worked remotely when you
Speaker 1: move to project forward, when you were in one place
Speaker 1: and your cohorts were in another. And for some people
Speaker 1: they answer, I've never been able to work remotely, That's
Speaker 1: why i want a job here. But you can actually
Speaker 1: dig a little deeper and say, well, have you ever
Speaker 1: worked on let's say, a present while you were on
Speaker 1: an airplane, or while you were in a hotel conference
Speaker 1: center and the rest of your team was at work,
Speaker 1: or the rest of your colleagues at university were in
Speaker 1: the library, and then they'll usually say, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: actually do have an example of that. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: that's remote working. You might not have considered it remote working,
Speaker 1: but indeed it was remote working. And we also like
Speaker 1: to pull up our values page and in there you'll
Speaker 1: notice a sub value that says culture fit is a
Speaker 1: bad excuse. What that means is we try to hire
Speaker 1: for values fit, which is to say, we want to
Speaker 1: make sure the get lab values resonate with anyone joining
Speaker 1: the company, and then we invite them to bring one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of their full culture to make our culture better.
Speaker 1: So we don't want to hire for culture fit. We
Speaker 1: want to hire for values fit and then increase the
Speaker 1: diversity of the culture that comes along with that.
Speaker 3: I like that distinction.
Speaker 2: Now, something else that you mentioned is that if you're
Speaker 2: a completely remote company, it's really important that you've got
Speaker 2: the right kind of software or technology at the heart
Speaker 2: of that. Can you talk about what sort of features
Speaker 2: does this key piece of software need to make it work.
Speaker 1: To do this right? It's roughly fifty percent tools and
Speaker 1: technology and fifty percent culture, so you have to have both.
Speaker 1: You can have all of the right tools, but the
Speaker 1: leadership doesn't really embrace it and it will probably falter.
Speaker 1: You could have the best intentions of the world, but
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, if you're trying to do it
Speaker 1: all over email and phone, you'll probably struggle. I generally
Speaker 1: recommend to minimize your tool stack if you're transitioning into remote.
Speaker 1: Get Lab really only uses four key products across the company. Now,
Speaker 1: some of our departments use certain things like MARKETO and
Speaker 1: Marketing Operations and Salesforce and things like that, but for
Speaker 1: all of our team to collaborate as a team, we
Speaker 1: use g Suite, we use Zoom, we use get lab
Speaker 1: the product, and Slack for informal communication. So that goes
Speaker 1: to show we really don't use Slack for work. We
Speaker 1: expire our Slack messages after ninety days so that it's
Speaker 1: only useful for informal communication. We want the work to
Speaker 1: happen and get lab. So the key piece there is
Speaker 1: make sure you have a project management and collaboration tool
Speaker 1: that strongly supports asynchronous inputs and workflows. Get Lab is
Speaker 1: what we use. There are a host of others, but
Speaker 1: it's on your IT and operations team to thoroughly vet this,
Speaker 1: and I would say, do a tools audit and make
Speaker 1: sure that you have something there. And then of course
Speaker 1: you have to document how you want people to work
Speaker 1: in it. It has to be a user guide on
Speaker 1: how to get work done so that everyone is leaning
Speaker 1: into that same product instead of fracturing work and splintering
Speaker 1: it here, there, and everywhere. It really is key to
Speaker 1: get universal buy in, and it takes time. For transitioning companies,
Speaker 1: it takes time. It is a very jarring thing if
Speaker 1: you are used to working one way and now you're
Speaker 1: working another. But for those companies that want to put
Speaker 1: in the effort now, in six to twelve months, you'll
Speaker 1: be so thankful that you did, and you'll only wonder
Speaker 1: why you didn't start this earlier. The truth is everything
Speaker 1: I'm saying is not remote exclusive. It is required in
Speaker 1: a remote setting. But even if you go back to
Speaker 1: being a collocated company or a hybrid remote company, all
Speaker 1: of this will make your company more cohesive and more discipline.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now you mentioned culture, and I imagine this
Speaker 2: is probably one of the questions you get asked the most.
Speaker 2: How do you create a corporate culture without a physical office?
Speaker 2: You know, especially for people that have never met their
Speaker 2: coworkers face to face, which I imagine for a lot
Speaker 2: of listeners would kind of blow their minds, even though
Speaker 2: for you, this is your world. So what are some
Speaker 2: of the key steps to building that corporate culture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's two things I want to mention here. One
Speaker 1: is paradoxical and one not so much, So I'll start
Speaker 1: with the latter. In person matters A lot a lot
Speaker 1: of people assume that because get lab is all remote,
Speaker 1: we never ever get together in person, and that's not
Speaker 1: actually true. We get the entire company together for a
Speaker 1: week long treat, we go on excursions together, we build
Speaker 1: bonds together. It's such an important week people will mark
Speaker 1: it off as if nothing can touch this. And when
Speaker 1: we hire new people, we proactively give them the next
Speaker 1: available contribute and they they love it. They look forward
Speaker 1: to it. I know when I joined the company, it
Speaker 1: was one of the first things that I wanted to know, Hey,
Speaker 1: when is the next get lab contribute? I can't wait
Speaker 1: to meet everyone. So forecasting in a post COVID world
Speaker 1: where travel restrictions are lists lifted and we can do this,
Speaker 1: I would say for leaders, make in person a core
Speaker 1: part of how you build strategy. But with a hybrid
Speaker 1: or all remote company, you're going to need to be
Speaker 1: more intentional about when and where travel happens and how
Speaker 1: you facilitate those very important in person interactions. So bottom
Speaker 1: line there is, don't try to do this without ever
Speaker 1: seeing anyone. We are relational, communal beings, and in person
Speaker 1: matters a lot. So here's the paradoxical one. The further
Speaker 1: away you are as a team, the more you need
Speaker 1: to let go as a manager and allow people to
Speaker 1: simply be where they are. So instead of having lots
Speaker 1: of virtual happy hours and things of that nature, which
Speaker 1: by the way we do it get lab we prefer
Speaker 1: to structure and atmosphere where people can do their work
Speaker 1: very efficiently and then leave work as soon as possible.
Speaker 1: We want people to be able to go back home,
Speaker 1: engage with their family, engage with their neighbors, engage with
Speaker 1: their community. That is what matters to them. They have
Speaker 1: specifically chosen to work here so that they can be
Speaker 1: in a place that matters to them, so we want
Speaker 1: to empower them to be in that place as much
Speaker 1: as humanly possible. So how that pours back into culture
Speaker 1: is that I see a NonStop photo role on our
Speaker 1: company slack of pictures and stories and videos of people
Speaker 1: that are making meaningful impacts in societies all over the world.
Speaker 1: We have people in over sixty five countries. It is
Speaker 1: so fascinating to see how each person chooses to engage
Speaker 1: and interact in each of their communities. And when I
Speaker 1: see that that builds culture, that tells me this is
Speaker 1: exactly who this person is. The more curious and the
Speaker 1: more interesting the person is on your team for us,
Speaker 1: the more it builds culture. So it is paradoxical that
Speaker 1: we would encourage you to spend more time outside of
Speaker 1: work to actually pour back into company culture. But when
Speaker 1: you hire a team that is specifically looking for that,
Speaker 1: that is indeed what happens.
Speaker 2: I find that quite interesting because I can imagine that
Speaker 2: what you've described would make you feel very connected to
Speaker 2: people that you're not seeing face to face on a
Speaker 2: daily basis, and you know, maybe just seeing once a
Speaker 2: year or once a quarter face to face or something
Speaker 2: like that. And I'm kind of thinking about how you
Speaker 2: say you recruit for values as opposed to do they
Speaker 2: fit with the culture, and I imagine what happens. I
Speaker 2: mean when I think about culture as a psychologist, I
Speaker 2: think about, well, it's a set of norms and behaviors
Speaker 2: and so forth. It's almost through And can I correct
Speaker 2: me if I'm getting this wrong. But because you're recruiting
Speaker 2: people that have these really core values that get lab yspouses,
Speaker 2: then that's where the behavioral norms are coming in, because
Speaker 2: you know they do prefer this way of working. They
Speaker 2: value things like kindness and humility and things like that,
Speaker 2: and they then become the culture. Almost Does that make sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's accurate. It's culture. Really. In a remote setting,
Speaker 1: culture is essentially equal to the values. Because in most
Speaker 1: collocated spaces, culture is roughly defined by the paint on
Speaker 1: the wall, the color of the lights, and the brand
Speaker 1: of the coffee. That flavor of culture has always been
Speaker 1: at risk of coming undone, and now in a remote
Speaker 1: setting it's glaringly obvious that that was never a great
Speaker 1: way to define culture. It's really about how people treat
Speaker 1: each other and how we see the world. And when
Speaker 1: you write that down, you can interview for it, and
Speaker 1: you can ask people does this work for you? And
Speaker 1: so culturally it ends up working out that we have
Speaker 1: people that generally we love and get along with because
Speaker 1: they share our values and values and culture are very
Speaker 1: tightly connected, especially in a remote company.
Speaker 2: And how would that work then if we've got listeners
Speaker 2: that largely office space but at the moment are working
Speaker 2: from home, and they want to shift towards more of
Speaker 2: at least a hybrid remote way of working, but they're
Speaker 2: worried about, well, how do they maintain the corporate culture
Speaker 2: when they don't have the benefit of actually going back
Speaker 2: to square one with everybody and recruiting for people that
Speaker 2: genuinely have the same values.
Speaker 3: What do you recommend that people do in that scenario.
Speaker 1: It's a lot to unpack. I would start by acknowledging
Speaker 1: that we're in a pandemic. So culture, even in a
Speaker 1: well fine tuned remote setting, looks different in a pandemic.
Speaker 1: It is much less about company wide raw raw right
Speaker 1: now and more about let's make sure each other are okay,
Speaker 1: that we have the time, the space, whatever it is
Speaker 1: we need to just be okay. The bar is different
Speaker 1: right now. Being okay and bonded as a team is
Speaker 1: a fine bar. You don't necessarily need thousands of raw
Speaker 1: raw champions for your culture right now, so we'll start there.
Speaker 1: But forecasting in a different space when we can get
Speaker 1: back to that. It really comes down to leadership. Thriving
Speaker 1: as a remote worker. You can only get so far
Speaker 1: as an individual, and then there's a certain point where
Speaker 1: the gate has to be lifted up and the rest
Speaker 1: of that liberation in that atmosphere, it has to be
Speaker 1: enabled by leadership. It has to be enabled and modeled
Speaker 1: by leadership. And frankly, now is as good a time
Speaker 1: as any for leaders to question their values. To open
Speaker 1: their website, look at what the value say and ask
Speaker 1: themselves are these still relevant for the post COVID universe.
Speaker 1: This is a massive sea change. This is a complete
Speaker 1: re architecting of how many digital firms are going to
Speaker 1: look and do work Going forward, things might be different.
Speaker 1: I encourage leaders to write down what's it like to
Speaker 1: work here at my company? And if you're not thrilled
Speaker 1: with the answer, you might need to change some things
Speaker 1: coming out of this now. For individuals who might not
Speaker 1: be in that leadership perspective, this is now a very
Speaker 1: important time to get introspective and make sure that the
Speaker 1: go forward plan at your company aligns with what you
Speaker 1: want culturally. I do expect globally some short term attrition
Speaker 1: as these shifting sinds happen. People are going to take
Speaker 1: a look at what the go forward plan is for
Speaker 1: their company, and some people are going to say, you know,
Speaker 1: I opted into a more rigid culture, a more co
Speaker 1: located culture. This isn't going to work for me. I
Speaker 1: may need to find a different place that is more
Speaker 1: aligned with the current season of life that I'm in.
Speaker 1: Some people are going to see this as an incredibly
Speaker 1: progressive thing. They're going to celebrate it, and they're going
Speaker 1: to be grateful that we're finally ushering ourselves into the
Speaker 1: future of work. It's a strange and unfortunate way to
Speaker 1: get here, but we're here nevertheless. So I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: you have to satisfy one hundred percent of your workforce.
Speaker 1: You just need to be extremely articulate on what the
Speaker 1: go forward plan is and then help people that are
Speaker 1: going to be on board with it, and then for
Speaker 1: those that don't want to be there, maybe even look
Speaker 1: to how the airlines have done voluntary exit packages. This
Speaker 1: is an amazing time. These are not usual times. There
Speaker 1: are there's not a playbook for how this is going
Speaker 1: to work out. So some extreme circumstances could see their
Speaker 1: way to fruition.
Speaker 2: Something I hear from a lot of clients that I'm
Speaker 2: speaking to is, well, you know what about those serendipitous
Speaker 2: conversations like they talk about the example of Steve joh
Speaker 2: you know, having the central kitchen and bathrooms, it peaks
Speaker 2: hard to create those serendipitous moments where ideas spring from
Speaker 2: from like.
Speaker 3: What do you say to that? And how like what's
Speaker 3: the remote work equivalent of doing that?
Speaker 1: So the funny thing about this story is that's not
Speaker 1: serendipitous at all. It was literally planned. This is the
Speaker 1: definition of planned innovation. The lobbies, the hallways, the restrooms,
Speaker 1: the physical architecture of this building was specifically planned so
Speaker 1: that people would talk to each other. That's the exact
Speaker 1: opposite of serendipity. So in a remote setting you also
Speaker 1: have to plan for engagements and interactions. Now this becomes
Speaker 1: a lot more obvious if you have a tool like
Speaker 1: get lab at the heart of your workflows, because anyone
Speaker 1: can put down just a one sentence idea and then
Speaker 1: share it company wide with a single link, and the
Speaker 1: amount of feedback and incubation that can happen on that
Speaker 1: is far more than you would get from just one
Speaker 1: or two people randomly in a hallway. It is a
Speaker 1: far more inclusive and expansive way to incubate this type
Speaker 1: of innovation. You simply need a tool at the heart
Speaker 1: of it to make it possible. So it sounds a
Speaker 1: bit paradoxical, but you really do have to work to
Speaker 1: plan innovation. And if you take a hard look at
Speaker 1: any office that's ever been invented, office lobbies, office cafeterias,
Speaker 1: these were intentionally designed structures for informal communication. So in
Speaker 1: a remote setting you have to recreate that. We use Slack.
Speaker 1: We have topical channels where people can talk about specific things,
Speaker 1: whether it's mental health or hiking or a certain product
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Or you can put meetings on
Speaker 1: optional meetings with agendas that people can contribute to asynchronously.
Speaker 1: So you have to plan for it. Remote makes you
Speaker 1: be intentional about a lot of things that you're able
Speaker 1: to take for granted in a physical space. But I
Speaker 1: assure you, somewhere before you showed up at the office,
Speaker 1: there was some planning done to help encourage that type
Speaker 1: of thing.
Speaker 3: I love that answer.
Speaker 2: I think that's so good and it just makes it
Speaker 2: like for me, I imagine, you know all these get lab
Speaker 2: employees commenting on things that if it were just like
Speaker 2: a conversation in some kitchen somewhere, they wouldn't have had
Speaker 2: the opportunity. So it's almost like it just sounds like
Speaker 2: a more sensible and better way of doing these conversations.
Speaker 1: It is. It's well, it's the opportunity and abundance versus
Speaker 1: scarcity mindset. And so for years people have thought two
Speaker 1: or three people that happened to run into each other
Speaker 1: in a hallway and have this amazing idea, Well, that's
Speaker 1: that's the new baseline, that is the gold standard. But
Speaker 1: when you think about it, well, number one, it was
Speaker 1: only three people, So what if that idea could be
Speaker 1: made even better if three thousand people had access to
Speaker 1: contribute to it without negatively impacting the schedule of any
Speaker 1: one person. And then the other thing is you're not
Speaker 1: requiring people to be available and online at the exact
Speaker 1: same time. So running into each other in a hallway,
Speaker 1: I get it. I've been there. It is a pretty
Speaker 1: cool moment when it happens, but it's an even cooler
Speaker 1: moment when it happens in a remote setting and you
Speaker 1: can get a ton more feedback. You just have to
Speaker 1: create the atmosphere where it works hundred percent.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned that you use slack but just for
Speaker 2: social purposes, not for work purposes.
Speaker 3: Can you talk a bit.
Speaker 2: About how you have gone about creating you know, the
Speaker 2: equivalent of water coolored conversation and just those social connections
Speaker 2: when a lot of people would never have met in person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the water cooler is yet another thing that is
Speaker 1: intentionally designed in a physical space, and so if you
Speaker 1: want that in a remote space, you have to intentionally
Speaker 1: design it. There are a certain set of forcing functions
Speaker 1: that we enlist to ensure that we remain remote first.
Speaker 1: And the reason the word forcing is there for a
Speaker 1: reason because these are not natural. Necessarily, they are not
Speaker 1: the default. Sometimes they feel a bit awkward at first,
Speaker 1: but nevertheless they ensure that we retain and remain in
Speaker 1: our remote first workflows. So inspiring our Slack messages after
Speaker 1: ninety days is one of those. If you know that
Speaker 1: your work is going to vanish after ninety days, then
Speaker 1: it's a pretty great forcing function to start the work
Speaker 1: where it's going to end up, which is in a
Speaker 1: get lab issue or a get lab merge request. So
Speaker 1: if we don't do long lengthy work in Slack. The
Speaker 1: only thing it's useful for is quick pings to usually
Speaker 1: direct people's attention to a get lab issue or informal communication.
Speaker 1: And this solves another major issue for remote teams, which
Speaker 1: is where do we just converse as humans, not as colleagues,
Speaker 1: but as humans. Well, if you aren't using Slack or
Speaker 1: teams for work, now you can just converse as humans.
Speaker 1: The great example I have of that is we have
Speaker 1: a parenting channel, and now that so many parents have
Speaker 1: children at home, they're dealing with remote learning for the
Speaker 1: first time ever. A lot of our parents are doubling
Speaker 1: as teachers' aids at the moment. This is an amazing
Speaker 1: medium where all of our parents can come together and
Speaker 1: share tips all around the world of how they're doing it,
Speaker 1: and they can trade shifts and work across teams. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: I don't think this would exist if Slack was primarily
Speaker 1: for work. People might not feel as comfortable being themselves
Speaker 1: and bringing things up like hey, I'm a parent and
Speaker 1: I need some help. But because we don't really do
Speaker 1: work in there, it's a perfect place for that. This
Speaker 1: is yet another example of not really reinventing the wheel.
Speaker 1: A lot of companies use Slack and Microsoft Teams, but
Speaker 1: if you just use it slightly differently, now it becomes
Speaker 1: this amazing enabler for remote work.
Speaker 3: I think that's that's really interesting, and I think.
Speaker 2: A lot of listeners will have Slack that they use
Speaker 2: for work and for social But I really do like
Speaker 2: the idea of just kind of segmenting that out and
Speaker 2: just kind of keeping it clean what it's used for.
Speaker 2: Something you have said, I think I read it in
Speaker 2: I can't remember whether it was your read me page,
Speaker 2: which I do want to talk about. You've said that
Speaker 2: being booked at one hundred percent is a risk. Can
Speaker 2: you explain what you mean by this and how you
Speaker 2: avoid you avoid that?
Speaker 1: Yes, so that was on my read me page. So
Speaker 1: being booked at one hundred percent is a risk, and
Speaker 1: I've always thought this. It has always driven me mad
Speaker 1: to have a booked, a fully booked calendar, because most
Speaker 1: the work that I'm most proud of has always come
Speaker 1: during long, uninterrupted blocks of time. And there are a
Speaker 1: bunch of Ted Talks and Simon Sinak and why work
Speaker 1: doesn't happen at work. There's a bunch of supporting evidence
Speaker 1: of why this says, But about a year ago someone
Speaker 1: asked me if I had heard of Kingman's formula, to
Speaker 1: which I replied, no, I have not. So I googled
Speaker 1: it and it's the mathematics behind this notion, and I
Speaker 1: was so excited to finally find someone that is intelligent
Speaker 1: about math, that put actual data in numbers behind something
Speaker 1: that I've long since known was true in my heart
Speaker 1: of hearts. The crux of this is if you have
Speaker 1: your entire day pre booked with meetings, it leaves no
Speaker 1: room whatsoever for real life to happen. So if anything
Speaker 1: at all happens, if your child stubs their toe and
Speaker 1: you need to go address that, even for eight minutes
Speaker 1: of your day, it has a massive, oftentimes catastrophically negative
Speaker 1: impact on your mental health, on the schedules of many
Speaker 1: other people, And there's this cascading set of effects that
Speaker 1: could go well beyond the day for a simple eight
Speaker 1: minute it or deal at home. So I view that
Speaker 1: is a massive risk. And if you extrapolate that over
Speaker 1: an entire company, if you have everyone booked at one
Speaker 1: hundred percent, where is the room for ingenuity. Teams are
Speaker 1: worried about serendipitous conversations. Let me tell you, being booked
Speaker 1: at one hundred percent is a guarantee that your company
Speaker 1: is going to have no innovation and no serendipitous conversations
Speaker 1: because there's no time for that. So we actively block
Speaker 1: our schedules. At get lab, everyone has a public calendar
Speaker 1: by default. We encourage people to go in there right
Speaker 1: as they're onboarding and block out things like hours that
Speaker 1: you want to take your kid to and from school,
Speaker 1: or hours that you prefer to exercise, or hours that
Speaker 1: you prefer to be away for lunch. Anything you can
Speaker 1: think of, feel free to block it. And when people
Speaker 1: book meetings and you see something like, hey, I'm exercising,
Speaker 1: you really do think twice about booking over that, because
Speaker 1: the golden rule. Would you really want someone to book
Speaker 1: a meeting time with you if you were doing something
Speaker 1: that was important to your personal life.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: It's funny, Like I myself when I'm looking at my calendar,
Speaker 2: I have my work calendar and my personal calendar in GCL,
Speaker 2: and I sort of never know whether to kind of
Speaker 2: merge the two so that people kind of know what
Speaker 2: I'm up to and maybe not to.
Speaker 3: Book over Yeah. I think that's really interesting, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a common issue. And I will say one
Speaker 1: thing that can help with that is a tool called clockwise.
Speaker 1: They allow you essentially it merges the two calendars, but
Speaker 1: whenever you have a personal stop, it will just say
Speaker 1: busy on your work calendar. So not everyone is comfortable
Speaker 1: being completely transparent about what is blocking, but at least
Speaker 1: it automates the blocking process. So, look, your personal life
Speaker 1: is a big deal. I've there's a book called Time
Speaker 1: Off by John Fitch, and in it he says that
Speaker 1: your rest ethic is just as important as your work ethic.
Speaker 1: And this is for the core of it. For me,
Speaker 1: it is just as orant for you to put meaningful
Speaker 1: attention on when you're going to rest as it is
Speaker 1: when you're going to work. It's just think of it
Speaker 1: as inhaling and exhaling. If you only do one or
Speaker 1: the other and never do the opposite, at some point
Speaker 1: this becomes a problem, and working and resting follows the
Speaker 1: same trajegory.
Speaker 3: I like that a lot.
Speaker 2: Now, I do want to talk about your read me page,
Speaker 2: which I'm going to link to in the show notes.
Speaker 2: What it reminds me of is I've heard Adam Grant
Speaker 2: talk about the idea of creating a one page operating
Speaker 2: manual which answers a few different questions around I think
Speaker 2: you know what your strengths and weaknesses are, what your
Speaker 2: pet peeves are, how to get the best out of me,
Speaker 2: how to respond to feedback those sorts of things, and
Speaker 2: it's something that you can then share with your teammates
Speaker 2: so that you can work more effectively together. I think
Speaker 2: that I'm sort of paraphrasing that somewhat accurately, and I
Speaker 2: feel like your read me page is kind of like
Speaker 2: an operating manual to knowing how to work with you,
Speaker 2: albeit one that is very, very detailed, which I love.
Speaker 2: Can you talk me through well, I guess for people
Speaker 2: that you know, I'm assuming that people will probably follow
Speaker 2: that link after hearing us talk about it. But for
Speaker 2: those that haven't been to your read me page, what
Speaker 2: does it look like and how did it come about?
Speaker 1: That is a very accurate description. Essentially, my read me
Speaker 1: page is an operating manual of how you can quickly
Speaker 1: get up to speed about working with me. It explains
Speaker 1: how I like to be communicated with, what I hope
Speaker 1: to earn in working with you, and what you need
Speaker 1: to know about me, things like personality type, my working style,
Speaker 1: when I generally prefer to work, and there are some
Speaker 1: videos and links that have been written about me so
Speaker 1: you can find some additional context. This is useful for
Speaker 1: many reasons, but it goes back to scaling knowledge. If
Speaker 1: you're working with me for the first time, we've never
Speaker 1: met in person, we might not even and know what
Speaker 1: each other looks like. It's probably going to take quite
Speaker 1: a few hours at best to build some sort of rapport,
Speaker 1: and there will be a lot of answering questions back
Speaker 1: and forth for each other to get an understanding of
Speaker 1: each other. This allows for a much more efficient process.
Speaker 1: You can read this entire page in roughly two minutes
Speaker 1: and you'll learn more about me than it would take
Speaker 1: you two weeks to learn this in person. I've been
Speaker 1: around enough and heard enough feedback that I feel like
Speaker 1: I can write this down and just get straight to
Speaker 1: the point. And an operating manual about people, if you're
Speaker 1: willing to put it out there, is super beneficial because
Speaker 1: other people then come to you and they know exactly
Speaker 1: how to make your day more efficient, and then conversely,
Speaker 1: they have a better understanding of how you're reacting to them.
Speaker 1: So where did this come from? Two places? One the
Speaker 1: get Lab ceo. If you look up the Getlab ceo page,
Speaker 1: he lists out very similar things, even talking about his
Speaker 1: common flaws, things that he has received feedback on time
Speaker 1: and time again that he's still actively working to improve
Speaker 1: upon as a human being. And I thought, well, if
Speaker 1: our CEO could model that type of thing, maybe I
Speaker 1: should write something like that as well. There's also a
Speaker 1: gentleman named Jeremy on our team who created or read
Speaker 1: me about himself that I used as a template and
Speaker 1: I built on that. So kudos to Jeremy for writing
Speaker 1: that down first. Read me's for people aren't necessarily new,
Speaker 1: but I think read me as an operating manual within
Speaker 1: a remote setting is incredibly powerful, especially for people that
Speaker 1: aren't drafting on in person relationships. When you're genuinely working
Speaker 1: with someone that's net new, it's a big deal.
Speaker 2: I want to know for people that are thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: that sounds like a great idea, I'm going to create
Speaker 2: my own operating manual, what are some of the key
Speaker 2: questions that people should be answering about themselves to make
Speaker 2: it really useful?
Speaker 1: So the cool thing about anything in the get lab handbook.
Speaker 1: My read me included it's all creative commons and all
Speaker 1: open source, so you literally can copy and paste it
Speaker 1: and change it up and use it as a template
Speaker 1: without even asking for permission. But the core areas that
Speaker 1: need to be in there are about you, what you
Speaker 1: think you are, what matters to you, what makes you
Speaker 1: a person, and then another section on how you can
Speaker 1: help me, and then another section on your working style,
Speaker 1: one more section on what you assume about others, one
Speaker 1: on what you want to earn, and then communicating with me.
Speaker 1: This is a really important one, especially in a remote setting.
Speaker 1: I really like a synchronous communication. I really like written
Speaker 1: communication if you can engage with me over text instead
Speaker 1: of jumping straight into a voice or video call. I
Speaker 1: generally prefer that that is not the case for everyone,
Speaker 1: and this is why it is very useful to have
Speaker 1: that written down so so that there are as few
Speaker 1: misinterpretations as possible.
Speaker 2: Now I have a couple of final questions for you
Speaker 2: time that we have. My first one is what companies
Speaker 2: do you look to for inspiration on remote work? Because
Speaker 2: I think before I discovered you and git lab via
Speaker 2: one of my teammates, Charlotte Rash. I got a lot
Speaker 2: of my inspiration definitely from the guys at base Camp
Speaker 2: and also Matt Mullenwig at Automatic, and I'm wondering, where
Speaker 2: where do you look?
Speaker 3: Who else is doing it well?
Speaker 1: Those two for sure. Shopify is another one that I've
Speaker 1: been very encouraged by. They have made a move what
Speaker 1: they're calling digital by default, and it is really hard
Speaker 1: to transition to remote first or all remote, especially if
Speaker 1: you had a coocated culture, and they're doing it as
Speaker 1: well as any company I've seen at that size. They're
Speaker 1: being very open about it, very transparent about it, and
Speaker 1: they're putting wellness front and center. I'm very encouraged by that.
Speaker 1: The folks that dost have also open sourced a lot
Speaker 1: of their knowledge, which I think is amazing. And there's
Speaker 1: another startup called all My they're essentially building a knowledge
Speaker 1: base and they're going to have version control in this
Speaker 1: as well, so that you can use this to build
Speaker 1: your own company handbook. If you're a bit overwhelmed thinking
Speaker 1: how can I replicate the get lab handbook for my company.
Speaker 1: Almanac allows you to pull from open source templates from
Speaker 1: the world's best knowledge, so you don't have to start
Speaker 1: from scratch. So I think what they're doing is incredibly
Speaker 1: powerful and it could not come at a better time
Speaker 1: now that so many companies are suddenly remote. So go
Speaker 1: to Almanac, and they have done the legwork of finding
Speaker 1: the world's best open source knowledge on all of this.
Speaker 1: And I'll close with one other thing, and that's a
Speaker 1: ton of small companies you've never heard of, but will
Speaker 1: in five years. I think what will happen is in
Speaker 1: five to eight years, it's going to seem like an
Speaker 1: overnight phenomenon that the percentage of all remote companies is
Speaker 1: going to skyrocket. It's going to seem like it happened overnight.
Speaker 1: But indeed what is happening is they're all being born
Speaker 1: as startups in twenty twenty when you can't go to
Speaker 1: an office, they have no other choice, So they're simply
Speaker 1: building and scaling their team, all remote, and they're never
Speaker 1: going to know anything different. And then, of course some
Speaker 1: of them are going to grow and grow, and then
Speaker 1: there will be a few massive exits and IPOs, and
Speaker 1: it will seem to the mainstream that overnight this became
Speaker 1: some amazing phenomenon. But pay close attention to the small companies,
Speaker 1: the five, ten, fifteen, fifty person companies that are doing
Speaker 1: this all remote. What they are writing down, what they
Speaker 1: are building right now is a model for how to
Speaker 1: do it, and a lot of that actually can be
Speaker 1: scaled up and extrapolated even into larger legacy organizations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's such a good point.
Speaker 2: Now, something about your background that I learned when I
Speaker 2: was researching you is that you were managing editor for
Speaker 2: in Gadget for part of your seven and a half
Speaker 2: years working there, and you were the global editor in
Speaker 2: shape for tech Radar. So I feel like I'm a
Speaker 2: bit of a geek when it comes to gadgets, but
Speaker 2: you're clearly at a.
Speaker 3: Whole other level.
Speaker 2: I want to know what are some of your favorite
Speaker 2: gadgets that you're loving right now? You know that help
Speaker 2: you be better at remote work, or more productive or
Speaker 2: just happier in general.
Speaker 1: I love this question. So right now, the more monitors,
Speaker 1: the better I have this immense workstation. It looks like
Speaker 1: something out of NASA, like I could launch rockets to
Speaker 1: space from here. The more screen real estate, the better
Speaker 1: it allows me to space things out, and it gives
Speaker 1: me the way I look at it as mental space
Speaker 1: and screen, real estate space are very closely correlated, so
Speaker 1: the more space I can have, the better. I also
Speaker 1: love my Sony mirrorless camera. If you go to my
Speaker 1: read me. In fact, I have my entire videocam setup
Speaker 1: and I love it. It's much better than a webcam.
Speaker 1: I do a lot of interviews and it's fun to
Speaker 1: tinker with this. Yob the CEO of remote dot com,
Speaker 1: has an even more amazing setup. Be sure to check
Speaker 1: out the remote dot com blog for a look at
Speaker 1: what he uses. I think this is a fun new
Speaker 1: space all time. My favorite gadget is the MacBook Air.
Speaker 1: It fundamentally reshaped computing. It's still one of my favorite computers. Ever,
Speaker 1: I still keep one around as a secondary I think
Speaker 1: it's like ten years old now or something. It is
Speaker 1: amazing how productive it still is. My all time favorite
Speaker 1: moment from covering technology for almost a decade is being
Speaker 1: at what became Steve Jobs's final product keynote. So I
Speaker 1: was fortunate to be in the auditorium for many of
Speaker 1: the iPhone launches and the Mac launches, and it was special.
Speaker 1: They didn't invite very many editors to those events and
Speaker 1: I was able to be there In person with what
Speaker 1: became the final keynote from Steve Jobs and still have
Speaker 1: the lanyard from that event, so very cool. Lots of
Speaker 1: great memories from that era.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's quite amazing.
Speaker 2: And I did say that on your read me page
Speaker 2: there is literally list of your whole remote office set,
Speaker 2: which was really cool. Is are there any gadgets that
Speaker 2: I guess sort of sit outside of the office or
Speaker 2: things that just you enjoy using for life? Like something
Speaker 2: I got recently is a smart skipping rope and I
Speaker 2: can't remember the name of the brand.
Speaker 3: I got it on the Apple Store, speaking of Apple.
Speaker 2: And it basically counts the number of skips that you do,
Speaker 2: which I'm currently getting a lot of joy out of
Speaker 2: every morning. I'm going to do two hundred skips and
Speaker 2: that will kind of warm me up to do my
Speaker 2: home gym.
Speaker 3: I'm really loving that at the moment.
Speaker 2: Is there anything in your life, maybe outside of your office,
Speaker 2: that you're liking from a gadget point of view, That's.
Speaker 1: A great question. I'm going to bend the answer to
Speaker 1: this somewhat and I realized that this is sort of
Speaker 1: a North American centric answer, but I have a few
Speaker 1: credit cards that give me amazing perks at hotels and
Speaker 1: airlines around the world. So for me, wanderlust is in
Speaker 1: my DNA. And so when I'm not working at home
Speaker 1: in a workspace that I've defined to be somewhere else,
Speaker 1: I want to be on the road. I want to
Speaker 1: be exploring a new place, exploring a new culture. I
Speaker 1: want to travel as efficiently and as luxuriously as possible.
Speaker 1: And there are some fun credit cards that allow you
Speaker 1: to earn points and buy free travel. It's amazing what
Speaker 1: you can do if you start digging down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: I actually spent a stint at the Points guy. They
Speaker 1: are the go to resource on all of this. So
Speaker 1: my fun out of office gadgets would all be related
Speaker 1: to airline travel. I have a backpack that I think
Speaker 1: is very efficient that we could nerd out on for
Speaker 1: a while, But most of it comes back to committing
Speaker 1: to an airline, sticking with them, and then enjoying the
Speaker 1: perks that come from that.
Speaker 2: Okay, but tell me about this backpack. I want to
Speaker 2: nerd out on this backpack place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a mountain hardware. It's mostly designed for mountaineering.
Speaker 1: It's designed for actually climbing mountains. But I have repurposed it.
Speaker 1: It has great accessibility at the very top, and when
Speaker 1: you think about conventional air travel, slide your backpack underneath
Speaker 1: the seat. A conventional backpack, the zippers don't really open
Speaker 1: up in the right way. You have to pull it
Speaker 1: all the way out and then unzip it around the
Speaker 1: front and then you can get to what you want.
Speaker 1: But this backpack is expressly designed to be accessed from
Speaker 1: the top, and so I just love the organization and
Speaker 1: the compartmentalization because it works really well when you have
Speaker 1: one shoved in the overhead and you don't want to
Speaker 1: pull the whole thing down, or you have one shoved
Speaker 1: under the seat in front of you. You might can
Speaker 1: tell that I'm a million mile around Delta and I
Speaker 1: really do spend a ton of time in planes, and
Speaker 1: so something is nuanced in that really does improve my
Speaker 1: quality of life.
Speaker 2: I can totally understand that I do not have the
Speaker 2: ideal backpack for flying with.
Speaker 3: Darren.
Speaker 2: My final question, if people want to learn more about
Speaker 2: what you are doing and connect in some way, what
Speaker 2: is the best way to do that.
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn. I'm at
Speaker 1: Darren Murph on both of those if you google get
Speaker 1: Lab Remote Playbook, I author that. I also offer third
Speaker 1: Living the Remote Dream. This was a guy that I
Speaker 1: wrote after I set my world record at Engadget and
Speaker 1: had about a month off to travel between rolls. So
Speaker 1: check that out on Amazon and if you don't love it,
Speaker 1: send me a note, and the next round of ice
Speaker 1: cream is on me.
Speaker 3: That's awesome. I'll link to all of that in the
Speaker 3: show notes.
Speaker 2: Darren, it has just been fascinating talking with you.
Speaker 3: I've loved du chat. Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 3: That is it for today's show.
Speaker 2: If you liked hearing Darren talk about remote working, why
Speaker 2: not share it with someone else that you know.
Speaker 3: That could benefit.
Speaker 2: Obviously, so many companies are trying to work out how
Speaker 2: to make remote working really work, and I just think.
Speaker 3: Darren has such great insight on this topic.
Speaker 2: So I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will
Speaker 2: see you next time.