Speaker 1: Today's episode is another my favorite tip episode where I
Speaker 1: go back to interviews from the past and I dig
Speaker 1: out the thing that was my favorite tip, like the
Speaker 1: thing that I got out of the interview that really
Speaker 1: impacted or resonated with me. Today's extract is from my
Speaker 1: chat with Darren Murph, which was one of my favorite
Speaker 1: interviews of twenty twenty. So if you haven't come across Darren,
Speaker 1: Darren is Gitlab's head of Remote and that is really
Speaker 1: his title, And if you have never heard of GitLab,
Speaker 1: it's the world's largest all remote company, with over thirteen
Speaker 1: hundred team members in over sixty seven countries with no
Speaker 1: company owned offices. Darren has spent his career leading remote
Speaker 1: teams and chatting remote transformations, and also authored gitlabs Remote Playbook.
Speaker 1: Darren also holds a Guinness World Record as the planet's
Speaker 1: most prolific professional blogger, having published ten million words My Goodness,
Speaker 1: And in this extract of my chat with Darren, we
Speaker 1: talk about his four step process for making virtual meetings
Speaker 1: dramatically more effective, given that pretty much all the meetings
Speaker 1: that he's a part of are virtual. So let's head
Speaker 1: on over to Darren. Now, you mentioned the idea of
Speaker 1: synchronous versus asynchronous communication. And I know you've spoken about
Speaker 1: what companies that truly want to do remote work well
Speaker 1: need to do is replace the default of synchronous communication.
Speaker 1: Can you explain what you mean by that, like how
Speaker 1: companies do default to synchronous communication and what are the
Speaker 1: steps that a company needs to take to not do
Speaker 1: that because it's so well entranced into most company cultures.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to better understand this, you really have to go
Speaker 2: all the way back to grade school if you think
Speaker 2: about it. Early on. In our classical education, children are
Speaker 2: contained within four walls in a roof. We are conditioned
Speaker 2: from birth to operate in a synchronous manner in what
Speaker 2: is essentially an office for children. We are taught no
Speaker 2: other way, and so it's quite unusual to move projects
Speaker 2: forward or to build relationships when you aren't in the
Speaker 2: same place at the same time. You may hear things like, oh,
Speaker 2: but I prefer synchronicity. I prefer to be together, And
Speaker 2: most of that is because people don't have a solid
Speaker 2: baseline of how this could work well in any other fashion.
Speaker 2: So synchronicity is the default for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: They feel like reaching out and having conversations with people
Speaker 2: or tapping someone on the shoulder. It feels very productive.
Speaker 2: It makes you feel like you're contributing meaningfully to the organization.
Speaker 2: But in truth, these types of meetings and ad hoc
Speaker 2: interruptions are massively disruptive to the bottom line. They're massively
Speaker 2: disruptive to people's mental health. It's very difficult to get
Speaker 2: into a state of flow and make meaningful progress on
Speaker 2: any line of work if you're continuously being interrupted. There
Speaker 2: is a reason that Google is a machine and not
Speaker 2: a person, because if someone just essentially taps you as
Speaker 2: Google all day, you're going to get tired of answering
Speaker 2: those queries at some point. So it's a fundamentally more
Speaker 2: inclusive way to communicate your knowledge and to scale your
Speaker 2: knowledge by writing it down once so that it can
Speaker 2: be interpreted and used a limitless amount of times. But
Speaker 2: it takes a culture that is understanding of that. And indeed,
Speaker 2: if you look at the get lab onboarding process, we
Speaker 2: lay out guides that explain exactly how to adopt a
Speaker 2: self service mentality. We even have a handbook guide on
Speaker 2: how to use the handbook. We have another guide on
Speaker 2: how to search the Handbook. We are very prescriptive and
Speaker 2: articulate about the information infrastructure that we have set up.
Speaker 2: We essentially see the handbook as yet another product or tool.
Speaker 2: And so if you were coming into any company, you
Speaker 2: would expect an onboarding to get used to a key
Speaker 2: tool to do work, and we see the handbook as
Speaker 2: a key tool to do work.
Speaker 1: That's really cool. I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about meetings, and obviously at git lab you default
Speaker 1: to documentation instead of meetings, which I think is such
Speaker 1: a key like such a key point for listeners who
Speaker 1: are thinking how do we truly go remote to really
Speaker 1: think about because we are so conditioned to defaulting to meetings,
Speaker 1: it's the easiest thing to do. And I want to
Speaker 1: know when you do have meetings at get lab, what
Speaker 1: are the different rules that you have in place, Because
Speaker 1: I know there are some rules and guidelines for having
Speaker 1: meetings at get lab. I imagine that it is quite a
Speaker 1: significant thing if you're in to a meeting it get lab,
Speaker 1: given it's not the default. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 2: It is fair to say, and there is some context
Speaker 2: you need to understand here. It is easier for us
Speaker 2: to get away with this at get lab because people
Speaker 2: self select into get lab. You opt into get lab
Speaker 2: even in the interview process. You know what you're getting into.
Speaker 2: Everyone can read our handbook before they even apply here,
Speaker 2: and so people come here because they want to work
Speaker 2: this way. It is their default. And so we have
Speaker 2: a like minded group of people that want to have
Speaker 2: a bias towards a synchronous. In fact, bias towards a
Speaker 2: synchronous is one of the sub values of our diversity,
Speaker 2: inclusion and belonging value because it allows for a more
Speaker 2: inclusive course of voices to contribute to a project. So
Speaker 2: there's a five step process that, of course we have
Speaker 2: documented on questioning every meeting. The first is what is
Speaker 2: the outcome I am trying to achieve that has led
Speaker 2: me to a desire to schedule a meeting. You need
Speaker 2: to write that down and articulate that. Number two is
Speaker 2: can the desired outcome be broken down and the smaller tasks?
Speaker 2: If you can break things down to more incremental pieces,
Speaker 2: it's more likely that you can accomplish each individual element
Speaker 2: of that through an asynchronous means. Number three is can
Speaker 2: the desired outcome be achieved or work towards by dogfooding
Speaker 2: and using a get lab issue or merge request. Now,
Speaker 2: this is where it's important for me to point out
Speaker 2: that all of get lab uses get lab the product
Speaker 2: to collaborate. It is the heartbeat of our asynchronous workflow.
Speaker 2: So if you don't have a tool like this, you
Speaker 2: will need one. It is extremely hard to lean fully
Speaker 2: into a synchronous using a hodgepodge of phone calls, carrier pigeons,
Speaker 2: and email. You're going to need a tool at the
Speaker 2: heart of it. The fourth one is am I trying
Speaker 2: to gather consensus. If you are consensus gathering can be
Speaker 2: done asynchronously. Anyone can open up a get lab issue
Speaker 2: or a mural board or a Figma board and gather
Speaker 2: input and consensus, and then you can save the meeting
Speaker 2: until the decision making needs to curve. And even that
Speaker 2: decision making, which is step five, we ask people to
Speaker 2: consider can the decision be made asynchronous LEA And if
Speaker 2: it cannot, then we default to a synchronous meeting, but
Speaker 2: we will reserve that for the very end. And then
Speaker 2: if we have to have a meeting, we make it
Speaker 2: quite difficult for this to happen. Every meeting has to
Speaker 2: have an agenda attached to the calendar invite, so that
Speaker 2: temporal documentation takes place live during the meeting, and then
Speaker 2: the meeting organizer is responsible for transcribing and contextualizing any
Speaker 2: takeaways from that meeting into the get lab handbook so
Speaker 2: that the most amount of people can benefit from the
Speaker 2: knowledge that was gained in that meeting. It takes a
Speaker 2: cultural mindset company wide for this to actually work and
Speaker 2: be meaningful, but our people fundamentally believe that synchronous time
Speaker 2: is very precious and we would rather reserve that for
Speaker 2: informal communication, for coffee chats, for team wide triviasians and
Speaker 2: scavenger hunts, things that help us build bonds as a team,
Speaker 2: then just another work meeting. Now, of course we still
Speaker 2: have work meetings, but if we're rigorous enough to cut
Speaker 2: our meetings down by even fifty percent, most people listening
Speaker 2: to this would think, Wow, if I could have fifty
Speaker 2: percent fewer meetings, I think my zoom fatigue would go away.
Speaker 2: So we're not trying to eliminate meetings. We're just trying
Speaker 2: to have a thorough process so that you question it,
Speaker 2: because if you're going to have to write down the
Speaker 2: takeaway anyway, we would love for you to start by
Speaker 2: writing it down instead of doing double work with a
Speaker 2: meeting first and then writing it down.
Speaker 1: That is it for today's show. If you want to
Speaker 1: listen to the full episode, I link to that in
Speaker 1: the show notes, so you might want to check that out.
Speaker 1: And if you are enjoying how I work, I would
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Speaker 1: show and it also brings a huge smile to my face.
Speaker 1: So thank you to the hundreds of people that have
Speaker 1: left reviews. It is so deeply appreciated. So that is
Speaker 1: it for today's show and I will see you next time.