#Remote 2: The One Non-Negotiable on Remote Teams

WEBVTT 1 00:00:09.390 --> 00:00:16.230 Her Boyfriend's house is made entirely out of Alpaca wool and sprits with concentrated garlic. 2 00:00:18.109 --> 00:00:23.100 This is the main problem between them. Their relationship is entirely enviable, 3 00:00:23.739 --> 00:00:29.460 except for the smells. Her mother knows this. She approves of the relationship, 4 00:00:29.859 --> 00:00:33.619 but not the house. She knows that what starts as a bit of 5 00:00:33.659 --> 00:00:39.490 garlic on the sleeves lingers and rises to the nostrils of hiring managers, college 6 00:00:39.490 --> 00:00:45.729 admissions officers, friends, customers and fellow shoppers. You don't get rated higher 7 00:00:45.770 --> 00:00:51.240 in anyone's book for being pungent. So our mother gives her only one rule, 8 00:00:51.399 --> 00:00:56.600 and it's a simple one. Don't go in that house. Anywhere else 9 00:00:56.759 --> 00:01:02.600 is fine, just stay away from the wooly whiffy whereabouts. Still, her 10 00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:07.430 mother thinks, why take a chance? If it is within her power to 11 00:01:07.549 --> 00:01:11.709 prevent something disastrous, why wouldn't she do it? And so when the girl's 12 00:01:11.750 --> 00:01:17.230 birthday rolls around and her mother buys her a beautiful new car, there's a 13 00:01:17.310 --> 00:01:23.019 catch. The vehicle has been preprogrammed with strict features. After every three turns, 14 00:01:23.180 --> 00:01:27.780 the self driving function takes over and pulls the car over beside the nearest 15 00:01:27.819 --> 00:01:34.170 curve. Then the girl has to blow into a breathalyzer. If our garlic 16 00:01:34.209 --> 00:01:38.010 levels are low enough, she can merge back into traffic and be on her 17 00:01:38.049 --> 00:01:44.250 way, at least until after the next three turns. It's all so simple, 18 00:01:45.090 --> 00:01:49.239 and the best part is she'll never touch that house again. If she 19 00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:53.280 does, her mother will know they have an agreement. After all, one 20 00:01:53.400 --> 00:02:00.040 failed test in the relationship is over. The stakes are clear, the expectations 21 00:02:00.079 --> 00:02:04.590 are out on the table. No one should be surprised if her mother steps 22 00:02:04.670 --> 00:02:09.229 into end things. There's just one problem. When the daughter looks at her 23 00:02:09.270 --> 00:02:15.740 mother now, she doesn't see more opportunities or better perfume or loving consideration or 24 00:02:15.979 --> 00:02:23.500 crisis averted. Instead, now and forever, she sees three turns and a 25 00:02:23.539 --> 00:02:42.090 breathalyzer. Welcome back to remote, a new series on BB growth about where 26 00:02:42.129 --> 00:02:46.240 remote cultures break down and how to make them stronger than ever. My name 27 00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:50.680 is Ryan Drotty and I'm the director of culture and people opps, a sweet 28 00:02:50.680 --> 00:02:53.280 fish media, which has been a fully remote team for the entirety of its 29 00:02:53.319 --> 00:02:59.789 existence. Today I want to talk about the single most important gift leaders can 30 00:02:59.870 --> 00:03:06.550 give to their remote teams, and he guesses it's not flexibility, it's not 31 00:03:06.669 --> 00:03:10.509 a good text act, money or open lines of communication. It's not even 32 00:03:10.590 --> 00:03:16.180 clear expectations. All of these things are important, obviously, but it's possible, 33 00:03:16.819 --> 00:03:21.740 though not easy, to work around them if they're absent. There's really 34 00:03:21.819 --> 00:03:25.419 only one nonnegotiable and remote work, and it can be summed up in one 35 00:03:25.539 --> 00:03:32.129 word trust. If you're not willing to trust your people, don't even bother 36 00:03:32.449 --> 00:03:38.969 trying to go remote. It will never work, I promise you. We'll 37 00:03:38.009 --> 00:03:42.719 talk more about what trust does and doesn't mean in a minute, but for 38 00:03:42.879 --> 00:03:46.479 now let's explore a specific example of what happens when you don't extend trust to 39 00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:51.919 your team. At Sweet Fish, everyone on the team tracks their time. 40 00:03:52.879 --> 00:03:54.909 We put this off for a long time because we didn't want our people to 41 00:03:54.990 --> 00:03:59.949 feel encumbered by the need to account for every spare minute of their day. 42 00:04:00.830 --> 00:04:04.789 It gets exhausting. Eventually, though, there was no arguing with the importance 43 00:04:04.830 --> 00:04:09.909 of that data for so many other decisions we were making, like how to 44 00:04:09.949 --> 00:04:15.060 price our service and how to distribute our efforts across our client base. So 45 00:04:15.180 --> 00:04:18.540 we found a tool we liked to great care to explain the why behind the 46 00:04:18.660 --> 00:04:25.329 decision to the whole team then integrated time tracking into everyone's job responsibility is as 47 00:04:25.329 --> 00:04:30.170 seamlessly as we could. There are time tracking tools out there that take random 48 00:04:30.170 --> 00:04:33.970 screenshots of people's computers throughout the day to try to catch them in the act 49 00:04:34.370 --> 00:04:41.560 of slacking off, scrolling through instagram or reading buzzfeed articles. It's hard to 50 00:04:41.639 --> 00:04:46.800 understand how disastrous those tools can be for building trust on a team. For 51 00:04:46.920 --> 00:04:51.600 obvious reasons, no one wants to work for big brother. You don't have 52 00:04:51.720 --> 00:04:56.949 to go that far to a road trust, though. For example, if 53 00:04:56.990 --> 00:05:00.829 you start expecting full time employees to track at least forty hours a week, 54 00:05:00.350 --> 00:05:04.310 you'll get exactly what you ask for, whether or not it's the truth. 55 00:05:05.750 --> 00:05:11.459 Instead, here's the tack we've tried to take with time tracking. We trust 56 00:05:11.540 --> 00:05:15.019 you. We hired you because we trust you to do the job and do 57 00:05:15.180 --> 00:05:20.019 it with integrity. The expectation is that you work forty hours a week, 58 00:05:20.569 --> 00:05:25.170 but if you work thirty three hours, that's what you should put on the 59 00:05:25.250 --> 00:05:30.769 tool. We won't hold hours worked as a performance metric, only tracking the 60 00:05:30.889 --> 00:05:35.639 time itself. If we ever have an issue with how much or little you're 61 00:05:35.680 --> 00:05:40.800 working, will talk to you about it. We'll figure out how to bridge 62 00:05:40.839 --> 00:05:46.600 the gap between expectations and reality. Together, we never want you to inflate 63 00:05:46.759 --> 00:05:51.189 your numbers. Failing to trust your people on the front end invites them to 64 00:05:51.269 --> 00:05:57.550 cut corners and do things worth losing your trust on the back end. It's 65 00:05:57.550 --> 00:06:02.550 an inglorious cycle. Is it a frightening concept for an employer who needs to 66 00:06:02.629 --> 00:06:08.459 guarantee the work is getting done? Yes, of course it is, but 67 00:06:08.579 --> 00:06:13.019 without a little faith up front, you sabotage your own culture because of fear. 68 00:06:13.100 --> 00:06:17.060 At the core of this discussion is your view of humanity, I suppose, 69 00:06:17.970 --> 00:06:23.689 or at least the particular subset of humanity that you've hired. If you 70 00:06:23.810 --> 00:06:27.610 believe the people generally want to do the right thing, you can trust them 71 00:06:27.649 --> 00:06:31.209 to do it. If you don't, you'll require enough restrictions to hold their 72 00:06:31.329 --> 00:06:38.199 dishonesty and check. One interesting use case here is companies with unlimited paid time 73 00:06:38.319 --> 00:06:43.839 off. Sweet fish is one such company. In theory, people could take 74 00:06:43.879 --> 00:06:47.990 advantage of a generous benefit like unlimited PTO in all kinds of ways. In 75 00:06:48.230 --> 00:06:53.910 reality, they almost never do. If you trust your team and you tell 76 00:06:53.990 --> 00:06:57.949 them to take time off only when it won't impede their work, they are 77 00:06:58.110 --> 00:07:02.220 very likely to reward that trust. Truthfully, I've had to hunt people down 78 00:07:02.379 --> 00:07:06.779 and make them take time off. We require the people take a minimum of 79 00:07:06.860 --> 00:07:11.860 ten days off every year. Let's go back to the story from the beginning. 80 00:07:12.699 --> 00:07:15.810 The mother installs a Breathalyzer and her daughter's new car that must be activated 81 00:07:15.850 --> 00:07:23.050 after every three turns, all because she might visit her boyfriends Smellie House. 82 00:07:24.329 --> 00:07:28.610 It makes sense why the mother wants her daughter to avoid that house. It'll 83 00:07:28.689 --> 00:07:33.279 follow her everywhere. It will affect every other area of her life and the 84 00:07:33.360 --> 00:07:39.240 same way, remote work leaders have legitimate fears about how their people spend their 85 00:07:39.279 --> 00:07:43.120 time. What if they work for two hours a day and slack off the 86 00:07:43.240 --> 00:07:47.149 rest? What if they stretch out a single thirty minute project into four hours? 87 00:07:48.189 --> 00:07:51.629 What if they aren't doing what they say they are? But as much 88 00:07:51.709 --> 00:07:57.829 inside as the Breathalyzer gives the mother into her daughter's whereabouts, it isn't worth 89 00:07:57.990 --> 00:08:03.819 the breakdown of trust. Not even close in fact. All it truly does 90 00:08:03.980 --> 00:08:07.259 is add more work to the mother's plate, more anger in the daughter and 91 00:08:07.379 --> 00:08:13.089 a more stressful dynamic for both. Remote work is the beautiful, brand new 92 00:08:13.170 --> 00:08:20.410 car we give to new hires. Working remotely is unbelievably freeing, the unparalleled 93 00:08:20.449 --> 00:08:24.410 flexibility the time it gives back to US for other areas of our lives. 94 00:08:24.850 --> 00:08:31.079 These are incredible benefits, but you can wipe out the pleasure of those benefits 95 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:35.440 for your team members if you don't trust them to wield them well. Rather 96 00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:41.990 than install the self driving triggers, why not just not hire people who keep 97 00:08:41.029 --> 00:08:46.590 going to garlic Alpaca houses? Therein lies the real problem, and it's a 98 00:08:46.669 --> 00:08:52.509 WHO problem, not a what problem. Replacing a bad apple on the team 99 00:08:52.629 --> 00:08:56.419 is expensive and never much fun, but what's important to note here is that 100 00:08:56.620 --> 00:09:01.419 it's possible. Once you lose trust with your people, on the other hand, 101 00:09:03.059 --> 00:09:07.820 you may never get it back. Before I sign off, let's talk 102 00:09:07.860 --> 00:09:13.649 for a minute about what trust means and what it doesn't here's what I believe 103 00:09:13.809 --> 00:09:20.649 it does mean. Presuming that everyone is fulfilling their job responsibilities unless you have 104 00:09:20.809 --> 00:09:26.440 good reason to believe they aren't, encouraging them to be honest about how much 105 00:09:26.519 --> 00:09:31.639 they work and how they spend their time, empowering them to set their own 106 00:09:31.679 --> 00:09:35.000 schedules, prioritize their own tasks and ask for help when they need it, 107 00:09:35.960 --> 00:09:43.669 believing what they tell you, adopting a posture of support rather than surveillance, 108 00:09:45.110 --> 00:09:48.230 expecting them to do what they say they will do when they say they will 109 00:09:48.269 --> 00:09:54.700 do it. Here's what I believe. Trust does not mean failing to assign 110 00:09:54.860 --> 00:10:01.779 clear goals and deadlines to people. Side Note. The problem here is when 111 00:10:01.860 --> 00:10:05.659 you follow up with people to check on their progress before the agreed upon do 112 00:10:05.820 --> 00:10:09.889 date arrives. Instead, get their agreement on when they will deliver something, 113 00:10:11.250 --> 00:10:15.049 then let them be the masters of their own fate in one of three ways 114 00:10:15.809 --> 00:10:20.330 delivering on time, failing to the liver on time or asking you to revise 115 00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:28.240 the timeline. Trust also does not mean having no red flag system. If 116 00:10:28.360 --> 00:10:31.039 someone is taking advantage of you, there should be ways to know it, 117 00:10:31.639 --> 00:10:37.269 whether it's through qualitative feedback from customers, managers or peers, or through quantitative 118 00:10:37.269 --> 00:10:43.070 data like not meeting quotas or not producing deliverables. Finally, trust does not 119 00:10:43.110 --> 00:10:50.539 mean letting bad behavior persist. You know this already. Letting poor performance or 120 00:10:50.580 --> 00:10:54.779 shady behavior go on for too long can be a culture killer. If you 121 00:10:54.179 --> 00:10:58.940 have reason to believe someone is not living up to the trust you give them, 122 00:10:58.659 --> 00:11:03.899 set them down, have an honest discussion, give them clear next steps, 123 00:11:03.259 --> 00:11:09.289 then part ways if the problems persist. Trust can be lost after it's 124 00:11:09.330 --> 00:11:13.649 given. After all, the woolye walls out there will always tempt you to 125 00:11:13.769 --> 00:11:20.200 turn their way and give them more attention than they deserve. This is fear 126 00:11:20.440 --> 00:11:26.240 talking. Trust your people, team, trust your managers, trust everyone. 127 00:11:26.440 --> 00:11:31.679 Come to think of it, the beautiful thing is if someone doesn't deserve your 128 00:11:31.799 --> 00:11:35.230 trust, they'll tell you, whether they mean to or not,