Distributed Work and the New Reality
By Brad Robertson, OYF Partner
The future of work arrived. And, with COVID-19, it arrived in a big hurry.
We are all collectively trying to learn new work habits, while simultaneously focusing on not going bonkers. And while we don’t have a clear sense of how long this will last or what comes next, it is becoming clear that this won’t be over in a couple of weeks. Or a couple of months.
In addition to new phrases like “flattening the curve” and “Tony Fauci,” we at On Your Feet are also learning new skills, like how to light your face for a Zoom meeting and how to mute yourself on a call while brushing your teeth.
This essay is designed to help you reframe how your team can work together and accesses some new (at least to us) ways of thinking about the world of “Distributed Work.”
But first, what is work anyway?
Work is about getting things done. It’s not about activities or time spent or being busy or collaborating. It’s about results. It’s about creating things of value that people want.
If nothing else, this MAJOR CHANGE TO EVERYTHING has caused many of us to re-examine many of the things that we do:
“Hey, can someone remind me why we have our Monday morning staff meeting?”
“Why do we have this client management software?”
“What does marketing do?”
“What outcome is _______ (this meeting, this process, me (!), this team, this organization, this company) creating?”
As this is happening, we are also changing the WAY that we work.
Jeez, that’s a lot all at once.
What is distributed work?
This current experience is called “distributed work,” not “remote” or “virtual” work.
If 9 or 90 people are in the office or meeting and one is in another city, that one person is remote.
In a distributed environment, the workplace is designed for everyone to be in a different place. Sound familiar?
For some of you (maybe, somewhere), this way of working is like the best thing ever, because there are few distractions and you are able to focus on THE MOST IMPORTANT WORK in an uninterrupted and focused fashion.
For many of us, though, we are migrating from one Zoom/Webex/FaceTime/phone call to the next and having a hard time at the end of the day (and week) feeling like it added up to much. You might spend the first few minutes of each video call thinking “What exactly is this meeting FOR?!?!?”
Plus, these lighting strategies to create a camera-ready videoconference persona are NOT working.
The Levels of Distributed Work
There are six levels, and your ability to move up the levels determines how successful you will be at working this way. To help paint a clearer picture of what this looks like and to add some additional context, I have used examples from my team here at On Your Feet.
Level 0: Can’t work from home at all
You are either at work or not working, because working from home is not an option. Sadly, for many people, their jobs are currently not available because of COVID-19.
Level 1: Pre-COVID-19
If you can’t make it into the office, you can sort of work from home or call into a meeting that everyone else is at, but most people are there in person and that is where things are happening. At Level 1, it is a big disadvantage not to be in the room.
Level 2: This is not good (aka, the first two weeks of COVID-19)
You simply replace your old processes with “remote” tools.
You have Zoom or Webex now, but you don’t like it all that much, and everything is synchronous. Everyone “works” from home from 9 to 5. There is one meeting at 10 a.m. (was that Pacific or Eastern time?) but then some people can’t make it and you spend hours trying to reschedule.
You can’t see everyone on the screen because some are in the witness protection program (backlit) and some have no microphone and you can’t hear them and the Internet keeps messing up and people freeze and the sound goes out and then you blame them for that and say, “Hey Beau, you are freezing up” as if this was his fault (it’s never your Internet that is the cause of this…).
And you do this for 8 hours a day and people burn out.
Level 3: This isn’t too bad
You start to take advantage of the tools and leverage how they are helpful. For example, you and your team use Google Docs to work on a document together from different locations or share screens on Zoom or use multimedia.
You get good audio and lighting so you can hear people and see them. People know the tools, and you don’t spend a lot of time frustrated. You are also able to create social interaction that is playful and generative but does not take a ton of time.
You can begin to create moments of improvisation and connection and joy on Zoom.
You learn when you need to stop being on video and just pick up the phone.
You start to see some real benefits of working this way.
Level 4: This is pretty good
You pass things off to your colleagues and they improve your ideas (this is especially helpful if you work in multiple time zones). You get good at baton passing.
You have clear rules on what your meetings are for and how many you should have.
As a team, you get good at sharing the “stage,” and you help each other share the right level of detail. You use “Color/Advance” from On Your Feet’s Distributed Work Toolkit Volume 1.
You know how long those meetings should be. You know which meetings should be video calls or on the phone and when to use a shared written document. A senior client said to us in a recent call that you also get more deliberate and clear in your written communication.
You might use the six-pager method made famous by Amazon. This is where, instead of a PowerPoint presentation that one person makes and others (pretend to) listen to, one person writes their argument and sends it out in advance of the meeting. At Amazon, at the beginning of the meeting everyone reads that paper (in an asynchronous culture you could have people read this beforehand), and they spend the meeting time discussing it.
Another benefit you start to see is a reduction in bias. Instead of the leader or the most charismatic or extraverted person’s ideas being most important, everyone’s ideas can be viewed anonymously and judged on the merits alone.
Level 5: Let’s keep it this way, even when we don’t have to
At Level 5, you are doing better work in a distributed way than you could face to face.
People are in their zones. They are in their favorite spots.
You are not wasting time commuting. One person we know is currently avoiding 20 hours a week on the freeways of Los Angeles County.
You don’t constantly distract one another, but can find ways to purposefully be together and social. Extraverts can sign up for a bit more of that social time, introverts a bit less.
You can do pushups between calls in your sweats or have a treadmill desk.
You can keep your own hours.
You can have a candle on your desk or listen to Jay Z or John Prine (may he RIP) or heavy metal or Bach.
Everyone can use their own best practices when it comes to getting results.
What Should You Do?
We suggest that you honestly evaluate where you are. Is your team operating at a Level 1 or Level 4? Ask multiple people on your team for their perspective.
Also, use this time to re-examine the “why” of what you are doing. What is the purpose of the meeting/process/goal and is there any other way to do it?
Move up the levels from where you are now. Get help from people who were doing this before 2020.
Experiment with new tools and let go of others.
Don’t forget the human aspect. Some people are excited to try new things and others will fight it. For people who are having a challenge letting go, work with them to understand why.
We are in a new era of work, and many people think that we won’t entirely go back to the old way. Companies and teams that adopt this way of working will have a real advantage, both now and in the post-COVID future.
Brad Robertson is co-owner and partner at On Your Feet. You can reach him here.
