By: Your Friend Toby | Reading Time: 4 minutes
S1:E8 – How I deal with minor setbacks – Your Friend Toby
How many meetings did you have last week? Did any of those meetings lack clarity on the goal, a lack of commitment from the participants or fail to set timelines for deliverables? If you answered yes to any of those questions, read on.
My team is fully distributed. This means that the people I depend on to deliver great work are not in the same country. By default, our work is remote. And that means I need to be deliberate about teamwork and projects, if we are going to deliver on our OKRs.
Remote offers benefits like asynchronous work schedules, and drawbacks, such as barriers to building trust. There is ample proof that both in-person and remote teams can deliver amazing work and I enjoy both modes.
Despite all the buzz about remote work and collaboration, the fundamentals of teamwork for in-person and remote are quite similar. After all, you and I haven’t suddenly evolved and grown wifi chips in our brains.
I’d say remote makes it harder to hide when you’ve slacked or are not effective. Instead, the major changes are related to the tools we use, and the habits we need to work together effectively.
Whenever I approach a remote project, large or small, I ask myself three questions:
- What is the deliverable?
- What do I want my collaborators to contribute?
- By when does it need to be done?
I then go on to have a conversation with my team about on these three items. My pitch might sound something like this:
Hi Abriya,
To solve problem [q], I want to create [x]. It is my understanding, but correct me if I’m wrong, that you have experience with [y], which I believe can help make [x] better.
I’d like to talk with you about your possible involvement in working on [x] from the launch till the ideal delivery date of [z].
If you’re interested in project [x], I can schedule some time to discuss the details, so you can decide if this is something you want to commit to.
Best, Toby
Why do I frame the question in this way? In my experience, working together well requires the team to fuel the project with three things: clarity, commitment and a timeline.
When I frame the question like this, I usually receive one of these responses.
Is [x] the best solution?
Sometimes people want to discuss the deliverable, as they have a different idea to resolve the problem. That’s great! We can spend time redefining the problem statement and the potential solution, before moving on.
Not me, but her.
Sometimes people think their experience is not relevant, but know someone else who can help. This is helpful, as I can now talk with someone who might be able to help me solve this problem.
Yes, but not now.
Sometimes, people want to contribute, but cannot commit to the proposed timeline. As most timelines are artificial, this is the conversation I enjoy the most, because we can then simply figure out a timeframe for the project that accommodates both our schedules.
The purpose of collaboration is to maximize the quality of the project. I’ve found it incredibly helpful to sit down and create clarity of outcome, define what each team member will contribute, and to set clear expectations of when the work needs to be done before we start the project.
Once we agree on those three points, guiding the team to deliver on the project becomes much easier, especially while working remote.
Team work in general, and working remote specifically, requires a healthy mix of trust, autonomy and conscientiousness within the team. I trust them to stick to their commitments, and they trust me to stick to mine.
We’ve built that trust by consistently working together and delivering for each other, from day one.
So the next time you have to work with a remote team, try to be clear on the outcome, explain what you expect from the team upfront, and agree on the timeline. After that, all you have to do is deliver.
Your Friend Toby 