21st Century Work Life and leading remote teams

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd - head over to our detailed shownotes for more depth on the main discussion, as well as links to all our other episodes, services and content.

Today’s episode is all about planned spontaneity. But firstly our regular news round-up:

• Owl Labs has released their ‘State of Remote Work 2019’ report. It highlights a huge variety in the meaning and scope of remote work, a reminder that we should not assume it means the same thing to different people
• On the other hand, research from Airtasker published by Yahoo tells us that remote workers work more and have poorer work-life balance, and paints a very different picture to the report above. But that just goes to show how hard it is to compare like with like in this fragmented space. What do you think? Here’s the link to the original research.
• Co-working - apparently the best low-cost option in San Francisco is a parking space - and why not! It might not work quite so well in London... Lots of interest here, including the idea of co-working becoming unaffordable in city hotspots, and the human connection of this ties in nicely with today’s theme of spontaneity
• New co-working options like And Co (UK), and CoCo (US/International) are seeking to reclaim work space on a more flexible and fractional way, so maybe this will be the future? More grassroots and user-centric than the WeWork corporate top-down stuff, maybe that’s what we need to get back to...
• Slack released a load of updates this week, including a tool to invite up to 1000 users to a channel. Do we want to be in Slack channels with thousands of users? Well, these tools continue to evolve in response to users, and they’re replacing intranets in large organisations. Let’s hope everyone knows how to manage their notifications!
• Looking ahead to an upcoming episode on social change, and the general idea that ‘remote work is the future’, we do need to make sure we’re not excluding whole industries or categories of work. Remote may be the future for knowledge workers, but let’s be careful not to generalise and create divisions. The future is blended and flexible, rather than specifically ‘remote’.

Please see https://virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/planned-spontaneity - or simply enjoy the conversation.

In this episode, host Pilar Orti talks to Sagar Chandni, who describes himself as a distributed work practitioner and a strategy leader with a heart. We talk about the nuances of these terms and the evolving nature of work, particularly in India where Sagar is based.

Sagar discusses his work with startups and the challenges and opportunities they face, and shares his approach to informed leadership, ethical business strategies, and workplace inclusiveness, as well as the importance of embracing a mindset shift and approaching work in a way that fosters meaningful connections and positive impact both personally and professionally. He also gives us a view of the startup landscape in India. Yes, we cover a lot in this episode! Find out more about Sagar and his work: Connect with Sagar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sagarchandni/

Check out his LinkedIn show Virtual Global Leadership Podcast Subscribe to his newsletter: https://strivewithsagarchandni.substack.com/

For a written summary check out https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/leader-with-heart

Really connecting with our core consulting work at Virtual Not Distant, today is all about virtual teams – we talk about the idea of ‘virtual distance’, and how there are many ways that distance and closeness can be created.

Also coming soon, look out for Pilar’s book, Online Meetings that R.O.C.K. – expanded and advanced and taking longer than expected due to fantastic insightful feedback from beta readers, find out what changed about the ‘C’! It’s going to be worth the wait.

07.15 What do you mean by that: Virtual Distance, with Dr Karen Lojeski

We really enjoyed this conversation with Karen Lojeski, founder and CEO of Virtual Distance International, and author of The New Rules of the Virtual Workplace.

Virtual Distance describes what gets lost, when the human is translated through a machine. Karen’s original research found out that this could be measured and understood – and that it definitely impacts on relationships and collaborations to a measurable extent.

But it is NOT dependent purely on physical distance – that is merely one dimension in a complex system, involving operational and affinity distance as well. When virtual distance is high we damage innovation, trust and performance. And it doesn’t only apply at work...

After all these are human factors, the technology is much less important. As Karen explains, "We often mix up the notion of the computer as a tool with the computer as somehow being smarter than the person and it just couldn't be further from the truth."

We are so much more complex and significant and interesting, the machines don’t come close.

Check out both of Karen’s inspiring books on virtual team leadership.

39.05 Recommended tools: Voicedream

A little while ago in episode 173 we discussed the medical affliction we affectionately described as ‘homeworkers bum’, a syndrome exacerbated by work which involves lots of reading and research.

It’s not easy to read whilst doing anything but sitting down, but Voicedream is an app which reads written text aloud. It’s not perfectly ‘human’ of course, but this is a technology which is rapidly evolving and will surely improve. But for now this is a nice app which can sync with Pocket (which we discussed in episode 172), so it helps you get through your reading queue more quickly, even when you’re out for a walk.

42.36 Oh No, my team’s gone remote, and I know we’ll grow more distant, but I don’t know how!

Instead of our usual talking head format, Pilar gives us a little exercise to complete, to help us plan or reflect upon the virtual distances within our teams – and perhaps lead to improvements in how you work together.

Here’s the diagram you will need, to work through the exercise whilst thinking about YOUR team. You can find Pilar’s diagram for this at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/virtual-distance.

How do the different expectations and behaviours impact on your work, and how interdependent are your activities? You can score yourself on the many different dimensions of virtual distance, to see how you’re doing.

If you do this as individuals within a team, how do your ratings compare? How do you think they will evolve over time, if you are transitioning to new ways of working?

And can you see how little of the whole picture has to do with physical distance?

Remember to review, reflect and learn, from your exercise into virtual distance. Please let us know how it went for you, and make sure you’re subscribed for future episodes.

In this episode Pilar and Lisette review some of the latest news in the world of work and offer some guidance on how to review your communication infrastructure in your virtual team.

Pilar introduces this episode and she mentions this book (well, she mentions Tim Harford but can't remember the title!) Messy: How to be creative and resilient in a Tidy-Minded World

She mentions this episode from Evidence Talks about the Right to Disconnect law in France. http://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/4994834

Let us know what you think of this format: http://virtualnotdistant.com/contact-us/

Oh, man, the book... What Lisette has learned about her writing process.

We talk about Trello's aquisition by Atlassian and the comments in Michael Pryor's blog post. http://blog.trello.com/trello-atlassian

Are we getting used to tools being free?

Pilar has discovered a new feature in Zoom which could help more people jump on video calls. Listeners: Does it bother you to see yourself on the screen during video calls?

Pilar is co-hosting a new podcast. http://www.futureworkcentre.com/what-we-do/education/evidencetalks/

How CEO's can lead the transition from office-based to virtual and encourage people to use tech mindfully. http://digitalworkplacegroup.com/2016/06/16/im-working-weekends-but-ignore-my-ceo-habits/

France's new law, the right to disconnect. Do we need legislation to encourage conversation? https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/dec/31/french-workers-win-legal-right-to-avoid-checking-work-email-out-of-hours

Have a listen to the More or Less episode: Does Sweden Really Have a Six Hour Day? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04kt3p6

around 30mins mark Pilar talks about the PIC framework to help you build a communication infrastructure for a virtual team and how you can cross-check it with self-determination theory of motivation, to make sure you're not dampening intrinsic motivation.

Personal information Information - documents Collaboration

When you're designing processes and choosing tools, and role-modelling behaviours , also keep an eye out that you're not squashing any of the three components of intrinsic motivation: autonomy, competence and relatedness.

Tools mentioned: Linoit http://en.linoit.com/ Trello Do get in touch! http://virtualnotdistant.com/contact-us/

In this episode, we focus on the 21st Century Work Life podcast: how it’s evolved and what it could cover in the future. And our guests have come wise words for you, our listeners. 00.00 mins Pilar shares how the show has evolved over the last 100 episodes. Some of the episodes she mentions are: episode 209 The Journey of the Remote Leader, episode 263 “Remote” is not the Only Challenge, episode 282 Asynchronous Facilitation and Online Collaboration, episode 286 The Challenges of Adopting Asynchronous Communication.

09.05 mins Bree and Pilar talk about the Connection and Disconnection in Remote Teams series and how the conversations around remote work in general changed during the pandemic. 15.39 mins We hear some general suggestions from guests about what they’d like a podcast like ours to cover in the future. Tim Burgess is first, he’s been leading a distributed company for a few years - he would like to hear more “secrets” from people who are in the remote space. Then we hear from Theresa Sigillito Hollema, who as a guest has talked about leading global teams, her speciality. She’s interested in the psychology of working away from each other. Theresa refers to My Pocket Psych, so its from its host, Dr. Richard MacKinnon, who we hear from next. He’s also appeared on this show as guest, and as part of the Connection and Disconnection series. He would like the show to cover the “how to” for those new to the space (especially if it’s evidence-based). He’s followed by Mark Kilby, who’s also been on this show a lot, (and who Pilar got to meet in person, in London!) and would like a mix of the “how” and the “why”. Then we hear from Pinar Akkaya, it’s the first time she’s guested on this show. She’s looking for inspiration and “what if” scenarios. 24.49 mins Other guests have more specific suggestions. Simon Wilson kicks this bit off. He’d like to hear more - and be involved in conversations - about what asynchronous communication looks like in those teams embracing it, plus deep conversations about organisational culture. We then hear from Ross Winter, our podcast polisher, who would like to hear answers to questions like, Why are we spending so much time looking for connection online? Eva Rimbau Gilabert suggest we cover the transition to hybrid (of which there are many versions), especially when we can back it up with academic research, while Bree encourages us to continue with the diversity of perspectives and deepening the conversation about the future of work. 31.32 mins Finally, the guests have some final words for listeners of the show, and Pilar. We hear from Maya, Simon, Eva, Pinar, Richard, Tim, Ross (and cat!), Bree, Mark, and Theresa, who leaves us with an inspiring aspiration. And thanks to Anish Hindocha, for contributing to the two other parts of this episode! (By the way, Pilar has “podcastinitis” and hosts many shows!) And we have some outtakes from 40.03mins for your amusement after our MANY THANKS to all of you!