The Manager’s Handbook Podcast - The Remote Series with Sid Sijbrandij

The Remote Series with Sid Sijbrandij

07/10/20 • 49 min

In Episode 1 of The Remote Series, Matt and Alex sit down with GitLab’s co-founder and CEO Sid Sijbrandij, as well as Darren Murph, GitLab’s Head of Remote. They chat about remote team bonding, collaboration, and the challenges companies will face if they reopen offices and go hybrid-remote. Love it or hate it, remote is a thing now, and CEOs everywhere must quickly adapt to running a digital-first workplace.

Resources

Sid Sijbrandij's tweet thread on the dangers of hybrid-remote

GitLab’s Remote Playbook

The key talking points for this episode:

(03:12) - GitLab’s foundation story: An intentionally remote company - “I think by far the biggest benefit has been the ability to hire great people.”

(12:03) - Achieving real connections through remote communication - “Work and social can reinforce each other, but it’s important that you have both conversations.”

(18:26) - How hybrid models represent a high risk for your company - “Your best remote people are going to leave, the rest of them are going to feel disenfranchised, and it’s going to be a failure. You’re going to blame it on remote, when the real problem is hybrid.”

(21:48) - On the myth of needing a physical office to be productive and social with your team - “It’s all about organizing informal communication.”

(29:39) - Remote collaboration and overcoming different time zones - “Naturally, it’s hard to engage in asynchronous communication. So get out of it as soon as it’s not functional.”

(34:11) - A common translation problem and the rarity of successful hybrid companies - “They don’t want to go back to the office, they want to go back to informal communication with each other.”

(39:18) - Welcoming feedback and making collaboration a priority - “We allow you to make suggestions. We are all about ‘everyone can contribute.’”

(45:00) - The importance of salary adjustment among your staff - “The market is the best mechanism for determining what someone will earn.”

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Resources

Sid Sijbrandij's tweet thread on the dangers of hybrid-remote

GitLab’s Remote Playbook

The key talking points for this episode:

(03:12) - GitLab’s foundation story: An intentionally remote company - “I think by far the biggest benefit has been the ability to hire great people.”

(12:03) - Achieving real connections through remote communication - “Work and social can reinforce each other, but it’s important that you have both conversations.”

(21:48) - On the myth of needing a physical office to be productive and social with your team - “It’s all about organizing informal communication.”

(29:39) - Remote collaboration and overcoming different time zones - “Naturally, it’s hard to engage in asynchronous communication. So get out of it as soon as it’s not functional.”

(39:18) - Welcoming feedback and making collaboration a priority - “We allow you to make suggestions. We are all about ‘everyone can contribute.’”

(45:00) - The importance of salary adjustment among your staff - “The market is the best mechanism for determining what someone will earn.”

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Previous Episode

Working as a Team

Episode 4 is all about strong teams and the importance of trusting each other. At Clearbit, we prevent trust from falling apart by using “impeccable agreements” between team members to get things done. Matt and Alex also talk about meetings, which should be regulated (and justified) to prevent time waste. Get the most out of meetings by structuring them and by writing things down to speed up information transfer and decision making.

We believe great management makes the world a better place. At Clearbit, we’re writing a handbook to train our managers, and we’re sharing it online at themanagershandbook.com. Each episode of this podcast accompanies a chapter of the book, and we get on the mic to discuss it in-depth, covering topics from hiring to conflict resolution to developing consciousness as a leader.

The Manager’s Handbook Podcast is hosted by Matt Sornson (CMO) and Alex MacCaw (CEO) of Clearbit.

Resources

Jeff Bezos’ 2015 Letter to Shareholders

Gallup Q12 Employee Engagement Survey

Modern Health - A platform for innovative companies that value the emotional well-being of their workforce.

What we’ll learn about on this episode:

(03:03) - On Clearbit’s Impeccable Agreements - “Often you’ll find that agreements aren’t specific enough, so two people have different ideas of what a task means.”

(05:02) - What happens when you aren’t able to fulfill an agreement? - “Don’t agree to too many things, really only agree to the things you can actually do.”

(07:02) - Why devaluing and underrating meetings is a mistake - “Meetings are necessary in companies, you could think of them like carbon dioxide in the bloodstream.”

(14:15) - The Delegating Framework: Type 1 vs Type 2 decisions - “Type 2 decisions are ones that are reversible and Type 1 aren’t.”

(16:04) - On the Disagree and Commit principle and the importance of team alignment - “Basically it is saying to your team ‘I trust you’ and letting them run with their own decisions.”

(17:39) - When should you invest in buy-in and alignment? - “Alignment and buy-in take time and there’s no way around it.”

(20:15) - On remote teams and how you should manage them - “We have to think really carefully about how we do remote, how we make the remote team feel included and how we integrate them into our decision making.”

(28:22) - A great tool to measure your managers’ performances - “Ultimately, a manager is measured by their team’s output.”

About Clearbit:

Clearbit is the marketing data engine for customer interactions, made with love in the heart of San Francisco. If you want more details on how we help businesses grow, please see our solutions, products, and integrations at clearbit.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, and tell us what you think.

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Next Episode

The Remote Series with Wade Foster

Welcome to The Remote Series, where CEOs of remote-first companies share guidance on how to lead an organization when everyone’s working from home. The Remote Series is hosted by Alex MacCaw, CEO at Clearbit, and coach Matt Mochary, author of The Great CEO Within.

In Episode 2 of The Remote Series, Zapier’s co-founder and CEO Wade Foster discuss hiring, feedback, and cultivating authentic relationships in a digital-first company. COVID-19 pushed CEOs and their teams to turn remote, and even though plenty of people are willing to go back to the office, the experience will never be the same.

Resources

Zapier’s The ultimate guide to remote work

The key talking points for this episode:

(02:04) - Strong values are the core of remote companies - “In a remote company you could become this odd collection of individuals doing random assignments, you really don’t want that.”

(06:30) - Interviewing and evaluating prospects remotely - “When you look at these situations, how far does a person go? How far do they try and push it to uncover a thing that seems worth working on?”

(08:33) - Growing through feedback - “The best thing you can do for yourself, whether you are a CEO or not, is show that you’re a person that likes to get feedback and is good at getting it.”

(15:08) - How camaraderie and real connections are built in remote companies - “If you get this stuff right, the culture takes over. The people and the company take over and just start to expand it and build on it.”

(31:09) - Why the hybrid model may not be ideal for most companies - “It requires a level of discipline that’s even above and beyond what you see in a fully remote company.”

(36:25) - Home is the new office: how to upgrade the remote environment - “When we do come back into the workforce, it’s not going to be the same office experience that folks have come to love.”

(44:55) - Why you should stick to fully remote permanently - “To me, having access to this massive talent pool is just so beneficial to our success.”

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