How to build a Remote Culture
These days are all about remote working, especially in the Software Industry.
Well, not exactly. Remote and distributed teams have always been a thing in Software Industry, but now under the latest peculiar circumstances, even late adopters are reaching out to this forbidden fruit.
Apart from the puzzle of how to build, manage, coach and lead remote teams, there is another, even bigger question.
How to build a culture suitable for remote and distributed teams?
I am sure you will all agree with me, that…
Culture eats everything and everyone for breakfast.
I can’t stress enough the impact of toxic environments and command & control leadership.
Everything has been said and proved on that. Yet, on the other side, does Agile has something different to suggest?
What culture do we need to sustain and nurture remote and distributed teams?
Equalize Participation and Ensure Inclusiveness.
If I had to pick just one thing regarding distributed teams is to Equalize Participation and Ensure Inclusiveness.
And I am not referring just to All Hands meetings, ceremonies, and big announcements.
What would really make a difference is to make sure that everyone and especially the ones on the other side of the globe is heard and included in the decision-making process.
Co-create organisation values.
The meaning of having values is to define the identity of the organization. Something that people can refer to, especially when in dilemma in decision making, strong company DNA can save the day.
Make sure that the company values represent all teams. Ask for every new team or individual to review and approve or even add a suggestion to the company values.
Don’t do and forget. We should map our decisions and practices to our values.
Ask the team, which of the company values does this decision or practice serves?
Embrace diversity.
Turn diversity to our benefit. Diversity is an opportunity for learning. By embracing culture, sex, age or just any diversity we ensure so many different points of view of our product, organization, and business that we should be paying extra for it.
We can explore many different markets and opportunities just because we have our people right there in the field of action.
Getting feedback from different personas can be priceless for market penetration and business exploration.
Let alone how much this can affect the feeling of belonging and respect of our people. For example, it would be awesome to celebrate every holiday of every culture across the company.
Yes, decorate NY offices with Chinese New Year ornaments! Why not?
Distributed teams vs Outsourced.
Let’s clear this out. Distributed teams are way different than outsourced teams.
Distributed teams are part of the company. Yes, those teams might be inexpensive, better or otherwise convenient but are also equal. Or should be in a healthy culture. We should not treat our distributed teams like outsourcing agencies that will deliver some kind of project who knows how and under what circumstances.
Instead, know your people, keep a communication channel with them and build trusting relationships.
Empower HR.
Human Resources can assert a remote culture only if they are empowered to do so, both central but most importantly local. We need to make sure that the organization’s values and practices are well established and practiced in remote and distributed teams but furthermore, we need to customize too in accordance with the cultural differences or special needs.
Here is where HR can contribute significantly to building a global employee branding, making employees internalize the organization’s DNA and act as ambassadors.
Can you think anything better for attracting talent?
Teams vs Silos.
Remote teams are more vulnerable in becoming remote silos. It is the distance, geographical, cultural, and time difference. But most importantly it is the gap we need to bridge to truly encourage self-organized and autonomous teams.
Those teams tend to have transparency as their coat of arms. They are generous in providing their expertise and experience, have nothing to hide, rather share.
Those teams have a welcoming culture that information seems to flow with ease while micro-management and politics simply don’t belong there.
A great practice to break any silo tendency is to encourage cross-team pairing and even cross-team coaching.
Learn to work asynchronously.
Remote and distributed teams often work in different time zones, which complicates things even more. One answer to this is to build a habit of working and reporting asynchronously. I am saying “habit” because this is exactly what it is.
It is not a matter of tools, Jira is just a tool, it needs us to utilize the ability of those tools so that we enable others to work on something that we share, while we are sleeping innocently in our beds.
So to avoid an ugly wake up, start by building a habit of asynchronous work, report and request.
Visit
Once a while is very good especially for the leadership/executives to pay a visit to the remote teams. If not for important announcements and big release plannings, just to put a face on the name, get to know each other and get direct feedback.
And one last word.
Oh, one last word… Keep in mind that distance usually inflates anxiety and complexity!
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