Developing Culture Remote Workers

Next topic, let'sdo let's do this,and this one comesfrom Alex, youposted this thingis like, hey, I'mnew to the group andeverything, but Iwant to talk a little bit aboutthe in-house design culture.So Alex atenco, can youbring yourself online?Hey, guys.How are you?Good, good.So what do you want to know?Because I've not worked in housefor very long, four months,six months, something like that.Yeah, it's a great question.What I want to know.I guess, you know, there arequite a few of challenges,so to give you aquick backstory.I was a designer forlike 10 years or so,was working inUkraine at some pointmoved from Kiev to Los Angeles,and I became a design manager.So I do have like 10 folks inhouse who I manage, you know?But because of the natureof our organization, so weare distributed like100 percent, you know,we don't really havephysical office.And we work in squads which are.Cross-functional teams consistof product manager, productdesigner, a coupleof developers,researchers and so on.And you know, those squads anddecentralized and distributednature of the company createsquite a few challengesto actually have, you know,or instill the cultureinto the design team.Because designers fieldsilent and disconnectedfrom each other.And this is like oneof the challengesthat I'm facing rightnow to actually createsomething which wecould call, you know,the design culture of our own.Does it make sense.So far?Yes, but let's get to it.OK, cool.So yeah, I guessthe challenge ishow to create theenvironment where people whoare working on thevery different projectsand usually not communicating,you know, a lot with each otherwill feel more connectedto each other and start,you know, working towards havingsomething that we could callthe design culture of our own.OK, so you're trying to developculture while most people workremotely?Is that right?Yes OK.I can't.I'm no expert onthis, so I can onlyshare with you whatother people have toldme who have similar setups.I would suggestthat you reach outto Nick Campbell fromgray scale gorillaand also from Joey Kormanfrom the School of motion,because both of them prettymuch run remote teams.And what I'velearned from Joey isthat they havemaybe twice a year,sometimes more than not meetupswhere everybody gets together.So they're in the sameroom and they can share.And he's able tocreate space for themto do that over thecourse of one or two days.Sometimes it's run anevent or conferenceand they're able to get togetherand talk and meet and breakbread and just goofoff with each other.So that they know that there'sa human being behind the workerperson.And I think as theworld continues to moveand we've become morenetworked that we'regoing to start tohave more people workas a remote or a remoteworker because it's just moreefficient to do it that way.It's more cost effective.You get better, Ithink, quality of lifebecause you're notspending a good amountof your timecommuting from point Ato point it's betterfor the environment.So let's talk aboutthe kind of culturethat you want tocreate, and let'sfigure out the differencesbetween having them in houseas opposed to havingthem out of houseand working remotely becausethe challenge may or may notbe the same.Companies have poorcultures, don't necessarilyhave them because peopleare working from afar,it's because maybethey're not verydefined that we all aspireto have strong, healthy workculture.But then we don'tlive those things.So do you know what yourculture should be likeif you were to say theseare three core beliefs wehold to be true in terms ofhow we function as a company?That's a great question.So as the companywe preach, you know,the culture ofextreme ownership,we are like really bigon the book, you know,extreme ownership and youknow, the values that are ours,you know, translatingthrough that.So we believe that likeeveryone like teamsshould be like cross-functionaland people shouldhave like wider areaof responsibilityand not just focus ontheir little piece of work,but understand thebigger picture.Also, we believe in, you know,feedback and positive feedbackand, you know,helping each otherto grow through givingcontinuous feedbackand having like properloops, you know,set up and actually creatinglike the safe environment wherepeople can sharetheir thoughts, youknow, about thework of each otherwithout fear of being judgedor any like repercussions,like negative repercussions.And I guess, you know,on that latest note,what are we lacking onthe design team sideis the strong cultureof the critiqueon the work of each other.Because basically,the problem islike when you have thestudio design studio, whichworks in-house, you have waymore common understandingbetween designers about whatwork they are doing now.And they can shareintimate understandingof the client or theusers as they likeseeing each other every day.And they can talk aboutthe problems and challengesthat they have inthe remote cultures.It's way more challengingbecause designers,they are focused ontheir own projectsand they have like where you'reless understanding about whattheir colleagues are workingon and to create a high qualitycritique culture.You know, all of us needto share pretty muchthe same understandingof the problemsto be able to providethe feedback, noton the surface of thedesign, but really go deepinto undermining reasoning.OK, I have a bunch ofthings to respond to it.Now This is fantastic.If I were to ask,or maybe if youwere to ask the entire teamwhat our core values are,how many of themwould come back to youand say extreme ownershipcross functional teams feedbackas a means to grow and wecan share without judgmenthow many of them would saythat this rhetorical question,right?Let's just let's just thinkabout that for a little bit.One of the things thatTony Xie from Zappos doesis they have their annual bookand they pass the book aroundand they are able to writewhatever it is that they want.And unless it were liableor something crazy,they pretty muchpublished the book.And that's how theleaders and the managerstest themselves to seeif our core values arebeing lived by our people andthey're a customer servicecompany.First and foremost, theyjust so happen to sell shoes.Now a lot of thethings that you'resaying, are you theowner of this companyor are you just the manager?Yeah I'm the manager, butnot the owner right now.OK, so I'm going to say this andI hope I don't get this wrong.OK, so in the interest oftime, in the interest of time,otherwise I'd haveto spend hourstalking to you about this.It feels to me that a lotof these things that you'retalking about make the companywork better, but not so muchabout for the individual.They're taking ownership.That leaves the burden ofthe company to make the work,and we're crossfunctional because wedon't want to hire more people,so you have to do more work.And you have to own more ofthe project in the process.And we want you to be open tothe feedback we're giving youso that you couldhandle the critique.Now, something thatSimon Sinek says,it's not so muchwho's in charge,but who's in your charge.None of theattributes or the corevalues that you said,as far as I can tell,are designed to serve thepeople that work for youto be a good servant leader.How do you help your team win?So what I would suggest that youdo is maybe run a design sprintand you can lookup AJ and smart.Lightening decision jam andthey had asked their teamwhat could we do to make workmore productive or better?And they came up withall kinds of ideasand then they wouldsolve that together.So when the solutions comefrom the bottom up insteadof the top down,then you can saythat this culture islived because otherwisemost corporations,most companiesdesign a culture thatis beneficial to themtheir productivity,their bottom line,and not so much for the people.But when you serve the people,a wonderful transformationhappens in them and you.And so I would suggest that.The other thing Iwould suggest isit's very, veryhard to figure outwhat are your core values are.So I suggest that you readthe book delivering happinessby telling you shit becausehe's all about company culture.He's the guy who saysculture equals brand.Forget the brand.If you get the cultureright, the brand will follow.So it's really important, soI want you to start to thinkand this is veryhard to implement.It's not something Ican solve in 10 minutesor even two hours is how doyou get your culture right?How do you implement it?How do you live it so thatthere is this great balancebetween what's goodfor the people iswhat's good for the company?OK, so Alex, probablyone of the thingsthat you guys have donereally well is to say,we like that you guyswant to work from home.There's a cost benefitto us, but there'sa life benefit to you.What can we do tomake you feel lesslike an isolated human beingand more part of the team?Maybe that's the prompt.I don't know what it isbecause most of my teamworks in the office, right?We have two peoplewho work offsite,so I get to see it all day long.And one of the thingsthat is happening,which is quite a miracleof the transitionthat we've gone throughfrom a service design agencyto a product company is peoplecome and go whenever they want.My wife, we weredriving around yesterdayand she said, you know, I cameinto the office the other dayand nobody was there,not a single personwas there around lunchtime.I'm like, yeah, it's because whyclients don't call us anymore.We have no more clients calling,we have to be there for no one.People can do whatever theywant whenever they want,as long as the work getsdone and they get to set.How they get there.We just define togetherwhat the goals areand then they justdo whatever they do.And I think and I'll haveto check back, check backon me on this towards themiddle part of the yearto see how theexperiment's going.But I think thehappiness quotienthas gone up tremendously.People set their own agenda.They do work from home.I don't even know anymore.We're abolishing time sheets.We're getting rid of alot of the old mechanismsof the Industrialrevolution, right?We're getting ridof all of that.We don't want to value youanymore based on the timethat it takes youto do something.OK, Alex.That's all I gotto say about that,if there's anotherspecific questionabout in-house culture.Give me if you wantto ask a questionor Brian Patrick, who is like,yeah, I'm excited for this one.Let me know right now.Are you referring tolike a results onlywork environment sortof thing more or less?Yes yeah, right.Mm-hmm So we have quarterlysprint planning sessions,and then we break thosesprints down into monthly goalsand everybody knows financially.Another keyperformance indicatorsKPIs that what we haveto hit, we assign leadersand we're going to sharethe leadership roleand switch thingsaround every quarter.We'll see how it goes.We're only the first quarterinto this kind of working.And so far, it'sworking really well.That's pretty interesting.I would love tolearn about bit more.Yeah, I'll tell you if itworks out, if we go bankrupt,you're like, don'tfollow that model.And we're just playing it andwe're growing our subscribers.And I tell you about ournumbers because I'll tell youall our numbers and everythingwe're doing all the time,as much as I can in real time.OK so, yeah, thatsounds pretty awesome,Chris, and thank you forthe book recommendation.Yes smart lightningdecision, Jim.Watch that video becausethey solve a very,I think, a common problem,very simply and elegantly.It has a lot to do withoffice noise and concentrationbecause they haveworks every time.Does it work every time?It does.Are you in a referencedesign sprint trainee?I went throughtheir master class,I had designs for a master.Sounds good.OK and I work remote, so if youguys ever have remote question,there you go.I'm here to answer as well.There you go.That's the person youconnect with, Alex.OK beautiful.OK thank you, guys.