For remote workers the boundaries between work and life can often feel blurred. In this article I discuss seven strategies to achieve work life balance. | Continue reading
Audio and video can add a new dimension to asynchronous communication. In this article I explain how we can be effective at communicating with audio and video. | Continue reading
The sooner a new team can norm, the sooner it delivers value to its stakeholders. This article provides a recipe for leaders of distributed teams to accelerate team norming. | Continue reading
The agile manifesto is an excellent document that marks a generational shift from rigid development practices, to more lightweight, maker-centric principles. The idea was to restore balance balance and be less Dilbertesque. But the 2020s bring their own baggage that impedes knowl … | Continue reading
Writing the book about “async-first” collaboration doesn’t mean that I’m immune to the status quo. I screwed up on my own rules recently, by taking a “sync-first” approach instead. And boy, did that hurt! | Continue reading
Many decisions execs take for their employees, ignore externalised costs. Mike Hopkins of Amazon claims their RTO policy has “no data” to back it. Lyft CEO, David Risher can only advocate for snacks in the office, while batting for RTO. Meanwhile, employees and other stakeholders … | Continue reading
The async-first manifesto is a work-in-progress. This post explains the five values of the first draft. This should help everyone who wishes to help shape the draft, understand the initial thought process. | Continue reading
We pay too much attention to the idea of skill and talent. Often, time on task, trumps talent. Could this be the secret to doing excellent work, having a resilient career and building excellent teams? We explore that question in this article. | Continue reading
Teams needn’t be groups of BFFs. Trust and cohesion are far more important attributes. You don’t build trust and cohesion by accident though. Leaders must employ attentive design and intentional actions. | Continue reading
Workplace friendships have value for businesses, and arguably for employees as well. But it’s should also be perfectly OK, if employees wish to keep work and friendships separate. | Continue reading
Most tech companies want to run well-leveraged teams; i.e a few senior people and a bunch of junior people. But many of us lack the process discipline to do this well. How do you design a team environment that’s inclusive of junior people? That’s the million dollar question I add … | Continue reading
The “CEO test” is when you ask yourself “Would I do that to my CEO?”. That can often help you spot behavioural anti-patterns you must correct, when interacting with your coworkers. | Continue reading
If you adopt asynchronous work, everyone should be able to work on a schedule that’s convenient to them. But that may not be the case from day one. You must first build your deep-work muscles. | Continue reading
Group chat can be both a helpful tool and a distraction in the workplace. While suitable for quick exchanges and simple information sharing, it falls short for more important discussions and tasks. | Continue reading
Advocates of in-person work often say they need to get their teams together for brainstorming sessions. This is a waste of time. The effectiveness of brainstorming is a corporate myth. | Continue reading
Want to be a better async worker? Check out this guide on how to read effectively and provide feedback. It's shorter than the writing guide, but just as helpful! | Continue reading
Can random acts of unsolicited kindness bring us together at work? Let’s find out in this post. | Continue reading
If writing is the number one remote working superpower, then we must all get better at it. Here’s how to level up your writing game. | Continue reading
Well intentioned, busy people want to be collaborative. But they often end up as bottlenecks. I argue that busy people must change their model of collaboration. | Continue reading
We often reach for training as a solution for behaviour change or skill development. But most training programs don’t achieve their objectives. How do you facilitate learning then? | Continue reading
We continue exploring the seven deadly sins of knowledge management in this week’s post. I explained three of them to you last week. Here are four more. | Continue reading
In a massively distributed world of work, effective knowledge management is a superpower for your people. On this site, we’re already discussed many things you must do, to foster knowledge sharing. This post is the first, in a two part series about things you shouldn’t do. | Continue reading
I recently went out for a mid-week retreat with colleagues on my new team and as a fortuitous coincidence, I was one of the event hosts. The experience brought back into view a few of my principles and practices when organising such an event. In today’s post, I want to share thes … | Continue reading
The recent slew of layoffs should give us all pause for thought. How should we view our relationship with employment? I’d like to share my perspective. | Continue reading
Poorly formed teams are woefully ineffective, but I see it so often that I’d be remiss not to state the problem. In this article, I’ll call out two common problems I see leaders repeat when forming new teams. I’ll also describe a few simple ways to avoid these problems. | Continue reading
The remote-work divide between employers and employees feels more stark each passing week. Lest it descend into an adversarial relationship, I believe we must view this exchange as a two-way street. | Continue reading
A common argument against remote work is that coaching and mentoring are harder when you’re all remote. But I believe that if companies are intentional about building modern coaching and mentoring skills, they’ll do much better being remote-first. | Continue reading
The world of work has a toxic masculinity bias. In this post I share some thoughts about such biases. | Continue reading
To invite diverse views in an open discussion, psychological safety is essential. In this article I want to tell you how anonymity can help create that safety. | Continue reading
Organisations can benefit from volunteerism in the workplace by harnessing their people's spare capacity. But how do you get it right? Allow me to explain. | Continue reading
If you’re calling your culture a “secret sauce”, or your “x-factor”, you’re doing little to clarify it. To demonstrate care for culture, means that we must define it clearly, at the level of behaviours. We must move beyond platitudes and poetic expressions. | Continue reading
If you want to grow as a professional or a leader, you must stop doing some work, to take up new work. In this post I explain the concept of “metawork”, why it should be explicit and how it can help you scale yourself. | Continue reading
It’s tempting to extract the last bit of productivity from our work schedules. However, busyness isn’t the same thing as productiivity. Let me explain why cutting yourself some slack, is a better idea. | Continue reading
With their return-to-office (RTO) strategies, I see many IT firms take a passive-aggressive stance with their people. This, I fear, can be disruptive, in an industry where people matter most. | Continue reading
Wait, what? Write in slides? Well, yes. And I’m sure you’ve seen this yourself. Heck, I’ve done it myself as well. Guilty as charged! If you’ve normalised this approach to writing and sharing information, then I’m here to tell you that you should write differently. That’s what th … | Continue reading
Unpredictable days are shapeless days. This is the classic maker-manager paradox. Makers need contiguous blocks of time to achieve meaningful outcomes. We can’t be proud of this way of working. A calendar driven schedule is amongst the worst blows to a maker’s productivity. | Continue reading
I recently spent a couple of days in an office. That experience made me reflect a bit more about the tensions between remote work and the role of the office. In this short post, I share some thoughts about the purpose and a potential future for the office. | Continue reading
If decisions are the fuel for high-performing teams, a permissions culture is its kryptonite. In this post I discuss three areas you must focus on, so your team can maintain a high decision velocity. | Continue reading
I notice that some teams, organisations and products are attempting to recreate an office in the cloud. This is a counterproductive trend. In this post I explain why being async-first is a better idea. | Continue reading
Constant urgency is the enemy of deep work and an async-first culture. Often this means getting on meetings, and being ok with days full of IM interruptions. With enough of these “urgent” tasks, even the most motivated teams can slip back into their old, synchronous ways of worki … | Continue reading
In large organisations, it’s tough for a small team to cling to its own subculture for too long. It’s not impossible to have an ‘async island of excellence’! It’s just hard. I want to use this post to reflect on the challenges your async-first team could face. In the process, I w … | Continue reading
The agile manifesto claims that the best way of communicating in a team, is face-to-face. Does that claim hold up to scrutiny? 21 years after the manifesto came to life, have technology, the nature of our projects and our ways of organising and working taught us something differe … | Continue reading
Communication is a big part of an exec’s role. In fact, many people would argue that if an exec isn’t communicating, what are they doing? In today’s post I want to demystify asynchronous company communication for the executive. If you’re leading a department, or your own company, … | Continue reading
If you learned to be a manager in an office-centric setup, async-first remote work may seem like an opaque way to lead your people. How do you manage without walking around and listening? In this post, I’ll unpack the risks of leading unhappy, disengaged or struggling team member … | Continue reading
Senior leaders are often victims to blind spots and corporate superstition. And just like in real life, superstition hurts at work as well. So, let’s examine some common superstitions we all face at work, with a critical lens. By the end of this post, we’ll know which of them hol … | Continue reading
The future is uncertain. So, it helps to keep an adaptive mindset so we can respond to this uncertainty. I believe there are five key trends that are shaping the future of work, and, in this post, I want to share my thoughts about them. | Continue reading
Every work model has its pitfalls. It’s not as if a remote workplace can’t go south. In today’s post I want to explore some anti-patterns I’ve seen in remote-first and “hybrid” organisations that can make your workplace toxic. When you know of these possibilities ahead of time, y … | Continue reading
To move away from the office mindset, then we’ll need to unlearn a few unhealthy habits we’ve picked up over the years. In this post, I want to share four of these habits. Benign as they may seem, they are pernicious obstacles in your path to being an async-first team or organisa … | Continue reading