►
From YouTube: Remote Talks: Episode 4 with Darren Murph - Mental Health, Leadership, and Remote Experiments
Description
As the head of remote at GitLab, Darren Murph is one of the most prominent experts in remote work today. But remote work during a pandemic is not the future of remote work. In Episode 4 of Remote Talks, Job and Darren talk discuss tips to improve the mental health of your team while preserving your own, how remote work will change in 2021 and beyond, and the effects of a fully remote society beyond the office.
A
B
Yeah
I'll
give
you
a
category
that
I
was
surprised,
the
basics,
so
we're
getting
questions
that
are
astonishing
to
me
on
the
foundational
things
that
I'm
increasingly
realizing.
I
shouldn't
take
for
granted,
and
I
should
really
appreciate
some
of
the
nuance
that
comes
with
living
in
this
space
for
a
really
long
time,
and
you
start
really
picking
up
on
what
have
I
learned
through
osmosis
and
who
have
been
my
mentors
that
I
actually
haven't
given
proper
credit,
for
it
is
amazing
the
fundamentals
that
a
lot
of
the
world
still
don't
have.
B
A
They
would
really
rely
on
overhearing
each
other,
and
so
they
didn't
want
to
give
that
up.
So
they
just
sat
in
zoom
meetings
all
day
overhearing
each
other,
like
everybody
has
their
microphone
on
you
just
overhear
each
other
and
it
seemed
like
it
was
very
hard
to
tell
them,
like
I'm
pretty
sure,
there's
different
ways
of
doing
fix.
Oof.
B
That's
brutal
yeah,
I'm!
Actually
I
go
out
of
my
way
to
not
over
here,
so
I
probably
wouldn't
work
well
in
that
context,
I
understand
what
what
they're
getting
at,
but
it
kind
of,
goes
to
my
earlier
point.
We
got
a
long
way
to
go.
That's
a
very
inefficient
way
to
get
work
done,
just
kind
of
hoping
that
you
overhear
the
right
thing
to
give
you
your
next
nugget
of
innovation
or
incubation.
A
Is
there
something
that
gitlab
started
to
do
differently
this
year?
Like
I,
of
course,
there's
not
an
option
of
doing
an
off-site,
you
know
those
things
have
to
move
digital.
I
think
those
are
obvious,
but
like
is
there
other
innovations
or
big
changes
that
gitlab
has
made,
whether
because
of
corona
virus
or
or
not,.
B
B
It
has
become
something
of
a
staple,
and
it's
this
great
reminder
that
wellness
matters,
and
even
if
you
can't
go
anywhere,
it's
really
important
to
turn
the
screen
off.
Even
if
you
don't
have
great
plans
of
what
to
do
at
that
time,
we
have
all
been
exposed
to
the
fragility
of
mental
health.
This
year,
a
lot
of
us
thought
we
had
it
all
together,
we're
we're
living
where
we
want
to
live,
we're
working
at
a
great
place,
that's
very
efficient.
B
Our
values
are
set,
people
treat
each
other.
Well
and
then
this
crisis
happens,
and
it
makes
you
challenge
all
of
the
things
that
you
thought
you
had
lined
up
so
that
exists
now
and
we've
we've
done
a
lot
of
things
differently
in
terms
of
just
how
we
treat
each
other.
We've
had
a
few
other
slide
channels.
Pop
up
daily
gratitude
is
a
good
one.
A
B
Into
asynchronous
workflows
to
reduce
the
meeting
burden,
a
key
thing
I
want
to
point
out
here
is:
this
has
always
been
the
case,
but
it's
been
really
important
to
key
in
on
this
year.
A
bias
for
asynchronous
most
of
the
world
sees
this
as
a
productivity
measure
at
get
lab.
It
is
actually
a
sub
value
in
our
diversity,
inclusion
and
belonging
value.
The
reason
is
working
asynchronously
when
you
can
is
more
respectful
of
someone
else's
time.
B
A
That's
a
that's,
that's
very,
very
interesting,
so
the
family
friends
day,
I
think
it's
a
day
off,
essentially
right,
like
it's
a
day
where
the
whole
company
essentially
signs
off.
What
has
been.
I
mean
everybody
loves
them.
So
it's
easy.
What
has
been
the
response
to
that?
Internally?
Have
you
you
know
what
are
what
are
the
responses.
B
If
I
could
make
it
into
a
sound,
it
would
be
a
global,
collective,
sigh
of
relief
every
time
the
day
happens,
and
even
the
week
leading
up
to
it.
It's
just
this
nice
exhale.
It
feels
like
you've,
been
inhaling
a
lot
and,
of
course,
humans
can't
live
very
long.
If
you
only
inhale,
it
gives
us
permission
to
exhale
and
what's
beautiful
about
it
is
everyone,
for
the
most
part
is
exhaling
the
entire
team.
It's
not
like
taking
a
day
off
while
a
mountain
of
emails,
pile
up,
there's
something
beautiful
about
that.
B
So
we
are
allowing
people
across
the
organization
to
propose
when
the
next
one
or
two
or
three
are
so
there's
this
serendipitous
factor
where
you
never
know
who
or
where
or
why
the
next
one
is
going
to
come
from,
but
there's
always
some
awesome
reason
that
someone
and
somewhere
in
the
world
was
sitting
down
thinking
this.
We
should
do
this,
and
this
is
why
it's
really
cool
to
to
see
that
and
each
of
the
days
that
we've
had
they've
all
the
genesis
of
them
have
come
from
different
people.
A
Yeah
yeah.
No,
that's
that's
very
interesting
in
going
going
continuing
on
the
line
of
mental
health,
like
you
mentioned,
there's
a
few
slack
channels.
You
invited
external
speakers
how
you
know
you
are
today.
You
know
you
a
person
listening
here
is
a
manager
of
a
team.
What
is,
and
their
company
is
not
doing
all
these
things.
They
don't
have
family
and
friends
days.
They
don't
have.
You
know
the
amazing
system
that
gitlab
has
like:
where
do
they
start?
If
they,
if
they,
you
know,
they
are
maybe
aware
that
mental
health
is
a.
B
B
B
Are
getting
hammered,
the
data
is
very
clear
that
they
feel
the
most
paralyzed,
and
so
the
answer
to
this-
and
the
reason
I
bring
this
up
is
the
change
has
to
start
at
the
executive
team,
any
sort
of
meaningful
focus
on
mental
health
and,
in
fact,
any
meaningful
remote
transition
where
you're,
truly
changing
habits,
you're
changing
culture,
you're
changing
the
way
you
work.
It
has
to
have
absolute
executive
sponsorship,
because
if
it
don't,
it
will
fall
apart
at
some
point
and
it
will
become
lip
service.
B
This
is
why
the
middle
managers
are
getting
crushed
because
they
see
the
stressors
that
their
individual
contributors
and
their
direct
reports
are
going
through,
but
if
they
don't
have
the
buy-in
from
the
executive
team,
they're
never
going
to
be
able
to
put
those
people
in
the
ideal
place
on
an
ideal
track
to
getting
through
it.
So
it's
a
series
of
band-aids
and
toughing
it
out
and
that's
where
you're
starting
to
see
a
lot
of
the
burnout
creep
in,
I
think
it
will
bleed
into
talent
retention.
B
Some
of
these
middle
managers
will
grow
frustrated
and
they'll
reach
a
point
where
it
feels
like
you
have
a
single
ore
in
the
water
and
you're
on
a
yacht.
You
can
only
paddle
so
hard
to
get
it
a
few
degrees,
east
or
west.
You
may
get
off
of
that
yacht
at
some
point
hop
in
a
canoe,
that's
already
heading
in
the
right
direction,
and
now
your
efforts
go
a
lot
further.
A
B
If
you
had
a
morning
commute
in
an
evening
commute
try
to
block
those
times
and
do
something
that
will
make
you
feel.
Well,
maybe
that's
exercise,
maybe
that's
rest.
More.
I've
been
way
more
deliberate
about
blocking
those
times
in
my
schedule
and
then
changing
my
slack
statuses
to
say,
exercise
time
or
time
with
family
very
unambiguous,
very
direct
that
whatever
I'm
doing
it
is
not
work,
and
I
want
people
around
the
world
to
see
that
and
as
a
leader
what.
A
B
Realizing
is
it's
really
important
to
do
that,
because
if
you
model
it,
other
people
will
feel
comfortable
in
doing
that.
So,
since
covid
I've
been
much
more
overt
about
I'm
not
working
now
and
I'm
going
to
line
up
all
the
signals,
I
possibly
can
to
show
that
and
share
that
and
I'm
seeing
that
percolate
around
the
organization,
our
executive
team
is
being
very
vocal
and
visible
about
when
they're
taking
time
off.
It's
been,
it's
been
good
to
see
that
happen
so
start
with
modeling.
B
What
you
want
to
see
happen,
and
that
may
mean
backing
away
look,
there's
always
work
to
be
done
always
and
in
some
ways
working
during
a
pandemic
is
a
form
of
escapism.
So
a
part
of
you
actually
feels
great
for
working
because
it's
better
than
facing
reality.
Even
if
you
don't
want
to
realize
that,
but
that's
not
the
model
you
want
to
set
that's
not
a
long-term
sustainable
solution.
A
I
think
that's
that's
amazing
advice
right.
One
of
my
proudest
moments
in
at
remote
has
been
when
I
took
a
number
of
days
off
and
I
checked
in
on
slack
and
my
executive
team
was
like
no
no
you're
not
even
allowed
to
provide
input
you're,
not
working
you're,
not
you
should
not
be
on
slack
like.
Are
they
both
in
public
and
in
private
messages?
They
were
like?
No,
you
should.
You
should
really
not
be
here,
and
I
I
thought
it
was
great.
B
Yeah
another
way
to
reframe.
This
is,
if
you
see
yourself
doing
that,
because
you
think
a
process
will
fail.
If
you
don't,
that
should
be
an
indicator
that
you
are
a
single
point
of
failure.
So
the
first
thing
you
should
do
once
you
get
back
online
is
solve
that
not
just
cloning
yourself
and
making
yourself
more
available
but
solve
it.
B
B
The
goal
is
to
to
be
gone
a
lot,
and
things
still
happen
well
or,
ideally,
even
better,
because
you
want
to
give
people
the
right
tools,
but
then
unlock
them
to
run
really
fast,
and
do
it
better
than
you
could
have
done
it
that
takes
a
bit
of
an
ego
check
for
a
lot
of
people
and
in
a
remote
world.
This
is
an
awesome
opportunity
to
do
that.
I've
we've
seen
some
success
with
that.
Thank
you.
A
lot.
A
Yeah,
no,
it's
that's
great
and
you
know
I
am
obligated
to
ask
you.
You
know
next
year
actually,
already
this
month,
the
first
vaccines
are
being
administered,
and
you
know
this
is
starting
to
roll
out.
You
know
with
good
hope
by
summer,
we'll
be
in
a
state
where
you
know
the
world
will
be
in
a
much
better
place.
What
is
what
what
kind
of
change
do
you
expect.
B
My
hope
is
that
a
lot
of
the
isolation
issues
and
the
culture
issues
that
are
being
fully
attributed
to
an
abrupt
transition
to
remote
work
will
in
some
ways
solve
themself
people
will
be
able
to
go
to
their
favorite
coffee
shop
or
go
have
dinner
with
friends,
and
they
won't
need
to
lean
on
work
as
much
to
build
up
their
social
identity.
It's
really
easy
to
conflate
those
two
things
right
now.
My
hope
is
that
the
tailwinds
of
just
being
able
to
be
humans
again
will
help
with
a
lot
of
that.
B
B
Getting
on
an
airplane
and
being
able
to
have
food
and
drinks
served,
not
all
in
plastic
wrappers
and
in
between
having
your
mask
up
and
down
is
a
miracle.
We
should
probably
appreciate
that
more.
I
hope
we're
a
bit
more
thoughtful
in
our
engagements
with
people
we've.
I
think
we've
realized
that
community
is
really
really
important.
It's
been
easy
to
flush
off.
B
That's
my
hope.
I
know
time
goes
on
to
some
degree,
we'll
just
kind
of
resume
our
defaults,
but
you
don't
need
a
huge
amount
of
change
to
stick
even
like
a
three
to
five
degree:
change
of
the
global
mentality
around
this,
I
think
we'll
have
a
big
difference
in
how
we
treat
each
other
and
how
we
think
about
the
intersection
between
work
and
life.
I
think
the
power
of
those
will
will
see
some
inversion.
A
A
B
Agree
with
that-
and
I
think
it's
part
of
a
much
bigger
picture
which
is
life
should
ideally
become
more
dynamic
after
this.
So
if
you
have
multiple
employers
or
you
have
options
a
b
and
c,
and
it
gives
you
an
ability
to
test
what
it
is
that
you're
doing
and
what
you
really
love-
that's
more
dynamic
if
you're
able
to
take
some
of
your
university
courses
through
this
one
school,
but
then
some
of
them
somewhere
else
because
they
default
to
remote.
That's
a
more
dynamic
education
that
you're
able
to
get.
B
My
hope
is
that
by
decoupling,
geography
and
our
vocation,
it
gives
us
the
chance
to
be
born
dynamic.
It's
about
time
like
humankind
is
amazing.
We
are
very
dynamic.
We
invented
the
internet
and
we're
just
now
figuring
out
how
to
leverage
it
to
live
better
lives.
So
hopefully,
the
the
tagline
for
2021
and
beyond
is
dynamism
and
more
dynamic.
A
B
That's
that's
the
dynamic
part
of
it.
Look
if
you've
been
forced
to
commute
four
hours
round
trip
monday
through
friday
for
the
past
20
years.
It's
gonna
feel
very
dynamic
when
you're,
like
you
know
what
monday
I'm
gonna
run
a
5k
and
then
tuesday,
I'm
just
gonna
sleep
and
then
wednesday,
I'm
gonna
read
a
book
that
that's
dynamism
too.
Rest
can
be
dynamic.
Let's
figure
out
creative
and
dynamic
ways
to
rest.
A
Yeah,
no,
that's!
That's!
That's
a
good
one!
Random
question.
Have
you
have
you
done
any
experiments
at
gitlab
that
didn't
work
that
you
thought
this
could
really
you
know,
help
teams
or
improve
collaboration,
or
just
I
don't
know,
make
things
better.
They
didn't
pan
out,
as
you
expected
them
to
be.
B
I'll
say
this:
we
captured
so
much
and
continue
to
capture
so
much
of
how
we
work
remotely,
and
it's
documented,
and
one
thing
that
I
am
continually
surprised
by-
is
that
not
everyone
reads
it
yeah.
So
it's
one
of
those
things
where
we're
committed
to
working
handbook
first
and
we're
committed
to
documentation.
We
have
so
much
material,
it's
so
rich
that
if
you
were
just
able
to
pull
a
matrix
and
just
plug
this
in
and
download
it
all
at
once,
all
of
your
problems
would
be
solved,
but
there's
some
cognitive
dissonance
from
the
person.
B
That's
architecting
it
and
curating
it,
and
then
all
of
the
other
people
that
actually
have
to
pause
their
life
in
some
way
and
read
it
and
ingest
it
and
apply
it.
That
has
been
somewhat
surprising.
I've
assumed
that,
because
it's
written,
it
is
understood.
That
is
not
the
case.
You
actually
have
to
put
some
effort
and
intentionality
into
messaging
campaigns,
pulling
this
out,
putting
it
into
learning
and
development,
putting
it
into
upskilling
and
retraining.
B
So
there's
a
lot
of
effort.
You
can't
just
write
it
and
forget
it:
you
have
to
put
a
lot
of
effort
into
it
and
with
new
people
coming
in
all
the
time,
it
becomes
a
continual
thing.
So
I'm
learning
to
budget
time
for
evangelizing
what
is
already
written
instead
of
just
creating
new
new
new
all
the
time.
A
I
think
I
think
to
me
this
was
one
of
the
first
lessons
of
leadership
is
that
you
have
to
repeat
yourself,
like
anything
that
you
think
is
important,
even
if
it's
written
down,
you
have
to
repeat
yourself
until
the
point
where
you
feel
like
you're,
literally
always
saying
the
same
thing
and
that's
about
when
people
it
starts
to
stick
and
then
I
I
agree,
I
think
you
know
at
remote
we
have
very
similar
culture
to
gitlab.
In
that
way,
we
document
like
crazy
and
many
times.
I
still
see
questions
coming
by
on
slack.
A
How
do
we
do
x?
How
well,
how
does
y
work
I'm
like?
Did
you
did
you
search
in
documentation?
It's
this
really
good
search
like
you
could,
like
it's
probably
called
whatever
you're
asking
you
know
what
is,
do
we
have
a
blue
ice
cream
and
like
did
you
search
for
blue
ice
cream,
because
that's
what
the
documentation
is
called.
B
B
Tools,
I
wish
it
was
a
lot
easier
to
pilot
new
tools
with
small
teams
without
massively
disrupting
their
existing
workflows.
I
almost
want
a
team
that
fully
understands
how
to
work
in
this
environment
and
has
a
good
understanding
of
how
most
of
the
teams
do
their
work
and
they're
just
there
to
beta
test
new
new
tools
and
products,
and
the
reason
for
this
is
that
kovit
has
accelerated
the
golden
era
of
remote,
focused
tools
or
remote,
enabling
tools,
so
many
are
coming
out.
B
It
reminds
me
when
the
apple
app
store
came
out
the
first
week
you
could,
you
could
literally
see
each
new
app
that
came
on
online
and
you
could
try
each
new
app.
It
was
unbelievable
and
then
very
quickly.
It
hit
escape
velocity
and
discoverability
becomes
this
massive
issue.
Tools
are
in
a
similar
boat
right
now,
and
I
see
so
many
of
them
coming
through
and
I'm
only
able
to
give
them
a
glimpse
of
my
attention.
A
B
B
You
know
the
day
before
christmas,
I'm
installing
something
in
my
house
with
my
dad.
That
is
a
miracle
we're
both
healthy.
I
have
the
provision
to
have
a
home.
I
have
the
ability
to
take
time
off
my
limbs
function,
so
I
can
turn
a
screwdriver
there's
a
lot
of
miracles
that
are
happening
in
that,
so
it
doesn't
have
to
be
that's
another
thing,
I'm
learning
in
prior
years
and
be
like:
let's
go
to
the
maldives
using
points
and
miles,
and
how
can
I
hack
this
to
get
first
class
now?