GitLab Remote Work, 5 Nov 2019

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From YouTube: Reinforcing culture, work-life harmony, remote work processes, and asynchronous communication

Description

Darren (GitLab) and Emna (Veamly) discuss a number of remote work topics: reinforcing culture, encouraging work-life harmony, remote work processes, the importance of process optimization in team productivity, and asynchronous communication.

We also talk about the impact of defaulting to asynchronous as it applies to stress, anxiety, mental health, and overall wellbeing.

Tactical points are given for startups of all sizes, from those just forming to a team of 1,000+ people spanning the globe.

Learn more about GitLab's values: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/

Other topics discussed:
Discretionary bonus: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/incentives/#discretionary-bonuses
Getting started in a remote role: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/getting-started/
1:1 Agenda Format: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/1-1/suggested-agenda-format/
Informal Communication: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/informal-communication/
Say Thanks: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/#say-thanks
Transparency: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#transparency
Iteration: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#iteration
Learning & Development (onboarding): https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/learning-and-development/
GitLab Visiting Grant: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/incentives/#visiting-grant
Asynchronous communication: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/management/#asynchronous
Veamly founder's article "How I screwed up myself building my dream startup": https://hackernoon.com/how-i-screwed-up-myself-building-my-dream-startup-mse938rj

Learn more about Veamly: https://veamly.com/

Learn more about GitLab's all-remote culture and processes: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/

A

Hey everyone mm no from bean. We is joining me today to talk about remote work, culture and process, optimization I'm, daring with get labs, and thanks so much for making the time today and feel free to verbalize. Your first question: Thank.

B

You Darren I'm really excited to be here, and one of the first things I would love to talk about is a cultural reinforcement and remote, because that's one of the hardest challenges. Definitely remote teams face, especially us, like being a young company, like it's very hard like to start talking about remotes when you're just few people versus when you have the resources as a big company to do cells so yeah. So.

A

The question is: what would I recommend for cultural reinforcement absolutely.

B

A

A it's a fair point on size, making a difference, get lab we're at almost a thousand people now over 60 countries, so definitely not a tiny company by any means anymore, and we have implemented an actual discretionary bonus where employees can actually recommend other employees to get a bonus for living out the values of the company and so at scale. This is really awesome because we're too big to know what everyone is doing at any given time.

A

But by having this discretionary bonus, when we get on a company call and it's a company called document, we can see what team members have been nominated for and received the discretionary bonus, as well as a transcript on what they did to live out some of those values. So it's a constant reminder of people giving kudos and saying thanks and being awarded for living out the values and so as a company. When you see that all the time it reminds you oh yeah, these values are available. They are real, they breathing things.

A

They need to be a part of my day-to-day and that helps reinforce it on a smaller scale. If the actual financial bonus isn't feasible, I think that concept still applies.

A

People really like being patted back people like other colleagues noticing and paying attention when they do something well, and so we can start even as small as a thanks or a kudos channel within slack or your communication channel of choice where we have a whole channel dedicated to thank that solely exists for other people to thank other people for helping them out or going above and beyond or living out a particular value. We really encourage people to call out what value was exemplified in whatever they did and that helps reinforce the realness of the values.

A

One thing I've seen as values can kind of diminish over time or become riding on a wall as a company scales. Unless you are intentional about making it a part of the fabric of saying, thank you to other employees. Another thing that I think is important is being intentional about informal communication. We actually have a handbook page within our all remote section that talks about this in a co-located company. A lot of the informal cultural reinforcements happen just because you're in the same building, so people are naturally in the same space.

A

They'll overhear, certain things or they'll, see someone doing something for someone helping someone out, maybe going outside of their department to help with a project that kind of thing when everyone works from anywhere no one's in the same office. You don't have eyes on things like that, and so we set up coffee chats. We set up team social cause, smaller company calls within certain departments, and we make an agenda item in each of these just to talk about overall health or kudos, or things like that.

A

So we dedicate time in a work, call to talk about things related to culture and saying thanks and in co-located companies. You might get away with not having to do that, but in a remote company it goes a long way as making that a part of the work I think.

B

One of the things for us what we've seen is that you guys talk about this as well in one of your pages of being different in being on all remote companies in a remote first company and I'd, consider as a remote first company and what we do personally like being a tiny company from day one, even if we're co-located. Sometimes we we put these practices at this stage as mandatory like as we grow, we see them as optional, but, like suppose, they become habits. But what we do, for example, is like every Monday.

B

We get all resume call and we do gratitude Monday and that's the moment where everybody shares what the Rachel for and doesn't have to be work-related right, like the ideas like live by gratitude like we need, learn how to embrace it, and you know, like some Monday's, you know like.

B

Sometimes you just had a bad weekend or just woke up on the wrong foot, and for me, what I try to really push my team to do is to really take a moment to pause and try to really feel it, because we see the difference right to remember what we're grateful for, and sometimes you hear people talk about their moms or their teammates or you know like or a bug they got rid of or like it doesn't matter, but like it varies, and another thing that we do is we do meditation Wednesdays.

B

So on Wednesdays we get on the zoom call and we do breathing exercises and then we share everybody shares what they're stressed about and what they're looking forward to and the idea is like it's okay to be stressed. You know not glue, saying like that's, not gonna happen because we're humans. But how can you balance that stress? How can you help you know make sure that everybody has visibility about. Other peoples also stresses and create that empathy even more, because that empathy is also a core value of our company and I.

B

Think it's also a very core value to remote in general, because when you're not seeing what's going on with people next to you, you can't really empathize with them. So that's a moment for us to do that and then the final thing we do is we do an all company meeting for now like that week, see eventually grow. Obviously, as we grow as a team becomes like you know, small companies between all team meetings becomes weekly one. We definitely are very transparent right.

B

We have a process like you, have a company board and then by the department.

B

We share what's happening like it's top three things, but then we do learning time because we are continuous learning organization will believe in that, and so every time one person on the team would teach for 10 minutes or 15 minutes like the whole rest of the team, something about what they're doing with its growth, whether it's marketing, whether its fundraising, whether it's like something technical software architecture, whatever it is- and it's really powerful, like you think 15 minutes cannot make the change, but it creates the bonding between the teammates, and these are like for us like things that don't you don't have to have resources as a company or money to be able to implement these things, and we end on social time and social time could be like somebody playing the ukulele or joke about it of us or something more structured.

B

Like you know, one of the few early social times I, remember our people. Operation managers made this all take the myers-briggs test. The personality test and then we created avatar is where each person she grade actually and then we played the guessing game on who is who? And it was so powerful because everybody had the sumption x' write their stereotypes about every other person right so thinking, oh yeah, that's probably the extroverted one rats is that not is just like in their role.

B

They can show extraversion, but they're, not extroverted person and, like you know, judging the communication skills of others. Things like that and I think these small practices are super powerful for young remote or first companies like ours anyway. So just like you don't want to share in that sense to see the difference between. You know a big company at a thousand people company and a tiny company I.

A

Love that there's so much to unpack there as you're saying that my mind is running I'm, actually gonna create a request to expand upon that on some of our handbook pages, because you're right, none of that cost money. It just requires leadership being intentional about making it a part of the fabric of the company and honestly putting gratitude and empathy at the heart of what you're doing.

A

I think that so easily gets lost at scale where it's so easy to say that whatever the crisis of the day is is more important than the 15 minutes of gratitude or the 15 minutes of meditation. Where you talk about things that are stressing you or that are causing you anxiety, being open and transparent about that as a team is, is its core for co-located teams, but in remote teams, I think it has an outsized positive effect, because people are in their own universe.

A

And so, if something is really weighing and down, you can really feel a lot heavier than it is because they don't know where to turn. They can't just look somewhere in the office, find somebody but sympathize with them or empathize, and so providing an avenue from that from the top down from leadership that says: it's! Okay! For you to vocalize and verbalize these things we want you to be healthy and strong as a team is huge and that's that's culture in a nutshell, when people have each other's back, that creates absolutely.

B

A

There's a sense that people don't have their bags. That's when culture starts to degrade and dysfunction starts to creep in and I'll say one other thing. We actually try to do our best in onboarding to make it an essential part of onboarding like an actual work task to go through some of the things that we believe in from the values and culture standpoint and really spend the time ingesting them.

A

And if you have questions about them there are people who reach out to you, because if you, if you don't do it at onboarding, it's really hard to catch up. It's kind of like your first impression of the company how they're gonna bring you in what foundation they're gonna lay for you. It carries through. So it's really important to think about this. If you're a small company early early on and get it right with your first employees, because they will then set the tone for everyone that comes after them, it's.

B

So true in a sofa nica's like for us, we discovered the good lab handbook along the way like when you started. We just started with our own. You know experiences, and that sounds, and we realize how much we a lot of these things. You did guys great. We also started doing like writing everything from day.

B

One I come from a process background, so I, like epic processes in place and five seconds from the first day and I think that's super important so like for onboarding, we have like a Kanban board for onboarding like and one of the first steps that they do is definitely go through the branding foundation and the values.

B

One thing I'll say, though, that we noticed like it's important to reinforce that even after onboarding, because one thing during onboarding is that people get easily overwhelmed with so much information like they're going through so many things and meeting team aids or you know, having gone boarding like technical calls, cultural calls. All of that and I noticed from that from experience with some of the teammates we brought on that they forget certain things and it's not like intentional or it's not because it was not well presented to them.

B

So I think it's important to even like we buy drinks. Sometimes you know, like the culture presentation from onboarding I, bring it during learning time in our all company. So that way, it's a good reminder for everybody to reinforce and talk about the culture again and again and those things, those small things and their importance and why we're doing them I also tend to quiz them like they teased me about it, because, like I, feel you're a teacher and I'm like yeah, because I want to make sure it stays right. So it's like.

B

Why are we doing this? So why, like? What are the top three things that you remember from that? What we talked about or why are we doing gratitude? Why is it important like I, don't want it to get to become just a habit? Okay, it's just a meeting. We jump on on every Monday right and that's easy. That's easy! Can happen, especially as a company scales, as new people come in and I can see that so I think it's important from the top leadership like to always, you know infuse their managers with that.

B

That becomes really a core practice and everything that's done like even we do performance reviews or like always to bring the cultural component. The reinforcement as this is a practice you need to do with your team and find here, are all the ways you can do it and find the ways that work best for your team. So that's my two cents I agree.

A

Yeah I'll say that you brought up a great point on weaving culture into performance reviews because often times performance reviews just get boiled down some very simple metrics, but the cultural component of that is significant if you spent a significant amount of your last year or half-year, contributing, culturally and really reinforcing and living the values that should count and I think that often time gets lost in the numbers driven society where it really just gets boiled down to that, that's how culture begins to disintegrate and so reinforcing that along the way, I almost see it as like learning and developing that type of task, where people oftentimes go through HR training on an annual basis, cultural reminders of of what was there and so fresh and onboarding, but on a recurring basis, probably isn't a bad idea.

A

B

Absolutely so yeah shall we go to the next question. Yeah.

A

Let's do it awesome.

B

So I think one of the biggest challenges we've seen I've seen at least you know that with remote work, especially when you have junior people, people who left a regular office job to go into a remote, they have a hard time understanding. You know what our working hour is, where felt feel almost uncomfortable with flexible hours, and so work-life balance gets lost really quickly, and you find people really almost like all the time logged in all the time working and it's not necessarily delivering being productive. It's just a matter of guilt.

B

You know being fed by the fact that okay I'm not feeling guilty I'm sitting and working type of thing. So how does it ensure work-life balance in a remote team? That's really I, don't want to get to it's.

A

A great question: we're still learning I'll say that studies have shown that companies with unlimited vacation policies, people actually tend to take less, which, like it's so counterintuitive like you, can structure your year. However, you want to, but people are so afraid of actually at taking advantage of it that they just end up not doing it, and so we we go out and try really hard to make sure. That's not the case.

A

One thing that I've seen as an employee is executives living it at the top makes everyone else feel more comfortable about actually doing it and having a work/life balance or work life, harmony or whatever suits you.

A

If your executive team shows no signs of having a work-life balance, then it's pretty difficult to expect that managers and direct reports would would have that as well, because people generally tend to look to their leadership and then mimic that, because that is that is the culture and I think culture even applies to work-life balance, so I think number one it has to be lived at.

A

The top leaders cannot ever be quote unquote too busy to actually have a life, because there are a lot of people working under them that rely on their the role of the role model that they are for, how they're going to act and how their life is going to live. One thing I would recommend is having a health check as a part of a weekly, one-on-one or stand-up or, however, your company structures. Does it should be a part of each managerial check in and say, like hey?

A

Have you have you been able to take enough time off like art? Do you feel like you're encroaching burnout? Are there any concerns? You have about a project? That's just taking way too much mental energy compared to what you thought it would have you accidentally over committed things, have just spiraled. These things happen. It's really easy to say yes to something, and then three months down the road when this project is really big, you're thinking wow this project in and of itself is a full-time job.

A

I didn't know that at the time now, I'm struggling to balance. All of these other things only real-world situation. You need to create a culture where it's okay, to say that in a one-on-one and not be negatively judged for it, because it's a it's impossible to know everything and part of what comes with a positive culture.

A

Is people generally want to help others, so they're more inclined to say yes without really knowing what the outcome is going to be, and that comes from a healthy place, but it if you do that too much and then things actually become much bigger than you had anticipated. You could end up in this situation, where you have no work-life balance, that you're burnt out, and it was all from positive intent.

A

So you need a manager to be able to untangle that figure out what the new priorities are and give you some relief on that I think it's a total case-by-case basis, we're learning on that every day. One other thing, I'll point out that get Ladd does I think is really cool.

A

When balancing this is, we have what's called a visiting grant, so it's an incentive where will partially reimburse travel if you go and explore and visit another gitlab team, member and we're in the world, and so there's a work element to it where you go and go work with this person, but also it encourages people to leave the house get outside of their comfort zone and go explore a new culture. Go try.

A

New food learn a new language whatever it may be, and we're going to help support that and encourage that financially, so anything that you can do that helps a person get out explore and do something. That's not directly. Work-Related sends a really good I. Think.

B

That's really great one of the things for me: oh I want to kind of explore the stigma around, like leadership being like the example, because I think that's very unrealistic to follow and here's.

B

Why, like, for example, I take my example right I've always been the super busy bee before even Mike this company right so I'm, somebody who loves being busy who loves working and what I'm doing right now, like I, sincerely love what I do so, it's like when I'm talking to people or good, like that's, not work for me, that's Richie the way I live. So if my team looks at me and be like, oh look, Emnes working, you know like 18 hours or whatever, like.

B

Of course, we don't have the similar same type of job first. The second part is I.

B

Think, like I, feel almost a freshman on the other side I'm like, but that's not what I want to do like yeah, of course, I'm something or braking, and building the right habits and I'm doing that differently, right, I'm, managing my day differently, and because people are not here what they might perceive as me, work in 18 hours might not be the case, but it's just that perception because I'm always, you know like on the go I'm present whatever so I think them.

B

The key point: I come again from a process and structure background like I'm. All about process is putting process around things. So when we talk about unlimited vacation, that's absolutely true. All studies showed that in a limited vacation, when you have a limited vacation, people don't take vacations so but two things that I see work really well, because we have an element of vacation policy as well as a company is one being communicative about the fact that there is a minimum that needs to be taken right to be like listen.

B

If you need to say, if you don't take two months of the year or three, the need to have structure around it, but you need actualities, take you know three four weeks or that's the minimum that you have to do one two.

B

The second part is that being clear on the structure, because people, when you give them something with no structural limit, they really don't know how to navigate it, so they be like how can I take three months off like that's crazy, you know that never happened and for me is to say: okay here is the policy around long term vacation.

B

If you need three months because you decided to go tour the world or you know, because you want extra paternity leave or extra mile whatever that is, then we need to put structure around in that structure is in process and documentation is like okay, so you're in marketing. So what are your main things? What can you document for? The person will take over to make sure that everything is covered while you're gone, and these are the important things.

B

So you don't have the guilt, the FOMO, you know being scared of screwing up type, a situation so and I think by putting these type of practices in place, that's how you can help really reinforce in them vacation policy.

B

The other second aspect is with true I, truly believe in the role of people operation measure in this person in our team like in any startup, they do everything but like a core saying about people is to make sure that they are looking out for the rest of the team, including the leaders themselves right, it's so like. If they see somebody like you, know, they're gonna burn out or like they're working too hard or like then to make sure it like to get one-on-one with them.

B

Make sure that, to a check-in, a health check in to make sure they plan for a vacation for a time off and all of that, and if the company and the leadership really reinforces these two practices, I think there's definitely a great way to scale. You know this work-life balance. You know, structure in any remote company. These are my personal to say no.

A

I love that I love that I love the I love the counter on putting process around it, because you're right something I may take for granted is having worked remotely for a really long time, I've sort of learned and navigate some of the unwritten rules, just because I have that experience. But if you're coming in fresh and you and there's no policy around it, your default is to just not do it or not, engage with it, because you're afraid of going about it. The wrong way.

A

I really like that, and that definitely touches on transparency and documentation on just being transparent about what is possible. And if someone brings up an issue like to your point, if you wanted to go somewhere for three months and that's not documented the next step for me would be, let's figure it out and document it and we'll get a first iteration down. And if we realize that it's not exactly the best, we could just change it and evolve it over time, as your company gets more experience with those different aspects. Absolutely.

B

So I think that's definitely very key cool. Let's talk about processing structure. Let's talk about the importance of cross documentation when it comes to productivity, because today, as we go remote, obviously we have even more information overload happening because you know documentation is all over the place and get lost into it. And you have you know so many tools you're using and it's hard to keep productivity going and while for more is there as well, especially in your if you're in a co-located situation or like a hyper situation, that's even harder!

B

That's there, so you try to be on top of everything all the time. So what are some of the practices to ensure productivity and optimization process and make sure, like your time, is really spent well what they share this? Yes,.

A

Sir, a good lab documentation is essential. Everything we do from a process standpoint would not be is efficient. If we didn't document, we have a rule of the company, that's handbook first, so your prior example was a great one. If someone wanted to take three months- and that was nowhere to be found in the handbook, then the next thought would be okay handbook. First, let's solve this problem document it in the handbook first and then disseminate it through slack or whatever that way.

A

If it's in the handbook, it's something that's searchable and culturally, everyone knows search there. First, if a question comes up in your head, we're just culturally attuned to searching first in the handbook and then only if we don't find it there would we ask somewhere else and then, if we found a new solution, we would then of course document it in the handbook so that anyone having that question henceforth would be able to find it there and it would make their day more efficient. So documentation is key.

A

I've seen companies use all sorts of different tools for documenting we love and believe in our handbook, as it has grown it's over 3,000 pages. Now we actually have a person dedicated to managing the handbook now and part of his role is going to be thinking through. Is this really the best layout of information? Is this structured in the best possible way? Is it laid out in an efficient way?

A

Can people actually find what they need to find so I think as a team scales and more of that information when it comes available, you'll have to ask and answer some of those questions just on a discoverability standpoint, because I don't think there's any simple answer to that depends on the company. Size depends on the handbook size that kind of thing we try to think about process in every aspect of the company, not just engineering or technical, but even to your point with vacation it.

A

If you put process around everything, it's less questions and people can just easily find things and it's just a great relief. When you have a question, you know where to search and there's on the answer. There I think the last thing I'll mention is: transparency is key for all of this. To what ever degree you possibly can try to answer these questions transparently, so that the entire company has access to the answer. It just creates a much better.

A

The the situation around morale is just much more positive when answers are documented in a transparent way, and there are some legal bounds around revenue and things like that for private companies, but to the degree that you can be transparent even when it's difficult I.

B

Think that's so crucial like transparency and that's something we believe you need not have evenly on all levels, even the difficult conversations, because you know again, you go back to stress and fear and all these things documentation as well like one of the drawbacks of documentation that we've seen at least when there's so much going on people like somehow go to Google. First, you know and I'd be like we have that in our documentation. So it's like it's.

B

It's really a work in progress to help educate people we're learning every day to be like go back to our documentation, search our wiki, make sure like there's an information about that, because I fell into situation being remote and so many hours of difference like somebody would be working on something for three hours I'll be like they already have one pager on that right and I think that's the hard part at least going back to you hour earlier so I, like fact, in terms of like it's different from a tiny company to a bigger company like today, if you go to the lab like documentation, is so obvious.

B

It's like yeah. We have that we have a thousand pages handbook, but during a tiny company you have a few hundred pages, so it's like, and people are still you know- are not used to small companies having this much process in documentation because not common in startups. That's reality of it. So that's one of the drawbacks. So for us, what worked and what you've seen working is big believer in lean and combine type of things. So it's like when you put process around everything in terms of even like the way we do things.

B

So it's like yeah.

B

You know you have like your your task list for the week, but also you have a way to go through it and to know what are like the must like, for example, like our content, marketing team, like what are the top things to check every morning that you have to go to like your metric boards, like what I like you know, the pipeline for content gets for, seeing all of that, and then you look at your weekly list and then you update that every week and that way, even your remote manager or somebody on the other side of the world could look at it at any time and help adjust and hydrate and, like you know, if you input a say, currency I know we're gonna go into that a little bit.

B

That's something I, don't wanna discuss but I. Think process in that sense beyond documentation is also very important and continues collaboration around it. So I don't know your thoughts about that. Can.

A

I, ask you, do you have anyone dedicated to documentation or is it a shared responsibility across everyone on the team? It's.

B

A shared responsibility, so that's anybody like like the culture, is like write things down type of thing. So whenever you have a usually what happens is that we write when we feel oh ok, especially in people, go on vacation or something they realize they need to write more in that sense, but sometimes when people have some free time and they're like, let me write, you know we could page about this particular thing. The other part is when you know you learn something new.

B

Let's say like you wash it get black video today, you know, like you, learn something new about remote practices and just you know, throw a dressed out there and other person. Somebody else will come and contribute to it and add to it, but like at least start the conversation around that particular topic, yeah.

A

Agreed agreed and we we operate the same way. The handbook manager is actually kind of an overseer role where he looks at the technical aspects of it, and things like that.

A

But I've actually spoken with some other companies and have suggested that even at the earliest stage, if if it's difficult for you to get the team to contribute and everyone write things down, consider hiring like a former journalist or somebody that has a strong editorial background that can be almost a documentarian or or an archivist for the company at our early stage and just trying to document as much as you possibly can, because every day that you don't document is so much harder to do it after the fact and so many little nuances get lost.

A

If you don't document when it's happening in real time and that that kind of like scares, some people, like oh no I've, already I've, already spun up a company or two or three years, and is there any way? To course today is the next best day that you can start. You know yesterday would have been great, but today works as well and started getting that process in place.

A

It's really easy to just say in a co-located space: hey, let's just get everybody in a conference room and just hammer out this thing: I mean it's all lost in the ether and teams that are in different offices or people that weren't in the room or they were out sick or whatever. They have no way to catch up, and that's where the dysfunction starts to happen so mandating time to document. It feels like a burden at the time, but it actually makes everyone's life so much easier in perpetuity really and.

B

That's why I like for us I mean we try to keep track of everything like so one of the things, for example, that we do that I want to change so recording meetings when you do so meetings, I feel like for me and right now, it's useless in terms of like nobody has it's time to go. Watch something versus wainy I mean we have new technology coming in that you can search voice, and you know you can transcribe I but like for for today.

B

This technology is still not great, so it's like how can we make sure that everybody else you know sees the information and even if we run co-located space like again, the culture and the structure of the company is built for remotes, so and that's I think is the best way, I believe in colocation I believe that hybrid is not gonna, go away, I believe sometimes you can get it the best talent, but they they really don't feel comfortable with the remote and but to keep it flexible.

B

Even with that, like you know offering co-working spaces be like you know, you can just go and get together in that place, but that doesn't change the process internally, as a company and I think that's the best formula to have a hybrid so that nothing gets lost and there is no guild. There is no formal. There is none of these really drawbacks of a usual hybrid situation, especially for big companies going into remote as a new practice.

B

So one of the things I want to touch upon and in this sense, in terms of productivity as well, is that, even though your documents as I said like it's still a lot of information overload, so people send to send stuff on different slack channels and or like comments on pull requests or on tickets, and it gets completely lost. It's like what have you seen in that sense like as challenges from that perspective and ways to solve for that yeah.

A

It's the the distribution of information for and why it is definitely a challenge. I'll say at gate lab when we are working on a project and all internal. So there's no outside party that we're working with we're really efficient at using merge, request issues and the discussions that are that are allowed in those to keep all of the discussion and documentation in that. So that helps us communicate in one place and it's asynchronous, and you know where to go and it's easily searched.

A

Nothing gets sort of fragmented and slack or fragmented in email, but that's a best-case scenario and as soon as you involve one external party that maybe they aren't signed up with yet lab, or they don't want to learn the platform or whatever and they want to just default email or a carrier pigeon or whatever. It may be.

A

You end up with this fragmented array of information, and so we're definitely still grappling I think what would like most companies on if you get updates in various places like an update, came in on email and then it would share it over slack and then someone else behind on it and then that up they have been translated into a lab issue. Maybe not dad becomes challenging.

A

So it's it's something that we we struggle with and I think a lot of companies do email is an archaic technology at this point, but it's unfortunately, the only one that I think is universally accepted and recognized and I think that's why people default to it. But it's really poor for transparency. It's really poor for sharing large files whiteboarding. That kind of thing. It's not! It's not ideal, it's great for saying, hey to a colleague, but it's not really great for managing a project in there. I.

B

Absolutely agree and beyond that is like every like you said, every person has a personal preference in terms of what they like to use to communicate with so I, don't think we'll be ever in a world again, at least in this time, where we're gonna impose one thing that everybody would use and I know you're doing it internally, ideate lab you're trying to get love for everything which is great, but you know very well even your customers I'm very short, like these get love and gazillion other things. Next to get love right.

B

There they'd rather communicate and that's very common, usually for any collaboration app that the co-founding company would use it perfectly, but then also goes to the customer. You start seeing like really very different use cases, and- and that's literally like that for us- like that's the pain we saw even as a company and what we're trying sulphur is like, how can you help people break easily process and workflow around all their different apps and make sure the communication is a sacredness, even if it stopped synchronous exactly so anyway.

B

So the point is: thank you for sharing that the the last point, as we started already mentioning it talking about the future being truly asynchronous. There's a lot of debate around it. I know the I. Don't know if you know the running remote conference that happens in Bali every year, I mean you know it. Obviously you guys participated as a company love the founders love. What they're doing and I know like this year alone. There was a topic about you know: synchronous versus asynchronous.

B

Some companies still believe it's synchronous is the way personally fully believe that the future is asynchronous and that's how we can best really take control of our time and make sure we're efficient, but also have a life outside of it. So tell me more about your thoughts as you at CERN, but also has a company about that. Yes,.

A

So asynchronous is essential to get lab functioning. We have people in over 60 countries now and I think that's only going to continue, and so almost every time zone in the world it's covered and so trying to wrangle people into one call or one meeting is inefficient. It just goes against our efficiency value. It's just not a war worth fighting, so async versus sync is definitely seen as a process choice for most people, but what we found interesting at gate lab is that it it's actually a cultural element and being fully asynchronous.

A

It actually makes people it improves morale, it actually improves well-being and I. Think. The reason for this is when you operate and think: okay, if I'm taking a project from point A to point B and then someone else is going to pick it up and take it from B to C and so on and so forth.

A

If you operate from the mindset of no one else, is online right now, so how can I best encapsulate what I'm doing so that anyone in the company who picks this up will have a great idea of what my train of thought was to get to this point? If you're able to approach your work like that, it's less chaotic, it's, the the sense of urgency is not on. You need to get something out now.

A

The urgency is on I need to do this and document it well, so that wherever it's picked up down the road, it's understandable and can be taken to the next step. For me personally, that has has helped with stress and anxiety. It's less about. I need to be on from this hour. To this hour, miss the truth.

A

Is life doesn't work like that things in your life that are really important are going to spring up curveballs you're, going to happen that you couldn't possibly anticipate and they're going to happen within the core working hours of your day, and if you don't have an asynchronous culture and background, and you don't have a company that supports that, it's only an added stress on how do I deal with life. If it happens to come within the set working hours now, I get it not.

A

Every company can do that if you're in a manufacturing company, for example, where things have to happen in a very closely timed, so the sequence says I get it, but if you're, a digital company where you can enable async I would recommend doing it. I think people respond well to it. Of course people love to work synchronously if they happen to be online at the same time, but having the freedom to do it.

A

They sink and give people the power to work when they're, most creative or a morning person a night person and middle of the night person. It's just a more inclusive way to work. It doesn't force people to do something in certain hours sure there are challenges to it, but I think the pros outweigh the cons. I.

B

Absolutely agree like one of the I mean yeah. Of course it's not for everybody. It's like remotes is still not for everybody like I, still don't see how a manufacturing plant can be a remote company hit like so absolutely, but there's definitely a huge side of the market. That's all tech and digital and there's already so much to be done there before we start thinking about all the other industries and one of the things I always believed in it's like whether you work 12 hours or where they work one hour.

B

What matters is the output and nobody should judge you on how long you know it takes you to get that output out and that's my core belief and that's what I really try to push for everybody in our team that that's what really matters. So that being said, is that, like with synchronous communication, the problem? Is it created this fake sense of emergency? It created this heavy interruptive environment, a lot of context, and then you end up.

B

You know highly stressed all the time like very few people realize that stress is as bad for your liver as alcoholism is, like a study showed literally that so and we don't realize it because now we are so used to our stress like we live with it and we don't we, we don't even know who, what a life, without stress I mean without bad stress, is and I think by removing that aspect by removing that interruptive effect. That's how we go into the future, because we cannot sustain as a humanity.

B

This way we cannot keep up with it. We cannot keep up with again a fake sense of urgency. I always say like. If it's truly urgent people will call that's, you can see what happens. Nothing deserves your attention right away, but yet your brain when it sees something, come in the screen, you automatically go to it and you find yourself engaging and then like at a certain point like software in a stick setting you're like what am I doing like. Why am I not back to the task?

B

I was doing, and that's the the part that, where very few companies are really paying attention to it, but we're seeing more and more awareness- and that's like also our mission like to make sure that people really see that and how bad it is and how I say penis is really the way to go and I love what you said about morale, because that's something personally, we didn't I mean I, didn't have a comparison aspect to see like does this have an impact on people's well-being, so I love it I'm gonna use it going forward, because it's really an amazing argument like if people feel better and happier and more comfortable, even more reason to do it.

B

A

I completely agree that it's unsustainable and I feel, like I, hope we're reaching a tipping point as a working society, where we're just not going to accept any longer that this sense of urgency, like someone else's urgency, has become my urgency and it's perpetual and it never stops.

A

That's like life is more than that and and a lot of the technology that has enabled remote work part of the way that these technology companies increase engagement is to do things like notify you about everything, regardless of its priority level or it's important, because if those notifications keep coming you're more likely to re-engage with them, which looks great from an engagement in a metrics and so to some degree, it's a self-fulfilling cycle that happens on the technology that we use, where you were not we're, not stepping in as humans to say.

A

Is this really the best way to use it like way? The way this is a technology in a tool we're the humans. Here we should really figure out a sane, safe, healthy way to use it and a lot of times tools just get implemented without that mental humanity, check and I. Think that's going to happen more and more I think a Stacy I'm sorry go ahead.

B

No no say no most of the time absolutely most.

A

B

The time and it's so funny because for me I say you know we're all about removing interruption as a company, and there are three kinds of interruptions right. You have like your self interruptions, where your mind just wanders, you have the physical interruption.

B

That remotes is removing right because, like when somebody steps on your shoulder, and then you have the digital interactions that are really huge and but as a company for me like it's very important to educate, educate the world beyond our software beyond our product, and so we just started doing productivity workshops here in San, Francisco and collaboration of the productivity coach and as part of things I tried to get people to do is to take the challenge of reels, removing all their notifications from their phones and removing social apps as a start, and it's a very hard step to take like even personally the food when I did, that I felt something was missing from my body, like literally for a couple of days, but yet now I feel so much more in control, I literally broke up with my phone as a device that controlled my life like like, for example, yesterday, my phone was up for six hours.

B

I didn't care because, like I was doing something else, I was focusing on something. So it didn't matter, but to get to that state of mind is very hard because it's addictive. It's like a drug, those notifications, I like a drug and whether it's work or even social and the beauty of it is I, had people recently for who are part of that workshop they're, like ice, no I just remove notifications and I was like how was it they're like?

B

Well, I, don't know yet, but one thing I know is I started, remembering what I was doing like Sutton. That sentence was so powerful for me, it's like, like that's how bad those interruptions are for our brain. The way we work as a society in that synchronous environment so anyway want to share that story for.

A

Sure, that's a it's a beautiful story and I agree. A saint removes that cycle of bad stress, because when you're async you're able to give yourself permission to decline the notifications and get into a state of flow about something that you prioritize as a manager of one. If you prioritize this project is being your most important right now, you can do it on your time asynchronously and get it done in a way that is most suitable to you without the judgement of.

A

Why isn't this person doing it within these hours when async is company-wide, and it removes that judgment related to time? There is a dramatic increase in morale, a dramatic difference in how people see each other and that they appreciate people are taking time to ingest things in a way that works for them versus just some sort of hierarchy of urgency. That's just being put in place by tools and notifications, I, agree, I, agree and to your point about declining the notifications.

A

It's it's bad that we've gotten to a place where we don't even remember what life is like without those but for viewers. I would really encourage you to do that you're in control of your phone you're in control of your notifications, if you think otherwise, like notifications, should not be able to control you and it's hard at first, if you're addicted to them, but there's more life to be lived on the other side, I think.

B

The most beautiful moment is when you realize that you're somehow feeling lighter, but you don't know why- and this happened to me like once, I did an updates a few weeks ago on my phone and somehow I. Don't know if I did it over the update, like all my notification got activated again and I lifted, my phone and energy I had like a freeze, though the cool. What is this like so and literally I felt anxiety in my chest and I realized how freeing it was to remove those like and how you know.

B

I still have stress, I'm human, like obviously I, run a startup. So that's not simple, but the you still remove that unnecessary stress that the digital world created for us and the sick were created for us. So so.

A

Thank you for joining me and I want to give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about Dean Lee. It sounds like you're developing a tool that helps with all of these things. So if any of our viewers are interested in living, a better life through process, optimization I'd love to have you talk about that. Thank.

B

You Darren, so what we do, I'd, really like we're all about helping software engineers really take back control of their time, which is both of what we've been talking about. We do that by bringing all of their collaboration apps like gitlab and zero and slack and everything whatever they're using in one centralized workstation and then on top of it. We give them a smart inbox to help them process all of the inbounds.

B

The whole point is to help them use all these apps more efficiently and crave that workflow and process that will allow them to focus better on the task attends. What we do as well is we help them see, metrics about all of that when you help them really truly be more proactive about their time. More intentional about it, I would say, like I want people to treat their health the way they treat their time.

B

Sorry, the same way they treat their health to start really noticing how well they're spending their time and be more intentional about it. So you can check out us out that Jimmy does comm. We have a lot of content also that helps with all these things we talked about in our blog, but also we have a webinar is that where we invite also guests and we're gonna have actually one with one of the gitlab teammates in a couple of weeks, actually with Mac and who's gonna talk about those productivity tips that they use.

B

I get lab with their teams to have a pretty forum, better communication and more efficiency. So yeah.

A

Amazing amazing, well.

B

A

You so very much for joining me. I will be sure to put all of those links down in the YouTube description box and, if you're interested in learning more about get labs, all remote culture you'll find a link there as well. And if you want to join me and do one of these pick, your brains, I love, doing those I'll put a link down below thanks. So much I'm, not.

B

Appreciated so much Darien. Thank you so much.