Effective Communication
Effective communication strategies are now more than ever important for us to excel as a remote, product-led organization.
Pillars
Communication is Continuous: Every action or inaction communicates something. Especially inaction: people is not stupid, and when they see inaction the first thing that they do is thinking the worst (also because they do not have enough information).
MOST IMPORTANT Asynchronous Over Real-Time: We should prioritize writing and documenting over real-time verbal communication to reduce interruptions and increase clarity. A meeting composed of 10 people means that:
those 10 people are not doing something else
everyone else in the organization is left out
Important: this does not mean that we should abolish meetings. Rather, we need to invest in documenting important things that happen throughout the company in order for everyone to be on the same page and to promote transparency.
Minimize Meetings: Use meetings as a last resort and emphasize written communication. See point above for this.
Clarity is Key: Aim for clear communication to avoid repetition and misunderstandings. Once again, meeting can be a good way to clear misunderstandings but people should get used to read and when they have questions leave a comment.
If I have a question, that can be solved in a meeting. But what if that same question had risen to another person not in that meeting? By leaving a comment (and by the person answering the comment) we build transparency for everyone to clear out any possible problem.
Effective Use of Time: Respect others' time and avoid unnecessary synchronization. The keyword for 2024 should be focus, or better, uninterrupted focus. This does not mean that we need to abolish meetings, gatherings or emotional connections, rather we should invest in chunks of times for people to do deep, focused work. This will be a consequence of the behaviour we will have
On this, see the masterpiece by Paul Graham Maker vs Manager schedule - Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule
Promote Reflection: Encourage employees to reflect on their work and communicate their thoughts. It is very important to execute, but it is also important to, recurringly, take some time to reflect on what has been done to improve and iterate. We shall issue quarterly reflection moments where all together we understand how to improve.
Daily Practices
One Central Tool: Utilize one single tool for all internal communication. This gives clarity and stability in the group.
Routine Check-Ins: Daily and weekly check-ins are important to assess the work of people. In Basecamp, they found a way to automate it by which a bot asks daily and weekly, from a template, check-in questions. Answers are then saved and reviewed by the manager
Social Interaction: It is important to schedule periodic social interactions to foster team bonding. I would see them at least once a quarter, for new teams once a month for the first 6 months.
Heartbeats and Kickoffs: We should invest more time in providing regular summaries of past achievements and of future plans for each team, to be shared company-wide. This is done for us to promote flawless information sharing and transparency. The concept of knowledge base goes in this direction.