 Hi, I'm Megan Bird-Sanaki and I used to run a fully remote team, a fully remote board and open source community. And now I work at Google in the open source programs office as the manager of strategy and operations. Before COVID, my team was distributed. Some worked in offices, some worked at home, but now, like many of you, we're 100% remote. And my talk today is on how to run high performing, joyful remote teams. And I want to thank you for making time to attend. Now, given COVID, I can't think of a better time to give a talk about remote teams because we're all in this boat together. Now, naturally, I submitted this talk before COVID. So while this talk will focus on how to run remote teams, it's also going to provide tips on how to run teams while in crisis. Because let's face it, it's really hard to expect teams to perform at high levels or be really joyful during such challenging times. So I do want to be realistic with this talk. So with that said, my talk today will cover what does a high performing and joyful team look like? What do you need to create one in general? And how do you create one specifically for remote teams? And I'll sprinkle in some tips on how to manage remote teams during the global pandemic and give you some good places to start this work with your team. Sound good? Well, great. Let's dive in. Well, first, I want to start by sharing a story just to illustrate high performing, joyful teams. And rather than describing a wonderful experience of a team that I was on, I'm going to tell you the complete opposite. Just so you can see what it looks like when you don't have a high performing, joyful team. So once upon a time, I was working in an international tech company, and it was having a really hard time finding its North Star. And it was going through strategy changes every nine months, and it was conducting big layoffs over a two year period laying off new rounds of people every quarter until they reached 20,000 people. Needless to say, it was a really tumultuous time, and no one worked well together. And there were just all kinds of challenges. We didn't feel like our work mattered or was going to help the company. There was low trust for management and really for each other. And communication was not great. We were a distributed team where some people were in offices. Some of us worked from home like I did. And those in the office, well-intentioned, would sometimes meet in the hallways and make a decision and run off in a direction and forget to tell us remote people. And we were often out of the loop. And it was also before video was used a lot. And so we had to use the phone. And it just became really draining just talking to the phone. But also, we didn't have the benefit of seeing people's body language. So that was also really challenging. So needless to say, it was not a high performing or joyful team at all. And in short, we were kind of a hot mess. And while there were definitely business consequences because of this, what was worse was that there were human consequences. I personally felt extremely stressed from this whole situation. And I just generally felt terrible going to work every day. And in the end, I just stopped engaging and I quit the team. And it was really an unfortunate situation all around. And it would have been a lot better if managers and leaders knew how to build better environments for teams, especially for those of us that were working remotely for the company. So I tell this story to show that being a manager, especially remote teams, is really important work. Not only are managers for team success or leaders for team success, but they can make a direct impact in someone's life, especially if managers manage the whole person and not just the work they do. And now, more than ever, the world needs good and caring managers to help teams get through all the challenges that we're facing today. So with that said, let's learn how to start creating high performing, joyful remote teams. And let's just break this down, focusing first on what is a high performing team? Well, according to the Center of Organizational Design, high performing teams look like this. They have clear vision that they're excited about. They have clearly defined roles and processes. They know what to focus on and how to measure their success. And they have good interpersonal dynamics on the team with open communication, positive relationships, shared leadership responsibilities. And all of that helps them manage team conflict where they debate ideas in a healthy way. Plus they make good and timely decisions and several other attributes. And to create a team like this, managers need to create the right team environment. And that starts with establishing the team behaviors that everyone needs to share. So Patrick Lanzioni, a leadership expert, spells this out in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. And the five behaviors he says that high performing teams have are that they trust one another, they engage in conflict, and they're able to constructively debate ideas because they trust each other. And as they debate ideas, they make decisions and they commit to those decisions. And then they hold each other accountable for following through on the decisions that they've made. And then finally, high functioning teams, they focus on achieving results together. And it's a manager's job to create those behaviors within the team. And of course, you're not going to achieve any of those behaviors, especially trust without the most important team ingredient, which is psychological safety. And this is a critical step managers have to take from day one and continue it every day after. The other key ingredient for high performing teams is having diverse teams because many perspectives create better solutions. And to attract and retain diverse teams, you need to have equitable and inclusive team environments. So everyone feels welcome. They feel a sense of belonging and they can thrive as they work together. So behaviors, psych safety, DEI are key ingredients for creating high performing teams. But what about joyful teams? Well, that's just a few more ingredients that you have to get to know. So first, why do we want joyful teams? Well, it plays an important role in the success of the team. Because when team members feel joy, they're more engaged and committed to the team and the team goals. And then when they achieve those goals, that creates more success, which gets celebrated, which creates more joy. And then the cycle continues. It's actually joy. Well, in short, there was a study done by AT Kearney and they found that joyful teams, but joy really comes from teams experiencing a combination of team harmony, impact and acknowledgement. And teams feel harmony because members have clarity of their role and everyone else's role on the team. And there are strong bonds and they can be formed through the work and through fun days. And they feel that their talents are understood and well used for the work that they're asked to do. Plus, teams feel they make an impact because they're connected to the team's success. They see that their role is critical and that their role is helping the team succeed at bigger goals. Also, teams feel that their hard work and success is acknowledged. Teams have a way of celebrating each other's success and their team's success. And also people outside of their group acknowledge the work that they've done and the goals that they've achieved. So clearly managers have their work cut out for them to create these high performing joyful teams in general. But how do you create these kinds of teams when everyone is remote? Well, that takes a few more skills to apply this into a remote environment where everyone is scattered all over. And it's really hard to get in front of a whiteboard to figure some things out. So I want to share some of my tips. I broke it down into six key areas. So the first one is commit to being fully remote. This means you want an even playing field where everyone is in the same work environment. You know, having team members in distributed offices. You know, maybe they have some people in Chicago and some people in Paris and who knows where else. That's not remote. It has elements of remote team because you are separate and you have to use online tools to communicate and collaborate. But you still get a level of support. You can still have hallway conversations that doesn't exist at all with remote teams. And really you want to try to avoid the hybrid situation. The one that I had at that within that story I told you about. You want to avoid the some people are in offices and some people are remote. It just it doesn't work. So if you can avoid it, you should. But there's also just their reality. That's that's how this is. And so what I'm hoping is because of COVID, I think people can be building empathy right now for what it feels like to be a remote worker. So that when people do go back into the office and they're in these hybrid situations, they can be a little bit more mindful of what it's like to be a remote worker and how to include them more into just that office culture that tends to take over. Second one is hire the right people. Of course, as I mentioned, hire diverse talent. And when you interview, make sure that the people you're hiring share the same values as your team. It makes a big difference when everyone is aligned on how you want to move forward together. And also, while you're interviewing, test to make sure that people know how to work remotely, that they know how to use the tools and they know how to communicate in an effective way for remote teams. And, you know, because it's just really hard to help some people figure this out once they're on board. And sometimes it doesn't work and you don't want it to go sideways. So just really make sure you've hired the right people. The third one is a big one. You need to build a human first culture. And this will be your best investment in a remote team and really in any team. And as they say, culture eats strategy for lunch. A culture that connects people and meaningful and trusting ways at a human level is going to create a team that moves mountains. So start by uniting the team around shared values and have the team create those values together. And then revisit those values from time to time and talk about what does it mean to live those values? How are you living those values? How are you not living those values? And how can you do it better? Also, get your team members to connect and know each other as people, not just people working together. So use your team meetings and ask fun questions like, what is your favorite food? And of course, you don't have a physical water cooler where people are going to find each other and just make bonds that way. So create your own slack water cooler and get in there and get people talking. And eventually you'll see they'll take over as well. We also have something on our team that I learned from a group called Lullabies, a digital agency that's distributed or I'm sorry, remote. And it's called a serendipity call. This happens every other week and it's dedicated time where we all show up and talk about anything but work. It's a great way to get to know each other and laugh a lot at work, which is sometimes what we need, especially in these really strange times that we're in. And help the team get to know each other professionally. Do exercises where you surface what everyone's skills and talents are and get them to think about how they can start working with each other to take advantage of those skills and talents that they don't have. And make sure that they have projects that force them to work together. And make sure that they're starting to have one-on-ones with each other, not just with you as their manager so that you're starting to force these connections where they're seeing where they can help each other and get to know each other a little bit better personally and professionally. And what I like that I've learned from Heather lesson recently is that you should have a buddy system. And so it's the same concept of putting people together on a project, but it's really great in a time of crisis where when you have two people working on a project and they know that they can count on each other, when somebody needs to walk away, maybe it's to take care of a child, maybe it's just to take a break because the world's too much, their buddy could move things forward. And when their buddy needs to take a break, they can return the favor. We're doing this and it makes a huge difference. Another thing about creating a human-first culture is that you need to foster empathy on your team. We're all in these situations, we're working from home and some of us are having to juggle a lot of things. Dogs are showing up, cats are showing up, kids are showing up. Sometimes my in-laws show up in calls because I'm doing elder care. You know, when that happens, don't react. It's okay if you get interrupted. Just accept it and actually call those people in. Find out what that dog's name is and what that kid likes to do for fun. You know, this is about getting to know the whole person. And when you are talking, like having a conversation, turn the video on. If you're not using the video, you are not getting the benefits because just talking to each other without video reduces your ability to have empathy for the person you're talking with. So make sure the video is on. But if you are doing online communications, just be really mindful of how you're communicating. Be really self-aware, assume positive intent. I have a whole talk called Be the Leader You Need, an open source that talks about this. But one small hack is use emojis to help express the emotions you're trying to convey. It doesn't totally bridge the gap, but it helps. One thing our team found when we wanted to express empathy for each other as people are going through all kinds of crazy stuff was that there is no empathy emoticon. So we created our own and it's the empathetic empanada emoji. It's like you can use that if you want. But it is something that we created and it's a nice little norm within our team. Another thing I would recommend is consider your one-on-ones with your staff a sacred time. Give it a full hour. You know, it might be the only time someone's truly checking in on your staff. And I use my first 15 minutes to just talk about them. Find out how are they doing? How's life? How's their balance? Do a heat check. You know, red's like, I'm not okay. Yellow's like, I'm okay, sort of. Green, like, yeah, I'm cruising. Good to go. And it's also a really good time to unblock those things that are a little bit unique to this time. Maybe people aren't giving themselves permission for self-care. And so it's a great time to look at each other's calendars and see, well, maybe you need a day off. Here's some time you don't need to go to all these meetings. Go take a day, right? These one-on-ones, it's not just about work. It's really about helping them get unblocked at all levels, you know, work and emotional and childcare and whatever. And, you know, it's also important that you do promote self-care. Right now, just our teams are dealing with so much. So I think it's important for managers of any kind of team to make sure that the top priority is self-care. And I think it's really important that you model that for your team. I'm finding that sometimes people are not giving themselves the permission they need to take the time off or take a break. So it's important that you do it, too. And I have to always remind myself when I'm starting to redline and maybe I need to take a break and I try to let the team know I'm doing this and why I'm doing this and encourage them to do the same. And these are the kinds of things that can help really form those team bonds that make a great high-performing team. And the fourth one is also a big one to unpack. You need to be really intentional about how you provide team structure. You know, things that are easy to figure out in an office are much harder to do remotely. And so a manager needs to put that structure in place. And I start with the meeting cadence. And I pick a cadence of different kinds of meetings so that you have the right conversations at the right time in the right way and they all build on each other. I get inspired by this book by Patrick Lancioni called Death by Meeting. It sounds horrible. It's a little long for what it conveys but really just talks about a great meeting cadence. So I use daily stand-ups, weekly team meetings and one-on-ones, quarterly strategy meetings and annual planning. And it can be tricky because people are in different time zones. So we use a mix of daily stand-ups that are video calls where we commit to the same time on a certain day to get together. Otherwise, we do it asynchronously over chat. And also for those strategy meetings, annual planning meetings, it's great is actually just better to do those in person over a couple of days if you can, do some team formation as part of it. But of course that's not an option for us. And so you have to be super intentional about strategy meetings and design them and facilitate them very well. Another thing is make sure people feel really connected to the vision and the goals and that they understand how their work helps achieve those goals. And also make sure they're excited about doing that work and what it means when they help to achieve those goals. Make sure they're really on board and have those conversations and be very intentional about it. Because it's just nothing sadder than being isolated and disengaged. Trust me, I've had that experience, not great. And next, you wanna be very intentional about how you and your team communicate, where you communicate and when you communicate. And make sure you and the team aim to over communicate because there's just a lot of emails flying, there's chats going on. So you wanna make sure you are very clear and that your messages are being received. So that means that you wanna be really clear about the communication channels and how to use them. So for example, you might wanna set norms that Slack is great for some quick conversations but don't send tasks there because they get lost and forgotten and that use email to send tasks or things that you want people to do more reading and processing around. Be clear about when you're available to communicate. You know, we aren't robots working all the time. So set up your calendar and let people know when you're available to work and when you're not available to work. You do the same thing with Slack or any other channel. And just be transparent about everything. Make a team page where everyone can find your team, mission, vision, goals, work plans, use JIRA or other tools to make your work transparent and then document decisions that been made because not everyone is in the same place when a decision was made. Make sure they know where to go to find those decisions. And then lastly, be very intentional about how you celebrate as a team. Celebrate birthdays, celebrate team successes and then also be really intentional about reaching out to managers of other teams and make sure they're sending in accolades when your team's done something great that's helped them. And lastly, set boundaries. Remember, you're working from home, not homing from work. You need boundaries to set the work from everything else going on in your life. So some things to consider are pretend you're going into the office, shower and get dressed every day as if you're going to work, maybe even take a walk around the block as if you're commuting and have a work schedule and keep to it and let others know what it is. Try having a dedicated workspace even though right now some people are working in closets but try to have a dedicated workspace and maybe even your own work computer. Although that takes a lot of privilege to be able to have more than one computer. And think twice about where you're putting your work apps on your phone. You may not wanna combine your life on your phone that way. Also, don't sit all day, take breaks, schedule breaks, get a standing desk. And one trick I learned is that you could drink water a lot all day long. It's gonna force you to take bio breaks. So a cliche note, a couple of times a day you're gonna get up from that desk. And so it's just important to watch these boundaries because it's easy to lose them and they're really hard to rebuild. And if you do lose them, you're on a fast track to burn out. And the last tip I have for you is don't micromanage. I've heard stories of new remote managers getting really nervous that they don't know what their team's doing. So don't do that, don't micromanage because no one wins. It's known that teams thrive when they have autonomy. Instead, focus on the outcomes. Be clear what you expect and be clear what success looks like and get aligned on that. And get aligned on what people's general plans are to achieve that outcome. So you know generally what their roadmap looks like. And then from there, your job is just to check in, unblock and coach. So those are some of the main things I found helpful when managing remote teams. And I hope they'll help your team too. Because it's certainly a lot of work for a manager to create high performing, joyful remote teams. And it takes a lot of specialized skills and talents to do it well. But I personally find it very rewarding work. But where can you begin today? Especially with all the tips that I gave, where do you begin today? So no matter what stage your team is in, you can take one very simple step. Sorry, and that is to simply start talking as a team. Bring your team together and get real about what's working, what's not working, what your needs are. Treat it like product design. And then listen, really listen to each other and work together to come up with solutions. And then project manage those and implement those solutions just like you would with product development. And then do team retrospectives on a periodic basis. And then just keep iterating so that you keep forming your team. And that may sound like simple steps to take for making complex change, but in the words of leadership expert Margaret Wheatley, very great change starts from very small conversations, held among people who care. You will be amazed how your team will get stronger just by talking and getting real with one another. So that's it. I wanna thank you so much for attending my session. Wherever you are on your remote work journey, I wish you the best of luck. And most importantly, I hope you all remain safe, happy and healthy. And just in case you're looking for a few resources that supported my talk today, you can check these out.