Why We Chose Distributed Work

Adventures in Businessing: Entrepreneurship, Small Business, and a Healthy Dose of Humor

Show Notes

• [0:00:00] Episode Summary | Intro

• [0:02:25] Remote Work: Pros/Cons

• How we’ve done it, and how you can learn from our mistakes.
• There are options.
• • The pandemic has made a huge portion of people realize their jobs can be done from home.
  • • Not everyone is going back to the office, and for valid reasons.
• The pros far outweigh the cons.
• Comfort and convenience go a long way toward being productive.

• [0:06:40] Why We Chose Distributed

• • We started as a completely co-located business.
  • • Think 1/3rd....or 1/10th of Silicon Valley and you have the right idea.
  • In late 2019 we decided it was time for a shift.
  • • Being pre-pandemic, the thing that made us kick-off a new normal was quite simply that our office became less desirable.
    • • And inconvenient parking (aka no parking) led to distributed considerations...seriously.
    • We were always remote friendly, but more people started working off-site: from local coffee shops, gastro-pubs, their homes.
    • We misunderstood business for productivity.
    • Being co-located was actually instigating poor communication.
  • Jeremy’s 15+ years of Distributed Work Experience
  • • How his experience encouraged a dramatic change in where and how we conducted business.
  • We also brought on a new team through an acquisition, which only further exemplified the need for this change.
  • We chose distributed over hybrid for a reason.
  • • We did attempt a hybrid approach for a brief time, but we were slowly learning that even it wasn’t the best People First fit for our business.
• [0:18:34] ...and then the pandemic happened.
• • Converting processes, communication, and our approach to clarity and collaboration had to be rethought and reconsidered from almost every angle.
  • • And we continue to refine and iterate even now.
  • There was a huge mental shift for James and Kevin in how they had to think about what they were doing, and how to lead a distributed team-- simply how to make it work.
  • The dangers of the hybrid space stem from communication issues.
  • • The people not co-located often pay for this by not receiving the clarity and collaboration that co-located team members were.
    • • The answer was moving to 100% distributed.
      • • Which we’ll unpack in the next episode of Adventures in Businessing.

• [0:24:31] Closing Thoughts, and one additional thing to NOT do if you plan to shift to distributed work.

• Don’t jump the gun, and try to plan out a timeline for what going distributed could/would look like, and how it might affect individuals, and teams, for better and worse.