October 8, 2024 • 40 mins
Can we create calm workplaces that are not only remote, but also asynchronous? And can we do it while avoiding micromanaging from afar?
We're continuing in our mini-series on my calmer framework for a calmer business. This week, we're diving into autonomy. Why is autonomy essential for a calmer business? What does an autonomous work environment even look like? And how can you apply some of the best systems and tips for creating an autonomous environment into your own business.
We're joined by remote-work expert, Marissa Goldberg. Marissa has managed distributed team members across 20+ countries and in 2018 founded Remote Work Prep. Remote Work Prep offers Fractional COO services and courses to help companies successfully create healthy, effective remote work environments.
On this episode, we learn how to set up employees to be their best selves and do their best job in an autonomous work environment.
Listen to the Full Episode to Hear:
- What autonomy in a work culture means and why it is essential for building a calm company.
- The importance of clear communication, clear expectations, and the need for documentation to support autonomous decision-making.
- The necessity of intentional onboarding and training to help employees adapt to an autonomous work environment.
- Marissa's tips for managing 'overwhelming freedom' through self-management skills.
Learn more about Marissa Goldberg:
Learn more about me, Susan Boles:
We value your thoughts and feedback. Feel free to share them with Susan here. Your input is not just valuable, it's crucial in shaping future episodes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Susan Boles (00:04):
Micromanaging is way too much effort for me, and,
honestly, it's awful foreveryone. It's not good for the
team members. It's a huge timesuck for the person doing the
managing, and oh yeah, it's likethe least calm, most toxic way
to operate ever. Hey there. I'mSusan Boles, and this is Beyond
(00:26):
Margins, the show where wedeconstruct how to engineer a
calmer business.
And right now we're in themiddle of a mini series where
we're exploring the commonelements of a calm business. So
essentially, what makes calmcompanies calm? I believe there
are 8 elements that whenimplemented actually build a
calm company and I explain thisusing my CALMER framework. So
(00:50):
each letter stands for aparticular element. C is for
clarity and we talked about thisin the last episode, so if you
haven't listened to that, Ihighly recommend you go back and
listen.
A is for autonomy. That's whatwe're getting into today. L
stands for lens of care, so calmcompanies approach things from a
(01:11):
people first mentality. M is formargins, so spacious margins
throughout your company. Thatmight mean operations margins,
financial margins, energeticmargins.
Margins are important. E is forefficient systems. R is for rest
and reduced urgency. So if youwant a kind of deeper overview
(01:32):
on that model, you can head back2 episodes in the feed where I
kind of give a little bit of anoverview on it. Today, we're
gonna geek out about thatautonomy element.
We'll get into what anautonomous work culture actually
looks like, why this style ofwork is such an important
element of building a calmcompany, and we'll talk about
(01:53):
how to apply this in your ownbusiness. But before we get into
it, let's actually define what Imean when I talk about autonomy
so that you have some contextkind of heading into this
conversation. The way I like todefine autonomy is that it's the
ability to make your owndecisions without being
controlled by anyone else. It'sessentially the ability to self
(02:14):
govern. And calm businessesprioritize autonomy and
autonomous decision making.
Because if you are micromanagingsomeone or you have to make
every single decision in thebusiness and wear every hat,
well, that sucks. It's not calm.It creates bottlenecks, it slows
down work, and just generallymakes taking action way harder.
(02:34):
Now the most common example wecurrently have of an autonomous
work culture is really thatasynchronous remote work
environment that a lot of us arefamiliar with. So if you think
about companies like SparkToroor 37 signals, they are great
examples of this type ofenvironment.
Everyone is kind of off in theirown corners, their heads down
doing their work, and they owntheir areas of the company.
(02:57):
These are companies that haveemployees in a bunch of
different time zones, theydefault to often primarily
written communication versushaving lots of live meetings,
but essentially they empoweremployees to make decisions at
their particular level. Now thatkind of company isn't the only
kind of autonomous work culture.You could certainly do this in
(03:18):
an in person company by reducingmeetings, emphasizing clear
communication, empowering peopleto make decisions at all levels
of the company. There's nothingthat prevents in person
companies from doing this.
They tend to be a little bitlazier honestly when it comes to
proactively changing their workstyles and frequently they just
default to meetings. So for thatreason, today we're mostly gonna
(03:39):
talk about remote async workenvironments, but everything
we're talking about couldabsolutely be applied at any
company. These are goodpractices to put in place
regardless of the style of workyou do. Now my guest today is an
expert in async communications.Marissa Goldberg is the founder
of remote work prep which offersfractional COO services and
(04:00):
courses and she helps companiessuccessfully create healthy
effective remote workenvironments.
She is a fellow operations nerdand someone who's been thinking
and writing about asynchronouswork for quite a while.
Marissa Goldberg (04:14):
I'm the founder of Remote Work Prep.
I've been working remotely forclose to 10 years. And in 2018,
I started a fractionaloperational services company,
for specifically remote teams.So we work with innovative
companies that wanna do workdifferently. So typically,
agencies and, creator teams andstartups.
(04:36):
2020 hit, my business exploded,and here we are. So
Susan Boles (04:40):
So speaking of the pandemic heyday of remote work,
we really did have this realmove towards remote work in the
last few years, primarily due tothe pandemic. But it does seem
like things might be swingingback the other way. We've seen
all of these return to officemandates from the big companies.
(05:00):
So talk to me a little bit aboutwhat what do you think is behind
that shift or the kind ofboomerang effect here?
Marissa Goldberg (05:08):
It's definitely layoffs in disguise.
So what I'm seeing from my endis that the data is coming out
and seeing that remote jobs arestaying at the same level that
they have been for a while now,instead of dipping any longer.
So that's what we're seeingthere. I think it's layoffs in
disguise, people overhiredduring the pandemic. I also
think it creates this hugemorale decrease as well because
(05:28):
you're basically saying, oh,you've been working remotely
just fine for close to 5 years,but I'm going to take away those
privileges and just hope you'reokay with it.
Susan Boles (05:38):
No. It's been interesting, especially the
layoffs in disguise piece, Ithink, because I think what's
happening is they're laying offsuch a huge percentage of their
staff expecting the remainder tobe able to pick up the slack.
But if when you're laying off athird of your company, it's
unlikely that the remaining 2thirds can do those people's
(06:00):
jobs. Like, that was notinsignificant.
Marissa Goldberg (06:02):
Absolutely. Especially with the morale
decrease. What you can do whenyou're feeling amazing about
your workplace is very differentthan what you can do if you're
afraid for your position, oryou're feeling like there isn't
a lot of safety in thatworkplace. So
Susan Boles (06:14):
So talk to me a little bit more about the safety
aspect and how that impactsoverall productivity.
Marissa Goldberg (06:21):
Yeah. So this kind of puts you in a fight or
flight mode. It's basicallyputting you in a mode where
you're thinking short termbecause you're in preservation
mode, you're not going to trynew things because you don't
want something to go wrong. Sothose companies are going to
innovate less. Yeah, it justputs the company and the
individual in bad positions forthe future of the workplace.
Susan Boles (06:47):
So in this whole returning to the office debate
over whether remote work worksbetter, in person works works
better. A lot of the companiesuse this excuse that in order to
collaborate effectively and beproductive and innovative, that
you have to be in person to dothat. I'm assuming you have a
(07:11):
different perspective. So what'syour take on that idea that you
have to be face to face tocollaborate effectively?
Marissa Goldberg (07:19):
I think it's interesting that this narrative
comes from those companies whoare so large that they have
global offices and technicallywork remotely in one regard
because not everyone can be inone, you know, meeting room. I
think we see that over and overagain. So we see it with the
remote companies that have beenaround since pre pandemic, how
amazing they're doing. And thenalso with these global companies
(07:42):
that have multiple offices, theyare technically working in a
remote fashion. So it can workand it is happening.
I think that people got veryused to one way of work for a
long time and things arechanging and that can be hard.
But I do think thatcollaboration can absolutely
happen remotely if you areintentional about creating an
environment where it can thrive.And, also, it allows you to work
(08:05):
with the best people all aroundthe world.
Susan Boles (08:07):
I completely agree. I actually think asynchronous
work, while it is kind of adifferent skill set that you
have to develop to be able tocommunicate effectively,
asynchronously or in a remoteenvironment or in a primarily
written perhaps format. It's adifferent type of management.
It's a different different skillset. I think it's actually more
(08:32):
effective than in personcommunication, in person
collaboration, particularly withpeople who tend to be, like,
marinators, like the people thatwant to take in information and
then think very deeply about itand then communicate back.
The asynchronous format, Ithink, really allows people to
(08:53):
communicate in the way that ismost effective for them to
communicate. You know, you canleave a voice memo or you can
write a written reply. So Iwould posit that asynchronous
work is actually more effectivewhen it comes to collaboration.
Marissa Goldberg (09:12):
I absolutely agree. So asynchronous work
allows the adaptability that'sneeded for each individual to
have the time and space to comeup with their best ideas and to
communicate it effectively intheir own way.
Susan Boles (09:24):
Oh, I love that. So in general, I think particularly
business wise, the defaultcommunication style for almost
all companies is meetings. Like,we assume that meetings is what
we have to do in order to getour point across, in order to
update people. Allcommunication, by default, tends
(09:47):
to sort of happen in inmeetings. But is that really the
most effective way tocollaborate, to communicate?
What what's your take onmeetings?
Marissa Goldberg (09:56):
I'm not a fan of bad meetings. And I think bad
meetings are just way morecommon than good meetings right
now because we use meetings as adefault for everything. I don't
think it's good to use them as adefault. So instead of using
meetings as a default, it'simportant to look at what are
meetings actually good forversus what is async first
communication great for. So forsynchronous communication, it's
(10:19):
great for speed and relationshipbuilding.
So speed because you can get aninstant response. So I'm with
you right now. If I ask you aquestion, I'm gonna hear your
answer right back. It's great.So, like, when things are on
fire, I need to have a call andI need to get this figured out.
And then relationship buildingbecause we like to create
experiences together. So callsare great for that. Seeing
(10:40):
people is great for that. Youcan also use async first
measures for both of thesethings. But meetings, I think,
are better for when that's thepurpose, speed or relationship
building.
But now you think about like,how many things are on your
calendar, where those are thepriorities, the number one
priority is speed, the numberone priority is relationship
building. Not as many. Andthat's when I think that by
(11:04):
using meetings as a default,it's a detriment to the entire
company and to the entire team,because we're using a format
that just isn't made for that,whereas async first formats be
better.
Susan Boles (11:15):
Yeah. And I think it sucks up so much of our
available time because theassumption for meetings is that
it's gonna take half an hour.It's gonna take an hour. Like,
we program them in specificdefault blocks of how long do we
think this thing is going totake, when in reality we might
be having a meeting aboutsomething that takes, you know,
(11:36):
it's a 5 minute email, or we cango back and forth over Slack and
get it done just as efficiently,just as effectively without
actually blocking off all thistime on our calendar that we
feel like once we're in ameeting, we have to, like, use
all of the time of that meeting.
Marissa Goldberg (11:52):
It's a huge time suck. It's a huge energy
suck as well because you'retalking about the preparation
that needs to happen before themeeting in order for the meeting
to go well, the then Zoomfatigue that you might have if
you're forced to be on video allday during these calls. It
doesn't lead to you being ableto have space and time to think
through, was this actually agood decision? Or did I just say
(12:13):
it in a meeting off the cuff andthat's the direction we're going
in because that's the time I hadto make the call?
Susan Boles (12:23):
You said something a few minutes ago about good
meetings and bad meetings. Whatdo you see as hallmarks of bad
meetings and vice versa?
Marissa Goldberg (12:34):
I think the biggest thing to look at is how
do I feel when I leave thismeeting? Do I feel energized or
do I feel depleted? If I feelenergized, that was a good
meeting. That was probablysomething where like the speed
or relationship building aspect,we utilized it to its full
potential. I was able to comeprepared.
I wasn't feeling very rushed. Icome out and I'm feeling
(12:55):
depleted. And I feel like Ididn't get enough use out of
that time. Like, a lot of timespeople go into meetings and
they're like, this could havebeen an email or this could have
been 10 minutes. Those are badmeetings.
And, unfortunately, I thinkthose are the majority right
now.
Susan Boles (13:11):
I tend to default to being an introvert myself. I
default to, can we do this viaemail? Because if we have a call
in the calendar, then I have tobe anxious about the call for
several hours ahead of the timeto make sure that I don't forget
about the call or log in tooearly or make sure that my hair
(13:32):
looks good. And then afterwards,you're right. Like, I have to
refill that bucket of energybecause I've spent time, you
know, monitoring myself on Zoomor making sure I'm making the
right facial expressions.
Yeah. It's draining. Meetingsare the default when it comes to
work culture norms. They'reinefficient and a subpar way of
(13:54):
communicating for mostcircumstances. But they really
don't have to be.
We're gonna take a quick breakto hear from our sponsors but
when we come back we'rediscussing the alternative, an
autonomous work culture. We'lltalk about what this is, how it
actually creates calm in acompany, and how to engineer it
into your own company. So let'stalk about what makes an
(14:23):
autonomous work culture. Whatdoes that actually look like?
What does that feel like?
You work with Async FirstCompanies, which is how I tend
to operate as well, and I thinkAsync is an autonomous work
culture. But let's look a littlebit more broadly at what does
that look like, feel like insidea company?
Marissa Goldberg (14:47):
So in an autonomous work culture, it's
basically the difference betweenproactive and reactive. So in
the default work culture, we'rereactive. So we see a message in
Slack, and we have to, like,instantly respond. And our our
meeting calendar is stacked tothe brim, and we're going from
one thing to the other. And itbasically puts us in this
(15:08):
firefighting mode of justresponding and having and and we
can't we can't do things likeimplement measures that would
cut down on the fires or catchthe fire before one becomes a
spark rather than a full blown,it's taking over the town.
Instead of going intofirefighting mode, where
everything is an emergency,we're thinking very short term
(15:31):
as well because we have nocapacity to think long term. In
these cultures, we're allowed tojust have space to breathe and
have space to think and havespace to do work in the way that
works best for us individuallyso that we can show up for our
team in the best way.
Susan Boles (15:50):
I love that. And for me, I think autonomy means
the ability to self govern andto have individuals on the team
be able to own their work, beable to make decisions about
their work, and I think thatrequires context. It requires an
understanding of what'shappening company wide. And I
(16:12):
think, at least for me, one ofthe most important aspects of
being able to work wellremotely, particularly, is
having that culture that doesprioritize autonomy. However, I
think that is a really bigstruggle for a lot of business
owners.
The ability to let their teamown their work, let their team
(16:35):
determine or advocate forthemselves in how they work
best. So have you seen that inyour work with clients? Why do
you think that is?
Marissa Goldberg (16:46):
There's a balance that needs to be had,
and it's really hard to findthat center if you've never
experienced before. Going intoan autonomous work culture
requires intention. It requiresclear expectations. And
honestly, the default workenvironment does not. So people
(17:06):
use And
Susan Boles (17:06):
it's all about control.
Marissa Goldberg (17:07):
Right. It's all about control. And it's all
about showing up for things inthe moment like they happen
because you're in this reactivestate versus, oh, I have to
actually be clear about this isthe direction the company's goal
going. These are the explicitgoals that we are trying to
attain. This is what I thinkthat your role should be, and
what I expect from you.
(17:28):
A lot of team members, when I gointo a new company, and I'm
doing a optional COO work, oneof the first thing I do with the
team members I'm looking at isI'll ask them, so what is
expected of you? And then I'llask their manager, what is
expected of this person? Veryrarely do those lists align
because it hasn't beenexplicitly communicated. That's
just something that is required,and it's a skill set, and it's
(17:51):
something that you have to beintentional about creating.
Susan Boles (17:55):
How do you help business owners learn to trust
their team members? Because Ithink in an autonomous work
culture, that element of trust,that element of respect, the
idea that you hired people whoare good at what they're doing,
and you need to let them do itbecause, inherently, they're
(18:17):
probably gonna be better at itthan you are. How do you help
business owners kind of navigatethat shift?
Marissa Goldberg (18:24):
I take kind of a firm approach. So, basically,
I go to them and I ask, why didyou hire them if you can't trust
them? If you can't trust yourteam member, it's not a problem
with them. It's a problem withyour hiring practices. You not
onboarding them correctly,you're not giving the resources
they need, and you're not givingthose expectations.
So they're on completelydifferent pages maybe than you
(18:45):
because you haven't set them upfor success. So to me, when I
hear that there's a trust issuegoing on, I see that more as the
manager's problem.
Susan Boles (18:54):
Absolutely agree. And that clarity piece is so
important, and it's it is apiece that is requisite for
building an autonomous workculture. I don't think you can
build a culture where you areable to trust your team, where
you know that they're gonna makethe decisions that you would
(19:17):
make in their situation. If theydon't have all of that context,
if you haven't given them clearexpectations, if you're not
clearly communicating what ishappening at the company and
what your goals are overall, Ithink it's a super critical
element that is a prerequisitefor an autonomous work culture.
Marissa Goldberg (19:39):
Absolutely. And managers have to shift how
they judge work as well. So inthe office, a lot of people used
external measures. So you'doften hear advice like dress for
the job you want. How much doeshow you dress really relate to
whether you'd be good in thatadditional role?
Not much. Right? But peoplerelied on those external
measures and whether peopleshowed up to the office on time.
(20:02):
It it was more about were theylooking like they were working
rather than were they actuallydoing the work. So looking
productive versus beingproductive was seen as the same
thing versus 2 different things.
And now in an autonomousculture, you can't use that as a
crutch anymore. So you have tobe very explicit that judgment
is no longer about thoseexternal measures. It's about
(20:23):
the quality of work. And how canwe judge the equality of work
without being clear on what'sexpected from the individual? If
you're clear about it, it's veryeasy.
You have a list. You go check,check, check, and they succeeded
in all those areas. We're like,okay. So that's the judgment
then. They have succeeded.
But you have to shift yourmindset and recognize that you
might be using that crutch fromoffice days.
Susan Boles (20:44):
Yeah. For sure. I love the expression LARPing your
job Yeah. Live action roleplaying your job. I have a 100%
LARPed my job before.
Talk to me a little bit aboutthat reevaluation or shifting
your mindset around how youevaluate someone's work. So in
an environment where you mightor might not even work at the
(21:06):
same time, that people thatmaybe you supervise work or
people you collaborate withwork, you know, as we move to a
more global workforce, there's avery good chance you collaborate
with people that you literallynever work at the same time at.
So how do you move from thebenchmark of somebody's Slack
(21:28):
dot is green or their butt is inthe seat in the office to real
qualitative measures of, arethey fulfilling their role? Are
they doing quality work?
Marissa Goldberg (21:42):
One of the ways that I typically implement
when I'm going into a newcompany is a My Week channel. So
instead of having a daily standup where everybody has to show
up, and then they'rereiterating, like, oh, I'm doing
this this week, and theybasically say the same thing
over and over and over again.And nobody's getting much use
out of those meetings. Instead,I have something called a my
week channel in Slack or Teamsor whatever tool your team is
(22:04):
using, and it basically sayswhat I plan on doing this week,
and then it lists them out inbullet points very short and to
the point and what I did lastweek. And the trick to this is
that is that you copy and pastethe this week one to the last
week and then you add emojis ofgreen check mark or x.
And if it's an x, then inparentheses, you say, like, why
(22:26):
what you planned didn't getdone. This allows me to see
things like, oh, does thisperson have too much on their
plate? Do I need to adjust myexpectations? Things like that
as a manager. As an individualhelps them get better at
planning exactly what they canactually get done versus what
they want to get done, which are2 very different things.
Susan Boles (22:50):
I think human beings are universally really
crappy at that.
Marissa Goldberg (22:54):
Absolutely. So that's why this works better
than when we're gonna stand upand we're just regurgitating the
same thing all the time and notreally actually visually seeing.
I said this last week and then Ididn't get it done and this was
why and we can start addressingthat. So it's a very visual
method of seeing exactly whatpeople are planning on doing,
seeing exactly why they couldn'tget it done or exactly what
(23:17):
could get done. You can then usethis measure for, performance
management later on in theseason because you have like
this written document ofeverything that was done and
things that you might haveforgotten are just right there.
Susan Boles (23:30):
The element of that that I think is so useful is the
built in training, where you areconsistently training people and
helping them build skills aboutestimating work or planning
their own work and helps buildmore autonomy into the work
culture, but also helps thembuild the skills to exist in
(23:54):
that kind of work culturebecause at least for me in
companies where we are asyncfirst, that is a very different
environment for new employees tocome in. You know, if you have
been in a high controlenvironment or in a micromanage
y kind of environment, the shiftfrom that to something where all
(24:19):
of a sudden you're treated as anadult, you're expected to manage
your own time, you have theautonomy to choose how and when
you actually accomplish yourwork, it can be very, very
disorienting for people who arenew to that environment.
Marissa Goldberg (24:35):
I actually call this overwhelming freedom.
So everybody wants freedom. Andit seems like, oh, this is so
exciting. But then you're in themoment and you have to make all
of these decisions. So like,what am I going to start work?
How am I going to get thingsdone? What priority am I going
to give all these things withoutsomeone hand holding me and
forcing me to do it their way?So it is a good thing if you
(24:56):
know how to handle thatoverwhelming freedom. Because if
you don't handle thatoverwhelming freedom, you end up
with decision fatigue, and thenyou end up freezing. So tools
like the MyWeek channel help tobuild accountability to just
show this is what we're planningon doing.
So at least there's one decisionoff your plate of just figuring
things out.
Susan Boles (25:16):
Yeah. I've also found it to be really helpful to
build in a lot of selfmanagement skills into
onboarding at async firstcompanies. You know, here's how
we address work. Very clearly aswe discussed. Here's what the
expectation is in terms of youdoing work.
(25:37):
Even something as simple as aline in your onboarding that
says, we don't care if you'reSlacklight's green or, you know,
some cultural expectationsaround how work happens, I think
can help people integrate intowhat can feel like a really
different kind of work culture.
Marissa Goldberg (25:57):
Agreed. And honestly, one of the questions I
get the most is how do I buildculture in an async first
environment? So with all thisautonomy when people aren't in
meetings or calls and I can'treally do those like social
events that I'm used to, so howdo I build culture? I think
people forget that culture isbuilt more from how you work
rather than from having a, youknow, coffee talk chat. It's
(26:21):
like in the office, like, if youwere in an environment that was
micromanaging and like a toxicwork environment all day, but
then they had a happy hour atthe end.
Was that a culture built therebecause of that happy hour? Or
was it because of how you workedall day? And it's the same thing
remotely. How you work plugs somuch into that culture. So
(26:41):
things like onboarding need tobe incredibly intentional
instilling that from day 1.
Susan Boles (26:48):
Yeah. One of my favorite pieces of onboarding
from a previous company was thatthere was a section in the
handbook that, like, explainedthe inside jokes. Either there's
a phrase they use from a meeting6 years ago or, you know,
there's a special emoji thatmeans something. And I found it
so helpful as somebody cominginto the team to have those
(27:12):
things really explicitlyexplained. That is culture.
There is a culture there, but itis incredibly helpful to have
that culture made explicit, tobe very direct. And I think that
is beneficial for everybodycoming into the culture And
(27:32):
especially, like, being led intothe inside jokes as part of the
onboarding, I think, at leastfor me, made me feel more
invested in the company. It mademe feel like the company
actually did give a crap aboutwhether or not I was part of
something. As you mentioned,it's important to do it
intentionally, and I also don'tthink you can be too explicit
(27:56):
about any detail of how workhappens or how you approach
existing as a company and aspeople within that company.
Marissa Goldberg (28:04):
I agree. I think that it's incredibly
important to be a direct
Susan Boles (28:09):
So how have you found this clarity, this
autonomy? How does that actuallycontribute to a company then
feeling calmer? Like, you're anops nerd like me. Our goal is
always to make things, at leastfor me, as boring as possible. I
want things to be boring.
That is my goal in the world ofoperations. So from your
(28:30):
perspective, how do you see someof these processes contributing
to that feeling of calm?
Marissa Goldberg (28:38):
I love comm companies. It's one of my
favorite things to come out ofthis. Async First culture that's
been building is more companiesthat say no to the hustle
culture and say yes to the commcompany culture. And there's
typically 3 questions I ask todetermine like if you're in a
comm company or not. And thefirst is, can you take a
(28:59):
vacation right now withoutthings burning down?
That's the first one. Do youhave time for maintenance and
experimental tasks? And 3, doyou have the Sunday scaries?
Susan Boles (29:13):
Those are fantastic questions.
Marissa Goldberg (29:15):
Those questions will help you
determine, like, do I have acalm company or not? So the
first is like vacation withoutthings burning down. That
requires you to put processes inplace and communications in
place and have things likereference docs around common
questions you get and not beneeded as you might be in a more
meeting first culture. Themaintenance and experimental
(29:37):
tasks, those go out the windowin the typical work culture
because they don't have time forit. They're in constant
meetings, they're in thatreactive mode that we talked
about earlier, firefighting allday, and they don't have time to
address a tiny spark whenthere's this huge forest fire
right next door.
So maintenance is things thatjust get swept away until it
becomes a big issue. And thenexperimental things that could
(29:58):
help blow your company right up,like make it huge, because you
address something very new and,experimental. They just don't
happen when you're in thisreactive mode because you don't
have the space to think longterm for short term. Then the
Sunday scaries is you don't havethat time, you feel like you're
constantly going, going, goingand you have this frantic energy
(30:19):
in a traditional culture versusat a con culture, you you have
margin. I think it was JustinJackson from Transistor FM who
talks about having margin.
And so you have margin forerror, so things going wrong, so
you can try things and you canstill fix things without being
like, oh, my goodness, this isgoing to take the whole company
down if I try something new. Andyou have a margin for life. So
(30:43):
life happens. Things are goingto come up and you're going to
need to address them. And incomm companies, they have the
space and the time to be able toaddress it without it becoming
this huge thing.
Susan Boles (30:54):
I do like Justin's approach to margins, but I think
that it's not quitecomprehensive enough. Though I
really do agree that margins isa critical component in creating
calmer companies. That's whyit's the m in my calmer
framework. For me, margins meansspace and building that space
into every part of your businessis such a big part of
(31:16):
engineering something calmerbecause the goal is to have
about 40 to 50% margin in allyour areas. So not just your
financial margins, but also yourcapacity and operational
margins, your energetic margins,your emotional margins.
The goal is really to beoperating in all areas at no
more than 50% capacity Becausewhen you're working at a 100 or
(31:40):
a 150 percent capacity, youdon't have any room for surges,
which means you don't have theenergy or the bandwidth to
absorb them when they happen.And they do absolutely happen.
It's a business after all. Youhave to kind of expect the
unexpected. But when you'reregularly operating around 50 or
60%, you still have plenty ofroom to surge, deal with the
(32:05):
unexpected, and then come backto your baseline.
Line. But often, unsurprisingly,there can be pushback to having
these larger margins. So how doyou respond to these folks?
Marissa Goldberg (32:17):
The rebuttal that I typically get from people
who want to cling on to thistraditional work culture,
They're like, Oh, you know howmany people I would have to hire
if people were operating at 50%.And the thing is, if you look at
comm companies, revenue peremployee is much, much higher,
because they have space to makegood decisions. And people
underestimate how valuable thatis. And if you think about most
(32:42):
roles in a tech based companyare information based, it's all
about making informed decisions.And if you're in a reactive
culture versus a proactiveculture, you don't have that
space.
So you're constantly makingdecisions off the cuff, and
they're not the informeddecisions that you want them to
have. And that translates tothings like revenue per employee
(33:05):
and having to overhire.
Susan Boles (33:09):
So say people are listening to this, and we have
convinced them that autonomouswork cultures are the way to go.
They are the wave of the future,and they're on board with it.
Where do you think they shouldactually get started on building
some of this into theirbusiness?
Marissa Goldberg (33:27):
One thing that I want to bring up is that a lot
of people get excited aboutthis, and then they try to
switch everything overnight, andeverything falls apart. So I
want to encourage people not tothink that they have to do
everything all at once. Instead,target just one bad meeting to
start. Just look at yourcalendar and pick one bad
(33:48):
meeting that you have influenceover and try to make the switch
there. Because what happens isyou see companies going in and
when they're switching to anautonomous work culture, and
they'll just delete thecalendar, they'll do something
called a calendar reset.
And they'll be like, oh, we'rewe're getting rid of all the
meetings and everybody will go,yay. And then a month later,
their calendar is full again,because they didn't actually
(34:08):
build any of the habits theyneed to keep things off the
calendar. So target one meetingand figure out what can I do
here? Can I first look at the,what the target of the meeting
is? Is it something that needsspeed or relationship building?
Perhaps you can use a differentmethod if it doesn't. Or can you
adjust the timing? Can you trustthe frequency? And then if it's
(34:30):
a recurring meeting, make sureall of your recurring meetings
have end dates. So do not set arecurring meeting without an end
date or else it will stay onyour calendar for the rest of
all eternity.
So those are some areas whereyou can get started.
Susan Boles (34:46):
Awesome. So where do you see folks getting tripped
up the most when they start tomake this shift? For me, it's
the all or nothing mindset.We're gonna do everything all at
once. What do you see happening?
Marissa Goldberg (35:00):
That's the number one thing is just trying
to overhaul everything at oncewithout taking a moment to
instill the good habits that youneed in order for this to be a
long term transition. So doingthe calendar resets like we
talked about where deleteeverything all at once and then
hope that you now have nomeetings. But the thing with the
(35:21):
calendar reset is that theemployees who needed them to
communicate because they didn'tknow how to communicate
otherwise still need them tocommunicate. And managers that
were using it to gauge work andseeing if it was done are now
frantic because they have no wayto see and they're thinking
nothing is getting done. Soinstead of just switching
everything overnight, start withthe good habits of being very
(35:42):
explicit.
So creating that documentationwe were talking about where
everything is clear and directand laid out explicitly. And
then moving from there, one ofthe things that I do is I go
into a new company, and I willmodel the behavior that I want
them to learn. So I'm doingthings like I am using a
document called a read medocument to say, like, this is
(36:05):
how to work best with me. Thisis what you can expect from me
so that I'm doing I'm being verydirect and clear upfront so
people know how to work with mewithout just guessing like it
has been. Then I also havesomething like a personal q and
a where most frequent questionsthat I'm getting, I can refer
people to so they can check thatbefore being like, oh, I need a
(36:28):
meeting with her.
They can get answers instantlybecause anytime I'm asked
something more than twice, it'sin there, and it's easy to
search. So model the behaviorsthat you're trying to instill in
your company.
Susan Boles (36:40):
I love that. Is there anything you think that we
should talk about that wehaven't really touched on yet?
Marissa Goldberg (36:47):
I think one thing I want to touch upon is
that the difference that you'reswitching to is going from a
business first mentality to apeople first mentality. So when
we're in a business firstmindset, we're thinking about,
hey, how do I give value toshareholders? How do I make the
most money? All that kind ofthing. Where in a people first
mentality, we're seeing that thenumber one resource we have is
(37:10):
our people, is our employees.
So how do we set them up to betheir best self and do their
best job? And honestly, peoplethink, oh, but if I switch over,
profits are going to go downand, you know, the business is
going to crumble. But what yousee happening is that the people
first mentality ends up beingbusiness first because those
(37:30):
people are supported. They cando their job. They are not going
through burnout cycles over andover again from being in a
reactive environment.
So people first ends up beingthe most business first thing
you can do. Switching to a commcompany, switching to an
autonomous work environment isnot saying no to having a
(37:51):
sustainable business. In fact,it's going to make it even more
sustainable in the long run.
Susan Boles (37:56):
I agree. Comm companies really do approach
work from this people firstmentality, where they prioritize
the well-being of the folks thatwork in and interact with their
business. I call thisapproaching business through a
lens of care. You can also callit that people first approach.
It's the L in the CALMERframework, and that's actually
(38:16):
the topic we'll be covering inthe next episode.
So thank you so much for thatreally fantastic transition.
Building an autonomous workculture isn't something that
happens overnight. It requiresyou to first practice being
super clear and explicit. Soclear communication, clear
expectations, and then you haveto gradually work towards
(38:36):
handing things off and that canbe really challenging for a lot
of folks. It requires sometrust, but it also requires a
lot of dedication to things likedocumentation.
When you explicitly communicatehow to do something and why it
needs to happen, it's a wholelot easier to hand it off and to
trust that the process will befollowed. But honestly, it comes
(38:58):
down to this. You hired thepeople you hired because they
were good at their thing. Ifthey weren't good at their
thing, you would not have hiredthem. So your role as a business
owner is to make sure that theyhave the resources and the
training that they need.
You need to make sure they haveall the information and the
context about the big pictureand their role in it so that
(39:20):
they can be empowered to makedecisions. And then your job is
to get out of their way because,well, it's calm art that way.
Big thanks to everyone whosupports Beyond Margin. If you
are a listener, a sponsor, or apartner of any kind, I
absolutely couldn't do this showwithout you. If you're looking
for more ideas and stories fromme about how to build a calmer
(39:43):
business with comfortablemargins, head to
beyondmargins.com.
While you're there, you can signup for my free newsletter. I
send it every week, and it's allabout one thing. What does it
actually take to build calmerbusiness? Until next time, stay
calm.
Micromanaging is way too much effort for me, and,
honestly, it's awful foreveryone. It's not good for the
team members. It's a huge timesuck for the person doing the
managing, and oh yeah, it's likethe least calm, most toxic way
to operate ever. Hey there. I'mSusan Boles, and this is Beyond
(00:26):
Margins, the show where wedeconstruct how to engineer a
calmer business.
And right now we're in themiddle of a mini series where
we're exploring the commonelements of a calm business. So
essentially, what makes calmcompanies calm? I believe there
are 8 elements that whenimplemented actually build a
calm company and I explain thisusing my CALMER framework. So
(00:50):
each letter stands for aparticular element. C is for
clarity and we talked about thisin the last episode, so if you
haven't listened to that, Ihighly recommend you go back and
listen.
A is for autonomy. That's whatwe're getting into today. L
stands for lens of care, so calmcompanies approach things from a
(01:11):
people first mentality. M is formargins, so spacious margins
throughout your company. Thatmight mean operations margins,
financial margins, energeticmargins.
Margins are important. E is forefficient systems. R is for rest
and reduced urgency. So if youwant a kind of deeper overview
(01:32):
on that model, you can head back2 episodes in the feed where I
kind of give a little bit of anoverview on it. Today, we're
gonna geek out about thatautonomy element.
We'll get into what anautonomous work culture actually
looks like, why this style ofwork is such an important
element of building a calmcompany, and we'll talk about
(01:53):
how to apply this in your ownbusiness. But before we get into
it, let's actually define what Imean when I talk about autonomy
so that you have some contextkind of heading into this
conversation. The way I like todefine autonomy is that it's the
ability to make your owndecisions without being
controlled by anyone else. It'sessentially the ability to self
(02:14):
govern. And calm businessesprioritize autonomy and
autonomous decision making.
Because if you are micromanagingsomeone or you have to make
every single decision in thebusiness and wear every hat,
well, that sucks. It's not calm.It creates bottlenecks, it slows
down work, and just generallymakes taking action way harder.
(02:34):
Now the most common example wecurrently have of an autonomous
work culture is really thatasynchronous remote work
environment that a lot of us arefamiliar with. So if you think
about companies like SparkToroor 37 signals, they are great
examples of this type ofenvironment.
Everyone is kind of off in theirown corners, their heads down
doing their work, and they owntheir areas of the company.
(02:57):
These are companies that haveemployees in a bunch of
different time zones, theydefault to often primarily
written communication versushaving lots of live meetings,
but essentially they empoweremployees to make decisions at
their particular level. Now thatkind of company isn't the only
kind of autonomous work culture.You could certainly do this in
(03:18):
an in person company by reducingmeetings, emphasizing clear
communication, empowering peopleto make decisions at all levels
of the company. There's nothingthat prevents in person
companies from doing this.
They tend to be a little bitlazier honestly when it comes to
proactively changing their workstyles and frequently they just
default to meetings. So for thatreason, today we're mostly gonna
(03:39):
talk about remote async workenvironments, but everything
we're talking about couldabsolutely be applied at any
company. These are goodpractices to put in place
regardless of the style of workyou do. Now my guest today is an
expert in async communications.Marissa Goldberg is the founder
of remote work prep which offersfractional COO services and
(04:00):
courses and she helps companiessuccessfully create healthy
effective remote workenvironments.
She is a fellow operations nerdand someone who's been thinking
and writing about asynchronouswork for quite a while.
Marissa Goldberg (04:14):
I'm the founder of Remote Work Prep.
I've been working remotely forclose to 10 years. And in 2018,
I started a fractionaloperational services company,
for specifically remote teams.So we work with innovative
companies that wanna do workdifferently. So typically,
agencies and, creator teams andstartups.
(04:36):
2020 hit, my business exploded,and here we are. So
Susan Boles (04:40):
So speaking of the pandemic heyday of remote work,
we really did have this realmove towards remote work in the
last few years, primarily due tothe pandemic. But it does seem
like things might be swingingback the other way. We've seen
all of these return to officemandates from the big companies.
(05:00):
So talk to me a little bit aboutwhat what do you think is behind
that shift or the kind ofboomerang effect here?
Marissa Goldberg (05:08):
It's definitely layoffs in disguise.
So what I'm seeing from my endis that the data is coming out
and seeing that remote jobs arestaying at the same level that
they have been for a while now,instead of dipping any longer.
So that's what we're seeingthere. I think it's layoffs in
disguise, people overhiredduring the pandemic. I also
think it creates this hugemorale decrease as well because
(05:28):
you're basically saying, oh,you've been working remotely
just fine for close to 5 years,but I'm going to take away those
privileges and just hope you'reokay with it.
Susan Boles (05:38):
No. It's been interesting, especially the
layoffs in disguise piece, Ithink, because I think what's
happening is they're laying offsuch a huge percentage of their
staff expecting the remainder tobe able to pick up the slack.
But if when you're laying off athird of your company, it's
unlikely that the remaining 2thirds can do those people's
(06:00):
jobs. Like, that was notinsignificant.
Marissa Goldberg (06:02):
Absolutely. Especially with the morale
decrease. What you can do whenyou're feeling amazing about
your workplace is very differentthan what you can do if you're
afraid for your position, oryou're feeling like there isn't
a lot of safety in thatworkplace. So
Susan Boles (06:14):
So talk to me a little bit more about the safety
aspect and how that impactsoverall productivity.
Marissa Goldberg (06:21):
Yeah. So this kind of puts you in a fight or
flight mode. It's basicallyputting you in a mode where
you're thinking short termbecause you're in preservation
mode, you're not going to trynew things because you don't
want something to go wrong. Sothose companies are going to
innovate less. Yeah, it justputs the company and the
individual in bad positions forthe future of the workplace.
Susan Boles (06:47):
So in this whole returning to the office debate
over whether remote work worksbetter, in person works works
better. A lot of the companiesuse this excuse that in order to
collaborate effectively and beproductive and innovative, that
you have to be in person to dothat. I'm assuming you have a
(07:11):
different perspective. So what'syour take on that idea that you
have to be face to face tocollaborate effectively?
Marissa Goldberg (07:19):
I think it's interesting that this narrative
comes from those companies whoare so large that they have
global offices and technicallywork remotely in one regard
because not everyone can be inone, you know, meeting room. I
think we see that over and overagain. So we see it with the
remote companies that have beenaround since pre pandemic, how
amazing they're doing. And thenalso with these global companies
(07:42):
that have multiple offices, theyare technically working in a
remote fashion. So it can workand it is happening.
I think that people got veryused to one way of work for a
long time and things arechanging and that can be hard.
But I do think thatcollaboration can absolutely
happen remotely if you areintentional about creating an
environment where it can thrive.And, also, it allows you to work
(08:05):
with the best people all aroundthe world.
Susan Boles (08:07):
I completely agree. I actually think asynchronous
work, while it is kind of adifferent skill set that you
have to develop to be able tocommunicate effectively,
asynchronously or in a remoteenvironment or in a primarily
written perhaps format. It's adifferent type of management.
It's a different different skillset. I think it's actually more
(08:32):
effective than in personcommunication, in person
collaboration, particularly withpeople who tend to be, like,
marinators, like the people thatwant to take in information and
then think very deeply about itand then communicate back.
The asynchronous format, Ithink, really allows people to
(08:53):
communicate in the way that ismost effective for them to
communicate. You know, you canleave a voice memo or you can
write a written reply. So Iwould posit that asynchronous
work is actually more effectivewhen it comes to collaboration.
Marissa Goldberg (09:12):
I absolutely agree. So asynchronous work
allows the adaptability that'sneeded for each individual to
have the time and space to comeup with their best ideas and to
communicate it effectively intheir own way.
Susan Boles (09:24):
Oh, I love that. So in general, I think particularly
business wise, the defaultcommunication style for almost
all companies is meetings. Like,we assume that meetings is what
we have to do in order to getour point across, in order to
update people. Allcommunication, by default, tends
(09:47):
to sort of happen in inmeetings. But is that really the
most effective way tocollaborate, to communicate?
What what's your take onmeetings?
Marissa Goldberg (09:56):
I'm not a fan of bad meetings. And I think bad
meetings are just way morecommon than good meetings right
now because we use meetings as adefault for everything. I don't
think it's good to use them as adefault. So instead of using
meetings as a default, it'simportant to look at what are
meetings actually good forversus what is async first
communication great for. So forsynchronous communication, it's
(10:19):
great for speed and relationshipbuilding.
So speed because you can get aninstant response. So I'm with
you right now. If I ask you aquestion, I'm gonna hear your
answer right back. It's great.So, like, when things are on
fire, I need to have a call andI need to get this figured out.
And then relationship buildingbecause we like to create
experiences together. So callsare great for that. Seeing
(10:40):
people is great for that. Youcan also use async first
measures for both of thesethings. But meetings, I think,
are better for when that's thepurpose, speed or relationship
building.
But now you think about like,how many things are on your
calendar, where those are thepriorities, the number one
priority is speed, the numberone priority is relationship
building. Not as many. Andthat's when I think that by
(11:04):
using meetings as a default,it's a detriment to the entire
company and to the entire team,because we're using a format
that just isn't made for that,whereas async first formats be
better.
Susan Boles (11:15):
Yeah. And I think it sucks up so much of our
available time because theassumption for meetings is that
it's gonna take half an hour.It's gonna take an hour. Like,
we program them in specificdefault blocks of how long do we
think this thing is going totake, when in reality we might
be having a meeting aboutsomething that takes, you know,
(11:36):
it's a 5 minute email, or we cango back and forth over Slack and
get it done just as efficiently,just as effectively without
actually blocking off all thistime on our calendar that we
feel like once we're in ameeting, we have to, like, use
all of the time of that meeting.
Marissa Goldberg (11:52):
It's a huge time suck. It's a huge energy
suck as well because you'retalking about the preparation
that needs to happen before themeeting in order for the meeting
to go well, the then Zoomfatigue that you might have if
you're forced to be on video allday during these calls. It
doesn't lead to you being ableto have space and time to think
through, was this actually agood decision? Or did I just say
(12:13):
it in a meeting off the cuff andthat's the direction we're going
in because that's the time I hadto make the call?
Susan Boles (12:23):
You said something a few minutes ago about good
meetings and bad meetings. Whatdo you see as hallmarks of bad
meetings and vice versa?
Marissa Goldberg (12:34):
I think the biggest thing to look at is how
do I feel when I leave thismeeting? Do I feel energized or
do I feel depleted? If I feelenergized, that was a good
meeting. That was probablysomething where like the speed
or relationship building aspect,we utilized it to its full
potential. I was able to comeprepared.
I wasn't feeling very rushed. Icome out and I'm feeling
(12:55):
depleted. And I feel like Ididn't get enough use out of
that time. Like, a lot of timespeople go into meetings and
they're like, this could havebeen an email or this could have
been 10 minutes. Those are badmeetings.
And, unfortunately, I thinkthose are the majority right
now.
Susan Boles (13:11):
I tend to default to being an introvert myself. I
default to, can we do this viaemail? Because if we have a call
in the calendar, then I have tobe anxious about the call for
several hours ahead of the timeto make sure that I don't forget
about the call or log in tooearly or make sure that my hair
(13:32):
looks good. And then afterwards,you're right. Like, I have to
refill that bucket of energybecause I've spent time, you
know, monitoring myself on Zoomor making sure I'm making the
right facial expressions.
Yeah. It's draining. Meetingsare the default when it comes to
work culture norms. They'reinefficient and a subpar way of
(13:54):
communicating for mostcircumstances. But they really
don't have to be.
We're gonna take a quick breakto hear from our sponsors but
when we come back we'rediscussing the alternative, an
autonomous work culture. We'lltalk about what this is, how it
actually creates calm in acompany, and how to engineer it
into your own company. So let'stalk about what makes an
(14:23):
autonomous work culture. Whatdoes that actually look like?
What does that feel like?
You work with Async FirstCompanies, which is how I tend
to operate as well, and I thinkAsync is an autonomous work
culture. But let's look a littlebit more broadly at what does
that look like, feel like insidea company?
Marissa Goldberg (14:47):
So in an autonomous work culture, it's
basically the difference betweenproactive and reactive. So in
the default work culture, we'rereactive. So we see a message in
Slack, and we have to, like,instantly respond. And our our
meeting calendar is stacked tothe brim, and we're going from
one thing to the other. And itbasically puts us in this
(15:08):
firefighting mode of justresponding and having and and we
can't we can't do things likeimplement measures that would
cut down on the fires or catchthe fire before one becomes a
spark rather than a full blown,it's taking over the town.
Instead of going intofirefighting mode, where
everything is an emergency,we're thinking very short term
(15:31):
as well because we have nocapacity to think long term. In
these cultures, we're allowed tojust have space to breathe and
have space to think and havespace to do work in the way that
works best for us individuallyso that we can show up for our
team in the best way.
Susan Boles (15:50):
I love that. And for me, I think autonomy means
the ability to self govern andto have individuals on the team
be able to own their work, beable to make decisions about
their work, and I think thatrequires context. It requires an
understanding of what'shappening company wide. And I
(16:12):
think, at least for me, one ofthe most important aspects of
being able to work wellremotely, particularly, is
having that culture that doesprioritize autonomy. However, I
think that is a really bigstruggle for a lot of business
owners.
The ability to let their teamown their work, let their team
(16:35):
determine or advocate forthemselves in how they work
best. So have you seen that inyour work with clients? Why do
you think that is?
Marissa Goldberg (16:46):
There's a balance that needs to be had,
and it's really hard to findthat center if you've never
experienced before. Going intoan autonomous work culture
requires intention. It requiresclear expectations. And
honestly, the default workenvironment does not. So people
(17:06):
use And
Susan Boles (17:06):
it's all about control.
Marissa Goldberg (17:07):
Right. It's all about control. And it's all
about showing up for things inthe moment like they happen
because you're in this reactivestate versus, oh, I have to
actually be clear about this isthe direction the company's goal
going. These are the explicitgoals that we are trying to
attain. This is what I thinkthat your role should be, and
what I expect from you.
(17:28):
A lot of team members, when I gointo a new company, and I'm
doing a optional COO work, oneof the first thing I do with the
team members I'm looking at isI'll ask them, so what is
expected of you? And then I'llask their manager, what is
expected of this person? Veryrarely do those lists align
because it hasn't beenexplicitly communicated. That's
just something that is required,and it's a skill set, and it's
(17:51):
something that you have to beintentional about creating.
Susan Boles (17:55):
How do you help business owners learn to trust
their team members? Because Ithink in an autonomous work
culture, that element of trust,that element of respect, the
idea that you hired people whoare good at what they're doing,
and you need to let them do itbecause, inherently, they're
(18:17):
probably gonna be better at itthan you are. How do you help
business owners kind of navigatethat shift?
Marissa Goldberg (18:24):
I take kind of a firm approach. So, basically,
I go to them and I ask, why didyou hire them if you can't trust
them? If you can't trust yourteam member, it's not a problem
with them. It's a problem withyour hiring practices. You not
onboarding them correctly,you're not giving the resources
they need, and you're not givingthose expectations.
So they're on completelydifferent pages maybe than you
(18:45):
because you haven't set them upfor success. So to me, when I
hear that there's a trust issuegoing on, I see that more as the
manager's problem.
Susan Boles (18:54):
Absolutely agree. And that clarity piece is so
important, and it's it is apiece that is requisite for
building an autonomous workculture. I don't think you can
build a culture where you areable to trust your team, where
you know that they're gonna makethe decisions that you would
(19:17):
make in their situation. If theydon't have all of that context,
if you haven't given them clearexpectations, if you're not
clearly communicating what ishappening at the company and
what your goals are overall, Ithink it's a super critical
element that is a prerequisitefor an autonomous work culture.
Marissa Goldberg (19:39):
Absolutely. And managers have to shift how
they judge work as well. So inthe office, a lot of people used
external measures. So you'doften hear advice like dress for
the job you want. How much doeshow you dress really relate to
whether you'd be good in thatadditional role?
Not much. Right? But peoplerelied on those external
measures and whether peopleshowed up to the office on time.
(20:02):
It it was more about were theylooking like they were working
rather than were they actuallydoing the work. So looking
productive versus beingproductive was seen as the same
thing versus 2 different things.
And now in an autonomousculture, you can't use that as a
crutch anymore. So you have tobe very explicit that judgment
is no longer about thoseexternal measures. It's about
(20:23):
the quality of work. And how canwe judge the equality of work
without being clear on what'sexpected from the individual? If
you're clear about it, it's veryeasy.
You have a list. You go check,check, check, and they succeeded
in all those areas. We're like,okay. So that's the judgment
then. They have succeeded.
But you have to shift yourmindset and recognize that you
might be using that crutch fromoffice days.
Susan Boles (20:44):
Yeah. For sure. I love the expression LARPing your
job Yeah. Live action roleplaying your job. I have a 100%
LARPed my job before.
Talk to me a little bit aboutthat reevaluation or shifting
your mindset around how youevaluate someone's work. So in
an environment where you mightor might not even work at the
(21:06):
same time, that people thatmaybe you supervise work or
people you collaborate withwork, you know, as we move to a
more global workforce, there's avery good chance you collaborate
with people that you literallynever work at the same time at.
So how do you move from thebenchmark of somebody's Slack
(21:28):
dot is green or their butt is inthe seat in the office to real
qualitative measures of, arethey fulfilling their role? Are
they doing quality work?
Marissa Goldberg (21:42):
One of the ways that I typically implement
when I'm going into a newcompany is a My Week channel. So
instead of having a daily standup where everybody has to show
up, and then they'rereiterating, like, oh, I'm doing
this this week, and theybasically say the same thing
over and over and over again.And nobody's getting much use
out of those meetings. Instead,I have something called a my
week channel in Slack or Teamsor whatever tool your team is
(22:04):
using, and it basically sayswhat I plan on doing this week,
and then it lists them out inbullet points very short and to
the point and what I did lastweek. And the trick to this is
that is that you copy and pastethe this week one to the last
week and then you add emojis ofgreen check mark or x.
And if it's an x, then inparentheses, you say, like, why
(22:26):
what you planned didn't getdone. This allows me to see
things like, oh, does thisperson have too much on their
plate? Do I need to adjust myexpectations? Things like that
as a manager. As an individualhelps them get better at
planning exactly what they canactually get done versus what
they want to get done, which are2 very different things.
Susan Boles (22:50):
I think human beings are universally really
crappy at that.
Marissa Goldberg (22:54):
Absolutely. So that's why this works better
than when we're gonna stand upand we're just regurgitating the
same thing all the time and notreally actually visually seeing.
I said this last week and then Ididn't get it done and this was
why and we can start addressingthat. So it's a very visual
method of seeing exactly whatpeople are planning on doing,
seeing exactly why they couldn'tget it done or exactly what
(23:17):
could get done. You can then usethis measure for, performance
management later on in theseason because you have like
this written document ofeverything that was done and
things that you might haveforgotten are just right there.
Susan Boles (23:30):
The element of that that I think is so useful is the
built in training, where you areconsistently training people and
helping them build skills aboutestimating work or planning
their own work and helps buildmore autonomy into the work
culture, but also helps thembuild the skills to exist in
(23:54):
that kind of work culturebecause at least for me in
companies where we are asyncfirst, that is a very different
environment for new employees tocome in. You know, if you have
been in a high controlenvironment or in a micromanage
y kind of environment, the shiftfrom that to something where all
(24:19):
of a sudden you're treated as anadult, you're expected to manage
your own time, you have theautonomy to choose how and when
you actually accomplish yourwork, it can be very, very
disorienting for people who arenew to that environment.
Marissa Goldberg (24:35):
I actually call this overwhelming freedom.
So everybody wants freedom. Andit seems like, oh, this is so
exciting. But then you're in themoment and you have to make all
of these decisions. So like,what am I going to start work?
How am I going to get thingsdone? What priority am I going
to give all these things withoutsomeone hand holding me and
forcing me to do it their way?So it is a good thing if you
(24:56):
know how to handle thatoverwhelming freedom. Because if
you don't handle thatoverwhelming freedom, you end up
with decision fatigue, and thenyou end up freezing. So tools
like the MyWeek channel help tobuild accountability to just
show this is what we're planningon doing.
So at least there's one decisionoff your plate of just figuring
things out.
Susan Boles (25:16):
Yeah. I've also found it to be really helpful to
build in a lot of selfmanagement skills into
onboarding at async firstcompanies. You know, here's how
we address work. Very clearly aswe discussed. Here's what the
expectation is in terms of youdoing work.
(25:37):
Even something as simple as aline in your onboarding that
says, we don't care if you'reSlacklight's green or, you know,
some cultural expectationsaround how work happens, I think
can help people integrate intowhat can feel like a really
different kind of work culture.
Marissa Goldberg (25:57):
Agreed. And honestly, one of the questions I
get the most is how do I buildculture in an async first
environment? So with all thisautonomy when people aren't in
meetings or calls and I can'treally do those like social
events that I'm used to, so howdo I build culture? I think
people forget that culture isbuilt more from how you work
rather than from having a, youknow, coffee talk chat. It's
(26:21):
like in the office, like, if youwere in an environment that was
micromanaging and like a toxicwork environment all day, but
then they had a happy hour atthe end.
Was that a culture built therebecause of that happy hour? Or
was it because of how you workedall day? And it's the same thing
remotely. How you work plugs somuch into that culture. So
(26:41):
things like onboarding need tobe incredibly intentional
instilling that from day 1.
Susan Boles (26:48):
Yeah. One of my favorite pieces of onboarding
from a previous company was thatthere was a section in the
handbook that, like, explainedthe inside jokes. Either there's
a phrase they use from a meeting6 years ago or, you know,
there's a special emoji thatmeans something. And I found it
so helpful as somebody cominginto the team to have those
(27:12):
things really explicitlyexplained. That is culture.
There is a culture there, but itis incredibly helpful to have
that culture made explicit, tobe very direct. And I think that
is beneficial for everybodycoming into the culture And
(27:32):
especially, like, being led intothe inside jokes as part of the
onboarding, I think, at leastfor me, made me feel more
invested in the company. It mademe feel like the company
actually did give a crap aboutwhether or not I was part of
something. As you mentioned,it's important to do it
intentionally, and I also don'tthink you can be too explicit
(27:56):
about any detail of how workhappens or how you approach
existing as a company and aspeople within that company.
Marissa Goldberg (28:04):
I agree. I think that it's incredibly
important to be a direct
Susan Boles (28:09):
So how have you found this clarity, this
autonomy? How does that actuallycontribute to a company then
feeling calmer? Like, you're anops nerd like me. Our goal is
always to make things, at leastfor me, as boring as possible. I
want things to be boring.
That is my goal in the world ofoperations. So from your
(28:30):
perspective, how do you see someof these processes contributing
to that feeling of calm?
Marissa Goldberg (28:38):
I love comm companies. It's one of my
favorite things to come out ofthis. Async First culture that's
been building is more companiesthat say no to the hustle
culture and say yes to the commcompany culture. And there's
typically 3 questions I ask todetermine like if you're in a
comm company or not. And thefirst is, can you take a
(28:59):
vacation right now withoutthings burning down?
That's the first one. Do youhave time for maintenance and
experimental tasks? And 3, doyou have the Sunday scaries?
Susan Boles (29:13):
Those are fantastic questions.
Marissa Goldberg (29:15):
Those questions will help you
determine, like, do I have acalm company or not? So the
first is like vacation withoutthings burning down. That
requires you to put processes inplace and communications in
place and have things likereference docs around common
questions you get and not beneeded as you might be in a more
meeting first culture. Themaintenance and experimental
(29:37):
tasks, those go out the windowin the typical work culture
because they don't have time forit. They're in constant
meetings, they're in thatreactive mode that we talked
about earlier, firefighting allday, and they don't have time to
address a tiny spark whenthere's this huge forest fire
right next door.
So maintenance is things thatjust get swept away until it
becomes a big issue. And thenexperimental things that could
(29:58):
help blow your company right up,like make it huge, because you
address something very new and,experimental. They just don't
happen when you're in thisreactive mode because you don't
have the space to think longterm for short term. Then the
Sunday scaries is you don't havethat time, you feel like you're
constantly going, going, goingand you have this frantic energy
(30:19):
in a traditional culture versusat a con culture, you you have
margin. I think it was JustinJackson from Transistor FM who
talks about having margin.
And so you have margin forerror, so things going wrong, so
you can try things and you canstill fix things without being
like, oh, my goodness, this isgoing to take the whole company
down if I try something new. Andyou have a margin for life. So
(30:43):
life happens. Things are goingto come up and you're going to
need to address them. And incomm companies, they have the
space and the time to be able toaddress it without it becoming
this huge thing.
Susan Boles (30:54):
I do like Justin's approach to margins, but I think
that it's not quitecomprehensive enough. Though I
really do agree that margins isa critical component in creating
calmer companies. That's whyit's the m in my calmer
framework. For me, margins meansspace and building that space
into every part of your businessis such a big part of
(31:16):
engineering something calmerbecause the goal is to have
about 40 to 50% margin in allyour areas. So not just your
financial margins, but also yourcapacity and operational
margins, your energetic margins,your emotional margins.
The goal is really to beoperating in all areas at no
more than 50% capacity Becausewhen you're working at a 100 or
(31:40):
a 150 percent capacity, youdon't have any room for surges,
which means you don't have theenergy or the bandwidth to
absorb them when they happen.And they do absolutely happen.
It's a business after all. Youhave to kind of expect the
unexpected. But when you'reregularly operating around 50 or
60%, you still have plenty ofroom to surge, deal with the
(32:05):
unexpected, and then come backto your baseline.
Line. But often, unsurprisingly,there can be pushback to having
these larger margins. So how doyou respond to these folks?
Marissa Goldberg (32:17):
The rebuttal that I typically get from people
who want to cling on to thistraditional work culture,
They're like, Oh, you know howmany people I would have to hire
if people were operating at 50%.And the thing is, if you look at
comm companies, revenue peremployee is much, much higher,
because they have space to makegood decisions. And people
underestimate how valuable thatis. And if you think about most
(32:42):
roles in a tech based companyare information based, it's all
about making informed decisions.And if you're in a reactive
culture versus a proactiveculture, you don't have that
space.
So you're constantly makingdecisions off the cuff, and
they're not the informeddecisions that you want them to
have. And that translates tothings like revenue per employee
(33:05):
and having to overhire.
Susan Boles (33:09):
So say people are listening to this, and we have
convinced them that autonomouswork cultures are the way to go.
They are the wave of the future,and they're on board with it.
Where do you think they shouldactually get started on building
some of this into theirbusiness?
Marissa Goldberg (33:27):
One thing that I want to bring up is that a lot
of people get excited aboutthis, and then they try to
switch everything overnight, andeverything falls apart. So I
want to encourage people not tothink that they have to do
everything all at once. Instead,target just one bad meeting to
start. Just look at yourcalendar and pick one bad
(33:48):
meeting that you have influenceover and try to make the switch
there. Because what happens isyou see companies going in and
when they're switching to anautonomous work culture, and
they'll just delete thecalendar, they'll do something
called a calendar reset.
And they'll be like, oh, we'rewe're getting rid of all the
meetings and everybody will go,yay. And then a month later,
their calendar is full again,because they didn't actually
(34:08):
build any of the habits theyneed to keep things off the
calendar. So target one meetingand figure out what can I do
here? Can I first look at the,what the target of the meeting
is? Is it something that needsspeed or relationship building?
Perhaps you can use a differentmethod if it doesn't. Or can you
adjust the timing? Can you trustthe frequency? And then if it's
(34:30):
a recurring meeting, make sureall of your recurring meetings
have end dates. So do not set arecurring meeting without an end
date or else it will stay onyour calendar for the rest of
all eternity.
So those are some areas whereyou can get started.
Susan Boles (34:46):
Awesome. So where do you see folks getting tripped
up the most when they start tomake this shift? For me, it's
the all or nothing mindset.We're gonna do everything all at
once. What do you see happening?
Marissa Goldberg (35:00):
That's the number one thing is just trying
to overhaul everything at oncewithout taking a moment to
instill the good habits that youneed in order for this to be a
long term transition. So doingthe calendar resets like we
talked about where deleteeverything all at once and then
hope that you now have nomeetings. But the thing with the
(35:21):
calendar reset is that theemployees who needed them to
communicate because they didn'tknow how to communicate
otherwise still need them tocommunicate. And managers that
were using it to gauge work andseeing if it was done are now
frantic because they have no wayto see and they're thinking
nothing is getting done. Soinstead of just switching
everything overnight, start withthe good habits of being very
(35:42):
explicit.
So creating that documentationwe were talking about where
everything is clear and directand laid out explicitly. And
then moving from there, one ofthe things that I do is I go
into a new company, and I willmodel the behavior that I want
them to learn. So I'm doingthings like I am using a
document called a read medocument to say, like, this is
(36:05):
how to work best with me. Thisis what you can expect from me
so that I'm doing I'm being verydirect and clear upfront so
people know how to work with mewithout just guessing like it
has been. Then I also havesomething like a personal q and
a where most frequent questionsthat I'm getting, I can refer
people to so they can check thatbefore being like, oh, I need a
(36:28):
meeting with her.
They can get answers instantlybecause anytime I'm asked
something more than twice, it'sin there, and it's easy to
search. So model the behaviorsthat you're trying to instill in
your company.
Susan Boles (36:40):
I love that. Is there anything you think that we
should talk about that wehaven't really touched on yet?
Marissa Goldberg (36:47):
I think one thing I want to touch upon is
that the difference that you'reswitching to is going from a
business first mentality to apeople first mentality. So when
we're in a business firstmindset, we're thinking about,
hey, how do I give value toshareholders? How do I make the
most money? All that kind ofthing. Where in a people first
mentality, we're seeing that thenumber one resource we have is
(37:10):
our people, is our employees.
So how do we set them up to betheir best self and do their
best job? And honestly, peoplethink, oh, but if I switch over,
profits are going to go downand, you know, the business is
going to crumble. But what yousee happening is that the people
first mentality ends up beingbusiness first because those
(37:30):
people are supported. They cando their job. They are not going
through burnout cycles over andover again from being in a
reactive environment.
So people first ends up beingthe most business first thing
you can do. Switching to a commcompany, switching to an
autonomous work environment isnot saying no to having a
(37:51):
sustainable business. In fact,it's going to make it even more
sustainable in the long run.
Susan Boles (37:56):
I agree. Comm companies really do approach
work from this people firstmentality, where they prioritize
the well-being of the folks thatwork in and interact with their
business. I call thisapproaching business through a
lens of care. You can also callit that people first approach.
It's the L in the CALMERframework, and that's actually
(38:16):
the topic we'll be covering inthe next episode.
So thank you so much for thatreally fantastic transition.
Building an autonomous workculture isn't something that
happens overnight. It requiresyou to first practice being
super clear and explicit. Soclear communication, clear
expectations, and then you haveto gradually work towards
(38:36):
handing things off and that canbe really challenging for a lot
of folks. It requires sometrust, but it also requires a
lot of dedication to things likedocumentation.
When you explicitly communicatehow to do something and why it
needs to happen, it's a wholelot easier to hand it off and to
trust that the process will befollowed. But honestly, it comes
(38:58):
down to this. You hired thepeople you hired because they
were good at their thing. Ifthey weren't good at their
thing, you would not have hiredthem. So your role as a business
owner is to make sure that theyhave the resources and the
training that they need.
You need to make sure they haveall the information and the
context about the big pictureand their role in it so that
(39:20):
they can be empowered to makedecisions. And then your job is
to get out of their way because,well, it's calm art that way.
Big thanks to everyone whosupports Beyond Margin. If you
are a listener, a sponsor, or apartner of any kind, I
absolutely couldn't do this showwithout you. If you're looking
for more ideas and stories fromme about how to build a calmer
(39:43):
business with comfortablemargins, head to
beyondmargins.com.
While you're there, you can signup for my free newsletter. I
send it every week, and it's allabout one thing. What does it
actually take to build calmerbusiness? Until next time, stay
calm.
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