The Remote-First Transition is Officially Here

The stop-gaps we put in place for COVID have run their course. The way we work has changed forever... It's time our management practices catch up.?

It was January 2020 and I decided I was done working from home. I was ready to go back into the office… So, if you’re looking for someone to blame for all this, I guess it would be me.

I had spent two years working from home and was leading a fully-remote team, but as an extroverted people-person, I wasn’t getting my social cup filled. I had learned a ton about building a world-class remote culture from a talented team of engineers, but I was still struggling.

That’s when I joined a team that was founded in-person, but forced to go remote due to COVID. At the time, we thought we’d eventually return to an in-person environment, but as new teammates were hired and new companies were acquired, we soon realized that would be an impossibility.

Unlike the remote-first startup I left, I now found myself in a far different situation… I was at a company that was built to be in-person but had to adopt remote work as a new discipline. I spent the next two and a half years studying this issue in depth, interviewing leaders around the world, and trying to learn how companies were planning to navigate this rocky transition.

What I found was that very few leaders in any organization had a plan… And that’s when I knew I had to do something.

I recognized a truth that many leaders wanted to overlook because of how scary it truly is. Remote work is a fundamentally different paradigm than in-person work, and the management tactics that worked in-person will not work in a remote-first org. While remote-first companies have found ways to do more of their work asynchronously, reduce chaos, and improve communication and collaboration, their in-person peers lagged behind when they were forced to work from home.

I began implementing many of the tools and techniques I learned from those remote-first leaders and was thrilled to see them work! Productivity and camaraderie was going up on my team, but I also realized that the change management process was going to be far more difficult than I anticipated. Transitioning from in-person work to remote work was more complex than introducing new tools and resources. You have to…

• Develop a shared lexicon for how we will work together in this new context.
• Get buy-in from both your team and other cross-functional teams to change their work habits.
• Set new expectations and rules of the road for a remote-first working cadence.
• Create a closed feedback loop that enables your processes to evolve and change as your needs change.

While I worked through these exciting challenges, I spent a lot of time talking to other remote managers and I found that most managers without previous remote management experience were lost. Many were porting over their previous best practices and hoping they’d still work, but their teams were getting burned out. Productivity was dropping, churn was increasing, and leaders were spending entire days on back-to-back Zoom calls.

After hearing this complaint one too many times, I decided to do something bold… I decided to develop my own coaching practice.?

Today, I’m excited to announce the launch of Your Remote Work Coach and my new Substack, The Parasocial Worker.?

I believe that together, we can put an end to Zoom fatigue and the pervasive “Always On” culture that is burning our teams out and destroying companies. I believe we can transition in-person cultures into remote-first cultures without losing the magic that made those office experiences special. I believe that we can give employees more flexibility and freedom while also increasing productivity and team cohesiveness.?

Personally, I believe the remote revolution is here and we’re never going back. We can either choose to evolve our systems and build world-class remote cultures or we can continue to struggle through the muddled transition until exhausted leaders give up and beg employees to come back to the office.

This is where I’ll need your help. I’ve studied this issue in depth and have a ton of tools that can help realize this vision, but I can’t do it alone. I need an army of remote leaders behind me who are ready to shed the makeshift remote cadences they established after COVID and finally get their remote culture right.

If you’re ready to join me, here’s what I need from you…

1. Subscribe to my Substack. I’m going to be sharing tips and tricks for managing remote teams every single week. This weekly email will make you smarter and better at your job.
2. Like, comment, and share this post. The more people who read this message, the faster this revolution will take hold.?
3. Send this post to one leader who you think would be interested in evolving their remote management game. I’m opening up slots for my first round of client engagements and I’d love to meet smart, thoughtful leaders who are interested in joining the roster.

Finally, if there are any questions you have about remote work, remote management, or the transition from in-person to remote/hybrid work, drop a comment and let me know. I’ll use these questions to inform the writing I do on my Substack. All of your questions will give me the insights I need to help you most effectively.

Now, let’s go start the revolution. There’s no time to waste.

P.S. - If you’re ready to get started, I’m doing free consultations for the rest of the month. Reach out here or use my Calendly to book a slot directly.