Want better collaboration? Go asynchronous
To transform team collaboration you need a new set of practices that fit the hybrid-virtual environment rather than port tired old methods into remote working. Embrace asynchronous collaboration to reduce meetings, get more inclusive participation and engaged teams, and take action faster.
Collaboration myths
Today’s thinking about the future of work, hybrid teams, and the office is full of wrong-headedness.
Why? Most of us are still locked into the myth that the best form of collaborative interaction to achieve fast and decisive outcomes is a meeting.
Companies are proud of the accomplishments and productivity made in the virtual world since 2020. But, they basically are proud that they survived and the business didn't fall apart.?
Sure, labor research indicates that worker productivity in the US has surged, but it has come with some great costs. One affliction we often hear about in our workshops is what we call “relentless video”: endless days of jumping from one on-screen meeting to the next, with no time in between to process or decompress.
Worse yet, we also frequently hear that these meetings seem pointless, are not well-set up, and are used as a means of team communication. Leaders’ age-old preoccupation with “being in sync”—namely, gathering people to work at the same time—means that in the virtual world, where team members work from anywhere, meetings may occur at all points on the clock, thus weakening any sense of work-life balance.
The relentlessness of synchronous work has generated boredom and burnout, undermined team cohesion, and undermined collaboration. Survey data from Gallup indicates that, in key markets around the world, employee engagement is down and stress is up in 2021.
This scenario is even more unsustainable as hybrid work takes over.?
It’s time to reinvent.
Let’s not go back to old work ways, let’s reinvent the way we work—whether it’s an all-remote, in-person, or mixed-mode setting.?
Thanks to our applied research efforts with Verizon and Dell Technologies, and in conjunction with Harvard Business School, we have conducted a ground-breaking exercise with more than 2,000 executives to crowdsource best practices for the future of work. Competing in the New World of Work: How Radical Adaptability Separates the Best from the Rest is the result of this of research and consulting with hundreds of large and small organizations and thousands of team members.
We have an opportunity to change things, to get work to be BETTER than it ever was.
To get there, we apply our Collaboration Stack. At the top of the stack—and a prerequisite for the rest—is Asynchronous Collaboration. Asynchronous promotes collaboration and more productive workflows but not by working on the same task at the same time.?
One of the great benefits of asynchronous is unbounded inclusivity that transcends the constraints of time and space:
Think about a typical meeting with 12 people in a room where only three or four have their input heard. That’s a sub-par result and a waste of people’s time and talent! Fast-forward to today and think about 12 tiles on a screen, or a mixed-mode gathering with nine people not in the room. Not being heard or contributing meaningfully is simply not acceptable anymore.
Inclusive collaboration results in better innovation. Asynchronous collaboration that is intentionally designed enables you to do this with additional flexibility and speed.
Asynchronous is one way we will go forward to work. But you have to do it right. Below, we offer five high-return asynchronous collaboration practices that we have distilled from our work with companies around the world.
High-Return Practices
Be intentional. Adopt an asynchronous-first culture and policy.
Working asynchronously is about a state of mind.? It’s impulse control. And it helps teams and organizations get over the toxic ‘culture of presenteeism’, where showing up and logging long hours is more important than productivity, creativity, or collaboration.
Dirk Propfe, CEO of ET Group, and a coaching partner at Ferrazzi Greenlight has established a set of core beliefs that drives his workplace technology advisory and coaching approach. One is that people contribute in many different ways. A second is that people thrive when they have autonomy. Asynchronous activates both of these principles.
GitLab, a global software development firm, bakes a bias toward asynchronous communication into its core values. Darren Murph, Head of Remote, GitLab says: “Moving work forward without commandeering someone else's time bolsters respect within the organization.” As part of its Asynchronous 3.0 initiative, GitLab has documented how staff balance asynchronous and synchronous collaboration. One staff member notes, “Asynchronous works very well for detailed technical conversations, especially when linked to code.” Another observed, “I prefer to keep it asynchronous most of the time, but I'm also aware that as a Product Designer I need synchronous time during early stages in the design process to ensure I understand the problem.”
Asynchronous communications are a pillar of the new workplace—wherever people are working. Asynchronous communications give team members flexibility—namely, the time and space—to engage as they see fit. Channels, such as Slack, are a pillar of asynchronous communications. Channels enable team members to share progress and converse around a specific topic. This will obviate email and text chains, promote inclusivity, allow people to onboard into conversations faster, and keep things moving forward.
DO THIS: Use channels to support asynchronous communication. Make them contextual—that is, make the purpose clear for each channel. Appoint a facilitator to establish agreement amongst the team on how it wants to collaborate, invite people to use the correct channels and tools, and steward more complex processes such as decision making.
Next, prioritize asynchronous collaboration. Virtually every company uses cloud-based collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams, WebEx Teams, and Google Suite. But don’t just use them, redesign workflows to make the best use of them. In the process, ET Group’s Propfe advises establishing operating agreements (i.e. policies) amongst the team on how it will collaborate (see box).
Another step is to put guardrails around synchronous meetings. As part of its “async by default’’ policy announced in 2020, the folks at Dropbox have purposefully reserved meetings for the ‘3Ds’ of discussion, debate and decisions. To prevent crazy schedule requests, meeting times are bounded by ‘Core Collaboration Hours’ and gatherings are intentionally kept brief to promote ‘bursts’ of creativity and inspiration. These policies give workers more flexibility to design their own work schedules. “Managers are hearing time and time again that employees want flexibility,” says Alastair Simpson, Vice President of Design at Dropbox. “Managers that lean into Core Collaboration Hours have happier, more effective teams.”
Finally, the team leader must embrace and model asynchronous-first policy and practices or the team won't follow.
Stop scheduling meetings for everything.
The first meeting to kill? The weekly update meeting. These are one of the biggest wastes of everyone’s time.
Don’t bore others with the details of your progress. Avoid the dog-and-pony of having to show you are busy or smart. Plus it obviates the need for everyone to coordinate around the team leader’s schedule.
As an alternative, Propfe recommends using channels on Slack or Teams to contextualize conversations and provide asynchronous updates as things are progressing. Also, consider integrating flexible tools like Trello or Asana into these channels to streamline communications and notify colleagues of any challenges.
As part of his firm’s asynchronous sprint planning process, Nick Sonenberg, the CEO of Leverage, has his direct reports send two-minute videos at the end of each week for quick updates. He can view them—at 2X playback speed—when he has time, like when he is riding in a car.?
Once routine report-ins have been taken off the schedule, tackle other kinds of meetings that are not generating significant value. Meetings are often called when a team member wants feedback on a proposal or project sprint. We call this Bulletproofing. Instead of a synchronous meeting, use a Google document or form to gather feedback asynchronously which can then be credited and logged for follow-up.
When you are contemplating calling a meeting, stop and think: Why does our team need a meeting? (Emphasis on the team, not just ‘I’). Break down the specific problem that needs to be solved.
Use a simple Decision Board that asks several questions (see graphic). Have the team asynchronously fill it out in a shared document or work board. Then use the inputs to decide on a strategy for moving forward—ideally without a meeting.
A Decision Board can be used in all kinds of settings. For example, the product and manufacturing organizations at a large global firm were spinning their wheels over months of meetings trying to resolve critical production hang-ups that were slowing the go-to-market effort. Instead of calling another meeting, we introduced the Decision Board. The head of manufacturing thoroughly documented their point of view of the situation and the product team then thoughtfully edited and commented on it. The outcome was a realization that there were two paths forward and only a small subset of people was needed to be included in the decision making. The hang-up was resolved in less than a month.
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DOUBLE CLICK: Read for more on how to best use our Decision Board.
DO THIS:? Use recordings and transcriptions and post them into channels. Video records are great for reducing the pressure to call a meeting, for overcoming time-zone challenges, and for team members who could not join due to a conflict, who joined a project or team midstream, or don’t need to participate but may need to understand what happened.
When you share a video with key colleagues, give context on what they should listen for (e.g. “start at the 20-minute mark” or “pay attention to what Yuko says”). This avoids the pitfall of having to search for meeting nuggets.
Seed your collaborative processes.
Team leaders love to call a meeting to kick off a new venture or task without inviting preparation. They think a gathering galvanizes attention and action as we so often see in those stock-photo images of a team massed around a table of laptops and looking thoughtful.?
In reality, most jam sessions are not designed or executed well. Some people talk a lot, and the rest—especially those who are joining remotely—sit on the sidelines, aren’t engaged or do something else on their phones. Team members who are introverts are less likely to speak up in such forums. Plus, many people need a bit of reflection time before they can meaningfully contribute.
Instead, be intentional about doing the pre-work required to make the process really work before you gather people in a room and on a screen. Give your team time to ideate and pre-wrestle with the issues at hand asynchronously beforehand. A Decision Board is a great tool for this, as we saw in the anecdote about the manufacturer above, but the seeding process can be as simple as using a simple Live Doc Meeting (see our pharmaceuticals case study below) or a quick video or voice recording that presents the challenge.?
Case Study: A critical meeting almost goes off the rails
An innovative psychedelic pharmaceuticals firm we work with realized that their patient intake process was too slow and prospects were falling off in the pipeline, putting their care model in jeopardy unless they redesigned it.
A project manager was tasked with remedying this critical pipeline problem. They immediately called a synchronous kickoff meeting with a dozen people. A three-line agenda was buried in an email. As pharma is a highly regulated industry, the general counsel should have been included but wasn’t, creating a likely blocker down the road. This was a recipe for disaster.?
We intervened and recommended circulating an asynchronous project kickoff pre-read and call for input and questions so that the project manager could be better prepared to lead the meeting. We used a three-page Live Doc with one page dedicated to the meeting objectives and a detailed agenda; a page to capture questions and issues to address from the team; and a page listing all of the participants, their roles, and availability given the constraints of a hybrid work environment.
Through this very simple asynchronous meeting set-up, the PM was able to refine the agenda and brief the participants on the issues at hand. He also discovered that the general counsel needed to be included and that they must engage this critical stakeholder upfront. In the meeting, the general counsel was a very active contributor, but the conversation was not overrun by legal concerns and the project avoided a bottleneck down the road. The Live Doc was used to capture the discussion, it was shared with other stakeholders who couldn’t participate, and it served as the foundation for asynchronous follow-up work after the meeting.
There are many great tech tools to support pre-meeting collaboration asynchronously. Every company has communication tools like Microsoft Teams and Slack. Use these to contextualize communications into subject-matter channels or workstreams. Create a Live Meeting Agenda using Sharepoint, Google Docs, or Asana. A virtual whiteboard or workspace—such as Mural—can assist with visualization (Keep reading for more of our thoughts about tech tools and management.)
But wait, there’s more! Asynchronous collaboration creates the opportunity for greater inclusivity—to cast a broader net for insight from colleagues who may be overlooked, who are more introverted and not prone to speak up, or who are not physically in the office.
DO THIS:? Start complex innovation or decision processes with a Decision Board. Follow-up with these 4 steps:
The more mission-critical the issue or bigger the decision, the more important it is to seed the process. Moreover, by seeding the process, you can avoid disruptive pockets of conflict that often erupt in a meeting, undermine team relationships and derail the effort.
Collaboration doesn’t end when the meeting ends. After a gathering, create a channel for asynchronous review, revision, and bulletproofing.
Use the clock to your advantage.
Asynchronous can help break the tyranny of the time clock. Nick Sonnenburg of Leverage notes that the hours of a workday are not equivalent: 9 a.m. on Monday is so much more valuable than 9 p.m. on Friday, especially when it comes to creativity and productivity. Shifting synchronous meetings to asynchronous collaboration allows people to allocate tasks to the most appropriate part of their workday.
Professionals in business consulting, academia, and the creative sector years ago became accustomed to working according to their own schedule—not their boss’s. The work-from-home requirements of the pandemic put the nail in the coffin of 9-to-5 as so many more people gained the autonomy to work where, when, and how they want. Millennial and Gen Y workers in particular are used to working at their own pace and in their own space.
?Similarly, asynchronous gets you to decisions and other breakpoints faster. It gets you over perennial scheduling bottlenecks. And it’s great for keeping the team moving forward when you are away or focused on other things.
Asynchronous can lead to more innovative and transformational work: Most people do their best and deepest thinking when they have sufficient quiet time to free up their thinking. GitLab’s Darren Murph put it this way: “If you are in eight hours of back-to-back synchronous meetings a day, and half of those could be handled asynchronously, what you are really doing is cannibalizing hours of incredibly valuable deep-thinking work time where innovation can happen.” Another advantage is flexibility which can help sustain employee engagement—especially in this era of stress and burnout.
But, but, but...synchronous work does not mean more work and longer hours, as so many people have experienced working remotely. Async must free up your calendar.?
DO THIS: Clear blocks in your calendar to create, write, or simply think. Try ‘Focus Fridays’ where meetings and real-time and synchronous communications are put on hold. Outside of rote tasks, most people are less productive when they have to multi-task and context switch.
Use digital tools to support asynchronous collaboration. Link them together to accelerate it.
First, ditch email! Use collaboration platforms to drive channel-based communications. With this, you can always find the information you need instead of getting wrapped up in a scavenger hunt: When was that email? Was it to me or the group?... Or, was it a text??
“When it comes to sharing information, most companies, no matter the size or industry, maximize for speed of transfer,” said Nick Sonenberg. Hence team leaders typically default to calling a meeting or sending IMs—especially when they are in overload mode. But such synchronous communications just add to a sense of drowning in work. He advocates “optimizing for speed of retrieval”, which makes locating information, at the appropriate time, much more efficient. This requires using the right tools for collaboration for your company’s processes and culture.
What’s worse, email is exclusionary—only certain people get the message. And email is a terrible way to keep track of your team’s content as well as reviews and revisions.
DO THIS: Appoint an inclusion advocate to establish agreement amongst the team on how it wants to collaborate and which tools will be used. Questions to ask: Which platform is best for our communications channels? Which platform should we use to share and collaborate on documents? Which tool is preferred for virtual workspaces??
It seems like almost every cloud-based enterprise platform has become a collaboration platform—from Microsoft Teams and Google Workplace to Slack, Dropbox, and Webex Teams.? Don’t just use them, commit to spending most of your day on these platforms—to house content, support collaboration, manage projects, and facilitate information sharing.
Take advantage of integrations. Platforms such as Bluejeans from Verizon are rolling out new collaborative tools and interoperability enhancements on a daily basis. The Dropbox Spaces app for Zoom helps keep meeting content—agendas, slides, discussion highlights—in one place. This facilitates follow-up. “Look for tools that can plug into what you’re already working with,” says Alastair Simpson at Dropbox. “The days where we need to go to 30 different apps to do 30 different things are over.”
A key to success is figuring out what feature set best fits your team and culture. Sometimes less is more. ET Group relies on Webex Teams—an offering like Slack but with a smaller feature set. It has supplanted the company’s phone and video infrastructure, it connects rooms, and provides asynchronous communication and messaging. ”We went all in with Webex Teams, and today we live and breathe with it,” says Propfe. ”The point is not the particular set of tools you use. The point is to understand your key collaboration workflows and intentionally redesign them using new tools and processes that can best leverage async and synchronous collaboration”.
To this point, Alastair Simpson at Dropbox adds: “Look for tools that can plug into where you’re already working. The days where we need to go to 30 different apps to do 30 different things are over.”
Asynchronous makes all kinds of collaboration more powerful.?
Asynchronous is essential and it must be a priority. But it must be part of a larger vision and strategy for work and collaboration. “It is not synchronous versus asynchronous. It is the strategic use of asynchronous and synchronous to create the optimal experience of both,” says Darren Murph.
Thus, you also need high-quality synchronous work with great in-person, mixed-mode, and all-remote meetings and workplaces, and a supportive culture. All of these make up our Collaboration Stack and this is how we will go forward to work.
Do you have innovative asynchronous work ideas? Connect with us and let us know.
Keith Ferrazzi is chairman and founder of Ferrazzi Greenlight. Follow Keith Ferrazzi on Twitter or LinkedIn.