Four Non-Cliche Advices for Efficient Remote Communication

Over the past few months I’ve seen endless articles, posts and advice about working efficiently in the remote work world. Sad to say, I find many of those to be washed, redundant and generic pieces of advice (e.g. “Communicate often and early!”, “Show care!”), and provide very little insight. I know that, because we made a strategic decision when we started Akooda, to be remote native, and we deal with the questions of how to make communication work remotely every. single. day.

Crazy to think that Akooda now works not only remotely but across four time zones. Working remotely has its challenges, but we wanted to make sure we have access to the best talent out there — whether in Pristina, Utah, Boston or Tel Aviv. Even more importantly, if our goal is to bring back the cohesive magic of a few people in a garage to growing companies, building a distributed company is a great test case of eating your own dog food.

Combining COVID, remote-first and the Akooda’s mission statement together — we’ve adopted (and put a strong focus on implementing) — a rather unique communication pattern that allows us to make rapid decisions efficiently, be as independent as possible, and move forward at record speeds with our customers and partners.

I wanted to share below a few things that we try to live by to improve our execution. These work for us, and I’d be thrilled to get other’s thoughts here as well!

Here it goes.

1. Never say “Hi.”

Imagine this typical scenario:

• You get a Slack message from a colleague: “Hi”. Nothing more, nothing less.
• You wait. Maybe you answer, “Hi, what’s up?”
• You see “<friend is typing>”. Then the friend gets on a meeting, or a call.
• If you are anything like me you lose your mind at this point. What did they want? Was it urgent? Was it something I did?

Here at Akooda, we try to say what we need when we send a message. On DMs, publicly, privately — we try to say something to the tune of “Hi Yuval — have you seen the latest features? I’m interested in your thoughts on <XYZ>”. It allows us to understand the urgency of the task, and not create unnecessary context switches and anxiety. Along those lines, no need to ask “let’s jump on a zoom quickly?”… just shoot over the link. If your colleague can’t join they will tell you anyway.

2. Make asynchronous decisions your norm.

Let’s run a quick exercise. Think how many times you wrote to someone something like “we need to make a decision about this”, or scheduled a zoom meeting just to make an ad-hoc decision when both sides already had all the information required to make the right decision.

Factually, we’re too wired to only make important decisions in meetings, even if no new data is added or further discussion needed. Getting used to — and comfortable with — asynchronous decision making — takes time, effort, and crisp communication on both sides, but will make your organization run that much faster and smoother. Don’t wait for the meeting — make the decision over instant messaging. It’s fine, I promise.

3. Make asynchronous feedback a habit.

Another thing that is rooted in human nature is telling ourselves, “I’ll mention it to X next time we speak.” Peer-to-peer feedback is important. Delivering it the right way is crucial, and sometimes — the right way is doing so in person, especially when it’s sensitive and may hurt. However, sometimes, our feedback on something is tactical (e.g. “I think we need to run the algorithm the other way around”). And those conversations are ok to have in asynchronous fashion. Yes, it’s a bit weird, takes time getting used to, and requires trust, but in 2020/2021, our most valuable asset is the face-to-face meeting. Save it for what matters. What matters?

4. If you must have synchronous communication, pick up the !@#$ing phone.

When is the last time you actually picked up the phone and called a colleague? For some reason, the latest trends in instant messaging made calling someone borderline rude. We feel the need to text them, asking if they’re free to talk. We apologize even before the conversation starts. Here at Akooda — if we need something from someone — we call them. We also don’t take offense when they don’t answer, and get back to us. If we need something urgent, see #2.

What are some things that work for you? Let us know in the comments or at y@akooda.co!