Max Klymenko of klym&co: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team

Trust. This is the most important one. If you don’t trust your team, you will always feel paranoid that they aren’t working as much or as hard as you expect them to. I’ve struggled with it in the beginning but now I just look at the output. If I’m happy with the work, I don’t question how long a person is working or where they’re working from.

As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Max Klymenko.

Max Klymenko is the creative director of social impact agency klym&co and a social media creator. klym&co clients include the United Nations, Google and Microsoft. Max has 3 Million followers and 2 Billion views across his social media accounts, posting educational content about business and marketing.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?

Ten years ago, I moved to the U.K. to study law with the aim of becoming a Ukrainian president one day. After earning four university degrees, I ended up working for Accenture, a large consultancy firm. At the same time, I started making videos online. I used to do acting and comedy as a kid, so being in front of a camera felt very natural to me and was fun. I made videos about marketing, business, psychology, my work, my cat, being an immigrant, being an older brother. All of it!

Initially, only my grandma tuned in, but then I slowly started to build a community online, a community that wants to be creative and do great things, through discipline and hard work, but without constant self-judgment and need for outside approval.

As my social media following grew, I developed an interest in advertising and worked alongside the best advertisers in the world at Droga5, one of the world’s most iconic creative agencies. Eventually, I decided I wanted to start my own agency. So I left Accenture and focused on making educational content and building my own agency, klym&co.

My agency is built on three pillars: my experience in the corporate world, my skill and intuition in digital communications and my desire to do work that matters. Advertising is cool, but it can feel like you’re helping brands persuade consumers to spend money on things they don’t need. The goal of klym&co is to change the world through communications and work on social impact projects. We have worked with brands and organizations such as the United Nations, NHS, Elton John and LinkedIn, helping them communicate important messages online. One of the projects we’re most proud of is helping tackle Covid-19 misinformation online and running vaccine-related campaigns by working with the United Nations and Purpose.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Last Christmas I received a beautifully wrapped present by post. As I unwrapped it, I saw a T-shirt and a note. Having no idea who this was from, I went on to read the note. It had really sweet Christmas and New Year wishes and when I got to the sender I was stunned. ‘Merry Christmas and Happy New Year… Sir Elton John & David Furnish’. WOW! We worked together on Elton John AIDS Foundation earlier that year but I never thought that they would remember me. I’m sure this was the peak present opening experience of my life!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Ahhh… We were pitching a large fast food company a month after I started the agency. They never got back to us after the pitch and I had no idea why. Until the strategist on the team noticed that we had their main competitor’s logo in the corner of the deck. On. Every. Slide. I felt soooo embarrassed. The lesson is — always triple check what you’re sending.

What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

The advice I would give other business leaders is, it’s okay to take a break when you need one, and be kind to yourself. You shouldn’t be working so much that you’re physically ill. Set up work limitations on your devices and apps. We use Slack at klym&co and we utilize the “Do Not Disturb” status for when we’re offline and recharging. Create boundaries on Slack and recharge when you need to, then turn your notifications off.

Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Some companies have many years of experience with managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?

I left my job and started my business during the pandemic. So I’ve actually never had the experience of running a team in person. When it comes to my own firm, I am truly remote-first, because there was no other way really.

Managing a team remotely can be very different than managing a team that is in front of you. Can you articulate for our readers what the five main challenges are regarding managing a remote team? Can you give a story or example for each?

1. Trust. This is the most important one. If you don’t trust your team, you will always feel paranoid that they aren’t working as much or as hard as you expect them to. I’ve struggled with it in the beginning but now I just look at the output. If I’m happy with the work, I don’t question how long a person is working or where they’re working from.
2. Culture. It’s harder to build culture through the screen. What I’ve tried to do is to have an in person meeting with my team when I can. So when I went away to Croatia, I had a meeting with a creative who’s been at the agency from the beginning. Even though it was technically my birthday trip, not a work trip, it was great to catch up and see each other.
3. Loneliness. Running a business is already lonely. Add to that the lack of face-to-face communication and you get quite an unpleasant mix.
4. Screens. I make videos online, I chat to my team through the screen, my friends and family live abroad too so I facetime them. A lot of screens. This isn’t ideal for my sleep and I actually do get a headache every now and then perhaps because of how long I spend on my laptop / phone.
5. Credibility. This is a weird one and it’s going away as the culture is shifting. But sometimes I have a feeling that other agencies that have a fancy office in the city or a few offices across the globe are perceived as more reliable and professional. I think this goes back to the point about trust. As you trust your team as a business owner or manager, you have to trust your agency or corporate partners as a client.

Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?

Some of them are more about the market and industry culture, not much can be done apart from doing good work. Others, like loneliness and excessive screen time, are about setting boundaries. Frankly, my weakness. I can set myself screen time and schedule more off-screen activities, see my friends and family more. I know this is healthy. But for so long I’ve felt the need to always be on and work harder than the other person. So for me the challenge is to set boundaries without losing my ‘edge’.

In my experience, one of the trickiest parts of managing a remote team is giving honest feedback, in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. If someone is in front of you much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language. But not when someone is remote. Can you give a few suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee?

I come from a culture where people are very direct. There is little sugarcoating. Europe and the US feel different in that aspect. I’m comfortable with giving constructive feedback but I think many leaders mask their arrogance and rudeness by claiming that this is ‘radical candor’. Like, no, you’re just rude. I try to come from a place of ‘how can I help’ — you to do better creative work, to free up your time, maybe hire an intern to help. I frequently criticize myself and love when my team roasts my ideas. Everyone can say ‘Max, this is garbage’. And we’ll just laugh it off. By the same token, it enables me to give feedback to my team and be open about what I think. It’s easier to be harsh through a screen so you have to really watch yourself. I work in the creative industry too — we have fragile egos!

Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

I’m not a fan of email for these purposes. I actually find that audio calls or Slack Huddles are a really good tool for it. There is something about voice only communication. Something pure and nostalgic about a phone call. And you can really feel the emotions to make sure you aren’t discouraging or offending the person on the other end.

Can you share any suggestions for teams who are used to working together on location but are forced to work remotely due to the pandemic. Are there potential obstacles one should avoid with a team that is just getting used to working remotely?

Use technology! As mentioned earlier, we use Slack and it’s our primary means for communication across our teams for work streams and collaboration.

Balancing asynchronous and synchronous collaboration and giving teams the ability to work when and where works for them is a big part of remote work these days. Rather than scheduling more meetings, I love using video clips in Slack as a way to give my team asynchronous updates or feedback.

We also encourage our colleagues to use the search filter to locate documents or dig up the context for a decision made; this is especially useful when we have a new hire. We also frequently use Slack Huddles — an audio-first way to communicate inside channels — when we need to have a quick brainstorm. And, we set custom status updates on Slack, to reflect current availability. For example, if I have back-to-back meetings, I share that on my status so others know I may be slow to respond.

What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?

Having dedicated social channels on Slack where colleagues can share fun memes or pet-related content is important to building a remote team culture. Pre-Covid, we used to spend most of our day with our colleagues in-person where we would bond over those types of topics, so a remote setting shouldn’t be a barrier to keeping that culture alive. Also, using emojis to communicate reactions or sending acknowledgements in messages is a great way to humanize the way we communicate with one another in a virtual setting.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I’m so grateful that I can do this on my channels and through my agency. If I were to choose one — it would be around making reading cool again. I’ve been weaving this thread into my content for years now. Reading regularly has changed my life for the better more so than anything else. If everyone reads about what they’re interested in — the world would be a happier place.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Not a quote but a question. ‘How am I complicit in creating the conditions in my life that I don’t want?’. Some people blame others for their problems. The boss is not letting me progress, my partner is always annoyed and bitter, and my employees aren’t working as hard as I do… I do the opposite. I blame myself for everything. Both are really unproductive. Blaming others isn’t solving much, blaming yourself just means that you beat yourself up in your head at all times. This question, however, only gets you to identify how you’re COMPLICIT in creating undesirable conditions in your life. Once you identify how you’re complicit, you can start improving those conditions. Without blaming others, but also without making everything your fault.

Thank you for these great insights!