Distributed Teams & Constraints as Culture Enablers
Constraints are empowering.
In design and engineering, as many others have written or spoken about so well. But also in culture and business.
When we founded Talko we decided up front to hire for talent, not location. We’d be a location-free company (‘within reason’ and with a focus on Seattle, Boston, San Francisco).
The benefit of doing this is clear – more access to better talent. That much is obvious. But the decision wasn’t made lightly. There are challenges, and real reasons why not a lot of people build a company this way. To name just a few:
- Getting everybody ‘on the same page’ is more challenging. Communication and coordination can be taxing.
- Management and leadership require more intention.
- Local micro-cultures can spawn, with potential Us/Them downsides
- Operational costs can increase – e.g. more office space
Executing a product program and building a company is complex enough without these and other added challenges of being distributed. No question.
But in embracing ‘location-free’ as a cultural design constraint, complexity and challenge becomes opportunity:
- Opportunity to become great at communicating across the team. We emphasize the importance of communication, but avoid meeting hell and long email threads by utilizing lightweight practices and tools to align, share status and progress, and provide opportunity for serendipitous conversations (e.g. iDoneThis, attentive daily standups, etc.).
- Opportunity to remain true to other important culture principles. The stakes are higher, for example, if we take a chance on a new employee with amazing functional skills but questionable ability to fit in culturally. It’s easier for us to ‘do the right thing’.
- Opportunity for each of us to grow to be better, more engaged leaders and communicators.
- Opportunity to become great at planning and executing across all aspects of the business, not just the product program.
- Opportunity to use our own product and stretch it to be better for important scenarios that are core to our business.
These opportunities come with a cost when a startup is just getting going, for sure. But they also force great practices into the culture from day 1. Practices that are important whether a company is distributed or fully co-located. Practices that otherwise almost always go unaddressed until the future day when ‘the problem’ becomes palpable.
Constraints are wonderful enablers, not just for product but also for culture.
