Jack Wellborn

A colleague asked me to write some tips for working remotely (either from home or separate offices.) At first the request surprised me, but then I looked back and realized my whole career has been in roles that required collaborating across different cities and countries. So here we are.

The biggest challenge with remote communication is that it’s lower resolution that in-person communication.

What do I mean by “lower resolution”?

Imagine you’re at a restaurant — takeout, sit down, whatever — and someone is there to take your order. Probably without even thinking about it, both of you are taking cues from each other, the environment, and who knows what else to perform this simple task of capturing your order. You’ll coordinate if multiple people are ordering. You’ll both speak louder if the restaurant is noisy. You’ll both recognize when the other person is busy, confused, or thinking something through. All this happens with simple eye contact and body language.

Now imagine you’re calling in an order, and… did you just audibly sigh? It’s okay. Talking over the phone kinda sucks and talking over the phone to people with which you have little or no rapport with really sucks. Say the person taking the order is constantly asking for clarification. Maybe it’s noisy on their end? Maybe they’re distracted? Maybe you’re ordering off of an outdated menu? Not only is it more work to avoid issues when talking over the phone to a stranger, it takes even more work to resolve those issues when they happen. Put another way – because miscommunication is likely, more clarification is needed, but any attempts at clarification are themselves prone to miscommunication. I call this the miscommunication death spiral.

Successfully working and collaborating remotely is all about reducing the risk of miscommunication death spirals by maximizing the resolution of remote communication. To that end, I have come up with three “be”s.

Be present

By “present” I mean simply that people know who you are and can easily tell if you are around and available to collaborate. The first part of avoiding dystopian miscommunication death spirals with strangers over the phone is to not be a stranger yourself. Presence is obvious for those who share an office where rapport comes more naturally and people can see whether you’re at your desk, if you look busy, etc…, but it requires a concerted effort when collaborating remotely.

Your messaging service is your friend

The best way I have maintained presence is by treating messaging services like Slack as my desk. If I am at my desk, I am on and available on Slack, and being on Slack means I am available to talk unless my status says otherwise. Messaging services are also the best to “talk” because they facilitate lightweight conversation that is more akin to the face-to-face chatter that happens in an office. Having a lightweight means of communication is very important for remote collaboration. The more you are able to casually keep in touch with colleagues and their work, the more context you will collect and the less likely a death spiral will occur.

Identify the most appropriate communication for the task at hand

Before the ubiquity of messaging services, most communication happened over email, which is inherently formal. Email is built for long form correspondence, exposes a paper trail with each reply, and requires a subject line. Asking someone “what do you know about x over email” is a very different proposition than asking them that same question over Slack. Messaging services are easy, but small snippets of quasi-disjointed text are just as prone to miscommunication death spirals given the right circumstance. Sometimes the subject at hand benefits from the formality and longform nature of an email. Sometimes you may need to actually call someone. People are often hesitant to call someone out of fear of interrupting them and/or wasting their time. Here’s the thing though – you can choose not to interrupt someone by scheduling the call or simply asking beforehand, and a short call can be the least wasteful of that persons time if the alternative is a multitude of text messages.

One particular benefit of calling someone is that apps for making calls also typically support some form of screen-sharing. Screen-sharing is a boon to remote collaboration, because it actually creates a shared context nearly on par with co-location. You can show exactly what you are talking about. It’s worth noting that this benefit can also be had without a screen-share by using apps that support real-time collaboration such as Google docs.

Turn on your camera (I know… just do it.)

Yes it’s a bit awkward, but video is the best way to maximize the resolution of some communication. Not only does it make you less of a stranger by giving colleagues a face to put with a name, it also gives them a much clearer sense of your demeanor and personality.

Be explicit

As I mentioned before, most casual chatter doesn’t necessitate the formality of setting up a call (video or otherwise) so you will be using text messaging or email for most of your communication. While the likes of Slack greatly reduces suckiness, anyone who has attempted sarcasm over text can tell you messaging is still low resolution. Most of the time the best way to ensure you are communicating clearly over text is to make the context of the conversation explicit. The less room for miscommunication, the less risk of a death spiral. If you are asking someone a question, tell them if it’s more-or-less a curiosity or for a specific project. Communicate the deadline if one exists. Explain exactly who you are, what you know, what you think you know, and why you are coming to them. If in doubt, hedge on over communicating. This is especially true for collaborating remotely across different countries and cultures. A ubiquitous idiom where you are from can have no meaning (or at worse a entirely different meaning) to the person you are talking to. Furthermore, that person may not be comfortable asking for clarification depending on their background and their professional relationship to you. It’s your job to communicate as clearly as you know how.

Be demanding

Collaborating remotely benefits the bold. Do you need a better tool to screen-share? Do some research and ask for it. Need to ask someone you’ve never worked a question? Just ask them, and follow up if they are not responding. Don’t see a conference dial-in or link to a meeting, get one from the organizer. If getting what you need to successfully collaborate is too uncomfortable, try to identify allies that can help, such as a manager or team mate.

I settled on the term “lower resolution”, because poor communication ultimately leaves people with less of a clear picture. Without some concerted effort on both sides, everyone involved will likely find themselves repeatedly battling miscommunication death spirals in lieu of healthy collaboration. Even worse, that low resolution can leave you and your colleagues with one-dimensional views of each other where titles can take on more importance than the people that hold them. To that end, I will add a surprise fourth “be”.

Be human

Those of us who regularly drive in traffic can tell you how easy it is to vilify those around us. The less you know someone, the easier it is to assign blame.

Don’t do that.

There’s a saying “never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance”. In this case, “ignorance” simply means “lack of information”. Given the word “ignorance” can also be used to mean “stupidity”, I’ll just change the saying to be more explicit. (See what I did there?)

Never attribute to malice what can be explained by lack of information.

That’s better. Collaboration can get frustrating and remote collaboration even more-so. While frustration is natural, venting that feeling as anger toward a person or people is rarely, if ever useful. Applying the modified saying above simply means acknowledging your feelings, but also thinking through other explanations as to what made the scenario frustrating. In my experience, frustration usually stems from some form of lack of information. They might lack the business context. You might lack context around their other work or experience. Even if someone does seem to lack skills necessary to perform some task you are asking of them, is that their fault? Maybe, but unlikely and you probably don’t know. Finally, understand that you are not a reliable witness while frustrated. Waiting until after you’ve worked through the feeling helps with an honest assessment of the situation. From there you can more easily look at constructive ways to address the frustration before it happens.

So the good news is remote collaboration doesn’t have to be like calling in an order to a restaurant. We have tools to maximize the resolution of communication and improve collaboration. Miscommunication death spirals are sometimes unavoidable, but in my experience you can vastly reduce them by being present, being explicit, and being demanding. Then when they inevitably do happen, being human always helps.