After years and years I’ve decided that you are never going to convert either group, no matter how hard you try or what kinds of benefits you extol - they simpl

After years and years I’ve decided that you are never going to convert either group, no matter how hard you try or what kinds of benefits you extol - they simply don’t “get it”, and that’s ok. The only solution I have found is to carefully evaluate every situation. If it’s important that you get a timely answer, sometimes it’s worth jumping on a call, even if you think a quick Slack message or email would be the best for both parties. For group 1 that may be because they’ll lock up and pause trying to figure out how to respond (in many cases because they’re trying to make sure everything is perfect and 100% - you’d be self conscious about your Russian, wouldn’t you?) and for group 2 that may be because their only break is in the car on the way from one client to another. This is the same “do I want to die on this hill?” part you have with any interpersonal disagreement. Second, it’s helpful to carve out specific times when this kind of “jump on a call” can happen. Particularly with remote workers on different time zones, it may not always be practical for everyone to jump on a call - for instance I’m at dinner with the wife and can spend 30 seconds answering a Slack message while she’s in the restroom, but I’m not getting out my headset and getting on a call. I discourage setting up a recurring call, because then you run into the issue of people holding things until the meeting that could and should have been dealt with in a different manner, but specifying that “between two and four every day” are available for calls can help with the sense of urgency for the other party. If it’s 5 already and they know you can’t get on a call, perhaps they’ll decide a textual message is worth the effort. Establishing the time periods also helps with “quiet hours” where you can turn off message notifications and really focus. The key is that everyone needs to coordinate to establish those periods and they need to be known, otherwise it’s just frustrating to never be able to get ahold of anyone.