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I suspect that the ideal primary role of a leader in a remote setting is to serve as a communication channel. In person, it's somehow easier to tune the office

I suspect that the ideal primary role of a leader in a remote setting is to serve as a communication channel. In person, it's somehow easier to tune the office chatter in and out as needed to keep track of what your colleagues are up to. I have yet to find an electronic replacement for this phenomenon. Email, if nobody thought to CC you, you simply won't find out. If people deal with this by defensively CCing everyone, you drown in email. Slack's value is inversely proportional to its uptake: The more people talk on it, the more it resembles a sort of workplace Twitter where it's simply impossible to try and keep track of what everyone is saying, so you give up and resort to only looking at it when you're trying to slack off. Threads attempt to work around this by replicating the problems of email in a chat app. I suspect that an old-school web forum like phpBB could work well, but any technical merits won't overcome the social perception. There's just no getting around the nerd factor there. The only technique I've seen work well is the manager-as-dispatcher approach. This poor soul becomes the designated firehose-drinker. They get CC'd on every email, and they subscribe to every Slack thread. They keep an eye out for anything that Sam or Pat might want to know about, and check in to make sure that Sam or Pat is keeping an eye on it.

jordache 6y ago
facebook workplace or yammer are good options for async communication approaches w/o the need for defensive ccing
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> They keep an eye out for anything that Sam or Pat might want to know about, and check in to make sure that Sam or Pat is keeping an eye on it. This is miserable for everyone. Don't make Slack the center of your workflow. Don't let spontaneous Slack chats dictate your process. The manager's job shouldn't be to scour Slack for information and then ping every person who might need to participate in or read each conversation. That just amplifies the noise. It's terrible to be deliberately ignoring Slack for 30 minutes to focus on work, only to have your manager ping you back into Slack to make sure you don't miss something. Instead, the manager should be forcing important conversations to happen outside of spontaneous Slack conversations. If something important is decided in Slack, the decision needs to be recorded in the tracking ticket, Wiki, or other important location. If it changes anyone's active work, they should be interrupted. Otherwise, they can pick up the information from the single source of record (ticket, wiki, etc.) rather than being expected to follow every detail of Slack all day. Small groups working on tasks together should have private PMs or channels to discuss implementation details, not giant Slack channels with 10s or 100s of members. A good manager will avoid design by committee and will stay ahead of the spontaneous Slack firehose by arranging planning sessions and scheduled meetings where necessary. Don't let the Slack chaos drive your workflow. Don't try to make managing Slack someone's job. Manage the workflow first, deliberately rather than reactively. If important conversations are happening spontaneously in Slack too often, that's a sign that you need to fix your workflow.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  Sorry, allow me to rephrase. I didn't meant that the manager's job is to dogpile everyone onto every issue. It was to make sure that work is being judiciously assigned to the right people, and everyone else is getting progress updates as needed. My working hypothesis here is that, when there is someone that the team trusts to do that, it will ultimately reduce the level of overcommunication and design-by-committee. Everyone feels more comfortable focusing on their immediate work, and limiting their active participation in things that don't require their active participation, because they know they'll get the memo.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    It doesn't matter much if the manager dispatches the pings ASAP or buffers them up for later. You're still letting Slack chaos drive your process instead of leading with process and using Slack as a tool. In some ways, having the manager buffer up the pings is even worse, because then each person has to revive the topic again if they want to have a voice. People don't want to be left out of important conversations, so the only solution is to watch Slack like a hawk all day. The people who spend all day in Slack instead of doing work end up dominating the decision making while the people who focus on work suffer. Instead, don't hesitate to gather people for a scheduled call after lunch, at the end of the day, or first thing tomorrow morning to clear it up. Record important decisions in a single source of truth that isn't Slack, like your Wiki or ticket tracker. Treat Slack almost like you would in-office conversations: If you have a spontaneous watercooler conversation about an important topic in-person, you wouldn't go gather everyone involved to come to the watercooler to continue the conversation. You'd send out an e-mail update to others who need to know. Or you'd scheduled a follow-up call or meeting to discuss it. The in-person rules of communication and avoiding interruption are a good template for how to behave in Slack.
    - gadabout 6y ago
      You keep assuming that the manager is only delegating via Slack pings, which is not my experience at all and also not what mumblemumble specified. The best managers know what the appropriate communication channel is for their employees and the issue at hand, and I don't think any strong managers are going to point to Slack pings at their preferred method.
ticmasta 6y ago
I largely share your opinion and conclusions; good managers were always a combination of filters and selective connectors and I don't think this has changed. If anything it's far more important these days. What I fear (and hate) as a manager is that you're right - I need to be privy to every conversation, topic, initiative, etc and then pull in only the absolutely minimally required resources. This consumes all my time and is extremely tiring.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  I hear you; that is exactly why I noped out of management and decided I'm perfectly happy to continue living at the bottom of the org chart. It seems like one of the great tragedies of tech is that the kind of personality and temperament that would predispose a person to being able to genuinely enjoy this kind of work probably also tends to greatly diminish that person's chances of ever being promoted into a position where they'd be asked to do that kind of work.
maliker 6y ago
I'm an engineering manager with 10 reports. What's worked for me is 1-on-1 meetings with each team member each week. We set strategy for high level goals (e.g. a quarterly software release), measure progress, and I let them know about work other folks are doing that is related. I trust them to use slack/email/phone to get the work the done, and I don't closely monitor those channels. Doing 1-on-1s is a lot of meetings, but I don't think as a manager you can avoid that work and still move effectively towards a larger common goal. Eventually though, a lot of people learn to execute more complex and valuable work, they get promoted, and then we meet less. But then there's hiring. The cycle continues. I'd be interested to know how folks who have 2 layers of reports learned to work effectively with that size setup.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  The problem with only talking once a week is that you miss things that aren't volunteered in the moment. You should be collecting agenda items all week by listening, and then discussing them during the meeting. Also, waiting for the meeting and sharing information live is both laggy and a waste of face time. Share the info in advance, and ask for follow-up in meeting if needed.
MichaelApproved 6y ago
Isn't most of this addressed by using a project management tool like Asana or Basecamp?
maerF0x0 6y ago
> workplace Twitter where it's simply impossible to try and keep track of what everyone is saying, This can be alleviated by aggressive threading
noahtallen 6y ago
> I suspect that an old-school web forum like phpBB could work well It’s funny that you say this, but at Automattic (where I work), we use a tool called p2 [0] which is built on WordPress blogs. So it’s basically a blog with real-time comments, and each team/division has their own p2. As our saying goes, “p2 or it didn’t happen” — and it’s probably the main thing that keeps communication healthy. It’s easy to follow the set of blogs applicable to your work, easy to cross-post to other blogs, it’s globally searchable, and easily sharable. Thus it avoids the problems you mention with email and slack. We use slack a lot as well, but few use email at all. Like you say, it works because everyone buys into it and uses it. - [0]: https://wordpress.com/p2/ https://wordpress.com/p2/
- williamdclt 6y ago
  We swear by Notion, it looks like it's a similar use-case
mgh2 6y ago
We can all benefit from less politicking leadership
rpastuszak 6y ago
> I suspect that an old-school web forum like phpBB could work well, but any technical merits won't overcome the social perception. There's just no getting around the nerd factor there. So, how do we "sell" forums to our friends and colleagues without them knowing they're using one? :) If forums are inherently useful and the issue is just perception, then this sounds to me like a design question. Don't get me wrong, I miss the style of conversation predating social media, but I think that if the reason was purely perception based, we'd find a solution. Think of any annoying, seemingly useless, or just impractical rituals we follow every day. Forums provide a much better signal vs. noise ratio due to its async nature and increased effort required to submit content. And, that's great. But, it's also terrible, because most people just won't bother putting more effort into written communication. This is too much friction. This isn't how we talk any more. And, I think that's the main reason why forums are not mainstream.
majormajor 6y ago
Forums aren't really more inherently "old-school" than instant messages. A flashy new version of AIM is popular, a flashy new forum could be too. I think the difference here is that forums were popular for communities where people were active at different times, while chat was real-time. For in-person offices, things then trended after the physical real-time nature. If people stay more remote after this, though, and time zones are less uniforms, I think that's ripe for a change.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  How is slack not a flashy forum?
  - majormajor 6y ago
    The most immediate way Slack is more "flashy AIM" than "flashy forum" is that threads don't bump back to the top when they get recent activity. If someone replies to someone else's message in a thread and it scrolls off my view, they could have a 50+ message conversation in there that I would never see. In a "traditional" forum, if a topic is that hot, it'll stay on top of the topic list. Even in a more threaded forum like HN, where ordering is done separately, when I refresh, I'd see there were more replies on a hot sub-thread, in a way that can disappear entirely in Slack.
Animats 6y ago
"I suspect that the ideal primary role of a leader in a remote setting is to serve as a communication channel." Someone needs to do that job, but it doesn't have to be the leader. It's an admin job. In non-combat military units, sergeants do that.
- bfuclusion 6y ago
  At this point, it should just be a machine. It's not too hard to figure out somebody's role, and from there you can decide who to alert.
shaunxcode 6y ago
I wouldnt be surprised if there are startups out there working via discord and just passively mentioning what they are up to as if they are playing a game.
crowdhailer 6y ago
We've been building https://plummail.co https://plummail.co to tackle the problems with CC and BCC. As well as other problems with remote communication. Slack was a disaster for us when we last tried using it. Several people muted it for hours at a time, the only way to get someones attention was to call. By which point it was probably important enough to warrant a call. Our theory is that for people to be able to focus on work for reasonable periods of time you need good async communication. And for that need good sync communication for where it's appropriate. We've been using whereby.com for video calls, much better than zoom. This is where we all checkin and Sam/Pat find out what the need to keep an eye on, and then they can start a thread on plum mail for the content they need to keep track of over time. One of the favourite features we have build from a manager side of things is the following. A manager can join a conversation, but then set the notification level to be only notified when a conversation is resolved, i.e. they find out the conclusion and can see the history if they want, but the aren't distracted by the discussion towards the conclusion

jordache 6y ago

facebook workplace or yammer are good options for async communication approaches w/o the need for defensive ccing

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

> They keep an eye out for anything that Sam or Pat might want to know about, and check in to make sure that Sam or Pat is keeping an eye on it. This is miserable for everyone. Don't make Slack the center of your workflow. Don't let spontaneous Slack chats dictate your process. The manager's job shouldn't be to scour Slack for information and then ping every person who might need to participate in or read each conversation. That just amplifies the noise. It's terrible to be deliberately ignoring Slack for 30 minutes to focus on work, only to have your manager ping you back into Slack to make sure you don't miss something. Instead, the manager should be forcing important conversations to happen outside of spontaneous Slack conversations. If something important is decided in Slack, the decision needs to be recorded in the tracking ticket, Wiki, or other important location. If it changes anyone's active work, they should be interrupted. Otherwise, they can pick up the information from the single source of record (ticket, wiki, etc.) rather than being expected to follow every detail of Slack all day. Small groups working on tasks together should have private PMs or channels to discuss implementation details, not giant Slack channels with 10s or 100s of members. A good manager will avoid design by committee and will stay ahead of the spontaneous Slack firehose by arranging planning sessions and scheduled meetings where necessary. Don't let the Slack chaos drive your workflow. Don't try to make managing Slack someone's job. Manage the workflow first, deliberately rather than reactively. If important conversations are happening spontaneously in Slack too often, that's a sign that you need to fix your workflow.

mumblemumble 6y ago
Sorry, allow me to rephrase. I didn't meant that the manager's job is to dogpile everyone onto every issue. It was to make sure that work is being judiciously assigned to the right people, and everyone else is getting progress updates as needed. My working hypothesis here is that, when there is someone that the team trusts to do that, it will ultimately reduce the level of overcommunication and design-by-committee. Everyone feels more comfortable focusing on their immediate work, and limiting their active participation in things that don't require their active participation, because they know they'll get the memo.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  It doesn't matter much if the manager dispatches the pings ASAP or buffers them up for later. You're still letting Slack chaos drive your process instead of leading with process and using Slack as a tool. In some ways, having the manager buffer up the pings is even worse, because then each person has to revive the topic again if they want to have a voice. People don't want to be left out of important conversations, so the only solution is to watch Slack like a hawk all day. The people who spend all day in Slack instead of doing work end up dominating the decision making while the people who focus on work suffer. Instead, don't hesitate to gather people for a scheduled call after lunch, at the end of the day, or first thing tomorrow morning to clear it up. Record important decisions in a single source of truth that isn't Slack, like your Wiki or ticket tracker. Treat Slack almost like you would in-office conversations: If you have a spontaneous watercooler conversation about an important topic in-person, you wouldn't go gather everyone involved to come to the watercooler to continue the conversation. You'd send out an e-mail update to others who need to know. Or you'd scheduled a follow-up call or meeting to discuss it. The in-person rules of communication and avoiding interruption are a good template for how to behave in Slack.
  - gadabout 6y ago
    You keep assuming that the manager is only delegating via Slack pings, which is not my experience at all and also not what mumblemumble specified. The best managers know what the appropriate communication channel is for their employees and the issue at hand, and I don't think any strong managers are going to point to Slack pings at their preferred method.

ticmasta 6y ago

I largely share your opinion and conclusions; good managers were always a combination of filters and selective connectors and I don't think this has changed. If anything it's far more important these days. What I fear (and hate) as a manager is that you're right - I need to be privy to every conversation, topic, initiative, etc and then pull in only the absolutely minimally required resources. This consumes all my time and is extremely tiring.

mumblemumble 6y ago
I hear you; that is exactly why I noped out of management and decided I'm perfectly happy to continue living at the bottom of the org chart. It seems like one of the great tragedies of tech is that the kind of personality and temperament that would predispose a person to being able to genuinely enjoy this kind of work probably also tends to greatly diminish that person's chances of ever being promoted into a position where they'd be asked to do that kind of work.

maliker 6y ago

I'm an engineering manager with 10 reports. What's worked for me is 1-on-1 meetings with each team member each week. We set strategy for high level goals (e.g. a quarterly software release), measure progress, and I let them know about work other folks are doing that is related. I trust them to use slack/email/phone to get the work the done, and I don't closely monitor those channels. Doing 1-on-1s is a lot of meetings, but I don't think as a manager you can avoid that work and still move effectively towards a larger common goal. Eventually though, a lot of people learn to execute more complex and valuable work, they get promoted, and then we meet less. But then there's hiring. The cycle continues. I'd be interested to know how folks who have 2 layers of reports learned to work effectively with that size setup.

srtjstjsj 6y ago
The problem with only talking once a week is that you miss things that aren't volunteered in the moment. You should be collecting agenda items all week by listening, and then discussing them during the meeting. Also, waiting for the meeting and sharing information live is both laggy and a waste of face time. Share the info in advance, and ask for follow-up in meeting if needed.

MichaelApproved 6y ago

Isn't most of this addressed by using a project management tool like Asana or Basecamp?

maerF0x0 6y ago

> workplace Twitter where it's simply impossible to try and keep track of what everyone is saying, This can be alleviated by aggressive threading

noahtallen 6y ago

> I suspect that an old-school web forum like phpBB could work well It’s funny that you say this, but at Automattic (where I work), we use a tool called p2 [0] which is built on WordPress blogs. So it’s basically a blog with real-time comments, and each team/division has their own p2. As our saying goes, “p2 or it didn’t happen” — and it’s probably the main thing that keeps communication healthy. It’s easy to follow the set of blogs applicable to your work, easy to cross-post to other blogs, it’s globally searchable, and easily sharable. Thus it avoids the problems you mention with email and slack. We use slack a lot as well, but few use email at all. Like you say, it works because everyone buys into it and uses it. - [0]: https://wordpress.com/p2/ https://wordpress.com/p2/

williamdclt 6y ago
We swear by Notion, it looks like it's a similar use-case

mgh2 6y ago

We can all benefit from less politicking leadership

rpastuszak 6y ago

> I suspect that an old-school web forum like phpBB could work well, but any technical merits won't overcome the social perception. There's just no getting around the nerd factor there. So, how do we "sell" forums to our friends and colleagues without them knowing they're using one? :) If forums are inherently useful and the issue is just perception, then this sounds to me like a design question. Don't get me wrong, I miss the style of conversation predating social media, but I think that if the reason was purely perception based, we'd find a solution. Think of any annoying, seemingly useless, or just impractical rituals we follow every day. Forums provide a much better signal vs. noise ratio due to its async nature and increased effort required to submit content. And, that's great. But, it's also terrible, because most people just won't bother putting more effort into written communication. This is too much friction. This isn't how we talk any more. And, I think that's the main reason why forums are not mainstream.

majormajor 6y ago

Forums aren't really more inherently "old-school" than instant messages. A flashy new version of AIM is popular, a flashy new forum could be too. I think the difference here is that forums were popular for communities where people were active at different times, while chat was real-time. For in-person offices, things then trended after the physical real-time nature. If people stay more remote after this, though, and time zones are less uniforms, I think that's ripe for a change.

srtjstjsj 6y ago
How is slack not a flashy forum?
- majormajor 6y ago
  The most immediate way Slack is more "flashy AIM" than "flashy forum" is that threads don't bump back to the top when they get recent activity. If someone replies to someone else's message in a thread and it scrolls off my view, they could have a 50+ message conversation in there that I would never see. In a "traditional" forum, if a topic is that hot, it'll stay on top of the topic list. Even in a more threaded forum like HN, where ordering is done separately, when I refresh, I'd see there were more replies on a hot sub-thread, in a way that can disappear entirely in Slack.

Animats 6y ago

"I suspect that the ideal primary role of a leader in a remote setting is to serve as a communication channel." Someone needs to do that job, but it doesn't have to be the leader. It's an admin job. In non-combat military units, sergeants do that.

bfuclusion 6y ago
At this point, it should just be a machine. It's not too hard to figure out somebody's role, and from there you can decide who to alert.

shaunxcode 6y ago

I wouldnt be surprised if there are startups out there working via discord and just passively mentioning what they are up to as if they are playing a game.

crowdhailer 6y ago

We've been building https://plummail.co https://plummail.co to tackle the problems with CC and BCC. As well as other problems with remote communication. Slack was a disaster for us when we last tried using it. Several people muted it for hours at a time, the only way to get someones attention was to call. By which point it was probably important enough to warrant a call. Our theory is that for people to be able to focus on work for reasonable periods of time you need good async communication. And for that need good sync communication for where it's appropriate. We've been using whereby.com for video calls, much better than zoom. This is where we all checkin and Sam/Pat find out what the need to keep an eye on, and then they can start a thread on plum mail for the content they need to keep track of over time. One of the favourite features we have build from a manager side of things is the following. A manager can join a conversation, but then set the notification level to be only notified when a conversation is resolved, i.e. they find out the conclusion and can see the history if they want, but the aren't distracted by the discussion towards the conclusion