Here's the recap...Well, we've likely arrived at the close of Leading from Afar. Over the past 4 seasons, we've spoken with outstanding leaders about what and how the future of work will look like. In today's episode, I talked to Adam Nathan, the CEO of Almanac about the history of work. From the industrial revolution up through the CoVid remote revolution and beyond. We dove into what defined each period or version of work. The good, the bad, and the ugly. The similarities and differences in...

Here's the recap...In today's episode, I spoke with Alex Spahn one of the co-founders of one of my favorite under-the-radar tools, Gomada. Today's conversation was all about team engagement and the need for remote leaders to have intentionality in doing so. We dove into the topics focusing both on Alex as a leader of a remote company and also as someone building a product, especially for this. This still remains one of the biggest needs for remote managers. Up-skilling on how and why...

Here's the recap...In today's episode, I chatted with my good friend Peter Benei about how to up-skill remote leadership. Peter has been helping numerous remote organizations train their managers and enable them to build a learning culture. Companies just took what they were doing in the office and did it remotely when the lockdown came. 3 years later few companies have invested in learning to do it right. In this episode, we dive into the pros and cons of remote learning, what specific...

Here's the recap...In today's episode, I sat down with Franco Castaldini the GM of HiFive. A product incubated within Siemens (yes the global conglomerate) to solve their own issues around employee engagement and what the future of the office looks like. They built a product to help teams not only know who will be in the office and when to better organize office visits. But to automatically foster connections and coffee meetings between those who are in the office that day. We chatted about...

Here's the recap...Today's class should turn into an online course as it's an absolute masterpiece. Liz Leary who has been planning and running IRLs for Trello & Atlassian for years drops so much knowledge it could barely be contained in 1 episode. We covered everything you need to know whether you're thinking about or currently planning on getting the team together. How often, where to get together, what to do when there, and the small details easily forgotten. Like what about those...

Here's the recap. This is the second episode of three about the topic of IRLs. In today's show, I sat down with my buddy Peter Fabor, CEO of Surf Office. We did a deep dive into how to create a memorable IRL. And how he's used his own company offering to create his team's experiences. We spoke about choosing a location, what are companies doing at gatherings, how often the team should get together, why small details like dietary restrictions can make or break the experience, and more. Another...

Here's the recap...Why does Doist have probably the best remote culture around? Because they are thoughtful and intentional about every experience. And it doesn't hurt to have Chase Warrington helping lead this experience. In this episode, I finally got to sit down with Chase to geek out about getting the team together. This has been a passion topic of mine recently and he's been quite transparent about the experiences creating and running #irl experiences for his team. This is the 1st of 3...

Here's the recap...Welcome to Season 4 of Leading from Afar. Today's episode can only be thought of as a masterclass. There's a reason Darcy is one of the most sought-after remote leaders and thinkers. Every minute of conversation was priceless and filled with takeaways. Very few companies do culture well (though they all think they do). If you want to know what real world-class culture pieces are for remote teams this is your episode. We spoke about topics like when culture officially begins...

Here's the recap...Last week's episode was the 1st #irl and one where I meet a long-time remote friend in person.  This week was the other way around. Was the first convo virtually with someone met in Berlin in-person? I spoke with Robert Schütze the CEO of Verbally who is working to kill off all the crappy parts of synchronous meetings. Something we all desperately need. We dove into what the ideal sync meeting looks like, when it should be called, and who should really be invited. We spoke...

Here's the recap....This was the 1st podcast about remote work done IRL. I recently visited Berlin to meet a bunch of folks I've built relationships with remotely over the past few years. I was super excited to meet my new remote BFF, Daphnée, to record a joint podcast. We dove into multiple topics critical to the future of work. Like the importance of face-to-face time for remote teams, async by default is the future of work, team building, and so much more. For a full transcript click...

Here's the recap...In today's episode, I sat down with Valentina Thörner the Empress of Remote to talk about mental health and what individual remote leaders can be doing to improve the mental health of their team and create more transparent environments for sharing how everyone is feeling.  In this episode, we focus on how you as a leader within a larger team can start improving your team's mental health if the company isn't yet focused on it. And of course, what you as a leader can be doing...

Here's today's recap...In today's episode, I'm joined by Danielle Farage for a deep dive on the topic of quiet quitting. What is it, who does it affect, is it a short-term fad, and what can company leaders do to prevent it? Talk around quiet quitting started a number of months back and focused specifically on Gen-Z'ers. Yet, when you look at the various reasons why people are quiet quitting you see this is an everyone issue and in my belief at the heart of the future of work. Where people put...

Here's the recap..In today's episode, I spoke with Sid Pandiya, CEO of Kona. I've been a huge fan of Kona since their earliest beta days. I've been a big advocate in supporting the mental health of my team and understand I need help in gauging and gathering feedback to better understand it. Where Kona comes in. Today we did a deep dive into what leaders need to be doing today to better support their remote team's mental health and happiness. Both are linked to better engagement within the...

Here's the recap...Remote can work for some teams like Engineering and Customer Support but not Sales. Then CoVid strikes. Then Sales can't do async because they need lots of together time to feed off each other's energy, high-five, etc. But I've learned from this conversation and from recent experience that async will be a superpower and major unlock for Sales teams. Like the rest of the organization. In this episode, I spoke with a former colleague and fellow remote OG, Ryan Burke, how...

Here's the recap...I've been quite interested in hearing some stories of how some tech giants pivoted to remote work. While most were and are still desperate to go back to the office, others fully embraced it and have been super successful in moving toward the future of work. In this episode, I spoke with Meaghan Williams who months before the pandemic had already started the company on its journey. I was honestly blown away at how much thoughtfulness and effort went into building an...

Here's the recap. In today's episode of Leading from Afar I chat with my good buddy Jakob Knutzen, CEO of Butter about sync meetings. Nope, it's not a type. I didn't mean async. Since Jakob is building the most engaging sync video tool, I thought we'd discuss why we all hate sync meetings and how to redesign them to be more impactful. We started off discussing the why's of calling a sync meeting. Then going deeper into when of those why's, to have a sync meeting. Finally, we discuss the how...

Here's the recap...In today's episode, I sat down with one of the foremost experts in async communication, Liam Martin. Liam is a fellow remote OG and writing the book about async (stay tuned)! This episode continued the series on how individual leaders working at remote companies not embracing the best practices of the future of work can do so within their individual teams. So today's focus was on how leaders can implement async leadership & communication with their direct reports. We...

Here's the recap...In today's episode, I spoke with Tania Kefs, the CEO & Co-founder of Jurnee. Like me, she's working on building her next company. We wanted to focus the conversation on the individual leaders within the company and what they can do to build better cultures and engagement. Even just within their team. Building amazing company cultures can be done from the bottom up (though not recommended). We dive into the challenges individual leaders have within a remote organization,...

Here's the recap...In this episode, I chatted with my buddy, Tyler Sellhorn, the Head of Remote at Polygon. Some companies are still struggling to realize the future of work is now here. The years of work building culture and operations based in an office has to be tossed in the rubbish bin. Many companies that went remote during the pandemic are still fakin' it till they make it. Making the newly popular role 'Head of Remote' quite intriguing. Tyler and I chatted about what the role is and...

Here's the recap...In this episode, I chatted with my good friend, Lee Rubin, the CEO & Co-founder of Confetti. Remote work is now the standard of work (finally!) As teams will stop looking back, looking forward will need to focus on how to build deeper relationships remotely. IRL opportunities will be crucial for this. But what can teams do in between to ensure their teams are fostering trust and bonds when no longer working together. Team fun, games, and similar are a great way for a...

Here's the recap...In this episode, I spoke with Dror Poleg. A futurist about work, offices, crypto, and more. We broke down a couple of points from a recent post of his about a Crypto Future of Work. First off, how companies and the idea of a team may get replaced by DAOs. Meaning team members get compensated based on contribution. Second, how the concept of a unified team with solving a joint mission may change. Perhaps with a core team where contributors swap in & out regularly to...

Here's the recap...In this episode, I spoke with Yoel Israel about his journey from hating remote work to being one of Israel's leading advocates for the future of work. I'm excited to share his journey on his transformation. We started off discussing why he was so against remote work. Both as a leader and as an extrovert. We spoke about what the experience was like going remote overnight and what he and his team did to shift to remote work. Yoel shared what he's done to loosen his need for...

Here's the recap...In this episode, I spoke with Dror Poleg. A futurist about work, offices, crypto, and more. We broke down a couple of points from a recent post of his about a Crypto Future of Work. First off, how companies and the idea of a team may get replaced by DAOs. Meaning team members get compensated based on contribution. Second, how the concept of a unified team with solving a joint mission may change. Perhaps with a core team where contributors swap in & out regularly to...

Here's the recap...In today's episode, I chatted with Tom Willmot, CEO & Co-founder @Human Made.  I came across Human Made's publicly available employee handbook a number of weeks back. It was pretty awesome (you can find it below). Its effort was to ensure all important and relevant employee information was centralized and available to everyone. Including folks outside of Human Made. The last. year plus there's been a major push in the build-in public idea. At the same time, young...