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Building on his previous article on asynchronous work, Michael Tempest expands on how to create a culture-driven remote environment.
Building an asynchronous company culture right is the foundation for getting the most out of remote working, hybrid, or even in-office.
Setting the right expectations and influencing leaders, while keeping different personality types in mind, drives the right culture from the top down.
If done correctly, you can create an effective async culture, reduce dependency on meetings, and increases deep, focused work. An intentional emphasis on communication leads to a more context-driven and aligned culture, and a documentation-first mindset leads to easier onboarding and accountable decision-making.
Extensive onboarding documentation
An onboarding document ties async working all together. This is useful for onboarding new starters and a reference for current employees. It’s also a good place to review everything you’ve set up.
Having a knowledge base to store all your organization’s core information is vital. This information has to be easily accessible to everyone in the company and searchable so that it can be used as a quick reference for all employees.
How you implement the onboarding document will vary depending on your company size. However, for a successful asynchronous working culture, all company sizes need the following:
Company vision and goals
In an asynchronous working environment, it’s important to define the vision and goals of the company as a reference point. This ensures alignment across the company and maps out a clear direction. As the company scales, alignment will be even more important for mitigating misinterpretations that lead teams to deliver the wrong outcomes.
Try this: if your company hasn’t documented its vision and goals, take the time to write it down and share it with your team. Refer current team objectives back to these goals setting a clear alignment with what you are delivering with the company vision and goals.
Before getting started, make sure leadership agrees with how you’ve interpreted the goals and vision, and encourage them to share and speak about them regularly.
People handbook
A “people” section in your onboarding pack should focus on HR policy, organization setup, benefits, and maybe even the company vision. This is a central section that helps employees find quick information to unblock themselves.
Try this: speak with your HR team and document their policies. Collating this information means the HR team will have fewer repeated questions from new joiners and distractions.
Tools
Everyone needs a reminder of what tools a company uses, but also how to use those tools. This encourages effective usage and reduces the likelihood of people using too many tools. For example, defining what tool is used for your “knowledge base” will ensure that all knowledge is kept in one place rather than spread across multiple mediums.
Try this: start a team exercise where everyone writes down what tools are being used and how. Then, collaborate with other teams to align if they are using the same way. From here, you can create a more ubiquitous approach.
Communication standards
Asynchronous working relies heavily on clear communication, so the rules you have need to set a good example.
Try this: evaluate the communication culture you have at your company and write it down. Create and document a code of conduct around these and collaborate with others if these need to be changed. On a small scale, you can create these rules within your team, or you could work with leadership to create them on a company scale.
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How to create a communication code of conduct
Communication is central to an async environment. It allows you to set expectations, share information, give and receive feedback, and provide status updates.
Establishing your own parameters for communication will look different for every company. However, the following set of examples can help you when you’re starting out with asynchronous communication.
Write for the reader
Focusing on the reader makes you really think about the message you’re crafting, helping you provide all the information needed to answer a team member’s question.
Ask yourself, “If I was reading this, what would I need to understand it effectively?” Be clear about the expectations and actions that need to be taken.
Measure twice, cut once. In other words, put as much effort and detail into your write-up as possible. Do this well, and there will be less effort for the audience to read between the lines or ask follow-up questions.
Include as much context as possible
Context puts everyone on the same page. When you ask a question that is framed by ample context, it becomes easy for everyone to get aligned. Here, you can include any previous research or supporting documentation to help align everyone.
Communicate in public
Defaulting to public communication allows a wider audience to offer support and provide additional context to the information you’re looking for or the message you’re aiming to get across. This more inclusive approach will often lead to a more diverse outcome. It also means encouraging people to focus on the parts they can contribute to or that matter the most.
Move to synchronous communication
Not all asynchronous communication works. It’s good as a default, but there are occasions when synchronous communication is a better option.
There are some wider warning signs to look out for that show you when it’s time to move from async to sync. Frustrations, repeated messages, or long-running threads are telltale signs.
Keep in mind that synchronous communication isn’t as inclusive as it will leave people out of the conversation or decision. Synchronous conversations can also be dominated by those who have louder voices.
Other red flags of sync conversation are misalignment if the message is misinterpreted when shared elsewhere, or losing key details if no one writes notes, so always try to default to asynchronous.
Encourage trust
An async culture should be autonomous and built on trust. Company employees should have everything they need to understand the org goal, how to communicate, and a central knowledge base to find any information they need independently.
By giving people autonomy to deliver business goals, you drive healthy teams that achieve a high level of innovation. And when all the information is documented in the open – thanks to a transparent communication culture – micromanagement becomes less of a possibility as it provides enough visibility for managers.
Lead by example
Walk the talk. If you are in a leadership role, openly showcase your asynchronous work approach. This inspires confidence in others to follow a similar process. It will also keep everyone aligned as they can see the progress you are making on any tasks (such as quarterly planning, upcoming projects, cross-team collaborations), further providing clarity on any decisions they need to make or question.
Decision making async
By making decisions asynchronously, you create an audit trail that others can follow or reference back to at a later stage. This is another working-in-the-open tactic that encourages trust by being transparent about decisions.
These decisions don’t have to just be for a project; they can be ways of working agreements or specific tasks. These decisions can then be challenged and changed at a later date, but it makes it easier for everyone to have the historical context.
Checklist
This checklist should give you a great starting point to embed an asynchronous culture in your company or for your team:
- Create a central knowledge base with sections for standards, policies, and other useful onboarding areas
- Document and share the company vision and goals on a regular basis
- Define a clear communication setup, driven from the top down
- Document all decisions
Final thoughts
Putting a focus on how you communicate and being transparent with others will help shape an asynchronous culture. Having a central knowledge base encourages shared knowledge and alignment across multiple areas of the org. If you follow this advice and lead by example, you will have a winning asynchronous culture in no time.
Do you want to learn more about specific async challenges? Let us know what topics to explore.
