Nathan Barry: Remote Work And Corporate Culture

Struggling to connect on your remote team?

We've built a 67 person remote team that loves to work together while driving $29 million in annual revenue.

Here are 8 ideas we use for building a great culture in a distributed team:

💻🌐

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

1. Create a private team stories podcast.

Everyone has the same get to know you conversations starting from zero. Instead interview them about their life story for a private internal podcast.

The whole team can listen and get a head start on building relationships. pic.twitter.com/xvssySyEwK

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

2. Build a culture of written, asynchronous communication

This will save so many meetings, avoid people feeling left out if they weren't in the meeting, and protect focused work.

Your team will also be forced to clearly articulate and refine their ideas.

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

3. Shared “no meeting” days.

Everyone has the same day for focused work each week. Team members can have days that they don’t need to get camera ready (e.g. hair, make-up, etc) if they don’t want to.

At @ConvertKit we do Tuesdays and Fridays, which are wildly productive. pic.twitter.com/Dc9VDFIK6U

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

4. Ask "What did you get into this weekend?"

Every Monday morning we have a bot that posts to Slack asking people to share a photo (or a few) from the weekend. It's a great way to get to know co-workers on a personal level and see their families, interests, and lives. pic.twitter.com/y1iV8ivlYw

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

5. Create an automated email sequence for new team members

Explain how you work, where to find important things (like the joke slack channels), fun facts about team members, explain inside jokes, & more.

It's all automated so you can curate their first 30+ days at the company. pic.twitter.com/d5fqDI2FvA

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

6. Host "unsolicited feedback" sessions

This is where a small team (usually 4-8 people) gathers to talk about someone in the hot seat as if they aren't there for 10 min. When it's your turn all you can do is sit & take notes, then you get 5 min to respond.

Here are the prompts: pic.twitter.com/CpssgLYiHo

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

a) What does this person do that you find remarkable? What do you brag about them to other people?

b) If they were up for the promotion of their career in 6 mo, what would you tell them now to give them the best chance of getting it?

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

c) Assume you're working with this person for the next 10 years. What behavior isn't a big deal now, but will get really annoying or frustrating over that time?

This results in the best compliments, the most constructive feedback, and a culture of direct, candid conversations.

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

7. Mandatory fun days

With teams feeling burnt out force everyone to take the same day off. That means you don't have to come back to a mountain of slack messages and emails.

Come back & share a photo.

We're doing a 3 day weekend each month through the end of the year.

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

8. Schedule S'Ups

We use a bot to pick 3 people at random each week for a 30 min catch up / get to know you call.

A triad means you always get a dynamic group from a cross section of the team. This builds relationships and breaks silos across product, eng, ops, growth, etc pic.twitter.com/2UE5rw8kK6

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

Don't let anyone tell you company culture is defined by free lunches and ping pong tables.

It's a culture of trust, clear feedback, focused work, meaningful connection, and a shared mission. pic.twitter.com/eT9HLF7I22

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

If you think you'll use some of these tips, share the first tweet to help more companies build intentional cultures:https://t.co/T8ZxxVQmoe

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

Also, we're hiring at @ConvertKit. If you want to join a remote-first company (rather than remote-forced) we'd love to have you consider a role with us:https://t.co/B3jtphUTbA

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

9. Donate money together

At a team retreat we divided our team into groups of 4 with one goal: give away $10,000 in $100 at a time.

With 50 people on the team that meant each group had to find about 12 charities to support. Then we regrouped to share who we donated to & why.

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) November 5, 2021

What followed were the best stories that made for connection points:

Someone donated to education grants because they were first in their family to go to college.

Cancer research because they'd lost a loved one.

Pet rescue because that's where they'd found a best friend.

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) November 5, 2021

...and so many more.

$100 isn't that much, so it would be fair to argue the money would be better donated to a single charity, but our main goal was life stories and points of connection.

Give it a try with your team. You'll all get a peek into what your coworkers value & why.

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) November 5, 2021

Yes!

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 21, 2021

They’re hiring, don’t be bashful.

— Ryan Delk (@delk) September 22, 2021

I don’t know the average. But our range is from mid 20s to mid 50s. I’m 31.

— Nathan Barry 🇺🇦 (@nathanbarry) September 22, 2021

Remote work is here to stay

I'm a firm believer in it

and seeing this Tweet about employee management in remote work made my day

I decided that it had to go in my Saturday roundup of tweetshttps://t.co/Na8C5ebz4P

— jagadeash (@Its_Me_Jaga_Duh) October 23, 2021

As an introvert, I can tell you every point would be a nightmare

It would put me off from applying to any company that forced so much sharing of my life on a weekly basis

— Saira (@sairaforsure) September 22, 2021

This thread is the best thing I have read on corporate culture in the entire pandemic. It is really good. After each tweet I kept thinking, I wish I could be part of this, and then you insert the We Are Hiring tweet in the middle.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 20, 2022

Bring me in as a consultant who will help you. An open ended position. You are successful. But that success has brought its own comfort zone. You are not doing enough to scale. You owe it to them to reach out to more people, touch more lives.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 20, 2022