In the last issue of Zinc Selling , we discussed three articles about the effectiveness of various processes. About " How Bezos PowerPoint turned off ", " The owner of one company makes you live 5 hours a day without distractions " and " Asynchronous communication of duists ."
This article is a compilation of short squeezes out of all three with my subjective thoughts under the auspices of the general fart burning with inefficiency.
In the hospital-average company I worked for and work for, all the problems these guys are trying to solve are fully present.
About how Bezos PowerPoint turned off
As the article tells us, Comrade Bezos has changed the rules of corporate rallies. Now the colleagues are gathering and about half an hour after the start of the rally they read for themselves (to themselves) in silence the meeting the notes prepared by the speaker.
Then those who have nothing to add or they are Informed (from the RACI matrix) can get up and leave. Those who directly work with the proposals remain and ask questions, make proposals and call the next meetings.
In my opinion, a completely normal idea, because at corporate rallies, very often time is wasted on "cap" questions and results from those who want to impress the bosses. And also on holivars different jokes.
Also, the advantage of reading docks to yourself is that some speakers can read slowly (or too quickly) or have various unpleasant speech defects.
I understand that it is not an easy task to introduce such radical changes in the rules of meetings, but I hope to put a rational grain in the minds of those who participate in them.
CEO who makes you live 5 hours a day without distractions
CEO of a German company recently admitted that it began to force people to work for 5 hours and forbade them to be distracted by telephone and social networks at that time. People are shocked, but have become happier and more productive.
He also said that he had had such an experience before, when he agreed with the employer to give him two extra days off per week for a lower salary. After some time, noticing that he was doing the same amount of work as before, he agreed with the employer to restore the previous salary level.
Now more and more often articles come across startups and companies that apply similar practices. In my opinion, there is a rational grain in this, and if we take the effective part of the working day, then we all hardly work more than 6 hours.
Also, some companies have an "overtime culture" when, to show their devotion to the company, people "sit" at work for 10 - 12, or maybe more hours. With every extra hour, the average efficiency of such employees tends to zero. And often these can be found in the burnt hall of fame.
Working less, but more efficiently, it seems to me, is a great trend that can free up a few hours a week to communicate with someone you really care about (yourself and your family).
Asynchronous communication of duists
Doists are guys from the doist company who make todoist known to many. Their CEO writes in the article " Asynchronous Communication " about how they implemented this system in their home. There are several interesting points from it.
Definitions :
- Asynchronous communication is when you send a message and do not expect to receive a response immediately. For example in the mail;
- Synchronous communication - on the contrary, when you send a message, the recipient immediately receives it, and immediately proceeds to reply. Also here can be attributed rial time communication (rallies and 1 to 1 meetings).
According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, over the past 10 years, office communication time has increased by 50%. Workers spend up to 80% of their time responding to mail and chatting.
Disadvantages of synchronous communication :
- Constant distractions. As Maxim Dorofeev, a procrastinatologist writes and says, in order to be more productive, you must turn off all notifications in instant messengers. Immediately the opposite is true. A huge number of notifications in working chat is constantly distracting from work. It is often impossible to concentrate;
- People make it a priority to always be in touch, not to be productive;
- Adds stress because constant distractions prevent us from evenly distributing the load, and we are forced to rush;
- Leads to fast, low-quality solutions.
Benefits of Asynchronous Communication :
- Control over the planning of their working hours;
- High-quality communications instead of “reactive” responses. Communication is much slower and makes people be more efficient and make more informed decisions;
- Less stress. You can act completely according to your work time plan;
- By default, the state of the stream (because nothing distracts);
- Automatic documentation if they use public means of communication (for example, a github or some forum engine, for example);
- Tolerance to different time zones (we can set any time lag awaiting an answer).
It is impossible to completely get rid of synchronous communication. Doists suggest creating important synchronous chats (telegrams if the server crashes), 1-to-1 meetings and team retreats.
What is there at the dusts :
- 70% async communication Twist, Github, Paper;
- 25% sync communication Zoom, Appear.in, Google meet;
- 5% offline meetings and retreats.
What do they recommend to implement a culture of asynchronous communication :
- Overcommunicate. In the correspondence you describe everything as detailed as possible, anticipating possible issues;
- Plan ahead for collaboration. Example “I want to finish this in 2 days and I will be glad to your contribution” instead of “I’m waiting for a feedback from you within an hour”;
- Always check the settings for sharing documents (apparently they had problems with this and someone waited for sharing a document for more than a day);
- Before the rally, share with all participants all the necessary documents so that everyone is in the know;
- After the rally, everything that was discussed should get into the rally document (duists even practice recording the rally so that someone can attend it asynchronously);
- Turn off all notifications;
- Use your wait time productively.
Duo Lead Tips :
- Facilitate written communication;
- Evaluate people by productivity, and not by what software skills they have and how much time they spend at work;
- Score for working hours. (Who comes and leaves what time);
- Create an atmosphere of trust (duists mean that everyone is responsible for their words, and the team must be sure that if you promised to deliver the code tomorrow, you will do it);
- Increase personal responsibility in the field;
- Set an acceptable response time. Doists have 24 hours;
- Give transparency a priority. It is understood that the maximum number of issues should be discussed publicly within the company;
- Add fast force majeure channels.
Two points especially puzzled me :
- About hammering on soft skills. In my experience, good supported code is rarely obtained by misanthropes (it simply contradicts their feelings). And I think the code review with such guys will disperse the most seasoned team;
- About what the duists call the "atmosphere of trust" (if you promised to deliver it tomorrow, the team must be sure that you will deliver the code tomorrow). This point, in my opinion, will add the anxiety that we got rid of during the transition to asynchronous communication.
In general, I liked the ideas that the duists offer. At the same time, it seems to me that this will be an exchange of "sewn for soap", i.e. winning in constant distractions we still have problems that do not go nowhere - deadlines and the gallery owner's drum.
Instead of a conclusion
The ideas of squeezing juice from people around the clock go by the wayside. Corporations now want people to work more efficiently and spend more time on consumption in order to support the economy.
Please comment with your ideas on these topics. Maybe you have already implemented something similar in your companies. Throw links to such radical experiments.
Come chat in the cozy telegram chat "Zinc sale" . There you can synchronously communicate, distracting from anything.