• Read more about DISTRIBUTED: Do's and Don'ts for Keeping Distributed Employees Happy

In our last blog, we pointed out the three most important traits for successful remote workers: self-motivation, autonomy and curiosity. We call these highly desirable employees SMAIPs (Self-Motivated, Autonomous, Inquisitive People).

So once you’ve built a killer distributed team of productive SMAIPs, you can just let them do their thing right? Not so fast. Even if you’ve populated your team with the most self-motivated, autonomous and inquisitive employees known to mankind, you have to consistently nurture these traits.

Here are five do’s and don’ts we at Intridea follow to keep our distributed employees motivated, engaged and happy:

1: Don’t Micromanage. Do Give Guidance.

Because SMAIPs require very little direction, they absolutely detest micromanagement. That’s why we try to foster self-directed behavior by giving our team members plenty of independence and elbow room to get the job done.

If you hover over your employees, get involved with every small task and nit-pick every detail, you’ll stifle their creativity and send their confidence into a tail spin. In fact, people who believe they are being watched perform at a lower level, according to a study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. So, back off. The more you micromanage, the less productive your team will be.

When leaders expect remote employees to follow overly complicated processes, this can also crush self-motivation. After all, enforcing inflexible rules and procedures is really just another form of micromanagement. We’ve found that if employees have to jump through hoops to get something done, they're less likely to try.

2: Don’t Play It Safe. Do Embrace Failure.

If you punish your team members for each and every failure, you’re going to end up with overly cautious employees who do the bare minimum. And who could blame them? They’d rather play it safe than face your dreadful wrath.

Far too many remote managers paralyze their teams with the fear of failure. Not only does this suffocate their inquisitive and self-driven behavior—it eventually transforms employees into brainless automatons.

At Intridea, we think it’s important to embrace failure and turn each botched attempt into an important lesson. In his book, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure, economic journalist Tim Harford writes, “Biologists have a word for the way in which solutions emerge from failure: evolution.” Harford says we need to learn to accept failure and constantly adapt, which involves lots of improvising. “Success comes through rapidly fixing our mistakes rather than getting things right first time.”

In fact, some research shows that failure is often the quickest path to success. People and organizations that disastrously miss their goals perform much better in the long-run, according to a University of Colorado Denver Business School study.

“We found that the knowledge gained from success was often fleeting while knowledge from failure stuck around for years,” Professor Vinit Desai, the leader of the study, wrote in the Academy of Management Journal. “Organizational leaders should neither ignore failures nor stigmatize those involved with them. Rather leaders should treat failures as invaluable learning opportunities, encouraging the open sharing of information about them.”

3: Don’t Overburden Them. Do Enforce Work-Life Balance.

SMAIPs are often prodigious in their output—which can be both a blessing and a curse. While leaders may be tempted to let highly driven team members pull long hours and work their fingers to the bone, this will quickly lead to employee burnout.

As we mentioned in a previous blog, it’s important to ensure your employees achieve a healthy balance between their work life and personal life. In the long run, work-life balance leads to happier, more productive employees.

“The business climate has become so fiery and competitive that leaders are focused on competition and getting the most out of their people,” John Izzo, author of Values-Shift: The New Work Ethic and What It Means for Business, told CNNMoney. “Everyone's working to their max.” This extreme pressure will quickly derail even your most productive and driven SMAIPs.

Izzo warns that an employee suffering from burnout becomes part of the “working wounded.” Because they’ve lost all of their motivation, they apathetically limp along through their work day. “Ultimately the biggest price companies pay for burnout is a loss of talented people,” he adds.

Because we realize SMAIPs will create Intridea’s most innovative work, we make a point to nurture these employees—not work them to death.

4: Don’t Dishearten Them. Do Give Positive Feedback.

Distributed leaders have to be careful about demoralizing SMAIPs with too much negative feedback. If you only offer a worker feedback when he does something wrong, you’ll quickly crush that employee’s spirit and deflate his motivation.

It’s important to give distributed employees positive feedback, even for normal day-to-day work. When you reward your team members for a job well-done, this will encourage further self-driven behavior. It also ensures they’ll sit up and listen in the instances when you need to offer them negative feedback.

Warren Greshes, author of The Best Damn Management Book Ever has also emphasized the importance of positive feedback. “If you want to point out the mistakes people make, get them to listen to you and fix those mistakes, you better be ready to recognize them when they do something right,” he writes. “Employee recognition is one of the greatest drivers of employee motivation in the workplace. Do you know anyone who doesn’t like to be recognized when they’ve done something right or achieved something special?”

If you only speak up when an employee has done something wrong, they won't bother to take risks that could turn into big wins for the company. In the end, your employees will stop caring because they know no matter what they do, you’re going to criticize them.

5: Don’t Dismiss Their Ideas. Do Set Expectations.

SMAIPs often formulate groundbreaking ideas, and they’re usually bursting with excitement to share these ideas with their manager. So when a self-motivated employee comes to you with her latest brain child, it’s important to give the idea the thought and consideration it deserves.

If you ignore or constantly shoot down an employee’s ideas, she’ll more than likely stop sharing altogether. In fact, more than a third of U.S. workers don’t speak up for fear of retribution, according to a DecisionWise Benchmark study. “These perceptions typically stem from a culture that stifles the free expression of ideas, and from leaders who contribute to or create that culture,” points out Paul Warner, Director of Consulting Services at DecisionWise. “Fear of speaking up is extremely detrimental to organizations, often causing an escalation of dissatisfaction among employees leading to absenteeism, non-productive work behaviors, low team identification, and eventually reduced performance and turnover.”

We’ve found that while it’s critical to listen to our team members’ new ideas, it also helps to set expectations upfront—even before the employee’s idea is hatched. For example, we encourage our team members to use a program called sparktime—an Intridea initiative to encourage side projects and exploration. When one of our employees submits an idea for a side project, our “approval” is contingent on a well-defined plan as well as good timing with other projects. This helps focus our employees and also teaches them how to set themselves up for success.

Check out our next to blog to learn how to spark self-motivation in distributed employees.

• Read more about DISTRIBUTED: Two Things All Successful Leaders Have in Common

In our last blog, we discussed four common mistakes bad bosses make. Now it’s time to take a look at the flipside: What about the good bosses? Believe it or not, there are still plenty of them out there. And we believe the most accomplished leaders have two qualities in common: They are accessible, and they are explicit.

Here's how the Oxford Dictionary defines these two terms:

ac·ces·si·ble: (of a person, typically one in a position of authority or importance) friendly and easy to talk to; approachable.

ex·plic·it: (of a person) stating something in a clear and detailed way.

In our experience, one of these leadership attributes is pretty much useless without the other. No matter how friendly and approachable a manager might be, she can’t be effective if she gives employees ambiguous answers and vague instructions. On the other hand, even if leader delivers precise instructions and well-defined expectations, his team will never thrive if they’re afraid to approach him with questions or problems. To lead a team to success, a manager must possess both of these essential qualities.

Don’t Be a Joker

A leader who is not accessible and explicit will quickly lose his followers—and as author and business consultant Steve Balzac has said, “A leader without followers is just some joker taking a walk.”

Yet far too many jokers, I mean, business managers just can’t seem to nail these two essential leadership skills. As a result, thousands of U.S. employees are jumping ship each year. As we mentioned in our last blog, the number one reason American employees quit is because of a bad boss or immediate supervisor, according to a Gallup poll. The poll also revealed teams under lackluster leadership are half as productive and 44 percent less profitable than well-managed groups. “In the end, turnover is mostly a manager issue," writes the Gallup team. “The effect of poor management is widely felt.”

Leading from Afar

As if effectively managing a team isn’t difficult enough, leading a distributed team is even more daunting. How does a manager establish authority, earn respect and forge a bond with employees who rarely lay eyes on him? The answer is quite simple: He does the same things traditional managers do—but he does it much better.

“Managing in itself doesn’t really change that much [in a distributed environment],” explains Glenn Dirks of Teletrips, Inc. in Managing a Remote Workforce: Proven Practices from Successful Leaders, a Citrix Online-sponsored Future of Work report. “Managers just have to accept their responsibilities for being a good manager—which means de?ning the work that has to be done, assigning the work to the right people, setting clear performance goals, and then holding people accountable for getting it done.”

Dirk says a leader’s abilities become much clearer in a distributed business where they can’t peer over their team’s shoulders all day long. “In short, the more you go ‘virtual,’ the more the quality of management matters,” he adds.

Explicit Instructions & Big Rules

When remote employees are uncertain about the company’s rules and norms, they can quickly become paranoid. Remote managers have to explicitly communicate expectations to remove that sense of insecurity.

In our experience, most effective distributed team leaders always provide each employee with well-defined, written expectations for their job, explicit instructions for what they should be working on, and clear-cut deadlines for their work. These awesome bosses also define deliverables and schedules—even for areas that don’t generally have defined deliverables.

In a report called Managing a Remote Workforce, authors James Ware and Charles Grantham identify the primary attributes of an effective remote manager based on their conversations with distributed work experts. They say the most successful remote managers not only set clear expectations and goals, but they also establish “explicit ‘Big Rules.’” (There’s that word again: explicit.)

Ware and Grantham say it’s important to clearly define acceptable etiquette, protocols, expectations, norms and values. “Do not assume everyone will understand ‘how things get done around here,’” they emphasize.

Répondez S'il Vous Plaît (Within 24-48 Hours)

But as we mentioned before, the best leaders aren’t just explicit—they’re also accessible. Not only are good bosses easy to approach, but they’re also diligent about responding to their employees’ emails, calendar invites, voicemails, IMs and any other communication within 24 to 48 hours.

In other words, a good boss never leaves his staff hanging. That’s because he realizes that without his advice or guidance, an employee may hit a brick wall or reach a stand-still on a critical project.

This 24 to 48 hour response time is especially critical for distributed teams. Here at Intridea, we’ve found that the use of scheduling, email task-management plugin or CRM tools can help with this quick response time.

Because remote managers don’t work shoulder-to-shoulder with their staff, there are no chance encounters or casual meetings. So if you don’t respond to an employee’s email or request in a timely fashion, you might run the risk of forgetting about it completely. In the meantime, the employee might perceive the delay as sign that you’re not taking her requests seriously.

Bonding Time

Because distributed teams are not physically in the same space, it’s even more important for leaders to make themselves as accessible as possible. At Intridea, all company leaders mark out several hours a week when anyone in the company can schedule a time to talk with them via phone, Skype or other methods.

Additionally, whenever our CEO and Managing Directors travel to New York City, they make a point to let the local team members know they’ll be in town and invite them out to lunch or dinner. This helps them build those personal bonds.

Many people are under the misconception that a distributed company is absolutely 100% remote, and no one ever sees each other in person; or worse, that we never want to see each other. To the contrary, we genuinely value the times we get to see each other face-to-face, and we try to make it happen as often as possible. In fact, unlike traditional companies, we make the most of these encounters, which leads to richer relationships.
Tune into our next blog to discover the three most desirable traits for distributed employees. In the meantime, got any stories for leading distributed teams? Keep the conversation going! We'd love to hear from you.

• Read more about DISTRIBUTED: Four Fatal Leadership Fails

American workers are quitting in droves and more frequently than ever. According to the Department of Labor, the average tenure of a U.S. employee is a meager 1.5 years. As the old saying goes, employees don’t quit jobs; they quit bosses, and the numbers continue to validate it. In fact, the number one reason U.S. employees quit is because of a bad boss or immediate supervisor, Gallup reports.

Despite the avalanche of advice online and stacks upon stacks of leadership books available to them, bosses in both traditional and distributed businesses continue to fall short. So what gives? What are all these bad bosses doing wrong? More than likely, they’re making these four leadership fails:

Fail #1: They Set Unclear Expectations Or None At All.

According to a Gallup survey, only half of employees know exactly what’s expected of them—and remote workers are significantly less likely to have clarity about work expectations than in-house employees.

“One of the biggest challenges managers of remote workers face is unclear expectations,” writes Jennifer Robinson, a Senior Editor of the Gallup Business Journal. “Managers often worry that an employee's work will suffer without their supervision or direction, while employees may feel uneasy with a lack of direction or communication, suspecting that they're missing out on valuable information or feedback. These feelings of unease can be prompted by unclear expectations, and it is a clear understanding of ‘what's expected’ that is at the core of any work relationship.”

Fail #2: They’re Poor Communicators.

When it comes to setting clear expectations for your employees, communication is key. Unfortunately, many leaders are communication challenged—and as a result, their employees often leave conversations feeling confused, ignored or flat-out offended.

There are two primary types of communication: written and verbal. The written word is not only more permanent, but we believe it’s often more impactful than verbal conversations. We’ve found that there is great power in writing something down and making it accessible to your company—especially when it comes to sharing your company vision, expectations and core values. When you provide written materials, your employees can refer back to it at as often as necessary. On the other hand, if you choose to communicate these messages verbally, the details can easily be misconstrued or forgotten.

Still, when you choose written communication—whether it’s an email or a training manual—it’s important to write succinct, easy-to-understand messages. Oftentimes, a remote manager’s first reflex is to send a long, drawn-out email in lieu of real-time conversations. If you find yourself typing up an email that could be mistaken for a Melville novel, a conference call might be in order.

Fail #3: Their Doors Are Closed.

Even virtual managers should have an “open door” policy and offer explicit office hours when any staff member can schedule a time to talk. Because distributed teams are not physically in the same space, it’s even more important for leaders to make themselves as accessible as possible.

At Intridea, all company leaders mark out several hours a week when anyone in the company can schedule a time to talk with them via phone, Skype or other methods. By the same token, we also let our team know when we’re not available. We’ve found it helpful to communicate through our calendars, letting everyone know when we’ll be in a meeting, at a doctor’s appointment, or intensely focused on a project so they know not to disrupt us.

Fail #4: They Don’t Bond with Employees.

When a boss takes time to develop relationships with her team, she becomes more approachable. Of course, bonding with distributed employees poses a unique challenge. In fact, nearly half of employees who work on virtual teams say they had never met their virtual team cohorts, according to a report by RW3 LLC. Entitled The Challenges of Working in Virtual Teams, the survey also found that nearly all virtual team members (90%) said they don’t have enough time during virtual meetings to build relationships.

This is why it’s important for distributed companies to set up some type of “virtual water cooler” for social conversations amongst employees—whether it’s Campfire, an IM chat room or a Microblogging group. Managers should make a point to regularly engage in these conversations. This is a huge part of our culture at Intridea. Our virtual water cooler gives us a chance to learn about each other as humans, not just worker bees.

How can distributed leaders avoid these four fails? Find out in our next blog! In the meantime, got any stories for leading distributed teams? Keep the conversation going! We'd love to hear from you.

• Read more about DISTRIBUTED: 7 Ways to Enforce Work-Life Balance

In our last blog, we talked about how important work-life balance is to every company, especially for distributed teams. In our opinion, the power of work-life balance cannot be over-emphasized. If you want to cultivate a team of well-adjusted, engaged employees, it’s essential to not only suggest or strongly encourage work-life balance—but to enforce it. Here are seven surefire ways to do just that:

1: Be Flexible

According to an Accenture study, 80 percent of employees say having flexibility in their work schedule is important to achieving a positive work-life balance. Fortunately, when you’re running a distributed team it’s not necessary to force employees to work a traditional 9 to 5 timeframe. Let your team members choose their own hours so they can work when they feel the most productive.

While one employee may prefer to work from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm when her kids are at school and the house is quiet, a night owl may be the most energized after midnight. Of course, to accommodate these varying work hours, it’s important to minimize scheduled events—such as mandatory conference calls at 3 pm each Monday. Here at Intridea, we do that by relying on email, Hipchat and other forms of asynchronous communication.

Over the years, we’ve noticed an interesting trend: When we allow employees to work reasonable hours each week and give them time off when they need a break, they’re more willing to put in extra hours when necessary.

2: Look for Signs of Burnout

Some researchers say distributed workers might be at higher risk for burnout. In the absence of defined work hours, remote workers often end up working longer—leaving them less time for their personal endeavors, according to a MIT Sloan Management Review article by Jay Mulki, Fleura Bardhi, Felicia Lassk and Jayne Nanavaty-Dahl.

Because distributed team members don’t work in clear view of their supervisors, they also tend to take on more projects than they can handle. “The rapidly increasing prevalence of distributed workforces can make demonstrating the extent of your workload incredibly hard, and often even harder to resolve,” writes independent business consultant Oliver Marks in a ZDNet article. “The result is burnout, and the impact of 'always on' work patterns in organizations of all sizes can ultimately have a significant negative effect on results.”

So how do you ensure your team members don’t lose steam? At Intridea, we strive to make employees feel appreciated and connected at every opportunity. It’s also important to establish clear goals for each team member, revisit those goals frequently and offer encouragement and acknowledgement when the employee reaches certain benchmarks. In other words, if you don’t continually stoke an employee’s fire, it will eventually flicker out.

3: Ensure Employees Catch Enough ZZZ’s

Most Americans don’t get nearly enough shuteye, and the lack of sleep has an adverse effect on their work. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 30 percent of employed U.S. adults don’t get the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep a day. Of course, it’s no surprise that the longer a sleep-deprived person stays awake, the more their productivity level plummets.

In a study by Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, researchers asked sleep deprived participants to perform certain tasks, such as finding information quickly and accurately on computer monitors. As their level of sleep deprivation worsened, the participants’ ability to find the information slowed dramatically.

At Intridea, we strongly encourage our employees to get plenty of sleep. Because our distributed team members have greater control over their working hours, this makes it easier for them to fit a solid eight hours of slumber into their schedule. In the event that one of our employees has to pull an all-nighter on a tight deadline or if they are recovering from a cold or injury, we advise them to catch up on sleep however possible.

We also find it perfectly acceptable for employees to take power naps during the work day. In fact, an increasing number of companies, both distributed and non-distributed, are allowing power naps. For example, Google gives employees an opportunity to nap at work because the company believes it increases productivity—and recent research proves that this notion is absolutely true. In a NASA-financed study, a team of researchers found that allowing subjects to nap for as little as 24 minutes improved their cognitive performance.

4: Encourage Exercise

A study by Jim McKenna from the University of Bristol showed that when employees took a break from work to exercise, their work performance was consistently higher and they demonstrated better time management and improved mental sharpness when they returned to the office. These employees also reported feeling more tolerant of themselves and more forgiving of their colleagues.

At Intridea, not only do we encourage employees to get active—we take it to the next level by holding company-wide Fitbit competitions. If you haven’t heard of this awesome little gadget, the Fitbit tracks steps taken, calories burned, floors climbed, activity duration and intensity and more. Our employees wear it on their wrist all day and then plug it into a wireless base station to upload the data into the Fitbit website. From there, we can see an overview of each employee’s physical activity. At the end of the week, we crown the employee with the most impressive exercise stats as Fitbit champion. It’s a fun way to tap into our team’s competitive spirit while promoting physical fitness.

5: Support Family Time

For many professionals, the definition of work-life balance is simple: they want a fulfilling job that allows them to spend more quality time with their families. Sadly, half of working dads and more than half of working moms say they find balancing work and family responsibilities “very” or “somewhat” difficult, according to a Pew Research report. Based on the report, 46 percent of fathers and 23 percent of moms say they don't get enough time with their kids.

We at Intridea do everything possible to accommodate working moms and dads. While traditional businesses typically offer two weeks or less of paternity leave (if any at all), we work with new parents to create a customized schedule to fit their needs.

For example, our flex hours allowed one team member to care for his newborn child and create an alternating feeding, changing and sleeping schedule with his wife. This gave him the opportunity to bond with his daughter, support his wife and still be a productive member of our team.

6: Make Vacations Mandatory

It’s really no wonder why there are so many unhappy employees in the U.S. Our nation is the only advanced economy that does not require employers to provide paid vacation time. Consequently, almost one in four Americans do not receive any paid vacations or paid holidays, according to a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. And according to a Harris Interactive study, more than half of American workers have up to two weeks’ worth of unused vacation at the end of the year.

While some employers might applaud this behavior, it’s a lose-lose when workers don’t take some much-needed R&R. Many studies show that a person’s happiness level spikes after a vacation, resulting in a recharged and mentally refreshed employee. The average traveler experiences a 25 percent increase in work performance after returning from vacation, according to the Travel Leisure Monitor.

We give Intridea employees unlimited vacation time. Our vacation policy is quite simple: “Take what you need.” We also offer “workations,” which allow employees to travel the world and work from wherever they are. Like vacations, research shows workations also offer many valuable benefits. For one, multi-cultural experiences and exotic surroundings often generate more inspired and creative work, according to research by Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

7: Get Rid of the Commute

If nothing else, distributed businesses offer improved work-life balance simply because employees don’t have to waste hours on end fighting traffic. According to the Department of Transportation, the average American driver logs 37 miles a day. To make matters worse, the typical commuter spends more than 38 hours a year stuck in traffic congestion—and that number is even higher in big cities such as D.C., Los Angeles and San Francisco, at 60 hours a year.

By not commuting last year, our team saved a combined total of 9,816 hours. Check out Intridea's YourTime to see examples of what our team members do with the extra time they save by NOT commuting.

Tune into our next blog to learn about the 4 Fatal Leadership Fails.

• Read more about DISTRIBUTED: Work Life Balance

Cue a thousand eye-rolls. Trust us, we know the phrase “work-life balance” has been overused, abused and beaten to a pulp in the corporate world. Even so, this principle is extremely important for every business—especially for distributed teams. Sadly when it comes to ensuring employees live a well-adjusted life, plenty of companies talk the talk; but very few walk the walk.

Here at Intridea, we’ve discovered that when our team members derive joy from activities outside of work hours, they channel that happiness directly into their projects during work hours. In the end, this leads to increased employee productivity and higher quality work. That’s exactly why we urge our employees to maintain a healthy balance between their professional and personal lives.

Can’t Buy Success

According to a study by Accenture, more than half of surveyed workers say work-life balance is the key determiner for whether or not they have a successful career. They place it ahead of recognition, autonomy and even money.

The study was based on surveys of 4,100 business executives from medium to large organizations in 33 countries, including the U.S. Half of those surveyed said they have turned down a job offer because they believed it could negatively impact their work-life balance.

"Companies that can help their employees navigate both their professional and personal lives are likely to see strong employee engagement and enjoy an advantage as they recruit and retain high performers,” said Nellie Borrero, managing director of global inclusion and diversity for Accenture.

Boost Your Bottom Line

Not only does work-life balance lead to more engaged employees—it can also give your company’s earnings a major boost. Based on a study by UK firm Morgan Redwood, businesses that helped workers achieve a healthy work-life balance earned nearly a quarter more per employee each year than companies that did not.

Study participants said their employees were able to manage their personal lives more easily, resulting in fewer missed days, improved well-being and increased productivity—which led to higher profits for the entire company.

The Happiness Factor

Employees with a balanced life are generally more cheerful people—and studies show that happiness pays off big time for businesses.

In The Happiness Advantage: Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work, author and researcher Shawn Achor points out that a happy workforce increases sales by 37 percent and productivity by 31 percent.

“It’s irrefutable. We know happy employees are the most successful employees, so happiness brings success, and that brings success to our organizations,” says Helen Mumford Sole, an executive coach who specializes in happiness. “This is a win-win all around.”

Not surprisingly, remote workers are often happier simply because they aren’t forced to schlep to a brick-and-mortar office day after day. According to an annual telecommuting survey issued by Staples Advantage, telecommuting programs are “mutually beneficial” for both employers and employees. That’s because remote working results in more content employees, reduced absenteeism and less stress. “Telecommuting can help achieve balance between workplace demands and life obligations,” explained Tom Heisroth, senior vice president for Staples Advantage.

Because distributed businesses cut out the commute and offer employees a more flexible schedule, these companies inherently lead to improved work-life balance. However, we believe it’s not enough for distributed teams to simply suggest that employees strive for work-life balance—or even strongly encourage it. If you want your business to thrive, it’s essential to put work-life balance front and center.

In our next blog, we’ll reveal seven surefire ways to enforce work-life balance for your distributed team.
Does your company work remote? Keep the conversation going! We'd love to hear from you.

• Read more about DISTRIBUTED: Get in A-Synch

In our last blog, we discussed the difference between asynchronous and synchronous communication. (Synchronous communication is a real-time conversation, such as a meeting or phone call, while asynchronous communication is a discussion that take place outside of real time, such as an email. Synchronous communication requires an immediate response; asynchronous doesn’t.)

If you read the last blog, you might have picked up on the fact that we at Intridea are big fans of asynchronous communication. That’s because teams fall into four major pitfalls when they rely on synchronous communication:

• Pitfall #1: The demand for instant answers, which leads to hasty responses.
• Pitfall #2: Increased pressure on employees.
• Pitfall #3: Constant distractions, which forces employees to drop what they’re doing and shift their focus.
• Pitfall #4: Ineffective conversations and meetings dominated by extroverts and chronic interrupters.

We believe that asynchronous communication solves each of these common pitfalls. Here’s how:

Solving Pitfall #1: The Power of Delayed Gratification

The first common pitfall of synchronous communication is the demand for abrupt answers. We all have an innate desire for instant gratification. It’s just human nature. We don’t want it later; we want it right now. The technological advances we’ve enjoyed in recent decades only feed this desire by meeting our demands for immediate fulfillment.

With the advent of DVR and VOD, instant messaging, video streaming, same-day delivery services and thousands of time-saving smartphone apps, many folks have lost the ability to wait for anything.

This demand for instant gratification doesn’t just apply to material objects; it also applies to answers. When it comes to running a fast-paced business, we want answers, and we want them now. But is this really the most effective approach? Sure, it may feel great to ask an employee a question and receive the answer instantly. But is that rushed response the correct answer, the best answer, the most insightful answer? Probably not. It’s almost always better to wait patiently for a well-prepared response than to demand a hasty answer.

Solving Pitfall #2: Release the Pressure

Because synchronous communication demands immediate answers, it often puts employees under intense pressure. Yet, some corporate leaders claim that employees hatch the most creative ideas when they are under a time crunch. According to research published in the Harvard Business review, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

“When creativity is under the gun, it usually ends up getting killed,” write researchers Teresa M. Amabile, Constance N. Hadley and Steven J. Kramer. “Although time pressure may drive people to work more and get more done, and may even make them feel more creative, it actually causes them, in general, to think less creatively.”

So when you don’t demand immediate responses from your team, it protects employees from unnecessary stress—and gives them elbow room to create ingenious work.

Solving Pitfall #3: Derailing Distractions

Synchronous communication also leads to constant disruptions. When you choose to communicate in real-time with your employees every single time you have a question or an issue, you are often distracting them from their work. On the other hand, asynchronous communication greatly reduces the number of disruptions in the workplace. When an employee is not expected to respond to every single question or issue immediately, they can focus on one task at a time, which will send their productivity levels soaring.

Research shows that even a three-second interruption can cause employees to make more mistakes. One Michigan State University study, in which 300 people performed a sequence-based procedure on a computer, found that interruptions of about three seconds doubled the error rate. In the workplace, the vast majority of these interruptions come in the form of phone calls, chit-chat and impromptu meetings.

When you create an environment where employees are not expected to respond to everything immediately, they can stay focused on their work and effectively manage their schedules. Some employees may prefer to respond to emails at specific times of the day or at specific intervals. Others may choose to reply to the “easy” emails more quickly but wait until later in the day to respond to messages that require more time and thought. Asynchronous communication allows for all of this.

Solving Pitfall #4: Don’t Interrupt

One of the most common forms of synchronous communication is the in-person meeting. Yet, these meetings are often wildly ineffective. Why? Because it’s virtually impossible to carry on a productive conversation when people are constantly interrupting each other.

And let’s face it: Some folks are chronic interrupters and terrible listeners. These talkative types tend to dominate in-person meetings, often talking over other contributors (that is, if anyone else can even get a word in edgewise). In this type of environment, the majority of participants never have an opportunity to present their ideas—and extremely introverted team members don’t stand a chance.

Asynchronous communication solves this common predicament. After all, you can’t interrupt someone in a chat message or email. When you choose to communicate via email or chat message, it's easier for all parties to get their thoughts across without stepping all over each other. You’re also more likely to hear from the more introverted participants, who might have something extremely valuable to contribute.

Asynch @Intridea

Why are we such huge advocates of asynchronous communication? Because we’ve experienced the effectiveness of this type of communication first-hand.

When we first founded Intridea, we worried that not being able to meet in-person would be a problem. But as it turned out, we actually freed ourselves from many standard operating procedures that tended to get in our way, allowing us to examine what was most important in our communication. Without having to meet in-person, we found ourselves optimizing communication methods, which in turn boosted our productivity.

For example, in the early days of our company, we held a daily phone call to discuss each of our projects. During this call, we talked about what we had worked on yesterday, what we were working on today, and if there was anything blocking our progress. In the software industry, these daily calls are often called “scrums.” (The term comes from the “scrimmage” formation in rugby, which is used to restart the game after an event that causes play to stop.)

At the beginning of a particularly time-crunched project, we decided to switch things up. We moved our daily scrum from an early-morning phone call to a mid-day check-in via our microblogging platform—and it was transformative. We found that using the online check-in, our developers had more time and inclination to go into greater depth about past and anticipated progress. They were also more likely to acknowledge any obstacles they were facing—including being blocked by other developers. It seemed like a fairly subtle change, but it allowed us to gain so much development velocity, we ended up launching the project early.

So we initially tried to replicate the standard way of communicating with a distributed team. When that didn’t work, we changed our approach. Obviously, technology has helped us solidify our communication process. Either way, we know what type of communication works best: Asynch all the way.

Of course, asynchronous communication is just one of many principles we value here at Intridea. Don’t miss our next blog on the importance of work-life balance.

• Read more about DISTRIBUTED: Why Synchronous Communication Sucks

We at Intridea have learned that running a distributed business is half art form, half calculated science. Without clear purpose and direction, a remote team will quickly unravel. That’s why we follow a specific set of principles or “rules” to keep our team as effective and connected as possible. One of those rules is to avoid synchronous communication as often as possible.

Ask yourself this: What is the most effective way to communicate with your team? Is it best to meet face-to-face with employees, present them with a problem and attempt to resolve the issue together in real time? Or is it more productive to send your employees an email, give them a couple of hours or days to digest the information and ask them to respond later when they are prepared with an informed answer?

While it may seem inconsequential, the mode of communication you choose can make or break your company—particularly if you run a distributed business.

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous

Synchronous communication is basically a real-time conversation. For example, if you call up an employee, meet face-to-face or send an instant message to discuss an issue, that’s synchronous communication. Another example would be an online meeting or conference call, when your entire team gets together to chat and offer immediate responses.

Synchronous communication is extremely popular with traditional brick and mortar businesses, where most discussions are handled in-person through conversations and meetings. Usually everyone is in the same location and participates at the same time. Because it necessitates swift answers, synchronous communication often gives an advantage to those who speak fastest—not those who speak the wisest.

On the other hand, asynchronous communication occurs outside of real time. There is a delay or a “lag” between the question and the response. This lag could be any given amount of time specified by the team leader—whether it’s two hours, two days or two weeks. Unlike real-time conversations, asynchronous communication allows your team members to respond when they can focus fully on the discussion.

For example, if you email an employee a question and ask her to respond by the next morning, that’s asynchronous communication. Asynchronous communication also takes place through project management tools, wiki or microblogging platforms. With these tools, the organizer posts a question, concern or document and each employee responds with their answers, suggestions and edits on their own time.

Down with Knee-Jerk Responses

Naysayers of asynchronous communication often claim it is ineffective for urgent matters—but this is simply not true. Although there is a delay between the question and the response, the pause may be as little as one minute. If an issue is time-sensitive, it's important and reasonable for a colleague or team leader to request a response within a specific amount of time. For example, when you send an employee an email marked “High Importance!” and ask her to respond within the next five minutes, this is still considered asynchronous communication.

Because synchronous communication always calls for immediate answers, it does not afford much time for reflection—which often leads to impulsive, unimaginative and sometimes downright wrong responses. It also creates distraction that forces the recipient to drop whatever they’re doing and switch focus. On the other hand, asynchronous communication gives an employee time to prepare a thoughtful, educated answer as opposed to a knee-jerk response.

Particularly in a distributed business, it’s important to create a business culture where instant responses are not demanded or expected. When your team members have time to respond carefully, it fosters a culture of creativity and productivity and limits the number of distractions they face in a day. These are just a few of the many reasons why business communication should be handled asynchronously whenever possible—especially with distributed teams that are often dispersed across a variety of time zones.

Four Fatal Pitfalls of Synchronous Communication

So, why do we at Intridea hate on synchronous so much? Because teams that rely on synchronous communication fall into these four common pitfalls:

1. The demand for instant answers, which leads to hasty responses.
2. Increased pressure on employees
3. Constant distractions, which forces employees to drop what they’re doing and shift their focus.
4. Ineffective conversations and meetings dominated by extroverts and chronic interrupters.

We believe asynchronous communication solves each of these common pitfalls. Tune into our next blog to find out how.
Does your company work remote? Keep the conversation going! We'd love to hear from you.

• Read more about DISTRIBUTED: Remote Employees are Happier, Healthier and More Productive

Yep, you read that right. While it’s no surprise that remote employees are happier than their commuting counterparts, many business owners are shocked to learn distributed employees are also more productive. How could that be? It’s actually pretty simple. Psychologists have proven time and again that a happy employee is also a productive employee.

According to a study published in the Journal of Applied Communication Research, people who work from home at least three days a week are more satisfied with their jobs because they have less work-life conflict, lower stress levels, less time pressure and face fewer interruptions. “Telecommuting is a win-win for employees and employers, resulting in higher morale and job satisfaction and lower employee stress and turnover,” write Penn State researchers Ravi Gajendran and David Harrison in another study.

So why exactly does working from home make employees absolutely giddy with joy? Here are the top eight career perks distributed employees enjoy:

Perk #1: No More Hellish Commute

Remote workers no longer have to suffer through the twice daily excruciating nightmare known as “the commute.” According to the Department of Transportation, the average American commuter spends more than 38 hours a year stuck in traffic—and that number is much higher in the most congested cities.

When employees complain, “This commute is killing me!” they aren’t being overly dramatic. Studies show that long commutes correlate with neck and back problems and an increased risk of obesity, thanks to poor eating habits and less exercise. To make matters worse, workers with long commutes say they feel less rested and experience less enjoyment, Gallup reports.

When asked to draw comparisons, telecommuters said their stress levels have dropped and their overall happiness has increased since they started working from home, according to a Staples Advantage Survey. As an added bonus, the majority of distributed employees give their saved commuting time back to the company. According to a ConnectSolutions study, the typical employee with a 60-minute roundtrip commute will work 30 minutes longer on days she telecommutes.

Perk #2: Tailor-Made Work Environment

Unlike office-bound workers who have no control over their work environment, remote employees have the freedom to build their own workspace. So if an employee feels most inspired snuggled up in her Wonder Woman Snuggie on the couch with her cat curled around her feet, we say go for it! If another worker gets his creative juices flowing by standing in front of his laptop at the kitchen counter and blasting The Black Keys, he can crank it up to eleven and even indulge in a little air guitar action without a second thought.

On the other hand, employees who are tethered to a traditional office face countless distractions throughout the day—from impromptu meetings and tasteless music (think Michael Bolton) to the offensive odor of seafood lunches heating up in the office microwave and overly talkative co-workers chit-chatting about the latest episode of The Voice. According to Global Analytics Network, businesses incur annual losses of $600 billion because of workplace distractions.

Perk #3: Healthier Living

According to a ConnectSolutions Remote Worker Study, nearly half of respondents say they eat healthier when they work from home, 40 percent say they sleep more, and almost two-thirds say they exercise more.

“Teleworkers often eat healthier meals and are less inclined to consume fast food lunches,” note the researchers at Global Workplace Analytics. Plus, remote workers aren’t tempted daily by the office vending machine, the candy jar at the receptionist’s desk or the fresh glazed donuts in the conference room.

Because of their flexible hours (not to mention the time they save by not commuting), remote workers also have more opportunities to go for a run or hit the gym. At Intridea, we encourage employees to stay active by holding company-wide Fitbit competitions. At the end of each week, we crown the employee with the most impressive exercise stats as Fitbit champion.

Perk #4: Ultimate Flexibility

Remote work offers the ultimate flexibility. This gives parents an opportunity to spend more time with their kiddos, allows disabled workers to take a job they may otherwise be hesitant to accept and enables geographically isolated professionals to stay put in the boondocks and still land that dream job.

Because working from home allows employees to achieve a better work-life balance, they’re also less likely to call in sick than traditional office workers. Organizations that implemented a telework program realized a 63 percent reduction in unscheduled absences, according to the American Management Association. This is because distributed employees typically continue to work when they’re sick (without infecting others) and return to work more quickly following surgery or medical issues. Plus, because distributed employees generally don’t have to stick to a traditional 9 to 5 schedule, they can run errands or schedule appointments without cutting their workday short.

Perk #5: Major Savings

Remote workers save a bundle as compared to office employees—to the tune of $4,500 a year on average, according to the ConnectSolutions Remote Worker Study.

A whopping 92 percent of American employees say they are concerned with the high cost of fuel and more than two-thirds of them specifically cite the cost of commuting to work, according to Global Workplace Analytics. Remote workers not only save on the cost of commuting (including gas, tolls, mass transit pass charges and car insurance premiums). They also save on dry cleaning, business clothing expenses and meals since they are less likely to eat at restaurants during the work day.

Perk #6: Frowns Turned Upside-Down

The vast majority of remote workers report off-the-charts job satisfaction. Probably not a shocking revelation considering that distributed employees generally work in a more comfortable environment and have more personal time for family and hobbies.

The ConnectSolutions Remote Worker Study reveals that people who telework are much more optimistic than office-bound drones. More than half of surveyed teleworkers said they have a more positive attitude when working remotely. According to a survey by The Wall Street Journal, workers who telecommute report the highest levels of satisfaction with their jobs and loyalty to their employers.

Perk #7: No Drama

Distributed workers are far less likely to get wrapped up in co-worker drama and office politics. When Kathryn L. Fonner with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee associate and Michael E. Roloff with Northwestern University queried 200 workers (half telecommuters and half office-based), they found telecommuters are less aware of office politics—which seems to be a healthy thing.

“By working remotely the majority of the time, teleworkers can avoid or ignore some of the unjust practices within the organization, such as cronyism, self-interested behavior, and pressure against speaking out against those in power,” write Fonner and Roloff.

Perk #8: Killer Collaboration

Contrary to popular belief, distributed teams actually feel more connected and collaborative. According to the ConnectSolutions study, 80 percent of surveyed remote workers reported feeling more connected to their co-workers, particularly when their remote work practices were supported by unified communications.

To top it off, distributed team leaders often make better use of technology and communication tools. Here at Intridea, if we want to reach out to a co-worker or employee, we’ll simply HipChat them or shoot them an email; while our brick-and-mortar counterparts might spend ten minutes trying to hunt down a colleague in the office or even schedule an unnecessary formal meeting in a conference room.

These eight priceless perks (along with countless others) all come together to make distributed employees happier and more engaged, loyal and productive than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. In the end, these advantages pay off hugely for the employer…and even society at large.

Think we’re exaggerating? Think again! Check out our next blog to learn how the human race is benefitting from distributed work.
Does your company work remote? Keep the conversation going! We'd love to hear from you.

• Read more about DISTRIBUTED: Businesses Reap the Benefits of a Remote Workforce

Companies across the globe, from mammoth corporations to small businesses to emerging start-ups, are embracing the distributed format. In fact, Fortune Magazine reports that 85 of the companies that landed on its 2012 “100 Best Companies to Work For” list allow employees to telecommute or work at home at least 20 percent of the time.

Why are droves of businesses flocking to the distributed trend? Because companies that adopt remote work benefit from substantial cost savings, better talent acquisition, heightened employee productivity and extended marketing reach.

“The virtualization of business is like outsourcing on steroids: not only is it highly efficient, but it is probably the most advanced and evolved economic system yet devised,” writes John Meyer, CEO of Arise Virtual Solutions. “It’s arrived, it’s booming, and we need more of it.”

Keep reading to learn more about the boundless benefits distributed companies enjoy.

Benefit #1: Major Cost Savings

Because distributed businesses don’t have to pay for a physical office space (and the utilities, equipment, housekeeping and supplies that go along with it), these companies enjoy ample cost savings. In fact, distributed companies often save more than 30 percent on operating costs as compared with traditional brick-and-mortar businesses.

Just ask the leaders of insurance giant Aetna. Nearly half of the company’s 35,000 employees work from home all or part of the time. This has allowed the company to eliminate 2.7 million square feet of office space, saving Aetna $78 million a year on real estate costs, utilities, housekeeping, mail service and document shredding.

And distributed companies aren’t just saving on real estate and operating costs. According to the International Teleworking Advocacy Group, after implementing teleworking programs, small businesses report saving an average of $85,000 to $93,000 per year, thanks to lower turnover, reduced operating costs and increased productivity.

Benefit #2: Access to a Vast Pool of Talent

If your business isn’t tethered to one spot, you can hire the best and brightest employees from all over the world.

“By hiring remote workers, today’s businesses are harnessing the speed and flexibility they need to gain a competitive edge and prosper,” writes oDesk CEO Gary Swart in a FOXBusiness article. “When companies hire within commuting distance of their physical locations, as is the traditional preference, the practice becomes limiting when the right talent, at the right price, isn’t available nearby.”

Not only do distributed businesses gain greater access to talent—these companies are more likely to retain their highly skilled employees. According to Global Workplace Analytics, 95 percent of employers say that telework has a major positive impact on employee retention, and nearly half of companies that allow remote work say it has reduced attrition.

Benefit #3: Extended Reach

When your employees are scattered across the country and even the world, this extends your reach into many more local markets as compared to brick-and-mortar businesses tied to one geographic area. As a result, distributed businesses gain an edge when it comes to marketing, advertising and research efforts.

“Having people employed, and a presence across the globe, gives a diversification to the well you can tap into to solve problems as well as expose your product or service to more markets giving you more research to work from,” writes reporter Ronan Steyn in a Ventureburn article.

Widely dispersed teams also gain access to clients who live in dramatically different time zones and speak other languages. “You’ll automatically get better coverage of multiple time zones and languages when your team is more distributed,” points out Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic and partner at True Ventures.

Benefit #4: More Productive Employees

More than half of business decision makers say telecommuting leads to more productive employees, according to a survey issued by Staples Advantage. Not only are distributed employees able to focus more intensely without the frequent distractions that occur in a traditional office, but they also tend to work longer hours than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. According to Gallup, employees who work at home log an average of four more hours per week than those who work on-site.

“Remote workers—without a commute or office distractions to factor in—can spend more time per day focusing on work alone,” emphasizes Swart. “No wonder half of the employers oDesk surveyed have grown their businesses’ revenue, size, or service offerings by using remote workers.”

Corporate giants Best Buy, Dow Chemical and American Express report that their teleworkers are 40 percent more productive than office workers, according to Telework Research Network.

A Powerful Business Model

The benefits of running a remote business are undeniable and unprecedented. Considering the extraordinary advantages, it’s no wonder an increasing number of businesses are tapping into the power of distributed teams.

But distributed business owners aren’t the only ones reaping the benefits. Tune into our next blog to learn about the priceless advantages remote employees enjoy.

Does your company work remote? Keep the conversation going! We'd love to hear from you.

• Read more about DISTRIBUTED: Why Intridea Chose It and Never Looked Back

When we founded Intridea in 2007, we came to a realization: If we wanted to build a truly revolutionary software company, we couldn’t restrict ourselves to hiring local talent. We’d have to reach beyond our own backyard and scope out the premier software developers and designers from across the globe.

Plus, we wanted to foster a culture of productivity and creativity at Intridea. We didn’t want to emulate the old-school customs and rituals that traditional companies follow. So we decided to create something completely different—the kind of creatively-charged workplace we’d always dreamed about.

But how would we pull all that off? And suddenly, the answer became crystal clear: We would create an entirely remote company, or a distributed team. And that’s exactly what we did...

Today @Intridea

Fast-forward to today. Intridea is still a fully distributed company with more than 30 employees sprinkled across the globe. Our workers don’t fight their way through rush hour traffic to parade into a brick-and-mortar office building. They don’t toil away on software designs in a sea of cubicles or a labyrinth of closed-door offices, nor do they meet each morning face-to-face around a conference room table. Instead, our software developers and designers work from the comfort of their homes—from Washington DC to New York City, California to Colorado, Maine to Missouri and beyond. Whether they wear pajamas and fuzzy slippers, sweat pants or jeans and whether they choose to work from their couch, a local coffee shop, their back porch or a home office, we don’t know, and frankly we don’t care—as long as they continue to create radically engaging, state-of-the-art software solutions.

Distributed is Here to Stay

Since we founded Intridea seven years ago, we’ve seen an explosion in the distributed trend across the globe. Because remote teams offer tremendous advantages, an increasing number of corporations and entrepreneurs are going mobile.

But you don’t have to take our word for it. Just feast your eyes on the numbers:

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 13 million people (9.4 percent of the working population), work at home at least one day per week. That’s quite a leap from 7 percent in 1997. By 2016, 63 million Americans will be working remotely, Forrester Research predicts, adding that this trend will have a “far-reaching” impact on the nation’s economy. By 2020, 89 percent of all companies will have adopted mobile work styles with fewer office-based employees, Citrix predicts. Nearly three-quarters of companies that have adopted mobile work benefit from a more flexible, agile workforce, and more than half reported lower employee-related costs, Citrix reports. Nearly half of the companies also reported a greater ability to attract and retain top talent.

When you look at the research, it’s clear that distributed isn’t just a passing fad. This trend is here to stay.

Boundless Benefits

It’s really no wonder why the distributed trend is surging throughout the business world. With employees working remotely, companies can operate with very little overhead, often saving more than 30 percent on operating costs. To top it off, evidence shows that remote workers are generally more productive, happier and healthier.

For example, the U.K based telecom company O2 experimented with virtual work by allowing 3,000 of their employees to telecommute. More than one-third of the workers reported being more productive as a result of being able to work from home.

The list of favorable stories and statistics goes on and on. In fact, research proves that the distributed trend not only benefits employees and employers, but also society at large. We’ll delve more deeply into these advantages in our next three blogs.
Does your company work remote? Keep the conversation going! We'd love to hear from you.