May 7, 2021

Do you remember your first team Zoom meeting last year?

Coworkers in tiny boxes. Wonky tech. Navigating the mute button. 

I was anxious.  

But part of me also felt like a detective.

Trying to subtly observe the goods in my coworkers’ homes while half-listening on a call. Looking for clues into what they're like in their real life. Maybe you did too.

You spotted a record player and got curious. 

Ooo, a visible drum kit! What’s the story there?

She sure has a lot of plants. 

It was exciting to see unfamiliar parts of familiar people. In the Olden Days, there was Work Jeff and Home Jeff. Now it was all mish-mashed together. 

I can’t wait for the day we’re back at the Overit office. After nearly nine years, that place is as much home to me as my actual house. I long for it.

Yet, there are parts of this remote experience that I hope we keep. The pieces that felt different at first but grew to enhance and strengthen what we do. 

Hey, have you heard what’s happening at Basecamp? 😬

Basecamp is a project management and communication tool. We don’t use it here, but many agencies and businesses do. Last week, Basecamp CEO Jason Fried put out a public memo to announce employees would no longer be allowed to discuss societal and political issues at work. Oof. Instead, he called for his people to focus solely on their jobs, leaving everything else at the virtual office door. The announcement came after heated internal discussions about racially insensitive actions within the company. Rather than working to resolve them, Basecamp leaders shut the conversation and employees down. 

Since then, one-third of the team has resigned. 

I don’t want to rehash the drama inside Basecamp. 

I do want to talk about leadership. 

One thing that unites many of us is our desire to build strong teams and lead smart companies. Last week, Basecamp put a big ding in its ability to do either. Here’s what the now-viral memo missed.

💪 Shared Understanding Strengthens a Team

I used to be an outspoken proponent of only dealing with business things at work and keeping emotions and personal feelings at home. 

Someone crying in a meeting? I couldn’t roll my eyes hard enough. 

Can’t make it to the office by 9 a.m.? Figure it out. 

But that was poor leadership. Today, I know better. Leadership isn’t just about managing the work. It’s also about managing the humans. Understanding we can’t clock in and out of what affects or challenges us. Asking people to dismiss their struggles can foster an unhealthy work environment, but it also closes the door on what allowing those experiences in offers the organization.

Whole people make better employees.

Diversity of experience creates better companies.

When we strip that from people, it’s the business that loses. 

I’ve enjoyed the raw version of my colleagues during this pandemic. People taking meetings from their car because they are caring for kids or elderly parents. People showing up with insane hair, barking dogs, or whining children who need help opening their fruit snacks. And especially people leading conversations over chat about politics and race and social justice.

Putting it out in the open creates empathy and a shared understanding. It fosters a stronger team and adds context to the way we work.

As we move into a more “normal” existence, I hope we’ll keep some of the messiness the past year has shown us there's room for. 

🙌 New Understanding Strengthens the Work 

Company culture gets a bad rap because it’s often defined as things like ping pong tables and wearing hoodies at work. What internal culture actually refers to are the values and behaviors your people hold. Your culture directly influences everything the organization does. From the products you build to the services you offer to the experiences you create. 

Culture isn’t something you declare or say is so; it’s something you cultivate. 

If your team, like Basecamp’s, is making lists of “funny customer names,” you darn better believe parts of that spirit have influenced your end product, even if you can’t see it. 

We’ve all witnessed examples of how biases get designed into services and tech. 

The automatic soap dispenser that doesn’t dispense for a person of color. 

Algorithms that focus on white faces.

How Nasa built space travel only for men.

Car safety tests that protect men and leave women more likely to get hurt (or killed). 

These things happen not by malice but by ignorance. The consequence of having too many people with the same opinion and the same life experience at the table. 

We prevent these things from happening by hiring people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and opinions. And by not ignoring why they occurred in the first place.

To forbid employees from engaging in hard conversations, whether you deem them relevant or not, is to lose out on the team growth that comes simply from having them. 

Let’s also not pretend you CAN ban them. Blocking them from public channels is simply creating a backdoor. If the conversation is going to happen (and they will), wouldn’t you prefer to be part of it?

These new understandings aren’t always tied to the big, heavy conversations workplaces fear. Sometimes it’s the little things you find out about someone that sparks a new idea or how simply feeling safe to express yourself can have a positive ripple effect.

When I feel supported and heard at an organization, I am much more likely to:  

• Share personal experiences that can identify and solve a product flaw.
• Take risks and approach problems in creative ways without fear of being reprimanded.
• Communicate what I think and why.
• Be more engaged.
• Not quit. 💁

I think we needed this collision of life and work to see how intertwined they've always been. To see how vital our teams are. To build more human businesses.

The pandemic blurred the lines between home and work and gave new allowances to find what works for us. Whether we lead a business or a team, or a project, there’s an opportunity to redefine how we do it. At Overit, we’re deep in conversations about better ways to lead, improve meetings, and do the work in a way that makes business more efficient and more human. I'm proud to be part of that.  The alternative doesn't make sense.

When brands can choose to stand for anything, why on Earth would you stand for nothing? 

🎤 Get Overit: The Podcast

Did you hear? This week, Overit launched the new Get Overit Podcast. Every two weeks, host Chris Fasano (Overit's Director of Digital) will interview someone to discuss how, in the face of challenges and failures, they kept going to Get Overit. Get inspired and meet people fighting to break through the noise.

The first three episodes are live now. Check it out and subscribe!