The document discusses strategies for maintaining culture in a fully remote work environment, emphasizing trust and psychological safety as key components of effective team dynamics. It outlines behaviors that can break down trust and those that foster a supportive environment, along with frameworks for decision-making and enhancing communication. Techniques for building connections and empathy among team members are also highlighted to promote a cohesive remote work culture.

1. &
In This Together Series
Maintaining Your Culture in the Stay At Home
Economy
Ryan Scheuermann, Director of Engineering at InVision
- an 800-person fully remote unicorn
hello@salesimpactacademy.co.uk
CEOs and Founders
Webinar will be live at
4pm UK Time
presents

2. Who Am I?
● Director of Engineering @ InVision
● Team of 60 people
● WFH for 15 years
● 100 → 800 people
● 3rd fully-distributed startup

3. ● Trust & psychological safety
● Autonomy
● Context
● Connection
Agenda

4. Trust &
psychological
safety
“A team is not a group of
people who work together. A
team is a group of people who
trust each other.”
- Simon Sinek

5. Behaviors That Break Down Trust
● Sarcasm
● Public humiliation
● Negative tone of voice
● Inconsistency
● Unfairness
● Rigidity
● Favoritism
● Lecturing
● Put-downs
● Outbursts
● Endless rules & regulations
● Infantilizing treatment
● Blaming
● Shaming

6. Teams That Lack Psychological Safety
● Lack of trust in each other’s expertise
● Saying what they think the leader wants to hear
● Avoidance of change or sticking on a course too long
● Avoidance of exposing their own potential mistakes
● Avoidance of sharing information
● Waiting for a meeting to be over, then backchanneling in the halls
● Silence when they don’t get their way

7. Behaviors You Want
● Showing interest in each other as people
● Expressing emotions such as enthusiasm, openness, and joy
● Not being rejected for stating what they think
● Openly sharing information
● Believing that others have positive intentions
● Constructive disagreement with leaders
● Leaders promote “outside the box” thinking, without judgement

8. Building A Safe Environment

9. “Hey Jim, I'm working on analyzing
the costs of a few SaaS vendors we
have. Can you tell me about how
your team is using XYZ app? We
haven't made any decisions to
cancel subscriptions – this is just a
data gathering request for analysis
purposes. If and when we reach the
stage where we'll decide on which
vendors to cancel, we'll loop
everyone in.”
“Hey Jim, is your team still
using XYZ app?”

10. Assume the best &
Assume the worst

12. ● Instead of statements, ask
questions, and provide context
● When reading or listening,
assume the best intentions
● When communicating, assume
the worst and course-correct
● Show vulnerability
Recap on Trust
& Psych Safety

13. Agenda
● Trust & psychological safety
● Autonomy
● Context
● Connection

14. Engineering Product Mgmt Design
Align Org Structures For Decision Making

15. DACIs
● Driver: One person responsible for corralling stakeholders, collating all
the necessary information and getting a decision made by the agreed
date.
● Approver: One person who makes the decision
● Contributors: Have knowledge or expertise that may influence – i.e.,
they have a voice, but no vote.
● Informed: Need to be made aware of the final decision

16. DACIs

17. DACIs

18. DACI Review Call
● Silent meeting
○ 🤫 Mute & videos off while reading
● Hand queue system
○ ☝️✌️🤫
○ 👌 to interrupt

19. Organizational
memory

21. ● Build your org to minimize the
boundaries for decisions
● Set and align goals
● Use DACIs for decision making
● Make decisions in the open
● Make a habit of documenting
decisions, big or small
Recap on
Autonomy

22. Agenda
● Trust & psychological safety
● Autonomy
● Context
● Connection

23. DACI Review CallEcho Chambers

24. Don’t Repeat
Yourself

26. Primary Communication Mediums
1. Blog post (+Slack +Email)
2. Public Slack channel
3. Recorded Zoom meeting (+Slack +Email)
4. Private Slack channel
5. Private 1:1 DM or Zoom meeting

28. ● Repeat yourself, repeat
yourself, repeat yourself
● Use mediums and channels
that promote virality, not
information silos
● Find the right channel – default
to public
● Encourage your managers to
be conduits
Recap on
Context

29. Agenda
● Trust & psychological safety
● Autonomy
● Context
● Connection

31. Connection &
Empathy
Trust &
Speed

32. Work Life
Integration

33. Ways To Build Connections
● First 5-10 minutes of a meeting
● Eat together
● Journey lines
● User manuals
● House tours
● Family history
● Personality tests
● Speed-dating questions (work-
appropriate)
● Zoom breakout rooms

34. Skip-level 1:1’s “As a boss, you’re not human
to someone.”

35. ● Encourage work-life integration
● Build empathy before conflict
occurs
● Use your existing time for
connection – don't jump into
business
● Use tools like journey lines,
user manuals, etc.
● Use skip-levels to build trust
and connection to everyone
Recap on
Connection

36. Summary
● Build a safe environment
● Document decisions
● Spread context everywhere
● Make human connections

37. Q & A