In this episode, we talk to Leon van der Laan, the founder of REMODE, where he helps founders restructure their startup's organization making it more resilient, efficient, and investable.

We covered many topics from remote work and organisational transformation to self-determination theory and biohacking. Here are some highlights:

1. To successfully implement remote work, think about your mission, vision statement and values from day 1.

To thrive in a remote setting, you need to rethink the whole organisation, not just give people the opportunity to work from home. Being really clear about your common mission, vision and values and living these daily helps the team understand that the work they are doing matters, even if they do it from their kitchen table. Startups tend to postpone thinking about building the organisation until they get to Series A at least, but it is much harder to onboard people into the team when there is no clarity around the company’s mission and values that guide their daily work.

2. You don’t have to just be part of your company community, you can be part of many communities.

In the past, a company was a closed community you accessed with a job contract. We’re now moving towards communities being groups of marketers, growth hackers, salespeople. You can find and develop what you are strong at and distribute that to multiple communities, rather than be part of just one. Existing organizations can rebuild around communities, where people come together to connect and create.

3. Remote work redefines motivation and self-determination theory can help to nurture it.

Humans need three things in the workplace: autonomy, relatedness, and mastery. Autonomy is strengthened when allowing people to choose when and where to work as long as they deliver their results. In a remote organisation, 20% of time is reserved to focus on building relationships, which encourages relatedness. Finally, you exercise mastery when you can use your strengths and competencies across several communities instead of spending time on aspects of your role that you are not very good at or dislike doing. Applying the self-determination theory in remote work brings a higher level of wellbeing in the workplace, which increases engagement, productivity, and the likelihood of the startup becoming profitable.

4. Founders should let go of the need to control everything.

High turnover in startups typically happens because founders want to be involved in everything. New team members want the autonomy to explore and learn, and they miss the play element if they are told all the steps and given all the answers. It is better to not control everything and let the team experiment and bring their own input, which also nurtures motivation and engagement.

5. Schedule regular 1:1’s with your remote team

One of the most common struggles remote teams have is lacking a regular structure for 1:1’s with everybody in the company. The contact that teams have is mostly work-related. However, taking the time to connect as human beings, talking about their challenges, their wellbeing and how they are actually doing is crucial. Building a successful remote team is about opening up to everyone’s ideas and being more intentional with getting the team’s input on how to best do it.

Episode references:

Credits:

Intro-outro song "Sparks" by Ian Preece