DistantJob Podcast

Today's guest is Katie Womersley, a champion of remote work from Buffer, where she works as VP of Engineering. Her writing about management and tech leadership has been featured in The Next Web, Inc Magazine and Fast Company, to name but a few.

Over the course of our conversation, Katie lays out a masterclass in leadership and management, touching subjects as diverse as: dealing with workplace conflicts, knowing when to delegate and when to educate, how to protect your team from bullies up and down the chain of command, and how to to focus on deep work while still communicating as much as possible with your team.

Today's guest is Liam Martin, the co-founder and CMO of TimeDoctor.com, Staff.com and co-organizer of RunningRemote.com – the largest conference on building remote teams. After working with remote employees for over 10 years, Liam regularly speaks about how to build and manage top-performing, metric-driven remote teams.

In this episode, we talk with Liam about a broad variety of topics. He lays out how focusing on metrics is a boon for productivity, and shares his thoughts on how to measure creativity and stay disciplined as an idea person. But for the aspiring leaders out there, it will also be of great interest to learn how he goes about building peer groups online, and why it's a bad idea to pay for masterminds – at least initially.

In today's ever-changing business world, only those who learn are able to thrive. Doubly so when it comes to building and leading remote teams - everyone is still figuring out how to do it! Enter Tammy Bjelland, serial founder of remote companies and expert in the art of learning.

Today's guest is Tammy Bjelland, the founder and president of Learning in Bloom ,a learning solutions company that specializes in instructional design and a task-based approach to talent and expertise development. She is also the founder of workplaceless , where she provides resources to individuals who want to advance their careers while working remotely, and to organizations that want to build and grow productive, engaged distributed workforces.

This episode sees us talk with Tammy about what it means to decide on working remotely as a career choice, not a lifestyle choice; what are some practical ways to act as a transparent leader while getting the pulse of your distributed organisation; and what the leaders of today need to know in order to be always making the best use of the learning material out there.

Rose Barrett is the owner of Folio Digital(https://foliodigital.eu) and a co-founder of Grow Remote (https://growremote.ie) – the people behind Ireland's first remote work conference, and devoted to helping remote workers from all the world connect and grow together.

In this episode, we talk about what businesses can do to make remote employees feel secure in their jobs; the benefits of building a remote peer group and why bosses should incentivise their employees to be part of one; how the key to building value is to focus on helping others develop, and much more.

Welcome to the DistantJob Podcast, a show where we interview the most successful remote leaders, picking their brains on how to build and lead remote teams who win.

Molood Noori is the founder and owner of Remote Forever (https://remoteforever.com), and is behind the organisation of the worlds first fully web-based Agile Remote summit, the Remote Forever Summit (https://remoteforeversummit.com). She's also a certified scrum master and has worked as an agile coach with clients all over the world.

In this episode, we dive deep into a conversation about why Agile practitioners have been historically reluctant to embrace remote work; what are the problems of trying to replicate the real world office and its way of working in the digital real; and in what way scrum can be like an old Ericsson phone if you're not mindful of the real purpose of using frameworks. There's something here for anyone wanting to embrace the ethos of adapting to change by thinking differently.

Judy Rees, our guest today, has helped dozens of trainers, coaches, and facilitators through live online training. As a news editor and a media executive, she has extensive experience managing large remote teams. She is the co-author of Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors And Opening Minds, and a regular keynote speaker at Agile and other events around the world.

In this episode, we talk about the power of clean language and how it can provide us with the tools and frameworks to develop a deeper relationship with (and better understanding of) our teams. Judy provides the listeners with specific techniques for giving and receiving feedback (actual useful, step-by-step ones, not your usual management blog post snake-oil) and engaging in deep communication with the people working with you.

We also discuss topics such as the challenges of video communication, cultural norms, and degrees of separation, as well as some strategies on how to build psychological safety in the team.

Is it possible to have your team members work visibly and still respect their own individual processes? Pilar Orti says "yes" - but only if you are willing to have some hard conversations - and ask the right questions! Join us for a diverse conversation with the co-author of Thinking Remote, the latest book that should be part of every remote leader's library.

In this episode, we discuss topics such as how the concept of "Visible Teamwork" beats "Working Out Loud," how to coach incredible employees that are having trouble adapting to the remote work-style, and the value of understanding that no tool was made specifically for you, so you shouldn't be committed to letting them dictate your processes. And we also ask the taboo question: how can remote work go terribly wrong?

Peter Lee is an Agile Coach based in Sydney. He is a prolific writer, sharing his Agile strategies and facilitation philosophy, and is currently hard at work building Video Facilitator, the next generation of video software to use in distributed teams.

In this episode, we talk about why he feels that something is missing to allow for true online collaboration, and how Peter believes that Video Facilitator is the missing link that will let us have really effective online meetings. That's just the beginning though – we then go on to discuss the dangers of siloing and creating filter bubbles in a team, how to build real empathy among distributed employees, and how developing a culture code is the key to reframing and acting upon your company's values.

Mark Kilby is a seasoned agile coach, and co-founder of several North-American Agile communities. Johanna Rothman is a prolific author, management expert, and teacher of best management practices. Both are experienced software engineers, and by their powers combined, they are the co-authors of the newest book about remote agile: "From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams."

In this episode, we go through their experience with writing the book, and take a long, hard look at the common pitfalls that remote teams face – and where adopting Agile principles might help. We discuss how to promote cross-functionality; how to "sell" management and employees on Agile practices; how to preserve the health and sanity of remote managers; the importance of timezone overlap; and much, much more!

Sharon Koifman believes every company, from the biggest enterprise to the newly-launched garage startup, should have access to world's top talent. That's why he used over 10 years of experience in tech industry recruitment & HR to create DistantJob.

This episode is a free-flowing conversation where Luis and Sharon explore their growth as managers over the past few years, as they expanded DistantJob into a much bigger operation and tried to apply the big lessons they learned from the best leaders in the remote work space – many of whom have been interviewed in this very podcast!