TRL 162: Malcolm Gladwell is Wrong About Remote Work, Why You Shouldn’t Try to Recreate The Water Cooler, and the Office vs Remote Future with Chase Warrington & Darren Murph

That Remote Life | Interviews with Digital Nomads and Location Independent Entrepreneurs

Today on the podcast Mitko (@mitkoka) is joined by not 1 but 2 experts in remote work - Chase Warrington (@dcwarrington), the Head of Remote at Doist, and frequent guest of this podcast Darren Murph (@darrenmurph), the Head of Remote at GitLab who you may remember from episode 160.

After the last time Mitko spoke with Darren, he realized they still had a lot more to discuss, and to make the conversation even better they brought Chase on to add his expertise and viewpoint to our discussion.

During this conversation, they discussed why “recreating the water cooler” at a remote company may be overhyped, Malcolm Gladwell's recent negative comments on remote work and what he’s getting wrong, what the next frontiers of remote work are, and much much more. If you are a remote worker or lead a remote team, this is a must-listen episode!

💬 Topics Discussed:

• Does the watercooler really have a significant impact on building relationships in the office?
• Approaches to building a community in the workspace
• Focusing too much on the past instead of future opportunities
• How to set an example as a leader in remote work?
• How you can use games to bring people together?
• Setting up formal and informal communication channels
• The expansion of tools for remote and asynchronous work
• Giving people the opportunity for more informal remote gatherings and hangouts
• Finding people in your team that have interesting hobbies or skills to share
• Building work culture outside of company walls
• The benefits of having a diverse, international workforce as a remote-first company
• Are internal podcasts a good tool for connecting/developing within a company?
• Providing an environment where people can contribute to the company in their own way
• How many Guinness World Record holders are working at Gitlab?
• Malcolm Gladwell’s take on remote work
• What’s the next frontier of remote work?
• Establishing a proper management philosophy in your company
• Constantly improving the remote work process and experience
• How do you educate people with older management styles about the benefits of remote work?
• Finding the right workplace experience for you
• Being a catalyst of change as a manager
• The significance of building remote work operations in public
• Looking at the most prominent downsides to office life for Darren and Chase
• What is the future of offices and real estate
• Building a tight-knight, location-dependent team as opposed to a remote work team

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🎒 Resources:

• https://twitter.com/dcwarrington
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/chase-warrington/
• https://doist.com/
• https://blog.doist.com/
• https://aboutabroad.com/
• https://twitter.com/darrenmurph
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenmurph/
• https://about.gitlab.com/
• https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/11/13/embracing-remote-work-meet-the-oracles.html
• https://golunapark.com/
• https://slack.com/
• https://www.jackboxgames.com/
• https://twist.com/
• https://www.youtube.com/c/GitLabUnfiltered/featured
• https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-prolific-professional-blogger
• https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/readmes/dmurph/
• https://www.gladwellbooks.com/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgEs61k2mxY&ab_channel=TheDiaryOfACEO
• https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/mecc/
• https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/guide/
• https://www.engadget.com/
• https://twitter.com/_hawko
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-cairns-5644a233/?originalSubdomain=ca
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/anniedeanzaitzeff/