Stop romanticizing in-office watercooler talk. As a fully distributed company of 12,000 people, here’s what really works

When I joined the company, I was asked to do all of my work in one of our products called Confluence, which is like a giant internal wiki. Confluence was open by default, which meant everyone could see the early, rough drafts of my work. 

To me, this was very awkward and counterintuitive. I felt vulnerable putting my work-in-progress out for the rest of the company to find. What if they pick apart my work before I have a chance to make it “perfect”?

I felt exposed. 

One day I woke up, opened my laptop, and there it was: a flurry of comments. My fear turned reality was splattered across this page. I started to read. The comments were from an engineer that I had not yet met.

They had worked on a similar project five years ago and were commenting about the things that failed the first time, and left suggestions for what might be different now, areas to explore, and paths to avoid.

I was stunned. And relieved. What I thought would be a moment of embarrassing scrutiny turned into a moment of sharing that saved me several weeks of futile effort. My initial hesitation to put out my “imperfect” work was rewarded by serendipitous collaboration.

Knowledge is only power when shared

Why do I tell this story? Because one of the biggest criticisms of flexible or distributed work is the inability to share information. Leaders romanticize watercooler conversations. You know, those serendipitous interactions that happen in the lunchroom, or spur-of-the-moment hallway chats. Sure, those moments are fun for connecting, but when it comes to meaningful collaboration, these closed interactions have an adverse effect on the people who weren’t in that conversation at all.

Research shows that siloes and lack of cross-functional collaboration are the top barriers to getting work done more quickly. And those siloes can quickly multiply if you’re relying on the office to share information. We’ve all heard of the tree that falls in the woods but makes no sound. The same mentality can be applied to office chatter. If the knowledge exists but it doesn’t reach you, what good does it do?

Today’s work culture has an over reliance on manual information-sharing and a lack of documentation. When you fail to document knowledge, siloes form. Information gets lost. Duplicate projects surface. Just because you’re working 10 feet from someone doesn’t mean you’re clued in to what they’re doing, unless that knowledge is clearly documented somewhere  and is able to reach your intended audience.

Leaning into asynchronous ways of working 

Not only is documenting knowledge important for breaking down silos, but it’s also a massive time saver. Back when Atlassian was 500 people (we’re now at over 12,000 employees), I would be sitting in our Sydney office and collaborating with US colleagues. There were times when a decision needed to be made but with the time zone difference, we missed the cut-off time. It didn’t even occur to us to record a meeting. 

In today’s working world, synchronous time is at a premium. Most teams are working across time zones and different geographies, even if you are in an office setting. Getting distributed teams online to Zoom still involves calendar juggling: maybe it’s 7 a.m. for your colleagues in Europe. Or someone has to miss their child’s dance recital.

The reality is, all of our workloads have shifted to bits and pixels online. The nature of work has evolved so that it is fundamentally more distributed. In order to set teams up for successful collaboration independent of time zones and departments, they need to learn asynchronous ways of working.

“Asynchronous” means progressing work on your own time. Because Atlassian is spread across dozens of time zones, we rely heavily on asynchronous ways of working: clearly documenting progress, decisions made, and next steps in open spaces, or recording videos when a project requires a more complex explanation, or even voice notes. It means I can access the information I need at any time, and my teams don’t have to wait for me to keep moving work forward.

Making space for every voice

Even if you document everything at a company, the way we use and consume knowledge still varies by individual and team.

There’s certainly a time and place for in-office idea sharing. For me, I love bouncing ideas off my teammates in front of a whiteboard when we’re solving abstract, gnarly customer problems. But here’s the challenge with an overreliance on in-person creativity: It doesn’t leave space for those who struggle to be heard.

One might argue that “smart people think on their feet.” Of course, many smart people do. But there are loads of super-smart introverts who don’t, and relying on office meetings disproportionally excludes certain voices. I’m sure we can all relate to the experience of being in a meeting and desperately wanting to think of something brilliant to contribute but running out of time; or having a brilliant idea but not raising one’s hand fast enough. Or, we’re just introverted and express ourselves more eloquently through writing instead of speech. 

The loudest voice in the room isn’t always the right voice, and an office culture in back-to-back meetings doesn’t exactly inspire inclusivity or a safe space to speak up. Some people need more time to digest information or process their own thoughts. A writing culture creates equity for every voice to be heard.

The value of open working

Distributed work looks different for everyone, and it’s not possible for every organization to adopt it. But regardless of how you feel about work flexibility or return-to-office policies, how we work needs to change to unleash the potential of every team. And that starts with better using and engaging with our knowledge in an era where almost all of our work happens online.

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