Async is not a personality
Lucía and a product manager in Berlin unpick what asynchronous work actually means in practice, which decisions still need a call, and how to write a message that does not need a reply.
The offsite that fixed six months of tension
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Show notes
The offsite that fixed six months of tension
Remote teams can carry resentment for months because nobody ever shares a meal. Lucía talks to a customer support lead in Nairobi about a four day offsite in Lisbon that reset her team, and what they planned on purpose.
- The signs that a team was quietly falling apart over text
- Choosing a city everyone could reach on a visa they could actually get
- Why the agenda had more cooking than slides
- The one structured conversation that cleared the air
- Keeping the goodwill alive for the next six months
If your company says offsites are too expensive, the cost comparison in this episode might help.
Transcript
Welcome back to Three Time Zones Before Lunch, I am Lucía Ferreyra. I want to start with a confession. For most of my first remote year I believed that if the work was getting done, the team was fine. It was not fine. People can be polite in writing for months while quietly deciding they cannot stand each other. My guest today is a customer support lead in Nairobi who noticed exactly that in her team, and persuaded her company to fly nine people to Lisbon for four days. Nothing about that trip was accidental. We talk about why Lisbon, why the agenda had more cooking than presentations, the one conversation they built the whole week around, and how she kept the goodwill alive when everyone went home. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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