TTL 13
Making online collaboration easier.
👋 Good Morfternight, this is Paolo Belcastro, with the thirteenth issue of TTL: Tools & Thoughts for Leaders, your weekly leadership fix.
Last week, I shared a bit of my family’s story. We discussed typewriters, closed borders, long train rides to deliver work, and more importantly, distributed teams.
If you missed it, you should check out my last newsletter.
Today, we’re looking at distributed work again, but this time we’ll dive into remote workplace etiquette. I want to share a few tips I gathered along the way, that help make everything run more smoothly.
As work evolves, so do the unspoken rules. Let’s talk about them!
The fundamentals
So, you’ve decided to work remotely. Maybe you’ve joined a fully distributed team, or perhaps you’re just tired of wearing pants to work.
Either way, welcome to the future of work—where your colleagues are in every possible time zone, live in different seasons, and your calendar becomes your closest confidant.
These are the essentials I learned to thrive in this brave new world.
Time zones: not just a math problem
Scheduling meetings across time zones is more than just a logistical task—it’s about being thoughtful.
Avoid scheduling calls at times that are inconvenient for your colleagues. No one wants a meeting request when they’re barely awake in the early morning, or exhausted after a long workday.
While discussing options, try to use the other person’s time zone, not yours. If multiple people across the world are involved, then default to UTC. To make your choice, consider these two simple factors:
- If the meeting involves only two time zones, using the one the other person, or people, live in is more considerate.
- If it involves more than two different times, then UTC is the right choice, as you can count on everyone knowing their position in relation to that one.
Either way, beyond the scheduling phase, it is important to keep track of the time it is for each person attending a meeting because people’s energy levels fluctuate throughout the day. While some may be sharp early in the morning, others are winding down by late afternoon. A little awareness of daily rhythms can go a long way.
Early in your career, you can use basic tools like the default Clock app, and add to it the locations where your teammates live.
This will help you know at a glance where everyone is with their day, and adjust both your delivery, and your perception.
Seasons are even more complex
Possibly, one of the most common and unnoticed bias in people living in the Northern Hemisphere. The lack of self-awareness I encountered with this one is fascinating. Maybe it’s because most people rarely travel to the Southern Hemisphere, more likely, because of centuries of domination and maps showing the north at the top, the south under it.
Let’s get this part out of our system: our planet is roughly a sphere, orbiting a star, in a remote corner of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.
NOTHING in this set up justifies a notion of top and bottom.
This view should be as familiar as the one we are used to, and yet
it is not, and by far. And don’t get me started on the representation of the size of continents, as that would be enough to start a whole other newsletter…
Back to our tips to lead distributed teams, simply do not use seasons to refer to time periods, even if everyone in a given call is from the same hemisphere, it’s a good habit because seasons are treacherous.
Of course, they are inverted between hemispheres. At the time of this writing, Autumn has started in Vienna, but Spring started in Buenos Aires. But also, the assumption that everyone has four seasons is wrong. Many areas around the world have weather patterns that define different seasons, for instance, in many tropical areas, there is a wet and a dry season. There are monsoons, and hurricane seasons.
Finally, there is San Francisco, where, according to the locals, there’s only one season all year long.
Just use months.
Keep up with current events
I have colleagues all around the world—in places like Florida, Ukraine, and the Middle East. As you can imagine, their lives and work are deeply affected by what’s happening right now. I understand that the situations they’re living through will inevitably impact their productivity and focus.
It may seem obvious, but staying informed about global events is essential when working with an international team. Both predictable and unexpected events—whether joyful or challenging—can significantly influence how your colleagues show up at work.
Being mindful of what others might be dealing with—whether it’s war, political unrest, local celebrations, or unforeseen crises—shows respect for their experiences and their time.
This also matters, albeit to a lesser extent, for predictable and less critical events, whether related to sports, pop culture, or regular politics.
Don’t schedule a 1-1 with your Italian colleague while the Azzurri play an important game…
Calendar Etiquette
(aka how not to be “that person”)
Remote work etiquette is more subtle than just blanket rules like “mute yourself on Zoom”. It’s about being considerate of others, developing awareness about the context and self-awareness about your impact on it. For instance, going back to the question of muting yourself in Zoom, well, that’s a tradeoff.
In large groups, definitely mute yourself until you actually have to speak. If your environment is noisy, by all means, mute yourself. In smaller calls, though, and if you are in a silent space, it may be much friendlier to leave the mics open, as that leads to much more natural interactions. If you have ever freaked out watching a dozen people silently laugh after you told a joke, you know what I mean.
It’s a series of unwritten rules, some of which are still forming. Here are some I want to share about using your calendar that might be useful.
1. Never use your time zone
I already mentioned that earlier, but it’s important enough to repeat.
When scheduling a meeting, use the other person’s time zone or stick to UTC. It’s easier for everyone and avoids misunderstandings.
2. Keep your calendar updated
Did you get a meeting invite? Respond!
If you’re available, hit “yes.” If you’re not, hit “no.” It’s that simple.
Nothing says, “I don’t respect your time,” than leaving invitations unanswered so that other meeting attendees have to wonder whether to wait for you or not.
By the way, if you did respond “yes to all events” to that recurring invitation, and you take a vacation, do update your calendar.
3. Just “busy,” not your whole life story
Allowing your colleagues to see your calendar is a very effective way to allow anyone to schedule events more easily, but remember that your calendar may share a lot of private information, about you or the people you meet.
Luckily, your calendar offers an option to let others access it, but only see a “Busy” mention for all events, without any details.
4. Don’t schedule meetings for others without consent
Avoid adding colleagues to meetings without their agreement, especially if they are not available at the time you selected. The only exceptions might be in rare cases, such as meetings with many participants, where it’s difficult to coordinate otherwise. Always prioritize transparency and communication, and seek consent whenever possible.
5. Don’t over-schedule meetings
Avoid the temptation to schedule back-to-back meetings. Keep a small gap between them that allows you to be on time.
In a distributed setup, there are no excuses for being late. No traffic jams, no train delays. The only reasons are poor organization and lack of respect for other people’s time.
Writing new rules
Etiquette is not static; it evolves. Just think about how our communication has transformed over the years; some “rules” we once followed in person don’t quite fit the digital world.
Here are some things that are changing that I’m still figuring out.
Who goes first in meeting invites?
Ah, the classic dilemma: whose name gets top billing on that meeting invite? I tried to apply meatspace rules there, and always put myself last, to be polite. But then someone noted that if everyone does like this, we’ll all end up with calendars where every event starts with the same name, ours.
Not very useful, innit?
On the other hand, the rational thing is to start invitations with my name, so that on my counterpart calendar each event starts with the name of the person they are meeting. That is much more practical.
So which is it? Practical, or polite?
Scheduling links: helpful or rude?
Scheduling links… you know, those started by Calendly and now available with most calendar apps. On paper, they are a great solution to a real problem. Instead of going back and forth with email to find a common open slot, I send you a link that provides you with access to several choices, on my calendar, based on a set of conditions, without giving you visibility on the calendar itself.
On paper, a sensible solution.
In reality, though, it’s often perceived as a power move. A way to say “I am very busy and important, and I don’t care much about your availability, here’s mine, deal with it.”
It might seem exaggerated, but I can tell you that’s the feeling it triggers, and I know that if you send me one of those links without any additional context, I’ll use it only if I am really invested in meeting you.
The one case where it works well, as illustrated above, is when you create a permanent link that you share with many people. In this case, here this link is permanent, and allows anyone in Jetpack to schedule time with me. Here, the amount of time saved is so vast that the end justifies the means.
When scheduling a one-time call with a single person, if you want my advice, it’s better to invest a tiny bit of time and send them an actual message listing a few options you have available.
It’s the scheduling version of the difference between taking the time to pick a gift for someone, or giving them some cash.
The latter is more practical, but the former shows love and respect.
That’s it for today.
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Here on TTL, we dig into practical leadership tips and effective strategies, with a particular focus on tech leadership and managing distributed teams (that’s what I do every day, add me on LinkedIn).
Whether you’re steering a tech startup or leading a remote team, these insights are designed to help you navigate the complexities of modern leadership.
I also publish on paolo.blog and monochrome.blog
Cheers,
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