Ep 48 - Lullabot's James Sansbury

Jeff Robbins interviews James Sansbury, Development Manager at Lullabot, about how building culture interacts with productivity, who you need to hire, and how to hire remote workers to create a cohesive distributed team. 

Topics we discuss...

• Challenges that remote workers and leaders face at distributed companies
• Getting "thrown into the deep end" of communication at distributed companies
• Becoming more intentional with written communication at work
• Informal coffee chats for distributed teams
• Why company retreats are Lullabot's best culture building activity
• What's it like to be part of a "hugging company culture"?
• Life in the day-to-day of managing a remote team at Lullabot
• Adapting to a remote work environment after working at a co-located company
• Building trust during the remote interview process
• How working from a home office makes remote workers more willing to be vulnerable
• Hiring people who self-manage and giving them the support they need to kick ass at their job
• Productivity tools, charts, and graphs don't tell the whole story about remote workers
• Having difficult conversations with distributed team members
• Giving feedback to and receiving regular feedback from remote workers
• Working in different time zone ranges
• Narrowing down job applicants based on predetermined criteria
• Importance of pre-screening calls during the job application process
• Creating an effective onboarding process
• Using your gut feeling to make decisions - pros and cons
• Finding remote workers who are aligned with your company mission and values (Lullabot's values)

Want to discuss your takeaways from this episode with us? We'd love to share ideas on Twitter @yonder_io!