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Walker Donohue

7 Teamwork Ted Talks To Inspire Your Remote Team

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Remote skeptics are dwindling in number, but that doesn’t mean we have remote work figured out yet.

A recurring challenge is collaboration. An in-person office has some real advantages when it comes to teamwork. Leaning across a desk or poking your head above a cubicle is easy. Managers can call a meeting and file all relevant team members into a conference room in minutes.

Distance doesn’t make teamwork impossible. It just means you might need to be a little more creative with your resources and a little more deliberate with your principles. At iDoneThis, we’ve written numerous times about how core psychological and motivational principles can improve your approach to remote work.

Here, we’re sharing 7 lectures about work and collaboration from the venerable folks at TED. Along the way, we’ll pull out some of the best insights these TED talks on teamwork can provide remote managers and workers.

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How to cultivate a culture of open feedback

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Giving feedback can be terrifying. You’re often afraid of being too direct and setting a team member on the defensive. Or you’re worried that you’ll temper criticism with too much praise — losing your message in translation. Because giving feedback is difficult, people often do the exact wrong thing and avoid giving feedback altogether.

That’s one of the worst decisions you can make. When you withhold feedback not only do you risk the team member making the same mistake over and over again — but you deprive them of the opportunity to improve.

When you create an organizational culture around clear, open feedback, you’re making a promise between team members to compound and learn from past mistakes.

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3 Ways to Create a Culture of Documentation

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At many companies, documentation isn’t a core part of their internal operations, but a laborious chore to be managed; a way to prove that a meeting or conversation took place, never to be looked at again. However, the most productive, successful teams recognize obsessive documentation for what it truly is—an opportunity to work smarter and … Read more

How to Leverage Psychology to Provide Better Customer Support

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Despite the growing popularity of instant-messaging support and “conversational agents”—better known as chatbots—actually talking to a customer on the phone is one of the best ways to engage in a real conversation and learn more about a customer’s problems. Done right, such conversations can be helpful, valuable, and even fun. But we don’t tend to … Read more

7 Lessons on Survivorship Bias that Will Help You Make Better Decisions

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survivorship bias

Everyone loves a survivor, Right? We love watching movies like Gladiator, where a muscular Russell Crowe stands tall after defeating wave after wave of enemies. Sometimes, however, we concentrate on the fact of surviving and fixate on that and overlook everything else. This is a well-known cognitive bias that psychologists refer to as “survivorship bias.” … Read more

16 of the Best Task Management Tools for Getting More Done

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We’ve all got things to do. Tasks are a part of life — both at work and at home — and while to-do lists and day planners may work for some of us, they’re not a good fit for everyone, especially when it comes to managing tasks as part of a team.

Task management tools are everywhere these days, and they can be as simple as a pencil and notebook or as advanced as downloadable apps and project management software. There’s no shortage of options available to help you and your team work more efficiently and get more done, but the sheer number of choices can be overwhelming.

To make things simple, check out our top picks to find the productivity tool that’s the right fit for you as well as one that’ll help your team work together successfully.

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200 Business Applications For Your Relationship Stack

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Our relationships with customers are more complex than ever before.

Conversations start months before a purchase and continue for months afterwards. Our interactions span dozens of channels, from phone calls to email to live chat. Increasingly, customers have no single point of contact: marketers, sellers, developers, and support reps all influence our customer relationships.

In the Relationship Era, companies can no longer rely on all-in-one sales suites, and have to provide flexible technology that teams can leverage in any department: Marketing, Sales, Success, Operations, Finance, Creative, Account Management, and more. This has forced the need for every company to build their own relationship stack: a toolkit of specialized, best-in-class applications.

To help you get started on your own relationship stack, we’re showcasing 200 of the most customer-centric sales, marketing and operations products going — each designed to create truly remarkable customer experiences.

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25 Jason Fried Quotes That Will Make You More Productive

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There’s a lot of people out there trying to sell you simple solutions to productivity, as well as their advice, usually involving their latest book, podcast, or video series. They might not be millionaires, but they’ve found the secret to making millions — order now!

Jason Fried, CEO of Basecamp — a company that makes project management and communication software — is different. Fried is honest about what it takes to get work done and keep your sanity while doing it. He’s the author of several books, including It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work; Rework; and Remote: Office Not Required.

Fried has earned the trust of many because of his straightforward takes on productivity and the unhealthy sacrifices some people make in an attempt to get more done. If you want to work smarter, not harder, listen to Jason Fried.

Here are 25 of his best quotes on productivity, focus, and decision-making.

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How Managers Can 10X Their Productivity with Writing

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Managing a team well requires expert communication.

Holding meetings and using project management software systems do not equate to effective management. Effective management means aligning your team through goals, inspiring them to do good work, and seamlessly transferring knowledge from person to person and team to team.

When it comes to communication, missing by an inch can result in missing by a mile. As messages get passed from person to person, they get diluted, so if your communication isn’t constant or consistent as it moves around your team, you can end up sending people off in the wrong direction.

That’s why, as a manager, if you want to increase your productivity, you should focus on improving your writing. Writing provides an unchanging source of information that employees can reference anytime.

When your writing is clear and comprehensive, you make ideas stick, create accountability, and force critical thinking.

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