Upgrading to "Medium Talk"

Question

On a remote team, there are a lot of benefits but a big con is not having as good of a relationship with your team. Since majority of the time you talk with a peer, its showing them how to do something new in the CRM or a team meeting.

I feel like its all pretty surface level outside of work talk. Either "what did you do this weekend?" or talking about sports. And for the people who don't like sports, they stay silent on the team meetings which probably makes them feel left out.

Is this "surface level" conversations just nature of the beast with remote work or do you have any tips to help go from "small talk" to as larry david says "medium talk"

Accepted Answer

Never heard that term, but I think it's absolutely possible. It can sometimes be easier as you have less opportunities so it's often deeper than just running into each other by the water cooler.

Answer

I think "medium talk" can come with your teams level of comfort around sharing non-work related stories. We're a fully remote team as well with people sitting in different time zones and countries. But we are still able to share personal stories with one another because of the relationship we've developed as a team.

Answer

I've made some friendships with my remote peers and we have more interesting conversations that go a bit deeper.  As far as tips? I just found that there are a couple of people here where my conversations got a little more involved as we were in our general work give/take q/a chat. It simply evolved over time.  My tip would just be to communicate with your peers with work conversations/Teams or Slack chats, and see what evolves.

Answer

Schedule time to visit outside of meetings... or... simply give them a call - kinda like dropping by their desk.

Answer

More adhoc meetings will help facilitate the deeper conversations - if it's scheduled weekly, it will feel like a work meeting but if it's "anyone up for online poker at 4pm this friday" it can provide more opportunities.

Answer

OR just be intentional about your conversations. They all have to start somewhere, but just like we dig into sales calls, you should dig into your conversations with your team members

Kosta_Konfucius

Upgrading to "Medium Talk"

9 comments

Kosta_Konfucius

Upgrading to "Medium Talk"

9 comments

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