Build It Up

And we're back!

Back to writing and working and interacting with people and all that other sort of stuff that is kind of necessary and kind of enjoyable but mostly happens because of overwhelming sense of obligation.

Probably best to not dwell on that though. Existential despair has a way of sneaking up on you if you're not careful.

So, moving on, let's kick things off with a nice, easy blog post about something you can do to build connection in a remote team.

I bet you can guess what it involves.

I Could, Uh, Build A Spaceship?

I've said it before, but I might as well say it again; when you're working remotely, it is more difficult to connect with your colleagues.

Feeling connected to the people that you're working with is the sort of thing that is easy to overlook, especially if you're just focused on BUSINESS all the time. I mean, stuff still gets done, so what's the harm if you don't know anything about that guy who writes the technical documentation? You know, whats-his-name with the face.

But connection makes everything go smoother and feel better.

One of the best ways to build connection is spend some time getting to know the people you work with as people, instead of just a fellow faceless cog in a gigantic machine created to make other people money.

You can do things like sharing the music that you enjoy, guessing which fridge belongs to which person, or even something as mundane as just carving out some time with a person to ask how they are or what they've been up to outside of work.

Building connection isn't always about learning stuff though, somethings it's about sharing an experience.

Sometimes you get lucky and this sort of thing happens organically, like when something terrible happens in a work context and everyone has to come together to fix it. Perhaps a mass delete of customer data thanks to a lack of protection around destructive operations?

Not that I would know anything about that of course.

Those sorts of organic experiences often happen in similarly organic groups though, and I don't recommend engineering a very specific fire just to force an equally specific group of people to come together to put it out.

That doesn't mean you can't engineer an experience though.

You're Not Going To Stop Me?

I'm just going to cut right to the chase: get everyone to build the same Lego set at the same time.

It might not seem like much, but if you get everyone to join a Zoom meeting, cameras on and they all chat or listen to music while focusing on a mostly physical task, you'll find that it is surprisingly fulfilling.

It might seem like a relatively simple and meaningless moment, but that sort of shared experience sticks in your mind afterwards. You'll remember the conversation, the subtle competition to see who can finish the set first, the sharing of the results, the commiserations over the inevitable mistakes.

Mechanically it does require at least a bit of effort from a facilitator though.

First, carve out some time for everyone involved. You'll need somewhere between sixty and ninety minutes, dependent on the size of the Lego set that you choose. You want enough time for most people to finish, but not so much that people get bored.

Given that most people, especially people in leadership groups like mine, are always busy, best to carve that time out well in advance. At least a few weeks, maybe even a month or two.

Second, get everyone to send you their address and contact number and then organise for the delivery of a nondescript package to their house, well in advance of the scheduled session.

I personally like keeping the actual set a secret, delivering all of the packages in gift wrapping to add a little bit of suspense and surprise to the very start of the session. Also, it's a good way to see who can follow basic instructions to not open the package ahead of time.

Third, just do it. Sit down, turn off all the interruptions and start putting bricks together with other bricks to eventually create something that is greater than the sum of the parts involved. Maybe put some music on, Zoom is pretty good at sharing something like Spotify for example.

As people finish, because everyone works at different speeds, get them to share their results. Depending on what the vibe of the group is, heckle or praise as you see fit.

It's all about the shared experience, so do whatever you can to really make it memorable and enjoyable for everyone involved.

Build Away My Friend

If you're going to do this, make sure you're consciously thinking of the potential points of friction though.

The first one is getting the information required to organise delivery. In my experience, people are pretty happy to give you that sort of information if you ask, but it's still an extra step that you have to go through before you can really commit to the event.

My recommendation? Keep a record of that sort of information and build it up over time as you run various events and deliver cakes, reducing the effort required to set something like this up to just checking addresses for the people that you know have moved around.

You don't want to fire off a delivery to an incorrect address. That would be a waste of money.

Speaking of which, the second point of potential friction is cost. Lego sets aren't free, so you need to make sure that you have some money carved out in order to pay for the event.

In my experience, most companies have a budget allocated to social things, so it's not a hard conversation to have with whoever controls the purse strings, especially if you keep the cost modest (i.e. maybe don't buy everyone the Hogwarts Castle set).

One other point of potential friction is actually organising the deliveries. You might not think this is an issue, but the last time I did this I definitely ran into purchase limits in Amazon, so I had to farm out the orders across a few accounts to get it done.

That raises the overall complexity of the setup and thus the administrative cost, tying back into the point about this taking effort from a facilitation point of view.

Finally, and this is more a reflection than a point of friction, but a group session where everyone is mostly focused on their own thing, even though it's the same thing across the entire group, is less socially engaging than other things you could be doing.

It's pretty inherent to the activity and it's certainly not a deal breaker, but it's definitely something to be aware of.

SPACESHIP!

I've done remote Lego building sessions twice now and neither one of them has been disappointing. In fact, I'd go so far as to say both experiences were a success, with all of the participates indicating that they enjoyed themselves and referring to the event (aka the shared experience) multiple times afterwards.

So, if you're looking for something pretty straight forward, and you have a little bit of money and time available to facilitate it, I heartily recommend it.

Having everyone sit together, somewhat quietly, on a Zoom call and build a small Lego set at the same time might not be quite as bombastic as going axe throwing, but when you're working remotely, you don't win the connection war in one decisive battle.

You win it through a series of smaller engagements over an extended period of time.

Kind of like building something out of Lego now that I think about it.