Product Therapy – "Coaching Remote Collaboration"

Podcast: Product Therapy
Host: Christian Idiodi (A), SVPG Partner
Guest: Leah Hickman (B), SVPG Partner
Date: February 20, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode dives deeply into the real-world challenges and nuances of remote product collaboration. Host Christian Idiodi and guest Leah Hickman, both SVPG partners, dissect the behavioral, mindset, and cultural hurdles associated with working in distributed teams. The conversation moves beyond tools and tactics, exploring psychological safety, proximity, anti-patterns in remote work, and clear strategies to optimize collaboration—whether your team is co-located, hybrid, or entirely remote.

Key Discussion Points

1. The Magic of Co-location and What We've Lost (00:42–04:23)

• Co-location as SVPG’s Ideal:
  SVPG traditionally advocated for "close proximity" work—teams literally sitting side by side, accelerating trust and decision-making.
• Decision Velocity:
  “If you've ever worked co-located with a team, it's amazing how quickly you can make decisions and how quickly you can move. Just the sheer velocity... is incredible.” – Leah Hickman (01:44)
• Trust and Psychological Safety:
  Water cooler chats and impromptu desk visits build rapport and confidence, which can be missing in remote settings.
• Post-COVID Shift:
  Teams learned remote work isn’t impossible, but noticed nuanced diminishment in culture, speed, and trust-building. Some companies now wrestle with whether to remain remote or enforce return-to-office.

2. Pros and Cons of Remote Work (04:23–06:54)

• Remote’s Big Advantage:
  Access to a wider talent pool, regardless of geography.
• Co-location’s Strength:
  Faster alignment, stronger culture, real-time decision-making.
• Scheduling Headaches:
  “If it takes me two weeks to schedule a meeting ... I'm already behind and that's not a competitive environment.” – Leah Hickman (05:00)
• Bottom Line:
  Remote work isn’t impossible; it’s just harder, especially for decision-making, problem-solving, and “true collaboration.”

3. Principles for Organizing Teams: Proximity and Gaps (06:54–10:22)

• Optimize for Your Biggest Gaps:
  "If you can bring the team closer to (the biggest challenge), you’ll usually get a much better result." – Leah Hickman (07:20)
• Prioritizing Proximity:
  Ideally, product management, design, and engineering (the “triad”) should be together, especially for discovery and problem-solving.
• Real-world Example:
  Moving product and design to be near engineering in India, but ensuring regular visits to key markets (the US) for customer context—a logistical investment, but critical.

4. Deliberate Trust-building in Remote Teams (10:26–12:18)

• Remote Rapport Challenges:
  Remote teams often lack rapport: “Leah, you have legs… I’ve seen your hands for the first time.” – Christian Idiodi (11:30)
• Temporary Trust:
  Small talk at the start of meetings is often an attempt to build just enough trust for the meeting’s duration, not the long term.
• Deliberateness Required:
  “You've gotta be very deliberate about building trust and relationships in order to strengthen millions.” – Christian Idiodi (11:56)

5. Anti-Patterns and Best Practices in Remote Collaboration (12:18–15:02)

• Anti-pattern: Artifact Collaboration:
  Collaborating exclusively via documents (e.g., written narratives) leads to shallow, asynchronous “comment storms” and undermines alignment and trust.
• Face-to-Face (Virtual) Conversations:
  “If I’m fostering a culture where the only way you and I interact is through comments… I’ve already lost the game.” – Leah Hickman (13:51)
• Documenting vs. Having Conversations:
  Documenting a conversation is not a substitute for actually having one.
• Redefining Collaboration:
  Collaboration isn’t just meeting, status updates, or coordination—it’s solving problems together.

6. Tools, Synchronous vs. Asynchronous, and the “Always On” Method (15:03–24:30)

• Not All Meetings Are Collaborative:
  Meetings aren't synonymous with collaboration. Work must generate a tangible “work product.”
• Collaboration Tools:
  The best tool? “You and me talking face to face.” – Leah Hickman (17:14)
• The Lost Art of Picking Up the Phone:
  90-second phone calls can achieve what long email chains cannot.
• The “Always On” Technique:
  Proposed practice: all team members log onto a persistent video call (with self-view off) during work hours, mimicking office collaboration, enabling spontaneous interactions.
  • “Zoom fatigue actually happens when you see yourself for so long... the technique is you actually turn off your self-view.” – Christian Idiodi (20:15)
• Benefits:
  Accelerates decisions, builds rapport, and supports shared learning; removes barriers to quick, informal questions.
• Turning off Self-View:
  Makes video presence more natural, less exhausting (23:48).

7. Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Communication (24:30–25:33)

• Nonverbal Cues Matter:
  Visual communication conveys intent and emotion lost in text/email.
• Asynchronous Channels Still Have a Place:
  Documentation, written narratives, and logs are valuable, but live interaction is crucial for brainstorming, debates, and decision-making.

8. Collaboration ≠ Consensus (25:41–31:18)

• Healthy Debate Is Essential:
  “Debating is a natural part of product ... collaboration doesn’t mean consensus.” – Leah Hickman (25:41)
• Disagree and Commit:
  Best teams have cultures where all perspectives are voiced, decisions are made, and everyone commits to moving forward, even if it’s not everyone’s first choice.
• Role Clarity vs. “Stay in Your Lane”:
  Collaboration means shared context. Product, design, and engineering all participate fully, not just within their functional silos.

9. Coordination vs. Collaboration (31:18–33:05)

• Sequential Handoffs Are Not Collaboration:
  True collaboration is working together throughout, not passing tasks along a “racey” chart.
• Sports Analogies:
  Everyone in the “huddle” gets context, outcome trumps individual skill, and roles aren’t rigid—everyone contributes as needed.

10. Culture, Accountability, and the “Blame Game” (33:05–35:48)

• Blame Culture Harms Collaboration:
  Fear of failure, blame-shifting, and siloed objectives pit teams against each other.
• Shared Definition of Success:
  Leadership must align incentives and objectives across functions (“no functional objectives, only team objectives”).
  • “If a player can win without passing the ball, they’ll never pass the ball ... Team means I cannot accomplish things on my own.” – Christian Idiodi (35:11)

11. Leadership Collaboration & Breaking Silos (35:48–38:43)

• Leadership Alignment:
  Organizational transformation happens when leader objectives are linked to shared success, not individual fiefdoms.
  • “One of the best things ... [HR] made every vice president accountable for the success of that transformation by tying their objectives to that. That changed everything.” – Leah Hickman (36:20)
• Dual Role of Leaders:
  Great leaders manage both their own area and their shared responsibility for the organization's overarching mission.

Memorable Quotes

• “Things are not impossible remotely, they are just harder.” – Christian Idiodi (05:54)
• “If I'm fostering a culture where the only way you and I are interacting is through the comments that you're placing on my document, I've already lost the game.” – Leah Hickman (13:51)
• “Collaboration or true collaboration is solving a problem together.” – Christian Idiodi (15:23)
• “My favorite [collaboration] tool is this: you and me talking face to face.” – Leah Hickman (17:14)
• “Zoom fatigue actually happens when you see yourself for so long.” – Christian Idiodi (20:15)
• “Collaboration doesn't mean consensus.” – Leah Hickman (25:53)
• “The only team objectives. There’s nothing like a functional objective.” – Christian Idiodi (35:04)

Notable Moments with Timestamps

• The Speed of In-person Decisions (01:44): Leah recounts real-life co-location velocity.
• The “Always On” Technique Explained (20:12–22:14): Christian introduces a practical solution for remote “presence.”
• Debate Over Consensus (25:41–28:36): Why disagreement and commitment drive innovation.
• Moving from Siloed to Shared Leadership Objectives (35:48–36:20): How tying leader incentives to transformation changed company behavior.

Summary

Christian Idiodi and Leah Hickman provide a candid, experience-rich look at what makes remote (and hybrid) product collaboration difficult—and how to do it better. They advocate for deliberate trust-building, real-time conversations, shared goals, and the smart use of tools, always centering on “solving problems together.” The key to great remote work, they argue, is an unyielding focus on team dynamics, aligned objectives, and the courage to debate, decide, and move forward—together.