Podcast Summary:

Special Ops with Emma Rainville – "How to Run Global Teams Across 6 Time Zones"
Date: November 4, 2025
Guests: Richard & Tiago, Operators at Shockwave Solutions
Host: Emma Rainville (Emma sits out most of this episode, giving the mic to Richard and Tiago)

Episode Overview

This episode dives into the real-world tactics and daily routines that allow Shockwave Solutions to excel while running a global, remote team spread across six time zones, from Mauritius to the Philippines and the Americas. Richard and Tiago share their operational routines, meeting rhythms, scorecard strategies, and key lessons on cross-time-zone leadership that ensure smooth collaboration and operational excellence—without endless firefighting or founder burnout.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Challenges & Benefits of Multi-Time-Zone Teams

• Geographic Spread:
  • Team members sit across Mauritius, England, Argentina, the US East and Central Coasts, and the Philippines.
  • [00:04] Tiago: “We have Mauritius, England, Argentina, the eastern coast, and then we have Central Time and we have Philippines.”
• Impact:
  • Offers flexibility but creates coordination challenges, especially for scheduling and aligning on priorities.
  • [01:32] Richard: “We don’t have anyone in Tokyo yet, but I’m sure we’ll get there. Yeah, just this huge spread between when everyone gets up … That’s a tremendous boundary to kind of cross.”

2. Daily Alignment: The Morning Face-to-Face

• Purpose:
  • A short, daily sync where the team discusses tasks for the day, delegates responsibilities, and flags issues needing attention.
  • Provides everyone with shared context and keeps the team aligned, despite most joining at different times of their workday.
  • [01:32] Richard: “We start with a morning face-to-face ... the entire team sitting down behind the cameras and talking through their tasks of the day. It’s an alignment for basically everyone in the team.”
• Inclusivity:
  • Recognizes team members’ different time zones and adapts expectations.
  • [02:18] Richard: “It’s got a different kind of connotation for everyone, particularly the guys in the Philippines where it’s a very, very late hour.”

3. Meeting Cadence: Structured, Repetitive, and Essential

• Types of Meetings:

  • Four Weekly Standups:
    • [03:06] Tiago: "If you have that four times a week, like we do have it, it provides you with the context of what everyone’s been focused on, which helps a lot with alignment and coordination.”
  • Monday Ops Meeting:
    • Focused on key clients/projects, sets week’s priorities.
    • [03:44] Richard: “This is ... a very early week discussion of all our key clients, like the key projects that we have going for them, the overall goals that they want to reach both in the quarter in terms of the year.”
  • Thursday Leadership "Breaker":
    • A retreat from “working in the business” to “working on the business.”
    • Focuses on internal goals, quarterly objectives, and identifying “signals” or potential issues.
    • [06:03] Tiago: “Having a break from breaking working in the business to working on the business. And that’s the big matter of perspective.”

• The Importance of Agenda Discipline:

  • [04:52] Tiago: “For both meetings and all meetings, the agenda is a must have and a must respect. ... If you’re jumping from one topic to the other ... that’s not going to provide a stable result.”

4. Scorecards & KPIs: The Backbone of Operational Visibility

• Scorecard Purpose & Design:
  • Concise tracking of vital KPIs for the business and clients.
  • Must be ruthlessly focused on what truly matters (not vanity metrics).
  • [08:34] Richard: “The scorecard is basically this rundown of KPIs for the business. Now, this ... can be a really fantastic thing. It can be a complete waste of time. It can just be filling in a number because, well, it’s tradition.”
• Selecting the Right Metrics:
  • Maintain a tight set: typically six or seven KPIs.
  • [09:24] Richard: “It’s really just a case of figuring out what those numbers are and being pretty ruthless about cutting them down.”
  • Cover every department: sales, finance, fulfillment, CS.
  • [09:33] Tiago: “Think about the different areas or departments of your company ... A scorecard that lets you check the health for the overall company.”
• Manual Updates Over Automation:
  • Keeping it manual encourages engagement and reflection.
  • [10:43] Tiago: “Cursory KPI and manually filling the scorecard is also important. Don’t try to automate, just keep it manual. It’s important enough that you want to keep it that way.”

5. Information Flow: Reading Everything & Leveraging Communication

• Operational Context:
  • Leaders should read all relevant communication channels (e.g., Slack), even if it means just skimming.
  • [10:56] Tiago: “Read everything for operations. ... Always scan that information for operations. You need the full context every time.”
• CS as a Signal Source:
  • Customer service teams surface ground-level issues and trends.
  • [11:37] Richard: “They don’t necessarily know the full context ... but they do see where the issues are happening. ... It’s a fantastic way to be aware of what’s really going on behind the scenes.”

6. Templating Tasks & Continual Iteration

• Project Templates:
  • Use ClickUp templates for repeatable projects (workshops, consultations, etc.), with tasks broken down and assigned.
  • [13:07] Richard: “The template here ... is a broken down sheet of everything that needs to be done for say running a new workshop ... broken down into individual tasks to be assigned.”
• Iterative Improvement:
  • You need to run projects, learn, and update templates as you go—don’t expect to get it right the first time.
  • [13:48] Richard: “You can’t just start with the template ... it needs to evolve.”

7. The Power of a Rigid Routine

• Consistency Above All:
  • Meeting times do not change. This stability signals seriousness and ensures everyone is prepared, reducing “emergency” chaos.
  • [14:32] Richard: “It is really important that this does not move. ... Having the actual time means people actually are prepared for the thing.”
• Stability Enables Planning:
  • [15:10] Tiago: “Yeah. You can plan ahead and it also provides stability and structure as well.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [01:32] Richard: “We don’t have anyone in Tokyo yet, but I’m sure we’ll get there.”
• [06:03] Tiago (referring to Emma’s book ‘Scope’): “Having a break from breaking working in the business to working on the business. And that’s the big matter of perspective.”
• [08:34] Richard: “The scorecard is basically this rundown of KPIs for the business. Now, this ... can be a really fantastic thing. It can be a complete waste of time.”
• [10:43] Tiago: “Cursory KPI and manually filling the scorecard is also important. Don’t try to automate, just keep it manual.”
• [13:48] Richard: “Because sometimes there’s just going to be something that made sense at the time which doesn’t make sense three months down the line ... it needs to be adjustable in that sense.”
• [14:32] Richard: “Having the actual time means people actually are prepared for the thing. They come to the thing. It’s not just a, oh, here's an emergency meeting where we don’t have our stuff together for it.”

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Team Time Zone Overview: [00:04] – [01:32]
• Daily Face-to-Face Meeting Structure: [01:32] – [03:06]
• Meeting Cadence: Ops and Breaker Meetings: [03:06] – [06:50]
• Signals and Scorecards Discussion: [07:22] – [10:43]
• Information Flow and CS Impact: [10:43] – [12:03]
• Task Templating and Continuous Improvement: [13:07] – [14:20]
• Importance of Routine and Schedule Discipline: [14:32] – [15:11]

Final Takeaways

• Establish a non-negotiable, predictable meeting cadence for global teams.
• Use concise, relevant scorecards and KPIs to maintain visibility—don’t waste time tracking vanity metrics.
• Read and synthesize all operational communications to stay ahead of arising issues.
• Build and evolve reusable project templates for operational excellence.
• Stability, communication, and attention to context are the cornerstones of running global, high-velocity operations.

For the full playbook and tools checklist mentioned by Tiago and Richard, visit:
specialopspodcast.com