When you look at the author’s credentials—Harvard professors, regular contributors to The Wall Street Journal—you’re expecting turgid, you’re expecting Gartner graphs and longitudinal this and that’s. You’re not expecting a modern echo of John Muir’s 1969 classic "How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive" where, yes, even a compleat idiot can happily follow along, everything so simple, so keen…
But that’s exactly what Alexandra Samuel and Robert Pozen deliver in "Remote, Inc.: How to Thrive at Work . . . Wherever You Are."
With an estimated 20 million of us striking out, joining the 30 million already working remote, there’s a big need for rulebooks, guides and a set of best practices for flying solo. Plenty of authors are wading in, but not many if any speak with the clarity that’s useful to remoting virgins.
Even veterans of the coffeeshop alt-office will find that our remote working skillsets could use some work and this book delivers dozens of truly practical strategies for improving on the old competencies.
Samuel and Pozen waste no time in hammering home their central premise: That you’re not a remote worker, you’re Remote, Inc. And that means thinking like a “Business of One.” Shifting the old focus away from hours logged to outcomes achieved. Organizing the pace of work around your priorities, instead of bending your priorities to the old corporate way.
These are crucial distinctions.
And they might appear obvious on their face.
But they do require a genuine shift in work habits and collaboration tactics to actually make it happen.
Throughout the book the authors return to this premise…
“…you are your own freestanding enterprise. Your boss is effectively your client, and you are effectively in the position of a vendor or supplier. Your boss gives you the orders for products and services, and it is up to you to complete those orders on time and on budget. That means you should approach your work as a series of deliverables.”
Getting a handle on this is one key idea is alone worth the price of admission.
Chapter 10 is worth skipping ahead to since it’s all about making meetings work—perhaps for the first time ever. It’s a tall order, right? Being bad at meetings is how humans roll. But as a busines of one, often on a video call, making meetings work rises up to near to Job 1.
And you’ll leave the chapter with valuable strategies for shortening meetings, making the online convo work, ducking diplomatically out of low-value meetings, and ending every meeting with clear next steps that benefit all attendees…
I tried to skip over Chapter 11, since it’s titled “Reading Online and Offline” and that doesn’t seem to approach rocket science. But I couldn’t.
The authors show how hard it can become in the isolate of remote work to keep up with your industry’s news. And they artfully deconstruct the “Millennial notion” that reading on screen works just fine.
They even explain to those unfamiliar with a physical newspaper what a “clipping file” is—Danger, Will Robison—and advise how best to curate the right amount of information to help a solo business thrive.
Equally seasoned treatment is given to multitasking. It’s been shown in more studies than you can shake a joystick at that most multitasking results in lower-quality work and decreased productivity.
The authors show why, and then flip into various workflow solutions where the brain isn’t wasting energy constantly restarting and refocusing (multitasking) and instead is attaining the Holy Grail of “extreme productivity.
Favorite story in the book:
I once caught a client’s attention using Venmo, which is designed for person-to-person payments. But I found this client’s Venmo ID and sent them a note—"My 2¢ on your business”—with a two-cent transfer to their account.
Every chapter has a couple pearls like this, of great value to any-sized business.
Favorite line in the book:
“How you spend your time determines whether you’re living like a lonely echo of the nine-to-five office drone, or seizing the flexibility of home-based work to get great work done on your own schedule.”
That’s what it’s all about, right? Operationally, that means…
As a rockstar freelancer, free agent, Remote Inc CEO, chief marketing officer, HR director and entire workforce in your solo business, the real Job 1 is not just to get work done, “but to think strategically, manage your brand, and keep your workforce—that’s you!—happy and productive.” The book shines in helping here, probably because one of the authors, Alexandra Samuel, has lived the life of working Mom and knows the territory. Her voice rings through the pages with authentic clarity, commanding respect, sure, but also an eagerness to follow. She knows.
Give it a big 5-star rating, and a must-read for aspiring solopreneurs, imho.
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4.2 out of 5
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For Both Managers and Employees
This book comes at a very opportune time. Remote working is something that many of us were forced into over the past year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Some of us thrived as part of distributed teams, some of us quite possibly failed, and seemingly most of us got by well enough to keep things moving along. Pozen and Samuel's book offers lessons for all of us on that spectrum of success. For those who have done well, this book shows ways to finesse remote work and collaboration from both the perspective of manager and employee.For those who found that remote work over the past year possibly wasn't for them perhaps due to eroded boundaries between work and personal time, the authors illustrate ways to better plan projects and how to "turn off."For those who managed to get through and are possibly not quite sure if remote work is for them, the authors illustrate how to arrange a hybrid work environment.And for supervisors, the authors go into how to better manage a distributed workforce and best practices in the measurement of productivity that go well beyond measuring "time in seats."
Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2021
Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2021
Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2021
This book comes at a very opportune time. Remote working is something that many of us were forced into over the past year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Some of us thrived as part of distributed teams, some of us quite possibly failed, and seemingly most of us got by well enough to keep things moving along.
Pozen and Samuel's book offers lessons for all of us on that spectrum of success. For those who have done well, this book shows ways to finesse remote work and collaboration from both the perspective of manager and employee.
For those who found that remote work over the past year possibly wasn't for them perhaps due to eroded boundaries between work and personal time, the authors illustrate ways to better plan projects and how to "turn off."
For those who managed to get through and are possibly not quite sure if remote work is for them, the authors illustrate how to arrange a hybrid work environment.
And for supervisors, the authors go into how to better manage a distributed workforce and best practices in the measurement of productivity that go well beyond measuring "time in seats."
Pozen and Samuel's book offers lessons for all of us on that spectrum of success. For those who have done well, this book shows ways to finesse remote work and collaboration from both the perspective of manager and employee.
For those who found that remote work over the past year possibly wasn't for them perhaps due to eroded boundaries between work and personal time, the authors illustrate ways to better plan projects and how to "turn off."
For those who managed to get through and are possibly not quite sure if remote work is for them, the authors illustrate how to arrange a hybrid work environment.
And for supervisors, the authors go into how to better manage a distributed workforce and best practices in the measurement of productivity that go well beyond measuring "time in seats."
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Top reviews from other countries
Ritesh
A must read for all remote workers and leaders
Reviewed in India on June 11, 2021