Remote Sensory Deprivation
Imagine this. You step into a room filled with your colleagues and they are busy working on their laptops. Confident in the compelling message you’re about to deliver, you start speaking.
Message delivered, you wait eagerly for response.
The response? A fleeting look. Perhaps a smile. Someone else offers a thumbs up. Someone even responds, with WORDS gasp! But everyone else just continues typing away or seems otherwise engaged. You stand around waiting. Surely they heard you and have something to say, but maybe they’re just processing what you said, waiting to come up with a thoughtful response. Ten minutes go by and still nothing.
Later that day, you’re in a meeting together. You’re sure the rest of the group that didn’t respond will finally engage. Not only is there no engagement on the thing you said, no one even acknowledges that you said it. You’re left wondering if they even heard you at all.
Sounds like a dysfunctional team, right? But replace “room” with “Slack channel” and you have a typical async work environment, and you might even (tragically) recognize this as a common experience.
The lack of engagement when collaborating async is a challenge. It’s easy to feel like you’re talking into a void, and not being heard. This can feel especially daunting if:
- You’re new to the team - “Do they not like me? Did I say something wrong?”
- You’re an early-career team member - “I’m not sure if I’m doing this right, but no one is telling me otherwise”
- You get energy from interactions and engagement as many people who identify as extroverts do - “I’m already feeling isolated, and now I’m feeling ignored too?”
- You’re a person of color or from an underrepresented group - “I’m already feeling like I don’t belong, and now I’m feeling invisible too?”
- You’re a leader or manager - “I’m trying to set the tone for engagement, but it’s not catching on”
I don’t have any silver bullets for this, but I do have some ideas to try:
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Ask for engagement in a time bound way: Encourage your colleagues to respond to your message by setting clear expectations for when you need a response - “Hey, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this by Wednesday.”, “Please acknowledge that you’ve seen this and come prepared to discuss it at our next meeting.” On the other hand, if you don’t expect or need a response, say so - “No need to respond to this, just wanted to share.”
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Ask for and use reactions: (And since you’re probably receiving way more messages than you’re sending, please USE reactions too!) Normalize using reactions to acknowledge messages - “Can I get a 👍 if you’re on board with this?” “Can I get a ❤️ if you’re excited about this?” “Can I get a 🤔 if you’re processing this?”.
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Use polls: “Let’s vote on this!”, “Can you give me a yes/no/maybe on this?”, “Can you give me a 1-5 on this?”.
This has to be balanced with not overwhelming your colleagues with requests for engagement, but if you’re feeling like you’re talking into a void, it’s worth trying to ask for engagement in a way that makes it easier for your colleagues to respond.
Conversations worth having in this context include:
- Being honest and vulnerable: “I’m feeling like I’m talking into a void, can we try to engage more?”
- Being curious: “I’m seeing low engagement when we try to collaborate async, are you seeing this too? Why is it challenging to engage? What can we do about it?”
I’m Siddhartha (Sid) Shankar, and I am currently a Senior Engineering Manager at GitHub serving the CodeQL dynamic languages team, supporting JavaScript/TypeScript, Python and Ruby. I have had the privilege of leading and managing engineering teams since 2015. I’m at my best when engaging in opportunities that require bringing people together - often across teams - to deliver value to customers in a sustainable and pragmatic way. More about the author →
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