I hate templates. I love templates.

And how not to forget crucial insights

Welcome to RemoteThatWorks, a weekly newsletter hand-typed by the Valentina Thörner, the Empress of Remote herself. I talk about product leadership, process design, and people (and their relationships). Proudly non-AI, and proudly all-opinions-my-own. To work with me, find me on MentorCruise. Oh, and subscribe so you don’t miss out on the next post.

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Do you remember when your startup had 20 people? Or maybe 40?

Do you remember when your division had 10 people? Or maybe 30?

Do you remember when everyone was in the same location, one office only?

Meeting invites were easy then. You knew everyone, either directly or through others. You knew exactly whom to invite, based on their expertise more than their role.

Emails were easy then. You knew exactly whom to address, whom to CC, to get all the relevant people on board.

Politics was easy then. You knew the influencers, the gatekeepers, whom to talk to behind the scenes.

Size does matter. For communication at least.

Then your company got acquired.

Or you joined a bigger company, with several locations, hundreds of people.

Suddenly you don’t know every single person and their skills and knowledge level anymore.

Suddenly there’s roles and responsibilities that you aren’t even aware of.

Suddenly it’s not clear whom you need to invite, include, or consult.

As a result, meetings get bigger. You don’t want to accidentally exclude someone, even if that means that some people are now in a meeting they can’t contribute to.

Email chains get longer. You don’t want to accidentally exclude someone who might have veto power, even if that means that new specialist that got hired will never hear of the problem now siloed away in your email server.

And delays become endemic.

Enter templates and accessibility

Templates are like recipes. They make sure you don’t forget any of the ingredients, because let me tell you, forgetting the yeast in your morning bread results in an underwhelming experience.

Basically, templates help to write down what you know, so you can pass on the information and the context to whomever continues the work after you.

Templates help you to not forget crucial details, and it helps others to quickly understand the information as it’s presented in a similar way every time.

And with a good template you can probably cut back on meetings to, while avoiding the pitfall of inviting the “wrong” people to those meetings.

Just imagine, the new hire who started last week - and whose existence you aren’t even aware of - can suddenly understand what you are working on, without relying on someone actively remembering to add them to an email chain.

After 40, everything breaks

One of my mentors once said that to me that “everything breaks after 40”. I thought she was referring to age, but she actually meant company size.

So here’s my recommendation for you: use more templates.

If you find yourself creating similar documents over and over again, create a template for yourself.

You’ll be surprised by how fast you can be ready for a family holiday with a template (a.k.a. checklist). The same applies to sharing your work-related knowledge.

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Do you need help with your templates - or processes? The only way to work with me 1-1 is currently via MentorCruise. Or reply to this email - I’ll definitely read your reply and while I can’t promise a personal reply, your question or comment it might spark another newsletter :)