👋

Hello folks,

Special Dedication

Ramadhan Kareem to all readers who observe the annual tradition.  May God give you strength to complete the month and bless your fast and other good deeds 🤲 

A few days ago on 15 April 2021, my wife and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.  I can’t imagine how I can live without my much, much better half, Ruzy, for the last decade. 

I am such a lucky guy to have met my beloved on that fateful evening in Jakarta.  It took more than a wink (and nudges from friends) to win her heart, yet it was worth the wait.  

We started our lives together ten years ago today, traveling round the world, blessed with two beautiful daughters and everything in between.

She has been a wonderful wife, best friend and companion a guy could have wished for.  She has been patient and supportive of my, sometimes crazy, endeavors and most importantly, always there when I need a shoulder to cry on.

She really completes me. To paraphrase Tom Cruise in Jerry Mcguire.

Alhamdulillah, thanks to God the almighty for the last ten years.  We pray that the next ten years will be an equally, if not better, journey for us as a family.  Followed by another ten years afterwards, and another ten years till Jannah.

😍🙏

Source: Ruzy x Reez's 10-year Journey

On to this week’s post!

###

3 years ago, when people asked me, “Where’s your office?” My answer will invariably be “I work from home or some coffee shops,” or “I sometimes work out of my daughter’s kindergarten or the occasional hotel lobbies with good WiFi and air-conditioner.”

People were often amused and perplexed by my response to that question.

Fast forward to 2021, there are numerous surveys and proclamations by experts that WFH (Work from Home) or a hybrid option (WFH plus Work from Office (WFO) occasionally) will be the new normal in the years forward.

One company took it further than others.  In its recent IPO filing in the US (this company was recently listed on NASDAQ), this particular company boldly stated that it has no HQ since it is a remote-first company.  Can you guess which companyis this? *Answer at the end of this post

Careful What You Wish For

Before I left Khazanah in early 2018, I had always worked in an office of some sort throughout my working life. I’ve even worked in a small store room with three other colleagues during a consulting project.  Such was the life as a ‘glamorous’ consultant :)

I therefore looked forward to the ‘freedom’ accorded by my new role at Monk’s Hill Ventures.  I am joining the cool digital nomad gang.

For the first few weeks or so, I spent a good several hours during the day watching Netflix.  By 3pm or so, I probably had binge-watched at least 4-episode of Billions. Shoot. 😱

I was dreaming of becoming a billionaire like Axel, instead of finding the next billion-dollar unicorns in South East Asia, as was my remit.

Eventually, I woke up from my daydreams and started to craft my calendar with more meaningful pursuits.  Split the days into 30-minute chunks and fill them with deep/focused work, meetings, travel and chill-out time.  I was constantly tweaking it to find what works best (I still do to this day, by the way).  My newfound rhythm left my Netflix binge-watching sessions at night with my wife, after the kids retire for the day.

Source: My daughter’s school holiday schedule

Water cooler Sessions

In a typical 8-hour workday at the office, you’ll probably spend 2 hours in meetings, another couple of hours responding to emails, call and/or Slack; set aside 3 hours on deep work (if you’re lucky 😬) and the balance socializing with colleagues (maybe more).  During socializing, you talk about work and also non-work related stuff.

I underestimated the importance of the latter in my remote workdays.  WFH can be efficient and productive, yet you’ll be alone in your pajamas while finishing your powerpoint deck, with no one else to talk to.

In the office, you’ll have cubicle buddies on all four corners that you can brainstorm with, pick their brains or get their feedback on the assignment you’re working on.  But let’s be honest, aside from talking about work, you’ll probably spend a good chunk of time chatting about sports, cars, K-dramas, where to have lunch, vacation plans or the Boss’ mood for the day and office gossip varieties.

This is something I missed about WFO.  These presumably trivial social interactions provide some sanity and could possibly contribute to our good mental health.

To that effect, I would occasionally ping friends or ex-colleagues for lunch or coffee meetups every now and then, just to recreate the ‘water cooler moments’.  We are after all, social animals.

Trust Yet Verify

After spending more than a decade WFO, where the Boss can see me and I can breathe down the intern’s neck, WFH left me feeling liberated and jittery, all at the same time.

Freedom from the all-seeing Boss who can bark his order down the hallway.  Yet I feel anxious as to when my team members will deliver the excel spreadsheet satisfactorily.

I quickly realize that trust is the most crucial element in making WFH work.  I need to gain my Boss’ trust and simultaneously bestow trust on my remote team members.

There were some handy rituals we practiced to cultivate trust among the team.  We introduced 15-30 minutes weekly check-ins with the Bosses and teammates to talk a little bit about work and more importantly casual chats to try to connect with them at a personal level.  

We also scheduled a quarterly offsite for everyone to meet physically to help create social bonds amongst ourselves.  These are some of the tactics we employed to further build trust and solidify the team’s culture.

The Grand WFH Experiments

After a year of Covid-induced WFH regime, folks (especially the Bosses) are finding it more acceptable for knowledge workers to work remotely. I no longer feel like the weird person in a sea of commuters on the train that walk with a single purpose to be at the office desk 7 minutes before the Boss shows up.

WFH and or its hybrid cousin will be here to stay.  Companies of all shapes and sizes had to drastically adapt to WFH in some shapes and forms in the last 12 months.  Coming out from this grand experiment, all companies in my mind are ready to adopt the new way of working. The next bold step for some of these companies might be to announce to the world that they are a remote-first company with no physical HQ.  Just like the company I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Coinbase.

Source: Coinbase S-1 Filing

Curiosity Corner

The chap who recently paid US$69mn for an NFT (digital art) doesn’t own a car or a house.🧐

This VC turned US$300k into US$680mn payout when Coinbase listed earlier this week. 💪

Until the next post,

Reez Nordin

If you’ve found this newsletter helpful, please ask your friends, colleagues and the caffeine addicts to sign up here.