Morfternight #70: Have you met Philomena Cunk?
Hello! I am Paolo Belcastro. You are reading this because you subscribed to Morfternight, the weekly newsletter about leadership, product management, distributed teams, and anything that tickles our brains. 🤩 Welcome to the seven new Morfternighters who joined us last week. 📷 Photo of the weekFly - More Photos👋 ¡Hola! Greetings from BarcelonaOn my way back from a meetup in San Diego, CA, I am making a quick stop in Barcelona, where I can meet three of my teams in just 48 hours. I would have done that at any moment. Still, it seems even more critical now that I am headed toward a three-month sabbatical leave starting on Wednesday. Meetups and sabbatical leaves are two things we do at Automattic that differ from many other companies. MeetupsMeetups are one of the critical components of a successful distributed company. Notice how I write “distributed” and not “remote.” The difference is that to be “remote,” there has to be a central location from which part of the company can be remote. At Automattic, there’s no such thing. Therefore, we are distributed across over 100 countries, and no one is remote. We work from our homes, co-working spaces, cafés, restaurants, gyms, libraries, or any location with a good connection. In this context, meetups are a critical part of the fabric of our company. Spending a few days or weeks together every year creates bonds that help build and maintain trust and amplify our communication’s bandwidth. The size and frequency vary. On average, we consider that traveling three or fours weeks per year is the standard (or at least it was pre-pandemic since we resumed traveling in 2022, we have kept it optional), but people in leadership positions often travel more to maximize the opportunities to meet everyone and create alignment. Fun stat: in 12 years since I joined Automattic, I visited 144 different cities. Exactly one per month on average. SabbaticalsAutomatticians have a three-month sabbatical leave every five years. On Wednesday, I will start my second one. I am late on the schedule of one every five years because I decided to delay it a bit each time. Sabbatical leaves are powerful tools; I can’t imagine why they are not more popular across modern companies. They primarily serve three purposes:
🗺️ Three places to visit today
🤣 Philomena CunkIf you haven’t watched Philomena Cunk history lessons and interviews, you have been missing big time. Once you get back from that rabbit hole, and miss her, you can check Afterlife by Ricky Gervais on Netflix, where Diane Morgan has a great supporting role. That's it for today!I write, and publish photos on paolo.blog If you know someone who could enjoy Morfternight, share it with them! 🤩 Cheers! |
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