The first week in May was a very special one at Power Consulting, as we hosted our remote team at the home office in New York City.
In fact it was a twin event, because it was also our first week in our NEW office on 26th Street. We moved to a different floor, doubled our office size, and construction was finally completed for our move-in and company event!
A good thing too, because at the old office, we didn’t have desks for our remote teammates.
It was a first-time visit to NYC for some of our teammates. We tried to make it as easy as possible. First we upgraded LaGuardia Airport!
Nothing can be done to make the taxi ride from LaGuardia nice. But we put our teammates up at the hip Freehand hotel, only a 10-minute walk (New Yorker pace) from the office.
Jason, Our CTO, brought bagels from Brooklyn Bagel and Coffee, and we got right down to work and easily hit a good productive stride on day one. We ordered lunch from Barney Brown, which we love.
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The Power of In-Person Work
Days two and day three were even easier. Video conferencing has nothing on a pickup conversation with your colleague on the way to the kitchen!
Native New Yorkers were proud to show our teammates the ins and outs of daytime and nighttime Manhattan.
We New Yorkers absolutely insist (with no doubt whatsoever) that this is the greatest city in the world. Consequently, we are good tour guides. Long on enthusiasm even when short on knowledge!
Welcome to New York, team, and welcome to our new office! It is great to see everyone in three full dimensions!
We had solid work days, many things made much easier by immediate, shout-out proximity.
At the end of the day, we were rewarded for our productivity with hand-crafted cocktails!
Tech team leader Mike Colquhoun, a leading mixologist at Power Consulting, carefully planned and bartended the company cocktail party. Mike did not shirk with mere premixed “specialty cocktails;” instead, he showed us his full arsenal of skills and made everyone their favorite drink!
Great to share a drink together and to get to know my remote teammates more personally!
A Powerful Night Out on the Town
Late nights out on the town with teammates may not be conducive to productivity the next morning…
…but the payoff in shared experiences and team cohesion makes it a worthy endeavor!
The next couple of days we enjoyed in-person meetings, and spent time at client sites to familiarize the remote tech team with each client’s setups.
Bowling for People
The next night was another hallowed Power Consulting tradition: bowling at Frames, a short walk from the office through a not-so-great neighborhood!
We commandeered several adjacent lanes, threw a lot of gutter balls, threw a lot fewer strikes, and had a lot of laughs. With our style of bowling, you get an opportunity to cheer on a teammate every few minutes, and that’s what we love about it.
A Powerful In-Person Experience
The next day we got to do some good old-fashioned company traditions like the company photo:
In fact, we managed to cram everyone into the conference room for our first-ever company-wide meeting with NO video conferencing. Sometimes, the best Technology for People is NO technology.
Key Takeaways From Team Week
There’s a lot you can’t get from online experience. You get so much more out of in-person interactions. A fuller understanding of your team mates, of their background, preferences, and points of view are critical to a high-functioning team
Video conferencing (for now, anyway) is still grainy, the audio is poor and intermittent; spontaneous impressions are delayed; expressions are flattened. And let’s face it, it’s only two dimensions! In-person remains the gold standard for “high-bandwidth” communication.
Team Week in NYC showed me more than ever the power of focusing on the team. It reaffirmed for me the Power of focusing on People. And it proved without a doubt not just the Power of teamwork, but the Power of team fun! Always remember that Technology is for People…
But not exclusively for people.
