Looking back at Veriff's Summer Week
This week we take a break from the Economic Architecture Series. As I travelled to Tallinn for Veriff’s Summer Week, I wanted to talk more about some of the things we tend to forget in our day-to-day.
Solve it in a heartbeat, because the heart beats
As always, when you work remotely or with colleagues sitting in other cities/coutnries or continents, seeing each other in person is a game changer when it comes to challenges and resolutions. We solved issues in 5 minutes over coffee that had been stuck in Slack threads for several weeks.
I bet you have seen this yourself, and I want to take some time to unpack this. Things do not get stuck offline because anyone is slacking off, but because alignment online has a latency: you talk, I talk, he/she/they talk, and if not on a call, minutes, if not hours, pass. In person, latency collapses to zero! First, you get the full bandwidth of a person: not only the speech but the facial expression, the body expression (which never makes it to the online call) - these let you know much faster how the other person reacts and how to continue the discussion immediately, not after endless talk to finally figure out that reshuffling of priorities was bothering the person. Second, you get to do side-talks, something impossible on Zoom or Google Meet. How much progress you make thanks to these is incredible, literally compressing multiple meetings into one instead of having to wait each other’s turn to speak or even not speaking because people skip to another topic before you could raise your hand on Zoom.
The truth is, in-person interactions are richer because we are more tuned to others’ emotions and intents thanks to all these signals we do not get online.
Like in Physics - Energy is conserved
By that I mean I get a great load of energy from meeting people, talking, getting to know new faces, and bonding with the team. At the same time, working remote for 6 years now, I must admit I am less accustomed to spending lots of time with so many people 4 days in a row. And while I get a lot of energy from it, it is also taxing a lot. Something one needs to be careful of when going into these settings. Having been in a wedding in the South of France the weekend prior to Veriff’s summer week, I did not arrive with a full tank, and I realized I did not have it in me to socialize as much as I wanted to without compromising other meetings that required my full attention.
Pacing is thus very important, and next year I’ll make sure to prepare better and plan more for this amazing week to make even more of it rather than follow the flow at the risk of depleting my batteries too early.
It might feel weird to say that meeting people drains energy, but if you work remotely, make sure to pay attention to that, though. You brain is not used to absorb so much content from so many different people in such a short lapse of time, while if you work in an office, this becomes routine.
The other side of the ledger - Family
This week also reminded me of something obvious that’s easy to lose sight of in the day-to-day: the energy I get from people is real, but it isn’t the same as the stability and emotional input I get from my family. I missed my daughter more than I expected, which in turn lowers my energy and ability to engage fully in some activities (why would I enjoy a night out when my daughter is asking where I am coming home from kindergarten?). It probably gets better over time as she grows, but not being here to be with her, not being here to help my wife, raises a sentiment of guilt that can be draining and prevents me from engaging fully again.
With that comes also the planning of coming back home: my daughter doesn’t want a zombie-daddy; my wife wants a zombie-husband which means I cannot party endlessly either.
Depth vs. breadth
The hardest part of the week wasn’t logistics, it was attention allocation in the end. My own team deserves depth — the kind of conversation that strengthens a bond you’ll rely on in a hard quarter. But a summer week is also the one time a year I get unscripted time with people two or three functions away, and that breadth is where a lot of an org’s future collaboration actually gets seeded. Optimizing for either one alone is a mistake. As a leader, deliberately splitting your time — and being upfront that you’re doing it — matters more than defaulting to whoever’s easiest to talk to.
Why it’s worth it
None of this is a complaint. It’s closer to a systems observation: in-person time is a small, expensive, high-yield input into how a remote company actually functions, and getting the dosage right — for the company, the team, and your own household — is a skill worth taking seriously, not an afterthought to “culture.”
PS: It’s Monday — are you on top of last week’s performance?
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