Seth's Blog : The power of sync

The power of sync

There’s an overlooked power tool right in front of us. Every individual and organization can use it well, but rarely does. I could write a book on this, but here’s the post instead:

Synchronized work happens together, on a shared schedule, in real time.

Asynchronized work (my spellchecker says this isn’t a real word) happens on our schedule.

Phone calls are sync. Texts are async.

Network TV was sync. Youtube and Netflix are async.

Writing a screenplay is async. Making a movie from that screenplay is sync. Going to opening night is sync, watching it two months later online is async.

Writing a book is async. Publishing a book is sync. Reading it is async.

A staff meeting is sync. A memo is async.

Commercial air travel is sync. A private jet is async.

Each offers costs and advantages.

When I go to a live concert, it’s happening. For me, for the audience, for the act. If any of us is having a bad day, it detracts from the experience. But when it’s right and it’s real, magic ensues. It’s largely unrelated from the experience of listening to the same song streamed (async) or on the radio (a blend of the two).

I imagine that your energy levels and mood fluctuate during the day. When working on async projects, the smart path is to match your internal energy with the work to be done. Write blog posts when you’re on a post-swim high, pay bills when all you can manage is clerical work.

Organizations that don’t account for the cost of sync-meetings waste not just billions of dollars but the insight and energy of the people who might be able to contribute if the timing and approach were different.

Sync has three advantages:

Energy multiplies. When someone is contributing, others seek to catch up. When someone has a good idea, others might work to top it. We have the chance to create an environment that multiplies the effort of all those involved.
It can be more efficient. The donut shop can’t have the frosting person frost whenever it’s convenient. They have to frost right after the donuts come out of the fryer. Many processes depend on the right people being in the right place at the right time.

One form of this efficiency is that the contributor can see, in real time, how the recipient responds and act accordingly.
It offers command, control and (one kind of) inspection.

But it has costs and risks:

Energy also spirals down. When a team member is emotionally disconnected or physically absent, the entire interaction can suffer.
It can less efficient. There’s less room for slack and resilience, and assembling the right people at the right time comes at a premium. There’s a lot of sitting around on a movie set.
It doesn’t usually match the needs of the worker or the market.
It makes it difficult to be intentional and clear about the details of the work or the arc of the project.

The implications are everywhere we look, and the status quo works to maintain its sync or async status.

Media companies that are in love with whatever sync/async built their organization often flounder when the media consumption axis flips. The only reason Amazon and Netflix exist is that their sync predecessors couldn’t figure out how to deal with an async relationship with the customer. And now that Netflix has a huge advantage, they’re timid about shifting some of the content to a sync model that would create more buzz… and Amazon has failed to capture the real-time shopping experience that’s so common online in China.

When we were forced to work from home six years ago, offices freaked out. Some embraced the async magic it offered, while many bosses were at a loss on how to manage people they couldn’t see in real time.

One reason is that employees had been indoctrinated in the idea that work was what you did when someone was watching. If you were ‘working’ from home, it was okay to also do errands and a workout, because without a hall monitor, you were off the clock.

On the other hand, some used the freedom the way a productive writer does. Without the distractions of real-time sync, there was plenty of time to get some actual work done.

Once you see it, all sorts of new insights come to mind:

The handoffs. Much of the leverage and the friction in our modern world lives at the points where work switches modes. A deadline, for example, is a sync point imposed on async work.

Who owns the clock? Sync is more than a scheduling choice, it’s also a display of power. The person who calls the meeting has already decided to spend everyone else’s time. Bosses call meetings; the employee sends a memo.

Async moves power from the coordinator to the creator.

Flips are opportunities. Why are college applications async, while job interviews are sync? Kickstarter turned product launches async, and Ted Turner turned news into something that broke.

Fake async. Over time, async creeps toward sync. It’s ironic that Slack messages, texts and email which succeeded because they were async, now create an expectation of real-time response. These are async tools used with sync expectations, so you get the interruptions of sync without its energy.

Name it. Protect your work style and the expectations for what you deliver. Organizations can be more mindful of the cost of sync, and creators can properly price their effort for each kind of work. There’s a reason it costs a million dollars to have Bob Dylan sing at your birthday party.

Sync creates cultural side effects. When everyone at the watercooler is talking about the same thing, cultural cohesion follows. When Netflix moved to binge viewing, they used their capital advantage to make it very hard for others to keep up by producing enough shows. But by sticking with this moat, they’ve diminished word of mouth. Far more people talked about Nathan Fielder’s movie during launch week than ever talked about his streaming show.

AI is currently async. An agent never needs a meeting and works at 3 a.m., so humans become the sync bottleneck. But as its power increases, expect AI to be a partner in most sync events.

Trust is built in sync and spent in async. Async works better between people who already know each other. New teams, new hires, and new customer relationships may need sync at first. The alternative is to build systems that are async by nature, enabling new participants to earn trust in powerful new ways. Online reputation systems and thoughtful online communities are getting better at this.

Here are three simple axioms to start the process with:

Don’t make something synchronized unless it delivers valuable advantages over work done asynchronously. Show your work and defend your choice.
When you’re doing async work, match it to your internal chemistry. Get more done, but in a different order than it’s assigned.
Pay attention to the shifts from one to another. That’s where opportunities and pitfalls lie.