[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgGGk_FAGEk]
Shanna Tellerman, CEO of MODSY speaks with Communicast’s Keith Spiro
For Modsy, it’s “Business as usual in the new unusual.”
I met this exciting startup company five years ago through Astia which works every day to equalize the playing field for women led startups. Modsy provides a visualization design service and much of their business by design was meant to be virtual. So like many so called “overnight successes,” they had sown the seeds of change before the stay at home orders came out. This pandemic was the final push for transition to an entirely remote working operation and the future of work for them was fully realized in that moment.
Their recent business update expressed feelings of being fortunate that a business “60 percent remote to start made an early call to move to Work from Home (WFH) in late February and did so seamlessly overnight.” Based in San Francisco, MODSY founder and CEO Shanna Tellerman, shared what she calls “business as usual in the new unusual” (world of WFH). I asked Shanna to share her story precisely because there is no newsworthy drama around their changes. There are, however, lessons learned about what the future can look like in a positive way that most old-school news media and Venture Capital investment ignores.
The amazing part of this crisis, from a business change standpoint, is to see all executives and senior leaders having to work from home, in a more informal setting, with family interruptions randomly visible via our video linkups. Shanna and her team are way ahead of old line thinkers who are facing this world for the first time. Modsy employees and executives have a high comfort level that family is part of their work life.
Says Shanna, “All of our executives, they all have kids, they all have various things they are juggling and even before this situation we would encourage them to bring the kids into the office, to work from home if they needed to.” That seamless integration of work life and home life has always been a core component of Shanna’s leadership style. The passion they pour into aligned values of work and family drive success faster and further than conflicted organizations.
For proof that diverse leadership teams deliver better results, explore the data that Astia has amassed over the past 20 years. Since Shanna and I both take many of these things as a given, we moved on to talk about the lessons from today’s newest experiences that she will carry forward in a post lockdown COVID19 world. Not surprisingly, high on the list, from a personal standpoint; family meals together and cooking together won’t disappear so easily. Also their business sustains long-term benefits from figuring out how to be more efficient virtually rather than in traditional office space. The key takeaway for all of us is the value of embracing the move from synchronous to asynchronous collaboration. I would begin the definition of asynchronous collaboration as not needing to have the whole team be in the same meeting at the same time. The future of meetings itself is a topic for another day.
For more information on Asynchronous Collaboration start by learning about Managing Remote Teams. Find Rachel Happe, Community Roundtable slide share here.
For more information on MODSY check out their website where you can take a quick & free – totally visual design quiz online to define your preferred style.
Mine is “warm and traditional furnishings, along with vintage and eclectic space.” Let me say that after more than a month stuck at home, I’m ready to clear my office out and start over with ship to home accessories to give me more creature comfort.
Full disclosure: I have been an active Astia advisor since 2014 and hold a small investment in Modsy made jointly with other Astia Angel visionaries back in 2015. We all have the ability to speak with our time, our attention and our money every day. Make the most of today, every day.
