It is difficult times right now but I think also times where people rethink certain values in life. I am sure that the outdoors will be more important and people will enjoy more being outside not so sure of the world will be a better place as many say. I think the nice guys get nicer and the idiots more egotistic….
The quote above was lifted from Andy at OPEN's reply to my last issue. I've shared it a few times privately over the course of the week.
I think we already are seeing the nice guys getting nicer already and the idiots, well... They're making their moves too.
But let's keep this positive, for now.
So, on that positive note: several people replied with some wonderful links to share and I've added them below. To further that spirit of helpfulness, I also found this article about Morale, Mental Health, and Burnout in Remote Teams. (9 mins)
So, what can you do to help avoid burnout in team in these trying times?
- Ensure that workers are able to unplug and set boundaries. You can recommend that people turn off at the end of their day (local time), and not check messages during dinner because a colleague just came online.
- Set clear, achievable goals. Ensure that they that are realistic and, to the extent possible, make processes predictable, so that employees can commit to sustaining a meaningful life outside of work.
- Take vacation days. A minimum vacation policy is especially helpful here, to encourage workers to fully recharge and reconnect with the joys that make life meaningful. Model this as a leader by taking vacation yourself, and not checking in while you are away.
- Have a documented team agreement. This helps ensure people don’t feel required to respond to messages at all hours of the day and night and that they have a predictable cadence of communication they can rely on.
- Practice gratitude. Talking about things you are thankful for actively fights burnout. At the fully remote company Aha!, people take turns wearing a hat, while everyone else shares gratitude for that person, in a ritual that they call “hatitude.” Brian de Haff, Aha! CEO, shares that “gratitude helps us pause and recognize how important small acts of kindness are—even when we are not physically in the same building.”
- Check your team’s burnout risk. Have people on your team (yourself included) take a burnout risk test, which focuses on the main risk factors for burnout.
"Burnout is a warning sign of a toxic work environment. The response should be to focus on making the environment less toxic." – Dr. Christina Maslach, burnout researcher and expert*
Some additional approaches to boost morale, facilitate mental health, and mitigate burnout in your remote teams:
- Modelling. Managers can talk about their own activities to support their mental health, and add their own therapist appointments to a public work calendar.
- Sharing strategies. It helps to encourage discussions of specific strategies for managing anxiety or depression in dedicated venues, like a group chat channel dedicated to mental health.
- Avoiding ableist terms. Don’t use terms like “crazy” or “insane” as adjectives or jokes.
- Providing opt-in peer groups. Slack channels or email chains shared by all the company’s joggers or meditators or meal-planners can help encourage building healthy habits, even when people aren’t physically together.
- Supporting mental health leave days. Allow personal days or mental health days as a form of sick leave.
- Discussing openly and privately. Encourage mental health discussion in one-on-ones and in public forums and workshops. This helps build, and maintain, psychological safety on the team that is not just about raising issues about work-related tasks, but also about mental health and how to ask for help.
- Fostering trust on your team. (Building and Cultivating Trust in Remote Teams)
I hope this topic above and 1-2 of the links before are helpful for you. Thank you for reading!
Stay safe and stay true,
Jon
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Cycling
Transcontinental Race: How Fiona Kolbinger became first female winner
Fiona Kolbinger became the first woman to win the "mind-melting" and "hygienically catastrophic" Transcontinental Race. This is how she did it.
Designing for adventure: How framebuilders are changing bikes for rougher roads - Unpaved Podcast
• What trends are we seeing in bike design?
• Can one-bike-to-do-it-all really work?
• Is there a sweet-spot for tyre width?
• What is the future of off road bicycle design?
Katherine from Unpaved speaks to Tom and Jack from the Bicycle Academy and framebuilder alumni Adeline O'Moreau. The conversations cover the change in bike design and builds over the last few decades and how rider demands and trends are changing the way we build and ride bikes.
Check out more from our guests:
ADVNTR Media Group
James and the crew at Advntr do some great work behind the scenes in the adventure cycling space.
For clients like Grinduro, Gravel Union, the Atlas and Silk Road Mountain Races they provided web design, illustration, bespoke registration and payment solutions and more.
If you have web, tech, brand and even legal requirements or challenges for upcoming on the bike related projects, give the guys at Advntr a ring.
6 Links submitted by readers last week
Donate | World Bicycle Relief
World Bicycle Relief is urgently mobilizing support to provide 2,500 rural frontline health workers with bicycles. Every €134 donated provides a life-changing bicycle. Please give what you can.
Writings - SMC Photography - #7: Getting Hurt
This blog post is mostly about making the best of a less-than-ideal initial situation and trying to find the silver lining. A philosophy we all could try on for size in these strange times.
E-cargo bike delivery service takes on COVID-19
With local supermarket deliveries maxed out, Beate Kubitz wondered how could she support her local shops and suppliers to meet the needs of people who had to stay at home but with electric cargo bikes rather than relying on petrol and diesel cars and vans?
Beate resides in Todmorden, a semi rural area in the Calder Valley. Its population is concentrated on the hillsides around the main roads, but there are also hamlets and farmsteads on the surrounding Pennine moorland.
Equipped with a rented Riese and Müller Packster 80, Beate and other cyclists have made some great progress. Read more here.
SPREAD THE LOVE - not the virus
Sharing is caring, and even more in these chaotic times. This site is filled with many initiatives & tips, be it to support, to entertain, to learn, to be inspired or connect with others and feel connected.
This is a time to stick together and support each other, together we are better. Please share this site & send us tips!
F*cking Strong Coffee by Good Beans
We buy our beans for our office from these guys but our office is closed. If you need beans, consider ordering from goodbeans.nl.
Freh Berlin made masks
„freh“ is small family based fashion label for kids with cycling caps, colorful and functional designs in sustainable quality. They're pivoted to making masks. Check them out.
What we're up to at Twotone
Cannondale Mavaro Neo e-bike line-up aangekondigd
We're helping Cannondale introduce de Mavaro Neo line-up. This article from Belgium is one of the first to go live. Dank je Sven!
LIVE NOW: BEAT Cycling en 4iiii are doing an online webinar about training with a power meter today.
Quarantine has meant more time to train for many people. More time for webinars too!
If you're free, tune into this in Dutch webinar right now at 7pm (CET).
Komoot is hiring a Dutch Freelance Editor - Outdoor Collections and Guides
I've listed many Komoot career leads here and honored to say several friends have foudn their dream job that way. Check out this chance here.
And for those looking for inspiration, Komoot is organizing 38 upcoming events about planning great adventures outdoors with social distancing in mind. Everything from live talks, route planning workshops, other interviews and more. There is something for everyone in a myriad of languages and lands across Europe too. : ) RSVP here.
Radness
Vinyl Pre-Order of Confetti (incl. Acid Pauli remix) - Kraut feat. René Opsedee
Regular readers of this newsletter will recognize Guy's pseudonym Space Kadett and this is a release he is helping with:
On the 26 of June 2018, our beloved friend Bas Engels was taken out of this world. A few days after the news broke, Kraut and René Opsedee had a vision at one of Bas’ favorite festivals, Fusion. A tribute had to be made for this loving, colorful soul, this rebel and founding father of Shoeless, Alter Ego Night and Confetteria. A week later the track Confetti was born with the spot-on words of Dutch poet Rene Oskam and sung by Belgian singer René Opsedee. A mesmerizing tribute to the man who touched the lives of so many people in the Amsterdam music scene. On the same day, the track came together, Kraut shared the track with Acid Pauli, also a good friend of Bas through music. During sundown that same day he played the track for many of Bas’ friends and family.
If 151 people order the EP, They'll reached break-even and the record will be printed. The price for this EP is 13 euro. They have 30 days to make it happen. Check it out!