Most of us can’t remember how we worked before the pandemic hit. I remember I used to catch a train to get to work every day at Nike’s European headquarters in Hilversum, Netherlands. We were already a distributed team and had a fantastic infrastructure to connect with colleagues worldwide. Then came the pandemic and I moved to Austria to work for adidas. Like Nike, they had a fantastic infrastructure that connected employees from around the world - but it was 7 months before I met a colleague in person.

When I first met a colleague in their Vienna office, I didn’t know where to look while talking to a real human face-to-face. I think I stared at plants, posters, the table, pens, a glass of water, my colleague's nose and everywhere else except directly in their eyes. As a team, we envisioned changing lives with the best of digital sports while our own internal team dynamics were evolving. 

If this were a sci-fi movie, I would say we went into a wormhole together and came out into a new reality, which didn't just change how we worked but who we were as individuals. We had great times laughing, were often frustrated and there was a whole lot of confusion as to how to deliver a roadmap to our commitments. When it came to digital product development, the Adidas leadership team rose to the occasion like the Avengers, and learned very early on the things that did and didn’t work in this new reality.

This presentation will focus on how we learned and adjusted to this new global reality. I’ll also share some quick tips to help tech leaders prepare for a hybrid workplace and 100% remote teams in the future. Most importantly, I will talk about how to support extroverts and introverts in these settings, and why now more than ever it’s important to focus on team culture as the #1 priority in product development.