We keep each other accountable face-to-face when we're in the office, traveling together, and at our weekly team meeting. But, when we can't breath the same air, we rely on technology.
If you grew up in a legalistic church and school like I did, hearing the word accountable may leave you running for the hills.
Legalistic accountability isn't what I'm talking about here as part of the Fishhook culture. Instead, I'm talking about effective accountability that reinforces and builds trust.
I would argue, actually, that many churches are legalistic when it comes to employee and leader accountability. The belief that one's job must happen within the four walls of the church office is like limiting worship to the four songs we sing on Sunday.
At Fishhook we keep each other accountable face-to-face when we're in the office, traveling together, and at our weekly Monday team meeting. But, when we can't breath the same air, we rely on technology. Here's how we do it!
Project Management
We use Basecamp to keep track of all the intricate details of our projects. It allows us to easily track messages, deadlines, to-do lists and files all in one central location, accessible to our team and to client teams as well!
Time and Money Management
As creative-types, numbers aren't really our thing. But, with FreshBooks, we no longer complain about tracking our time (we account for every hour in 15 minute increments) or sending invoices. Fabulous and fresh tool!
Calendar
I'm always amazed at how many teams and organizations don't have one central calendar that keeps track of everything. No more excuses of "I didn't know about that meeting" cause Google Calendars color codes and reminds you where to be and when.
Email
Goodbye Microsoft Outlook, hello 2008. Seriously, all of us have relied on Gmail for many years and love the minimalistic style, ease of labels and filters, and most of all, it's free and has a bigillion quadrabytes of storage. (That's the largest number I could think of - it's infinite.)
Documents
Imagine if your team could all collaborate, edit and write in one centrally-located, always-saving, not-taking-up-space on your drive document. Enjoy the benefits of spreadhseets, documents, files, forms and presentations Google-style.
File Backup/Storage
It's a jungle out there when it comes to organizing our JPEGs, PNGs, PPTs and DOCX. And, without purchasing a server, we can save everything on this cloud-based technology that allows us to pull it from anywhere.
Phone
At the Fishhook World Headquarters, there is no landline phone or fax machine. Each of us has an iPhone, and the Line2 technology reroutes calls from our main number directly to our cell phones.
Video Chat
Our clients are spread all over the country. From the Redwood Forests to the Lake Michigan waters, Skype allows us to have virtual face-to-face interaction with our clients from the comfort of our recliner or desk chair.
Are you a legalist when it comes to team accountability? Which of the above tools could help your team create cool accountability?
If you liked this blogpost, view other entries from "The Fishhook Vibe" series: