Chapter5: HowtoBuildStrongRelationshipsinaRemoteTeam 47 Oneoftheapproaches Stripe takes for scaling transparent emails for scaling transparent email is to create archive lists where otherwise irrelevant emails are CC’d to. This means if you’re setting up a meeting with someone you don’t have to flood everyone’s inboxes with your back-and-forth emails, but later on, everyone has access to that information if they need it. Here’s how Greg Brockman,ChairmanandCTOofOpenAIandformerStripeCTOexplainsit: The goal isn’t to share things that would otherwise be secret: it’s to unlock the wealth of information that would otherwise be acci- dentally locked up in a few people’s inboxes. In general, if you are debating including an archive list, you should include it. (Bufferalsousesatransparentemailprocess.Youcanreadabouthowitworks ontheBufferOpenblog.) 2. RememberHanlon’sRazor A razor is a concept used in philosophy to help us strip away possible expla- nations(hencethename)foraphenomenon.Hanlon’srazorreferstotheidea that we should always assume ignorance before malice. That is, if someone does something wrong, don’t assume they purposely meant to hurt you. It’s just as likely (perhaps more so) that they simply made a mistake. Thisisespeciallyimportantinsituationswhereyou’remissingcontext.Ifyou’re communicatingviatextwithco-workerswhoaremultipletimezonesaway,try to always assume ignorance before malice if you have a misunderstanding. In my own experience, this has happened several times. When I worked remotelyforBuffer,IwouldoftenjumponacallwithLeotodiscusssomething we’d disagreed about, only to realize we weren’t on the same page at all, and it had all been a misunderstanding. AssertingYourselfWhenNeeded Perhaps the hardest, yet most obvious, way to compensate for the lack of context in remote communication is to be more forward and open than you