Remote Collaboration: Team Agreements, Conflict, and Connection with Lisette Sutherland

Remote work is often framed as a technology problem. Lisette Sutherland sees it differently: the hard part is remote collaboration, and the real challenges are human.In this episode, I’m joined by Lisette, founder of Collaboration Superpowers, host of the Collaboration Superpowers podcast, and author of Work Together Anywhere. We explore what remote work makes visible: personality clashes, misaligned expectations, communication overload, and the absence of clear team agreements.Lisette shares stories from her own experience, including how a team moved from private back-channeling to explicit conflict handling, why flat structures can make tension harder to resolve, and how a simple practice like Moving Motivators changed a working relationship by revealing what someone needed to feel connected.We also discuss what we can learn from WordPress eliminating email through documented decision trails, how a large German company runs hybrid PI planning sessions across three time zones, and why remote is often blamed for issues that existed long before remote.If you’re leading or working in a hybrid or remote environment, this conversation offers practical tools and a reminder: you can’t leave collaboration to chance. You need intention.Key takeaways you can reuseLisette focuses on remote collaboration, not remote work. The core value is freedom and possibility, not location.The toughest remote problems today are personality, conflict, and expectations, not tools.Team agreements are essential, yet most teams still don’t have them.Flat organizations can struggle in conflict because there is no decision owner, so facilitation and explicit conflict protocols become critical.You don’t need to be friends to work well together, but you do need professional trust and clarity.The biggest operational pain is communication overload (meetings, channels, email, constant input).WordPress offers a model: document decisions and reduce reinvention rather than drowning in messages.Hybrid PI planning across time zones can work when teams invest in rehearsals and shared tool fluency.Face-to-face is not mandatory, but it accelerates bonds and makes closeness easier to build.Remote work is often used as a scapegoat for poor management. Remote makes weak culture and weak leadership more visible.Intentional practices (icebreakers, virtual coworking, Pomodoro sessions) help teams create connection and focus.👉 Find the transcript and the references in the companion blog post!