Tech companies have spent the last decade perfecting the art of remote work. For them, distributed collaboration isn’t a pandemic experiment. It has become a usual way to do things. Not to humble brag, but we did it before it was cool. At Railsware, for example, we have been practicing remote work since our early years.
However, for many non-tech organizations, “remote” is still often seen as a temporary compromise rather than a long-term system.
The truth is, same as with software development, most non-technical functions can now be performed remotely. This includes plenty of roles, including accountants, HR managers, salespeople, and marketers. Essentially, anyone whose work revolves around communication, documentation, or data can operate outside a physical office. What separates success from chaos isn’t the type of work — it’s how well the team understands structure, trust, and ownership.
One unexpected framework that can guide teams in mastering remote work is a Japanese philosophy called Shuhari (守破離), which describes three stages of mastery:
- Shu — follow the rules
- Ha — break the rules
- Ri — transcend the rules
Initially meant for martial arts, it also fits surprisingly well into how teams grow from “working remotely” to being remote.
First stage “Shu” — Following the rules
Don’t expect leading a remote team in a non-tech company to be as simple as setting up Slack, making Google calls, sharing a few documents, and letting people get to work.
In reality, tasks get lost, messages pile up, and responsibilities, goals, and progress become unclear — despite your colleagues’ hard work.
Whether you like it or not, remote work exposes gaps in the organization. What naturally survives in an office through informal interactions (such as a quick question at the coffee machine, a peek at a colleague’s screen, a brief watercooler talk) disappears when everyone is distributed.
That’s why your first step shouldn’t be inventing something new.
Instead, use Shu. Follow the rules: build structure, make work visible, consistent, and reliable. Remote teams don’t fail because people are lazy; they fail because the system isn’t clear. Shu is about creating that system.
Here’s how.
1. Document everything
Documentation doesn’t mean bureaucracy. It’s the safety net that keeps work moving when no one is in the same room. Every process, checklist, and expectation should be kept somewhere that everyone can access. Without it, new hires flounder, and work grinds to a halt when someone goes on vacation.
Examples from my experience:
- HR team: onboarding and offboarding checklists, leave policies, templates for job postings and offers, and feedback forms.
- Operations team: step-by-step guides for requests — equipment, access, travel — plus clear process maps showing who does what.
- Finance team: expense submission and approval flows, reporting schedules, and corporate card rules.
When it’s documented, work doesn’t depend on memory. Knowledge becomes shared, and the team can move forward even if someone is absent.
2. Define clear communication channels
Remote work forces you to be intentional about communication. Every message must have a place, and every conversation a format. Decide what happens synchronously — live calls, urgent discussions — and what can happen asynchronously: updates, approvals, routine questions.
My practical rules:
- Synchronous: interviews, 1:1 meetings, critical operational calls.
- Asynchronous: status updates, internal announcements, document approvals, simple questions.
More information about mastering both ways of communication can be found in our article. When you clarify this, you reduce confusion, cut unnecessary meetings, and let people focus on actual work instead of chasing clarity.
3. Build Trust Through Stability
Trust grows when managers and team members are predictable, reliable, and consistent. That’s why remote work doesn’t remove the need for trust. Instead, it reveals it.
In practice, building trust looks different across teams. In HR, it means holding 1:1s on schedule and letting recruiters own the hiring process without constant oversight. In Operations, it involves sticking to regular updates and service schedules, being available during defined hours, and managing budgets responsibly. For Finance, it requires clear communication about changes, processing approvals on time, and honoring reporting schedules.
Only in this way will people know they can rely on each other, which frees the team to actually deliver instead of constantly following up.
Second stage “Ha” — Break the rules
Once you’ve mastered “Shu+” , meaning you:
- Achieved solid documentation
- Secured clear communication channels
- Built trust
…you can start adapting the rules to your context. That’s what we will call “Ha,” breaking the rules. However, not to create chaos, but to make them work for your team.
At this stage, the team no longer blindly follows checklists. You can start asking questions: “Which practices actually help us, and which just slow us down?”
Take human resources, for example. In the first stage, daily standups might have been necessary to track onboarding tasks and candidate searches. However, once the team understands the process and responsibilities, daily meetings can become overkill.
Instead, the team switches to a short asynchronous morning update in Slack or Jira, where each recruiter lists their priorities and blockers for the day. So, your colleagues will have less meeting fatigue and more focus on actual recruiting.
Finance provides another example: initially, weekly calls ensured that everyone was aligned on expenses and reporting. At Ha, the team experiments with asynchronous approvals through structured workflows. Everyone is familiar with the deadlines and approval process, so meetings are only necessary for exceptional cases. This saves hours while keeping accuracy and accountability intact.
In operations, rigid task schedules give way to flexibility. As long as deadlines and responsibilities are clearly visible, team members can plan their day to optimize focus and productivity. For instance, equipment requests or access approvals can be handled asynchronously without slowing down the workflow.
That’s why Ha is about discovering what actually adds value for your team. Not what worked in another company, not what a template prescribes, but what makes work flow smoothly and helps people deliver results.
In mature remote teams, this stage becomes the culture of autonomy: people know the vision, understand the strategy, and decide for themselves how to achieve their goals. Leadership shifts from telling people what to do to curating context and enabling decisions.
Third Stage “Ri” — Transcending the Rules
Once skills from previous stages are mastered, proceed to the “Ri” stage, where you startcreating your own processes and even sub-processes, tailored to your team’s needs.
For example, we realized that to make brainstorming and idea capturing truly effective, we needed our own decision-making framework, BRIDGeS. After some time, we came up with our own product development approach— the HEART — so every idea was aligned with the core goal.
For non-technical teams, “Ri” means understanding deeply what works for your context and turning it into a format or approach that may not even exist elsewhere on the market. It’s about creating something unique to your team, based on experience and insight. For example:
- HR could develop a custom candidate evaluation framework, integrating asynchronous feedback loops with live mentorship moments.
- Finance could create a decision matrix for exceptions, giving clear autonomy to handle unusual requests while maintaining accountability.
- Operations could design a flexible coordination system, where workflows adapt in real-time to changing priorities without relying on fixed meetings or approvals.
“Ri” is about owning your work, shaping your culture, and building processes that make sense for your people, while keeping the bigger mission in view. At this stage, the team doesn’t just follow rules — it reinvents them for its own success.
Let go of your fears — give remote collaboration a try
You don’t need every process perfectly in place to start working remotely. At Railsware, we’ve learned that stepping into the unknown often means making mistakes, iterating, and learning as you go.
Starting to work remotely doesn’t require avoiding risks or waiting for the “perfect setup”. Instead, discover what truly works for your team, build trust, and create systems that let people take ownership and thrive. One practical way to start is by using simple, easy-to-adopt tools like our TitanApps. You can explore how a non-tech team implemented them in this case study.
The journey can be messy, but every challenge teaches you something valuable. And in the end, taking that leap often leads to a team that’s not just productive, but resilient, connected, and capable of achieving more than you imagined.
