---
title: Slack Tips For Building Trust
teaser: 'Here are some tips that we use to ensure that our team is using Slack to
  improve efficiency while nurturing a culture of trust.

  '
tags: consulting,communication,slack,playbook,inclusion
author: Ruti Wajnberg
published_on: 2019-10-23
---

These days, many tech companies use [Slack] or a similar tool to facilitate
communication between teammates. Our most critical work-related conversations
are happening via these chat tools, allowing us to streamline communication
across multiple locations, provide a history of decisions made or issues raised,
and easily loop in folks who were missing. But just as teams can use tools like
Slack to build a culture of trust and inclusion, so are such tools prone to
alienating team members and creating information silos.

At thoughtbot, one of our [core values] is trust. In defining this value, we
highlight that:

> We avoid having private conversations about each other or clients. Instead,
> we talk in person, and use tools such as Slack [...] to communicate openly
> within a project, within thoughtbot, and publicly.

Here are some tips that we use to ensure that our team is using Slack to improve
efficiency while nurturing a culture of trust.

## Keep Messages Public

Sometimes, we want to direct our communication toward a particular individual.
Cue the Slack direct message - a tempting way to pass information privately on
to another individual. While this type of communication does have its time and
place, it is [rarely inclusive] and is often the culprit of an information silo.

Let’s say, for example, we want to ask a question about a pull request. By
sending a direct message to the developer who wrote the code, we deprive the
rest of the team from learning from the conversation and prevent the full team
from being aware of the resolution. Or, let’s say we want to report a bug
directly to a developer - we have now created an urgent-feeling situation that
may have been better triaged if the full team were made aware of the issue.
Even offering praise through a direct message robs the recipient of the chance
to shine in front of their peers.

By using the direct message, others lose the opportunity to weigh in and provide
context, or take note for future similar situations. Public channels encourage
input and participation from the full team, which helps to cultivate a culture
of inclusion and trust.

If you're DM'ed in the future, consider asking that the conversation be moved to
the most appropriate public channel. And if you ever have sensitive information
to discuss directly with another individual, consider taking it offline, where
more nuance and sensitivity can be applied to the conversation.

## Keep Channels Public

Private channels are another tempting feature of Slack that can cause information
silos. When channels are private, people must be invited to participate and
cannot find the most appropriate channels for information on their own.

I was part of an organization that had a private #api channel, for example, in
addition to a public one. As I was unaware of the private channel for my first
few months, I missed out on valuable context and information being discussed
there. Ensuring that channels (and thus, conversations) are public encourages
participation from team members who you may have thought would not have an
opinion.

At thoughtbot, if we feel the desire to create a private channel - let’s say,
without a client present - this is an immediate indication that we have a
communication problem of a different sort. Perhaps we are experiencing a point
of tension that we have not yet raised with the client. We can now focus on
addressing that problem, while the Slack channels remain public.

## Specify A Purpose

There are often lots of public channels - and setting a clear purpose can help
your team figure out which channels they should join. For example, you may have
an #apprenticeship channel with the purpose “Set up mentors and apprentices for
success”, a #javascript channel whose purpose links to your company’s styleguide,
or a #feature-name channel whose purpose describes the feature being created.

Setting a specific purpose for each channel also helps us avoid redundant
channels. I've been part of organizations that had three separate channels
circulating information relevant to a single initiative. It was difficult and
confusing to find the pertinent conversations to our workflow, as they jumped
around these channels regularly. This added significantly to the cognitive load
of an already complex project.

Another benefit of specific purposes is that if folks are commenting in a channel
about topics not directly related to that channel, we can always feel free to
respectfully point to the channel’s purpose and ask people to post elsewhere.

## Use Mentions Sparingly

If you have the right streamlined and specified channels, you can most likely
assume that the correct people are paying attention. And if you’re asking in a
public channel, like #engineering for example, anyone in that channel should feel
free and be equipped to respond.

Calling out the entire channel to your message with `@channel` or `@here` can be
disruptive and create an even more urgent-feeling scenario than a direct message.
In addition, team mentions may indicate that we do not trust everyone to set
up their own notifications, or that we do not respect everyone's time. If you
are trying to reach a particular individual in a public channel, consider
opening up the conversation with a "@handle or anyone else who might know"
mention. And if something is indeed truly urgent, consider addressing it in
person.

## Think About Threads

This one is controversial, so be sure to get a pulse from your team. Some folks
feel that [Slack threads] hide important information or are indicative of the
need to split out a separate channel. Additionally, sometimes threads can
indicate to readers that someone has already responded to the question, so
others can ignore it. Before you use a thread, consider whether this may be
information critical to everyone in the channel, or if an opt-in conversation
can ensue.

In my experience, keeping conversations in threads is often invaluable in reducing
the clutter in any particular channel. Once conversations are in threads,
members of any channel can scan its content for main topics, and then drill down
further into the conversations that are of particular interest. Imagine if your
inbox displayed all your conversations listed out as individual emails - how
would you ever stay organized?

If you participate in a thread, you can follow it separately by looking at “All
threads” instead of selecting a particular channel. You can even set your Slack
notifications to alert you if there is activity in any thread in which you have
participated.

## Keep Conversations Inclusive

In order to build a trusting culture, it is important to ensure that the
conversations in any channel are respectful and inclusive. At thoughtbot, our
value of trust and transparency means we don’t hesitate to respectfully
correct each other when there is a misstep. In fact, we even have a [SlackBot]
to correct the use of presumed male pronouns like “guys”. When this type of
language is used, our SlackBot responds with a prompt like “May I suggest
“crew”? It's more gender-inclusive.”

## Using Slack to Build Trust

By keeping conversations public, transparent, and easy to follow, we can optimize
our use of tools like Slack while continuing to build an open and trusting work
culture. In addition, we can avoid the common pitfalls of these tools as
an attention-seeking and disruptive work companion. By reducing the cognitive
overhead of direct messages and mentions and keeping our conversations to the
most relevant, we ensure that our teamwide Slack communication is helping us
stay focused and do the best work possible.

[Slack]: https://slack.com/
[rarely inclusive]: https://thoughtbot.com/blog/private-messages-not-inclusive
[core values]: https://thoughtbot.com/playbook/our-company/values
[SlackBot]: https://api.slack.com/bot-users
[Slack threads]: https://slackhq.com/threaded-messaging-comes-to-slack