Marco Polo Culture: Design Your Distributed Team's Success
Mar 02, 2025
I was introduced to the pool game, Marco Polo, as a kid. I watched a boy in the middle of the pool with his eyes closed, yell, "Marco!" The others responded, "Polo!" as he swam toward their voices trying to tag them.
Years later, I adapted this game while shopping with my wife and teenage daughters. They'd go to stores like Aeropostale while I went elsewhere. Before smartphones existed, I'd walk into their favorite stores and call out, "Marco!" It's amazing how quickly teenage girls answer "Polo!" to avoid public embarrassment.
Do you feel like you're playing Marco Polo in a digital swimming pool?
You call out, "Marco!" to your remote team members, hoping to hear "Polo!" in response. Some days, you wonder if anyone's even in the water with you.
Trying to create a positive work culture with distributed teams today is a lot like playing Marco Polo. Marco can be fully remote, hybrid, or scratching their head due to return-to-office mandates echoing from Seattle to DC.
Here's the real question for you as an HR or small business leader: How do I grow people and profits through a positive work culture with so many different distributions of work?
The C in the C.O.N.N.E.C.T. framework for creating a positive culture in distributed teams is for Culture by Design: Connect Marco Intentionally.
The brutal truth is that before the pandemic, with everyone physically together, much of our work culture wasn't great.
Mary and Marcus sat in the office together yet weren't all that engaged, productive, or profitable.
We just tell ourselves they were.
Will Rogers said, "Things aren't the way they used to be...and probably never were."
Truth.
Holly Grogan, Chief People Officer at Appspace, shared something profound with me in our Work Positive Podcast conversation. She said, "It's not so much that employees align with company culture when they join. It's about connections they make."
Appspace spans multiple continents yet maintains engagement scores that consistently outpace industry averages. They achieved this by designing something better than trying to replicate traditional office culture. They intentionally declared, "Connections are important for our teams."
According to McKinsey's 2023 American Opportunity Survey, 58% of Americans now have the opportunity to work remotely at least one day a week. More telling, 87% embrace that flexibility when offered.
So, the question isn't whether distributed work disappears or continues. Top-talent Marcos gravitate to companies who leverage it as a strength. The better question is, "How do we create intentional connections beyond location-based ones?"
Consider Openly, a rapidly growing insurance company. When I interviewed their VP of People and Culture, Marjorie Hook, on the Work Positive Podcast, she described their approach to building culture across 43 states. They create "culture hubs"—designated spaces where team members gather when they choose. The magic happens in the intention behind these gatherings: create opportunities for meaningful connection while honoring individual choice.
Their intentional connection strategy pays huge dividends. Openly's engagement scores run 55-70% positive, compared to industry averages of about 30%. They achieved this stellar engagement by intentionally designing how they connect instead of mandating where Marco works.
Doug Dennerline, CEO of BetterWorks, summed it up perfectly in our Work Positive Podcast conversation: "We want you to integrate your work into your life, not your life into your work."
This mindset transformation marks the difference between companies that struggle to engage Marco and those where all Polos thrive. Work connects with your life instead of defining your life.
Creating a strong distributed culture requires more intention, more effort, and more consistency than traditional office-based cultures. Yet once you dial in your focus on a culture by design that deepens both external AND internal connections, the rewards make the investment worthwhile: increased engagement, deeper talent pools, higher retention, and yes, bigger profits.
Here's one thing you can do today to design a culture that connects Marco: Ask each team member, "How do we help you integrate your work and life?"
Taken from Dr. Joey's forthcoming new book, Marco Polo Culture: C.O.N.N.E.C.T. with Distributed Teams.
What's your question about creating a positive work culture with distributed teams? Ask Dr. Joey here.
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