It's just a matter of adapting these universal, human concepts to how we work now. By concentrating on these aspects, you can improve the way you manage remote teams, sharpen your creative output, and create a virtual work environment that simply works.
Five Essentials For Effective Remote Work
1. Generosity
A lack of trust is one of the most destructive things I've ever encountered in the workplace. Remote work (or in-person work, for that matter) will fail if people do not trust one another.
Acts of kindness can help to strengthen bonds of trust. And we don't need face-to-face interaction or water cooler talk to be nice to one another. We simply need to be more intentional about creating opportunities for kindness and trust with our remote team members.
Here's an example: every Monday, my team performs a sync. This isn't unusual in and of itself; I know many of you begin your weeks in this manner as well. But what makes our syncs unique is that we don't just talk about work. Instead, we take the time to tell each other what we like about each other.
To be honest, I could hear crickets in the background the first time I tried this with my team. Me, expressing my gratitude and appreciation for my team members, followed by complete silence. For the first ten or so attempts, it was like trying to pull teeth from an alligator.
But then it all came together. I logged in for a team meeting, and everyone started thanking each other without my prompting. It now feels natural.
It takes time and effort to cultivate kindness. It could take ten or twenty tries. It could be awkward. It could be unpleasant. However, once it becomes a regular part of your workday, you'll discover that it unlocks new levels of trust and communication in your teamwork.
2. Informal Communication
This leads me to the second most important aspect of leading remote teams: communication. Communication and kindness are inextricably linked.
You can learn more about your team members as people if you make it a point to extend your communication beyond simply discussing the next work deliverable. How are they? What inspires them? Do they have any unusual hobbies? How do they prefer to communicate?
I try to approach work-related conversations in the same way that I would approach a coffee date. If I were meeting a coworker in person, I wouldn't open the door and start talking about work right away. Instead, I'd greet them, ask about their day, and strike up a conversation.
I also make a point of doing this during virtual team meetings and one-on-one video calls. It helps to emphasize that we are all individuals with distinct lives and interests, not just boxes on a screen.
I also remind my team to presume good intentions. When communicating in a remote setting with tools like Zoom or Slack, nuances that we would pick up on in face-to-face communication are sometimes lost.
Someone in these mediums may say something that appears to be curt or short at first glance. Instead of bristling, assuming good intentions aids in remembering, "Hey, wait, no. That's all Dave. Dave is cool, and he has my best interests in mind. Something may be going on in Dave's world today, so I'll check in with him and see how he's doing."
3. Craft
Better communication allows you to produce higher-quality work.
If we always work alone, we risk limiting our creative potential. However, by working to improve communication within our own teams and cross-functionally, we can all improve our craft. This necessitates a different approach to collaboration than would be required in a face-to-face setting.
In an office, you might scribble all of your ideas on a whiteboard and leave them to ferment, adding to it as colleagues drop in to share new perspectives and ideas. You may be unable to replicate this exact experience digitally. However, when working remotely, you can use technology to create a collaborative space in which you can execute your craft alongside others.
Using collaborative document editing tools, creating Loom videos to put a face to feedback rather than just sending an email, or working in a shared whiteboard space could all be examples of this. Above all, it entails having faith in each other's abilities.
As a team leader, I enjoy going to bed and waking up to find that my team members in different time zones have been working on new ideas and contributing to projects while I'm sleeping. I have faith in them and their craft; I know I can count on them to do quality work.
4. Sincerity
All of the above, however, will require a healthy dose of humility.
Humility in remote work entails accepting that we're all making this up as we go along. Our teams evolve and change, project objectives shift, and we all continue to learn new ways to collaborate.
When the pandemic struck in early 2020 and remote work became the norm overnight, I believe many of us attempted to force our in-person company culture into a remote model. It's understandable—that's how most of us learned to work. And, as I believe we can all agree, it was not the best setting for an introduction to remote work, nor did it result in the best work-life balance.
We can focus less on output and more on exploring new avenues now that many professionals have settled into working remotely. This entails accepting that we will occasionally be wrong, encounter a stumbling block, and be forced to step outside of our comfort zones.
We must be open and accepting of not only our colleagues but also of ourselves—we will make mistakes. We simply need to be humble (and humane) about it.
5. Drive
Finally, when leading a distributed team, a strong desire to do excellent work is essential.
While drive is a very personal, internal thing, you can help develop it among your team members by that supports them, providing clarity around roles, setting clear expectations, and implementing ideas in ways that encourage accountability.
This is not to say that developing drive necessitates micromanagement. If anything, I'd argue the opposite. Developing drive in your team entails leaning on the bonds of trust and healthy communication you've established and saying, "Here's what we need to do, here's your part in it, and Following is when we desire to have this done."
The process ought to encourage your team members and give them control by allowing them to work in the ways that suit them best—all while driving toward a common goal.
There are three factors that I believe greatly assist my team in developing both an individual and a collective desire to do good work:
1. We have the creative freedom to do our heads-down work whenever and however we want, but when we're in a virtual brainstorming session together, we're all aware of what we ought to bring to the table and when.
2. Our team has a dedicated member who documents our collaborative work and idea generation. This makes it easier for all of us to stay accountable and motivated.
3. When a new team member joins, they understand exactly what their role is within the team and the larger organization as a whole. We can communicate these details to them in a few sentences rather than pages and pages of documentation during onboarding. This streamlines communication and aligns roles, allowing everyone to concentrate on bringing their best work to the table.
Taking The Mystery Out Of Managing A Remote Team
You don't have to come in and completely change the way you work remotely in a single day. However, by starting at the top and working your way down, you can start developing an a happy and fulfilled remote work environment.
Remember that rewarding remote leadership is about more than just supporting your team; it's also about getting the help you need. This begins with identifying the right experts for your remote workforce and utilizing tools that assist you in implementing processes effectively without spending too much time on all of the back-end details.