Working from Home: Leading Our Teams

Going remote is not a technology problem. Going remote means overcoming a lot of organizational and psychological barriers. And leading our teams differently.

Here in Asia, we had more time to adjust to the COVID-19 crisis, so I truly admire my colleagues in Europe and the Americas who embraced remote overnight. It is not perfect, and all of us need time to adjust, individually and as teams. It does not have to be perfect. Suffice to say that IT WORKS. We communicate and collaborate like never before. The real question now is HOW to work remotely BETTER. This past two weeks, I have spent time looking for resources that help better figure out this transition and have reflected on my own recent WFH experience. I'll share my key takeaways. Part I was about managing ourselves, this part - Part II - about leading our teams. I will be happy to hear about the ways you successfully lead your remote teams or the areas you struggle with.

Before anything else, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to those for whom working from home is NOT an option. First and foremost, to the healthcare professionals who are making incredible sacrifices right now. And also to people working in packaging, transportation, delivery, law enforcement, to civil servants, cashiers, taxi drivers, pharmacists - all those who help fulfil our essential needs, while exposing themselves to increased risk of catching the virus. Whenever we start complaining about difficulties working and leading from home, let's think about all these people and be grateful.

Working from Home - Leading Our Teams

5 Key Elements: Systems - Processes - People - Collaboration - Communication

The COVID-19 crisis has made obsolete the question IF office jobs should go remote. The real question now is HOW to do it better.

Two weeks ago - which now seems like in another life! - I listened to the interview of Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan to CNBC, where he talked about the current crisis as 

…the acid test of every single country: quality of healthcare, standards of governance, social capital. If any element of this tripod is weak, it will be exposed quite unmercifully… Social capital of trust and compliance when the chips are down, in the extreme situation, is absolutely crucial.

I find the same is true for our companies and teams: the crisis lays bare how strong or weak is the tripod of our systems, processes and people. And of these three elements, to me people element is the most crucial - we can upgrade the systems and reinvent the processes even under extreme conditions, but nothing is going to work without great people and the trust we have in one another.

While the adversity puts everything and everyone to test and amplifies the good, the bad, and the ugly, I see the storm we are going through now as a unique chance to reach the levels of empowerment, collaboration, bonding, and belonging we have never thought were possible: we are all in this together. The key element that enables everything else is our communication as leaders with our teams and beyond.

Contents:

  1. Systems

    • Become a Master of Prioritization

    • Build with slack and flexibility

    • Stay as simple as possible, but not simpler

  2. Processes

    • Adapt, reinvent, rebuild

    • See the big picture

    • Create/Update ‘How We Work’ document

    • Adapt team culture to remote

  3. People

    • Know Your Team

    • Invest in 121s

    • Trust

    • No micromanagement, please

    • Look for the work done, not for the presence

  4. Collaboration

    • Share the screens

    • Go beyond borders. We're all in this together.

  5. Communication

    • Over-communicate without sacrificing clarity

    • Seek more feedback 

    • Listen with many ears, speak with one voice

    • Match the message to the channel

    • Email without bullshit

    • Inspire and get inspired

    • Further resources to manage remote teams better

 

  1. SYSTEMS

The aim of this article is to share some takeaways on leading remote teams, not to describe a detailed systematic crisis response approach. If the crisis has taken you and your business by surprise, I recommend COVID-19 Rapid Response Checklist by Boston Consulting Group. This comprehensive and extremely useful document covers Team Health & Safety, Business Strength, Financial Resilience, and Execution Clarity Measures. The document evolves, so make sure to refresh it using the link on its cover page.

A few of my own thoughts and observations:

Become a Master of Prioritization

Connectivity to internal systems is the critical resource for remote working and can become in high demand at peak times. To navigate this scarcity successfully, we have to become masters of prioritization, and constantly and dynamically reevaluate what is vital, and what can wait for a better hour or be completely shed off as unnecessary. We need to understand it not only for our own team but also across the organization and across our Client base. 

We need to see the bigger picture and understand interdependencies with other teams, regions, and stakeholders, and make them clear to our own team members. In case of connectivity scarcity, it's good to reconsider working hours and see if we can organize our teams in shifts, making sure that there is some overlap in the working hours between different team members. Clear and timely communication across the teams on when the connectivity peak times are and what are the do's and don'ts is of utmost importance.  

Build with Slack and Flexibility

Decentralized organizations may prove more resilient because of their greater flexibility: if in good times we pursued efficiency by centralizing certain functions within a single non-distributed team, now we may discover how this approach backfires if this team happens to be in the risk area. The last thing we want now is the bottlenecks in our company, especially for mission-critical functions. These days, I fully feel the benefits and strength of working for a global company with a strong and distributed infrastructure: if we have difficulty connecting to a server in Europe, we can always do it via servers in Asia or the Americas. The same goes for our teams - if our team members have become too specialized, this leads to one-person dependencies. My own take is that for mission-critical tasks we need to have a sufficient number of team members trained and able to step in.

Slack in a system is a tricky thing. In good times, we don't want to have too much of it, not to waste time and money. But if we have too little of it, it is easier for the entire system to collapse. We can build slack on the go either by increasing the resources which might not always be possible or by reducing the tasks to absolutely vital and essential.

Stay as Simple as Possible, but Not Simpler

Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler. I find this quote attributed to Einstein perfectly applicable to the current environment. Our toolbox should stay small enough to remain simple but large enough to cover our critical business needs. Mine currently includes email; Skype for Business for formal and informal collaboration, including video conferencing and screen sharing; access to internal systems, and shared drives. For online connectivity peak times, we can always fall back to our old-school phone conferencing system. Tools are just tools. The most important thing is how we use them.  

2. PROCESSES

Adapt, Reinvent, Rebuild

If we managed to have strong, clear, and well-documented processes before going remote, the transition to remote may be easier: we are adapting our processes instead of building them on the go. 

If our processes were somewhat fuzzy or complex or non-existent before going remote amidst the crisis, I would argue that the current crisis gives us reasons for action and hope. Amidst the crisis, we have no other choice but to start simple if we start from scratch or simplify what we already had. Complex systems and processes will not survive the crisis. Remember the Gall's Law: 

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: a complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a simple system.

It is essential to review the governance and escalation processes and see if we need to adapt them to remote. 

See the Big Picture

Many processes are transversal, so here again, it is essential to understand the bigger picture and interdependencies, as well as dynamically evaluate the constraints along the process and collaborate with other teams if we build or reinvent the process for remote work.

Create/Update 'How We Work' Document

It's good to have a dynamic & easy to use How we Work document for the team, accessible and crowdsourced by all team members. In my team, we keep it in a shared OneNote book, but again, it's not a question of tools, but how we use them. 

Adapt Team Culture to Remote

Now, what about informal team processes, team culture, lunches, after-work drinks, etc.? Again, here there is no reason why we cannot and should not adapt them to working remotely when everyone is self-isolating. In the past two weeks, I have seen so many zoom online parties, jam sessions, informal lunches. Technology is there, we just have to be creative.  What is true about remote though is that for those of us who live alone, loneliness can be a real problem. A few great recommendations from the online workshop by Claire Lew from "Know Your Team":

  • Get Intentional about social connection

  • Carve out a dedicated non-work communication channel

  • Ditch dull icebreakers for dynamic ones

  • Set scheduled non-work-related chats

  • Randomly pair 2-3 people to have a chat over something not work-related

 

3. PEOPLE

Know Your Team

We may already think that we know our teams, but now, when times are tough and everyone is remote, this knowledge reaches new levels.  We are all much more exposed, letting teammates virtually into our homes, unveiling our struggles to adjust, sharing our worries about our family members, showing up as much more vulnerable than we usually want to appear. We may discover our team members in an entirely new light!

Not everyone is going to transition to remote in the same way.  Knowing your teams means knowing who would adjust faster and who would need more guidance and support. One thing is sure - it’s wishful thinking to imagine that things will go back to normal quickly and that everyone will immediately become their highest performing selves. The key thing here is to offer ourselves and others grace, kindness, and patience, to see the best in each other, to be forgiving and manage our expectations.

Invest in 121s

I like the idea that leadership happens not as one-to-many, but as one-to-one. In these difficult times, it’s a good idea to increase the frequency of our 121s with our team members and look at these discussions differently: instead of viewing them as mere status updates, consider their primary purpose to give and receive feedback and uncover potential issues. 

Trust

Trust is the key for the remote to work. We have no choice but to show an abundance of trust. Trust - not tracking - enables productivity. To quote "Remote: Office Not Required" by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson,

Most fears that have to do with people working remotely stem from the lack of trust.

People have an amazing ability to live down to low expectations. If you run your ship with the conviction that everyone's a slacker, your employees will put all their ingenuity into proving you're right. If you view those who work under you as capable adults who will push themselves to excel even when you're not breathing down their necks, they'll delight you in return.

If you can't let your employees work from home out of fear they'll slack of without your supervision, you're a babysitter, not a manager. Remote work is very likely the least of your problems.

You shouldn't hire people you don't trust, or work for the bosses who don't trust you. If you're not trusted to work remotely, why are you trusted to do anything at all?

No micromanagement, please

It's easy to slip into micromanagement any time, and even more so when your team is remote. Watch out for the early signs of micromanagement: Are you mentally checking who appears online? Are the following phrases are part of your daily vocabulary: "Just checking on this", "Here's how I would do it", "Let me just do it", "Can you cc me on that". 

Many of us can ask the question: What if by the abundance of trust we lose control? Here again, "Remote" offers great advice:

It's really spelled out directly, but a lot of the arguments against working remotely are based on the fear of losing control.

To a lot of people, being the big boss is about achieving such control. It's woven in their identity. To such alpha males and females, having someone under "direct supervision" means having them in their line of sight - literally. The thinking goes, If I can see them, I can control them.

Wrestling that antiquated notion of control away from managers isn't a logical or rational process. It’s often something that needs to be slow-walked - until the person calling the shots gets comfortable with the concept.

Look for the Work Done, not for the Presence

When we work remotely the work itself becomes the yardstick to judge our performance. "Remote":

When you can't see someone all day long, the only thing you have to evaluate is the work. The great thing about this is the clarity it introduces. When it's all about the work, it’s clear who in the company is pulling their weight and who isn't.

4. COLLABORATION

Share the Screens

Personally, I do not see any process for office jobs that cannot be adapted to remote work. Even the sacred brainstorming we always thought can happen only face to face. "Remote”:

You know the feeling. Everyone's sitting around the table, ideas are building on ideas, and intellectual sparks are lighting up the room. It's tempting to think that this kind of magic only happens when people can see and touch each other. Let's assume for a second that's true. Breakthrough ideas only happen when people meet face-to-face. Still the question remains: how many breakthrough ideas can a company actually digest? Far fewer than you imagine…

Second, you'd be amazed how much quality collective thought can be captured using two simple tools: a voice connection and a shared screen. Every time we use something like WebEx, we're surprised at how effective it is. No, it's not 100 percent as effective - it lacks that last 1 or 2 percent of high-fidelity interaction - but it's much closer than you'd think.

By rationing in-person meetings, their stature is elevated to that of rare treat. They become something to be savored, something special. Dine out every once in a while on those feasts and sustain yourself in the interim  on the conversational "snacks" that technology makes possible. That will give you all the magic you can handle.

Go Beyond Borders. We're All in This Together

Collaboration does not limit itself to our own team. More than ever, we need to go beyond boundaries, stay connected with our peers, see how the situation of their teams evolves and share good practices and resources, if legally and technically possible.

5. COMMUNICATION

Over-communicate Without Sacrificing Clarity

When a crisis strikes, communicating more frequently and broadly is a good idea. 

  • First, some key messages are worth to be repeated. 

  • Second, the situation can evolve very rapidly and require everyone to quick and coordinated action. 

  • Third, it's clearly not business as usual and we need to have solid feedback loops to see how everyone copes. Frequent communication can give confidence and reassurance that things are as under control as they can possibly be. 

However, over-communication does not mean we should sacrifice clarity. Just the opposite. We can find ourselves overwhelmed with dozens of broadcasts and emails from different parts of our business. Our role of team leaders is to curate these messages, boil them down to the essential and help our teams clearly understand the impact. 

Seek More Feedback

Communication is a two-way street. As much as we need to broadcast top-down messages, we need to make sure that we get timely and relevant feedback from our teams and from our Customers. 

Listen with many ears, speak with one voice

As businesses and teams, we need to make sure that we speak to our Clients as one voice, delivering clear and consistent messages. It pays off not only to have great tools to collect and document Clients' questions and feedback but also to channel this feedback to one crisis response team: chances are that many different Clients ask the same or similar questions and we can prepare FQA documents instead of answering each question from scratch.

Match the Message to the Channel

If we had an addiction to ASAP and did not hesitate to bother anyone for an immediate answer with no regard for personal productivity, it's not going to work in remote, when focus and attention are the scarcest resources.  We have to recognize that not every question needs an immediate answer and match the message to the channel:

  • Emails for questions that can wait hours. Usually, it's about 80% of our questions.

  • Instant messages for questions that require answers in the next few minutes. Other 15%

  • Old-fashioned phone calls for really critical situations. 5% or less

Email Without Bullshit

The best gift we can give to our colleagues who are struggling with the crisis and adjusting to working remotely is to write unambiguous, bold emails with clear calls to action. Clear writing gets things done. Faster. Clear writing gets you noticed. A few key recommendations from "Writing without Bullshit":

  • The Iron Imperative: Treat the reader's time as more valuable than your own.

  • Start boldly, not with a hedge or apology. Write boldly even if you are afraid. Bold communication can make a big difference, especially for women leaders. 

  • Front-load your email: put a conclusion or request upfront and in the subject line

  • Purge passive voice: it should be crystal clear who does what.

  • Write short:

    • Edit everything

    • Aim for word count

    • Say what you really mean

    • Organize relentlessly

    • Use bullets or tables

    • Delete weasel words and qualifiers

  • Anatomy of an effective email:

    • A subject line that's clear about what you need.

    • A microwave greeting - it is essential in the current situation to show empathy.

    • A one-sentence summary

    • The facts on the topic only, well structured

    • The call to action with a deadline

    • Thank you, and goodbye

  • If you are answering an email and see that acting upon it will need more than 15 minutes of your time, acknowledge the receipt and commit to a deadline to come back with the answer.

Inspire and Get Inspired

Besides being bold and clear, we also need to be confident and inspirational.

Here are a few examples, different in style and delivery that have impressed me over the past few days:

Further Resources to Manage Remote Teams Better

Illustration: heart image from Rawpixel

Working RemotelyArina Divo