Guiding Remote Teams to Excellence Through Advanced Leadership Techniques
Apr 17, 2024Season 1Episode 36
Colby Morris
Are your leadership skills ready to tackle the unique challenges of remote and hybrid teams? Get set to transform your digital workspace leadership with our deep dive into the essentials of managing teams from afar. As your guide, I, Colby Morris, am here to arm you with a toolkit designed to foster a thriving team dynamic, regardless of physical distance. From mastering the art of over-communication to championing asynchronous work, you're about to unlock the secrets to keeping your team aligned, informed, and performing at their peak.
This episode is brimming with actionable insights, including setting a clear communication cadence that ensures no team member is left in the dark. Understand the significance of regular check-ins and the irreplaceable value of individual one-on-ones. We'll also explore the advantages of asynchronous collaboration and how it can alleviate the pressures of the traditional workday, all while keeping your team cohesive through effective use of project management tools. Tune in to ensure your leadership not only endures but excels in the evolving landscape of work.
Are your leadership skills ready to tackle the unique challenges of remote and hybrid teams? Get set to transform your digital workspace leadership with our deep dive into the essentials of managing teams from afar. As your guide, I, Colby Morris, am here to arm you with a toolkit designed to foster a thriving team dynamic, regardless of physical distance. From mastering the art of over-communication to championing asynchronous work, you're about to unlock the secrets to keeping your team aligned, informed, and performing at their peak.
This episode is brimming with actionable insights, including setting a clear communication cadence that ensures no team member is left in the dark. Understand the significance of regular check-ins and the irreplaceable value of individual one-on-ones. We'll also explore the advantages of asynchronous collaboration and how it can alleviate the pressures of the traditional workday, all while keeping your team cohesive through effective use of project management tools. Tune in to ensure your leadership not only endures but excels in the evolving landscape of work.
Welcome to Things Leaders Do, the podcast that uncovers the secrets of becoming an extraordinary leader. If you're a leader who's constantly seeking growth, inspiration and tangible ways to level up your leadership, then you've come to the right place. Remember, the world needs exceptional leaders, and that leader is you. Now here's your host, colby Morris.
Speaker 2:
Hey leaders, welcome back to the TOD podcast, the podcast dedicated to bringing you actionable leadership advice to help leaders get better faster. I'm your host, colby Morris. Well, last week I had several of you connect with me on LinkedIn. It was great. Shout out to John with no H, carla, holly and Thomas. I really appreciate the connections and the conversations. We had some great discussions there and really I appreciate all the feedback that you've given me.
Speaker 2:
Today's episode tackles a challenge that many leaders are facing not all, but many and that is leading remote and hybrid teams and hybrid teams. Now, I won't lie. Effective communication, collaboration, building trust all that can be, and actually is, trickier when your team isn't physically together. Okay, and most of us leaders we really value that, that face-to-face interaction, and it's really tough for those of us that that kind of cut our teeth, our leadership chops on face-to-face interaction, but that is no reason for our leadership to suffer. So today I have four actionable items that you're going to be able to implement right away to foster a pretty amazing remote or hybrid team. So let's get going.
Speaker 2:
Number one embrace over communication. I have said this many times, you're probably sick of hearing it it's impossible to over communicate as a leader. Okay, once you think you've started over communicating, you're just scratching the surface of communication. Now, in a traditional office setting, it's just different, right? You have those quick hallway conversations or impromptu meetings and that can kind of keep everyone on the same page. But in the virtual world those opportunities obviously naturally decrease. Now the key to avoiding confusion and misinformation you have to over-communicate.
Speaker 2:
Now here's your action item. I want you to set a clear communication cadence. Did you like that alliteration there? Set a clear communication cadence? That means this Schedule regular team meetings like daily kickoffs, weekly check-ins, monthly report-outs and by regular I mean they happen at the same cadence all the time. The daily kickoffs happen every day at 8 am. The weekly check-ins happen every Thursday at 2 o'clock. The monthly report outs those happen the fourth Wednesday of every month at three o'clock. Now, obviously those are examples, but you need to be as consistent as possible to make sure that everyone understands the communication cadence.
Speaker 2:
When they will know what Do you hear that they need to? When they will know what Do you hear that they need to know? When they will know what? And please, please, make sure you're scheduling and keeping your individual one-on-ones every month to connect with your team members. Now, yes, you're going to discuss progress and roadblocks and updates or anything, but you need to make sure that one-on-one is to connect with your team members. And yes, I said monthly, but again, most studies show that bi-weekly is the longest you should go without having a one-on-one, so I would encourage you to do it more often. You need to be doing that weekly to biweekly, but a lot of that will depend on your the nature of all.
Speaker 2:
Right, let's go to number two. I want you to champion asynchronous collaboration. Look, not everyone thrives in a let's call it a real-time synchronous work environment. Okay, champion that asynchronous collaboration that allows your team to or maybe I should say it empowers your team to work at their peak times. Okay, it reduces that pressure of always being on. Okay, I know several highly, highly effective people who do their best work literally after like 10 PM, that's. That's when their brain turns on, and they will work from 10 pm to 3 am putting out amazing information, amazing projects. Now, obviously, that has to work with the rest of the team, but if it doesn't matter when they actually do the work, allow them to do the work at that point. Okay.
Speaker 2:
Now one thing that you can do is utilize project management tools. Okay, and by this point most of you already know them. Okay, Project management tools, those are like as in there, and leave comments or suggestions, whatever like, at their own pace. They don't all have to be in there at the same time. What this does is it really fosters that smooth collaboration. It eliminates that need for everyone to be available all at the same time. Now you're thinking, colby, that goes against the regular scheduled meetings. Yes, it does, but if you have a regular scheduled meeting, that means they're expected to be a part of that. What it doesn't mean is that they will do their work during that time. Okay, so those are. Those are two different things. When they're doing their work and when they meet are two different things. Also, uh, utilize the communications platform. Most of you are should be doing it. Okay, slack teams, whatever it is. Uh, just for quick questions and announcements.
Speaker 2:
Okay, all right, let's move to number three. I want you to prioritize relationship building. Okay, you've heard me say this a few times trust is the foundation of any successful team. Okay, I always say leaders are doing one of two things. They're either repairing relationships or they're building relationships. Okay, but building trust, man, that sometimes it can be hard, okay, when you, when you can't share those I don't know, the unscheduled water cooler moments, or or having those casual conversations in the hall or in the break room or wherever it is, when you don't just run into people that that makes it harder, okay, so here's how we're going to prioritize relationship building in this virtual world.
Speaker 2:
First thing I want you to do is schedule virtual team building activities. Okay, plan a virtual social event or icebreakers to help team members connect on a personal level. Vent or icebreakers to help team members connect on a personal level. Now, listen, you're going to have some introverts that absolutely hate this at first. I mean, they would rather crawl into a fetal position and cry than do an icebreaker. But it does need to happen and, honestly, most of those introverts will be okay with it once they really learn the team and they start developing the relationships. Introverts tend to struggle when there's no relationship, but once they get to know people, they open up. Okay, maybe. Consider some virtual team lunches Okay, now, that doesn't mean everybody just logs on and watches each other eat. Okay, but you can play some games or some online escape rooms Okay, there's also plenty of those. Get to know you questions online that you know teams can answer, and really get to know each other. Now, I probably should have put the one-on-ones in here, but I wanted to make sure I got that in early, no-transcript, okay. So please, please, be doing your one-on-ones, all right.
Speaker 2:
Number four, last but not least, invest in training and development. Now, if most of our virtual workforce is pretty familiar with all their tools, but you don't want to assume that Just because they're working virtually doesn't mean they're always really happy when they have to. Effective remote work requires a different skill set than traditional office work. It just does. You have to invest in training and development opportunities to make sure your team has the tools they need to thrive in the environment, but also that they know how to use those tools. Okay, if your team doesn't know how to share their screens or find the chat function, at this point there may be bigger issues at hand, but make sure that everyone is very familiar and comfortable using the tools that are expected to use. Okay, if you expect more out of them than just sitting on the screen, if you expect them to share things, if you expect them to be doing something a little more advanced, make sure they know how to do it and they're comfortable, okay.
Speaker 2:
So your, uh, your action item there provide training on remote work tools. Okay, offer training sessions, maybe. Okay, on whatever platform it is you use. Okay, if you're using Zoom Teams, google Meet, whatever it is Okay. And make sure you have trainings available for the project management tools you use, okay. So if you're using Asana or Monday or Trello or whatever, make sure there's project management tools you use, okay. So if you're using Asana or Monday or Trello or whatever, make sure there's project management training for that as well. Okay.
Speaker 2:
Just because they use it doesn't mean they're real familiar with it. And I've actually seen teams that a team member who had other team members updating their project management tools for them because they didn't know how. That's not an effective way to do it. Consider adding training on effective virtual communication. Okay, collaboration techniques.
Speaker 2:
Remember, it's not always what you say as much as how you say it. And when you're working virtually you can really kind of get in this rut of just typing the things, just giving information, because you're not really interacting and sometimes it can really come off as dry, maybe even pushy, it lacks a little bit of emotion and you can't hear the tone right. You can't hear tone in a in a message and a uh, a typed environment. Okay, so sometimes that tends to bleed over into our verbal communication. All right, so, uh, these are just a few actionable steps you can take.
Speaker 2:
Um, if you're trying to lead a successful remote team or a hybrid team, remember, effective communication, collaboration and building trust are essential for any team, regardless of location. It doesn't matter if it's remote or in person. Those are key building blocks, okay, but if you'll implement these tips, you can create a thriving team. Okay, regardless of the environment, especially in a virtual world. So, if you have any questions or challenges related to leading remote or hybrid teams, or just any leadership questions in general, I'm going to invite you to connect with me at LinkedIn or the Instagram page.
Speaker 2:
Things leaders do and I might address them in a future episode. I'd love to connect with you either way that you go. If you want to go to my webpage, it's nextstepadvisorscom. There's no E in next, it's just NXT, nextstepadvisorscom. And, if you don't mind, if you are getting value from this, please share what you're listening to, okay, post it on social media and let's try to reach the leaders who really need to get better faster. Thank you for joining me on Things Leaders Do. Keep working on those remote teams and getting better at it, because those are the things that leaders do.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to Things Leaders Do. If you're looking for more tips on how to be a better leader, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and listen to next week's episode. Until next time, keep working on being a better leader by doing the things that leaders do.
