By Gale Mote / Guest Editorial
“If you manage people you don’t see, lead a team that is spread out geographically or work within a group that is partially remote, you are part of a virtual workplace. Regardless of where people are, when they work and how often you see them, you need to lead, manage and motivate for results from a distance.” Debra Dinnocenzo, “How to Lead from a Distance: Building Bridges in the Virtual Workplace”
Being a manager or team leader is difficult enough, let alone adding the challenges associated with communicating and collaborating without day-to-day, face-to-face interactions. Really great managers excel at connecting, communicating and coaching their employees. The same is true for virtual leaders, except they need to make some necessary adjustments to be successful.
Connecting is about caring and making it a priority to get to know your employees as people. It is often too easy to forget about your remote associates because they are not visible – out of sight, out of mind. I recommend virtual leaders keep a file on each of their employees that highlights birthdays, anniversaries, family members and any special events such as certifications, graduations or volunteer activities. Any special events need to be put into some type of reminder system to ensure that the manager is proactive in celebrating and acknowledging what is truly important.
It is also important to appreciate that virtual team members do not have the ability to engage in many of the informal communication channels like hallway conversations, water cooler chats and after-work outings that keep many of their peers in the loop. Just as with employees who are within walking distance of your office, it is important to engage in regular communication with your virtual team members.
That may mean a regularly scheduled one-on-one call, an e-mail check-in on a weekly basis or a series of instant messages (IMs) throughout the day. It is not the quantity of communication so much as the quality.
One way to ensure that you and your remote workforce are on the same page is to create communication norms or expectations. These need to address two things: when to communicate and the best technology to use given the purpose.
As an example, email should not be used for problem solving or performance coaching – those demand that one pick up the phone. If there is a need for an urgent or immediate reply, send an IM or page the person. Some teams create guidelines around the length of an email or a keyword that must be used in the subject line to help with sorting. All communication norms need to have consensus or buy-in from the manager and employees.
The most common frustration I hear about virtual meetings is the lack of engagement. Some of this has to do with multitasking, however I believe a bigger concern is that our meetings are not interactive. In fact, they are quite boring. If you are frequently involved in virtual meetings, I highly recommend the book, “Click: The Virtual Meetings Book” by Michael Wilkinson and Richard Smith.
To keep people more attentive and engaged in virtual meetings, make them interactive. About every 10 minutes, you will need to involve them in some way. Some options include round-robin discussions where you use the roll call list to go to each person for feedback, polls where you ask people to select a response, whiteboards where everyone can respond at the same time and even small-group discussions. Also consider putting a placeholder in the meeting room to represent all of the people who are participating virtually so you don’t forget that they are with you – just not physically.
Coaching in a virtual environment requires, at minimum, a phone conversation or even better, a visual technology like Skype. According to author Bruce Tulgan, performance coaches make time to talk about work with their virtual employees. Think about who the person is, the type of management they need from you, what you should talk about, why it matters, when to engage in the conversation and how. Remember, if the only time your employees hear from you is regarding bad news, they are going to find a reason not to pick up the phone when they see your caller ID.
Talk like a performance coach by being specific, using examples and developing your storytelling skills. It is also critical to develop some pocket coaching questions, such as:
- What are the consequences of doing nothing?
- How might you have contributed to the problem?
- What are the most important issues here?
- How do you think it might have gone better?
- What options are available to you?
- What is the next simple step you can take to move you in the direction of your goal?
- How can I support you?
Connecting, communicating and coaching are what managers do, regardless of the work environment. As author Steve Ventura writes, “There is a huge difference between having distance and being distant. One does not beget the other unless you allow it to.”
Gale Mote is a trainer, organizational development catalyst and coach in Cedar Rapids. Contact her at galemote@galemoteassociaties.com.
