WLP231 Leadership and Fostering Connection in Remote Teams
Today we return to our special series in association with ShieldGEO on connection and disconnection in remote teams, and into this 5th episode we explore the role of the manager or employer in ensuring their team members remain connected when working remotely.
We appreciate all the feedback from listeners, guests, and also Pilar’s mum! We love how this series is making people reflect on these themes, which are both so timely yet so evergreen.
Our regular host Bree Caggiati talks to a diverse range of guests new and old, to explore this topic.
To pin down the role of the team leader in fostering connectedness, founder of Belonging Space Isabel Collins focuses on purpose, what defines an organisation or a team, as the key, to what managers need to embody and convey. Values establish culture, and Courtney Seiter reflects on the way Buffer are so intentional about that aspect of their work: uniting around the values which define the brand, and how that brings them together despite their globally diverse team and locations.
Tim Burgess from ShieldGEO walks the talk when it comes to discussing disconnection and loneliness by modelling the behaviour he wants to nurture, and author and manager Teresa Douglas reminds us that the toolkit for companies should include resources specifically to support remote colleagues in overcoming these difficulties, as well as supporting managers to do their job in connecting with people and seeing if they are struggling.
Creating that culture of openness in the first place makes it easier for people to bring up problems when they do arise, and Marcus Wermuth reminds us that team and company culture need to align here to engender this - talking about isolation requires high trust and psychological safety, and usually managers need to initiate that conversation. Laurel Farrer says that businesses are more focused on culture than they used to be, but managers can still struggle with transferring this to the virtual environment. A lot of it is about simple human touches, which go beyond the work and demand a bit of creativity and thoughtfulness.
It’s not about recreating the office after all, as we keep saying in remote work generally. Dr Julianne Hold-Lunstad suggests finding innovative solutions which capitalise on the environmental advantages of remote work to facilitate connections locally, even if we’re physically removed from co-workers. It’s all about maximising strengths, and Isabelle reminds us that social contact is not an optional extra in remote, it is part of the management role to facilitate directly.
For example at ShieldGEO they have a special ‘grumbling’ Slack channel for offloading without criticism, and it’s important to make room for the expression of a full range of emotions. And as Laurel points out it serves less visible purposes to hold these spaces, beyond simply letting people vent. When expectations are clearly set (such as what kind of joining in is expected in different conversations) it helps managers to identify if anything is wrong - such as offloading in the wrong place, or not engaging in the expected way. Ritualised check-ins can encourage growth, Teresa reminds us, and they are part of the personal and professional development activity for remote teams:
“We need to teach people the questions to ask themselves, so they can monitor themselves.”
For some managers this may require cultivating their own intuitiveness, but this can be supplemented by an app like Brian Rhea’s Headlamp - which monitors and checks in on how team members are doing via a Slackbot, as well as offering some ideas and prompts for resolution. It’s not intended to replace human intervention, but works a supplement to help both managers and self-managers progress together.
Managers need to make the first move, Teresa reminds us, in communicating these issues - grounding themselves in humanity and showing their personality and context, to help people relate. Open access to information, (reflecting the ‘visible teamwork’ approach we use with clients at Virtual not Distant), can easily be extended to open emotions and sharing.
Courtney discussed some ideas from Buffer that work for them, such as non-work video chats, and the Doughnut Slack app for randomly being paired up with unfamiliar colleagues, a Mastermind programme for more tactical mentoring and pairing, as well as a traffic light system for indicating mood. Their years of experience remind managers at Buffer that disconnection happens - in the best of teams and organisations, human emotions go up and down and that is both normal and OK, to surface and act upon to correct.
Buffer are always trying new ideas and solutions to make things better for their colleagues. But you might not have their sophistication and resources to dedicate to this. Tim takes us back to principles as a guide for moving in the right direction, to develop best practice into guidelines, and from that some rules, where definitely required.
Reviewing and evaluating the effectiveness of your team building solutions matters, and Julianne points out, we do need to know what’s working, which means measuring how people are doing and feeling. Some trial and error is inevitable, but Workplace psychologist Richard Mackinnon suggests not getting distracted by fads and fashions and the latest trendy idea, but looking for lasting and inclusive solutions (which might include asking people what they need and want from you - so yes, it could be simpler than you expect, and innovation purely for its own sake is pointless).
Julianne points out:
“What we see in very intentional companies and creative people oriented infrastructures, is that people start to think about their location as irrelevant… if they feel engaged in a very saturated employee experience, the workplace feels extended beyond the office, with consistent engagement practices... people don’t notice they're not in the office”
Specific processes for managers to implement will clearly vary from one team or company to another, but by taking Tim’s advice to go back to first principles, we can learn from the managers in this episode and try out new ideas - being open about their experimental nature, and evaluating and correcting course when necessary.
But what do you think, and what have you tried within your own teams? We’d love to learn from your experiments too.
Do keep your feedback coming, we really enjoy it - please contact us, or you can tweet Virtual Not Distant, or Pilar and Maya directly, with any of your thoughts and ideas.
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