Nine Best Practices to Lead and

9BEST PRACTICES to Lead and Manage Your Virtual Team

BY SUZANNE BATES

A crisis has a way of bringing out the best and worst in people, and that is twice as true for teams. Teams are, after all, groups of individuals who have come into the new pandemic world with different capabilities, viewpoints, and experiences. Now they must work together in the most challenging time of their professional lives, in a virtual setting. Prior to this global disruption in business, they may have been thriving, doing just OK, or struggling. In a crisis, teams are learning as they go. However, the degree of difficulty is exponential for all of them, and the learning curve is steep. T his is a moment for leadership. You must help your team navigate this new world. As they look ahead, embrace the new normal, set a course, and make decisions on complex issues, they have to do so without the benefit of being face to face. They must tackle critical issues in the unfamiliar world of videoconferences, as well as by phone, email, and chat. These less personal ways of working together are stressful and fatiguing, especially when the team is juggling additional responsibilities at home. Your business is, and will be, in hyperdrive for an extended period of time. You will very likely have to embrace virtual for the long term. Even as you begin to bring people back to the workplace, virtual work is here to stay. This means creating new approaches to work. You will be adopting new technology and attending to new security protocols and logistics. As a leader, you’re going to have to model how to communicate, collaborate, align, debate, and problem-solve as a virtual team. In working with and advising leaders in some of the top companies in the world, we are observing how they are making it work. We have been studying what makes teams work for decades, and we are now seeing it in action in the virtual world.

Drawing on our work and experience, here are nine strategies that will help you lead and manage your team virtually.

1Rethink your driving purpose in the new normal. Where you are going has not changed, but how you’ll get there will (and must). Hit the reset button on what the new normal means to your team and organization. Take a clear-eyed look at what has changed. This analysis will inform your team’s mission and strategic priorities. You must do this even as you juggle the day to day, to avoid wasting time. Now is the time to set a course and agree on strategic priorities so that you are working together as one enterprise team.

2Build trust through honesty and transparency. This is a time for teams to be straight with one another. Admit to the challenges and barriers you face. All of us are managing brand-new issues. We are doing this while juggling family life, personal health, fatigue, and outsized responsibilities. When you are just a little more open and vulnerable, your team will be too. Many find working at home inevitably enables them to reveal more of themselves, and that’s a good thing because it builds the bonds of trust that are gold in teamwork.

3Establish the new norms for how you will work together virtually. Productive team interactions are too rare, even in the best of times. It’s easy to miscommunicate, even when you are face to face. Right now, you have a chance to rewrite the rules for working together virtually through technology. Take the time to assess and codify what is working well and make it a standard practice. This includes how you will stay in touch, inform, collaborate, and make decisions. These protocols are powerful and self-reinforcing. They will pay off during times of both crisis and stability.

4Get ahead of the swirl by keeping people in the loop. In times of uncertainty and change, anxiety blooms. This is greatly exacerbated in the virtual world. It can be d ifficult to keep people apprised. As the team leader, you need to model good communication by being intentional in your messages, with a frequency and cadence that are appropriate. Avoid allowing people to fill the void with rumors, hearsay, and imagined worst-case scenarios. A ddress issues as soon as you hear about them, head-on. And fill the pipeline of communication with real but positive messages of encouragement, thanks, and praise. When people feel acknowledged and appreciated, they engage and work harder even when they are virtual.

5Use the appropriate virtual channels to meet and make decisions. Video is surging forward as a tool for teamwork for a reason. It is the next best thing to being there. As human beings, we are wired to look for nonverbal signals. Body language, eye contact, and voice all are critical

tools we need to interpret and respond, and video is the key to that process in the virtual work world. But a good strategy for virtual work takes into consideration all the channels of communication and leverages the right ones for the right purpose. Use email to inform, create a record, or handle detailed issues. Use online chat to ask a quick question. Pick up the phone when it is time to get off chat and have a conversation. Use all the channels, and model this for your team as well.

6Create the environment for constructive conflict. Make sure the team knows that just because you are virtual does not mean you don’t want to have the good fight to encourage vigorous discussion and good decision making. In a virtual team setting, it is more important than ever to surface issues, uncover ideas, and engage in a healthy debate as you work to solve problems together. Debate gets to the best answers, creates alignment, and gets people working together toward common goals. Allow time for real discussion, ask opinions, be inclusive, hear people out, and make it comfortable to disagree.

7Be visible in the virtual world. This is not the time to hunker down or disappear. Increase your checkins—one-on-one with your reports and together with your teams—to ask how things are going, what they are learning, and what they think could be coming up that needs to be addressed. Ask about the bad news too, so you can address issues immediately. Your visibility will encourage people to be in touch. Visibility also creates systematic lines of communication.

8Inject some fun and humor into your team culture. One of the things people miss most about the more c asual interactions of an in-person office is the opportunity to have some fun and joke together in between meetings and work at their desks. Consciously find ways to replace this, such as:

• A 5 p.m. “mingle.” Have everyone put aside their work, bring a beverage, and raise a glass to the accomplishments of the week. Some teams enjoy games and activities, so if your team has creative members, let them inject fun into the virtual get-togethers. • Virtual celebrations. If you usually have a cake in the office for birthdays and celebrate other events, be sure to do this virtually. There’s nothing like a group trying to sing “Happy

Birthday” virtually to bring a smile to the team. • Chat channels with appropriate humor. Set up an all-team chat channel and encourage people to share stories, ideas, jokes—and make sure to participate yourself.

Humor is one of the best ways to manage the stress and make things feel more “normal.”

9Make virtual team meetings work. The first step in making meetings work is to make sure you don’t have too many. Review and declutter the meeting calendar. This is very important when working virtually because of the demands and fatigue that come along with it. Make sure every meeting has a purpose. Audit the calendar and eliminate what is unnecessary. And then employ good meeting management. Have an agenda for every meeting. Ask people to do prework so the time together is productive. Let people out of meetings if they don’t need to be there. That includes you. If you don’t need to be there, delegate and hand it over to the leader on your team who should manage it. Many leaders embrace the “PLAN” rule for team meetings:

Purpose

• Establish a need and clear purpose for the meeting. • St art with the end in mind and determine the desired outcomes.

Logistics

• Consider the right group, the necessary roles to have in the room.

• Leverage the right technology tools to maximize potential engagement.

Approach

• Be purposeful and prioritize options for more efficient decision making. • Clarify roles from the start, including decision making, agenda tracking, participation, notes.

Next steps

• Focus on deliverables, not topics, outlining clear and specific actions and accountability. • Distribute meeting minutes with assigned next steps shortly following the meeting.

MANAGE YOURSELF, WHILE MANAGING YOUR VIRTUAL TEAM

Managing a virtual team, or a virtual organization, will take a toll on you. Take care of yourself. Manage your time, energy, and emotional well-being for the long haul to protect yourself from the mental and physical stress. A few do’s and don’ts that you may work valuable: Do balance your own time at home. Remote work can take over life if you don’t set boundaries. Keep a schedule that includes time for family, exercise, meals together, virtual chats with friends, and personal time. Don’t try to replicate your in-office meeting schedule and cadence remotely. Longer meetings can work fine in an in-person setting. In a virtual environment, fatigue sets in after a few hours, and often even sooner if the calendar is filled with meetings. Do close your virtual door occasionally. As you work to keep the lines of communication open for informal talks, balance this with time for yourself, just to think. Block this time on your calendar as an appointment so people k now when you can be reached. If you do this, you’ll model it for your team and help them maintain a healthy b alance too.

Don’t waste time worrying about how much people are working. Now is the time to trust in the team and focus on outcomes. It can be hard to shift the mindset away from needing to see people working to believe they are, but there is no more important shift in leading a successful virtual team. You will be surprised at how well people rise to the occasion, and how much they care about the success of the company. V irtual work is here to stay. It is no longer just a matter of convenience, work-life balance, or cost mitigation. It is a requirement now and in the future. You have the power as the leader of your virtual team to make virtual work better than ever. What has accelerated in these unprecedented times can be a fantastic opportunity to become a highperforming team in any environment. What you learn from this experience will make you better now and in the future. AQ

Suzanne Bates is CEO of Bates, a global consulting firm that helps organizations improve performance through communicative leadership.

Build new skills anytime, anywhere with AMA’s

4 Self-paced 24/7 access, instant feedback 4 Fully scalable training 4 CEU credits eligibility

AMA OnDemand is the only on demand learning that’s backed by AMA’s proven track record of top-quality, effective training.

LEARN MORE Visit www.mce.eu/ondemand/ +32 2 543 2120

LEADING REMOTE TEAMS

BY RANDY MOON

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrust many leaders into the unexpected and unprecedented role of managing their teams remotely for the first time.

Employees accustomed to seeing each other and their managers every day at work have been relegated to conducting business and interacting with each other via the computer and telephone. This distributed workforce raises new leadership issues for organizations. Some leaders are more prepared than others for this new environment. And even while most organizations were caught off guard and possibly unprepared, leaders have been expected to project confidence, set the proper t one, and clearly communicate expectations to the members of their teams.

There is a lot of discussion right now about the use of today’s amazing technology tools in managing remote teams. These tools help connect employees, teams, and their leaders in ways that were unthinkable just a few years ago. But the tools are just a means to help get the work done. Employees working remotely still need guidance, development, and encouragement from their leaders for the organization to progress toward achieving its goals. As businesses and offices reopen, the work environment may be unrecognizable. Many employees will have remote working skills they did not have before the shutdown. That creates an opportunity for leaders to restructure the way their organizations operate. They can take advantage of these new or enhanced skills and incorporate more staffing flexibility through the use of remote teams. To adapt, leaders can learn not only from their recent experience with individuals working from home but also from global companies and other organizations that have operated with distributed workers for many years. Regardless of whether a workforce is distributed, each employee in an organization has unique capabilities and personal career goals. It is up to the organizations’ leaders to cultivate those capabilities and encourage those goals. Through engagement and dialogue, effective leaders foster a connection with the people in their organizations and fulfill their employees’ desire to grow.

LEADERS HIRE THE RIGHT PEOPLE

When putting together a team to work remotely, a leader should seek to hire those with the potential to work independently yet participate as members of coordinated teams. Successful employees in these roles tend to be hardworking, self-motivated, and disciplined. They must be willing to take initiative yet operate consistently in concert with their colleagues toward achieving the company’s goals. The talent pool for hiring remote workers is much deeper than for a localized team. Since remote team members can work essentially from anywhere, employers can hire a nyone living anywhere.

LEADERS LISTEN

Leaders of a distributed workforce need to ask questions, seek input, and listen intently. Genuine listening is especially important in an environment where the relationship with remote team members is maintained primarily through a technology medium—be it a telephone or a video feed. Sometimes those interactions will be one-on-one by telephone, and at other times there may be a team meeting held on a videoconferencing platform like Zoom. Like all ambitious employees, remote workers want to be recognized and have opportunities to develop their skills and grow in their organizations. By engaging individual team members in dialogue about the training, knowledge, a nd skills they need to develop to fulfill their career goals, a leader can create an environment that allows each i ndividual to thrive.

Remote teams will likely have a very different working dynamic than localized teams. Individuals participating on remote teams may not be in the same time zones, may n ot live in the same countries, and may speak different primary languages. Leaders must be mindful of those differences and respect diverse cultures attendant with the team members’ locations and backgrounds. Leaders n eed not micromanage or be directive, but instead should listen and probe for the meaning of what is being said— and not said.

LEADERS COMMUNICATE

The leader of a remote team should establish a clear and defined communication infrastructure with the team. Protocols should be established as to the appropriate modes of communication for different situations. Examples of such protocols are “Regularly scheduled team meetings will be held by video,” “Matters that can be addressed within a day or so can be emailed,” and “Informal matters can be discussed on chat and urgent matters should be handled by telephone.”

“Remote team members can feel like they are on their own in figuring out where they fit in an organization. By providing feedback and coaching individuals, effective leaders give them a framework for development and understanding their role in generating results.”

Frequent communication is essential for remote teams. Leaders of these teams need to be thoughtfully prepared for these meetings because there is no chance for hallway follow-up. The communication can take place between the leader and the team, the leader and an individual team member, and among team members. Keep in mind that, just like employees who show up for work at the office every day, remote employees want to know what’s going on in the organization. Keeping them informed is a key function of the leader. It is very easy for a remote team member to feel out of touch, isolated, and even forgotten without regular interaction with the leader. It should be remembered that almost by definition, remote employees can be very transient if they don’t feel a connection with the organization. This connection will only occur with the active participation of the leader and members of the team.

Feedback from leaders is an important type of communication for remote team members. Through periodic feedback, a leader can support individuals to actively manage their careers and generate results for the organization. Leaders in many traditional companies provide formal annual reviews in which the individual is given feedback with respect to attainment of the goals set the year before. That is certainly insufficient when leading remote teams. Leaders should provide continuous feedback to members of these teams. Effective leaders regularly monitor individuals’ progress, listen to their input and ideas, and then provide timely, constructive, and actionable feedback.

LEADERS COACH

Remote team members can feel like they are on their own in figuring out where they fit in an organization. By providing feedback and coaching individuals, effective leaders give them a framework for development and understanding their role in generating results. For instance, an individual may discuss with his or her leader a need for guidance in how to establish broader networks inside the organization and learn more about the enterprise. Leaders can facilitate and encourage this by providing opportunities for the remote team member to participate with colleagues on some key initiatives outside his or her normal areas of engagement. Co aching can be the key to developing healthy working relationships, because the idea of surfacing and addressing issues and solving problems is central to coaching. This in turn will remove obstacles to getting business results. Co aching can also help individuals align their behaviors with the values and vision of the organization. By helping people understand how they are perceived in the organization and

“Coaching can be the key to developing healthy working relationships.”

among their team and listening to their concerns, coaching can foster trust between leaders and employees.

LEADERS EMPOWER

Leaders of remote teams must set realistic expectations of desired results, with clear guidance and appropriate resources, and then, to the extent possible, get out of the way and let the team handle the process of how to achieve those results. For this to occur, there must be an open, trusting environment to communicate and share information. First, the leader must provide team members with the information and instruction they need to understand their tasks, roles, and functions within the organization. Empowering these individuals then requires the leader to give them the opportunity to apply their training and capabilities to business problems and opportunities. The leader must let go of control that is not necessary and empower remote t eam members to make decisions.

That can be easier said than done. For employees to feel empowered, they must have confidence that they can make decisions with their leaders’ support. They must have the tools and knowledge they need to act upon those decisions. They must feel safe in their jobs. The leader does not just abdicate responsibility to the team. Instead, it’s necessary to have a constant dialogue among the leader, team members, and others in the organization. But this scenario illustrates the difference between being a leader and being a manager. A manager would focus on the business and the necessary results. A leader focuses on growing people not just for the short-term results but also the longer-term benefits for the company and the employees. When employees are allowed to return to their offices or places of work as restrictions associated with the pandemic are lifted or relaxed, it is likely they may return to work environments that do not resemble the ones they left. Social distancing guidelines may dictate that only a portion of a company’s workforce return to an office setting while the rest continue to work remotely. But many businesses are probably better equipped now to have employees and teams work remotely than they were before. Some that have not encouraged remote teams in the past may do so. Leaders of these teams need to keep in mind that remote teams are comprised of individuals who, like their colleagues who show up for work in the office every day, will be most successful if they are treated with respect and provided opportunities to grow and develop. AQ

Randy Moon is the managing director of BRG’s Washington, DC, office and a respected professional with 30 years of experience as a human resources executive, advisor, and attorney.

ENGAGING (SUDDENLY) Remote Teams Virtually

BY NIKKI EVANS AND HUGH MASSIE

In the midst of the unexpected and unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, most organizations have found themselves managing at least part of their workforce through a sudden shift to working from home.

For many employers and employees, the work-from-home (WFH) experience is new. There was insufficient time to train managers about the adaptations necessary to make this kind of environment successful. What should managers and leaders do to help team members succeed when everyone is in a different location?

COMMUNICATION MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER

You will be relying on communication, both to ensure your team is working on the right priorities and to understand what support they need from you. As a leader, you will need to communicate more often than you may think necessary and repeat your message more than feels comfortable. Saying something once when it comes to key directives and changes is not going to be sufficient to ensure everyone understands you. People process information differently, and because you are the one communicating, you’ve had some time to process the information you are sharing and understand the context for your communication. Remember that your team doesn’t have the same benefit as you in seeing the context of what you are trying to tell them. Some team members are going to need more time to process new information than others. Some are going to need more one-on-one contact than others. Work to communicate the important things multiple times and in the way that is easiest for each team member to hear and understand.

REMEMBER TO PAUSE AND UNDERSTAND

Start by knowing your people and the way they innately best receive information, and make the effort to ensure effective individual communication. If you don’t know them, get to know them. This may seem like a ridiculous investment of time during a crisis, but just knowing if your people tend to be more results or relationally focused, and whether they tend to move at a faster or more careful pace, can give you all the information you need to adjust to their needs and support getting the best results from each team member. You can figure out these things about your co-workers in a few ways. One is to ask them—most people will have a sense of themselves and the way they prefer to work. You can also observe the behavior of your team members. Do they speak up quickly and talk through thoughts aloud? These members are probably faster paced. Do they need time to think, prefer to have an agenda, and hate to be put on the spot? They are probably your more careful team members. How do conversations go with team members? Do they get straight to the topic of the meeting? These may be your results-focused team members. Do they prefer to talk about more personal things to start or finish a meeting? Do they like to know who’s going to be involved in what you are planning? They may be your more relational team members.

USING BEHAVIORAL INSIGHTS TO TAILOR COMMUNICATION

Results-oriented team members need a clear goal and mission, the information to move toward that goal, and the freedom to make progress. They tend to be logical and visionary and determined. They like to see accomplishments and get a sense of satisfaction at seeing a job completed or turned over to someone else to fully finish off as they move to the next project. More relational team members need a sense of community and belonging and to see how they fit in the group. They tend to be collaborative, amiable, and engaging. They like to see what others are doing and get satisfaction from contributing to a group and being part of a community. Under stress, which we may all be experiencing in some form or another, these behavioral patterns are even more difficult to change without intentional effort. Fears emerge and people have fewer cues like body language, proximity, informal or impromptu chats, and social invitations to use to combat ideating on worst-case scenarios. Results-focused and faster-paced team members may fear losing control—finding it hard to trust that good work is being done from home. They fear a lack of authority to drive results and will resist being too confined to a set routine. These results-focused and more careful team members fear appearing incompetent to others, lacking time to prepare or being rushed to make a decision, or being left out of decision making. So you may see those fears emerge.

“While you may all have a common goal, the approaches to reaching the goal may be quite different, and the support your team needs from you to reach that goal will look different for each of them. It means that, with a bit of intention, you can make each team member feel heard, supported, and engaged, even while everyone is working remotely.”

Faster-paced relational team members fear public failure or being taken advantage of, and these behaviors can emerge under stress conditions. They may be feeling excluded or anxious about unresolved conflict. For your more careful relational team members, stress brings a fear of instability when facing sudden surprises or constant change in routine and responsibility. They also may shut down if they feel a lack of cooperation or are pressed to come to decision before processing both thoughts and feelings. This means your team members will experience the current situation, current goals, and current agendas in potentially very different ways. While you may all have a common goal, the approaches to reaching the goal may be quite different, and the support your team needs from you to reach that goal will look different for each of them. This doesn’t have to be bad news. It means that, with a bit of intention, you can make each team member feel heard, supported, and engaged, even while everyone is working remotely.

START WITH YOUR “UNIQUE,” UNDERSTAND THEIR UNIQUE

As a manager who wants to get the best from her team, you can start by knowing your own preferences. This will help you in a few ways. First, you will understand your own needs and how to ask for what you need when you are in stress mode. In addition, knowing your starting point will give you an idea of how much effort and intention you need when adjusting to meet the needs of your team. If you are fast-paced and results-driven and you are managing a more careful relational team member, you will need to be very intentional about slowing your pace, spending time checking in on the personal with your team member, and helping him or her feel safe and supported before driving toward the result you want to see. You can do this successfully, but it will take intention and effort to do so. Consider it the path to getting your result. On the other hand, if you are working with someone who is also resultsfo cused and fast-paced, you won’t have to adjust much at all to convey the same goal or information. If y ou tend to move quickly and are more relational, and you need to work with a team member who is more ca reful and results-focused, you will again need significant intention and effort to match that style of communication. You will need to slow your pace down, give the person time to think through answers, and be prepared to provide details or to review information in detail. This will likely feel extremely uncomfortable, as it doesn’t feel fast enough or is too “in the weeds,” but your careful, results-focused team member will appreciate it and feel supported and understood.

PRACTICING WHAT WE PREACH

In our organization, we do more one-on-one calls than we used to. Our leaders reach out to each team member e very day or every few days, depending on the team members’ needs. These conversations range from just checking in on how people are feeling and what they are struggling with to getting more specificity on the planning or delivery of projects. Our leadership team meets every morning for 15 minutes. This allows us to check in on each other, provide updates on our team’s projects, and ask for help where we need it. In addition, during this pandemic, we have added sharing something we are grateful for. This simple addition has increased our connection with one another tremendously and is now one of the things many team members look forward to the most about our daily check-ins. We have also leveraged video calling much more than in the past. We find it helpful to see each other as we conduct our regular meetings. Occasionally, we will ask on these calls that everyone share something from the space they are working in—like the time everyone introduced dogs or children to the team. This show-and-tell was another fun way to connect. A virtual coffee break or happy hour could serve the same purpose in keeping team members connected and creating a shared experience for the team.

We have also leveraged chat capability and are using that with each other more. We had that capability in the past, but we standardized on a platform and have really encouraged real-time sharing. We have again seen that our team feels more connected, gets answers faster, and can have “hallway” conversations even with everyone being remote. We find that this unscheduled way of connecting is an excellent addition to the more formal remote work processes we have, such as our daily check-in meetings. While the work may need to get done and the circumstances and priorities may have changed, you need to communicate those changes to your team in a way they can connect with and that makes them feel understood and supported. Doing so can be the difference between teams that come out of the situation stronger and more connected and those that have to reestablish trust and norms for work when they return to an in-person office or hybrid environment. AQ

Nikki Evans is chief learning officer for DNA Behavior International. She leads training programs, team events and workshops designed to guide people to achieve greater self-empowerment, make Behaviorally SMART decisions and accelerate their performance. Hugh Massie, a global pioneer in human performance acceleration through the practical application of validated behavioral insights, is CEO and founder, DNA Behavior. He is co-author of Leadership Behavior DNA: Discovering Natural Talents and Managing Differences (Freedomstar Media, January 2020), with Lee Ellis.