#49 Teaming at a Distance

You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you'll get practical tools and insights for leading, managing, and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. My guest today is Kevin Eikenberry, co-author with Wayne Turmel of The Long Distance Leader and their new book, The Long Distance Teammate. Kevin is also the founder and Chief Potential Officer of the Kevin Eikenberry Group, whose mission is to help clients see the world differently, lead more confidently, make a bigger difference for those they lead, and to realize the vast potential in themselves and others. Welcome to the show, Kevin.

That's us. I'm glad to be here.

That's a pretty great mission. So I love that after all these years of knowing each other, we finally get to have a chat about this new book of yours. It's very exciting.

I'm happy to be here and, and glad for us to have this conversation. It's an important conversation for the world. I mean, I know every, every author— I was on my podcast, I was recording an episode for the guy yesterday, and he said, you know, I really believe our book is going to make a difference in the world. And he said, I suppose every author feels that way. And yes, I think any author worth their salt that writes nonfiction, hopefully they feel that way.

Absolutely.

And I definitely think this is the case here, that this book is, is something that People need right now, and we're super excited to share it with them.

I absolutely agree, which is why I asked you to do this. It's just so timely, and I feel like your insights are going to be really valuable to our listeners, the vast majority of whom I have to believe have spent at least part of this year and are still spending their— a lot of their time working at least partly remotely. So let's—

Well, you know, and there's an important point there, right? So let me just make a point that, you know, You mentioned you wrote a book called The Long Distance Leader, and now you wrote a book called The Long Distance Teammate. But for most everyone listening, you're leaders and you're teammates. So—

Yeah.

I'm not just saying this because I want you all to buy a book, even though I want you all to buy a book. I'm saying this because as a leader, you wear multiple hats. You wear your leader hat, of course, but you also wear a teammate hat. And so not only have you been leading remotely, you've been working remotely, most of you.

Yeah.

Most of the time or some of the time, to your point, Erika. And so I think it's important, you know, I think during this conversation, I would guess that I want you to have your leader hat on, but I also want you to have your teammate hat on because you're likely on at least 2 teams. The team that you lead, remember, you're a member of that team, right? As well as the team of your peers, probably more than that, but at least those 2 for sure.

Okay, that's— that I love that context setting. So given that, what do you think are some of the key elements of being a successful team member when you're working at a distance from your teammates?

So I'm going to start with what I think is the biggest idea of the book, which I think is an important part of that. And that is that there's 3 ways we can look at our work today. We can say, I'm working from home. We can say, I'm a member of a remote team. Or we can say and think, I'm a remote teammate. And we believe that they're very different. Those 3 things are very different.

Yeah.

And not everyone works from home, but hang with me. If you see yourself as I'm doing my work apart from everybody else, I'm working from home, That leads to a more insular, personal siloed, very individual contributor focus. And all of us, Erika, are on teams. Like I say, I'm a member of this team and that's fine. And I would say that's better than saying I'm working from home, but it's not the same—

Exactly.

As being a teammate and seeing yourself as a teammate. So I think a critical element to being an effective long-distance teammate is to realize that you are a teammate and that you feel a sense of connection and engagement and responsibility to those that you work with.

Okay. So that for you, that, I mean, words are so powerful. We know this as authors. So for you having that mindset of teammate, that immediately connotes connection, interdependence, mutual responsibility, mutual benefit, all those kinds of things.

Yeah. And we believe so. I mean, we consciously picked that word and for those reasons, because even if you don't want to call yourself a teammate, those are the ways we believe you need to be thinking if you ultimately want to be successful. And yeah, I mean, that, that I believe is critical.

What do you think are the biggest pitfalls of this way of working, which now so many people are in, which I think even post-pandemic, More and more people are going to be, you know, remote teammates. So what are some of the ways that organizations can get in the way of successful long-distance teaming? And individuals too, but primarily organizations. What are some of the bad things organizations do?

We don't have long enough for all of that. So let's start here. When we're working remotely or apart from each other, Our work becomes extraordinarily transactional, right?

Yeah.

Pick up the phone and call you and say, hey, Erika, have you got a minute? I know you're busy. I just need a second. Ask my question, get an answer. Thank you. Next transaction. And it may not be— it may not be on the phone. It may be an instant message. It may be whatever. The point is, work becomes— is becoming, has become, will become more transactional. And so one of the pitfalls is that we end up being a transactional organization, which is contrary to us being a true team. So we've got to remain and keep the interactional component. So while people are having more and more meetings, every group I talk to around the world, I ask them, are you having more meetings now or less? Almost every person says the same or more.

Right.

And so they're having more meetings, but they're all transactional. And people have done one of two things. They've either forgotten that they need to still really connect, or they don't know how to do it virtually.

Right.

So meetings become all transactional. So either they've— or they just lament, well, it's not possible because we can't see each other. Well, that's a bunch of poppycock, right? Is it the same? No. Can we connect? And will it ever be exactly the same? No. But can we have deep connection? Yes, but we have to, we have to, we have to prioritize the interaction.

Yes.

As a leader, as a leader, we have to say, if I want to connect, if you report to me, if I'm your leader and we're going to have our one-on-one, I've got to start with the non-work. I've got to start understanding where you're at. I got to start with knowing how your kids are doing in school, even though they're down the hall. Because if I don't start there, we won't get there.

Yes.

Work will just overtake.

That's good. And the other thing that I suspect goes by the wayside is the kind of nonlinear communication that results in innovation and creativity, right? So both human connection and trust, but like, hey, let's just, let's just throw this around for a while and see what we ought to do about it. Problem solving, creativity, innovation, that, that doesn't happen if all your conversations are purely transactional as well.

Well, there's a couple of things. I mean, we say that you don't have the— there's not the incidental and accidental communication.

Yeah.

Which is part of what you're saying. But then the other thing is, again, well, we just don't think that we can, you know, well, we can't collaborate the same way we used to because we don't have a whiteboard. Well, you've got a whiteboard on every web platform.

Exactly.

And even if you don't want to use or know how to use the whiteboard function, you know how to share a screen, surely. If you haven't figured out how to share a screen in your web platform yet, You need to do something besides just watch this podcast, listen to this podcast.

Yeah.

So, yeah, but open it, open it up, let everyone collaborate on it and go like, yeah, yeah, yeah, this can all still happen. It's largely—

Yeah.

An excuse or naivete to say that we can't. Now, are there some organizations that have had some problems? Of course. And is it exactly the same? No, we have to understand those nuances. But we as leaders then need to Provide space, right? We never thought about, well, you know, it's OK if you walk into someone's office and write on the whiteboard. We didn't think we had to. We never, you know, we never sort of gave people permission for that. But now we may need to give them permission. Hey, you know, in the old days, you know, before we started, I said, hey, can I go get some tea? And I went and got my tea. Right. And if we had— if I had people in this office and I went and got my tea, what would I likely do? I would stop and say hello to someone as I'm holding on to my tea.

Exactly.

We're not doing that now. But what's to say, why can't you go on to your instant messaging tool in your general channel or whatever you call it and say, hey, anyone got 5 minutes to just connect while we drink our coffee? That's no different than what we did before. In fact, you could argue it's better because the person who's also ready can raise their hand as opposed to the person you happen to walk by their cubicle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But see, if we don't, if we as leaders don't model that and offer that, it likely won't happen because people think they're not supposed to.

I think that's right. I think that's exactly right. And I really agree with what you said about starting the conversation. There's a woman on our team who is my sales sidekick. She, the way we have customer experience people who support us all the way through, you know, working with our sales funnel with us and then supporting the delivery of whatever service we're doing. She's wonderful. Her name's Caitlin. And we have weekly sales pipeline calls. And at the beginning, I've gotten into the habit every time of saying, so how are you doing? Not in the way of just fine, thanks, let's go on. But really, you know, talk to me. Are you okay?

Really helpful.

You know, I know that so-and-so that you know got a COVID diagnosis. What's happening? Are you feeling overwhelmed? What are you doing over the vacation? just to make that connection. So I really agree with you that 3-dimensionalizes the relationship.

Not the throwaway, how are you doing? The real, no, really, how are you doing? What's going on? How are you feeling? I wrote several months ago, Erika, that leaders are living in the age of empathy. And that while our need to be empathetic has always been there, For some leaders, it's actually become obvious to us now, right? And so many, not all, are actually— and hopefully some of you that are listening are doing this better— but we need to be empathetic. Do you know where your team members really are? Do you know how they're feeling? Are they feeling more isolated than ever? And that's a whole conversation we could have about isolation and loneliness.

Yeah, yeah.

But we, but we need to be more empathetic because they're remote and we don't see them as often, no incidental and accidental conversations, but also because of what I call the COVID layer, right? Like we got 2 things going on here. We've got the, we're working from home, that's new, and we're doing it during a pandemic and they're separate.

Yes.

They're connected, of course, but they're separate. And I try to always keep in my mind as a leader and as a coach that I want to dive into what's going on, but I want to, I want to dip my toes into the COVID layer as appropriate based on that, my relationship with that person, my trust with them, etc., etc.

Yeah, absolutely. Because that puts many layers on top of, you know, family and children at home and all that. Yeah. So you've been answering what was going to be my third question, which is, you know, practical takeaways. I know that's how your brain works.

Sorry.

Is there anything else, though? No, it's wonderful. Is there anything else, though, that you'd want to let our listeners know? Just how can we do this better? You know, just some practical day-to-day things that we can do to make ourselves better long-distance teammates and leaders.

I'm going to— I think I'm going to talk about meetings. For a second.

Oh, great. Yeah.

So first of all, you'll notice that I'm talking a lot about how to translate what we used to do to what we're doing now, because we all worked a lot longer the other way than we've worked now. And even though not everything we did before worked, we can take some clues. So let me give you a couple of thoughts. One, in the old days when we had face-to-face meetings, people showed up in the conference room when they showed up and some people got there 3 minutes before, 5 minutes before. And what happened? People chatted.

Yeah.

You say that longingly, like, yeah, we did.

Yeah.

But now what happens is the Zoom meeting opens or whatever, Teams, whatever you're in, and everyone files in and we start and the leader starts the meeting and the leader is most likely one to be late. And so now you're like, oh, we got to get started. And then we dive in and all of that connection time that we didn't even think about before, lost.

Yeah.

And so let anyone open the room, encourage the room to be open 5 minutes before, open it and then go get your tea, whatever. And because it will still— and you got people to turn on their cameras, please. And it will— they will naturally do that.

Yeah.

And while I'm a big believer in starting meetings on time, in the last several months, Erika, there have been more than once when I got there as the leader And that was happening and I waited a couple more minutes because I can't get that back.

Yeah, yeah.

I—

that really, when you said that, Kevin, I realized that I've been just naturally, I guess because of how I'm wired, when I'm facilitating a session, I'm almost always the first person to show up because I come, you know, 10 or 15 minutes ahead to make sure I got my thing all blah, blah, blah. And then the first person shows up and I just start talking to them. If I know them, great. If I don't know them, and then the next person shows up, hey, we were just talking about this. And so by the time everybody shows up, it feels so yummy. I mean, it's really a nice vibe, you know.

That is critical. You have started to create— I do the same thing, and, and in all of our trainers, we have gotten that feedback over and over this year. We love how you start. You just start talking to people. You've gotten them used to interacting before the meeting actually starts. And it's critical. So I would say that's one thing that you can do. Another thing about your meetings is encourage people to participate.

Hmm. Right?

Because again, meetings were often too much one way before. They're too often becoming even more so now.

Yeah.

And, and the third thing I'll say— well, I'll say one more thing about meetings first. Recently, I was having a conversation with someone And I said, you know, this should be the new meeting metric. And she leaned in and said, what? I said, laughs per meeting.

Hmm. Yeah.

Laughs per meeting.

Yes.

If we don't have any laughs or you don't like that ratio, you need to get serious about having more laughter. And I'm not saying we're not doing serious work. I'm not saying it should all be frivolity. I'm saying we need to still be human. And yes. When we're in, in groups, 3, 4, 5, 8, 12 meetings, in other words, is one of those times when we need to create that social connection. You know, the whole phrase we all learned in February of social distancing is just ridiculous. I mean, I know we need to be different, need to be apart, but it's physical distancing and it's social connection.

Yeah.

So find ways to create social connection. And early on in this Pandemic thing, Erika, there were all these blog posts and all of these things about here are the opening questions to ask and here are the ways to have a virtual happy hour. And I'm not saying any of those things shouldn't happen. They're all good. But just lead your meetings in a way that allows for natural human connection. And it doesn't necessarily have to be an icebreaker, although there's zero wrong with it, and I've done many of them. Right, right.

It's just about the connection.

As a leader of a long-distance team, as a leader of a remote team, the need for us to be clearer about our expectations is critical because it's not just the expectations of what the work output is or what the work is, but also how we're doing it. And so I would encourage you as leaders to To— if you're sensing frustrations in the team, or if you're frustrated with anything, go back to the basics, which is what are you expecting? What are your expectations here? And get that out for the team and with individuals, and that'll make a huge difference for everybody moving forward.

That's great. That's great. And I completely agree. It's so important because to your earlier point, when you're working in the same place, you don't even realize how you reinforce those expectations. You know, you just walk into somebody's office and say, hey, did you do that? And you don't have those opportunities when you're working at a distance. So that's great. Oh my gosh, talk about real-time benefit. This is super helpful. And listeners, if you're interested in finding out more or getting yourself a copy of Kevin and Wayne's new book, The Long Distance Teammate, just go to longdistanceteammate.com. And to find out more—

All the details, all the bonuses when you order a copy now, all the good stuff.

All the good stuff. And to find out more about the elements of a great team and how to build it under any circumstances, you can just go to ProteusLeader.com, click on Topics, and choose High Performance Teams. So thank you, Kevin. This is so great.

So glad to be with you.

Always a pleasure. And thank you for listening. And until next time, here's to creating the life you truly want.

We hope you're feeling better equipped to create the career, the business, and the life you want. For more insights and Tools for leadership and management, join us at theproteusleader.com. Have an excellent day. And thanks for listening.