In this 30‑minute town‑hall, Laura Goodrich welcomes remote leaders to a recurring Friday series focused on navigating the disruptive shift to fully remote work caused by the COVID‑19 crisis. She opens by introducing interactive tools (Zoom, Slido) for real‑time polling and Q&A, then shares her personal journey—from a 1994 research project on emerging technology to two decades of coaching change‑focused leaders, crisis‑counseling for over 250 individuals, and two decades of virtual facilitation. Goodrich frames remote leadership as more than managing a team or steering through a crisis; it is about leading a business through unprecedented change, which demands new skills, habits, and rituals. She categorises leaders (and employees) into three archetypes—Ambassador (20 % – innovative early adopters), Neutral (50 % – task‑oriented, ambivalent), and Detractor (30 % – resistant, critical)—and stresses the need to identify and empower ambassadors while strategically engaging neutrals and managing detractors. The session then pivots to concrete challenges: varied family dynamics, shift work, limited home office space, and emotional strain, illustrating how leaders must understand individual circumstances to maintain business continuity. Goodrich demonstrates practical engagement tactics, such as using Zoom breakout rooms for project‑focused conversations, establishing regular routines, habits, and rituals, and leveraging Slido polls to gauge team sentiment. She invites participants to vote on which lens (self, individual, team) matters most for developing routines, habits, and rituals, and emphasizes the importance of ongoing dialogue before, during, and after meetings. The talk concludes with a call for ambassadors to model resourcefulness, adopt new tools, and foster connection, while reminding attendees to share challenges via a permanent Slido channel (meeting 9817) and to reflect on personal rituals for well‑being. The overall message is that effective remote leadership requires a blend of human‑focused engagement and business‑continuity planning, supported by intentional habits, technology, and a community of like‑minded leaders.
Chapters
Have that. You know, definitely we'll have a small group today. I'm happy that you're here. We'll, you know, we'll be posting this and recording and cutting in pieces, so all kinds of things that we'll be using it for. Excellent. I'm glad, I'm glad that you're— that you are here. How's your week been? It's actually been really, really good. I feel like I'm, you know, we're just kind of getting into the new pattern, really the new groove. And now that I'm, you know, worked out my workout routine, I'm a lot easier to live with. Fantastic. Fantastic. All right. Well, one of the things that you can do before we get going here is you can go ahead and just take a picture with that, the code on the bottom of the slide. You're seeing the slide right now. Yes. And that will bring you into Slido, and I'm going to run a couple polls in our time together, so that will take you right in there if you just take a picture of it. Otherwise, you can go to slido.com in any web browser on your phone and get into the meeting. So I'll use the tools, you know, both the Zoom tools and Slido tools and other ones as we move forward. Anyway, all right, here we are at the top of the hour. Welcome everyone who has joined in, who has called in, who will view our town hall going forward from our website or wherever we share it. You are welcome here, and I'm so happy and grateful that you are here. Welcome to Remote Leadership. We are going to be having these short conversations conversations over the course of time on Fridays, and we're going to talk about the challenges that you are facing and those around you are facing in your remote leadership role. So I think it's important. We all know that we're in this place of leading from afar, and one of the things that really motivated us to focus in this area was the notion that working remotely is exactly the same As, you know, as working when we're actually in the same physical proximity with one another. And there are a lot of missing pieces with this, and there are tools that are available today that will make those connections easier, but we have to really think about them. All right, so I'm going to— and I'm going to advance our slides here if they just like— there we go. So As we all know that these really are extreme times and teams around the globe are being placed in new and uncertain environments, and it's really much more than just managing a team. It's much more than leading through crisis. It is really helping run business and bring our organizations in entirely new directions. We are, you know, quite convinced that business as usual, business as it used to be, will no longer be, and we're all going to be in a position where we need not only to lead differently, but likely to learn new skills, likely to really operate differently. So I'd like to indicate that we'll be using a couple of tools here in our time together. I'm going to come back here. This one is, as you know, on the lower right of the slide is Slido, and that is a tool that I use a lot in creating engagement with groups. It's a wonderful tool. You can go ahead and just take a picture of that with your camera. On your phone and it'll take you right into this specific conversation that we're having. We can also, you can pose your thoughts and ideas in chat, so go ahead and type in chat and just to get comfortable with that, this is another way that you can create engagement and understanding with your teams and that you can continue to have conversations with them In your meetings and get some really important information along the way. All right, so let's take a look at what brought me here and why I am so incredibly passionate about this work. I'm going to take you way back in time to 1994. There was a 4-part Sunday series that was in the newspaper, and it had like, you know, 50,000 words. It was like a book. It was a, it was a piece of work that was researched by my now friend Peter Leiden over the course of a year. And it described life as we live it before the crisis. It described the technologies that we utilized, the way that we were able to commute, communicate with people around the world fluidly and easily. And it described those things when the internet was in its infancy and phones were like a brick, literally just looked like a brick. That article and that piece was really compelling to me. I actually bought 25 copies of it. I gave it to everyone that was interested, and frankly, a lot of people were not terribly interested in it at the time. But I have always been passionate about paying attention to where and how the marketplace is changing, emerging technologies, you know, this global connectedness that has been enabled by technologies, how are things shifting and changing with demographics, and then also really looking at both consumer behavior. When we look at consumer behavior, the question that we're asking is how will this make its way into workplace behavior, because that's a really important part of our work. So back in 1994, I began focusing my work, my coaching, my facilitation, the sessions, everything that I have done in that time has been focused on supporting leaders that are charged with leading change. And that is where it all started. So here we are encountering a lot of change, remote leadership. And one of the things, as I mentioned, that I found that is of concern as we move forward is there's this notion that when we run meetings and when we lead a team, that it's just the same as it was when we were actually working together, and it Couldn't be further from the truth. So this is more than just leading a remote team. It's more than leading a remote team through crisis. It's really about leading a team effectively through this disruptive shift, and it will require entirely new skills. And every week we're going to talk about some of those skills. We're going to— we'll look at that from several perspectives. But I think the question that we always want to ask in these moments is this. Why? Why are we doing this? Well, we believe that really emerging on the winning side of the type of change that we are, you know, that is on the horizon that we are dealing with will absolutely require a new set of leadership skills. So we have to be willing and open to sort of let those long-established intuitions go and develop new skills. So I'm going to give you a sense of my experience and what makes this really important conversation, you know, to consider me as your guide and partner along the way. I have served as a coach and advisor to leaders leading significant change for 2 and a half decades. And let me be quick to say, I mean, this is the most significant change. But one of the things that people often say to me and us when we are working with these leaders is that they're surprised by certain behavior. There's certain behavior that surprises them, and a lot of those things that they identify don't surprise us because they, they are things that we come to see quite often. So those are some of the things that I'll share in the remote leadership conversations. Next, a couple of years ago, I began to volunteer as a crisis counselor, and over the course of a couple of years I've worked with over 250 individuals facing significant crisis, and this is a really interesting observation to share, is when I began doing that work, there was a distinct delineation between my work working with leaders that are leading change and individuals facing crisis. But interestingly enough, as time went on, I began to see that that wide difference, that chasm that existed between those conversations became more narrow and more narrow. And so this is where that experience of having worked as a crisis counselor is really critical because we will be facing those kinds of things together. Very, very difficult challenges in going forward. And then last but not least, I am a virtual pioneer. I think an easy way to describe that would be, you know, I'm a tech nerd. But I have leaned on technology. I have done virtual sessions for literally 20 years, and thank goodness the technology has advanced and improved in that time. But there are a lot of lessons that I've learned, a lot of things to really bring into consideration when you are engaging, you know, a team as a group, whether it's small groups or one-on-one sessions. There are a lot of considerations, and a lot of the considerations that I will share will be lessons Lessons learned. Lessons that I have learned over the course of time, some really hard things. So simple things like today, I always have a backup source. If something were to happen, I have a backup. Some of the things that we need to be thinking about from the standpoint of virtual is what is the state of our Wi-Fi? Do we need to make improvements on that? How do we ensure that that's working at its best? Everything from another source. Should you have to use another source, or in a conversation like we're having here on Zoom, be sure that you have your dial-in numbers at the ready because they can be cumbersome and difficult to come across when you really need them. So there are 3— this is a dynamic process here with Remote Leadership. On a weekly basis, we'll be addressing the challenges that you're facing, so I ask that you, you know, share those challenges. As you see, there's a Slido, an ongoing Slido that I have set up for your challenges. That's meeting 9817. That will be ongoing and you can go in as you come across challenges or questions that you have or things that really come up over the course of time. Let's say over the course of the next year, this is where you can share them. And that's where I will be drawing upon those challenges in Slido meeting 9817. So you can just go on to your— any browser on your phone, go to slido.com, put meeting 9817, and as a question or concern or idea comes in, go ahead and put that there. That's the source. That's where I will be tapping into to figure out where we're going next. And then for every meeting, I will set up a Slido session, and I will, as you see to the right, our meeting today is V411. So as I share this with you, begin to think about the communication that you're having with others. Consider where you may want to have a place where people can, you know, identify their concerns, where people can ask challenges, and it's important to note that with Slido, they can indicate their name, so they can come in with their name, or they can also— that can also be anonymous, and that might be really helpful as you're assessing sort of the climate, culture, and, you know, process in your leadership work. All right, one of the things that's really important to note is really who this remote leadership work is targeted toward to begin with as a starting place. And with all of my work and working with leaders that are leading change, one of the first questions I ask them is, who are your ambassador leaders? And we identify the ambassador leaders as the most innovative, forward-leaning leaders, where typically that's 20%. So about 20% of the leaders are really equipped to lead and be much more comfortable in leading the way. And so the question you always want to be asking yourself is, who are our ambassador leaders? Now, one of the things that we believe to be true is that those that will be drawn to this conversation are ambassador leaders. In general, those will be the individuals. So if you're listening to this, it's very likely that you're an ambassador leader. And in all of the projects that we're working on, in the beginning, our starting place is to work with the ambassador leaders, to really empower the ambassador leaders, to tuck them in close, to link arms with them, and to be working together as we move forward. So you've got to know who they are, and there are a lot of ways to do that. You can do that informally, you can do assessments and We can, if you've got questions about that, let us know, assessments to determine who they are, but however you go about that, it's really important to note who are ambassador leaders and to realize that these are the folks that will be most equipped and most comfortable with leading the way forward. Next we have the neutral leaders. The neutral leaders are neither negative nor really positive about change, and they have a tendency to be quite task-oriented. They are quite commonly just that, task-oriented and neutral. They're not quite sure how they fit into the process. They tend to go along with the flow of things, so 50%. Now this is also a really important group for you. You really want to be thinking about those neutral leaders and how do you engage them in dialogue and conversation, create connections and collaboration with your ambassador leaders. Really, really important. You're going to be in a place and it's really necessary to be thinking more strategically and more, you know, that you're really thinking about who you're putting together, how you're putting them together on projects, and really creating the opportunity for influence. You want to be able to create the opportunity for ambassador influence. That's important. Now 30% of leaders, or 30%, I should note that these numbers really play out also with employees. You know, your individual contributors as well. 20% of employees are ambassador employees, 50% are more neutral, very task-oriented, not necessarily, you know, interested in leading the way, and 30% are what we call the detractors. Detractor leaders, detractor employees. The bottom line with the detractors is that they have a tendency to be Henny Penny, the sky is falling. They often are very critical. They're critical of doing things differently. They're critical of anything new. So it's important to recognize that these folks are not going to play a role in moving forward. They may play a critical role in accomplishing the tasks that you have, and that's where you have to ask that question, ongoing question, is that true? Is the role that they're playing, are the tasks that they're completing, are they You know, is that important? And when you weigh out the difference between those tasks and the damage that they may be causing in their negativity that they are bringing to the process. As a leader, these are questions you have to be aware of. Now, when we look at these numbers, we're really looking at interest in innovative solution, creative solution, and actual openness with change. It's important to note that, you know, we can look through the lens of adoption of technology here, and it's quite common that our ambassador leaders are, you know, pretty confident, pretty competent with technology, at least curious and open to it. Neutral leaders tend to be, you know, comfortable, but, you know, not necessarily leading the way with how to leverage and utilize technology. Maybe they wouldn't be the first to stand in line to learn new technology. And the detractors are going to be very critical of innovative tools. They're going to be really quick to talk about, there's no way that we can create connection here virtually, that's impossible, we have to be together. And while it'd be lovely if we could be together, the reality is we can create connection remotely, and it's really important that we do. Alright, so each week with Remote Leadership, we're going to take a look at challenge. We're going to identify a challenge, we're going to sort of work with that, and this week the challenge is, are they working? Some of the individuals that we reached out to and had conversations with, they said the question was coming into play, are they working? I think it's really easy to come up with a quick answer here, I think it's really easy to say 6-point 6 million people applied for unemployment in the very recent past, so we know that there's vulnerability out there, so it's hard to imagine that there are many people that are actually sitting on the couch eating bonbons and watching Netflix all day long. In fact, in many of our conversations, what we're finding is that people want to be a part of the important answers, and what there is more of is that people Maybe there are— there's redundancy, so there's multiple groups trying to solve some of the same challenges. So what I think you'll find in our conversations and in our sharing is that the answers to these questions or these challenges that we're facing, they're not quick and they're not really easy. You as a leader are going to be charged with really understanding the underlying dynamics that may be at play and really bringing those considerations into play when we, when we are looking at are people working. An example of this is that I was a part of a town hall, an organizational town hall. The senior leaders talked about how they're changing and how they're going to be facilitating remote work, and one of the employees stepped forth and said, okay, we've always placed a great deal of emphasis on the core business hours. Here's the bottom line: I have a 1-year-old, my wife is ready to deliver a baby, and I'm trying to work. So we have to get creative here. So it's really important that we understand, understand those underlying forces. So as a leader in a remote environment, it's critical that you understand the dynamics that are at play with each and every one of your team members. Let me share with you just a couple that came up in the last week. A single father of 4 is working remotely while 4 children under the 4th grade are doing their schoolwork remotely. 2 senior leaders with very important projects that they're working on, one of them is an engineer that's working on ventilators, they have a 2 and a 4-year-old that they're working with. Another couple leaders that we talked with are working in shifts, so one of the parents is, is working Working from 6 to 10, and then there's a 10 to 2 shift, a 2 to 6, and an evening shift. So really, they're getting creative in how they are managing this, in the fact that they are also managing their family. There was a lead engineer that lost a family member this week due to the coronavirus, There is another employee that's working in a closet, a small closet, due to the space restrictions that are going on in, in their home. We spoke with an extrovert that is struggling in this remote environment, missing the human interaction, and literally just tearful about how sad this makes him. We had another conversation with an introvert who's actually thriving in this space, but further moving away from the ongoing relationships and dialogue with team members. And then another example, example of a very measured employee who all of a sudden had a huge outburst on a virtual session, a very uncharacteristic outburst. So when we ask the question, when the question is asked, are we, are people working, one of the critical things that we want to bring into play is that— just let Leonardo in, welcome Leonardo. One of the really critical things that we want, need to pay attention to is what are the dynamics that are at play, and I just described to you many of the dynamics. That, you know, that are at play, so we've got to be aware of those. We also need to figure out different ways that we can create engagement with people, and this really takes me back to just a couple weeks ago when I was delivering a virtual session and the host, it was an HR leader host, I went to them and I said, can we use camera? So that I can look at and I can see people and they can see me? And they said no. And I said, can we do some polling to determine what their priorities are? And they said no, we don't do it like that. And I said, is there any way that we can solicit creative ideas from those that are on the call? And they said no. So can we, you know, can we share the takeaways? And once again, they said no. So this really brings me back to one of our biggest motivations for doing and working at this and bringing ambassador leaders in to be a part of this conversation, to find our way together, is to recognize is that there are a lot of tools that you can use today, and there are a lot of ways to create engagement, and it has never ever been more important that we utilize those tools, and those are some of the things that I'm going to share with you. as we, as we go along. All right, so, you know, one of the things that I mentioned before, this is more than remote, being a remote leader, right? This is more than leading a team remotely. It's more than leading a remote team through crisis. It really is about bringing a team through a time of disruptive change, and because of all of these things, this means that the human side Mm-hmm. Of engaging a team and the business continuity side have to be in lockstep. Really critically important that they are in lockstep, and that doesn't mean that you're driving forward with both at the same speed. It means that you're very cognizant of the human side of engaging the team and the business continuity side and the underlying factors that are true for individual team members. So there are a lot of different ways that you're gonna look through this, but one of the things as we are beginning this process of leading remotely is that we really need to look at what are the routines that we as leaders need, what are the habits that we're developing, and what are the rituals that will be critical. Now, my friend Dr. Behice always talks about these 3 things from the perspective of consumer behavior. But like I mentioned, in our work we pay close attention to consumer behavior because, well, it makes its way into the workplace. So here's what I want you to think about here, is there's 3 different lenses to look through. One is your own. What are your own routines? What are your own habits that you want to intentionally develop, and what are your own rituals? On the human side of leading and the business continuity side, so really taking a look at those. The next question is, from the standpoint of each individual team member, how can you be sure that you're engaging them in that dialogue on the human side and the business continuity side both? Now come back to our examples, some of our examples of People that are really struggling, so talking about and really understanding that human side and business continuity side, and then finally we'd look through the lens of the team. How do we establish routines? What habits do we want to establish with the team, and what rituals will we will we utilize with the team? So I want to have you jump over to Slido right now, like to start off with. Take a picture of that with your phone. That'll bring you to the our conversation. Our Slido conversation from today, or you can go to slido.com and our meeting is V411. I'm gonna just run a slide here and you can go ahead and vote on that on your phone. So which lens, as we talk about routines, habits, and rituals, which is most important to you? Go ahead and vote on that if you can, grab your phone. Is it, are you really, is it most important to look at the team yourself, or are you— is it important for you to engage in this dialogue and conversation with individual team members? Alright, so we've got, you know, from our— from here we're really looking at team is a top priority. How do we look at and be very strategic in routines and habits and rituals? So recognize Something here. This is an important thing for us to consider. First of all, here's a nice way that you can use Slido to gauge your teams, engage your team members, and keep that conversation going. In a recent conversation with a leader, one of the things that they said to me was, well, we're getting the job done, business continuity is definitely on the right track, But we really don't feel like a team anymore. So that's where we want to ask the question, well, what were the things that you did or do that really make you feel like a team? And in this particular conversation that we had with the leader, there were 2 things. One is that a lot of the team members work on different projects and they talk about those, and then the other is that they really engage in dialogue and conversation about their lives. And their families and the personal side. So I said, how about this? Have a Zoom meeting and give them, everyone, the opportunity to have some conversations, first of all, about their projects. So many, many people do not realize that with Zoom you can send people into private conversations, groups of 2, groups of 3, into private conversations. So that is a really interesting and exciting way, I've used this a lot, for you to give your team the chance to talk about the projects that they're on, you can have them, give them 10 minutes for conversation, bring them back together, mix those groups up, and give them a chance to talk more casually, more personally, that's a great example, and then you may think to yourself that let's make that a ritual, let's do that in a certain timeline, All right, thank you for participating in that. As I mentioned, this is more than leading, it's more than leading a remote team, it's more than leading a remote team through crisis, it's really being an ambassador leader leading the way forward. So I'm so happy for those that have dialed in with us and been a part of the conversation. As you can see, 30 minutes goes really quickly, but it will be dynamic and ongoing, so be sure to To share your challenges, your questions, your ideas for these conversations on the, you know, our bigger meeting. I think it's 9817, meeting 9817 with Slido. All right, but I'm gonna jump here and just ask you to type in a word or two that describes your most important takeaway from our conversation here today. Go ahead and just share a word or two that describe You know what gather, what has had meaning to you. And what I also want to note is that this again is something that you can do in your meetings with your remote teams. Is you know really be assessing where people are at, be assessing where value is created. Those are really important ways that you can do that, and you can dynamically show this. In this case, I'm using Slido. Now some of you may be thinking. I should use— I can certainly use the poll function in Zoom. And you can, but the challenge with that is that we— and we'll talk about this in a future remote leadership town hall— is that keeping that conversation going before your meetings, after your meetings, is really important. And that's where we find Slido is very helpful. All right, I will close that down. And, you know, sort of end in this place. You know, what we've come to learn is that even when it seems very necessary, very important, very critical that we are out there gathering the new skills that are needed, that, you know, that we're at the front of the line to learn the new technologies, the truth is, is that when there's a lot of uncertainty, people become very tethered to what they know and less inclined. And so the place that I would leave you with ambassador leader is be sure to be the first in line. Be sure to be that inspired leader that really serves as a guide, an inspiration, a resource to help people be resourceful, expressive, and absolutely connected. It's more than, it's more than just leading a remote team. It's more than leading a team through crisis. You are going to be called to engage people using many different tools that will enable people, give them the confidence and competence to learn the new ways and the new roads that we have before us. I'm grateful that you've been a part of this conversation. I do hope that you come back. I want you to think about your colleagues that are also ambassador leaders, you know, other people that you know. As we go, our group will grow, will get larger, and as I mentioned, we'll be sharing all of these remote leaders town halls. We'll share it on our website, through our social tools. We'll learn from each other along the way, but as you step into your weekend, I hope that you have a restful one. I hope that in terms of rituals, you are getting clear about the things that you can do to, you know, to rituals that you can use personally to remain healthy and well. This is Laura Goodrich, and thanks for coming I look forward to next week. Bye for now.
