Susan Drumm shares six ways to lead remote teams: document your processes, hold weekly video check-ins, rotate meeting times for different zones, spend five minutes on personal talk before diving into work, gather in person once or twice a year, and pick tools like Redbooth or Loom that actually work for your team.
Chapters
Foreign. Welcome to this Leadership Insights episode of the Enlightened Executive, where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. In this episode, we're going to share one of today's biggest conundrums, Managing a remote team. So does this sound like you? I have no idea how to keep my remote team connected and motivated. Consistently zero My client sighs over her coffee we're sitting in a corner booth of a cozy coffee shop in San Francisco on a rainy Tuesday, catching up on her business, her team, and life in general. My product manager is in Dubai, so we're always asking him to take conference calls late at night. Some people hate Slack, some people love it. The email chains are 15 emails long. By the time I get to the end, I forgot what the original question was. All of this as she rolls her eyes and groans. I've had this conversation more times than I can count. Years ago. I'm sure I was saying these things to myself as well. These conversations are certainly becoming more common because we've all had to adopt the work from home model and now hybrid model. And yet it's harder to manage communication and keep people aligned on priorities when the whole team is working remotely. So here are six of my best learned the hard way strategies for managing a remote team. Number one have exceptionally clear systems and processes in place. Of course, effective systems are always important, but they're even more important when your team is spread all over the world. Make sure everyone on your team knows what steps to take with whom and when. And to do this you could build an internal knowledge management system. You could use something called as Spoke as an example. It's equally important that your team knows where to find that information and hopefully the information is not knowing it through you. The best run teams rely on each other before they escalate to their leader or they reference available video training resource documents or their onboarding training before they come to someone with questions. So a good tool for process documentation to check out is Process Street. As leaders, we don't want to be the center cog in the system that keeps everything running. We want a team that can function and excel on its own without consistently flooding us with basic questions or manageable concerns. Number two Schedule a video call every Monday or at the beginning of the week. Of course, seeing each other's faces and hearing each other's voices is a great way to start the week, and it's a good reminder that there are actual humans on the other end of those emails. When we communicate exclusively through email or Slack, a lot of the tone gets lost and miscommunication is more common. So some type of weekly check in video call reduces misunderstandings, increases understanding, and reminds us that Chris in Marketing has that sarcastic sense of humor and we don't need to take those emails too seriously. It seems so simple, but I often see leaders using video too infrequently. Getting on a regular schedule where everyone connects creates consistency and communication. Number three if your team is spread across time zones, alternate meeting schedule times. So if your team is split between New York and LA, your West Coasters don't really appreciate the 9am East coast meeting times. And likely I'm sure the New Yorkers could do without the calls at 5pm Pacific on a Friday night. And that's even harder if you have team members all over the world. It's not always possible to schedule meetings at the perfect time for everyone, but we can at least alternate. So make sure that your meetings aren't scheduled at a time that consistently inconveniences the same team members. Number four Take time to connect and catch up before you dig into logistics or tasks. As tempting as it is to skip the small talk, it's more important than ever to spend the extra five or ten minutes to chat with your remote team. Before you get down to the proverbial brass tacks, taking time to talk about your vacations or your shared affinity for that one TV show can make a huge difference in helping people feel connected. When we work with our team members in person, these conversations happen naturally. We talk about our weekends in the lunchroom or share a joke at the vending machine. It's just much harder to build that camaraderie over email chains. The truth is, we're more likely to help and support colleagues we like, and we're more inclined to like a colleague when we know they love James Corden as much as we do. So take a few extra minutes at the beginning of your calls to chat and build your relationships. Your company's retention rate will thank you. Number five Create opportunities for your whole team to get together. Now I know this may be harder for some companies, depending on how spread out you are, but if you can get together in person at least once or twice a year, making the effort will pay huge dividends. You might choose a warm location to meet, like Scottsdale where I live, where you can hold meetings outdoors. And that's a great strategy in today's environment. And when you do meet, make sure it's a combination of team building activities and strategic planning. Do the things you couldn't normally do as effectively online. Regardless of how it looks or how often it happens, find a way for your team to spend time together in real life. It's going to improve communication, deepen relationships, and make operations run more smoothly to the extent possible given our current environment. Number six really important. But use the right technology, the right software can make team connectivity a breeze no matter how many time zones it's spread across. And here at Meritage, we love the project management platform redbooth. So remember the strategy number two on how important clear systems are. Redbooth is where my team shares knowledge, shares their process templates, how to steps, task status and FAQs to fix issues. All online and without involving me. Of course. We love Google Apps for sharing documents. There's also Loom, which makes it easy for us to do quick screen share tutorials with others or send video responses, which are sometimes a lot more time effective than a string of emails or trying to find time for a call. Is there a learning curve to managing a remote team? Of course. But the benefits of hiring remote workers, which could be lower overhead, higher morale, better productivity dramatically outweigh the challenges. And frankly, we've all been forced to work in this way given the pandemic. So we help leaders build greater connectivity, trust and efficiency on their teams, both remote and local. If you need guidance in managing your virtual employees, connect with us@susandrumm.com we'd love to help you. And if you liked this episode and want more leadership insights like these, hit the subscribe button and the like button and we always appreciate our five star reviews. Let's lead the way. Hope you enjoyed today's episode and I'd like to point you to the next important step. Hit the subscribe button to get notified when we release new content. I'll see you on the next episode of the Enlightened Executive. Sam.
