Do the people on your remote team do pretty much everything you ask, without asking questions? Do you get very little push back when you assign them tasks? That might sound like manager’s dream, but it can be a sign of a problem lurking under the surface. How can people doing what they’re told be a bad thing? Very often our requests have unintended consequences. If we aren’t … [Read more...]
Coaching and Feedback at a Distance
When we talk to leaders of teams, the one part of the job most feel they could do a better job of is coaching their people. This feeling of “not quite being as good as we could be” is heightened when we work remotely from the people we should be developing. On the surface this requires frequent, targeted, purposeful conversations. You can have those remotely, so why does … [Read more...]
Sorting Out the Voices in Your Head
It's not unusual for Long-Distance Leaders to spend a lot of time alone. Now that you no longer share an office with anyone, your actual human conversations have likely diminished. That means the voices in your head might be the most common voices you hear. No, you're not crazy. We all have those voices guiding us and helping us process questions and find solutions. It’s … [Read more...]
Are Credentials Still Important?
by Chuck Chapman, Content Strategy Coordinator Bill Gates majored in pre-law at Harvard and spent much of his time taking math classes and noodling around in the school's computer lab. He left school after two years. With no credentials, he founded Microsoft, and you know the rest of the story. While you might not achieve Bill Gates levels of accomplishment, success in … [Read more...]
Are You Frightening Your Remote Employees?
As a leader, you know how important communication is to a highly functioning team. As a Long-Distance Leader, you know that you need to communicate even more often, and in different ways, with your remote employees than you do the people in the office. You might also be frightening them a little. Our research with teams shows that there are a couple of ways that leaders … [Read more...]