Leading teams "at a distance".
by Mark Fritz
Mark Fritz is MD and Founder of Procedor (UK) Ltd. Based in London, Procedor is a coaching & mentoring company for business leaders and organisations, specialising in "Virtual Leadership" and "Mobile & Flexible Working". Prior to founding Procedor, Mark enjoyed twenty-five years in a series of global leadership roles at Eastman Kodak Company — June, 2006
"Leaders today are facing new challenges that their predecessors didn't have. With the communications capabilities we have today, more and more people are working outside the office (i.e. you now have the capabilities to work from anywhere). Some studies are saying that at least 10% to 15% of UK's workforce is either a home-based worker or a tele-worker.
"To be successful in leading organisations in a "Virtual" world, leaders need to adapt to this new environment. Today, leaders still need the key fundamentals for leadership success, but need to be more disciplined in the way they execute them. With the majority of their people not in the office (and maybe the leader as well), there's just not the ability to address problems with people face to face anymore (i.e. it's difficult to get everyone around the same table). In fact, strong leaders in a "Virtual World" are really good at thinking ahead and putting in place the processes to make sure their team members have good ways to communicate with each other and get to know each other better. This makes holding "virtual" meetings much easier when they need to meet via phone or video conferencing.
"From my experiences, there are Three Main Success Factors for success in leading in a "Virtual" world:
"1. Everything you do is to Build Trust - When leading team members at a distance, the foundation of good relationships is trust. Team members need to trust each other, and that means getting to know each other. If you are successful at building trust, you will have people across your organisation always willing to "pick up the phone" whenever they need information or need to discuss a problem with someone else. Team members who know each other well will feel more comfortable in picking up that phone. It is also important to use whatever face-to-face time your team members get to have in ways for them to get to know each other better. Too often companies just have meetings with PowerPoint presentations (one after the other!), instead of organising ways for their team members to have discussions between themselves and get to know each other. Success is: Team members feeling comfortable enough to contact each other straight away on any issues.
"2. Think and discuss in Outcomes - Leaders must move away from managing activities to managing outcomes. When leading team members at a distance, leaders can no longer manage activities. They are not close enough to do that, and in fact, they just don't have the time. It is important to delegate "Outcomes" to people and to drive them to take ownership and commitment to deliver those outcomes. The leader then coaches their team members on the key activities to deliver their outcomes and follow-up that the "outcome" gets done.
"Meetings are a great example to illustrate the difference between an outcome and an activity. Often you hear team members giving the purpose of a meeting as: "We need to discuss" a particular subject. However, discussing something is not an outcome of a meeting. It's just an activity. An outcome of a meeting always needs to be some type of decision or agreement, and/or some time of agreed action. A focused meeting always has an "Outcome" defined.
"Follow-up is key, as it reinforces the right behaviours, but more importantly, it sends the signal that the "Outcome" they are delivering is important. In team members' minds: Follow-up = Important; No Follow-up = Not Important.
"3. Everyone with the Same Information - For everyone to feel involved at the same level, everyone needs the "Same Information". Information is the key driver of organisations, and having everyone with the information they need to do their job effectively is key. In the "Virtual" world, you can't just go around the corner and get a question answered. Also, the information you need can't just be on paper, as that is the slowest way to share it with others. The "virtual" world really requires information to accessible from anywhere, and this is driving the need for information databases or Internet applications to provide easy access to the information you need.
"Also, to make an organisation very productive, this information needs to be "Self-Service" (accessible from some type of online database or the internet). Teams need to get access to the information they need without having to talk to anyone else. The last thing people need is having to pass along basic information to get work done via the phone or email. That information should be easily accessible to team members on their own so that when they speak with each other, it's about more value-added topics than just passing information.
"Therefore, if those are the Three Main Success Factors for Leading in a "Virtual" World, how do leaders put them into practice and get the whole team/organisation working together effectively? Well, it comes back to what we said in the beginning of the article.
"Leaders need to Think Ahead and Put the Processes in Place. The best way to do this is to set out the principles for the team/organisation. This is the leaders job, and he or she sets the tone (the culture) for the whole organisation. Second, what better way to define what processes need to be in place than to have the team decide? Some up front work to identify the core processes needed to work together effectively brings two key benefits: People who work together and create the processes by which they want to operate feel ownership to follow those processes later on. Doing this type of upfront process creation is a great way to build "trust" in the team."
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