Managing Remote Teams Course - 1 Day

The key word to remember is Environment. We are all influenced and affected by our environment. We associate different activities to different environments. When working from home we should have a physical space set aside for working hours, that is in some way removed from the space occupied in NON work hours.

If you sit in the same chair and face the same wall at work, as you do when you are relaxing and NOT at work, then the concept of being at work and the concept of NOT being at work, will blur and merge. Then people feel that they are never quite at work and never quite NOT at work.

Make your workspace different from your NON workspace, and rigidly enforce the rule that WORK is here and NOT work is there. Then the mind will have two distinct concepts and modes of thought that are associated to two distinct locations.

People feel POSITIVELY motivated to work, ONLY IF they feel that by working, they are moving closer to what they want for their better future.

People are motivated by the promise that their future will be better than their past. And the way to create that belief is to set goals what describe a better future and then build plans that will achieve the goals.

It is therefore essential that you spend time working with each remote worker and get to know their ambitions for their better futures. You need to know where each one wants to be this time next year.

Then you need to integrate their goals with the team goals and find the intersection between the two that hold “mutual benefit”.

Then you formulate plans that are designed to deliver on achieving a mutual benefit that is shared by the individual remote worker and the team as a whole.

The remote worker will then have super motivation.

The most important difference between working remotely and working face to face, is that when working remotely, there is a lack of spoken interactions and a corresponding increase in written communications.

Written communication has assumed a greater importance. Many people have poor written communication skills.

They have “perfected many bad habits” by years of texting on their phones and writing poorly worded emails.

Now that we rely more on written communication it is vital that we each UPGRADE our written English. We need to learn how to write well-constructed messages that comply with the A. B. C. principle.

A = Accurate. Facts and figures are accurate.
B = Brief. No deviations or distractions.
C = Clear. If any actions are to be taken as a result of the message, then those actions must be made clear and distinct.