How to Lead Highly Performing Remote Teams
Remote working has been taking excellent traction among companies all over the world during the last years. Many companies have realized that they don’t need to have all their employees in the same office, sitting next to them. Many of these companies are jumping into the new trend. They are allowing some people to work remotely for a couple of days each week or even hiring some Junior profiles under fully-remote conditions.
But, what happens when we talk about senior or management positions? When the remote work is 1 or 2 days a week, but the team is 100% remote-based? Is it even possible to build a strong culture, have a productive team, and make a company grow under these conditions so different from the traditional working environment? Of course, the answer is yes (otherwise, this article would be useless).
I have been managing remote teams in fast-growing environments for the last four years. My area of expertise is Digital Marketing and eCommerce. I have managed medium-sized teams (each person in a different country) with over 50 million on ad media spend a year with very positive outcomes (allow me to say). Due to these uncertain times for many people and companies that have transitioned suddenly to remote working, I have had the five main learnings to build and sustain high performing remote teams during my years of experience.
1. Be the best communicator you can be.
When you are in an office, you communicate with your team not only with words but also with your body language. Indeed, that is an essential part of our daily interactions and is vital for building meaningful work and relationships. But, when happens when you remove from the communication all these details (eye contact, facial expressions, voice tone, posture, gestures) and you leave only words? What happens is that the message you want to communicate loses its effectiveness.
That’s when a simple “ok” as a reply gets so many different meanings. “Ok? What he or she means by ok? Why that short answer? Probably I did something wrong, or it was a ridiculous question?” This may sound like an exaggeration but bear in mind that you communicate through chat with people alone in their homes, probably thousands of miles away from you, people who don’t have the proper context. That’s why you cannot be only a good communicator; you have to be the best communicator and improve every day. Believe me; your team will appreciate (a lot) small things an emoji reply, quick replies as "thanks," "great job," "good report," and even a call when necessary. If there is space for ambiguity, people will get confused and overthink always.
2. Use the right tools but keep it simple.
You need to provide your team with the proper tools for them to be effective remote workers. Identify the more important ones for your company and provide the appropriate training for your team to use them, don’t assume they are intuitive and straightforward. Please don’t go to the other side and use hundreds of different tools to make the work environment much more complicated than what it needs to be.
Try to standardize the usage of tools and make sure everyone is on the same page. Some quick examples:
- Instant communication? Slack. Please, stop using WhatsApp groups.
- Videocall? Zoom
- Task Management? Asana or Trello, not both
- Have a shared Calendar (Google has everything you need)
For small to medium size companies, you won’t need more than ten tools. It is way better to have a few tools that everyone knows how to use, which adds value to the daily accountabilities. Also, make sure to have proper guidelines and best practices to talk the same language and respect others' space.
3. Allow time for small talk (and incentivize it).
Image working at an office where every word you speak is about a project, a due date, and an expected outcome. Imagine going for a coffee and continue talking only about work, accountabilities, requirements, inquiries. Well, that is what happens (usually) when you have a remote team. Every time you jump into a meeting, you go directly to the meeting agenda and try to be the most productive you can be to respect everybody else’s time, but people need small talks, creating connections.
One of the best habits we have implemented in our team is dedicating 10 minutes of our daily meeting to share good news and personal good news. The level of connection, respect, understanding, and appreciation this generates within the team is indescribable. Additionally, this small action prepares the mood for the rest of the day. If people see everyone (including their managers) dedicating 10 minutes to talk and discuss little things, they will feel safe.
Pro Tip: Incentivize your team to share the personal good news; this will cause the magic. In the beginning, probably they will share some good news as: “I completed the report on time” or “the result of the implementation was better than expected.” But is when your team starts sharing things as “I had a great conversation with my father,” “I met a friend I haven’t seen in a while,” or “my kid said his first words” (real history) when the real deep connections built.
4. Learn how to delegate effectively.
This point is probably one of the simplest but yet impactful tips. Let’s face it; most people don’t know how to delegate properly. They create a task (if many others delegate through a slack message) and put some basic info and guidelines about what they want. Of course, that is not enough! When you are delegating a task, make sure that you communicate:
- The primary outcome: what you are expecting, and be crystal clear.
- The why: the reason and the impact of the task. People will work better and more committed when they are aware of the impact of their job.
- Resources: provide access and direct links to all the resources the person will need—tools, documents, people, information, etc.
- A (reasonable) due date. Delegate tasks considering enough time for proper execution, feedback, and corrections. The worst timing is “asap.”
In summary, ensure to provide all the information your employer needs to do the job you expect to receive. Successful execution starts with a successful delegation. It is better to dedicate 20 minutes to be extremely specific and clear; this will save you and your team hours of back and forward.
5. Trust your team.
Probably, this doesn’t apply only to remote working, but make sure you build your team with trustworthy people and trust them. Some of the biggest mistakes you can make to shatter your team’s motivation are micromanagement and mistrust. “Why were you not online?” “Send me a message as soon as you start working to make sure you are starting on time,” “Why you took that much time to reply?” and a long list of motivation killers.
Of course, this only applies when you have built a reliable team of committed and trustworthy professionals. Once you have them, make sure to be clear with the expected outcomes (good communication, effective delegation) and let them work. Be there for them in case they have doubts, concerns, challenges, or inquiries, but don’t question every single action they take or don’t take. Measure your team’s performance by outcomes and results, not for online hours.
Moving from an office to work remotely can be a big challenge for many of us, and more in the current situation where people are being forced to it and don’t have the proper preparation. If you are a manager or part of a remote team, make sure that you put your team first and dedicate time every day to create a good working environment and the team's proper conditions to succeed.
