In today’s flat world, a company may
have branches scattered all across the
world. Or two or more separate companies may be working together on a
joint project.
So how can a business owner or manager know that all of the people working
for him are doing their jobs if he can’t
see them in their office every day?
“Managing people who aren’t with you
in the same physical location can create
a number of problems and issues,” says
Joel Adams, CEO and founder of Devon
Consulting.
Smart Business spoke to Adams about
geographically dispersed teams and how
to manage them.
Why do some companies need a remote
team?
Because the expertise just happens to
be scattered and it doesn’t make much
sense to move them. Say you need software to be developed by your team in
India, plus a particular expert in Finland,
and the best manager for the project is in
the business unit sitting somewhere in
the United States. Or your team of engineers in Palo Alto needs to work on a
joint product development venture with
engineers from another company, in
Denver! Dispersed teams exist. Making
them work well is the challenge.
How is managing remote workers different
than other management?
When we see people everyday, there is
an assumption that they’re working.
When we don’t see people, we kind of
assume the opposite. People working
from home, are they really working?
Well, probably they are, but managers
don’t always assume that. When you see
and talk to the same people every day, it
builds trust. You get to know them as
people as well as workers.
When the workers are remote — perhaps people you haven’t even met in person — there is a trust issue. The first
thing you have to do with a remote team
is address that trust issue. You have to build the same confidence that would be
built around the water cooler or the coffee machine every day.
How do you build trust when the team isn’t
in the same place?
The same way you do when people are
co-located. It is just that when everyone
is together, it tends to happen naturally.
When people are in different places, it
requires more conscious intent.
Managers need to trust the workers and
the workers need to trust the manager
and each other.
You build trust by learning about the
individual. When people are geographically dispersed, they have to work harder to learn about each other. In my office
I know who the soccer moms are and
which dad is camping with the Boy
Scouts this week. But I have to work a
lot harder to know that about remote coworkers.
What else is different about managing
remote workers?
Communication has to be more
thought out. Psychologists tell us that
communication is at least one-half non-verbal. If I write you an e-mail, you’re
getting only a small part of the communication. If I talk to you on the phone, we
can pick up on each other’s voice inflection, or even silence. That’s much better.
But the best communication is face-to-face because visual communication is
part of it. Visual is especially important
in understanding the listener’s reception
of the communication.
Also, when people miss the local staff
meeting, it is not a big problem. There is
still plenty of informal communication
that can make up for it. With remote
teams, there isn’t as much opportunity for
informal and ad hoc communications.
So what do managers and teams do?
Technology can help. Video conferences and instant messenger are good
tools even with their drawbacks. But the
important thing is that communication
itself needs to be planned and periodically reviewed. For a remote team, there
should be a formal communication plan,
including who will communicate with
whom, using what technology, at what
time, and covering what topics. A daily
meeting of all team members with weekly status updates to management is probably a minimum requirement.
The proper role of e-mail and when
communication must be voice-to-voice
should be thought out in advance. It
must be specific, right down to who
dials the phone and what time of day the
report is due. The periodic review is critical because plans this specific can get
out of date quickly.
What else should managers do?
Be ready to visit the team or bring
everyone to a central location on a periodic basis. It can be expensive, but it is
necessary. The virtual ‘pat on the back’
will never carry the warmth of the real
thing.
JOEL ADAMS is CEO and founder of Devon Consulting. Reach
him at (610) 964-5703 or [email protected].
