Welcome back to The Friday Habit podcast for the conclusion of the interview with David Burkus, author of Leading from Anywhere. He explains that the source of a lot of confusion and contention regarding managing a remote workforce is misaligned expectations. Specifically, expecting that presence and responsiveness equal productivity, as is the common belief for managers of in-person teams. However, productivity both inside and outside of the office should be defined by outcomes and the progress being made to reach those outcomes. It is important that leaders set up systems to support this outcomes-focus as well as hold team members accountable for their assigned objectives rather than monitoring their daily work. 

Whether your team has been working remotely for several months or several days, it is a good idea to establish a team working agreement which spells out norms, platforms for different types of requests or questions, and how your team feedback loop is going to work. Instituting a daily standup meeting for the team to share their answers to scrum-type questions is a great way to keep folks on track and engaged with their work and other team members who are collaborating on the same projects. This makes one of David’s other recommendations more attainable: work sprints. Work sprints are dedicated segments of time that are intended to take one task or project from start to finish in a very efficient manner. Once your team starts working in sprints, you have set up a natural evaluation timeframe that could be an avenue to provide a real-time feedback loop to all team members should you choose to integrate this into your framework. It has long been known that annual performance evaluations are not ideal for spurring on continuous improvement and addressing any concerns or issues.

While video conferencing has become the new normal for internal and client meetings alike, there are some times when it is better to revert back to audio-only meetings. “Zoom fatigue” is very real and it can be tiring and distracting to be on yet another video call where you feel like you have to be “on”, able to read and react to the nonverbals of your team members. Even if your team decides to stay remote or move to a hybrid schedule, do not neglect in-person meetings when it is appropriate to be together. One idea that David provided on this episode was to spend the money that you’ve saved by not having to rent office space on sending everyone to a conference or a team retreat to build rapport and interconnectedness. 

David’s action item after this episode is for you to brainstorm and work up a team working agreement with and for your team.

Connect with David:

https://twitter.com/davidburkus?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor 

https://www.amazon.com/David-Burkus/e/B0091L00NG%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share 

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To submit questions/comments, including voice memos: hello@thefridayhabit.com 

thefridayhabit@knapsackcreative.com