Coaching Remote Employees Can Be Quite a Ride

My son just got his driver's license.  I was nervous when he went out to take his road test because it was a rainy day with wet road conditions.  But no matter; in the weeks leading up to his test, we spent plenty of time in the car together, so he was ready.   I'd done the same thing with my daughter two years earlier.  I used the same approach with both of them but the experience was very different.   When my daughter was learning to drive, she verbalized everything she was thinking and feeling and asked me a lot of questions.  I always knew where should stood and what help she needed from me.   With my son, it was just the opposite.   We would get in the car and drive together in silence.  Every once in a while I would ask him, "How is it going?"  or "What questions to do you have?"   Most often he'd reply by saying, "I'm good" and would continue driving. 

One day as we drove a long in silence, I started to think about work.  In the last few months, we have been doing a lot of work helping managers who are leading virtual teams.   This is something that I think about a lot.  I've written about it twice before: in January and again in April of this year.  On this particular day, I was thinking about the challenges managers face in trying to coach remote workers. Coaching employees in general can be a challenge, but being separated by distance (and perhaps time) adds another level to the challenge.

I began to think about what it would be like for a manager who had to coach remote employees who had personalities like my two children.   A manager coaching someone like my daughter would probably welcome the feedback.  She certainly gives you enough to work with, but there is always the danger of getting off track.  On the other hand, a manager coaching someone like my son might find his silences difficult to interpret from a distance.  This got me thinking about how important it is for us to continually reinforce the advice we provide to our managers who coach remote employees.   Here are some of the key points we try to drive home with them:

1. Use a Combination of Scheduled and Impromptu Coaching Sessions - It is important to have regularly scheduled coaching sessions with remote employees.   But don't pass up an opportunity to pick up the phone in between sessions when there is something important to discuss.
2. Use Technology Tools to Keep You on the Same Page - In this day and age, there are a lot more technology options than just using the telephone.  Use web conferencing tools, wikis, or blogs for shared note taking.   If possible, use webcams with a service such as Skype to allow a more "face-to-face" type interaction.
3. Start, but don't Stop with Results - You probably have metrics and performance indicators that will make discussing work outputs with your employee feel very natural, but don't stop there.  Use performance results as a jumping off point into a deeper discussion about work activity and resource needs.
4. Listen Carefully to Your Employee - It is important to stay focused on your employee during remote coaching sessions.   Busy managers must avoid the temptation to multi-task.   Use active listening techniques such as clarifying, paraphrasing and giving feedback.
5. Probe Silences - Don't allow silences, hesitancies or unreturned phone calls to go unexplored.  Unlike driving lessons with my son, managers of remote employees don't have the advantage of actually seeing what is going on to compensate for what is not being said.

Virtual Team Leadership

One of the topics that has become an important component of the management training we conduct at my company is Leading Virtual Teams.  With the growing trends of agile and mobile workers, it seems to be an issue that comes up in every management training needs analysis we do these days. Ultimately, it ends up as a key component in the training we deliver and the follow-up coaching we provide.

I am constantly browsing for resources on virtual team leadership that I can share with managers in my company.  I recently came across the presentation below on SlideShare. It is from Camille Preston at AIM Leadership.  It is more of a mini-eBook than a presentation.  The core content is built around four things that virtual leaders need to do:

1. Care to Collaborate
2. Connect to Communicate
3. Filter to Focus
4. Pause for Perspective

The gist of the message is that "to be effective, virtual leaders learn who they are working with, what matters most to that person, and how to set that person up to be successful."  They do this through focus and reflection.   Check it out:

Leading Virtual Effectiveness: Four Strategies for Effective Communication

Gradually Going Virtual

This week I joined my team in delivering training to a veteran group of managers in my company.  It is always a challenge when you have to conduct management training for an experienced audience.  Clearly, this was a successful group with very few skill deficiencies for the jobs they are doing.   But despite their experience and previous success, it is important that they keep their skills aligned with the current and future direction of the company.

Without a doubt, things have been rapidly changing at my company.  Our managers need to make sure they are adapting their management tactics to keep up with the changes in our operating approaches.  Their failure to do so could put us at a competitive disadvantage.   One growing phenomenon in our work place is the increase in remote management situations.   While this is not new at our company, it is happening on an increasingly larger scale than in the past.  More managers have remote staff members, while some (including myself) have completely virtual teams.

Needless to say, managing remote teams was an important topic in this week's training program.  We reiterated the importance of using traditional leadership skills to help teams successfully meet their business goals.  In addition to that, we discussed new skill requirements that are specific to managing virtual teams.   Two key topic areas were approaches to building trust and maintaining strong communication while managing people at remote locations.  Below are items that were explored during these topic discussions.

Building Trust with a Virtual Team

1. Conduct Face-to-face Meetings - If possible, it is recommended that virtual teams have at least one in-person meeting so that people can put names and faces together.   Studies show that meeting in-person helps teams overcome communication and trust barriers during those times when they must meet virtually.
2. Maintain Transparency - Team members should always be aware of department goals and priorities and how well they are performing against those goals.  Additionally, managers must make it a habit to continually inform remote team members about issues that impact their work.
3. Be Accessible - Remote team members must feel they have access to their manager (and other team members).   Managers must take extra care to make sure they are being responsive to remote team members.   While team members who are co-located with their manager will see the things that my be preoccupying the boss, remote team members could interpret silence as disinterest, which might make them hesitate to reach out to the manager when they should be doing so. 
4. Share Team Member Profiles - The more team members know about each other, the easier it will be for them to be open and candid during remote communication.  Sharing photos, interests and areas of expertise will go a long way towards bringing team members closer together.

Communicating with a Virtual Team

1. Establish Communication Routines - Make it a point to get to know when each team member is most easily accessible by phone, email or other means.  Set up specific days and times for one-on-one and team meetings.
2. Share Good and Bad News - Provide status updates to remote team members on a regular basis whether the news is good or bad.  While managers may be tempted to reach out to remote workers only when the news is good, remaining silent when it is bad leaves things open to interpretation which can create tension and misinformation.
3. Take Advantage of Available Technology - There are great tools available for conducting virtual meetings, engaging in instant communication, file sharing, and capturing group input.  Many of these tools are intuitive and can be used with little or no training.  Others do require investing some time to learn how to use them.  But the payoff for this investment is usually well worth it.

In addition to discussing these topics, our training included demonstrations of some of the technology tools available in my company that are helpful for remote management.  We also gave managers the opportunity to sign up for one-on-one or small group coaching sessions to help them get the most out of these available tools.