Managing a group of people isn’t always easy even if your entire team is sitting right in front of you. But the challenges faced by anyone building a team are only exacerbated when that team is spread across different offices – whether the offices are at different locations within the same city, or whether the offices are spread across multiple time zones.
A distributed team is a distributed team.
You can’t just gather everyone around spontaneously to share an update; the team in one office may be celebrating a win while the rest of the team is sleeping; having a difficult conversation with a team member over Skype is never going to be the same as taking them out for a coffee and sitting across the table from them; and maintaining team morale across multiple offices can often feel like an insurmountable task.
I’m tipping that anyone responsible for managing remote teams can relate to at least one or two of these scenarios.
Many of us now work on a regular basis with colleagues dispersed across different buildings, cities, countries and even continents, however, managing a team that’s spread out in this way can present huge challenges, even for the most experienced bosses.
I recently posted an article on LinkedIn about our own experience building a globally distributed team and our friends at SilverDoor in the UK recently published an awesome Infographic on 10 ways to successfully manage a team whilst working remotely.
Feel free to share some of your own experiences either as a remote employee or as a manager of remote teams.
Author
Paul Slezak
With over two decades of experience in the recruitment and human capital industry, Paul Slezak has established himself as a transformative force in the realm of leadership and career coaching, group facilitation, and talent acquisition. His unique perspective, drawn from his early career as a leader in global recruitment firms and his entrepreneurial success with his own start-up, has enabled him to make a significant impact on leaders, teams, and organizations across the world. Paul's passion for helping others achieve success and high performance is evident in his commitment to transforming leaders and their teams at local, national, and international levels. He specializes in promoting the importance of human-centered intelligence, focusing on soft skills such as authenticity, transparency, and trust to complement business-centered acumen and drive better workplace outcomes. As an impartial facilitator, Paul brings his expertise to team offsites and strategy days, ensuring alignment on goals, values, and culture while keeping participants on task. His engaging and energetic presence, coupled with his unique "entertraining" and "edutaining" delivery style, enables him to connect with audiences both large and intimate, sharing personal and professional anecdotes that inspire and energize.
