Pre-covid my team was a in-office team, not even employees in a different Meta office. So when covid hit, it hit our productivity. Though one thing that really helped was, I would just pause conversations on team chat and get us on adhoc of zoom calls. That got us over the video call barrier and we found a replacement for our adhoc discussions at work.
So having the right team culture can strongly influence how well your team operates in the remote setting.
Having something as simple as video calls is both the hardest thing to achieve and the most useful one. People are often very reluctant to turn on their cameras, and forcing them is not the right approach; instead, continuously promoting its benefits is the way to go. One thing we do in my fully remote team is to have regular coffee breaks where we video chat about anything but work.
The manager's job in my view is to create the conditions for people to thrive. Remote management requires managers with a high sensitivity to all of the invisible things that are going on in the background, so one has to not only observe and listen intently but also deliberately create the space to make it OK for people to raise concerns, ask questions, navigate relationships - all the human stuff that is so much more complex and dynamic than the code and systems stuff.
You phrased it pretty well, John: 'high sensitivity to all of the invisible things.' There are many things that become invisible when you manage people remotely, and only experience will make you notice them.
Pre-covid my team was a in-office team, not even employees in a different Meta office. So when covid hit, it hit our productivity. Though one thing that really helped was, I would just pause conversations on team chat and get us on adhoc of zoom calls. That got us over the video call barrier and we found a replacement for our adhoc discussions at work.
So having the right team culture can strongly influence how well your team operates in the remote setting.
Having something as simple as video calls is both the hardest thing to achieve and the most useful one. People are often very reluctant to turn on their cameras, and forcing them is not the right approach; instead, continuously promoting its benefits is the way to go. One thing we do in my fully remote team is to have regular coffee breaks where we video chat about anything but work.
The manager's job in my view is to create the conditions for people to thrive. Remote management requires managers with a high sensitivity to all of the invisible things that are going on in the background, so one has to not only observe and listen intently but also deliberately create the space to make it OK for people to raise concerns, ask questions, navigate relationships - all the human stuff that is so much more complex and dynamic than the code and systems stuff.
You phrased it pretty well, John: 'high sensitivity to all of the invisible things.' There are many things that become invisible when you manage people remotely, and only experience will make you notice them.