76 / LEADING FROM A DISTANCE
Working with
distributed teams
Maintaining a
one-team approach
Team members based in a single
location find it easy to interact, build
trust, and reach a shared understanding
of goals, behaviors, and ways of working,
even if they come from dierent
backgrounds. But this is harder for
team members working remotely—
particularly when some are based far
more remotely than most. For example,
if four members of a team are based in
the UK, while one is in Germany, the
latter could easily feel more isolated,
aecting his or her engagement,
and causing resentment. Make sure
everyone, regardless of their location,
Thanks to modern technology, building and managing
remote teams that operate from multiple locations is
now a reality. But it is important to be aware of the
underlying challenges that tech alone won’t solve.
Working with second-
language speakers
If your team includes people working
in a second language, be careful that
meetings do not become dominated by
native speakers, particularly those with
strong personalities. People will feel
frustrated if they can’t get a word in,
while others may be reticent to speak up,
meaning good ideas don’t get expressed.
Limit the time taken up by vociferous
team members and encourage quieter
ones to contribute.
of remote workers feel
they miss out on important
information because it’s
communicated in person
60%
feels that they’re
on an equal footing
when it comes
to voicing their
opinions and
contributing their
own experiences.
Ensure all team
members are invited
to everything—social
activities as well as
work-related engagements.
You could also ask people to
give a short, informal “day-in-the-life”
presentation to give their colleagues
an idea of how the team’s work looks
from their perspective.
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WORKING WITH DISTRIBUTED TEAMS / 77
BUILDING A
ROBUST KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Working across dierent
locations brings practical
challenges such as:
•
How to deal with holidays
observed in some countries
but not others?
•
How to operate across
time zones so people can
work together on tasks at
the same time rather than
through live collaboration?
Even with regular catch-ups,
geography gets in the way.
But setting up a knowledge
management system that
records, summarizes, and
shares information allows all
members of the team to access
the data they need. It also helps
everyone avoid missing out on
important details that were
communicated in person. One
helpful approach is to use a
central document management
platform, such as Sharepoint,
along with a collaboration
platform, such as Confluence.
Confluence lets team members
set up pages that summarize
a project, including links to
relevant resources stored
on Sharepoint. These might
include recorded meetings or
summaries of key findings.
In focus
ASK BEFORE YOU RECORD
If you want to record a video
meeting so others can watch it
later, make sure everyone on the
call knows and feels comfortable
with that. Video apps normally
display an onscreen banner to
show when recording is in
progress, but it’s still good
practice to ask permission
(see p.63).
Tip
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