© The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021
S. BellingRemotely Possiblehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-7008-0_6

6. Practices and Tools

Practices and Tools Support People
Shawn Belling1  
(1)
Fitchburg, WI, USA
 

Let’s assume your unbridled success getting the people elements of remote and distributed scenarios right (and you will). Let’s also assume the likely case that your organization will opt for a hybrid of remote distributed and on-site environment. The success of your remote and distributed model will depend on the processes, practices, and tools you adopt and evolve.

All practices and tools must share the common goal of assuring and supporting a common and productive experience for everyone, whether on-site or remote. By “common,” I mean that everyone has the same good experience – technically and culturally. By “productive,” I mean that being off-site and distributed never in any way creates impediments to getting things done whenever and wherever someone is working (assuming proper tools and Internet access as table stakes).

The Common Experience

Picture this: It’s 3 p.m. on a Monday afternoon at a downtown Chicago cloud software company. The on-site executive team assembles in a conference room for the weekly operations meeting. The CEO’s admin dials up the conference call session while the CEO, CFO, and executive VP exchange inside jokes and chat about each other’s families and weekends while teasing the admin about a relationship. Meanwhile, the remote VPs of software development, product management, and customer success join the conference call, catch part of the banter, and start wondering what is being discussed and when the meeting is going to get started.

What’s wrong with this scenario? Situations like this create an “in-crowd” and an “out-crowd.” An environment where the remote members of the team are not part of the pre-meeting banter means the on-site team is not only wasting time, but potentially creating an adversarial or non-inclusive culture. In previous chapters, we discussed the importance of creating an environment where remote people are never any less included than on-site people – intentionally avoiding anything that might alienate remote people and create FOMO: Fear of Missing Out.

This means that meetings, collaboration sessions of any kind, presentations – basically, anything that involves a mix of remote and on-site people and participation – must be optimized to ensure the same experience for remote people and on-site people. This can take various forms. There are some practitioners who recommend the practice that if some members of the team are joining the meeting remotely, everyone does the meeting as if remote – from their offices or desks.

Examples: Everyone joins the meeting using Teams so that everyone has the same experience and can participate similarly in any informal chatter as well as the formal work activities of the meeting. Similarly – if large contingents will be joining from various locations via teleconference, have everyone do the call from their desks so that everyone has the same experience and to minimize sidebars and chatter in conference rooms. Lastly – if you have a multinational participant group, consider the timing of the meeting and ensure it is at either a convenient time for most, or at the least inconvenient time for as many as possible.

Practice Makes Perfect

The last 25 years have given us a wealth of tools and technology to support remote and distributed work. The evolution of telephony, videoconferencing, and various collaboration tools is, when you think of it, mind-blowing. Prior to 2020, existing communication and collaboration tools were constantly and regularly enhancing their capabilities. For example, standalone plug-ins and programs enabled whiteboarding for videoconferencing sessions so that one could whiteboard on a tablet and display it on a different computer to mirror in a video conference session.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, software products such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams added collaboration capabilities rapidly to meet the growing needs of a sudden global remote workforce as well as the needs of students and teachers. Whiteboarding apps emerged and improved, and then whiteboarding was added to some of the videoconferencing tools – things evolved and changed fast. Bill Gates noted that the research and development on these tools was exponential and that we were seeing ten years of innovation on these products compressed into two (Gates, 2020).

I learned long ago that a critical element to successful use of any communication tool, whether a conferencing phone or a newly enhanced video conferencing package, is to practice with the tools and systems prior to using them to support important meetings and presentations. Using these tools and systems well is not something you want people figuring out as they spin up a meeting or presentation involving lots of people. Create expectations within your organizations that new tools will also come with training for users, think through how you will support these tools, and require practice prior to relying on a new tool.

Training Is Essential

As 2020 evolved and organizations began first-time use of tools for video conferencing and collaboration, the need for good training became quite evident. At my college, our help desks were overwhelmed with requests for support on how to use teleconferencing, video conferencing, and similar tools. Students, faculty, and staff all needed training and support to use these tools effectively. Because we were in the process of gradual adoption of these tools when the pandemic hit and we had to pivot immediately to all-remote operations, the training and support practices were not all in place.

Whether you are starting a new organization that will be remote and virtual from Day 1 or transitioning to a hybrid of remote and virtual work, training on the tools themselves as well as best practices for operating effectively in this model are important to developing an effective organization.

Train on Tools

With such a spectrum of communication and collaboration tools available to the modern remote distributed organization, it is critical that organizations plan for and deliver on the training needed for everyone to use these tools effectively. Everyone – from the CEO to the newest administrative support team member – should be basically competent in these tools, and if a position requires regular or constant use of these tools, the people in these roles should be experts.

Depending on your organization, you may or may not have dedicated resources for developing and delivering this training and supporting these tools. Some organizations without a dedicated training or support team choose to identify power users who can assist new people or new users in the effective use of these tools. Whatever your training and support model, there are two good practices to keep in mind:
  • Practice with tools prior to using live – don’t waste anyone’s time.

  • Factor in learning curve for new tools, people, cohorts.

Avoid Tool Proliferation and NAFTS

With growing numbers of people gaining experience and expertise with remote communication and collaboration tools, it is natural that these same people also form opinions and attachments to these tools. When new people join an organization, they bring these opinions and attachments in with them. Similarly, more tech-savvy people often become early experimenters with new tools and then advocate their use as part of the organization’s approved and supported tool set. My advice – slow down. Beware of what I call “Not Another F***ing Tool Syndrome” (NAFTS).

Leaders and tech leaders who are responsible for ensuring tools are supported, secure, and function properly within their organizations need to take a stance and create some hurdles to allowing new tools onboard. Ask the following questions:
  • What need are you hoping to address?

  • Do we already own a tool that does this or 80% of this?

  • Will adding this tool force people to open yet another app or browser tab?

  • Is this tool secure, and can we secure it?

  • How does this tool use and secure our data?

  • What is the license model and cost of ownership?

Previously, I noted that we have four generations in the workplace. This is another driver for NAFTS to manifest. Depending on attitudes and generational expectations, people may expect to use whatever tools they like best. Similarly, when under pressure or in an emergency, people tend to use what they are familiar with and what simply works the way they need it to work. This is not out of an interest to disregard existing tools and practices; it is out of urgency and necessity.

At my college, it happened that we standardized on Microsoft Teams and Cisco WebEx as our videoconferencing tools. There were plenty of people who pushed to use Zoom, but for various reasons we chose not to use or support Zoom, even though Zoom is also a perfectly fine and capable tool, and one which I personally use weekly in my work as a professor. Tool proliferation is expensive – not just due to the software licensing, but from a maintenance, training, and support perspective. Proceed carefully.

Beware of Free

While I was leading software development and support at CloudCraze, the software development team switched from using Skype for instant messaging to Slack shortly after Slack was created. The adoption of this powerful tool was rapid, and we began to use it as the de facto method for communication on the software development and support team. The engineering teams, QA team, and support team all developed norms and expectations for use of Slack. The awesome part about adopting Slack was that it was free – sort of.

It turned out that, at the time, Slack had a 10,000 message archive limit. This became a situation, because one of the benefits was the ability to maintain conversations, snippets of code, and answers to questions in the various Slack channels and threads. My engineering and QA leaders came to me in something of a panic when they realized we were coming close to the 10,000 message threshold and begged me to buy a subscription.

Although I would’ve preferred more advance notice of this, I was fine with this given that I, too, was an adopter and advocate of Slack. The irony was that as I was about to give approval to spend money on a Slack subscription, Microsoft announced their pilot version of Teams. Since we had a Microsoft subscription that allowed us to trial Teams, there was interest in trying it before committing to Slack – we gathered feedback for a few weeks and then went ahead with Slack.

As a CIO, I have dealt with several variations on the theme of “we have been piloting this great new tool that does XXXX, and we think it is great, and we want to purchase an enterprise license and make it available to everyone.” This request of course comes after the early adopters have gotten a small cohort of users onboard who now consider the tool essential to their jobs. In summary – be out in front of this.

Common Tools – Hardware and Connectivity

I use the phrase “digital ninja” to describe the mindset that everyone in an organization should be equipped to work from anywhere on short notice. That means laptops or powerful tablets with keyboards are the default computing device, and that every employee is provided the appropriate equipment to set up a mobile workstation, whether temporary or permanent.

To maximize efficiency and productivity, make sure that remote workers have good equipment in their home offices. This means dual monitors. Make sure you talk with people about their home work station – make sure that you’re educating people and providing resources on ergonomics, on the importance of good broadband service, and talking with people about their home Wi-Fi set-ups. You may consider encouraging people to upgrade or even fund upgrades to slow broadband or outdated Wi-Fi. These capabilities and set-ups are basic table stakes for effective remote and distributed teams.

Common Tools – Software

There are so many good software products available that are designed to enable efficient collaboration for remote distributed organizations. Many of these have been designed by organizations that were also remote distributed from Day 1, so that ethos and experience is baked into their product. This section is not going to dive deep into specific tools, nor advocate for any. One of the common denominators behind adoption and use of these and other tools is to minimize the use of meetings and email as methods for communication.

Web-based portals and team sites offer virtual distributed teams asynchronous collaboration, discussion threads, and document storage and editing capabilities. Capabilities like announcements, issues lists, discussion threads, contact information, document management, task tracking and status reporting, and many other capabilities available through these tools make them a valuable and effective method for virtual team management and communication.

With many platforms, team members can subscribe to pages to receive alerts when information is added or changed. Other capabilities often include the ability to establish workflows so that a task initiated by one team member is automatically passed to the next and on through the workflow until the task is completed.

Following are a few examples of organizations using specific tools to help their remote distributed organizations and teams operate efficiently and effectively.

WordPress – P2 is a WordPress theme used for the internal blogs created for project logs, the name for which rapidly morphed to “P2.” P2s became one way that projects and teams in totally remote WordPress announced their existence. P2 usage is considered as about 75% of communication, and so important in the culture that the phrase “P2 or it didn’t happen” emerged. This is one example of a company “eating its own dogfood,” the nickname given to the practice of using and testing one’s own products (Berkun, 2013).

Collage.com – Software company Atlassian makes a popular tool called Jira. At fully remote Collage.com, Jira is used to track code development, bug fixes, tasks, and quality issues. Cross-functional teams can see where a specific issue or piece of work is in process with minimal use of email (Stanton and Ghosh, 2017).

Basecamp – Another totally remote/distributed company, Basecamp sets up instances of their own software for internal activities such as onboarding. Managers set up a Basecamp instance for new employees to track onboarding tasks such as setting up storage, security, repository access, and similar. According to the Basecamp employee handbook, they run their whole company on their own product (Basecamp, 2020).

Madison College IT – Prior to 2020, use of collaborative tools was relatively limited – our web development team were Slack users, and I, along with a few others, were evangelizing for Teams adoption. The Covid-19 pandemic quickly made Teams indispensable as we moved to fully remote operations. As a Microsoft shop, use of cloud-hosted Office 365 tools including SharePoint and OneDrive enabled collaboration on documents, and platforms such as VMWare enabled us to provide secure virtual desktops to an expanding customer base.

CloudCraze – In the early days of my time with CloudCraze, Skype was the de facto instant messaging and telephony tool, and Go2Meeting was used for more formal and organized remote meetings. Dropbox was our storage tool, we used Google G-Suite for intranet and document collaboration and of course Salesforce provided sales and CRM functionality as well as the entire ecosystem on which our product was built. By 2014 we had moved from Skype to Slack for instant messaging and related communications. When we were acquired in 2015, we became a Microsoft shop, using Office 365 and all of the capabilities therein.

These are just a few examples – countless organizations are using tools in various ways, for various functions, to operate fully remote and hybrid remote/on-site organizations.

As with hardware and connectivity, the key is to ensure an efficient and common digital work space – a set of proven and effective digital tools that are securely accessible from anywhere your people will be operating. Organic adoption can go a long way to determining the right tools to use, but beware of tool proliferation.

Communication and Collaboration

As I was writing this manuscript, I was reflecting and wondering why I felt so much busier and stressed throughout 2020 as compared to having equally demanding remote roles and responsibilities from 2012 to 2017.

Upon reflection, I realized this was because CloudCraze had been a remote distributed organization from its inception. With CloudCraze, I’d have multiple instant messaging threads open with people all the time. We collaborated constantly, both synchronously and asynchronously, while also taking care of work tasks like developing proposals and estimates. Scheduled conference calls happened when needed, but the normal channel and platform for communication was Skype and then Slack. Voice conversations were organic – often the Skype message I’d get from one colleague was “U free?” as a prelude to a voice conversation.

By contrast, most of 2020 involved replicating as much as possible the cadence and structure of what had previously been in-person on-site meetings. As organizations transitioned to fully remote distributed scenarios, much was made of how tools and platforms could be used to replicate the in-person experience. Many leaders, including me, recognized that meetings and face time did not equal productivity, but old habits die hard.

The lesson here as you build or evolve a remote distributed organization is to be very conscious of this and be intentional about the practices you create and evolve. There is no automatic need to create or replicate an “8 to 5 Monday through Friday” workday, unless particular needs of customers or partners make it necessary.

Later in this chapter, I will reference material developed by Matt Mullenweg of Automattic which describes a hierarchy of autonomy in remote distributed organizations. Part of the growth through this hierarchy is less synchronous and real-time and more asynchronous and autonomous work and collaboration, with the ultimate goal being a workplace operation and culture judged solely on producing value and results. More on this later.

Remote Communications and Practices

Organizations that are built from Day 1 as remote distributed organizations will naturally define their norms and culture when it comes to methods and tools for communications. Organizations that are transitioning to remote or hybrids of remote and on-site must be intentional about communication channels and protocols as they evolve.

Note

It is important to allow teams to develop their own norms regarding communication and tools. Leaders should step in only when necessary and very judiciously.

Maya Hu-Chan describes some important factors to consider when transitioning from an on-site to a remote environment. Hu-Chan recommends activating your sensitivity to various cues – she calls these “human antenna” – and being aware of things like pauses in typing, brief silences, body language, and other non-verbal cues as to how people are feeling and engaged.

Hu-Chan notes the importance of knowing your audience and being particularly sensitive to avoidance of insider/outsider dynamics that come from sports references, inside jokes, or use of vernacular that is specific to a language or culture.

I’ve previously emphasized the importance of assuming best intentions and managing the exceptions. Hu-Chan reinforces this – in remote and virtual communications, assume good intentions, even if the tone or words in an instant message or email initially upsets or confuses you – there is a good chance this is not intentional.

Similarly, Hu-Chan cautions on the use of public channels such as Slack, Teams, or similar for praise or criticism. For example, introverts may be uncomfortable with the attention that public praise brings. Public criticism can be devastating to anyone. Globally, it’s important to note that not all people and cultures are comfortable with public praise and certainly not public criticism – “loss of face” is a factor in some Asian cultures. Similarly, people from cultures that value the collective good versus individual achievement may find public individual praise uncomfortable. Even though virtual online communications can be efficient, these are not always the best channels to use for praise or criticism. Consider taking these types of interactions into different, one-to-one communication channels. To do this effectively, it is critical for leaders to know their teams and backgrounds and to treat everyone as individuals (Hu-Chan, 2020).

Cameras On, Cameras Off?

At CloudCraze, I hardly ever turned my camera on in Skype or during Go2Meetings. It just wasn’t part of the culture. We saw each other at enough in-person opportunities and built relationships such that we could rely on voice and written communications to convey needed nuances and other elements of communication. In other organizational cultures, “cameras on” has become important, and in some cases become a bone of contention.

The argument in favor of adding video as a communication channel in remote organizations is that the additional element added to voice by seeing facial expressions and potentially body language is important, and helps people understand the overall message more effectively than voice or written words alone. One idea is to recommend camera on when speaking, as a minimum.

It is important to step back and examine the value provided by access to facial expressions and so forth. Are you attempting to replicate what would otherwise be an in-person meeting as exactly as possible? If the situation and people involved call for visual cues as well as audio and written cues, the richness of a video conference may be appropriate. Then, ask if that event itself must happen synchronously. If this is an “inform” type event, the need for synchronicity may not be as important versus making the recording available for consumption when it is convenient for people working varying schedules.

Audio-Only Is Often Fine

I find some of the best thinking and brainstorming with colleagues is when I am walking and I am in audio-only mode, talking through a problem or an idea with a few colleagues. I don’t know if it’s the walking, or if it is the total concentration on the verbal dialogue that helps me come up with fairly good solutions and outcomes. I think about this often, especially in a culture where we do have reasonable pressure to have our cameras on much of the time.

When you are working with people with whom you have an existing relationship and understand their personalities and communication styles reasonably well, a phone call or audio-only conversation is perfectly fine to accomplish whatever you need to do. Remember, some of us used to conduct quite a lot of business exclusively via telephone and voicemail. In the age of electronic communications where a phone call that is not preceded by an email or text can be considered intrusive or jarring, it is important to be mindful of this. When planning voice communications with people you may not know as well or in different parts of the organization or hierarchy, it is a good idea to reach out via email, text or instant messaging first. You can establish the communication preference for a voice-only or video conference, and then proceed accordingly.

Synchronous and Asynchronous Communications

The various tools and the ceremonies we have built in our organizations in many cases have their roots in an assumption of common working hours, typically 8 or 9 a.m. to 5 or 6 p.m. As I noted earlier, the first five years of remote work experience for me involved a lot of asynchronous communication taking place outside of that typical band. Organizations that are remote and distributed from birth typically leverage a lot of asynchronous communication , because they have not built their culture around the typical ceremonies present during a structured eight to five workday.

Organizations transitioning from a traditional on-site workday model must consider how they can free and enable their employees by consciously assessing the typical workday structure with its synchronous ceremonies, and intentionally creating more and more freedom and opportunities for asynchronous collaboration. Without this intentional transition, much of the benefit and efficiency from remote distributed operations will not be realized.

Five Levels of Autonomy

I’ve made multiple references and examples of Automattic and WordPress, as well as founder Matt Mullenweg’s thoughts on remote and distributed work and organizations. Given that Mullenweg and Automattic have over 15 years of experience operating as a remote distributed company, the examples, ideas, and practices that can be considered and adopted from Mullenweg and his organization are extremely valuable and applicable in any discussion of remote and distributed work scenarios.

Mullenweg offers a five-level model for assessing and intentionally developing autonomy in remote and distributed work scenarios. In all of my research prior to this book as well as for this book, Mullenweg’s model is the best definition I’ve come across. The discussion starts with an understanding that there are some jobs that require physical presence: police, firefighters, dentistry, barbers, and more. For the purposes of this discussion, we acknowledge that these types of jobs aren’t suited for this model nor are the focus of this book. Mullenweg notes these organizations as Level 0.
../images/509035_1_En_6_Chapter/509035_1_En_6_Fig1_HTML.jpg
Figure 6-1

Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg’s Levels of Autonomy

Level One: No intentional work or process to support remote work. In an emergency, the organization could run in a remote model for a few days, but a lot of things would just wait until things were “back to normal.” Nothing is optimized for remote or distributed work.

Level Two: The organization essentially recreates the processes and workday structure that they did or do while on-site. Mullenweg notes, and my own experience confirms, that this is how many organizations operated during the initial weeks and months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This model contributes to the screen time fatigue that many experienced and spoke about as the pandemic moved forward. If you spend big chunks of your on-site workday in meetings, it follows that you would structure your remote and distributed workday replicating similar meetings – this is not the level of productivity or autonomy that is achievable in a remote and distributed environment.

Level Three: At this point of maturity and capability, organizations are intentionally equipping remote workers with gear that supports a good home for remote office experience as well as adopting more asynchronous work practices to replace scheduled synchronous meetings.

Mullenweg notes that the importance of good written communication emerges as crucial at this stage. During synchronous meetings, a document may serve as a central repository for notes and do-outs from real time collaboration.

At this stage, a robust security model is critical to ensure that remote distributed employees can access all enterprise systems securely regardless of where they are located. It is also at this point that the organization should be thinking about intentional and regular gatherings to maintain physical and personal connections across teams and organizations.

Level Four: At this level, more work and operations happen asynchronously. True flexibility with where and when people accomplish work is realized, because the focus is on what gets produced as opposed to when.

This level assumes a very high degree of trust has evolved within the culture and between people and leaders. Organizations at this level have ensured that people have excellent equipment and may have even funded improvements to home offices.

Synchronous meetings happen less frequently, which highlights their importance and the need to ensure they are properly structured and productive. Organizations at this level are free to recruit people from any location and are not bound by geographic limitations or physical proximity. Mullenweg contends that the asynchronous model also leads to better decision making and employee retention.

Level Five: Mullwenweg provides this level as aspirational and likely not fully possible – describing organizations that are so optimized and performant that their performance is beyond any that an in-person organization could. People at these organizations are able to devote equal time to their physical and mental health and are realizing their highest levels of creativity, self-actualization, and best work (Mullenweg, 2020).

Cultural Awareness

Throughout this book I’ve used phrases like “table stakes” and “blocking and tackling.” These are examples of colloquialisms rooted in American sports culture. More examples from my vocabulary include “call an audible” and “game day decision.” I say these a lot, but at times, I do everything I can to consciously purge these from my vocabulary. Why?

Depending on the size and scope of your organization, remote distributed work may mean working with people from or based in other countries and with differing cultural experiences. As a leader in a remote/virtual environment, it is critical to model cultural awareness and avoid using vernacular that excludes people who will not understand it. This goes beyond vernacular to recommend an entire curriculum on becoming culturally aware and culturally sensitive. If your organization is or could be a multinational distributed organization, or includes people and customers from multiple countries, this next section is a primer on this topic.

Going Global

Working with people from other countries and cultures is a great opportunity to expand one’s knowledge and understanding, and at the same time these differences present challenges to effective communications. The key to success is understanding how various cross-cultural factors influence communications and being proactive in managing these factors.

Cultural norms and differences can lead to challenges in communications. Leaders and members of globally distributed organizations need to be aware of specific cultural norms they may encounter and how they can influence the interactions and processes within the organization and teams.

Some Examples

In the United States, a collaborative approach is often considered a desirable way for a project leader to lead a team. However, in various other cultures this approach can range from confusing (as in China) to being considered a sign of weakness in the manager (as in Malaysia).

From experience, I know that with some colleagues from India “yes” often means “I should not say no and contradict or offend you” rather than “yes, I will complete this task by the date you have asked for.”

In Japan a nodding head often means “I hear and acknowledge what you are saying” as opposed to “I agree with the things that you are saying.”

These and similar situations can impact the virtual global organization and teams in various ways. In the example of the US team leader using a collaborative style with a Malaysian team, the perceived weakness may lead to open disregard of the US person’s leadership and a breakdown of the team.

Asking the team member from India for commitment to complete a task by the end of the week, receiving a “yes” in response, and then finding out on Friday afternoon that the task is not complete and that “yes” really meant “I did not want to tell you no just then or be disrespectful” can cause schedules to slip unexpectedly.

A team may discuss a topic during a video conference and assume that the polite head-nodding of the Japanese team member indicated agreement with a statement or perceived consensus, and then later receive information to the contrary that invalidates that assumption or the consensus.

Americans – Pay Attention

People from the United States have had a reputation for not working effectively with other cultures as well as parochial tendencies. Factors for this include the sheer size of the United States, its geographic isolation, large domestic markets, and the pervasiveness of English as a primary global language of business, relieving many Americans of the need to learn other languages and cultures.

Americans are becoming steadily more worldly, but also continue to believe in the superiority of American culture and methods. Americans are often perceived by other cultures as good at the technology and related issues, but not as effective with people and people-related issues across cultures.

Americans are known for wanting to “get down to business” versus building relationships. In most other cultures it is the opposite – relationship-building precedes serious business discussions.

Awareness of these perceptions and differences about themselves and other cultures will help the American leader or member of a global organization or team manage their behaviors and expectations effectively. Awareness of the effects of cultural differences is a first step to recognizing and managing these issues on a virtual team. The leader in such a situation must be aware of the countries and cultures represented on a team, assess for possible cultural issues, and then develop a plan for managing these.

For example, an American working with a team consisting of team members primarily located in France and Italy would be well-advised to temper their desire to jump right into business, push the schedule, or act informally – and do not expect a lot to be accomplished in the late July through August time frame – this is vacation season and much of Europe slows from a business perspective.

Take time to proactively consider, document and plan strategies for addressing cultural issues and demonstrate sensitivity and accommodation to the various cultures represented on the team. For the American, taking time to learn customs and practices of other cultures in the organization and on teams, and practicing and acknowledging these, helps to reduce the perception of Americans as insensitive to other cultures.

Become culturally aware – learn some things: The simple act of learning how to say and write a few simple phrases (greetings, thank you are perfect examples) in the languages used on your global team goes a long way toward demonstrating willingness to learn and communicate. The same goes for learning about specific holidays, customs, and other cultural elements. Most project team members will appreciate this effort. Dan McCarthy notes that one must be sure to hold the entire team to the same standards of accountability while also being culturally sensitive (McCarthy, 2009).

Know what you are saying: Be aware of the slang phrases, sport metaphors, and other things you may be used to saying. Purge them from your vocabulary when working with international groups. Know the meanings of words and phrases in other languages and countries. Great stories emerge when someone tells a group of people that they are “hot”, meaning to express that they are too warm, when in fact the words they use convey an entirely different meaning in another language or vernacular.

Behavioral characteristics of effective and influential global leaders

The following traits apply to any leader in any setting. In chapter 30 of their 2000 book Coaching for Leadership, Maya Hu-Chan, Jeremy Solomons, and Carlos Marin identified five particular characteristics of effective and influential global leaders:

Trustworthy – Viewed as dependable and sincere. Keeps promises and displays an effective moral compass. Unafraid to lose a project if it compromises their integrity.

Respectful and caring – Shows respect for the dignity and worth of all and shows genuine interest in learning about other cultures while showing cultural empathy.

Balanced between doing and being – Recognition that, in some cultures, who a person is can be as or more important than what they can do; recognizes work/life balance differences across cultures.

Emotionally literate – Capable, especially under stress, of understanding where their reactions come from and managing their responses accordingly.

Culturally self-aware – Capable of recognizing and learning from the expectations associated with roles as defined by other cultures, as well as recognizing and effectively dealing with culturally influenced attitudes, values, and expectations. Examples include power, competition, perceptions, and use of time, individualism versus collectivism, formality, and structure (Adapted from Hu-Chan et al., 2000).

Summary

In this chapter we’ve discussed the importance of remote distributed communications and operational practices and tools. We discussed the importance of good and consistent training, and practices with new tools prior to using them for important events. We discussed the importance of ensuring a common and good experience for everyone, regardless of location, and what this means from a culture and tools perspective. We dug deeper into the role that culture and communications plays in successful remote distributed organizations and work, and noted that for global organizations, the awareness and respect for cultural differences and norms is critical.

In the next chapter, we will discuss the advantages and ramifications of success in remote distributed organizations and how to leverage success for growth and improvement.

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