CHAPTER 5

The Department Meeting

I was now more motivated than ever to lead my staff. I was now armed with what I believed were the tools to lead my team to become a very productive department. I more fully understood the aspects of trust, isolation, and presence and how to deal with these human perceptions in a blended team.

The concepts I learned from my new, informal board of directors (BOD), Reggie, Samantha, and Bob would serve me well. The aspect of having a personal BOD is really important. Regardless of what role you have or the size of your company, having a personal BOD is critical for managing your success and the success of your department and company.

On the basis of the lessons I had learned and how I had tried to lead my team, I knew the first thing I would need to do was to call a department meeting and talk about the mistakes I had made during my first several weeks of being on the job. I would talk about the lessons I learned from my new, informal BOD, Reliable Reggie, Solitary Samantha, and Being Bob. The lessons I learned about trust, isolation, and presence needed to be explained to my staff so they too could take part in making the department the most productive.

I had to plan the meeting and I wanted to let my staff know that I was excited so I scheduled the meeting. I knew that I would need to get my virtual workers to attend the meeting. I remembered Samantha telling me about the meeting she attended on a Friday and how she was not informed of the latest policies.

I decided that I would not call the meeting on a Friday to make sure the virtual staff didn’t feel like they had to take personal time for traveling back on Saturday. I also knew that I had to review any policies and procedures that had been updated lately and inform all the staff about them. I needed to be clear in my expectations and wanted to be fully engaged so my presence was felt. I remembered the concept of personal presence and wanted to ensure that all members would be engaged in the meeting.

After deciding that I would call the meeting to start on Tuesday afternoon the following week, I began to put the following agenda together:

I would have to structure the meeting as to not call out the staff for what they did but how I set the stage for the lack of trust, developing a level of isolation and creating a work presence that was about creating true engagement. It would be important to explain the concept of self-efficacy. As a point of fact, self-efficacy was part of a greater theory developed by Albert Bandura—the social learning theory, which addresses how observation, imitation, and modeling play a critical role in the way people react to their environment.

I decided that I would end the meeting with this new concept I had developed called the trust, isolation and presence (TIP) scale. This tool would help me manage the blended workforce by monitoring the levels of trust, isolation, and presence.

The TIP Scale

I figured out that the human perceptions of trust, isolation, and presence (TIP) needed to be in balance. If one of the human perceptions were interpreted as negative for an individual, that could result in a less than stable and productive outcome.

I figured out that someone who didn’t trust at the right level would be more focused on looking for ways to distrust others. I knew that if the trust level were low, the relationship could not be optimized. I also knew that when the level of trust was low, it would be very hard to make the group productive.

I determined that if someone felt isolated, they would not be able to be productive related to the mission of the department. I remembered how Samantha lost her confidence when she became isolated and knew any individual with a loss of confidence would struggle in their tasks. Finally, when it came to isolation, if a person were isolated or felt isolated long enough, it would be hard for them to reintegrate themselves into the department.

When I thought about presence I knew that if an individual didn’t create a work presence, they would do things the way they thought was the way to do things. I recalled the concept of self-efficacy and how people would do what they believed they were best at. This concept might cause a disconnect between the individual and the department. Bob always talked about full engagement and that required focus and connection to the environment. I knew that without a work presence individuals would find ways to get by and this would create a less than optimum environment. I concluded that a lack of work presence that connected the virtual employee to the rest of the department could cause frustration and potential rework, thus slowing down the tasks being worked on.

With these conclusions I realized that I could create a TIP scale to measure the levels of trust, isolation, and presence. With this, every individual could monitor the current level of these human perceptions and in turn make themselves and the department the most productive. It would also be a way to have the constant monitoring tool that was needed in managing a blended workforce.

I made a simple triangle, each leg represented one of the three human perceptions. The strongest and most stable triangle is the equilateral. If all the sides are the same length, the relationship and the levels of trust, isolation, and presence would be in balance creating a strong and stable work situation. I wanted to make it easy to measure the human perceptions; therefore, each leg could be measured as a human perception on a scale of 1 to 10.

I could then ask questions to gain the level of each perception. Each score or level would translate to a length of that perception and once all three lines were established they could be used to create the triangle. For trust to be measured, one would have to respond to this question: How much trust do you have in yourself and the department? For isolation, how isolated do you feel and are you connected to the department? For presence, what is your level of work presence and engagement with the department related to department presence? By answering two humble questions, one about the individual and one about the department, the individual would understand their true fit in the department. I was conscious about not measuring the perception from just one lens. It was my premise that looking only at the individual level or the department could result in a false positive. For example, someone could feel very positive about their individual level of isolation, yet be disconnected from the department. If we measured the perception only from an individual level in this example, a person could score a 10 individually but score a 5 on the department level. The real score would therefore be a 7.5 versus a 10. The score of 7.5 is what we really needed to know to be a productive team. My hope was not to only gauge the individual level in seclusion but to get a true combined score since we had to function as a team, a department.

I also concluded that if any one perception were not at a 10, it would have a reducing effect on the other aspects regardless of how the individual scored on them. Every perception has a relationship and a correlation with the others. The triangle was the best for establishing the true strength of the human perceptions.

By getting the length of each line, score it 1–10 and making a triangle it would be easy to see the shape of the TIP scale triangle. The triangle’s shape would be a visual reminder of the levels of trust, isolation, and presence currently perceived by each staff member. The six questions can be asked at any time and should be used to give the in the moment response of the human perceptions. This tool is designed to get the current status and be able to help head off long-term effects of a lack of trust, a feeling of isolation, and an absence of work presence.

For example, if someone had a low level of trust, that side would be shorter, causing the triangle to move away from the equilateral and move to a triangle that would be less stable, such as scalene. This might not mean that the relationship is completely in trouble but it would be a simple reminder that one of the perceptions is causing the triangle to be something other than the strongest, the equilateral.

I knew that I would introduce the TIP scale at my meeting and the department would implement it going forward as a tool that could be used between the individual and the manager or even among the full department.

I prepared the rest of my notes for my department meeting and was now ready to call my staff together and talk about all the lessons I had learned.

On the day of the meeting I was excited but also felt a level of anxiety hoping that my lessons would resonate with my staff.

I went to the office and welcomed my out-of-town staff as they arrived at the office. I had made arrangements for everyone to have a partner for the day’s activities. I paired up staff and had them all sit in a U shape arrangement. The pairs would be seated side by side, and I would conduct my presentation by walking and talking while I was in the middle of the U.

As the meeting started I apologized for my mistakes—first and foremost, for not conducting a meeting on my first day. I told the staff that I would walk them through a series of stories and lessons I had learned about my approach in managing our blended team of colocated, part-time, and full-time virtual members.

I introduced the agenda and started to tell them about my lessons associated with trust. I told them about Reliable Reggie, who had opened my eyes to the aspects of trust. I explained how Reggie had told me I needed to ensure that my messages were clear and understood by all. I talked about the second meeting where I had vaguely set up the next day’s meeting with Reggie without confirming his availability. I told them how Reggie provided clarity about how my first e-mail might not have been clear as to my expectations and how I drew wrong conclusions about the staff and their responses. I even laughed when I told them about the director of human resources not responding and the silly thought I had about what could be more important. After all, she was the director of human resources and most likely focused on the people she was serving and not responding to an unclear e-mail from her new manager. I finished my discussion about trust with telling each of them the awesome responsibility they all had in measuring the level of trust all the time. I told them about how the ugly stepbrother, distrust, could happen with broken commitments, unclear communications and to always be open and look for the opportunity to restate their positions.

I next talked about Solitary Samantha and how I learned that a once very productive employee lost her confidence because she began to feel isolated. I told them about how judging events by only their own view could cause others to feel isolated. I told them that they all needed to make sure that new policies and procedures were effectively communicated and understood by all before they could be fully implemented. Finally, I told them about how hard messages need to be communicated openly and timely. If there were going to be changes, they had to be discussed as soon as they were known to one individual and to ensure they were known to all.

When I moved to the topic of presence I thought maybe it would be best to ask a question. I asked the group to talk with their partner and share with them things that they had done in their individual work space and how they felt about it. In doing this exercise I wanted them to feel connected to their work space, where they spend their workday, and talk about it. I recalled how Bob made his staff feel connected to the new store by hanging pictures of the older store. After a few minutes I stopped the exercise and asked them all to recall how they felt about talking about their work presence. If they experienced a strong feeling of pride and connection, they knew what having presence was about. If they didn’t feel that special connection, I challenged them to find someone who did and talk about it during a break. The important thing I concluded about presence is to really find the connection to the environment and remain committed, engaged. I told them being present was an important aspect of being able to truly understand the real awareness of their environment; by doing so they could be most productive.

I then explained about the TIP scale and opened the meeting for questions. After a few questions about how trust, isolation, and presence were part of not only the VWE but could be translated to the more traditional one, I was ready to conclude the meeting and get started with the new beginning.

I thanked everyone for attending the meeting and for all of their support as I struggled through the first few weeks on the job. I confirmed that I was fully committed to their success and would do what I could to make sure they were individually and as a department very successful by being a productive unit.

Finally, I had to admit that I had learned a very important lesson about leading. I learned what you often think coming into a situation might not be exactly what it ends up being. I had to be willing to self-reflect and look for alternative ways rather than holding onto my original thoughts and approach. I had come into my new job thinking that I could rely heavily on technology to make everyone’s work life easier, including mine. I thought my staff and myself would be available around the clock with access to everything they needed 24 hours a day and this would make things easier and clearer. I thought how great it would be to give everyone freedom to balance their time and how not having everyone in the office was a money saver for the company and would not erode productivity.

What I ended up finding out was that nothing can replace the human touch and the human perceptions that go along with it. Technology needs to be used as a tool and not a crutch or a reason not to connect directly with individuals; otherwise, it can separate people and allow them to hide behind the machines and screens that are used. I concluded that even though there was cost saving related to working remotely, regular and dedicated face-to-face meetings were essential to having a productive work environment. I also knew that just being available through the use of technology was not all about being present in the moment and that at times being available around the clock was actually more of a distraction then a focused effort.

I knew that the VWE was a good thing. I knew that it was how organizations would continue to structure themselves. I was pleased I was finding ways to make the VWE more successful. I also knew that it could not function without being guided by the humans behind the actual work and just because you had a work–life balance doesn’t mean that your work environment is really stable and balanced.

I sat at my desk as I did a few weeks prior. Instead of reading a note about how to log on to my new computer and drafting an e-mail to my staff, I took out a pen and paper. I asked myself the six questions about trust, isolation, and presence; determined the level of each; and used the TIP scale. Today, I scored a strong equilateral triangle; a few weeks ago I would have had a different picture. I reflected on my new sketch of a perfect equilateral triangle. This sketch was my moment in time to realize I now knew how to manage in the VWE.

I turned to look at my computer and found notes from each of my staff thanking me for the open discussion and productive department meeting. Each mentioned how excited they were toward becoming a productive unit. I knew then that I had come a long way.