Learning how to manage remotely

I still do a little consulting now and then just to keep my hand in. A couple of weeks ago a manager in a client company invited me to zoom into her first meeting of 2022. “It’s a cross-team sync for my 20 people,” she said. “I do them every two weeks. But it will help get you up to speed on where we are in my group. I’ll copy you on the doc we’ll use to anchor it.”

At the word “sync,” I should have run a mile. Knowing what you know by now about Zoom or Meet syncs, you would have, for sure.

I missed another chance to head for the hills when the document hit my inbox. It must have been her holiday project. It came in at just under 10,000 words and read like something a person wrote with a gun to her head - after dropping a dozen Ambien the night before.?

Sure enough, after just a few minutes of Steph’s sync, (name disguised for obvious reasons) I found myself floating above my desk, gazing down at the twenty or so other participants as they examined split ends, took their pens apart, furtively manipulated their phones and tried with admirable invention to disguise their yawning. Some faint relief was provided by the poor soul who floated in and out of his background like a disembodied zombie. My brain started to ache, the way it does when you attempt to make sense of blockchain technology. The whole room looked like it needed to go pee.

It was clear that Steph had no clue on how to manage her department remotely. She’s smart. She knew that remote work threatened allegiance to the culture as well as the social cohesion of the group. She saw how that in turn threatened productivity and retention. She thought a regular “sync” was the answer.

It wasn’t. It isn’t.

Today, in a hybrid office-home work setting, the productivity of a team depends entirely on the way communications is organized and managed.

So, what did I tell her when, at the end of the zoomed sermon on the mount, her people had given perfunctory updates on what they were working on - probably word-for-word the very same update they gave on the previous sync - and fled, doubtless to jump on their phones to text each other and shit-talk about the utter inanity of their miserable lives? Just these three things:

1.??????Match the channel to the purpose

The manager must find the right balance between “asynchronous communication” – no immediate decision necessary – and “synchronous communication” – we need to leave here with an answer. The natural tendency is to spend hours on video calls. But, they should be kept for decision making and crisis management.

There are three exceptions to this rule. One is for the random, informal, one-on-one check-in with direct reports, rather like an office coffee and chat. The other is for the occasional (once a quarter?) and short (30 minutes?) update on company-wide developments that binds employees to the greater purpose of their company. (I am assuming here that the pandemic is continuing to prevent such things as all-hands off-sites, which would be the usual means for getting this done). The third? That’s for new initiatives. I’ll tell you about that in a moment.

The bulk of day-to-day operating communications should be done not by video call but through a balanced mix of channels, perhaps built on collaborative software like G-Suite and a group communications app, such as Slack (or an open-source Slack alternative like Mattermost), or Teams. (Out here in the real world where I live, these are still not as widely used as you might think) Work schedules can be shared on Trello or Airtable, too. You should set up multiple channels, matching them to specific purpose and establishing strict rules for each one on who leads and participates and how. This is where and how collaborative teams are built and their work gets done, today. Not, definitely not, via Zoom.

2.??????Trust is even more important now

The manager must communicate and provide the means to communicate, but at the same time the manager must be trusting. Remote management exposes the micro-manager, the kind of boss who does not know how to delegate. I prefer to look at this particular problem as “over-functioning” a term coined by Shelley Row, the author of Think Less, Live More: Lessons from a Recovering Over-Thinker. As I’ve observed Steph, I’ve come to see her as an over-functioning manager. Here’s why: She doesn’t seem to understand the principal role of any manager, which is 1) to trust that her team has it handled and 2) make sure her team understands that she is available to provide assistance should they not be able to handle it after all.

Instead, she steps in to “help” at the first sign of trouble, even when no help is requested…then she gets upset when it’s not appreciated. Strangely, at the same time she worries excessively about how employees see her, and even avoids taking necessary action for fear it will upset an employee or the team.

The big problem here is that remote work magnifies the mistake of distrust.

Hence Steph’s need for syncs. It’s the only way she knows to make the universe conform to her own needs, to feel assured she is actually in control. But what is the key to great management? Understanding this: “It’s not about me. It’s about you.”

I do see progress, though. We’re moving performance evaluations to judging output, rather than inputs. She’s already got approval to set up a teams app and more important, we have reached a good understanding on how and when she should provide input through the project channels. Trust but verify, that’s the key.

A little self-governance goes a long way. As we like to say around here, "good management requires good self-management."

3.??????You get a lot done at home. You have better ideas in the office

This last point ties together the first two. As the world moves to a hybrid work model that blends in varying proportion in-person and remote presence, I hear concerns about a decline in productivity due to loss of oversight.

It's strange. I think the doubters would be surprised at how people spend their time in the office – and I just don’t mean time spent checking on the market or the weekend weather. I also mean the time spent on repetitive tasks, or “work about work.”

According to a report last year by the teams app company Asana, “The Anatomy of Work Index,” people spend about 60% of their time at the workplace on "work about work" that involves stuff like replying to a constant string of emails or messaging pings, attending unnecessary meetings, chasing colleagues for input and waiting for feedback.

The Anatomy of Work Index

This feels right to me. The office is just not as efficient a work environment as many of us assume.

But on the other hand, remote work is not of itself the answer. In a study last year, Microsoft researchers concluded that “firm-wide remote work caused the collaboration network of workers to become more static and siloed, with fewer bridges between disparate parts.” This reduction in the number of new connections and real-time conversations led the researchers to fear that it will be “harder for employees to acquire and share new information across the network.”

Microsoft research study on remote work

What should we conclude from all this?

You get a lot done at home. But you get better ideas in the office.

Which brings me back to Steph.

The information-rich nature of face-to-face contact led the great English economist Alfred Marshall to write more than 130 years ago that when workers gather in clusters, “the mysteries of the trade become no mystery but are, as it were, in the air.” Steph and I are trying to figure out the protocols for a video call that will focus solely on new initiatives, both process and product initiatives, as they come up to her. Somehow, maybe through this simple process, we can ensure that the special air of the established and successful organization she works for continues to circulate through it, even in a world of remote work.?

But remember, the very same rules of management and behavioral incentive that apply in the office must apply here, in this remote setting. Contributors must feel comfortable in advancing their novel point of view. Capacity for risk and tolerance of failure must be baked in. Approval or rejection must be swift. You know, the same things already embedded in the culture of your company... I presume. If they're not, remote will make life even worse than it is already.

Work is increasingly digital, distributed and complex. All businesses are looking more and more like tech companies, powered by software. The tools to manage this remarkable transition are coming to market every day. The ability to track these technological developments and apply them successfully in a nuanced way to the day-to-day business of getting things done will increasingly define managerial success.

I think Steph's up to it. We'll give her time and see.