Remote Work & Communication Norms

I am currently reading the book “Leading from Anywhere:?The Essential Guide to Managing Remote Teams” by David Burkus.?The most thought-provoking theme so far has been that communication norms and behaviors are the key factor to remote team productivity.?It is so important in fact that it should influence your hiring practices, the formation of your team norms, and the tools you decide to use to communicate.

The idea that communication is important to knowledge work is not a big revelation.?What is intriguing is the idea that the ability of the team to master the use of synchronous and asynchronous communication channels will optimize both the productivity and the flexibility that remote work offers without the side effects.?

Let's take an example:?Traditionally in January I would share our department priorities.?In this speech, I would connect the dots about how those priorities connect to the overall mission and vision of the company with all of my associates and contractors.?

Pre-Covid and Pre-Remote: I would have used a ‘All Hands’ meeting at the beginning of the year.?95% in-person attendance.?95% of just me talking.?99% no questions or dialogue from the group due to the size and fear factor of speaking up.

In Remote: I could hold the same ‘All Hands’ meeting as before but hold the meeting virtually with Microsoft Teams.?I would probably get worse results than the in-person approach as some people would sign-in to watch on one screen and do other work on the other.?Those partially paying attention and hoping they don’t get called on, will not get the best understanding of the message or very much inspiration towards our future.

Or

The entire leadership team could create a video that speaks to our priorities for the year and the meaning for each area.?We could overlay exciting music. We could post this video on our general Microsoft Teams channel for viewing.?We could ask for comments to be shared in the discussion thread or directly with individual managers.?Associates and contractors are now able to watch the video when it is convenient to the. Everyone is more apt to ask questions in the specific channel that is most comfortable.?The video is also now available to any new hire during the entire year to get the same message all existing associates had in January. They also get access to the dialogue and questions their peers had.

The identification that this type of communication is best served through an asynchronous channel (offline) and not synchronous (online) is the big shift and a new skill we must build in remote teamwork.?The channel identification becomes key to the team norms of a remote team and the communication channel preferences for different types of communications.?i.e. Don’t send me a text when you don’t need a response for 2 days.?Don’t send me an email when you need a response in one hour. We use Teams chats and never personal text.

There is also the misconception that collaboration and brainstorming is always best-done face to face.?Studies show that this is not always the case.?Done correctly, asynchronous brainstorming can lead to more unique ideas being shared and avoid group think on initial ideas.?That is, if the team has the tools and skills to do this type of offline collaboration well.

As leaders in this new remote workforce, we must get comfortable with the skills to become a digital communicator and collaborator.?We must think about the digital communication channels that will be more flexible and better received by the workforce.?We must get comfortable with new tools like video editing and simplifying our messages for rapid channels like chat and text. We must ask for feedback and use data about how messages are being received and understood.

If we can build the skills and set appropriate expectations amongst our working teams, I believe it will yield the benefits of remote work with none of the trade-offs.?I still want to see you one day, but hopefully we can talk about something other than work ??