With COVID-19, we’re all facing unprecedented challenges in an unprecedented time. There are new priorities, new procedures, increased stress and added business pressures. Under the best conditions, leadership, teams and culture are tough to master. But in the midst of a global pandemic, it can feel overwhelming, or nearly impossible, to lead effectively—especially when you’re working remotely.
But there’s no time like the present for change. Companies are innovating rapidly, and constraints are forcing us to work smarter and more efficiently. We’re emerging better for it as we find new ways to adapt, connect and support one another through change.
A Playbook for Remote Leadership & Teams
Whether you’ve recently gone remote, or have been working this way for some time, we can all learn from one another and get better at leadership. Stephen Gates, Head Design Evangelist at InVision and Host of The Crazy One podcast, is no stranger to remote work. For more than two years, he’s been with InVision, a fully distributed company with employees in 20 countries.
True to InVision’s core principle of “go-getting and go-giving,” Stephen joined us for a webinar to share strategies and tips. In addition to Remote Work for Design Teams, InVision’s free ebook, Stephen offered some personal lessons and stories, as well as practical advice.
Read on for Stephen’s take on embracing change, setting your team up for success and cultivating a culture that’s stronger than ever before.
Embracing Change
Change is hard. And in the past, many of us didn’t want to change, or it simply wasn’t the right time. Now things are different: we have to change.
Stephen encourages leaders to welcome change and embrace the opportunity to lead. As creatives, we’re comfortable with being uncomfortable. We’re good at finding innovative solutions and bringing people together to collaborate and co-create. By our very nature, we’re capable of leading difficult change. Now is the time to do so.
The Ups & Downs of Leading from Home
Remote work has a lot of great upsides, and an equal share of challenges. Working from home, it’s possible to see your kids and pets more, wander outside for a walk, skip the commute and improve your focus without workplace distractions.
On the flip side, remote work exposes all of an organization’s sins: weak leadership, a lack of trust, poor infrastructure and an unclear process. As Stephen says, without a clear work/home separation, “your business and personal boundaries get put into a blender.” As a remote leader, you might find yourself wondering if your team is actually working, or if you’ll get anything done with back-to-back meetings every day.
Setting Your Remote Team Up for Success
To overcome common challenges, Stephen offers some tried-and-true tactics. Cover the basics to put a solid foundation in place, and allow concessions for the reality that we’re all facing. Here are 12 tips to help:
Set core hours: Just like your brick-and-mortar workplace, standard operating hours ensure everyone is available to work together and respond to business needs during a defined block of time.
Don’t work off of assumptions: Transparency, openness and discussion are key in a successful remote working environment. Don’t assume people know what they should be doing or what they should expect. As a leader, it’s up to you to create freedom in a framework.
Create clear communication & standards: Communicate expectations clearly to avoid confusion and give your team clear guidelines. For example, when do you expect people to respond via email, Slack or text? Verbalize expectations loud and clear so people are able to meet them.
Define what needs a meeting: Meeting for the sake of meeting can cripple your team and organization. Work out a system or criteria to ensure meetings are essential and productive. You might send out a Google doc ahead of time to allow people to review topics and centralize questions. Or consider timeboxing meetings to something like a 15-minute morning standup.
Take advantage of virtual tools: In person, we have our whiteboards, workshops, breakout sessions and critiques. All of these tools can be taken online. InVision offers solutions including Freehand which allows teams to collaborate together in real time, and create useful artifacts to keep everyone aligned. With Zoom, you can use gallery view to see thumbnails of all participants, and even split your call into separate sessions with breakout rooms. You can also record presentations, pitches and client meetings to critique them together as a team and continually improve. Slack donut is an easy way to strengthen personal connections and improve your culture.
Schedule breathing room in your calendar: Back-to-back meetings can burn anyone out. Blocking out time for focused work, lunch and breaks can help you to protect your time and calendar.
Give people permission to be human: Everyone is affected by COVID-19, but your experience may be very different from your co-worker’s. Give people space to work through what they’re up against and don’t feel as if you need to have all the answers.
Make interruptions OK: Working from home, there are bound to be interruptions such as kids, pets, deliveries and noisy neighbors. Don’t let people apologize—communicate that it’s all okay.
Make going slower OK: Give people space to say that they need some time or that they’re not feeling 100% today.
Make not being “always on” OK: Just because we’re sitting in front of our computers or can log into work from home doesn’t mean people need to always be “on.” Consider contacting team members only during working hours and, if you have to work outside of business hours, communicate that you aren’t expecting a response right away.
Make not being “OK” OK: With COVID-19, people are worried about their families, their livelihoods, their communities and so on—rightfully so. If people are really stressed out and not feeling effective, let it happen. Just don’t let it become all-consuming. You might make allowances for a few weeks, then start to move on so that your team doesn’t become trapped. You can also throw an “anxiety party” where people can talk freely about what they’re stressed about and give co-workers an opportunity to support one another. It’s easy to suffer in silence, so find ways to create space for real conversations and connections.
Put people first, work second: When you treat people like a resource, they treat you like a paycheck. If you want the best from people, give them your best.
Building Trust in Distributed Teams
As Stephen says, the most challenging aspect of leading remotely is trust. But trust is the key to everything, whether you’re working remotely or in person.
The Three Types of Trust
Do you trust your co-worker or boss? The answer isn’t always an easy yes or no. Stephen shares three types of trust:
No Trust: Just as it sounds, there is no trust.
Practical Trust: You trust someone to do practical things, such as showing up to work or doing what they say they’ll do. Practical trust is foundational. It’s trusting people to come to work and do the work required to receive a paycheck.
Emotional Trust: You trust someone is on your side because they earned that trust. In emotional trust, you hear works that reflect emotions, i.e., “My boss believes in me” or “I believe in the company’s mission.”
The Benefits of Trust
High-trust teams are high-performing teams:
106% more energy at work
74% less stress
50% higher productivity
76% more engagement
40% less burnout
29% more satisfaction with their lives
13% fewer sick days
The Co-Worker Trust Scorecard
If trust is lacking in your team or organization, it could stem from misunderstandings, your leadership style, culture, company decisions or any number of things. The first step in addressing trust is by determining if you have it or if you don’t.
Stephen offers a simple way to gauge the level of trust in your team: rate each co-worker and put together a simple scorecard, determining whether there is no trust, practical trust or emotional trust for each person. Ask your team to also rate you so you can look at any gap between how you perceive yourself and how your team perceives you.
The Silver Lining
As hard as things may seem, this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for everyone to take a pause, reflect on what’s working or what isn’t and make things better. It’s the perfect time to dig into things that have always been an issue but didn’t have an urgency or pressing business need before. To Stephen, comfort is the enemy of greatness. While it may feel uncomfortable or painful, change is a good thing. And change will get you from good to great.