As someone who has been developing #HybridWork expertise for years, I found Remote’s video-webinar on „Collaboration in a Distributed Workforce“ particularly valuable.

Today’s workplace reality is that teams are rarely in the same physical location. Most companies still resist embracing this „natural hybrid setup,“ leaving untapped potential for powerful and efficient cocreation.

Remote as a company, offers specifically service around employees working from „anywhere“ as presented by Barbara Matthews – Chief People Officer at Remote. The insights also from Meredith Haberfeld – Founder / CEO of Think-Human are really helpful to get a better picture on working with teams accross locations or countries. Their discussion offers excellent insights on leading teams without physical presence.

https://remote.com/resources/webinars/shaping-collaboration-in-a-distributed-workforce

I took their key points from the video and wanted to share/add my experience too:

Key Leadership Principles for Distributed Teams

1. Clarity is Key

Beyond communicating clear goals, leaders should initiate an open exchange on WHY these goals matter in three perspectives „company“, „team“ and „individual“. I have seen leaders for decades sharing a „why it matters for the company“ without ever thinking on the impact on the work of the people, who have to realize it.

Most organizational (top-down) enhancements mean changing the tools, processes and work-style of leaders and employees – to gain strategic oversight, planning options, reporting or standartization – which means more work or different work for employees/teams. They typically have found their way of locally getting things done from a personal perspective. To win their buy-in, it is essential to create clarity on all three levels as mentioned before – often ensuring a good understanding, that their extra effort will make the organization as a whole „better“ or future safe.

Clarity also on HOW the team can collectively achieve those goals (check the „ownership“ topic below). This isn’t about #micromanagement but fostering #cocreation. Clarity can be on the goal (man on the moon) or on the process (iterative progess with levels/milestones), or focussing only on the very next achivable SMART task.

2. Speak Up

Creating psychological safety for open communication, for me goes way beyond giving or asking for feedback—it’s essential for building a #LearningOrganization. Transparency should be prioritized, with Enterprise Social Networks serving as valuable platform for dialogues and innovative exchange.

Todays standard (chat clients), working in closed communication channels prohibits – specially in remote or global teams, communities and networks – a greater sense of belonging and „feeling“ a collective atmosphere, a culture on how behavior is echoed in an organization or by the leading team.

It is vital for the individual to get a positive/engaging response on an issue or when speaking up. It is of even more importance (of course without any form of blaming) to have some of such discussions on a collaborative (network) platform, so others can see, learn and get involved in the practice of a „speak up culture“. Unfortunately the „Channel Chat Tools“ (Teams, Slack, Discord…) do not really offer the needed „social network platform“ features for open, organization-wide communication/collaboration features (without exhausting the organization) > ESN would have been a solution, but there are no longer many suppliers arouond > see ESN

3. Working with trust

I would think this is one of the most-impactful, yet hard to accomplish in an hierarchical setup. A classic command & control organization does not need any trust, as work is delegated and done by disciplinary power, end-to-end processes and the „risk-reducing“ (and efficiency/quality/reliability boosting) setup of roles, rules and contracts. > See Organization as an Immune System

Such an organization should act like a „machine“ and the „resources“ have to function as planned – „no (negative) surprises“.

In German language there are two words for „trust“: Zutrauen (putting trust in one, before it has been earned) and Vertrauen (the state, where they trust each other).

ZUtrauen versus VERtrauen

Do we believe in us and others, or do we just expect trust to happen?

I have the feeling most managers talk about the desired second interpretation, while missing it.

micro-management excludes trust

it even destroys it…

My best experiences – no mater from where people are originated, what career level, gender, age, profession or… – is by focussing on pre-sharing trust (possibly requires a positive people mindset – „they will surprise me positively“) and on actively building trust by my actions into more „guided autonomy“.

Trust is like a muscle,
which needs training every day

4. Share How You Operate

Team members benefit from understanding what drives each other, what creates struggles, and what might trigger conflicts.

Reflecting oneself
should be a Prio One leadership task.

Some call it „operating manual of me“ (I don’t like the term so much, as it sounds like I am a machine, that „always works the same way“ – but the idea behind is „learning about my personal positive and negative triggers“ is great)
> here you can find a free – self manual builder: https://www.manualof.me

Not to forget, next to daily changes based on smaller events, this is an ongoing process, as people and environments continuously evolve in our dynamic world. Just think about todays fears (economy, climate, health, politics, war…) but also life-phases, family topics or local incidents.

if this > than that

extremely simplified view on how people react on …

I recommend at least talking about this regularly (e.g. in physical meetings, as part of team building or as a project review reflexion) and also asking your team about their „expectations/typical reactions/fears/dislikes“ – be careful, what to discuss in the group or better personally.

5. Foster Active Participation

There’s tremendous leverage in reactivating disengaged team members. According to various studies*, many people fall into „working by command“ as a protective response after repeatedly hearing „not your job“ or „too complex“ – as a response to „ownership“ or „bringing in ideas“.

*Studies:

• Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2023 Report (only 23% of employees worldwide are engaged at work, with 59% „quietly quitting“ (not engaged) and 18% actively disengaged.
  Source: Gallup. (2023). State of the Global Workplace: 2023 Report. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx
• Microsoft’s 2022 study surveyed 31,000 people across 31 countries and combined this with analysis of trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals. The research found that 47% of employees are at risk of being disengaged or leaving their current employers. The study identified a „productivity paranoia“ where 85% of leaders have difficulty knowing if employees are being productive, while 87% of employees report they are productive. This disconnect contributes significantly to employee disengagement.
  Source: Microsoft. (2022). Work Trend Index Annual Report: Great Expectations: Making Hybrid Work Work. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/great-expectations-making-hybrid-work-work

Disengagement is a typical result of the
ongoing experience of ineffectiveness

if people feel unseen, unheard, unrespected, they stop being active

Passivity isn’t their natural preference. Building trust and delegating meaningful responsibility rebuilds ones self-efficacy, which—alongside curiosity—serves as a sustainable motivator for exceptional performance.

Just think about hobbies – there is no need for assessment centers, engagement initiatives or lack of participation. It is all there – in all ages – we „just“ have to shape an environment, where this can flourish again (did that for 14 years in a global role, people drove outstanding results)

In short and a reference to another post: „In this context, „weniger müssen müssen, mehr wollen dürfen“ would translate to:

„Less having to have to,
more being allowed to want“

6. Distribute Responsibility / Ownership

• Is this really wanted?
• What would happen if people actually take ownership (intrapreneurship / responsibility)?
• >> I experienced this many times – the organization or leaders typically can not handle that!

True ownership for me begins with delegating responsibility. I have seen quite a number of ownership-initiative, where – as soon as someone tried to „act“, received the typical answers as written above (no time, budget, role, focus). In hierarchies, ownership and responsibility is a „management role“ – they get more money for taking responsibility, if now „everyone“ should take more responsibility, it raises some quesitons (rarely discussed openly):

• if I take more responsibility, who will give it away?
• if I take more responsibility, will I get more money – and the ones handing it over, get less?
• if I take more responsibility, how do I manage the additional risk – or is there any?
• if I take more responsibility, how will processes have to change (release/budget/personell…) – those processes are not scalable to „all“
• if I take more responsibility, how is that visible in my career (title, role, social reputation … will others notice?)

Agile teams often underperform not due to capability issues, but because they’re constrained by cumbersome processes or rigid timelines of the not-agile rest of the organization. (This is not about blaming people or leaders – it is a systems issue – think about the gearbox and ask one gearwheel to „be more agile“)

What typically is meant with
„taking over more responsibility“:

is to „reduce risk“ for the leaders, improve quality or efficiency/productivity within „Continuous Improvement“, not by driving „real transformation“ (doing something different or doing things differently).

Unfortunately transformation is what most organizations need, to „transform their business“ – continuous improvement measures help to stabilize the existing

continuous improvement is great and needed, once the new business model is found

Progress in distributing responsibility practically starts individually, when:

• leaders „speak last“
• leaders demonstrate trust in their team’s professional judgment
• and grant decision-making authority and resources.
• leaders asking for help
• or connecting their people directly to others
• or have them present results, instead of themselves

6. Lead with Curiosity

This can be challenging in environments optimized for efficiency through tightly managed processes. We’ve had success cultivating curiosity by discouraging immediate answers (especially from leaders who feel pressured to have perfect responses) and instead:

practicing „respond with question first“ approach:

• „What have you tried already?“
• „Who might be great to get a deeper understanding for this?“
• „What would happen if you had the perfect answer?“
• „What do you need to answer it?“
• „Can we find the underlaying question?“

Be aware of other reasons for employees questions:

In todays environments, questions do not only serve to get answers, but to get attention, to show respect, to get seen, to show ones ownership. Understanding that „asking for help“ is a social act, on one side for leaders hard (as it could harm their „superior“ reputation) and a conditioned „helplessness“ by employees, who have – too often – received negative feedback or critics for their own ideas or apporaches.

Questions are a key to curiosity,
if they initiate something.

From Dr. Carl Naughton, one of our top experts for curiousity, we could learn so much about:

• „shaping curiosity“ by working with surprise/serendipity
• „lack of information“
• building up curiosity
• using ambiguity
• connecting the un-connected
• positive distraction and more…

we could experiment with and had great results e.g. in our global „New Work Style – Office Transformation“

From Roman Rackwitz, my personal hero around business gamification, we could make use of:

• the „cliff-hanger concept“ (known from movie-sequals)
• challenging but achievable levels
• praise beyond badges
• and the power of story-telling.

7. Having a GUIDE/guideline

Of course that resonates perfectly with me, as „building a global GUIDE network“ has been one of my first actions, when I joined my global role in 2011 – and evolved ever since. The power of intrinsically motivated, empowered and digitally connected change agents or „transformation role models“ has been used and copied by many other organizations.

Also co-creatively creating guidelines, a manifest or „golden rules“ for collaboration, working hybrid or within a project setup, in a community or when working with global networks has shown great results. Both in very detailed form like:

• expected response time per asynchronous channel (email, chat, article/comment)
• expected response form by clarifying the meaning of emoticons (e.g. like for „seen & understood“, heart for „approved/committed“, laugh for „not so sure, need more … and „a comment“ for disagree with reasons or other idea)

or on a very high-level strategic approach like:

• share how it contributes to the overall goal?
• If it improves our working atmosphere, trust or effectiveness – go for it!
• Whenever in doubt – do it together!
• Go beyond your bubble > connect with outside, regularly
• have your daily social learning breakfast – connecting to and learning from experts

6. How to spent time on site

Last – and specially in todays „back to office“ discussion – the

concious planning, decision and
realization of an improved onsite experience.

Either ask yourself or use relevant studies on what really makes a difference in sharing the same space at the same time. In my mandate of driving work flexibility on global level, we achieved exactly that: individual reflection on team level, how the company, the team and the individual will benefit most from physical work. A one size fits all might serve some managers preferences, surely not the various needs of a powerful, efficient and productive workforce.

Here are some questions, being a lot more helpful, than „how many days in the office“:

1. What types of work is done in the team, and what setup/environment supports it the most?
   • a customer service team, being on the phone all day has different requirements than a test engineer or a knowledge worker with a global team (shared office, silcene areas, meeting spaces, laboratories)
   • innovation focused people require often a more flexible, versatile, crowded place than data miners, programmers or people who have to work concentrated for longer time periodes
2. Real advantages of „being physically together“
   • the walls of an office or same-style tables will not create a corporate culture – shared experiences, doing things together, solving problems as a team, celebrating success will do that.
   • While in video-conferences, we only have visual and audio input, in physical meetings, we can use all our senses to get a deeper, emotional experience. That requires „action together“, so skipp one-to-many townhalls and offer interactive sessions
3. Plan for hybrid – to get the most out of both worlds
   • Connecting the physical experience in one or more satelites (where the local/regional colleagues get together) and the digital/virtual tools and features to scale interaction, collaboration
   • use the Liberating Structures and adjust to hyrid setup
   • use specific roles, digital buddies, sidekicks to enhance the connection and interaction of physical and digital colleagues
   • planning events hybrid is great for risk reduction, as – no matter what happens – your event can always take place – and people can choose or experience both formats.

Resumee

It started as a LinkedIn post-response to the inspiring video, quickly I ran out of „space“, so I moved to my blog again. If you made it to the end, I hope it inspired you to try out some of the practical hints, or triggered some re-thinking on how to approach your employees or colleagues.

I would love to read your feedback