Practical Tips for Staying Focused When Working From Home

Working from home can be highly productive, but it can also go badly wrong. Without a proper office space, a prioritized schedule, it's all too easy to be distracted, and to get very little done.

The distractions of home, along with the isolation that often comes with remote working, can cause you to lose focus  and to damage your productivity. 

Here are five key ways to stop that from happening:

1. Motivate yourself. Self-motivation  techniques can help you to boost your confidence, think positively, and set clear goals. 
2. Minimize distractions. Which distractions  tend to affect you most? Maybe you get caught up doing household chores, or suffer interruptions from family or friends. Beating these distractions could be as simple as shutting the door! 
3. Reward yourself. Find ways to make each task more enjoyable and rewarding in itself, as well as giving yourself "treats" when they're done. For example, allow yourself your favorite specialty coffee for completing a task successfully. 
4. Control your social media. Think carefully about which notifications to keep on, and which to mute until later. Allocate time blocks for checking your phone. And, if you're still struggling, see if tools like Freedom or Cold Turkey Writer help you to control your time online.  
5. Know your goals. Along with short-term, task-related goals, make sure that you're also clear about the wider career goals  and purpose  you're striving to achieve. Keeping these in mind will motivate you to do your best work, whatever your location.

Create a Work Space That Works!
Creating an effective work space is essential if you want to stay on track and get things done. 

Make it a place where you'll enjoy spending time. However, you also need to be clear that it's a place of work. A few "office" touches might encourage you to be more productive – but you can still personalize your work space, with fun posters or family photos.

Check you can sit comfortably. If not, you'll likely find plenty of excuses to get up and go somewhere else! A high-quality office chair is one of the best investments you can make. 

The other important piece of equipment is a door that you can close! It's very challenging to work with other people nearby. Be sure to have a place where you can shut the door on potential distractions. If you don't have a door to close consider getting a "Do Not Disturb" sign to place near your open work area. Headphones may also help.

Get Organized
The next essential element of focused home working is getting organized .

Start with your desk. Is it big enough? And is it suitable for the work you do? 

Next, make sure that you have everything you need within easy reach. 

It's easy to lose focus if you're working on several different projects at once. Even when you're at home, organize your work into clearly defined actions programs with with deadlines to help keep you on track.

And keep your work space tidy. Spend a few minutes at the end of each session sorting out things like paperwork or empty coffee cups. Clear away as much of it as you can when you switch off for the day. 

Manage Your Time
Effective time management is essential if you want to continue hitting your deadlines when you're working from home.   

Organize and prioritize key tasks with a To-Do List . This will help you to avoid procrastinating , or losing focus by "switch-tasking ," and add an extra layer of structure to your day.

It's also a good idea to have a list of "in between" tasks. These are relatively minor jobs that should take 10 minutes or less to complete, and which you can fit into your day when a gap opens up. And don't forget to take breaks regularly.

Keep tabs on how productive you are by filling out a Completed Tasks Log at the end of the day. And share it with your boss via email and video chat.

Take Charge of Communication
To stay focused at home, you need to be in control of communication – otherwise, it might start to control you! 

Find appropriate times to "check in" with your managers and co-workers. Small problems can often be dealt with there and then, allowing you to work uninterrupted afterward.

You likely need to experiment with communication in the early days of working from home. You'll want to avoid distractions, but neither should you "disappear." Over time, you'll discover the right levels of interaction that builds your manager's trust in your productivity, and so prevent micromanagement on their part.

If possible, redirect your office phone to your personal cell, and let colleagues, customers and suppliers know how best to reach you at home. That way, you'll be able to take important calls, but switch to your message service when you don't want to be disturbed. 

Tools like Slack, WhatsApp, Skype, Zoom, TEAMS may provide a more direct means for you to contact other team members, and vice versa – and you can set your status to "busy" whenever you need to.

Balance Work and Life

If you still find yourself losing focus when you're working from home, check that you're not trying too hard! It can be difficult to resist the urge to overcompensate for not being in the office, by working longer than you normally would, or by missing out on breaks.

But it's essential that you continue to maintain a healthy work-life balance , and the following six tips will help:   

1. Create physical boundaries. If possible, set up a work space that's separate from your home space. This should make it easier to shut out the everyday distractions of home life, and to cut off from work at the end of each day.
2. When you're working, act like it! You might find it helps to have particular clothes for working at home. Dressing for work can set the right mental tone for the day (and avoid any awkwardness if you get dialed in to a virtual meeting while you're still in your pajamas!). Also, avoid going into certain areas of the house, so that you know when you're in "work mode," and when you're not. 
3. Have "no-go" zones for technology. Laptops and cellphones can be useful for staying in touch with co-workers, but they can also leave us feeling as though we're "always on." This can lead to stress  and burnout . So, try to set up "no-go" zones when work devices are banned, such as mealtimes, holidays and the two hours before bed every night, to avoid sleep disruption. 
4. Set break reminders. Regular short breaks can help to keep you energized and focused. Try setting a countdown timer while you do an hour of work. When the alarm goes off, reward yourself with a five- or 10-minute break – to make a coffee, or get some fresh air. It's vital that you get out of your chair during the day. 
5. Remind your children to let you work!  Set communication ground rules. Let your children know that you're not be be disturbed when your "Do Not Disturb" sign is up. But don't be too rigid. One of the joys or working at home is to be available when your kids (And pets 😀) really need you.
6. Commute to your home office! Consider taking a short walk before starting your working day. Even a 10-minute stroll could energize you, and help to create a break between home tasks and work tasks. If you're adventurous, try this 10-minute morning Qi Gong Routine with Lee Holden. Do it with the whole family.  It will help  unleash your "tiger energy." I practice the routine daily. It's incredible!

There are numerous advantages to working from home. But there are many challenges, too, such as staying focused and doing your best work. 

To your greater well-being,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Tips to Break Out of a Sales Slump (Even during a crisis)

Just keep swinging … It’s happened to all of us: One month, we’re hitting home runs out of the sales ballpark; the next, we’re swinging and missing on every sales opportunity.

We’ve all been aboard the sales train wreck before. You fail to secure an important sale. You have a series of bad days. Worse, you struggle to sell to your own accounts. You can’t seem to disentangle yourself from its deadly grip. You’re in a sales slump.

“Sales slumps don’t discriminate”

Even heavy sales hitters have bad days, bad months and even bad quarters — it’s how they get through it that makes the difference.

Sales is a mental sport and slumps happen to everyone. A sales slump is especially unfortunate since making sales is how sales reps make a living. No sales, no commissions makes for empty pockets.

WHAT’S A SALES SLUMP
A slump is any decrease in sales performance. It happens over time, not just one bad day. A slump may start without much harm. You might simply lose a sale. It may bother you a bit. You lose another sale and now you’re getting pissed off.

Then, your manager makes the comment, “you might be in a slump.” You struck out again. It’s at that point, you decide you’re in an ‘official slump’. Depression sets in as anger fuels it, making it worse. Your poor results worry you even more. All you begin to think about is the slump as it “gets into your own head” way too much.

Every sales professional goes through seasons of frustration and even despair. There is an aspect of sales that is very emotional.

“Let the negative emotions fester and they can drag you down, shipwrecking your career.”

SALES IS RAW AND EMOTIONAL
One moment, you’re on top of the sales mountain and unfortunately the next, you find yourself tumbling down the side of a cliff. Sales is raw. Sales is emotional. Sales is not for the weak at heart!

There are four seasons in a year. We have seasons in our sales career. Quite frankly, nobody wants to talk about it. If you’ve been in sales for any length of time, you know sh%t happens.

You lose one of your largest accounts. You miss budget over a series of quarters. You make a string of bad decisions such as failure to prospect and then the funnel dries up!

As Mark Hunter says, “The cumulative impact of many poor decisions, slips in self-discipline, and things put off until it is too late.”

You go from being hungry and aggressive too complacent and bored. Once was an exciting career becomes drudgery and routine. You hit the funk! It starts to wear on you!

THE SALES FUNK
The person who can control the sales funk is YOU. Take a step back and become a bit vulnerable with yourself.

What’s your morning ritual?

How about every morning set aside 30 minutes to reflect? What did yesterday look like? What will today look like? What can I do better? Find problems when they are pebbles as opposed to boulders rolling down the side of a mountain.

You may be getting out of a sales funk, coming out of a sales funk or you will be in a funk. Nobody knows it but you. You may be spinning out of control or somehow lost your way, it happens! You’re burned out! What are you going to do about it?

BREAKING OUT OF THE SALES FUNK
What can you do when you find yourself in this dark place, the sales funk zone? What can you do to rescue yourself from it? Stay in it and you’ll submarine your career.

“Negativity fuels all of those emotions to the point that it consumes your every thought.”

Acknowledgment
You’re the only person you knows immediately that you’re in the funk zone. Admit it and put it out there. It’s ok! Confide in your manager, a friend, a mentor or even a teammate but more importantly; do something about it.

Step one in the process is just own it. Put some light to it.

Pride
Check your pride out at the door and admit you need to do something about it.

Professional athletes go into slumps. However, what makes them different is they’ve set their pride aside and seek help. They increase their levels of practice, planning, and preparation. They don’t blame others. They don’t make excuses. They go back to the basics.

Your clients and prospects sense desperation mode when you’re in the funk zone, as you spew your commission breath all over the room.

Suck up your pride and start prospecting consistently again!

As Tom Hopkins, so eloquently says…

“The brutal fact is the number one reason for failure in sales is an empty pipe, and, the root cause of an empty pipeline is the failure to prospect.”

Invest in your Heart
When you’re slumping, dig in and find out what’s in your heart and mind? What is it that you really want to change?

Invest in yourself and self-reflect. Reflection time is about taking care of yourself. Taking care of yourself is the first step forward in breaking the funk. We all know the phrase:

“You have to take care of yourself, nobody else is going to do it!”

Meet with yourself every morning and ask yourself a few of these questions…

• How am I feeling?
• How is my energy?
• What do I need to align?
• What am I willing to do about it?

In the professional world of sales, we will all find ourselves in a sales slump. When that happens a true sales professional will recognize it early and then take the steps needed to minimize the slump, and turn it around fast.

All the success, 

Peter McLees, Sales Coach and Trainer

email: petercmclees@gmail.com

Mobile: 323-854-1713

We help sales reps and sales organizations accelerate their sales. 

Building and Sustaining Engagement and Productivity In Volatile Times

In the pre-Covid-19 business climate, employee engagement was the difference between being good and being great. In this disruptive, precarious and uncharted territory, it’s the difference between surviving or not. 

Whatever times we live in, low engagement reduces performance and profit. In good times, consumer demand can disguise the lapses in productivity that disengagement causes. But in volatile times, there isn’t any way to hide the performance problems of employee disengagement.

There are several levers leaders can pull to help employees stay positive and engaged:

• Clarifying expectations.
• Providing information, materials and resources needed to do work right.
• Granting opportunities to do what your employee does best every day.
• Giving frequent recognition and praise for doing good work..
• Caring about your employee as individuals.
• Planning, enabling and encouraging development.
• Asking for opinions from your employees.
• Communicating the company’s vision/mission.
• Recognition provides employees with a personal, positive indication that they are valued and are necessary contributors. This can be incredibly powerful when the economic news is unrelentingly negative. Managers shouldn’t reserve recognition only for big wins; they should applaud small victories too. Also, when it comes to recognition individualization matters.

Takeaway! Research reveals that proper employee recognition has a significant impact on operating margin. Operating margin shows how much a company makes from each dollar of sales before interest and taxes. In general, businesses with higher operating margins tend to have lower costs and better gross margins. This gives them more pricing flexibility and an added measure of safety during tough economic times. According to the data, companies in the highest quartile of recognition of excellence report had operating margin of 6.6 percent, while those in the lowest quartile report 1 percent.

What's your organization's vision, or purpose? To some, that might seem like a pre-crisis question, one that no longer resonates when businesses are focused on survival. Well it isn’t. In fact, it’s essential in this climate. Mission or purpose is the strategic structure that pulls organizations through volatile times. While nearly everyone in corporate America is trying stay afloat, organizations that have a clear strategy won’t be looking for silver bullets or grasping at straws or just cutting costs with no clear focus. Instead, they will have more clarity in their cuts and more certainty on how to stimulate revenues.

To run an organization effectively, leaders must set visions and priorities, plan, build relationships, influence others, and make things happen. But if you ask followers what they need from leaders, the clear answer is INTEGRITY, STABILITY, CARING and HOPE.

·    INTEGRITY: trust is primarily built through relationships, and it’s important because it’s the foundational currency that a leader has with his team or his followers. Trust is built by being honest with people about the realities of the business and the realities of their performance.

·    STABILITY: In these volatile times, leaders can’t entirely quell the fears that people feel. But they can promote a feeling of stability from day to day, and that creates a sense of security and engagement. The leader’s biggest short-term problem can be the distraction and even paralysis that comes from anxiety that employees may feel about their own jobs and the jobs of their friends and family members. Predictability is a good antidote for feelings of insecurity. Try to exude as much of a ‘business as usual’ feel and meet people’s need for stability and security so that while they may be hearing bad economic news and while everything else is changing there are some predictable elements in work and life.

·    CARING: The lifeblood of employee engagement is caring—the feeling that your boss or someone at work cares about you personally, that someone encourages your development, and that the people around you care about the work they do. While caring is always an essential aspect of engagement, when employees, feel (Whether their perceptions are real or not) insecure about their jobs, knowing that someone cares is enormously important—and individualization is implicit in caring. You can’t show people you care if don’t know them, so you have to spend with people one on one.

Takeaway! Even in the best times, many leaders may be hesitant to show that they care about their employees. They may think that expressions or demonstrations of caring will undermine professionalism, make difficult decisions harder, or have a negative impact on employees’ performance. 

In fact, THAT’S WRONG! Gallup research shows that the more leaders care about their individual employees, the higher those workers performance will be. Yet when companies are cutting jobs, hours or raises, retreating from personal connections is a natural self-protective instinct. How can you ask a worker about her kids today when you suspect you’ll be cutting her hours tomorrow? But cutting people off can make them more insecure—and make bad news harder to hear too.

Showing you care can keep engagement alive!

·    HOPE: Hope creates an aspirational factor among all the things you are trying to do in your company, and gives people a reason to commit. Hope suggests that the future will better (if not the past) than the present, and that what we’re doing as a company now will contribute toward creating the future. You can’t build hope without trust. You can’t build hope without security and caring. But trust, security and caring aren’t enough. You do need hope to draw people toward a better future and give them aspirations. And it’s a critical aspect of leadership right now. The challenge today is managing fear, then building hope about goals that we can all believe in.

Takeaway! Hope requires initiative but according to the Gallup research, leaders are far more likely to react than to initiate—even though leaders will more often than not say they are proactive and not reactive.

Stronger together!

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how leadership coaching and training can help you create a high performance culture and drive results? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Script to Deal with the Covid-19 Sales Objection

“We’re just not doing anything until this virus situation is settled…”

Sound familiar? It should. You probably get this objection, or some version of it, every day now.

And for good reason. We’re all in unchartered territory now. Some of you reading this are working from home—a whole new challenge—some stores and companies are closing for now, and freeways as clear as they were in 1965 (see, it isn’t all doom and gloom.)

Anyway, how do you handle this objection when you’re prospecting? Here are some practical tips and a word-for-word way to handle this current objection:

First: Take your “salesman hat” off. Nobody wants to be pitched hard right now. Instead, what they want is to be listened to.

One of the most important soft skills they can learn is to just talk to & listen to someone. Sales reps have a hard time with this, but now is the perfect time to practice this skill.

Second: It’s important to stress to prospects and clients that what we’re going through now is temporary. This will pass.

Third: This is the perfect time to evaluate (your product or service) and to be ready to make the move ahead of their competition. In other words, what they do now will either position them to be ahead of or behind the other companies in their market space.

And you can help them do that…

Here is your script to use while prospecting and setting demos:

Prospect: “We’re just not doing anything until this virus situation is settled…”

You: “I completely understand. We’ve never seen anything like this before, tell me, how are you dealing with it?”

[Hit MUTE. Let your prospect or client vent. They want to be heard right now—not pitched—and you will separate yourself from all the other desperate salespeople out there if you act as a trusted advisor right now. Share how you’re dealing with it as well.]

After they have gotten it all out:

“You know _________, we all know one thing for certain: While this is scary, and while we may have several weeks before things calm down, ultimately, it’s temporary. And that’s at least comforting—you know?”

[Get their buy in on this.]

“In the meantime, let me tell you what other companies I’m speaking with are doing. They are using this downtime to evaluate and compare services like ours so when the time comes to make a buying decision, they won’t lose any time to their competitors.

“What I’d suggest is that we schedule some time so I can show you what your options are and what other companies are leaning towards—are you at least open to that?”

NOTE: If you want to use a stronger tie down than, “are you at least open to that?” you can use any of the following:

“Let’s schedule something for later this week so I can show you…do you have your calendar open?”

OR

“In fact, if you have a few minutes right now, let me take you to our website…”

OR

“What time and day might be good for you later this week…?”

OR

“By the way, are you the right person to speak to about this?”

Regardless of which tie down you choose, now start qualifying and set an appointment for a demo.

All the success, 

Peter McLees, Sales Coach and Trainer

email: petercmclees@gmail.com

Mobile: 323-854-1713

We help sales reps and sales organizations accelerate their sales. 

Tips for Leading During an Unprecedented Crisis

A crisis is the single most difficult challenge for anyone, not just leaders. No one is ever ready for the unexpected, especially when it comes in the form of a virus that takes the entire world by storm.

People are overwhelmed and confused, letting fear drive their actions.

Crises don’t just test our smarts; they test our character. We cannot control the crisis, but we can control how we respond.

Leading in uncertainty requires us to embrace our vulnerability. It’s the perfect opportunity for being humble, not arrogant, and collaborate with others rather than seeing them as competitors.

We can wait for the storm to pass and go back to doing business as usual. Or, we can turn this crisis into a growth opportunity. Here are some tips to help you lead in these scary and uncertain times.

• Lead yourself first. It’s a truism that the first person you need to lead is yourself.  As is the case in the rare instance of an emergency on board a plane, you put on your oxygen mask first, and then help others. Keep yourself and your family safe and healthy. Get enough sleep. Do things that bring you positive energy. Take care of yourself, so you’re in the best position to lead others.

• Help people sort through their emotions. A little care and empathy can go a long way. We’re seeing a lot of people understandably react very emotionally to these uncertain times. The pictures of empty store aisles void of toilet paper and paper towels speak to a desire to focus on what we can control. How might you as a leader help others sort through their feelings and “own” them? Empathy is about reflecting genuinely on what others are feeling: “That sure sounds like a difficult situation.” “Times like this can sure feel scary.” When you help others own their feelings – even the difficult ones – you help them reduce the likelihood that those feelings will control them. What’s more, dealing with the emotional content first will help the rational and more logical part of their brain kick in. Logic can help lead to calmness and a more steady hand at the wheel.

• Establish a daily/weekly communications cadence. With more and more people working virtually, think about what your new rhythm is to stay in touch with your team, with key players, with your boss, other influencers. What’s your plan for every day this week to stay connected with key stakeholders like employees and customers?

• Know you can’t not communicate. Know that others are watching what you do (even virtually) in addition to what you say, and are deriving meaning from your actions based on their lens. Share your motivation and intent so others are less likely to read into your actions; rather, tell them what your intention is, and what the benefit is to them: “I’m sharing what I know since I think it would be helpful for you.” “I’m sharing these facts so you can be understanding of your colleagues at the plant, and how we can be sensitive to the difficult situation they’re facing.”

• Share what you know, when you know it. What employees want in times of uncertainty is to know what you know, when you know it. They understand in these changing times that you don’t have all the answers. They don’t expect that. But they do expect to be kept in the loop on what you do know, and as important, what you don’t know. When you don’t know something, say so, and then find out the answer.

• Think about what people can hear and digest. As you share what you know, when you know it… think about what people are able to hear, digest, and do something with. Being respectfully authentic isn’t about saying everything that comes to your mind. Before you communicate, think about what is helpful for employees, and that’s information they can process and digest as relevant to them.  Feeling afraid might be accurate, but there’s nothing productive that employees can do with that information. Instead, it can further exacerbate their feelings of fear and uncertainty. You might be thinking that it’s helpful to know that we’re all in this together; yes! But the way to do that is to acknowledge a collective reality – that “it’s natural for employees to have a myriad of feelings during uncertain times,” and that you “want to focus the team on what we can control and impact.” And bridge to that larger conversation about what the team can do to weather the storm.

In the end, we will weather this storm together. Not sure what to do next? Take a nod from one of the centerpiece songs in Frozen II – do the next right thing. Much of this uncertainty might seem insurmountable and overwhelming. It can feel more manageable if we think – what’s the next right thing to do here? And then the next. And the next.

And before we know it, we’ve figured things out. With calmness and courage – one step at a time.

Stay healthy. Be compassionate.

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

6 Tips For Managing Remote Employees: How To Maintain Productivity And Engagement

TIP #1: Get 3 Agreements

The most important thing you need to do as a remote team leader is to get agreement (i.e., set expectations) on three things. People feel far away from each not because of the number of physical miles, but rather by the amount of time—the delay—it takes to get answers or information from someone. People feel “close” when communication is predictable—not necessarily fast, just predictable.

So the three agreements are:  

1) What are the normal working hours for the team? When will the workday begin, and when will it end?

2) How long will it take to get back to each other? If we reach out with a question, should I expect an answer immediately? Within an hour? By the end of the day? And will this change based on communication channel? Is it OK to respond to internal emails by the end of the day, but if I call you it means it’s urgent and you should pick or call me back as soon as possible?

3) How will we notify each other when will be unavailable and unable to meet these expectations (e.g., out at a doctor’s appointment)? Will we just let the boss know? Or do we send a team email? Or use a shared calendar?

TIP #2: Establish a Cadence of Communication

As goes communication, goes the team. This is true on all teams, but is especially important when leading a remote team. A cadence that has worked for other companies over the years—has three components:

• Weekly one-on-one meetings. Ask questions, give ideas, and to review priorities.

• WAR meeting. A Weekly Action Review (WAR) with your direct reports should take no longer than 30-50 minutes. It’s an opportunity for everyone to share sync up on their weekly priorities, problems, and data.

• End-of-Day Check-in. At the end of each day, every team member shares a list of things they completed that day. 

TIP #3: Establish a Video-First Culture

“Video-first” is an organizational communication strategy that places priority on video conferencing tools, as opposed to audio-only conference calls. Whether having a one-on-one meeting or a team meeting, the benefits of video-first practice include:

• Ability to use and observe non-verbal communication

• Encourages people to participate in meetings from a professional, quiet location (as opposed to just dialing-in-and-muting while driving in the car)

• Encourages people to get dressed in the morning!

TIP #4: Keep It Personal

Relationships at work are critical to a high performing team. The classic Gallup Q12 survey item, “I have a best friend at work” illustrates the power of workplace friendships on employee engagement. And personal relationships go a long way to building trust and reducing unproductive conflict. In a traditional office, water cooler chitchat and lunch time conversation happens naturally. Here are some practical tips for keeping remote teams fun and personal:

• Use the first few minutes of your one-on-one meetings to ask about their weekend, or similar personal interest.

• At the beginning of your weekly WAR meeting have everyone spend 20-30 seconds sharing, “what was the best part of your weekend?” Or, “what’s going on good in your world these days?”

• Create an online area (e.g., TEAMS or Slack channel,.) to discuss things like sports, movies, or even a monthly online book club.

• Create an online area, or group email, where people can share photos of their pets, or from recent vacations, holidays, or other events

• Don’t forget to recognize team members for their effort and achievements. Share to the whole team positive feedback from customers, or internal customers.

TIP #5: Invest (a Little) In Tools & Tech

Any workplace can survive a one or two-week work-from-home experiment; it’s not much different than an employee taking a vacation or sick time. But if you expect your team members to work for several months and keep their normal productivity, then you should be prepared to make at least a minimal investment in hardware and software. 

Consider:

The basics: high speed WiFi, good ergonomic chair, external keyboard, mouse, and monitor for their laptop or tablet.

For video-conferencing software consider many free or low-cost options to start: MS Teams, Zoom, Skype.

TIP #6: Consider Personalities

Great leaders individualize their approach to leadership and take the time to truly understand their strengths and weaknesses with respect to working remotely.

Advantages of Adapting to Remote Management

The good news about adapting to the remote workforce? You’re adopting a trend employees already favor. In an International Workplace Group survey, 74 percent of respondents described flexible working as “the new normal.” Further, “80 percent of workers in the U.S. would choose a job which offered flexible working over a job that didn’t.”


So, while you can and should hope that the coronavirus is curtailed, remote workers are a new reality. No matter the health crisis, you can be sure that in the long-term you’re going to need to know how to effectively lead remote employees.

Check out these related posts:


How to Lead Remote Workers During the COVID-19 Crisis

Successfully Leading Remote Workers Part II

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Successfully Leading Remote Workers Part II

There is a big difference between deciding to send (or let) people work from home and having it work effectively. While many people are successful working remotely, it rarely is immediately successful without proper planning.  Here are some specifics to keep in mind  as you prepare for more remote work for some or all your team.

Technology readiness. This one might be the most obvious, and unfortunately it is where some people stop. Make sure people have the technology to allow them to be successful, access to a strong internet connection, the ability to get through your organization’s firewall. Beyond that make sure they have the communication tools – web-platforms and more that will allow them to continue to be effective teammates.

Individual preparation. Working from home is different than working in the office. The laptop alone won’t make people instantly productive. Help people prepare for the change in routines, give them guidance on setting up a workspace, and set clear expectations about when and how they need to work. In addition, give them access to someone who has been successful working from home to help them figure out the little things that will help them be comfortable and productive.

Team preparation. Beyond helping individuals with their needs in this transition, help the team think through the logistics of how they will communicate with each other, support each other and more. Without thought about this, people may be individually productive, but the synergy and communication that existed in the office may be lost when folks are working remotely. If that connectedness was already weak when people worked in the same location, it certainly won’t get better when some or all are working at a distance.

Tool training. There will be more virtual meetings if more people are working from home. Are people comfortable and adept at using the tools? It is one thing to be able to log in as a participant – but quite another if you are now responsible for running your meeting on a web-based tool. Give people the training they need to be successful in this new working world.

New expectations. I’ve mentioned expectations already – getting this right is likely more important than you realize. When people are working from home, what is the expectation of when they are working, how quickly they need to be responding, how they will communicate with each other? Answering questions like these are the tip of the iceberg. Remember that assuming expectations seldom works out for anyone.

You can successfully move people, short or long-term, to work remotely. But you will be far more successful with a plan and a process, than by simply sending people home and crossing your fingers.

Check out these related posts:

Six Tips for Managing Remote Workers

How to Lead Remote Workers During the COVID-19 Crisis

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

How to Lead Remote Workers During the COVID-19 Crisis (Or anytime)

In (important) ways, leading is leading, regardless of where you and those you lead are located. In all cases, as a leader, you are moving toward a goal, and are moving in the direction of that goal with and through the efforts of other people. And yet for all the ways that leadership is the same, there are nuanced differences that need to be understood and acted upon if you want to get great results and have people who feel good about their work and the working environment.

One of my mentors borrowed the quotation from W. Clement Stone – “little hinges swing big doors.” This idea is a profound truth in life and applies directly to us as leaders of people located elsewhere. This article is about some of those nuanced differences – differences that like a hinge, can make a very big difference in your results.

Intentionality
One of the things the proximity and frequent face-to-face interaction provides is the chance for serendipity. When you see someone in the parking lot, when you pass them in the hallway or on the shop floor, you are reminded of and provided with opportunities to say or ask things of others -and they will have that chance as well. When your team member is in Sioux Falls or Singapore and you are in an office in South Jersey, none of that happens.

As a long-distance leader, you must be more intentional about the things you want to share and need to share with your team members. You must also be intentional about providing time and space for your team members to share with you, too. Remember, they can’t see your office door open, so they may not know you are available, or they “don’t want to bother you.” This is just one example of the need for greater intentionality as a leader at a distance – to be intentional about creating space for conversations.

The need for intentionality extends to the other four ideas that follow too. . .

Communication
When you are face-to-face with someone you have the full complement of cues and clues to improve the chances for communication success. You have body language, posture, and the fullness of “how people look” as they communicate with you. At a distance, unless you are using a webcam (which I recommend, but isn’t always practical), you lose the richness of the body language, and must rely on the words and the tone and intonation or “how they say it” to receive the message. Of course, if you are only sending email, you lose some of that too. The bottom line is that when you are leading someone at a distance, not only might there be fewer chances to communicate (as noted above), but the chance for miscommunication grows significantly. As a remote communicator, you must be aware of these risks and make sure you are using the best communication medium for the situation you are facing. Chances are, you need to move past email or instant messaging more frequently and more quickly than you might do naturally.

Coaching
As a leader, you have a responsibility and opportunity to coach those you lead. It is a critically important part of your role. Doing it with a virtual or remote team member can be a challenge. Time must be set aside, care must be taken, and the communication challenges mentioned above must be considered. While most leaders don’t do enough (or frequent enough) coaching to start with, this is typically truer when coaching remotely. While everyone wants to know how they are doing and how they can improve, often those working apart feel even more disconnected and are wondering how they are doing or how what they are doing is being used and appreciated by others. Long-distance leaders must take their coaching role more seriously and put that seriousness into action – by scheduling more coaching with their team members.

Clarity (the need for it)
One of the biggest things missing in the workplace today is clarity. We need more clarity on the goals, on the expectations on the policies and procedures, on nearly everything. In my work with employees everywhere, they typically feel in the dark about more than one thing necessary for them to be fully successful. Do you somehow think those who are remote will be more clear than everyone else?

Hardly.

In fact, chances are the clarity that is lacking for everyone is exacerbated for those at a distance. You must work hard at creating clarity on the work, the work outputs, and all of the expectations you have about how people work, when they work, and what success looks like.

Relationships
Fact: People choose to follow those they know like and trust. Building “knowing,” “liking,” and “trusting” is harder when you don’t see people. Sorry Hallmark, absence, at least in this case, rarely makes the heart grow fonder.

Leaders of remote teams must spend more conscious time working to build their relationships and trust with those they lead. This is important work, made far more important by the distance.

Do you know about your team members’ passions and interests and family? Do you know where they want to go with their career and how they see you helping them? Can you both comfortably talk about more than just the work and the weather? If not, start here – it will start to help in the other areas mentioned here (and others unmentioned), too.

After reading these five things, I am sure you further agree with the premise in the first paragraph – all five of these things are important as a leader of a team just outside your office door too; and yet, each takes on a different and more important meaning when you don’t see your team members regularly and/or on the way to the coffee or break room.

If you are a leader of a team (or team member) at a distance, think about these ideas, determine which could help you improve, and get started. Notice that the first idea is intentionality. Get intentional, take action, and you will start to get new and better results.

Successfully Leading Remote Workers Part II

Six Tips for Managing Remote Workers

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's culture, employee engagement and leadership capability? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.