December 5, 2024 • 25 mins
Listen in to discover the secrets to stress-free author collaboration, and what it takes for remote teams to thrive. Whether you're working on your next bestseller or managing a remote writing team, this video is packed with practical tips and tools to elevate your collaboration game.
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Key Takeaways:
Want to earn money with your nonfiction book? Grab my FREE guide: Beyond the Book: 10 Profit Pathways for Authors here: http://authornation.online/profit
Key Takeaways:
- Learn essential tools that make remote collaboration seamless for authors.
- Explore proven strategies that help remote teams thrive and succeed.
- Find out how to reduce stress while working with co-authors or teams remotely.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hey, everyone, Welcome to author Nation Interviews. Today we're delving
into remote working, where we're going to explore having a
remote team to support your author's success. I'm your host,
Melody Anne, and I'm here to guide you toward actionable
insights and strategies that not just help you write a book,
but also really connect with your team and therefore create
(00:30):
more success for yourself. Because at author Nation, we are here,
we are committed to supporting you in the best way possible.
We have lots of resources for you. You can visit
authornation dot online to access the treasure troves of treasure
drove of resources, and so whether you're sipping your morning
coffee or whinding down after a long day, settle in
as we explore how remote teams can transform your ability
(00:54):
to share your story with the world. But before we
dive in, let me introduce our guest. For over twenty
five years, Shane Spragg's has been driving successful projects of
a variety of notable media and software startups in some
of the world's largest brands, like Disney. Like Disney, in
twenty twenty three, Shane co authored the Amazon best selling
(01:16):
book The Power of Remote An Essential Guide to modern
team management. Welcome Shane.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Thanks, how are you today? Shane?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I am doing all right, Thank.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
You, brilliant lovely.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
So I really want to start with your background, just
a little bit about what led you to co authoring
The Power of Remote We was mentioned.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
In the introduction. I'm a senior business leader here in Kelowna,
that's in British Columbia, Canada. So I've started a group
of my own businesses and I now help other successful
business owners help when they get when they hit that plateau,
I help them get unstuck. And so I joined a
company called Vertira in twenty twenty, and that's where I
(02:00):
met Cynthia Watson. So Cynthia wrote her master's thesis on
talk commuting in nineteen ninety three, if you can imagine,
and so she's been working remotely ever since, and her
experience was largely just working on project teams from a
remote worker standpoint. And she authored a little hook book,
the little tiny fifty page book called how to Work
(02:22):
from Home and Get Shit Done, which is a great title,
except for they don't usually say the naughty words on
the radio, so it didn't get as much promotion as
the show. Anyways, we got together, I incorporate, incorporated my
experience and leadership and management into her experience as a
remote worker, and we started working on the book, largely
(02:46):
because the pandemic had hit and it seemed like the
right time to share our knowledge.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Sounds great. Now today we're going to be talking about
probably smaller remote teams, teams that authors can put together.
So let's just take a moment and define you know,
what is a remote team? What does what makes a
successful remote team in that context?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Sure, and I'll start with a very simple word. It's mindset.
So when everyone went remote in twenty twenty, it demonstrated
we could do it, but not everybody wanted to. You know,
if you look at the stats these days, about fifty
seven fifty four percent of people want to work remotely
full time, but that leaves a lot of people who don't.
So fortunately, about forty one percent of those individuals left
(03:30):
over want to work from home at least one or
two days a week or more, and that only leaves
five percent of people who want to work full time
in the office. So when you have a group of
people who have different mindsets around how they want to work,
it kind of acts against each other. Right, So you
have you have people who who who want to go
(03:51):
to the office even in one day a week. In
a remote business, they start to slowly things start to
slowly fall apart from them because of other you know,
they feel siloed, they feel that they're stuck. They don't
get out of the house as much they want to.
And a successful remote company will make part of their culture,
so they'll be intentional. They'll have figured out how to
(04:11):
communicate with all their team members and keep everyone informed,
and they know how to develop the sense of community
within their team and it's less about hey, we're working remotely,
just we're being successful as well as being a remote business.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember during the pandemic. I'm a
storyteller and I do storytelling workshops, and during the pandemic,
corporations would hire me and a colleague of mine to
bring in storytelling workshops because even though everyone was remote, storytelling,
especially personal storytelling, it helps you have that kind of
(04:48):
water cooler moment, right, well what happened.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
But it also translates into.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Skills you can use at the workplace, So that was
really popular during the pandemic. I can imagine there were
other kind of services that people were bringing. So one
thing you talk about which is really important to me
is psychological safety. And so you know, I have a
remote team, I have two people there from very different cultures.
(05:15):
And so we have these three people from different cultures,
and so how can we establish and this is very
common for authors. They might work with people on different continents,
speaking different languages as a first language.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So how do we.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Establish that trust and that openness so that we can
work really well together and lean on each other's strengths, right.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Right, And so psychological safety is critical for remote teams
because people are working a lot on their own. They
need to feel safe to make mistakes, to fail, to innovate,
to work outside of the task that may maybe assigned.
So if you are a micromanager and you provide a
(06:00):
team member do just this one thing and you work remotely,
that person can only do just that one thing and
then becomes become stuck before they can move on to
the next next thing until they conect back the leader.
So a psychological safe team allows people to feel more
(06:21):
vulnerable to you know, they're open to to making mistakes.
There's a celeb we tend to celebrate learning from failure. Uh.
This is and and so teams can develop this by
the managers can develop this by showing a sense of empathy,
by by showing their own mistakes and and being open
(06:43):
about when they failed as well. And one of the
things I like to look at it is there's a
difference between inexperience and ignorance. So what I So it's
not just about saying, okay, all mistakes are are are free.
You know, you can anyone can make you know, can
can have problems. But had I had a boss not
too long ago that they had this great line is
(07:03):
I can accept errors and judgment, but not not flaws
and character and so and that's that's the line. Is
you want to let people, yeah, try new things, learn
by doing. Most of us thrive on that.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
And you don't want to you want to foster that
as opposed to tanta down and in it. But give
them the right boundaries to do that. In So, another
important part of this is how you delegate work, how
you how you ensure that they are they have ownership
in the in the in the work that's being done.
And how how much in sight that's how much how
(07:44):
much accountability are you giving them to do the work
and fail at it.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, no, that's really interesting. You say that a bit
about ownership. So I, as I said, I have a
team and they you know, they live in different countries
and they're there are different work cultures, right, so in
some places taking initiative will get you into trouble. But
for me and my experience, I like people to take initiative,
(08:10):
and so I've had to work on this, you know,
psychological safety and this ownership piece with some of the people.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
On my team. I love them.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
They're wonderful human beings and they're brilliant, and yet sometimes
there's that fear.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
What would you suggest you do.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
When you have people who you know they have so
much to offer, and yet maybe they come from a
place where you know they're not expected to take initiative,
they're not expected to take ownership. How do you support
someone in helping them understand how how you want to
work and making it safe for them.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
That's a great question, and for me, it's comes down
to how you interact with individuals and how you mentor them.
You want to from a coaches standpoint, you want to
give them, You want to give them the thing they
want to work towards. From a mentor standpoint, you want
to ask them questions so they can work towards it.
And so it's a matter of rather than telling, it's
(09:13):
a matter of of you know, encouraging and say okay,
how would you deal with this issue and then showing
them that they can have success with their own solutions
and their own approaches and reinforcing that time and time again.
For some people, it takes a long time to get
to a place where they feel that they have the
(09:34):
confidence to to to lead, to take initiative, to go
out on their own. Uh. And but it but it's
something you can get to eventually. It's it's a learned behavior.
And if you take it as a stand from that perspective,
then you can help somebody, you know, slowly understand where
(09:55):
you want them to get to. But encouraging them to
get there on their own, as opposed to just telling them,
because if you just tell them, they won't they won't
it won't work, you can, they won't understand. They need
to experience it for themselves.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. I want to talk
about the flip side a little bit because what I
see with some authors and other entrepreneurs who want to
build a remote team but get really frustrated is they
tend to micro manage there. They don't trust themselves enough
to pick the right people and do the proper training
(10:32):
to allow them to own their own creativity and own
their own ideas and take their own initiative and get
things done the way they want to. So they land
up talking about accountability and they micromanage. When somebody finds
themselves in that space and they think remote working doesn't work,
I just have to micromanage and it takes me more
(10:53):
time than it does just do it by myself.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
What would your advice for that?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Well, I always start with the obvious, is that maybe
remote working is not for you. You know, maybe you
should work in the office. Uh. It's a management skill,
and you know, so I've long said that I think
that that, Uh, you know that managers need more training
and more support in the businesses they work in. And
you know, prior to the pandemic, we already had this
(11:19):
concept that, you know, take a good employee and make
them a bad manager. And that's just what we used
to do. And it's our culture as a as a
you know, as a as a you know, corporation, and
you know, in businesses, we tend to just assume people
have these skills without teaching them. So a good manager
needs to know how to delegate, needs how to follow
(11:41):
up and track their action times. They need to know
how to run a one on one and so on
and so forth. And so without those skills, people rely
fall back on micromanagement, which is as you interest you
said that they feel they tend to outline everything in
detail what they they want done. They tend to overwrite
(12:02):
or rewrite people's work. They tend to, you know, complain
about the smallest, you know, things and make people feel
like the work that they're doing is not valuable. Uh.
And it is very counterproductive to to to what they
need to do. And so if the first step to
that is really again back to asking questions, So setting
(12:26):
a delegate. I'll use delegation as an example for me.
Delegation is a journey. It's imagine going on on a
car ride with your family. Uh, and you need to
get from point A to point B. You don't want
to you don't want to tell your family to pick
what point B is. You want to tell them we're
we're going to go to Orlando and we're going to
(12:47):
Now let's talk about how we're going to get there.
And now you ask them what journey would you like
to take between where we are at home and getting
to Disney's, you know, or disney World Orlando. And then
that's where they start to feel some engagement in ownership
over the journey, the process that might take. And they
might tell you about all the things along the way
(13:08):
that they want to, the things they want to stop,
the places they want to go to, the things they want,
the places they want to eat. And a micromanager will
do the exact opposite. They'll put all the dates in
a row and say, hey, we're stopping here, we're driving
for eight hours this day, there's no bathroom breaks, and
so on and so forth. And so if you can think
about it in that terms, that's exactly what you do
(13:30):
or not want to do when it comes to micromanager.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yes, that is a great metaphor. I love that metaphor.
Let's talk about relatedness, because you talk about this concept
of relatedness over traditional social interactions in remote work.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
What do you mean by that? Let's just start with that.
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
So relatedness is a level of relationship that's just below friendship.
So we all understand what friendship is. You know, we
have you know, we have someone we can we can
have to you know, meet meet with and talk to
and you know, collaborate and work with. And it's long
been thought that businesses, through their culture programs, need to
(14:14):
develop friendships between people, and that's why a lot of
culture is focused on social relatedness is as I mentioned
just a little bit below friendship, it's a feeling valued
by somebody and the ability to trust and to be trusted.
And so you know, if you have shared experiences, if
you if you feel that you know they they they
(14:38):
have your back. It's a level of a level of
relationship that allows people to to collaborate better and feel
more ready to to participate within the conversation.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I love that. Okay, thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Now I don't necessarily need to be friends with everyone
on my my team, but we do need to relate
to each other in a way. We need to feel
that relatedness in order to work together and be successful.
So how do we develop that relatedness on a remote team?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yeah? Well, the surprising first answer I'll have is get
people together in person. If you have the opportunity, and
it's not uncommon for companies to be able to do this.
A lot of businesses who started with remote work already
had a footthold in a city or in a local area.
Or if you are starting a new remote business, you
might instead of putting your money into your office space,
(15:35):
you might save money each year for a trip where
you bring everyone together in person. And there's some there's
still some really good value there that not being an
option for most. For most, it's it's important to recognize achievements.
So everything from milestones to promotions, to the completions of
projects to when people you know finish a training program
(15:58):
or learning development. Have a way to to share with
people that hey, here's something I've accomplished and you know, hey,
you accomplish this as well, and you feel connectional with them.
There's also lots of good virtual team building activities you
can do as well as The big one for me
is icebreakers. Now we don't really do icebreakers. We want
(16:21):
to think about them. What very often outside of work,
usually the domain of consultants. They can't you know, they
take you into a day of consulting. The first hour
will be spent doing an ice breaker where you line up,
you know, tellst the shortest or you know, next birthday
to future birthday. Well, when we when we work at work,
we tend to only have superficial conversation how is the weather,
(16:46):
how is your weekend? Right? And that's not telling you
anything about the person you're working with. An icebreaker will
ask a question or get them to do some sort
of activity which takes them out of that. So a
question that's really I really like to ask is tell
me tell me about a smell that reminds you of
your childhood.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Mmm. Right.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
It makes people think. And there's a good chance that
the smell you share I will understand and I'll have
a small additional connection to you, apart from the fact
that you know it's raining where you're where you're sitting,
and it's raining where I'm sitting. That's it's it's not
that you know. We'll get past that level. And so,
and there's a ton of really good icebreakers out there,
(17:26):
everything from lots of great questions. There's there's boxes you
can buy of you know, small talk questions you can ask.
There's also a lot of little activities that you can do.
So virtual tik tac toe is a fun one or
virtual uh you know, rock paper scissors. It's very possible
to do and very fun over over the internet. So
(17:47):
look for ways to have these social interactions that aren't
developing a little bit more than just you know, the
small talk.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah, so what tell me about a smell from your
childhood that you love?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Is actually a storytelling element question.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
As one of the things we do in storytelling we
set up a scene and then we use our five senses.
So don't tell me the story, just tell me the
scene in five cents with your frescent. So yeah, that's
very storytelling oriented it, so I obviously love it. Now
I have another question related to that. I want to
go back to psychological safety. So if you know you're
(18:26):
in this and I don't know, maybe you've been in
a room like this. You're in this room and they're
doing these icebreakers, but they're asking you things that you're
not willing to share. How can how can the person
leading decide?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
What would you know?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
How do we deal with consent? Let me ask it
that way, How do we deal with consent?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yeah, that's a great question, And obviously there's there's a
little bit of homework that has to happen before you
dive into every single type of ice perker you could
possibly do. Certainly there's the ones out there that go
past the level of professional listen. Uh. And there's also
some team events you can do. And so really it
is about understanding your team and working towards it. And so,
(19:09):
you know, having conversations on a one on one beforehand
about you know, where there's a level their level of
comfort of sharing what they're you know, about them, their
personal lives, how involved they want to be that. You know,
some people just don't want to be celebrated. They don't
they want to keep every their own personal achievements personal
(19:29):
and private to them and they don't want that share it.
So it's it's the same conversation you should be having
as a manager about how people should be should be
rewarded as well. Uh. People don't like to be called
out in person, uh, you know, sorry in a group setting.
And so you have these situations where there's companies have
these high five channels and there's this pressure to or
(19:51):
this kudos channel. There's this pressure to to keep track
of a scorecard, you know, like hey, I got five
kudos yesterday you only got three, and so it's it's
like a lot of things, a lot of good you know,
no good deed goes unpunished, they often say, but it,
you know, it is as a matter of having having
(20:11):
the conversation in private, upfront, ideally as soon as possible,
in the whole in their interaction or their relationship with
the business. Uh So, for example, you might have it
as part of your onboarding process or even before that.
If you have this as part of your culture, let
people know this happens when they before they join the company,
(20:33):
and let them have that make that decision, you know,
before they join. Hey, here's how we work here, you know,
so that they can decide if this is the right
place with them. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
No, that that makes perfect sense. And I think that
people have to remember that when there's an interview, you're
interviewing each other. It used to be the corporate was
interviewing the employee. It was a very kind of downward
downward interview. But I think the interviews are a little
bit more. I'll have kids who in their late twenties,
and when she interviews, it's certainly more like do I want.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
To work here?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Right?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, it's very different these days.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So if you're looking for Shane, if you're looking for
ideas on productivity, if you have a team and you
want to improve their productivity and the relatedness, or if
you're thinking about getting a team, or you've been a
micro manager and you'd like to not check out Shane's
website at future of productivity dot com as we run,
as we wrap up, Shane, if people are watching this
(21:30):
or listening to this and they're really excited and they're like,
I want to start now, what are the what are
three things they could do right now to help them
build a team that is productive and happy.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
The big one is intentionality. There's no such thing as
organic remotely and organicsas celebrated word, you know, the water cooler.
And what happens is that you know people things happen
by chance. Uh And I also you know actually look
at it more as by luck, and that's not a
way to run a business. So be intentional about everything
(22:05):
you want to happen in your business and have a
plan for it. And a process turns into a habit eventually,
and so you want to move things from out of
the You don't want to just write things down and
process talking. You want to you want to work on
building habits with team members, so be intentional build good habits.
(22:25):
And the last thing is in work on your communication.
We do was a Microsoft survey recently found that you
spend fifty seven percent of your day either in a meeting,
on a on an email, or writing a chat message.
You have to get good at this and everyone's got
different understandings of what good looks like, and so you
(22:47):
need to get together. Well, if it's just you running
a business, you need to set this down standard for
what good is at your business for communicating. And that's
everything from the time of day you work, through the
files and where you store them, to what is what's
appropriate and then when do you when do you meet,
when do you send emails and so on and so forth.
So those three things are important.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Thank you, Shane. That's that's amazing. So anything we missed
that you want to just mention before we wrap up,
you know.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I uh, you know there's I'm a big proponent on
the on the the on management and one on one.
So if you are managing a remote team one on
one remotely is different than the one that is in
in uh in person and it needs a bit more
more attention, and so I've I've written an article about
how I would put it off time to go through everything.
(23:36):
But I've written an article about how remote one on
ones should work, and it should be a combination of
the employee doing a little bit of pre work to
bring stuff to the one on one so that they're
prepared to ask questions, and then the manager keeping track
of of that stuff and having questions ready for them
to ask. It just requires a little bit extra work
(23:57):
up front because people are so distracted these days. We'll
go from one meeting to the next, and if they're
doing that ahead of year one on one, they're not
going to come prepared and it's not going to be successful.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Thank you, Shane.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
If you'll send me that link to the article, I'll
make sure that gets into the show notes for people
so they can access that and read the entire thing
and have an incredible remote team, because I think that's
what we all really want is to work well together.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Thank you, Shane.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
I really appreciate your time today and thank you for
joining Author Nation Interviews. I hope this conversation has provided
you with some valuable insights so that you can build
a team that is productive and happy and really makes
your life and their life better. So remember to visit
authornation dot online for a wealth of resources and I
(24:49):
always appreciate your feedback and your support. So if you've
enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review or comment
and share it with someone who you know needs it.
So write and keep creating, and continue sharing your unique
stories with the world.
Hey, everyone, Welcome to author Nation Interviews. Today we're delving
into remote working, where we're going to explore having a
remote team to support your author's success. I'm your host,
Melody Anne, and I'm here to guide you toward actionable
insights and strategies that not just help you write a book,
but also really connect with your team and therefore create
(00:30):
more success for yourself. Because at author Nation, we are here,
we are committed to supporting you in the best way possible.
We have lots of resources for you. You can visit
authornation dot online to access the treasure troves of treasure
drove of resources, and so whether you're sipping your morning
coffee or whinding down after a long day, settle in
as we explore how remote teams can transform your ability
(00:54):
to share your story with the world. But before we
dive in, let me introduce our guest. For over twenty
five years, Shane Spragg's has been driving successful projects of
a variety of notable media and software startups in some
of the world's largest brands, like Disney. Like Disney, in
twenty twenty three, Shane co authored the Amazon best selling
(01:16):
book The Power of Remote An Essential Guide to modern
team management. Welcome Shane.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Thanks, how are you today? Shane?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I am doing all right, Thank.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
You, brilliant lovely.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
So I really want to start with your background, just
a little bit about what led you to co authoring
The Power of Remote We was mentioned.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
In the introduction. I'm a senior business leader here in Kelowna,
that's in British Columbia, Canada. So I've started a group
of my own businesses and I now help other successful
business owners help when they get when they hit that plateau,
I help them get unstuck. And so I joined a
company called Vertira in twenty twenty, and that's where I
(02:00):
met Cynthia Watson. So Cynthia wrote her master's thesis on
talk commuting in nineteen ninety three, if you can imagine,
and so she's been working remotely ever since, and her
experience was largely just working on project teams from a
remote worker standpoint. And she authored a little hook book,
the little tiny fifty page book called how to Work
(02:22):
from Home and Get Shit Done, which is a great title,
except for they don't usually say the naughty words on
the radio, so it didn't get as much promotion as
the show. Anyways, we got together, I incorporate, incorporated my
experience and leadership and management into her experience as a
remote worker, and we started working on the book, largely
(02:46):
because the pandemic had hit and it seemed like the
right time to share our knowledge.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Sounds great. Now today we're going to be talking about
probably smaller remote teams, teams that authors can put together.
So let's just take a moment and define you know,
what is a remote team? What does what makes a
successful remote team in that context?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Sure, and I'll start with a very simple word. It's mindset.
So when everyone went remote in twenty twenty, it demonstrated
we could do it, but not everybody wanted to. You know,
if you look at the stats these days, about fifty
seven fifty four percent of people want to work remotely
full time, but that leaves a lot of people who don't.
So fortunately, about forty one percent of those individuals left
(03:30):
over want to work from home at least one or
two days a week or more, and that only leaves
five percent of people who want to work full time
in the office. So when you have a group of
people who have different mindsets around how they want to work,
it kind of acts against each other. Right, So you
have you have people who who who want to go
(03:51):
to the office even in one day a week. In
a remote business, they start to slowly things start to
slowly fall apart from them because of other you know,
they feel siloed, they feel that they're stuck. They don't
get out of the house as much they want to.
And a successful remote company will make part of their culture,
so they'll be intentional. They'll have figured out how to
(04:11):
communicate with all their team members and keep everyone informed,
and they know how to develop the sense of community
within their team and it's less about hey, we're working remotely,
just we're being successful as well as being a remote business.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember during the pandemic. I'm a
storyteller and I do storytelling workshops, and during the pandemic,
corporations would hire me and a colleague of mine to
bring in storytelling workshops because even though everyone was remote, storytelling,
especially personal storytelling, it helps you have that kind of
(04:48):
water cooler moment, right, well what happened.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
But it also translates into.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Skills you can use at the workplace, So that was
really popular during the pandemic. I can imagine there were
other kind of services that people were bringing. So one
thing you talk about which is really important to me
is psychological safety. And so you know, I have a
remote team, I have two people there from very different cultures.
(05:15):
And so we have these three people from different cultures,
and so how can we establish and this is very
common for authors. They might work with people on different continents,
speaking different languages as a first language.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So how do we.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Establish that trust and that openness so that we can
work really well together and lean on each other's strengths, right.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Right, And so psychological safety is critical for remote teams
because people are working a lot on their own. They
need to feel safe to make mistakes, to fail, to innovate,
to work outside of the task that may maybe assigned.
So if you are a micromanager and you provide a
(06:00):
team member do just this one thing and you work remotely,
that person can only do just that one thing and
then becomes become stuck before they can move on to
the next next thing until they conect back the leader.
So a psychological safe team allows people to feel more
(06:21):
vulnerable to you know, they're open to to making mistakes.
There's a celeb we tend to celebrate learning from failure. Uh.
This is and and so teams can develop this by
the managers can develop this by showing a sense of empathy,
by by showing their own mistakes and and being open
(06:43):
about when they failed as well. And one of the
things I like to look at it is there's a
difference between inexperience and ignorance. So what I So it's
not just about saying, okay, all mistakes are are are free.
You know, you can anyone can make you know, can
can have problems. But had I had a boss not
too long ago that they had this great line is
(07:03):
I can accept errors and judgment, but not not flaws
and character and so and that's that's the line. Is
you want to let people, yeah, try new things, learn
by doing. Most of us thrive on that.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
And you don't want to you want to foster that
as opposed to tanta down and in it. But give
them the right boundaries to do that. In So, another
important part of this is how you delegate work, how
you how you ensure that they are they have ownership
in the in the in the work that's being done.
And how how much in sight that's how much how
(07:44):
much accountability are you giving them to do the work
and fail at it.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, no, that's really interesting. You say that a bit
about ownership. So I, as I said, I have a
team and they you know, they live in different countries
and they're there are different work cultures, right, so in
some places taking initiative will get you into trouble. But
for me and my experience, I like people to take initiative,
(08:10):
and so I've had to work on this, you know,
psychological safety and this ownership piece with some of the people.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
On my team. I love them.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
They're wonderful human beings and they're brilliant, and yet sometimes
there's that fear.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
What would you suggest you do.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
When you have people who you know they have so
much to offer, and yet maybe they come from a
place where you know they're not expected to take initiative,
they're not expected to take ownership. How do you support
someone in helping them understand how how you want to
work and making it safe for them.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
That's a great question, and for me, it's comes down
to how you interact with individuals and how you mentor them.
You want to from a coaches standpoint, you want to
give them, You want to give them the thing they
want to work towards. From a mentor standpoint, you want
to ask them questions so they can work towards it.
And so it's a matter of rather than telling, it's
(09:13):
a matter of of you know, encouraging and say okay,
how would you deal with this issue and then showing
them that they can have success with their own solutions
and their own approaches and reinforcing that time and time again.
For some people, it takes a long time to get
to a place where they feel that they have the
(09:34):
confidence to to to lead, to take initiative, to go
out on their own. Uh. And but it but it's
something you can get to eventually. It's it's a learned behavior.
And if you take it as a stand from that perspective,
then you can help somebody, you know, slowly understand where
(09:55):
you want them to get to. But encouraging them to
get there on their own, as opposed to just telling them,
because if you just tell them, they won't they won't
it won't work, you can, they won't understand. They need
to experience it for themselves.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. I want to talk
about the flip side a little bit because what I
see with some authors and other entrepreneurs who want to
build a remote team but get really frustrated is they
tend to micro manage there. They don't trust themselves enough
to pick the right people and do the proper training
(10:32):
to allow them to own their own creativity and own
their own ideas and take their own initiative and get
things done the way they want to. So they land
up talking about accountability and they micromanage. When somebody finds
themselves in that space and they think remote working doesn't work,
I just have to micromanage and it takes me more
(10:53):
time than it does just do it by myself.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
What would your advice for that?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Well, I always start with the obvious, is that maybe
remote working is not for you. You know, maybe you
should work in the office. Uh. It's a management skill,
and you know, so I've long said that I think
that that, Uh, you know that managers need more training
and more support in the businesses they work in. And
you know, prior to the pandemic, we already had this
(11:19):
concept that, you know, take a good employee and make
them a bad manager. And that's just what we used
to do. And it's our culture as a as a
you know, as a as a you know, corporation, and
you know, in businesses, we tend to just assume people
have these skills without teaching them. So a good manager
needs to know how to delegate, needs how to follow
(11:41):
up and track their action times. They need to know
how to run a one on one and so on
and so forth. And so without those skills, people rely
fall back on micromanagement, which is as you interest you
said that they feel they tend to outline everything in
detail what they they want done. They tend to overwrite
(12:02):
or rewrite people's work. They tend to, you know, complain
about the smallest, you know, things and make people feel
like the work that they're doing is not valuable. Uh.
And it is very counterproductive to to to what they
need to do. And so if the first step to
that is really again back to asking questions, So setting
(12:26):
a delegate. I'll use delegation as an example for me.
Delegation is a journey. It's imagine going on on a
car ride with your family. Uh, and you need to
get from point A to point B. You don't want
to you don't want to tell your family to pick
what point B is. You want to tell them we're
we're going to go to Orlando and we're going to
(12:47):
Now let's talk about how we're going to get there.
And now you ask them what journey would you like
to take between where we are at home and getting
to Disney's, you know, or disney World Orlando. And then
that's where they start to feel some engagement in ownership
over the journey, the process that might take. And they
might tell you about all the things along the way
(13:08):
that they want to, the things they want to stop,
the places they want to go to, the things they want,
the places they want to eat. And a micromanager will
do the exact opposite. They'll put all the dates in
a row and say, hey, we're stopping here, we're driving
for eight hours this day, there's no bathroom breaks, and
so on and so forth. And so if you can think
about it in that terms, that's exactly what you do
(13:30):
or not want to do when it comes to micromanager.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yes, that is a great metaphor. I love that metaphor.
Let's talk about relatedness, because you talk about this concept
of relatedness over traditional social interactions in remote work.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
What do you mean by that? Let's just start with that.
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
So relatedness is a level of relationship that's just below friendship.
So we all understand what friendship is. You know, we
have you know, we have someone we can we can
have to you know, meet meet with and talk to
and you know, collaborate and work with. And it's long
been thought that businesses, through their culture programs, need to
(14:14):
develop friendships between people, and that's why a lot of
culture is focused on social relatedness is as I mentioned
just a little bit below friendship, it's a feeling valued
by somebody and the ability to trust and to be trusted.
And so you know, if you have shared experiences, if
you if you feel that you know they they they
(14:38):
have your back. It's a level of a level of
relationship that allows people to to collaborate better and feel
more ready to to participate within the conversation.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I love that. Okay, thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Now I don't necessarily need to be friends with everyone
on my my team, but we do need to relate
to each other in a way. We need to feel
that relatedness in order to work together and be successful.
So how do we develop that relatedness on a remote team?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yeah? Well, the surprising first answer I'll have is get
people together in person. If you have the opportunity, and
it's not uncommon for companies to be able to do this.
A lot of businesses who started with remote work already
had a footthold in a city or in a local area.
Or if you are starting a new remote business, you
might instead of putting your money into your office space,
(15:35):
you might save money each year for a trip where
you bring everyone together in person. And there's some there's
still some really good value there that not being an
option for most. For most, it's it's important to recognize achievements.
So everything from milestones to promotions, to the completions of
projects to when people you know finish a training program
(15:58):
or learning development. Have a way to to share with
people that hey, here's something I've accomplished and you know, hey,
you accomplish this as well, and you feel connectional with them.
There's also lots of good virtual team building activities you
can do as well as The big one for me
is icebreakers. Now we don't really do icebreakers. We want
(16:21):
to think about them. What very often outside of work,
usually the domain of consultants. They can't you know, they
take you into a day of consulting. The first hour
will be spent doing an ice breaker where you line up,
you know, tellst the shortest or you know, next birthday
to future birthday. Well, when we when we work at work,
we tend to only have superficial conversation how is the weather,
(16:46):
how is your weekend? Right? And that's not telling you
anything about the person you're working with. An icebreaker will
ask a question or get them to do some sort
of activity which takes them out of that. So a
question that's really I really like to ask is tell
me tell me about a smell that reminds you of
your childhood.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Mmm. Right.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
It makes people think. And there's a good chance that
the smell you share I will understand and I'll have
a small additional connection to you, apart from the fact
that you know it's raining where you're where you're sitting,
and it's raining where I'm sitting. That's it's it's not
that you know. We'll get past that level. And so,
and there's a ton of really good icebreakers out there,
(17:26):
everything from lots of great questions. There's there's boxes you
can buy of you know, small talk questions you can ask.
There's also a lot of little activities that you can do.
So virtual tik tac toe is a fun one or
virtual uh you know, rock paper scissors. It's very possible
to do and very fun over over the internet. So
(17:47):
look for ways to have these social interactions that aren't
developing a little bit more than just you know, the
small talk.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah, so what tell me about a smell from your
childhood that you love?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Is actually a storytelling element question.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
As one of the things we do in storytelling we
set up a scene and then we use our five senses.
So don't tell me the story, just tell me the
scene in five cents with your frescent. So yeah, that's
very storytelling oriented it, so I obviously love it. Now
I have another question related to that. I want to
go back to psychological safety. So if you know you're
(18:26):
in this and I don't know, maybe you've been in
a room like this. You're in this room and they're
doing these icebreakers, but they're asking you things that you're
not willing to share. How can how can the person
leading decide?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
What would you know?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
How do we deal with consent? Let me ask it
that way, How do we deal with consent?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yeah, that's a great question, And obviously there's there's a
little bit of homework that has to happen before you
dive into every single type of ice perker you could
possibly do. Certainly there's the ones out there that go
past the level of professional listen. Uh. And there's also
some team events you can do. And so really it
is about understanding your team and working towards it. And so,
(19:09):
you know, having conversations on a one on one beforehand
about you know, where there's a level their level of
comfort of sharing what they're you know, about them, their
personal lives, how involved they want to be that. You know,
some people just don't want to be celebrated. They don't
they want to keep every their own personal achievements personal
(19:29):
and private to them and they don't want that share it.
So it's it's the same conversation you should be having
as a manager about how people should be should be
rewarded as well. Uh. People don't like to be called
out in person, uh, you know, sorry in a group setting.
And so you have these situations where there's companies have
these high five channels and there's this pressure to or
(19:51):
this kudos channel. There's this pressure to to keep track
of a scorecard, you know, like hey, I got five
kudos yesterday you only got three, and so it's it's
like a lot of things, a lot of good you know,
no good deed goes unpunished, they often say, but it,
you know, it is as a matter of having having
(20:11):
the conversation in private, upfront, ideally as soon as possible,
in the whole in their interaction or their relationship with
the business. Uh So, for example, you might have it
as part of your onboarding process or even before that.
If you have this as part of your culture, let
people know this happens when they before they join the company,
(20:33):
and let them have that make that decision, you know,
before they join. Hey, here's how we work here, you know,
so that they can decide if this is the right
place with them. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
No, that that makes perfect sense. And I think that
people have to remember that when there's an interview, you're
interviewing each other. It used to be the corporate was
interviewing the employee. It was a very kind of downward
downward interview. But I think the interviews are a little
bit more. I'll have kids who in their late twenties,
and when she interviews, it's certainly more like do I want.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
To work here?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Right?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, it's very different these days.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So if you're looking for Shane, if you're looking for
ideas on productivity, if you have a team and you
want to improve their productivity and the relatedness, or if
you're thinking about getting a team, or you've been a
micro manager and you'd like to not check out Shane's
website at future of productivity dot com as we run,
as we wrap up, Shane, if people are watching this
(21:30):
or listening to this and they're really excited and they're like,
I want to start now, what are the what are
three things they could do right now to help them
build a team that is productive and happy.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
The big one is intentionality. There's no such thing as
organic remotely and organicsas celebrated word, you know, the water cooler.
And what happens is that you know people things happen
by chance. Uh And I also you know actually look
at it more as by luck, and that's not a
way to run a business. So be intentional about everything
(22:05):
you want to happen in your business and have a
plan for it. And a process turns into a habit eventually,
and so you want to move things from out of
the You don't want to just write things down and
process talking. You want to you want to work on
building habits with team members, so be intentional build good habits.
(22:25):
And the last thing is in work on your communication.
We do was a Microsoft survey recently found that you
spend fifty seven percent of your day either in a meeting,
on a on an email, or writing a chat message.
You have to get good at this and everyone's got
different understandings of what good looks like, and so you
(22:47):
need to get together. Well, if it's just you running
a business, you need to set this down standard for
what good is at your business for communicating. And that's
everything from the time of day you work, through the
files and where you store them, to what is what's
appropriate and then when do you when do you meet,
when do you send emails and so on and so forth.
So those three things are important.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Thank you, Shane. That's that's amazing. So anything we missed
that you want to just mention before we wrap up,
you know.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I uh, you know there's I'm a big proponent on
the on the the on management and one on one.
So if you are managing a remote team one on
one remotely is different than the one that is in
in uh in person and it needs a bit more
more attention, and so I've I've written an article about
how I would put it off time to go through everything.
(23:36):
But I've written an article about how remote one on
ones should work, and it should be a combination of
the employee doing a little bit of pre work to
bring stuff to the one on one so that they're
prepared to ask questions, and then the manager keeping track
of of that stuff and having questions ready for them
to ask. It just requires a little bit extra work
(23:57):
up front because people are so distracted these days. We'll
go from one meeting to the next, and if they're
doing that ahead of year one on one, they're not
going to come prepared and it's not going to be successful.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Thank you, Shane.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
If you'll send me that link to the article, I'll
make sure that gets into the show notes for people
so they can access that and read the entire thing
and have an incredible remote team, because I think that's
what we all really want is to work well together.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Thank you, Shane.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
I really appreciate your time today and thank you for
joining Author Nation Interviews. I hope this conversation has provided
you with some valuable insights so that you can build
a team that is productive and happy and really makes
your life and their life better. So remember to visit
authornation dot online for a wealth of resources and I
(24:49):
always appreciate your feedback and your support. So if you've
enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review or comment
and share it with someone who you know needs it.
So write and keep creating, and continue sharing your unique
stories with the world.
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