Remotely Possible

Photo by me

I've just listened to David James (@DavidInLearning) & Perry Timms (@PerryTimms) on the excellent 'Learning & Development Podcast', discussing Remote Working and was particularly struck by their conversation on Remote Leadership; what are the opportunities and challenges for the permanently or mostly remote worker to develop and/or demonstrate leadership when other colleagues or team members are either centralised or are, indeed, remote workers themselves? Can a leader lead others from a remote location? Can L&D support the development of remote workers and leaders inclusively and effectively?

This got me thinking, because for the last ten years of my corporate working life (which I moved on from nearly four years ago) I was being managed, was managing and was part of different distributed teams. As such I experienced many of the highs and lows that David and Perry discussed. 

In a UK-wide organisation, with regional offices and locations across the country, I started out as a one-man department, living on the South Coast of the UK, but reporting to a Director in Scotland, and was initially based in the South West. I drove down on a Monday and back on a Friday. I travelled quite a lot. Then an office opened up in London and I became a commuter. I made the case for and got the budget for a small team, which I recruited, but who were based at their home locations in Wales and Manchester. Although they were working from local offices, they were remote from me and each other. 

Given that our remit was to upskill staff in IT and digital tools country-wide, we used those tools extensively ourselves. My instant chat was always on. My Blackberry was always at my side. My email hummed. We had weekly conference calls and daily IMs, sometimes just to check in and say hello. Every couple of months, either we would travel to a central location for a catch-up or I would travel to them individually to check in and review performance, plan their development etc.

Then we got hold of the corporate Webex account. We never looked back. Our conference calls and one-to-ones became less hassle, cheaper and more effective. We reduced our travel and carbon impacts to the only necessary and in so doing made sure that we got the maximum value out of any face-to-face meetings. We introduced virtual classrooms into our corporate learning mix via a need to socialise a new data protection strategy (pre-GDPR) and train up new DP Managers and on-the-ground officers. Group Legal liked it so much they asked to be trained up themselves and took over and further developed their own DP training offerings. We moved on. Others in the org liked this approach and we were inundated with people wanting to learn how to host their own meetings and learning events with remote colleagues via Webex.

Meanwhile, I was still flying up to Scotland to attend Senior Management Meetings. Occasionally, I'd get an email from my Director demanding to know where we were on such-and-such, usually sent late in the evening and waiting for me, like an unexploded bomb, in the morning. There never was an organisational policy or strategic direction about remote working. So we proceeded until apprehended - which, paradoxically, never happened. And the team grew; again, all remote from me and from each other.

Sometimes tho', I failed. I'd get an email from one of my team wondering where I'd gone, if they'd done something to upset me, why hadn't I been in touch since last week? Or my IM would be received as terse or impatient. Sometimes it was. Sometimes I'd forget to just pick up the phone because I was too busy. Because I was dealing with other stuff. Like Managers do. The positive point tho' was that the team felt able to call me out on it. Sometimes messages got diluted or misinterpreted. Sometimes, it turned out I didn't know everyone as well as I thought I did, nor they me. Ironically, it usually took a face-to-face chat to resolve any misunderstandings. But the work got done and the wheels kept turning.

Ultimately, this approach to team remote working and my management therof proved itself over four years ago when I was suddenly taken ill and admitted to hospital for heart bypass surgery. In my absence, my team stepped up, got on with the work in hand, indeed, took on more - and more innovative - work in my absence.

In conclusion then, thinking about David and Perry's podcast discussion and the questions raised, my view and experience is that remote working, remote leadership and remote learning are all different carriageways of the same two-way street. They can be empowering and effective if thought about and managed empathically from a top-down AND a bottom-up perspective. Office-based and remotely working colleagues, managers and aspiring managers have to take responsibility for their own and their teams' effectiveness when not everyone is in the same room. Trust is a key element in making this work, transparency, inclusion, commitment and yes, courage, as opposed to command and control and digital presenteeism, with the focus on individual, team and organisational performance and business results, should be the watchwords here.