Christian Dinesen - 3 steps to make long distance leadership work

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You depend on your team, and they depend on you. Here’s how to take shared responsibility in a remote environment for the next level of excellence.

By Christian Dinesen, Head of the Danish Institute of Coaching - March 2015

No matter whether your team is on the other end of town, on the second floor or half way across the globe. Out of sight can quickly become out of mind. Here are 3 steps to follow that will help you keep your people on their toes and you alert and present, even (and especially) when you are leading remotely.

Step 1 –The Best Way to Run your Business Remotely More than any other kind of organization, running the business in a remote environment means keeping a sharp focus on the strategy, keeping an eye on the ball and keeping clear and “top of mind” what the organization wants to achieve and how it will be accomplished, encompassing:

1. Our Business (Vision, Mission and Value Proposition)

2. Our Customers’ Business (Vision, Mission and Value Proposition)

3. End User Needs (our customers’ customers meaning and purpose for requesting customer products and services).

DANISH COACHING INSTITUTE :: COPYRIGHT - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED :: 2002-2015 �1

Be Clear on "Why" and Put Measurements in Place to Monitor "What" and "How"

In -long distance leadership, it is crucial to keep the “why” very clear every day to secure what we are doing and how we are doing it.

When you as a leader want to secure responsibility and ownership among your valued and trusted employees and colleagues, it is important that you take the lead in showing the way, securing the means for execution, and keep aligning priorities with strategy in order to do “the right thing” while you “get things done”. Your job is to make your people and team feel like you are present and visible, even though you may be physically located half way around the globe.

This means putting in place performance measures that develop people, develop business, retain and win market share, and innovate the business in real time. In other words, you need to have the tools in place to monitor what is being done at all times to navigate the business, and to monitor how well your team is running the business according to your established strategies and target goals.

Questions for Reflection “How are you measuring performance in your long distance leadership plan?”“What are you measuring?”“What organizational goals and strategies are being measured?”

Communication is Key Communication from the board of directors is crucial. As much as public companies regularly issue statements and information to their shareholders in order to keep them up to date with performance and share value, it is as -important to treat your employees like value shareholders, and communicate with them in a likely manner.

Communications should include current information about a situation, progress in regard to key figures and targets, market positioning, product launches and any other important developments as they occur. Middle management and line officers need to be informed in order to communicate strategy and other crucial information to the operational level. If you don’t where you are and where you are going…then you will soon be lost.


Questions for Reflection “How are you ensuring that information is reaching your remote and virtual teams timely and correctly?” “What would be a good timetable for keeping your colleagues and staff up to date?”

As a long distance leader, you need to secure momentum of and rapid information for your remote teams, clusters and hubs in order to navigate, stay the course, and have the best communication platform in place for optimal performance across the organization.

Know your Market You need business intelligence from your front line people, so you can provide accurate feedback to your board of directors about advances in the market, positioning and any adjustments needed to stay competitive. So, just as your people need information from you and the organization, you need a method of gathering information from your front line:

1. in the market place – concerning product availability; push/pull customer trends; and those oh-so-critical primary and potential competitors that can surprise us if we forget to be alert and on our toes.

2. on how you as a company define and refine your positioning – (i.e., implement benchmarking) including:

o Brand awareness – how well the marketplace knows your company’s

name

o Product awareness and penetration – Does the consumer or customer

know your products and service? And what is your market share?

o Pricing and value contribution – is it balanced, and what value-added

capabilities can your organization bring to enhance your visibility in your product among your category?

This kind of information should come from a week-to-week-intelligence report from your remote team. When you are kept apprised of what’s going on on a regular and timely basis, you can much better serve the team though your informed leadership.

Questions for reflection “What have you put in place in order to receive accurate, timely and relevant business intelligence from your remote market?”“What procedures are in place to help your team be on top of your brand awareness and business positioning?”


The Importance of Team Involvement and Engagement for Business Performance They are your eyes! – You want them to be:

• Curious

• Aware

• Alert

• Observant

They are your ears! – You want them to:

• Listen

• Pay attention

• Discern – what information is the most useful

They are your on-location representatives in the market - You want them to:

• Bring forward their ideas for adjustments and changes

• Help create advantages through changes in:

o Behavior

o Actions

o Routines and habits

o Culture in the team or local organization

• Offer ideas for business and product development

• Support excellence in customer service – what you promise vs. what you

deliver

• Communicate the resources they need to meet the reality of ongoing

challenges

Questions for Reflection “How do you engage your team today?”“What are your priorities for getting as much of your team’s expertise and competence into your decision making, encompassing virtually all aspects of the operation, such as local value propositions, end-user needs, product and service features and benefits, product sustainability, and best-in-class status?“How do you monitor the local market and region in which you are doing business?”“What are you doing to ensure understanding of the areas in which you are doing business (Culture, History, Market etc.)?”


Tools to Consider Of course you can integrate some of well-known MBA models, such as:

• SWOT Analyses (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats)

• Product Life Cycles

• Boston Matrix Models

• Business Model Canvases

These work as tools to catalyze reflection, brainstorming, innovation and creative thinking. You can combine any of them with LEGO Serious Play, Graphical Facilitation, Game Boarding among others.

Questions for Reflection “Which tools or models do you use to process your business strategy and model?” “In what way do you elicit the most valuable information, insights, perspectives and recommendations from your colleagues and team?”

You depend on your team, and they depend on you. Here’s how to take shared responsibility in a remote environment for the next level of excellence.

No matter whether your team is on the other end of town, on the second floor or half way across the globe….Out of sight can quickly become out of mind.


Step 2: The Best Way to Lead from a Distance Leading people is an opportunity to bring out the servant in you. Especially as a long distance leader, a mindset of servitude ensures that you are a leader who is available, proactive, and one who keeps goals, tasks and progress clear.

Be Visible… Even When Remote Your long distance leadership should be structured in such a way that your team or local organization feels your presence even when you are physically located elsewhere. The top ways to accomplish this is by:

1. Regularly scheduling and/or participating in on location meetings, training programs and performance feedback and evaluation sessions.

2. Taking time to be social, reconnect and build relationships whenever possible. Rapport can be as easily broken as it established; create opportunities to maintain and - strengthen your rapport with all of your teams, and each individual team member.

3. Taking time to sense the intangibles of your team: observe “shadow” people, sense the culture, intuit the working environment, i.e. how people speak amongst themselves, how you are initially received when arriving on location. Collect your first impressions, and ask yourself whether they serve the values you want to experience as a colleague, leader and (perhaps most importantly) as a customer.

Remember, the “glue” that bonds us together as a work team is often the social bond of small talk and sincere interest in each other’s wellbeing. Make sure to approach your colleagues and employees as people who have personal and private sides as well as professional expertise to offer the group.

Provide a regular structure for communicating with your team. It is to everyone’s advantage to know the exact time of day and/or week that your communications will take place. This way all team members can plan their schedules accordingly. Consider the following communication plan:

• Morning: Performance Call

• Afternoon or early evening: Debriefing call

These calls have the scope of:

• Offering the support and interaction necessary for proper focus and development.


• Providing the opportunity for feedback on progress and “feed forward” on how and

what to do next.

• Securing transparency in executing tasks, monitoring priorities and deadlines, and

having an overview of necessary resource allocations.

Technology-based Follow Up and Follow Through You, as a leader of a team or cluster, have the potential to contribute enormously to your team’s enthusiasm, engagement and commitment. Today we are so fortunate that we can reach each other with simple means of technology. You can offer your input, ideas and solutions in many ways, including:

• A recorded video through Skype where you with a short message and pitch empower

your team and acknowledge their work.

• A document attached to an e-mail, where you give an update on the work from your

side and any changes that occur from the board of directors that mean changes or taking new perspectives into account.

• Via a podcast where you bring news, perspectives, videos or other resource material

from relevant sources that can inspire the work of the team.

Consistency is key because the team will quickly come to count on your attention, follow up and complimentary advice, ideas and external input. So make sure to schedule this kind of communiqué as a repeatable event in your calendar together with performance calls and debriefing sessions in the afternoon.

Question for Reflection “How will you go about following up and debriefing your people?”

Servant leadership, not mandatory control, is the mindset here. Give your people and team the best of you in order for them to succeed.

This way you can develop your part of the business while your people are eager to implement and feedback with important experience that will benefit development, quality assurance and innovation.

Stay on track and reach agreed-upon targets through coaching The same can be said of today’s technology to support long-distance coaching or coaching-based leadership. You have a range of tools to help you assist your team in their individual and collective development by asking probing questions through:


1. E-mail and text messaging

2. Skype

3. Telephone

One Daily Question to Consider for your Long Distance Team “How will you go about following up and debriefing your people?”

Question for Reflection “What is the most important thing needed in order to stay focused and how will you secure that?”

Step 3: Optimal Ways to Secure Team Coherence and Alignment

Maybe you have heard the expression “Social Capital.” This is the capital of people engaging with each other in teams, departments, in meetings as well as in daily routines of solving tasks, innovate new products and services and supporting each other reach the mutual goal of the business strategy.

Today we often measure and emphasis individual performance to such a great extent that we unconsciously reward behavior that is the opposite of social capital. Our team members end up building silos of information that guard against being


vulnerable, exposed, threatened and to keep others from stealing our ideas or our position.

A critical aspect of your long distance leadership, therefore, is making sure that your team has projects and assignments that they are willing to do together. You can do this by:

1. Structuring joint ways of working and communicating

2. Sharing the small wins and the big breakthroughs with the entire group

3. Securing responsibility and ownership

4. Setting clear goals and priorities

5. Employing the wingman principle, wherever possible

Questions for Reflection “What kind of structure have you created for your team, to bring an understanding of purpose, meaning, role, responsibility and tasks?”

“Who is responsible for securing this structure and how do you follow it up?”

“What would be your 3 main leadership actions in your everyday role, that will make sure that the work structure is being implemented real time, and adopted in mindset and behavior?”

Team Lifecycle and Development It’s one thing to put people together in the same office or in the same project. It’s quite another to know that the team you put in place will be successful over time, regardless of whether you are on site or not. Creating a team is a serious decision that can either be very successful or become a disaster, driving out good employees and creating bad impressions among customers and brand followers.

The following pillars will help you, as a long distance leader, create the kind of process that supports a successful business:

• Alignment

• Coherence

• Loyalty

• Commitment

• Authenticity

• Mutual respect


• Responsibility

• Ownership

Don’t underestimate the importance of securing these areas among your remote teams. When you are out of sight you must know that you have a group of sustainable and performing professionals who, with their best sense of judgment, can and will secure the interests of the company and the strategy, even without your physical presence.

Questions for Reflection “What kind of support and resources will you put in place to make sure to form, create and build a high performing long distance team or office?”

“When is it evident that your team is a success without you being there?”

Be aware of team dynamics, including those “stormy” phases that happen throughout a team lifecycle, especially when people leave or enter an established team. Your leadership is critical in properly handling these frictions, relations, expectations and misunderstandings among your team members and colleagues. Your role as a long-distance leader must be as one who can actively keep the momentum and “clear the air” so to speak among all these key participants in order to realize the full potential of the individual and preserve and strengthen the power of the team.

So be a little fearless. Invest in team socializing and building, go beyond the professional mask and peer into the human behind the work facade. Shared experiences, beliefs, values as well as recognition of backgrounds, cultures and upbringing all contribute to a stronger bond and rapport.

Conclusion and Reflections My sincere belief is that long distance leadership is one of the most demanding disciplines for any leader at any level. Your task is a daunting one, but it can be achieved if you focus on how to get your team, organization and people to speak with one tongue and still be diverse; how to have your people to live and breathe company values so the clients and customers experience authentic products and services; how to have your team do more than agreed or expected and have an organization where we work for a shared vision and a shared goal; how to create an environment where we work together knowing that we through our shared effort win more that by ourselves.


To accomplish all this, it is important to be visible, present and authentic in your role. Virtually and physically. Be involved and be engaged. This way a remote team of people will bring you the knowledge, the experience, and the ideas from which you will build, secure and transform your business.

Running your business, leading your team and building social capital are equally important to successful distance leadership.

Remember you are as important as your people in building the business. Your responsibility is to lead the way, and show how it should be done. Your success as a long-distance leader will depend on your ability to get the most out of your collective competencies, experiences and talent represented in your team.

Long distance leadership cannot be an intellectual exercise. It needs to be experienced, learning through practice and by using the feedback from your team, your colleagues and your customers to evaluate how everyone can best work together remotely, without the benefit of sitting next door to one another. Success is possible. As long as you continue to learn from your own and others’ experiences, you will grow step by step in your ability to create your unique way into a vital and vibrant long distance leadership role.

About Christian Dinesen Christian Dinesen is a Performance Trainer and Head of Institute at The Danish Institute of Coaching since 2002. He brings you an extensive experience and passion in developing and strengthening Performance Leadership and Operational Excellence in international environments.

Christian Dinesen deliver practical workshops about Long Distance Leadership and will bring insight, consciousness and leadership tools for personal development, distance leadership and effectively running business on remote locations. For more information, please visit Christians Linkedin profile.


Leadership & Management

Christian Dinesen - 3 steps to make long distance leadership work