Monthly Archives: July 2014

The secret to leading virtual employees

leading a virtual workforceThe days where all employees work in one building with desks, cubes, offices right next to each other from 9 to 5 are gone. The advancement in computer technology has enabled everyone to be a virtual employee of some sort and the trends show that an increasing number of us are taking advantage of this ability.

The definition of a virtual employees has evolved over the years.  It used to be a select few that didn’t work in the office with all of the other employees.  The work they performed could be completed remotely, at their home for example, and their hours could be set differently to fit their personal situation.  Then it expanded to include the off-shore and on-shore workforce where certain specialties could be centralized for a lower cost apart from the office. Today it is common place to have a percentage of the workforce completely virtual and in most cases the entire workforce partially virtual.

Why did this shift to virtual happen? According to Global Workplace Analytics there are some compelling real-life examples of the benefits of virtual employees:

Costs. Forty percent of the IBM workforce operates without a dedicated office space. The employee to desk ratio is currently 4:1, with plans to increase it to 8:1 in field locations. IBM saves $450 million a year in reduced facility infrastructure and associated initiatives through telework.

Productivity. Ecolab, a Fortune 500 sanitation and food safety company, reported a 16% increase in the number of calls answered and a 10% increase in quick call resolution among its teleworkers

Absenteeism. British Telecom realized a 64% reduction in absenteeism due to its flexible work program

Lifestyle. More than a third of college student in the US (37%) say they would take a lower salary (up to $10,000 less) for the option to work wherever they are most productive and happiest. When the same question was put to existing employees, the percentage who would take a lower salary was 38%.

Employee engagement. According to a 2013 Gallup study, 39% of employees are virtual for some part of their work.  Those that are remote for 20% or less are the most engaged (35%) compared to those that are not remote (28%). 

What is the secret to leading virtual employees? The needs of a virtual employee are no different than those that work in an office.  Today’s leader needs to focus on the same leadership areas – Clarity, Communication, and Connections –  But using the technology that empowers the virtual workforce to keep virtual employees engaged – video conferencing, skype, gotometting, and some frequency of travel for the in-person connection.

Clarity. I think of clarity in very simple terms, “Get everyone on the same page, and keep them on the same page.” The importance if this simple idea can’t be stressed too much.  There are two main areas where clarity is needed: Purpose and Priorities.

Purpose:  If you want your virtual employees to be connected to the success of the team, they need to understand the big picture goals of the team.  Make sure you are talking about the purpose of the team and the success in achieving that purpose on a regular basis.

“Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.”  – Napoleon Hill

Priorities:  Knowing the purpose of the team is very important, but what drives the achievement of that purpose is the tactical actions that each member of the team executes.  Everyone needs to understand the priorities for their work, for other members of the team, and how it all fits together. 

“It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” – Henry David Thoreau

Communication. Whether your employees are virtual or in the office, they are people, and people need communication.  They keys to communication with your team is that it be planned and purposeful.

Planned: Communication is an important part of leadership.  I have found in my career that if something is not scheduled it is not done.  It is too easy for perceived fire-drills to overtake all of your time. So plan out your communication schedule.  Devote time every week for one on ones; get your leadership team together every month; meet every quarter with your whole team; and complete year end reviews on time.

“Failing to plan is planning to fail” – John Wooden

Purposeful: As a leader you should never hold a meeting without a clear goal in mind of what you are trying to accomplish with that meeting.  Meeting just to meet is a waste of everyone’s time. When you do this right, your team will feel the impact of the positive outcomes.

-In the one on ones your directs, be available for them.  It is their time to update you on progress, ask questions, and maintain comfort that they are heading on the right track. 

-In the leadership team meetings it is time for a higher level of updates across your team leaders.  This is an education for your leaders so they are aware of all that is important outside of their direct responsibility.  This level of knowledge helps them to see where they fit in the big picture and how what they do impacts others.

-Each quarter you should meet with your entire team through conference calls, video conferencing, or sometimes visiting in person.  Here you need to re-present the strategy and give them an update on how the entire team is doing.  This is time to celebrate successes.

-And finally, while you may be meeting with your directs frequently, the year-end formal review is important. Take time to talk through what went well and develop a plan for ongoing development. 

“Meetings are a symptom of bad organization.  The fewer meetings the better.” – Peter Drucker

Connections. All people need to feel connected personally to other people and professionally to a great cause.  There is no better proof of this than the world-wide success of Facebook and Twitter.  This is virtual connection at its finest. In business today, it is imperative that people are connected to learn from each other – the world is changing to fast not to take advantage of everyone’s expertise.

The obvious answer to fulfilling the need for connection with a virtual team is to use what has been proven to work.  Set up internal blogs, wiki sites, and other forums for electronic exchange of information, conversation and mentoring.  Of course the phone call now and again to just catch up works – like the coffee break conversations.

“No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.” -Brian Tracy

What is the secret to leading virtual employees? The needs of a virtual employee are no different than those that work in an office.  Today’s leader needs to focus on the same leadership areas – Clarity, Communication, and Connections – But using the technology that empowers the virtual workforce to keep virtual employees engaged.

 

 

It’s time for the midyear review. How am I doing?

midyear reviewAt midyear we stop and reflect on where we are in relation to our goals.  You will be looking at your employees’ accomplishments and talking to them about the second half of the year.  If you have an employee who is not quite where you would like them to be, what do you do?  Start at the beginning and refocus.

All employees are given resources like money, training, equipment, and sometimes a team of their own to lead.  These resources are an investment from their owner intended to fulfill the goals of the company.  If the goals are not being met then the employee is spending the resources that were provided in areas that don’t generate the expected return for the team or the company.

If you find that one of your team members is fully using every resource that you have provided but not generating the success that was expected, they are likely focused on the wrong goals.  From the surface it often appears that they ignored the goals that you had for them and pursued other goals that achieved individual success but did not accomplish the purpose of your team.

Before you settle on the easy conclusion that this employee only cares about themselves, I suggest you follow the advice from Jim Collins, author of Good to Great.  In essence he said, “In times of success great leaders look out the window to credit others, and in times of trouble great leaders look in the mirror to evaluate what they could have done better.”

You see, people are very capable of generating success when provided adequate resources.  Your job as the leader is to focus your team’s strengths on successfully accomplishing the vision of the team.

Here are four questions to review together with each employee that is not on goal:

Do you understand the purpose of the team? If you have not fully defined the purpose of the team, your team has two choices; operate with no purpose or define their own purpose. Absent a clear purpose, the employee who is geared to success, will have chosen their own purpose.  You are responsible for defining the purpose of the team so each employee will seek to accomplish the same end.

“You have to know where you’re going. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never know if you’ve arrived,” – Denis G. McLaughlin, The Leadership GPS

Do you understand how the vision achieves the purpose? Even if you have a clearly defined purpose for your team, there are many ways to achieve it.  Your vision sets the route your team will take to reach its purpose.  If you don’t over communicate how your team will achieve its purpose than you aren’t communicating enough.  Left undefined, the employee will define their own vision.

“The very essence of leadership is that you have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.” – Theodore Hesburgh, as quoted in The Leadership GPS

Does you understand how what you do fits into the vision? Ok, so you have a clearly defined purpose and vision for your team.  There is one more level of understanding you must focus on: taking the vision down to the employee level.  The employee may struggle in seeing the connection between their individual goals and the larger vision and purpose of the team.  Remember, employees are success driven, without this connection they will instead focus on what they think will help achieve the team’s goals.

“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who…offer a solution everybody can understand.”  – Colin Powell, as quoted in The Leadership GPS

Are you achieving personal success in accomplishing the success of the team?  Each person is looking for personal satisfaction in their life and in their job.  For your vision to be effective you have to set it in motion and it must have an immediate impact on your team members.  With each success, they need to feel that their job satisfaction is improving, along with the purpose if the team being accomplished.

“Successfully achieving your team’s purpose comes through a vision that consistently delivers small successes for each team member.” – Denis G. McLaughlin, The Leadership GPS.

 

 

 

Can you have too many Type A people in a group?

type a personalityCardiologist Dr. Meyer Friedman and his 1974 book, Type A Behavior and Your Heart first documented his study of what he called “Type A” personalities and the link to heat disease.  This linkage was first identified when Dr. Friedman noticed the chairs in his waiting room wore out on the front of the seat and the arm rests; different than expected as patients sitting for periods of time should wear out the back of the seats.  After careful observations he noticed that these patients tended to get up frequently and ask how much longer they would have to wait.

Here is one way that Type A is described:  A competitive drive, whereby the “victim” struggles constantly against time to a number of goals which the victim themselves has accepted.

Before we go too far let’s settle one thing, Type A is nothing more than a group of strengths that, like all other strengths, can be positive or negative if not managed.  Here are some examples:

            Positive Type A Qualities                  Negative Type A Qualities

            Competitiveness                                 Self-Critical (Never good enough)

            Time Managers                                  Impatient

            Ambitious                                           Aggressive

As a leader of people with strengths, some which may be Type A personalities, here are ways to draw the most success for the person and the team from their unique strengths. I hope that you will find that the suggestions below are just plain old good leadership techniques applied to one set of strengths – those of the Type A person.

Competitiveness

Focus the competitiveness of the Type A person on doing their best at all times in all things.  Recognize their success in meetings, sales presentations, projects, or while on vacation (tell them things ran smooth while out because of their dedication before they left).

“I play to win, whether during practice or a real game.  And I will not let anything get in the way of me and my competitive enthusiasm to win.” – Michael Jordan

Focus the competitiveness of the Type A person on their strengths.  Everyone is more successful when they work within their strengths.  The Type A person will work their hardest to succeed and will succeed faster and better in their strength zone.

“The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting above average effort.” – Colin Powell

Focus the competitiveness of the Type A person on helping others succeed.  If you really want to harness the power of the competitive spirit for the betterment of your entire team, set goals for the Type A person to share their knowledge and empower others to be successful.

“Put completing fellow leaders ahead of competing with them. The whole goal of healthy competition is to leverage it for the corporate win.” John Maxwell

Time Managers

Focus the time management of the Type A person on achievable goals.  They will accept as much as you delegate and work their hardest to accomplish all of them.  Be clear on the expectations.

“To do two things at once is to do neither.” – Publius Syrus

Focus the time management of the Type A person on short goals that will lead to the big goals. This keeps the recognition of success coming at shorter intervals. 

“Make measurable progress in reasonable time.” – Jim Rohn

Focus the time management of the Type A person on helping someone else on the team every day.  The success of others that you helped multiples success across the team, and the Type A person will multiply their feelings of their own success.

“A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self.” – Charles Dickens

Ambitious

Focus the ambition of the Type A person by helping them achieve their dreams one success at a time.  Use your leadership to provide opportunities for additional responsibility after each success.  Don’t let fulfillment of your team member’s ambitions only come after years of trying or at the expense of others’ success.

“Ambition can creep as well as soar.” – Edmund Burke

Focus the ambition of the Type A person on their personal life.  Get to know them as people not just employees.  Ask them about their vacations, graduations and other personal life events.  Care and show you care.

“To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.” – Samuel Johnson

Focus the ambition of the Type A person on helping others succeed.  In your team make the very definition of getting ahead the results of helping others get ahead of where they were to where they can go. 

“People say it’s not ambitious, but it is actually quite ambitious wanting to help people.” – Prince William

 

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