Supporting your team from a distance during self or imposed isolation

This is a grammar edited and improved version of an earlier post.

I have been receiving many messages from clients and friends asking for advice on how to work from home. I have organised the requests into three groups.

The first group has been asking me how I manage my time.

What works for me is to organise my day into half- or quarter-day blocks of time during which I focus intensively on one topic. I try to schedule the more conceptual or tougher mental tasks for the mornings, and phone calls, Skype calls and admin for the afternoons. Also, I found that dressing for work helps me to stay focused. I don’t necessarily dress as formally as I would when attending a meeting, but I generally try not to look like I am going to spend the day on the beach.

The second group has been asking me how they can keep their teams connected while everyone is working from home.

This is a little harder. If your team is doing knowledge work, then I would check with them what kind of information and knowledge exchange they need to do their work. Don’t just have web meetings to stay in touch (although there is a need to remain socially connected), use meetings and platforms such as Slack or MS Teams to exchange views and ideas on what really matters. I have seen some of my clients doing daily check-ins and half-daily updates of what everyone is doing. I don’t really think this helps unless everybody’s tasks are clearly defined. Most people, even when they are at work, are overwhelmed by all the information streams that appear to be important, although this does actually help people to make better decisions or do their jobs better.

During this time when people are working from home it will also become apparent which team members are truly independent and able to build their area of work without your direct supervision. Some of your team members will love this, and will find the “freedom” to work at their own pace exhilarating. However, some people will also feel insecure, and they may even feel distressed and need more direction from you. But please, whatever you do, do not treat everybody the same. Give those who can self-direct their work the space and the freedom, while spending more time with those that need direction. 

Lastly, it is not possible to remotely keep all your people working productively. There are all kinds of distractions at home: kids, pets, snacking and other comforts. It takes a lot of discipline to work from home, I know! Some people will simply not perform as expected. I suggest you focus on the key team members who are critical to keep your organisation going and try to support them as best as you can. Give those doing operational or administrative tasks clear instructions. But don’t expect everybody to perform.

The third group of clients having been asking me how they can use this abnormal situation to re-think areas of their business from a strategy and innovation perspective. 

Most of our thinking is shaped by recency bias. We tend to think of the issues that dominated our conversations and attracted our attention in the last week or two. This bias makes it hard for us to reflect on what we are not paying sufficient attention to, or what else may be happening but which we may be filtering out. 

Right now, everyone is talking about COVID-19. A few weeks ago everyone in South Africa was talking about the pending rating agency downgrade and the state of our economy and the poor state of our state-owned companies. I guess that in your workplace these topics are also taking up mental bandwidth, like the financial year-end and many others.

I suggest that you use this time away from the watercooler and the coffee machine to think beyond the dominant and recent topics that almost magnetically drew your attention. What are those issues that often do not get enough mental bandwidth? Some suggestions are the following:

Let me know what you are trying, and what seems to be working for you and your team. Your comments and suggestions are useful to all my other clients and friends who are reading this blog.