When we think about the skills remote workers need to be successful, a lot of things come to mind: mad web presentation skills, the ability to sail through SharePoint like a swallow at Capistrano, and knowing how to appear on webcam without looking like the shadowy informant on a TV show are among them. But

Read More

Here’s a question I bet you’ve never been asked before: What would happen to your team’s work if the boss suddenly wound up dead in a pickle barrel? This is kind of a morbid (okay, downright weird) question, but on remote teams we seldom have a good plan in place for who does what if

Read More

If we ask managers, “should you delegate tasks to remote team members?” the answer is almost always a resounding, “Yes!” After all, they are smart, talented people and we’re paying them to add value to the team— of course we should delegate to them. The reality doesn’t always reflect this, though. Many remote workers complain

Read More

When many of us think of remote work, what comes to mind are people in cities or suburbs who don’t want to fight traffic. But one of the really interesting long-term effects of working anywhere you want, is that people can work…well, anywhere they want. This could mean a second chance for small towns and

Read More

Can you believe it’s 2019 already? For some of us, that was a year we only thought possible in science fiction movies; but ready or not, it’s here. For many of the clients we’ve talked to, it’s finally time to quit dealing with remote work as something aside from their normal planning, and to make

Read More

Twice in the last week I’ve been asked the same question: “Can I work remotely and still have a career path with my employer?” That’s kind of a trick question, because it largely depends on the employer, but in general the answer should be yes—if you’re willing to put in the work. There is a

Read More

I recently read James R. Hansen’s terrific biography of Neil Armstrong, First Man. It was fascinating on many levels, but one of the most intriguing things for someone who studies team dynamics is that the crew of Apollo 11 were not particularly friendly with each other. If you listen to people like us, you’d think

Read More

Moving from one place to another ranks near the top of “most stressful life events. It’s only surpassed by a death in the family, divorce, and reaching the end of a series you’ve been binge-watching on Netflix with no replacement lined up. When where you live is also your workplace, your blood pressure can increase exponentially.

Read More

When we talk to managers around the world about what they feel they could improve on, the one area they all say they could improve on is “coaching.” It’s hard to do and doesn’t come naturally to many of us. So, it seems a bit like piling-on to point out that the odds are pretty

Read More

A recent survey by Cigna found that nearly half of Americans report sometimes or always feeling lonely or left out. One in four Americans (27 percent) rarely or never feel as though there are people who really understand them, while about half of the surveyed population have meaningful in person social interactions.  Two in five Americans

Read More