Alice had a nice little career track going. When she worked in the office with everyone else, she took part in a lot of training, got promoted regularly, and managed to find lateral promotions that offered new challenges and opportunities to feel challenged. That began changing two years ago when she started working from home,

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You’re probably getting a lot of advice about how this time of year is good for taking stock of you and your team, where you are now and where you want to be. People who do this mean well, but just saying, “Give some thought to where you want to go,” is not all that

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As leaders, we know that one-on-one communication with our team is critical. When we can’t just look out and survey the cubicle-farm to see how people are doing, the little time we get to spend with each employee becomes more precious. That’s why conducting these meetings is perhaps the most important skill a long-distance leader

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As leaders of a remote team, it is easier to get down on ourselves. We aren’t getting the participation from our team we’d like. People aren’t honest with us about how their work is going, and we think everything is fine only to have fires pop up in the least likely places. We feel powerless.

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For many people, working from home during COVID has been a big success. At least it’s worked better than many people anticipated. But the longer it goes on and the more uncertainty there is about what the return to the office will look like, or even if it will occur, the more we have to

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Do you manage remote employees? Whether your company is remote by choice or not yet back in the office due to Covid-19, having a remote team can throw up some challenges as well as some great opportunities. While you might worry that remote employees won’t work so hard when they’re not in the office, the

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I don’t want to alarm you, but for most organizations we have entered the dreaded Q4, the Fourth Quarter. The Year-End. Crunchtime. If you didn’t have time to create a work from home plan before COVID hit, now’s the time to plan for next year. In our work with people and their organizations around the

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Leading a remote team is not easy. One of the most difficult things is knowing what, and how well our people are doing at their jobs. This impacts everything from the daily affirmations and “atta girls” that keep people engaged and motivated to year end performance reviews. The biggest question many managers ask is this:

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Would you really yell at an employee for missing a deadline? Do you swear at people who blow off meetings or forget about appointments? Hopefully, the answer is no. Now, let’s ask another question. Would you talk to or treat an employee the way you speak to yourself? That’s always a good question to ask

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A client of mine recently started talking to his project managers about getting their “Remote MBWA.” I had never heard of this particular degree, so I asked him what that was.  He said it wasn’t some new kind of MBA, rather it means Management By Walking Around. Here’s how he described it to me: “Management

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