What is the biggest complaint remote workers have about remote communication their colleagues? If you guessed too many emails, or being barraged by Slack messages, you’re in the top ten. But when we recently asked people “What’s the thing that drives you craziest about working with remote workers?” the answer was a little surprising.  “I

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By Chuck Chapman, Content Strategy Coordinator One of the foundations of being a remote leader is effective online communication. As we’ve well documented on this site and in The Long-Distance Leader, this is one of the principle leadership challenges for those heading up remote teams. Simply put, communicating remotely just isn’t the same as communicating

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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

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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

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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.

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Thanksgiving in the US is usually considered the beginning of “the Holidays.” But if you work with international teams, this raises a couple of important questions. Exactly which holidays are we talking about? And, will we actually be able to get our work done and still allow people to celebrate according to their local and

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To many people, working remotely has one giant perk: we are free from the interruptions caused by other people. Of course, many people say that the biggest downside is the lack of communication with other people. (Honestly, some people are NEVER satisfied.) How you interact with others — because you want to, or because you

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When talking about people who choose to work remotely we often make some (reasonable) assumptions: They crave human contact, they want to be in touch with their teammates and bosses more often, they need to feel like part of the larger organization, and they miss talking to live humans. These ideas sound rational…but what if

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It’s not unusual for Long-Distance Leaders to spend a lot of time alone. Now that you no longer share an office with anyone, your actual human conversations have likely diminished. That means the voices in your head might be the most common voices you hear. No, you’re not crazy. We all have those voices guiding

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When teams work together in one location, they see each other on a pretty regular basis. They see each other at lunch and in the break room. They pass each other in the hall, or when they walk by a person’s office or desk. They get frequent, visual reminders that other people are part of

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