1 Simple Tip to Increase Connection with your Team

12 years ago, I failed at being a great remote team leader. That first year was a fantastic teacher, and I quickly learned what didn’t work and a few things that did work.  For example, leading remote teams require different leadership skills than leading in-person teams. Guiding communication, engagement, and expectations would be different. Often, many of my remote team members didn’t have a sense of what was needed to be a successful remote worker.

Connecting with your remote team members isn’t as simple as saying hello while getting coffee or walking by someone’s desk, but once you know a few tricks, it can be even more engaging and help you create a strong team that is supportive and effective.

One simple thing you can do right now is one on one meetings.  If you are like I was, you immediately thought, “WHAT? I don’t have time for that”!  I get it and have been there. I was solving 200 problems and leading 12-15 client calls a day.  However, after not having one on one meetings, I learned they were too important not to have.  When I didn’t do them, my team felt detached and weren’t as responsive or productive as before.  What happened is that since I had stopped having those one-on-one meetings, I didn’t talk to them as much as before. I didn’t express the excitement of the growing company or hear their passion for their work.  I didn’t know that their dog was sick or that they were moving. It made work harder, and my day felt less fulfilling. Eventually, I could no longer solve 200 problems, and leading 12-15 client calls a day because my team and I were disconnected and less effective. And Frankly, work was WAY less fun.

When I made the time to have those one and one meetings again, it took a few weeks, but work was once again fun, engaging, and my team’s happiness increased.  Thus, productivity increased, and we were able to boost our sales, and our clients were even happier to work with us.

 Tips for having great one-on-ones

🌱    Reoccurring 30-minute chat every 2 weeks for each team member. At first, I tried to keep the meetings to 15 minutes, but I found I enjoyed them so much, we always went over.

 🌱    Encourage team members to have their favorite beverage (coffee, tea, soda) and chat in a different location. You would even do a walk and talk via facetime or zoom.

 🌱    Try to do them via video. I know…no one really likes video but try. Seeing someone helps create a mental connection that is very important.

 🌱    At first, have an agenda. Talk about your lives (talk about yours too), summarize current organization/dept goals, what is going well, what needs improvement. After a few chats, you may find you don’t need an agenda. It just turns into conversations

 🌱    Take notes and follow up.  This one is important, and it is easy to miss. Follow up on any concerns and make sure to review your notes before your next meeting.

  Bonus tip

🌱    Have a one-on-one chat every week with one person outside your immediate team.  This can help greatly! You get a different perspective and help create a need connection.