I’ve been able to have several face-to-face events in the last 60 days and it feels great. Workshops explode with energy, connections are renewed and new possibilities emerge.
But when the conversation inevitably turns to “when are you going back…” everyone’s eyes get a bit cloudy. I hear “some time” in 2022 or maybe not at all.
Office leases are under pressure, and many clients are sharing that even though they go in for meetings from time to time, they are planning on being at home for the foreseeable future.
Bottom line: we need to learn how to do amazing work while very much dispersed and joined via digital platforms.
Why This is Different Than Leading a Remote Team
I was speaking with the CTO of a Fortune firm, and he was saying that they were in good shape, as they have been working across multiple locations for years. To a degree that’s true, but the fresh issue here is that in the past, we only needed to coordinate communications to an intact team that we collaborated with in a different region. Local leadership provided all the support needed to lead and guide the team that was in the same physical location. In many cases, those team members are now soloing out of their homes, creating the need to guide, advise and develop value from individual resources that may never see one another face to face.
The Impact on Strategic Implementation
As we spoke about in this post, there is a critical time between the high-level planning and implementation where cross-functional teamwork is critical to capturing the value from hard work on strategy. Implementing fresh strategy requires aligned and coordinated effort from team members to make the new future specific and tangible so that concrete actions can be designed across people, process and technology.
We’ve grown accustomed to doing our heaviest lifting in person, and in talking with a variety of team leaders, I’ve come to the conclusion that we are slowly evolving to be successful – with much effort and more calendar time.
It’s Still Early Days
In many cases, teams have been able to keep things rolling based on pre-existing relationships established prior to the pandemic. This is great, as it gives a cultural starting point for new team members to observe, mirror, and evolve with. The hard part is the firms that have grown substantially during the pandemic – in some cases doubling their staff. This places a large burden on legacy onboarding systems, including how they get secure tech, introductions and even who can answer a quick question.
Second-order cultural learning is slowed, as well. For instance: who leads decision meetings, and how do I get my input on the table? Who can assign resources and make client commitments? And so on.
For those who are working together in teams that are more than 50 percent new, let me offer three insights from conversations with global leaders who are working out fresh practices in real-time. If you like acronyms, think of PCE: planning, curating, and execution.
- Planning
Team time, including both virtual and especially in person, has become a much more costly (and valuable) investment. Just like getting access to a very expensive piece of analytic equipment, the amount of time spent planning needs to go up significantly. I’m hearing that planning has to at least double so that everyone can show up on the same page and move the discussion forward.
The key here is that we need both the strong verbals and the quieter, “think before talking” folks to be on level footing with one another. When new data comes crashing in during the course of a meeting, it favors the “talk to think” group. This can lead to the need for more meetings and perhaps revisiting key decisions. I’m a proponent of “new facts + new meeting.”
A few key prompts:
- What is the context of this work in the bigger picture?
- Why is it important to the client (and the firm)?
- Why exactly are we meeting and what precisely are the results or decisions we are working toward?
- What do we all need to know before the session?
- Is everything in the shared location with enough lead time to absorb it and ask questions if needed? Have I sent prompted notes to key players for review?
- Is it structured for consumption with executive summaries and explanations and is the jargon removed?
- Curation
This deals with the talent needed for the session. Who needs to be there and what role do they have? (Approver, Decider, Informer, Receiver, Coordinator/Agent)
It’s very challenging to move the team forward if key stakeholders are not present. How do you help them be able to attend? Keep the meeting short (less than an hour) and make the pre-read amazing (see step 1).
Look at the group from a thinking and leadership style perspective: What is this group built to accomplish? Is it to produce? Ideate? Solve problems? Create plans? Engage the market?
These two tips: curating the right functional leaders and making sure you have a fully-equipped team from a leadership style (mindset, communication style, time horizon), will make your meetings come alive.
If you need a starting point for leadership styles, check out this post here.
- Execution
With the greatly increased investment in high-quality group, in-person and virtual interactions, we need to move up our execution standards, as well. Before we get into coaching, a word about team formation. I see lots of groups skipping the investment to be a team, versus a group of individuals all there to “win” for their group. True teamwork is done as peers with the objective of being of better service to the client. If you can’t find the overarching reason of service, then go back to step one.
My first tip here is to make leading events a team effort. In addition to the facilitation leader, I recommend having a wingman in the session who has high emotional intelligence. By having a neutral participant who is present only for helping with the flow, energy levels, and effectiveness of the group, value can really increase. I’ve done these sessions both ways, and having someone there to help can lead to really rich breakthroughs: whether by helping with a quick break or encouraging the feedback of the quiet participant who was missed by the main facilitator.
Secondly, outbound documentation after a session is crucial. The agreement seems so certain when everyone is present, but as soon as “leave the meeting” is clicked, everyone’s picture starts to blur. I’m a huge fan of spending the last 10 percent of each meeting on a bulleted list of key agreements and the next action that is put together by the whole group.
This has two big paybacks: the % of actions taken will skyrocket and it provides a great platform for the next session.
What Are Your Best Tips?
I can help a great deal with the execution in cross-functional team environments. I’ve developed a number of tools to help deductive, data-oriented teams work together with inductive, visionary teammates.
What are your best tips? Please include them in the comments below.
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