Author: Maren Deepwell

A friend of mine wrote to me today and talked about how working from home was going, something along the lines of endless Zoom meetings, and lots of good moments, but also low moments, missing having colleagues around to ask something or bounce ideas off.

Many people I know are feeling that way, and in addition many are also juggling working in provisional set ups (sofas are not necessarily comfortable 6 hours into a long day), working from home surrounded by (small) people and, oh yes, a global pandemic to boot. All risk registers have long turned to red.

I struggle just the same, with my personal circumstances, my work, coping with uncertainty… and as a relatively healthy and employed person, I am fortunate indeed.

But… I do know some answers to the question of how to make what many are missing when working remotely happen when you are stuck working online and I want to share some examples of what has worked for me:

Spend time online, not in a meeting

The first time I really started to spend time working with someone online outside of meetings was when my colleague Martin joined our organisation (Martin won’t mind me writing about this, as we blog about working as a virtual team regularly). He and I are a senior staff team of two and so from the start I knew that being able to work together well was going to be really important. We started off having regular catch ups, meetings and so forth, but things weren’t working as well as we wanted them to – we didn’t have enough time to bounce ideas off each other. So we started getting into the habit to work together online, for example on a long or repetitive tasks, to share our screens, and to work together and chat alongside it. Over time, we started to get comfortable working together without being distracted or limited by the technology and the quality of our thinking increased rapidly.

For me, there are a couple of things that make this work:

• by sharing a screen or looking at something other than ourselves on video, we have something else to focus on together rather than just ourselves. It is less confrontational and formal, it feels less like a meeting. It’s still important to look at something together however, so that we don’t disengage and get distracted by emails…
• spending time together outside of meetings or catch ups happens easily when you are based in the same space and as its not planned or accounted for, you are probably not even aware of how much time you would spend talking with others. Video meetings are exhausting, and people have the tendency to schedule too many of them, but booking out an hour or two every week when we do not have meetings but work or think about something practical, creates a very different mode of engagement
• building trust and having conversations about difficult things or things we are not sure about or things we worry about is much easier when you have regular interactions that are informal, but still productive. The time we spend working together gives us that space. For us, over time, this became a huge benefit and translates into working practice across the team.

Be your own best work colleague/you are your own worst work colleague

Working from home, particularly under less than ideal circumstances, means you are both constantly confronted by everyone and everything from your personal life and also yourself. I found out pretty quickly that I don’t like myself as my own and only work colleague very much. I talk too much, I don’t take enough breaks, I am bad at jokes and when I am hungry I get in a bad mood quickly.

Without the balancing effect of other people around me who are also working (and that is an important bit as people, however loved, who are not working, don’t ‘count’ as colleagues), spending every day with just myself was a bit of a shock to the system and I know many who feel similar. Here are some things I have found helpful to become a better work colleague for myself:

• Saying good morning: I like greeting people, seeing them on the way to work, saying hello. I missed this a lot when I started working from home, so I always start each day at work saying good morning online. I find it grates if the first thing I get is a chat that starts with “Hi, can you help me with this problem” or “Oh no, see what’s happened now…” or “I’m so tired today”. All valid of course, but my usual response is, “Good morning, X, hello to you. How are you doing? I’ve just arrived at my desk, so I’ll have a look at … just as soon as I have said hi to everyone” or something like that.
• Breaks and snacks: we use a ‘water cooler’ chat channel to share things like what kind of biscuits we are having as a snack or pictures of our pets. I often use the fact that others are having a break as a prompt to have a break myself, to go and make a cup of tea, stand outside for a moment if its dry. Getting up and moving about really helps both my body and my mind and is something that I forget to do if left to my own devices.
• Dress for others: OK, so at the time of writing this may be harder to achieve than it normally is, but it can be helpful to dress for others as if you were meeting them in person. I often dress according to what meetings I may have that day, for a specific person I am catching up with or a team meeting and so on. I would normally “dress for myself” if you know what I mean, but when you are at home on your own or with your family for weeks on end, that becomes more of a challenge as you may not get past sweatpants and t-shirts.

Consider how you could be 10% more comfortable

I had a wonderful yoga teacher for a couple of years and one of the things she taught me was to pause and consider how I could make myself 10% more comfortable. It may sound a bit trite, but I found it to be a powerful tool, particularly when you are working from home. Small changes such as a thingy to help with screen glare (technical term), a cushion at your back, a colourful coaster or mouse mat, a change in position… these things can make a small but important difference to how stressed, tense and sensitive I am at work.

I find I can loose my sense of humour or perspective rapidly when my back aches or I can’t see the screen properly… and things that start out as quite small niggles can quickly escalate when everyone is less than comfortable. In these times, when everyone is under pressure, everyone deserves compassion, everyone wants to be reassured, it is a powerful tool to try and make things 10% more comfortable. 10% is always achievable. 10% does make a difference. 10% a day or a week or even a month does add up.

The 10% thing also encourages me to remember that whilst most of what I do might be digital, I am most definitely made of flesh and blood and aching bones. Few people feel their best just now and many feel up and down and thoroughly discombobulated. We are far from ‘business as normal’ even if we are achieving many things and people are working hard – no matter how well we are coping, we could probably all do with 10% more comfort.

So there you are. Take care.

I loved seeing tweets this week of signs and posters saying ‘daddy’s in a Skype call :)’ or ‘don’t come in – I’m in a meeting’… it gave expression to how much worlds are colliding just now. Whether you are a seasoned home worker or a newly (crisis) minted one, no one has experience of working from home during a global pandemic during lock down, without childcare and alongside every member of their household, pets included. And, with the worry of EVERYTHING THAT IS GOING ON, on their mind. ‘Business as usual’ this is not.

I have been working on ALT’s response (if you are looking for Learning Technology support, help is at hand) and also sharing my own (team’s) expertise to help, but this post is more about my open practice as a leader.

Openness comes under pressure when there is a crisis, but this crisis runs so deep, that much of our usual behaviours have given way to sharing our perspective, solutions and problems. Each day I get emails from fellow CEOs sharing useful information re employment or legal developments alongside personal updates. I hear from colleagues around the world who are at different stages of lock down, loss and recovery. I connect with colleagues closer to home, with suppliers and freelancers, paying bills and ensuring the essentials that keep us all going, and getting paid, are as safe as we can make them.
But we are now a few weeks into this proper madness, exhaustion and frustration are definitely more visible than they were at the start and as I wrote in my last post, there’s a lot to contend with when you are (suddenly) leading a virtual team in this time of crisis.

Finding balance between business as usual and no business at all

Like everyone else I work (and live) with people on a whole spectrum of responses to the situation, from those who are coping, keen on as much normality as possible, those who focus on specific priorities, adjust to new daily routines to being completely scared, unable to function, sick and tired of it all. Leading any effort in times when tempers run hotter than usual, when communication , particularly online, can easily lead to conflict is tough! Finding balance between business as usual and no business at all is harder than you think… so I try to continue to create different spaces for different types of interaction:

• Regular team meetings: focus largely on business as usual, with a set agenda and ideally max 1 hour long and video on for all as standard;
• Coffee/tea get together: no business at all, just focus on social/personal conversations and checking in with each other;
• Individual one to one: start with ‘how are you’ and establish context before then moving onto discussing work and end by setting a small number of clear and achievable priorities – ideally 30 min and always video on;
• Group chats: establish formal/informal ones as needed but be very clear which one is essential. Give options to join in others, but prioritise one.
• Individual chats: be available as you can be to deal with anything really urgent or personal or just to be present.

Press pause and accept grey areas

In the current crisis things can move quickly from one simple issue to a whole chain of unsolvable problems. When you are surrounded by so much uncertainty most people’s instinct is to lock stuff down, to create certainty, to be clear what’s right or wrong. You want to do the same of course, be clear, make the right decision, communicate effectively and so forth. But most of the time you and I are going to make it up as we go along, doing our best just as anyone else leading people and organisations through this madness, to take the best decision we can in completely unprecedented circumstances. From policy officials to shop keepers everyone is making it up, trying their best – and constantly re-assessing. Sometimes virtual teams can move at too fast a pace, things get frantic and it’s good to remember that you can press pause, take a breath and consider things. You won’t always get it right (I know I don’t) but you can take time to think it through and accept freu areas. Acknowledge those explicitly. Make it clear if you are compromising. Articulate, to your colleagues, why you are taking a decision or why you are waiting/reflecting. I am often in online meetings and a decision is required and I don’t know the answer. In that case I say it don’t know, I will need to think about it, I’ll get back to you by (whenever the decision is required). Being a leader in uncertain times requires us to get comfortable with uncertainty.

Asking for help and setting an example

In times of crisis a show of strength and certainty often goes a long way. But months of complete mayhem?! You are going to need to ask for help more and more often. You are going to need to model that and no one will see those urgent calls at the kitchen table, those pacing walks on the balcony, those late night glasses of wine over spreadsheets. Communicating how you seek help and why is just as important as solving problems, maybe more so. It helps normalise and make visible a process that is much harder to translate into virtual teams, where office doors that are open or casual conversations in the corridor are harder to come by. It’s much harder to admit what you don’t know or find the right moment to ask a question when you are (newly) working from home and your dog, spouse or whole team is listening in. I had a meeting (an important one as they all are these days), this week which I brought to a conclusion saying I had to rush off. Someone asked where to and I replied to have my lunch, to eat a sandwich. Everyone laughed and suddenly started to bring their own lunch into camera view. We said bye to hurry to have a break. It’s not unprofessional to be a human being, hungry and in need of a break. It’s not unprofessional to need help. When you are in a crisis situation that is going to last weeks or months, there is no way you can keep going without adjusting, giving yourself and others time to recover, collect your energy, get some headspace. It feels good to be busy and productive, but setting an example of being like that all the time isn’t helpful for leading people or organisations. It creates an unrealistic expectation for everyone.

For the past two years I’ve been blogging about our approach to leading a virtual, fully distributed team for ALT, the Association for Learning Technology. Together with my colleague Martin Hawksey I have charted our journey in podcasts and blog posts.

Your own ‘journey’ may be only a few hours, a day or a week, probably not by choice and at a time of global emergency. So here are the tips & tricks I wish I had been given BEFORE I became the Chief Executive of a virtual organisation:

Basics for you

Putting together work spaces at home in a hurry is always going to be a compromise, but checking on some basic things like the height of the chair, angle of your arms when typing, glare on the screen(s) etc is important. You will feel it after hours and days of sitting at your new station and being uncomfortable or in pain will become an issue. Try to find a compromise that works or at least be aware of potential issues and get up frequently to help your body adjust. Everything going online doesn’t mean your physical self doesn’t have needs and it makes a big difference to you if you can feel settled at your new ‘desk’ to some degree at least. Consider small tokens of familiarity, pictures, or even post it notes to help you ‘move in’.

Share tips or niggles with your team and ask colleagues to do the same. It is really helpful to acknowledge that you, too, find it surprisingly uncomfortable to work on the sofa, that kids dropping in unannounced drives you mad and that you had NO IDEA that the dog would only accept sitting on your lap all day. Team building starts with sharing the reality of the transition as a person, not just a job role.

Routine is your friend

Working virtually is easiest when you have a routine. At this point, that may not be entirely possible, but you might be able to do something like: set up a daily 30 min check in for groups or everyone; set up a schedule of regular one to ones (for example on a specific day each week), set regular team meetings; or designate a time slot as your “office hours”.

Routine, and establishing a new rhythm is key to leading a virtual team. It provides a structure around which a team can function and sets deadlines for individuals who may be feeling bereft of their usual routines. Not everyone can easily hold it together when in addition to a crisis they are suddenly working from home, at an uncomfortable kitchen table, surrounded by laundry and dishes and 101 other things that demand their attention.

Replicating structure for both focused work meetings and tea and coffee breaks/water cooler moments is going to help everyone. Start the week with half an hour of team chat about the weekend, or end the week with a wind down catch up. Create space for being social as well as productive.

LISTEN (and then listen again)

Working virtually is going to rob you of many ways in which you would normally manage people. Body language, tone of voice, observing how people interact or sit at their desk… you are going to get A LOT less information about the people you lead. So when you do meet, close windows and browsers, sit back, make eye contact and listen (and then listen again). Don’t let yourself be distracted by other things, or even how someone might react because they are self conscious on video or a voice call.

You can get a lot from virtual interaction if you focus and are prepared to deal with what’s coming your way, which is likely to be not all good! It can make you feel helpless when someone is in tears on video chat. It can be really tough to have a disagreement over the phone, particularly when you are used to dealing with situations like that face to face. But with months of uncertainty ahead, you won’t be able to park a problem and then solve it when you are back in the office. So encourage your staff to talk to you and tell them that they have your undivided attention. That’s the magic sauce.

Keyboard shortcuts are a killer

There will be many moments when you are working together with someone, and there is miscommunication. You are on one page, they are on another. For you it’s working, for them it isn’t. Even if you all have a similar level of digital competency, you are likely to use different methods to achieve the same aim, and things like innocent little keyboard shortcuts can be a killer.

Because YOU CAN’T SEE what someone else is doing on their keyboard, even when you share screens, you will likely miss a lot of stuff. It’s surprising how much. So try to get used to describing what you do as you are doing it (literally say… I am clicking on this..) and document as much as you can, ideally together.

Sometimes you just need to take a deep breath and start again.

The darkest day: and how to get up again tomorrow

Leading a virtual team is just as hard and tiring and trying, just as fun and enjoyable as leading people in person – so at times like this it’s a complete nightmare. You have to have all the answers, but it’s a lot harder to project confidence when WIFI is down and you are sitting at a make shift desk trying desperately to complete a risk register. At that point, someone has a personal crisis, stops communicating and because you are all at home you have no idea what is happening. Are they OK? Will they come back to work? What should you tell everyone who is waiting? What’s happening to the person who has been silent all day? Why did you not get the report you were waiting for? And why, why, are there already 200 new emails.

You are facing impossible odds, and leading a team is always more work when there is a crisis, and in particular when there is a prolonged period of uncertainty. You will have dark days and people rely on you to get up and do it all again the next morning. Here is what I do to help with that:

• keep to work hours wherever possible and protect non-work time
• sit for a while at the end of the day to ‘commute’ and reflect on my day
• draw a circle and divide it up into a pie chat of everything you are worried about
• label each worry
• give yourself a break
• leave your laptop shut for the rest of the night and wherever possible don’t put work emails on your phone

Good luck. You can do this.