A Leadership Guide to Keep Calm & Carry Along
In the post below, we’ve summarized tips on how to lead your team through this time of crisis and remote work.
We cover these 3 topic areas:
How to keep your team focused and calm during this time of crisis.
How to communicate well with your team while working remote.
How to have great online meetings.
We tried to keep these lists short and concise to keep you from having to read a bunch of additional articles. We hope you find some insights that are helpful to you as a leader during these trying, but hopeful times. We will get through this. We always do. The only way is through.
Be safe. Lead well.
How to keep your team focused and calm during this time of crisis.
No doubt these are trying times. Your leadership always matters, but it matters even more in this moment. You can help your team manage through successfully, both professionally and emotionally. Oftentimes, your team will be a stronger unit having come through a crisis together.
Here are 10 tips for keeping the focus and calm during this time of crisis:
Set the tone. Your team will follow your lead. Calm the fears, because feelings are contagious. Set a positive, productive tone. You own it.
Align to purpose. Get people aligned to your common good. By doing so, you can bring out your team’s collective best in response to this crisis.
Hold daily 15-30 minute huddles. Bring your team together informally every day. Bring the casual in-office check-in’s online and just be there for each other. Consider starting and ending the day with these brief human huddles.
Take deep breaths. Start your huddles with 5 deep breaths. They are calming for all. I like to do deep breathing with one hand on my heart and one on my stomach. I find it calming and comforting.
Keep objectives and action steps clear. As the leader in uncertain times, you need to bring clarity. Make sure what you are communicating is aligned with your company’s direction and is super clear. But also set expectations that things may change. These are our times. New minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour information may change action steps. Explain this.
Communicate transparently and with facts. As much as possible, be open and be honest. But get your facts straight. Only use information that is verified.
Get all hands on deck. Stay focused on problems you need to address. Problems aren’t going to go away. Accept them and get solving them by engaging your team. Allow them to be part of finding solutions. Consider creating problem-solving teams. Create psychological safety for all ideas to be shared and valued. And, I love this additional idea offered by People & Company—in this time, give team members new leadership roles to take on, allowing them to contribute in new ways.
Acknowledge. If you engage your team well, they’ll step up. And when they do so, give them acknowledgement. Thank them. Be specific about the action and impact of their contributions.
Listen. Turn up your empathy. It’s no doubt a stressful time. Be open to listening to your team, hear their fears and needs, and provide compassionate understanding.
Allow for downtime. Take care of yourself during this time. You need to be well for the long haul. Also, take at least weekly virtual breaks with your team. This goes beyond your huddles; find time to pause and casually connect while you are distanced.
How to communicate well with your team while working remote.
This is a great article from HBR on How to Collaborate Effectively If Your Team Is Remote.
But, if you don’t have time to read it, here’s my summary of the insights in 6 C’s, bucketing them and adding a few of my own thoughts:
Consistent. Create norms for how you will communicate. Establish as a team. When will you connect? What channels will you use for what? Create notification norms to help prioritize responses and protect people’s working time (e.g., “Four Hour Response (4HR)” and “No Need to Respond (NNTR)”).
Choiceful. Choose your medium wisely. Text vs. phone call vs. virtual team meeting vs. email. Know what to use for what.
Concise. Don’t over message people. Keep communications limited.
Clear space. Create norms so people can be ultra-productive during this time and actually get work done when they need to get work done.
Connect live. See each other face to face. But also, really connect. Carve out time to just be during this difficult period. Acknowledge people. Don’t forget about celebrations of positive, small wins or birthdays.
Clarity. Make sure your communications are clear. This is important in leadership anyway, but really wake sure there is clarity when you are live and when you write in email. At the end of a live meeting, ask about the takeaways. Make sure everyone heard the same thing.
How to have great online meetings.
And when you host those live meetings that really need to be productive, here are 7 tips on how to run a great online meeting:
Follow the basics. Have an agenda and set expectations on how the meeting will be run. Send out pre-read. Make sure everyone on the call knows each other and why they are in the meeting. Be clear on the desired objective and outcomes. Keep these focused.
Be seen. Get on a video conference. There’s no excuse not to. Most people likely have access to either Google Hangout or Microsoft Teams. And, being able to see each other’s faces will make it possible to keep people focused on being in the meeting vs. reading email, say. And don’t be afraid to call people on it if they are distracted.
Check-in. Don’t forget the usual fun banter that starts most meetings. Allow some time for this, but don’t let it take over all your meeting time. But do build rapport early on with attendees.
Stay engaged. Set the expectations that people should be present and not be multi-tasking. Give everyone a role in the meeting. Make sure someone serves as the facilitator and a different person as a notetaker. Someone should be the timekeeper, and not the same person each time. Depending on the size of the group and the topic, consider assigning people to think with different hats. Give someone the role of being the truth seeker or one to bring up tough topics. Take regular temperature checks around the virtual room to make sure people are still with you and you haven’t lost anyone.
Structure and tools. Virtual meetings need more structure to make sure they are productive. As much as you can either set norms for regularly occurring meetings or plan how you will structure the conversation. Leverage the tools some of the platforms offer for voting, chat, sharing screens, and more.
All voices. Make sure everyone on the call has a chance to speak. Do a round robin so you both keep people engaged, per the point above, and everyone’s voice and opinions are heard. It also keeps people from constantly talking over each other. : )
Clear outcomes. One of the challenges with meetings overall is misunderstanding of conclusions and actions that should be taken walking out of the room. Get clarity on the outcomes, what’s been decided and what’s going to happen next. Also save 5-10 minutes at the end of the meeting to do a plus, minuses on the session. Ask if everything that needed to get out on the table was discussed. This is another challenge of meetings; people say what really needed to be said after the meeting ends. Take the time to get missed topics out. At the end, re-summarize conclusions and actions, and have your notetaker capture and share back out with the attendees and any other stakeholders.
Sources:
The Ultimate Guide to Remote Meetings in 2020
How to Run a Great Virtual Meeting
What It Takes to Run a Great Virtual Meeting
7 Ways to Run a Great Virtual Meeting
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