How to Improve Communication Frequency With Your Remote Team
By: Vy Luu
Tags: Productivity, Leadership, Work, Startup, Business

Virtual Leadership Challenge

Why am I suggesting leading teams in different regions is even harder than leading teams within the same location?

Because we already have these six common leadership challenges with managing in-person teams:

Purpose : connecting the why of daily work for our teams so they are excited to learn and grow with our businesses.

: connecting the why of daily work for our teams so they are excited to learn and grow with our businesses. Focus: prioritizing the highest reward work so our organizations and clients will be highly satisfied.

prioritizing the highest reward work so our organizations and clients will be highly satisfied. Guide : leading teams from any performance state to a higher one, so excellence is a constant goal.

: leading teams from any performance state to a higher one, so excellence is a constant goal. Change : developing our ability to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Then lead, execute, and thrive in changing environments.

: developing our ability to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Then lead, execute, and thrive in changing environments. Growth : growing team members to become experts in their craft so they can become leaders in their field, then build more leaders.

: growing team members to become experts in their craft so they can become leaders in their field, then build more leaders. Relationships: building capacity to work with others so we can influence the adoption of new ideas up, down, and across all levels of the organization.

The added layer of complexity is in operating with teams outside of our physical surroundings, to achieve a purpose, focus, through guiding change, growth, and building relationships.

The indicator of good virtual leadership

A high number of quality messages transacted within a team can be a reliable indicator of an excellent virtual leader. A study analyzed the communication frequency between managers and teams in different locations.

There was one manager who stood out.

The team he managed was noted for their ‘excellent’ morale. The difference between him and other managers was the high quality of interactions he had with his team. Quality, in this case, translated to 32 contacts per week with his employees. An achievement that outshone the others.

Remote coaching in a high-performing team

My former coach moved to the west coast from Ontario in 2017. He continued to coach his dragon boat team (remotely) since then.

When Gavin Maxwell contemplated leading the team from afar, he shared his plan with the team. I immediately thought, ‘you can’t coach a sports team virtually, I’ve never heard of that!’ It was a judgemental reaction I’m not proud of. And, fortunately for the future of his team’s success, he didn’t listen.

Instead, as a world-class dragon boat coach, he talked to his team as much as 77 times in one week.

He only visits two to three times per year for training camps and regattas. He uses Whatsapp religiously to stay connected with his assistant coaches and the team of ~50 paddlers. They talk about practice attendance, performance, team line ups, and personal highs and lows.

They have earned countless gold, silver and bronze medals competing against the German, Chinese and Canadian top teams. Despite his not being on-site physically, their excellence has not diminished; in fact, it has improved!

77 times in a week; that’s 11 times per day. All to make sure that his message remains clear and the team stays focused. They get clarity, support, and encouragement daily.

On July 20, 2019, this team won the Canadian Dragon Boat Championship in an intensely competitive arena. This major win proves remote leadership can work and high communication is the secret weapon.

My communication frequency was too low

Are you doing what I did when I realized the volume of messages both of these high performing leaders had with their teams?

I counted my work instant messages because it was the quickest way to have a baseline measure of my communication frequency. Of course, I could count meetings, emails, and other types of interactions but I was looking for an easy indicator.

For relationship context, I also counted the number of messages with my partner, best friend, and family. Here are the results:

With my best friend in another province: 58

With my live-in partner: 40

With my parents in another province: 15

With my direct team members: 5–13

Faced with this terribly low team text messaging count, I immediately tried to defend my position. I reasoned this result was not bad because there were other correspondences that week via face-to-face, video, and group chats.

A nagging doubt challenged me to demand more of myself.

The literature showing a team with high morale performs better moved me to change. I launched a new personal goal to increase my digital interactions. Understanding that work relationships differ from personal, I set a 20/week target.

I set the goal to communicate every day with team members out of my sight. I set aside short time slots each day for chatting. I learned about upcoming weekend plans, last evening’s activities, and their mood of the day.

Throughout the daily conversations, I attempted to address the common leadership challenges through my written messages. My lessons and suggestions follow. For each practice, I’ll relate it back to those original six leadership challenges: purpose, focus, guide, change, growth, and relationships.