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Today, teams are built differently. Remote work has changed the way we interact and connect with our colleagues. While team-building activities and personal moments can easily slip through the cracks of your living room couch, valuable connection isn’t off the table. With intentional effort, your remote team can feel just as connected as an in-office team. Here are some LeaderFactor tried-and-true methods of remote connection:
You don’t run into your colleagues in the hallways of your home like you would in an office building. Because of this, there may be entire departments and divisions that you only interact with in structured, formal settings. You’ll have to create those informal run-ins yourself, like with a water cooler meeting.
Your organization probably uses a collaboration platform to communicate. What interests your teams? Make a space to talk about it. You could create a channel to share the music you’ve been listening to recently and call it The Jukebox. Not music fans? Share recipes or book recommendations instead.
It feels a little anti-climactic to leave work when all you have to do is close your laptop. Gone are the days of walking out to the parking lot with your colleagues and chatting about your evening plans. If work often bleeds into your evenings and you’re missing those connection points, build them back in with a virtual elevator meeting.
Depending on the dynamics of your organization and individual teams, these suggestions may need to be adapted. The mentality should stay the same: with intention, willingness, and a little bit of creativity, your team can recreate that missing in-office connection.
Lead as if you have no power. We are being asked to lead in increasingly-dynamic environments. Those who chase innovation will lead as if they have no power. Otherwise, your competitive advantage will expire faster than your adaptive capacity can keep pace.
Imposter syndrome. The all-too-common feeling of inadequacy that makes you doubt your successes and achievements. It occurs outside of the comfort zone and triggers a fear of exclusion that motivates you to work harder than necessary to prove your worth.
It’s a Wednesday morning and you walk into an art museum. The paintings on the walls are quiet and serene--betraying the effort that went into them. But these works of art didn’t appear out of thin air. Sometimes taxing, and often flowing, there was a creative process behind them.