From A Distance: A comprehensive How-to Guide to Remote Leadership
For remote work to become a sustainable option for more companies, across all industries, we need more remote leaders. We need people who are comfortable and confident leading teams from a distance. And while it's easy to find resources about remote work and location independent jobs, remote leadership is often left to chance - blaming the remoteness of it all, if things don't work out.
The truth is, the success of your team does not depend on each team member's location. Your team's success depends on your leadership skills - in a remote environment. And these skills can be learned!
From a Distance is a practical book about how to create and lead a successful support team in a remote environment. I interviewed remote leaders at Automattic, Geckoboard, Helpscout, MeetEdgar, PagerDuty, Roomiapp, SupportDriven, Zapier and others, to learn how they organize, structure and lead their remote teams. Even if you are not a support lead, you can absolutely adjust those lessons to your own environment.
Beware! This book is not for the faint of heart. You'll get more than 60 pages of knowledge, ideas and tools to successfully lead your remote team from wherever you are. Whether you are already a seasoned remote leader, or you are just starting out creating (or inheriting) your first location-independent team, this guide will help you to hit the ground running.
To get your own free copy, sign up for my (monthly) newsletter here. After confirming your subscription, I'll send you the download link for the pdf and the epub version of this book. That way you can read it - remotely.
If you have questions or comments about the book, if you'd like to add recommendations to the Remote Leadership Resources page, use the hashtag #remoteleadership and tag me on twitter @valedeoro. Feel free to share this guide with your network. A sustainable remote work culture depends on the quality of its leaders!
I am also available for interviews, podcasts presentations or speaking engagements around remote culture and leadership in location-independent settings - get in touch!
Table of Contents
Foreword
Remote work in customer support
The nature of customer support
What is remote work?
The reason why remote work won't work for your company
The future is remote
A team that (almost) never meets
Plan your remote team as a feature, not a bug
The blueprint: planning a team in advance
Team size
Time zones
Work hours and schedule
Work days and holiday
Benefits
Immediate and future requirements
What to look for when hiring for a remote position
Knowledge transfer: onboarding and training
Onboarding
Remote training
Product/company knowledge
Communication standards
Social support network
Ongoing training
Building and creating the team
Team building
Do we really need a team meeting?
Team maintenance
Change management
Team changes
Lead - team member relationship
The art of creating long-distance relationships
Should you have regular 1:1s
Coping with intercultural differences (a.k.a your prejudices)
Coaching your support agents
So, what does a career in support look like for individual contributors?
Seriously, IS there a career to be made in support?
Managing remote performance
A word on quality assurance
Lead solidarity, frontline support and alternatives
Information management
Communication beyond your direct reports
Bottom-up communication: being the link from the frontline to management
Direct input from your team
Interaction reviews
Cross team work groups
Top-down communication: from management to individual contributors
Representing support
Working with the product team
Helping marketing/sales with knowledge about existing customers
Strategic support feedback for leadership
Tools
Team building - in real life and remotely
IRL activity: the one question
IRL activity: headhunting your colleague
IRL activity: appreciation exercise
Remote activity: no-work meeting
Remote activity: Two truth and a lie
A note on communication tools
Performance management: trust but verify
1:1 templates and processes
Blogs and websites with more insights