Managing Remote Staff vs Office Teams What Actually Changes (James Dooley Interviews Mads Singers)

James Dooley: Today I’m joined with Mads Singers and today’s topic is managing staff in office versus remotely. So what things do you do differently here, Mads, with regards to office and remote? Mads Singers: Yeah. So the key thing is when you’re managing in an office, there’s a lot of natural communication processes that just happen, whether people are purposefully doing it or not. If you come into an office, you see your colleague. Even if you’re a bad boss, you still say hello. You still say how was your weekend, what’s happening, whatever. So there’s a lot of natural communication that happens in an office that doesn’t happen remotely. One of the key things I tell people when they say it’s harder to manage remotely is that I don’t actually think it is. I think great managers who are great in an office get good results remotely as well. Poor managers, people who don’t know how to manage well, might get better results in an office than remote. The key difference is communication. It’s about making people feel part of a team. The core processes we focus on are one to ones, team meetings, and feedback. Those things happen more naturally in an office. Making sure staff are doing regular one to ones is critically important. The big difference between a manager and an individual contributor is that managers talk to lots of people all the time. If you’re an individual contributor in a remote company, you’re sitting alone and often only talking to your manager. If you work all month and have one Zoom call with your boss, that is very little communication. Even introverts need more communication to be effective and productive. Managers often think everyone is communicating because they are talking to lots of people. But they’re not. So as a remote company, leaders must do weekly one to ones. Thirty minutes. Only with direct reports. Don’t skip layers. There are three things to talk about. First, the personal side. Build the relationship. If staff don’t have a good relationship with you, they don’t care about your business. Business owners complain staff don’t care, but they don’t build relationships. Second, performance. People need to know you care about performance. The simplest way to show that is to talk about it. How are sales numbers? Targets? What’s being done to fix gaps? Third, the future. If performance is low, discuss how to improve. If performance is strong, talk about career progression, ownership, responsibility, and growth. You also need tools to track one to ones across the business. If they’re not happening, remote staff end up isolated and disengaged. We use a tool called HeyRamp, but there are many good tools that also support performance reviews. James Dooley: So if you’re a business owner with in office staff and you feel that’s sorted, but now you’re hiring virtual assistants globally, do managers need training? Is it a skill gap? Mads Singers: Yes. Being an entrepreneur doesn’t make you a leader. You can start a business with zero leadership skills. If you or your team haven’t had leadership training, especially outside a corporate background, you will benefit massively. Most managers do the best they know how to do. The problem is they don’t know how to. One to ones, team meetings, communication processes. Most managers talk 95 percent of the time in meetings, then ask if anyone has questions. That’s not a team meeting. That’s a monologue. People want to feel they matter. They want to feel informed. They want communication, especially from their boss. Leadership training is a game changer. Many people get promoted because they were good individual contributors. Then they keep doing the same job. But management is different. Once you manage a team, what you do doesn’t matter. What the team does matters. Learning that without training takes years. With training, it’s much faster, like going to the gym with a coach. James Dooley: You do business coaching and training. How can people reach out to you? Mads Singers: Mattsingers.com or search for Matt Singers on social media. Leadership training is often overlooked, but investing in managers makes a huge difference. James Dooley: If you’ve got in office or remote staff, or struggled managing remote teams, leave a comment. Let us know what’s worked. Appreciate you, Mads.