Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
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Dear Bev,
We value the teamwork and collaboration we are able to achieve working together in our office. Now, like everyone else, we are forced to work remotely and figure out new ways to manage our responsibilities. This is a time for people to isolate. We have a couple of introvert advisors who are not responding to emails. They are following up with clients, but don’t see a need to talk with other team members. Some of our support people don’t get along all that great in person and now see the opportunity to simply ignore one another.
I know this isolation is necessary, but the fabric of our firm is coming apart at the seams. Is it possible to collaborate effectively when everyone is remote?
J.R.
Dear J.R.,
In answering your question, let’s go back to how you value teamwork and collaboration in your firm. Are you sure this was the case even when you were all working together in one area? If introverts are celebrating because now they can be themselves, and your support team was itching for a way to formally ignore one another, is it possible the existing “teamwork” wasn’t what you thought it was?
Yes, most firms are forced into remote working. But that doesn’t mean they are working separately and independently of one another. Our own firm is virtual and we have been for many years – we are very tight knit and connected. Nothing has changed for us. If anything we are in contact more often just to ensure we are all feeling supported and to talk about how we are managing everything.
The key concepts that underlie any team can be carried over when people are working remotely. In my career, I worked in a large organization and ran a very big department. Some of my best “go-to” people were the ones in different geographic locations and different time zones. Seeing them every day was not a necessity for us to work tougher and feel supported.
Of course technology has its limitations. If you are doing all by phone, you can’t see if someone is listening to you, or whether they are making a cup of tea in the other room while you are speaking. If you are doing Slack, Zoom or WebEx meetings, you can see one another. But talking at once is a problem, as is getting people to engage if they are disinterested.
Set some ground rules for remote work. Acknowledge that even when you were in the same office, you had some challenges and now that you are remote, those challenges could easily turn into significant problems. Identify the biggest obstacle and bring this to the forefront. In addition, some best practices for remote work include the following suggestions:
- Have a standing time you all agree to get together at least once per week. This should be non-negotiable and unless the market crashes (again) or some emergency comes up, everyone must attend. Ideally do these meetings via a program where you can see one another. Have an agenda in advance and circulate so each participant knows what will be discussed and what their role or contribution should be.
- Set “ground rules” of communication. These are things like: Every internal email must be replied to within four hours during the day. Voice mails that are left for team members must be returned within four hours. Emails that are marked as “Urgent – Need Reply” must be responded to in less than four hours. The people who want to avoid, or want to ignore need to have limitations put upon them as to how long they are allowed to do so.
- Each team member must send an update in writing twice per week, as an example. For the introverts, sometimes they like to write instead of speak, so let them. As an aside, when you are back in the office, make sure you are being respectful of your introverts. They don’t need to participate in every meeting, and they shouldn’t feel shunned if they don’t want to go out for lunch with the gang. They need their space.
- Hold a once every other week “obstacle session” via the collaboration tool (i.e. Zoom) so you can see one another. Talk about what’s working well and what obstacles people are facing. See if you can raise issues and solve them together. Help team members see what others are dealing with and need help with. Create follow-ups from these sessions and track them.
In addition, here are some tips for each of you personally to engage most effectively:
- When on the phone with a colleague (or client) don’t multi-task. It can be so tempting to check email, read the latest news on the virus, order your groceries online etc. Focus is important – stay tuned into what someone is saying and practice active listening at all times.
- Stand up and get your body moving during the day. There is so much happening and it is actually easier at home to just stay planted in your seat working on your computer, responding to messages and reading the news. Get up every 1.5-2 hours. If you are healthy enough, do some exercises in your office – even simple things like standing up on your toes, or doing squats. Move your body on a regular basis – it helps your mind to focus too.
- Be gentle with others. It’s time to cut your colleague a break. They might be scared, panicked, worried or generally ill at ease. They might be dealing with a sick family member or friend. They might be worried about a relative who just got laid off. You never know what’s going on with someone else during these events, so practice being kind. Instead of removing yourself and finding fault with your colleague, try and understand them and work with them as if they were your best friend. At some point you will return to the office together. Wouldn’t it be nice if their experience of you was one of support and being positive, and not one of tearing them down when things got tough?
These ideas will need to be modified for you and your team. But hopefully they will give you some guidance around things to do to build team during this disconnected time.
Other advisors who are dealing with this, please write in or comment on APViewpoint about your best experiences to keep your team collaborating remotely.
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. The firm also founded and manages the Advisors Sales Academy. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate and graduate students Entrepreneurship and Leading Teams. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).
She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.
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Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 
