As I write this, we’re now four weeks into the COVID-19 stay at home order. In this period of time, I’ve watched as everyone around me was forced to adapt to a “new normal” as entire companies have shifted to remote work, including our team here at Trajectify.

As Business Coordinator for Trajectify, much of my work involves coordinating business events and opportunities with coaches, partners, and clients. Practically overnight we were forced to change the way we interact with our team and clients. We had to re-forecast revenues, change our sales and marketing strategy, and cancel four different events we had been planning.

This got me thinking… How have the companies that have always operated completely remote done it? If they can do it every day, why can’t the rest of us? What kind of lessons could they teach us?

I reached out to the leaders of two Trajectify clients who founded and run completely remote companies:

Max Rice - CEO and Founder of Skyverge
Caleb Frankel - CEO and Founder of Instinct Science

When starting a fully remote company, you’ll hire people who have that experience and can handle remote working. For many companies, this wasn’t the option in the face of a situation where they are abruptly forced to work remotely. They must adapt. Here are my takeaways from my interviews. You can also watch the interviews here:

How do you share your vision, get people excited and motivate the team?

If yours is a company that is shifting to fully remote, one of the primary concerns may be how your culture will survive the transition. How can you, as a leader, motivate your team?

In a physical office, you get a sense when someone might not understand something or needs assistance; you get comfortable with communicating early and often out of necessity. In a remote company, communication is oxygen - there is no such thing as too much. Communicate both ways. Talk to your team, and find out what they need to be successful. Make sure they understand what you need from them by using strong written communication.

To help motivate your team, keep them apprised of what’s going on. Send a daily or weekly email with updates - a curated look at what’s going on in each area of the business. Or perhaps a quick daily virtual scrum meeting. It’s important to get a sense of what’s on your team’s mind and communicate how it aligns with where you are going as a business.

Many employees like to see that their work is impacting the business which can oftentimes be harder to see while working remotely. The only way they will know what’s going on is if there is open communication. Whatever motivational tools you were using before going remote, replicate them in a digital setting. Understand that employees not used to working this way will need time to adjust and learn a new cadence.

How do you maintain cultural cohesiveness?

The company culture in a remote environment will be different than when everyone is located in the same office. Through purposeful communication, you can have a team spread all around the world, across different time zones and still work as a team with a sense of comradery. Account for different schedules and also team communication to become asynchronous. It’s common to fight that, but I am told to embrace it. As long as all communication is properly documented and people have a way to stay in the loop, you can maintain a productive work environment.

Form written guidelines around your communication and culture. How do you operate in remote meetings? How do you talk over email? How do you talk over Slack or Basecamp? Create a process around this and document it. Your employees will stick to written guidelines, and you will also onboard future employees quicker. By making this information available to everyone in your team, allowing them to digest it at their own pace, you build and maintain cultural cohesion. By reading it, they learn what is important to the company's culture and how everyone is expected to operate. If you’re looking for a good example, check out the publicly available Skyverge Wiki.

Like any business environment, you have to prioritize culture, or you end up with chaos. You can’t expect culture in a distributed work environment to happen passively as it might in a colocated work setting. You must purposefully work on your culture and communicate with your team about it. Company culture is set by your core values and presumably, you’ve hired only those who align with your values.

How do you provide performance feedback? Are there effective ways you address difficult conversations such as performance issues?

What often works well in a remote environment is frequent one-on-one meetings between managers and their direct reports. It is important to maintain structure. Separate your performance meetings (structured) from your bonding meetings (casual). Both are necessary. These conversations are a chance for leaders and team members to understand what we’re accomplishing, how it’s going, and how well we are progressing towards our goals, both corporate and professional. Timely feedback is important and it forms the basis for how you handle any sort of performance conversation.

In addition to the individual meetings, have conversations that ensure everyone’s work aligns with the team and company goals. When someone is working each week, they should know what their team and their company needs. This alignment helps with motivation and gives a sense that what each is doing matters to the company. From a management perspective, this also ensures that the team is growing stronger together towards common goals.

You must have a close relationship with your team members. When you need to give feedback, people feel safe and understand where you’re coming from. You must work at it and consciously build those relationships. When people trust you, they are more open to hearing what you have to say.

”Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much care.” - Theodore Roosevelt

How do you handle informal communications—“water cooler” conversation? Can you develop the same benefits as does informal communication within a colocated team?

Informal remote communication is a challenge that requires experimentation. While it's not essential to have informal communication to run a business, it’s a best practice that helps people feel connected, building trust and developing culture. However you choose to do it, be disciplined and create a process around it if you want it to happen.

One suggestion is to hold short, regular weekly video chat meetings that are non-work related. This is personal time for everyone to get together, connect and talk about what’s going on in their lives. Create structure in those conversations to keep people engaged, perhaps having a random question each week such as “what is your favorite superhero and why?” Keep it light and fun.

If you use Slack, another idea is to use a tool like Donut which randomly pairs people up together for a short non-work related video chat. It is scheduled time, with no agenda, creating an opportunity to replicate that sense of water cooler or coffee station conversation that you get in an office.

Being a leader can oftentimes be lonely. Is leading a remote organization any more isolating? If so, what do you do to feel more connected or supported?

Max Rice, who participates in our peer advisory boards shared: “I don’t find [working remote] any more isolating than leading a collocated company. And of course, you’ll get better at it over time. One of the things I find most helpful is quarterly meetups with our leadership team”

Caleb Frankel, an executive coaching client of Trajectify, shared: “One of the most important things you can do is find yourself strong advisors and have a good support system. Having safe people to speak with about your issues and experiences is a huge benefit.”

Be sure to regularly meet with your leadership team. If you’re working remotely, those meetings should be as frequent as once a week will help your team stay aligned with the company’s vision and goals. Consider “skip-level one-on-ones” where you meet with the team members who report to your leaders. By hearing from everyone individually and directly, you’ll get an authentic perspective of what is happening in the organization keeping your fingers on the pulse of the business.

What advice would you have for a company that was suddenly thrown into a situation where it must adapt to a fully remote workforce?

Max shared: “Take whatever systems and processes you have and map them to whatever the remote equivalent might be. If you’re already doing weekly or daily meetings with your team, do it remotely.” Have weekly or daily video meetings. Be willing to experiment and change what might not make sense in the “new normal.” Maybe that all-hands daily meeting you were isn’t working remotely for your team, so perhaps try an email. This is a good opportunity to take a look at improvements you can make to strengthen your team.

Caleb said: “The first thing I would do is buy the book ReWork, and read it. It’s by the people at Basecamp. The second thing I would do is follow the blog Signal v. Noise. It will help you see the business world in a different way. It certainly resonates with us.

Communication is oxygen

Each person in your company is going to respond differently, so constantly communicate. Be understanding of who’s struggling and who might need help. People who have never worked from home before will inevitably have challenges. They might be distracted, or have trouble disconnecting, working all day and not knowing when to shut off. You will need to coach these people individually. Ask them how it’s going and offer help? Coach them through whatever challenges they might be having.

You may feel like you’re over-communicating, You’re probably at the point where you need to communicate a little bit more. Your team doesn’t know what it doesn’t know. Share information, keep people updated on what's happening. Share information multiple times, across multiple modes. If you say it in Slack, also send an email. If you say it in an email, say it again in video chat.

Final thought

I’ve learned a lot of great information by talking with leaders like Max and Caleb. Working alongside the Trajectify team and our clients has offered an opportunity to see how different leaders respond in the face of crisis. The strongest leaders are the ones who take decisive actions and race ahead of a challenge instead of chasing it from behind. They are the leaders who are supporting their team and employees in every way they can. After talking with Mike Krupit about this crisis at length, I’m confident that Business Leaders who can strengthen their businesses during times of crisis are the ones who will soar when we come out on the other side. (You should talk with Mike, too.)