Like The Movie "LImitless" ? Here Are 90 Strategies Leaders Use To Diminish Distractions & Win

Movies like "Limitless" depict a writer's quest to unlock their brain's full potential. It may seem easy to simply focus and achieve more in a distracting world, but we know it isn't...

Movies like "Limitless" depict a writer's quest to unlock their brain's full potential. It may seem easy to simply focus and achieve more in a distracting world, but we know it isn't that simple. Here are 90 strategies leaders use to diminish distractions and win.

Ask Questions

1. Whether you are in person, hybrid or virtual, if you don’t make the effort to know the people on your team as individuals and what is important to them, you will struggle as a leader. Effective messages come from tailoring them to the audience’s mindset. Make the effort to get to know people as individuals. Have regular check-in conversations.

2. Schedule the hallway conversations. One of the complaints of hybrid or virtual is that there aren’t hallway conversations. People don’t bump into each other. I’ve worked on global teams that have never met. These types of conversations can still happen when people know each other and have collaboration tools. Instant messenger became our hallway conversations. As did having moments where the leader scheduled office hours or time to check in and see how people are doing.

3. As the leader, you can’t assume people will come to you and share information. Your role is to ask questions that make it comfortable to share and explore, particularly when there are challenges. You can’t be defensive to the responses either. Try questions like: Are there areas of tension that need me/our attention? What might we be missing? What would it look like if we disagreed with this? What haven’t I asked about but should? On a scale of one to ten, how confident do you feel about this? Questions are a leader’s superpower. They invite perspective and make people feel safe and valued.

4. Celebrate the “I saw you…” moments. “I saw you do this and here is the impact it had. It’s fantastic! How do we help you do more of it?” When you send these messages that you are noticing what people are doing and value it, they feel seen. When people feel seen and valued, they have a stronger connection at work. These can be shouting outs in meetings, emails or discussions in one-on-ones. Help your employees feel seen.

5. Tell stories. Stories not only help us learn about and gain empathy for one another, they bond us. When you listen to someone sharing a story about their experience, background or even vacation, your form empathy for them. Oxytocin is released in the body, and it signals to the brain “this person is safe to be around.” This is why you come away bonded from team offsites and retreats. Stories help us better relate to one another and work together better. - Karen Eber

Leave Space

1 . At Pitch our employees are distributed across 30 countries, which means competing time zones and working asynchronously. We often record ourselves presenting our slides rather than presenting live. This means our colleagues can watch back whenever, and if they didn’t quite get that last part of the presentation, they can drop a comment to clarify. Pitch lets you build these recordings right into your slides.

2. As a leader, I often test my important comms with colleagues and ‘friendly’ audiences who I rely on for their opinion before I go to ‘primetime’. Then, you can learn how it lands and tweak to get it right, just like a dress rehearsal before a performance. I usually send important presentations to the marketing leads on my team for their feedback, before I’d present it to the whole team because they can best gauge how it’ll land with their direct reports.

3 . Research and personalise your slides. Everybody can tell if it’s a deck you’ve delivered a million times, so tweak it every time to show the audience you’ve thought about their tastes and circumstances. When presenting slides, they should generate ‘something special’ for that specific audience, for example a compliment about a prospect’s recent ad campaign, or an anecdote about how a person’s wisdom recently helped you out of a scrape.

4 . Leave a lot of space for the other party to talk if you are working in a smaller group. I consider it a good meeting when the folks I’m meeting with talk at least twice as much as I do. Leave room to chat. This is even more important in remote work than it is in person, as it often doesn’t come as naturally. I start every team meeting with a 10 minute “water cooler moment” where I give folks a fun prompt question like “my most disastrous holiday ever was…” then send them off into randomly assigned Zoom rooms to chat before we get down to business.

5 . If you are in a larger meeting, pace it carefully so there are naturally moments of interaction, such as polls, jokes, or moments to laugh together. It’s important to create those moments of genuine collaboration to avoid meetings feeling like lectures. I’ll build in 3 minutes here and there in a presentation for people to write down ideas on paper, then share with the group. - Sarah Kiefer

Follow Up

Consistency in meetings. It’s mission-critical to meet and communicate on a regular schedule when working virtually. Communication helps the team feel bonded and understand the shared goals for the group. Mine is the most distributed team in the office with over half working in different states. We meet twice per week. Our first meeting is structured for productivity and we discuss project strategy and staffing. Our second meeting is to unpack the week and discuss key learnings, training needed, etc. We also catch up on each other’s lives. Check in on families, pets, thoughts on current events, etc. You don’t have the same “water cooler” interactions as in-person teams when you’re virtual, so this helps to offset that. This regular communication helps the team feel bonded and understand the shared goals for the group.

One-on-one meetings. It’s critical to meet with team members individually as well. I meet 1:1 with everyone once per month to check in on how they’re doing, if they have concerns and to coach them in addressing issues. This helps me build strong connections with every individual and provides the forum for both active listening and real-time feedback. I also get to deliver company updates in a personal setting, nurturing a spirit of shared success.

Have a clear process for communication. With a distributed workforce, it’s critical to create communication protocols or standards for the team, like rules of engagement to which everyone adheres. Now that I’m dividing my time between leading Hendy as the co-CEO and still directing the Corporate Studio, I can’t be a bottleneck in the team’s workflow. To ensure this doesn’t happen, we needed to create a communications methodology indicating if needs are high, medium or low. When they’re high, the team knows to text me and I know to create time to respond immediately.

Camera on! Communication is much more than just words. Often, body language and facial expressions speak louder. While nothing can replicate the energy of an in-person meeting, the camera provides insights into these critical visual cues. We once saw a concerned expression from a teammate during an all-hands meeting and we followed-up right after to check-in. She was grateful for our outreach and was quick to express her concerns. We talked everything through and I was able to clarify some misunderstandings, alleviate some worries and devise a plan forward with her. We immediately neutralized a problem. If her camera had been off, I don’t believe we’d have discovered this deeper issue.

Follow up in writing. Any meeting where you’ve taken time to outline goals, expectations and a path forward requires a written recap. Not only does that correspondence punctuate the point, but the documentation is now there for employees to reference moving forward. It also prevents any misunderstandings among the team. Hendy recently restructured into an ESOP organization and we held an all-team meeting to celebrate and explain the new structure, its rules and requirements. It was a high volume of information, so we followed-up in writing to recap, and included a robust FAQ to help answer the most common questions. - Susan Dwyer

Stand For Something

1. Be oh-so-human.

One of the essential things leaders must do when leading a distributed team is be human. This means showing their team members empathy, compassion, humour, and personality. Express yourself, your thoughts, your opinions. Be someone, not something. By doing this, leaders can create a connection with their team members that goes beyond work and builds trust and loyalty.

For example, during our work, I expect leaders to open up about their lives in ways they may typically avoid. To do this, I create a safe space of open, communal discussion. No judgments. Pure unconditional positive regard for their experiences and viewpoints. Building this space involves me showing my humanity, too. I share stories about my life as a stepfather, the ups and downs of my past, and my passion for storytelling, philosophy, films, and TV. Why hide the humanity?

2. Align your story with your brand’s origin story.

Every brand has a unique history, and telling that story can help create a connection with its workforce. By examining the challenges, successes, and key moments that shaped the brand, leaders can create their own personal brand narrative that sets them and their company’s brand apart from the competition.

I believe deep diving into a leader’s unique interests works best to extract the underlying mythological and psychological stories at their heart. We then adapt this outwardly to act as their own personal North Star that comes into alignment with the company’s own constellation.

This is particularly important for founders and CEOs who built the company from the ground up. They started with a vision, built their company upon it, but have yet to navigate their personal brand to align with their company’s brand. I’ve seen this repeatedly happen, especially with the younger generation of leaders and leaders who have experienced terrible things growing up. Those experiences often become a kind of limiting personal mythology, where they feel their story, their opinions, and their values are not worth sharing with the world.

3. Get creative with your communications.

Now, I don’t mean digging out your watercolours, painting an abstract picture, and then getting your team to guess what the image is trying to say about the company’s financial projections.

What I do mean is finding new and innovative ways to communicate, collaborate, and engage to spark interest, excitement, and inspiration in their team members.

Here’s an odd example. Take Jeff Jackson, the U.S. congressman for North Carolina. As a leader in a distributed world, his ‘team’ (i.e., the American public) has been able to see and hear the congressman through the medium of video, in particular, TikTok. In his recent video about the Silicon Valley Bank crisis, he is sitting at home, wearing a t-shirt and a hoodie, and looking directly at the camera. He is communicating with his ‘team’ in an entirely different way from what most people in the same position would. That creative way of communicating speaks in a language and format people understand, which is why he’s garnered almost fourteen million views within sixteen hours of posting.

4. Stand for something. Otherwise, you’ll fall for anything.

Yes, even clichés have a place in finding new ways to communicate. Why? As old truths die hard, to use yet another.

And the truth here is that a leader’s team needs to know what they stand for. As humans, we rally behind ideas and causes. We tend to be attracted to leaders with a mission, a purpose, and a message. Now more than ever in the world of remote working, the shift of emphasis towards ‘leaders-drive-inspiration’ has become the battleground for attracting and retaining talent. If your team can’t see what you’re about, how can they possibly get behind you? There’s nothing to get behind. So find your rallying cry and make it known.

5. Kill your darlings. Or, at least, raise them differently.

This advice is usually reserved for writers who grow too attached to certain turns of phrase. They fall in love with their own words, even if their writing as a whole would be better if they were more ruthless in their cutting and reshaping.

The same advice applies to leaders. If you’re too attached to your ideas, it indicates you’re too attached to how you see the world. You can’t communicate, and you can’t effectively lead if every time you present your ideas, they sound like the same-old-same-old radio station jingle. Teams catch on fast to the individualistic nature of a leader’s thinking. And it’s demoralising to think that the person who pays your paycheque has only their personal interests on their radar.

To combat this, leaders must be ruthless in editing themselves and their ideas. Don’t stick to your own status quo for the sake of it. Don’t develop a personal boilerplate that you recite as if in an exam.

Develop an understanding of what you want to say, then naturally embody that understanding. Cut the carbon copy phrases. As counter-intuitive as it sounds: Don’t let your words do the talking. - Jack Goodson

Encourage

1 . When your team may be working in many locations, you’re going to miss a lot of the in person communication that comes when you can meet up together in the same room. Take this into account as a leader, because you will likely need to make an effort to schedule in person time with your entire team so you can get a sense of the in person communication styles of your team, so that you’re aware of them and can tailor your communication to each person even when they are remote.

2 . A distributed team also means that people may be working in different time zones, so you may be relying on emails and messages, where communication can break down a bit without the verbal cues that come with communication. Encourage your team to resolve urgent issues verbally or over video when necessary with a written back up, so that there is another layer of communication and clarity to the situation.

3 . Teams that work far apart from each other may need to work more at building trust, so it’s important that they’re communicating frequently. They also may feel disembodied from the rest of a company, so find ways to incorporate them into the entire company culture as a whole.

4 . Adjust your communication styles for your employees, as you should with all employees, but it is especially important when working with a remote, hybrid or distributed team due to the potential spread in location and time difference.

5 . Encourage a same day response, if possible — at our company, we don’t require someone to have an answer for their coworker or client within the same day, but you need to let them know that you got their message and that you’re working on it that same day, so that they know they’re heard. It’s important to acknowledge each other that you’ve received a request and that you’re working on it, so that the other person knows that they’re not being ignored — and it goes a long way in helping others to feel valued and cared for. - Andrew Rosen

Right Questions

1. Don’t just hear what you want to hear. Listen to the people who have constructive criticism, whether in your professional or personal life. Really take the time to get out of your own way and absorb what someone else is saying. Even if it’s difficult to hear, there is always a benefit to taking that constructive criticism and using it to hone in on enhancing yourself or your company. This feedback is valuable and if you really take the time to learn from it, you will avoid hearing this same criticism again. This has been especially important as my company and our infrastructure grows. I value the feedback of both my clients and my employees and I harness it to create a company that is as productive as possible.

2. You need to be conscious of and build in mechanisms to listen, and only listen. It’s a good idea to create surveys and consistently send them to your clients to hear their feedback. At The Bid Lab, we always send our clients surveys whenever we complete work. This conscious effort to invite feedback — that we really want to have — has proven invaluable in growing our business.

3. Take the time to ask the right questions. People are often nervous to tell you what they really think or say something that needs to be said. Take your time in communication. Make sure to ask leading questions that invite people to provide genuine responses and stay present in the moment. Sometimes if you just pause before answering people will provide additional information. When you are able to show someone with your questions and thoughtful body language that you are really there to listen they feel more comfortable opening up, even if they are nervous about what they have to say.

4. Effective listening opens you up to new experiences. It was actually my wife and Co-founder, Jordan, who suggested we start The Bid Lab. If I had shut that suggestion down, instead of really being open to what she had to say, we would have never built something like The Bid Lab which I am so proud of and passionate about.

5. Responding and not reacting goes a long way in creating ongoing, fruitful relationships. Often, especially in tense situations, we want to react with how we feel or our thoughts on the matter. When we take the time to really absorb what someone else is saying and mull that over we can come back from a place of respect and openness that encourages further conversation and mutual understanding. Responding and not reacting has allowed me to manage difficult situations, that naturally occur when running a business, with grace and shown others how receptive I am to really working together to find solutions. -Maurice Harary

Set Clear Expectations

1 . Set Clear Expectations!

Your ability to ensure that your team understands their roles, what is expected from them, who their contacts are, how much they should be contributing, and what the goals are for the company is all on your shoulders. If you are the captain of a ship, you ensure everyone on the ship knows what part they play in the big picture or else your ship will sink! Likewise, your ability to clarify your expectations to your teams is extremely important. Otherwise you may waste resources when multiple people are working on the same project creating redundancies.

2 . Put Weekly 1:1s on your calendar.

Understanding the pulse of your people is up to you. Just as important as it is to have a meeting with everyone to set expectations and status, it is imperative to have 1:1 meetings with your managers and direct reports. Why? The truth about leadership communication is that often we need to be listening actively to steer our people in the right direction. Having a positive push from the boss is often enough encouragement to keep an employee engaged. Likewise, being ignored for your efforts can eventually lead to your best employees leaving for recognition elsewhere.

3 . Find Ways to Build Community Virtually and/or In Person

Fostering a relationship building positive environment is a leader’s responsibility. Find ways to keep your team engaged outside just the work. Some leaders take their team out for lunch. Others are virtual and too far for meals together so they do fun teambuilding type games. Some offices have a friendly competition between departments on positive habit building initiatives. For example, I recall when working at the hospital having an interdepartmental pedometer challenge. Not only did the teams have some friendly competitive spirit, but boosting exercise and wellness helped individuals build up their own health profiles. Do not underestimate the benefits of teambuilding. These types of non-work activities that encourage team unity carries over into the workplace as well.

4 . Communicate Timely

Leaders build trust when they communicate information timely and respect privacy. When any decision impacts the team, the longer it takes to announce it with plans, the less trust your team has for you. As a leader, delays in sharing crucial information can create low confidence in the team and encourage assumptions to take hold of worker imagination. That’s why sending updates consistently will prevent rumors and toxic energy from forming in a workplace.

5 . Make it a priority to share success

The new world of remote work means we need to make a real effort to share team successes. It drives the point home of the relevancy of putting on the calendar and success meeting. This means changing the culture to celebrate projects moving forward or special efforts made to win new business or build stakeholder relationships. Ideally putting these on the calendar early to mid-week will propel the team forward to the end of the week. - Angel Mary

Stay Focused

1. Leaders should establish regular check-ins with their distributed team members to keep everyone aligned and informed. These check-ins can be in the form of daily or weekly virtual stand-ups, video calls, or instant messaging. The frequency and duration of these check-ins should be based on the team’s needs and should provide ample time for team members to ask questions and provide updates. Team members should come prepared to answer questions about their progress, where their blocked, and how their manager can help them. For example, when I was building my people analytics mobile app, my team of developers were working remotely. To ensure everyone was aligned, the we scheduled a daily virtual stand-up meeting. During the meeting, each developer shared their progress and any issues they had encountered. This practice not only keeps everyone updated but also encourages collaboration and idea sharing.

2. Creating a centralized communication hub for distributed team members to share information, updates, and feedback is absolutely essential. This hub can be in the form of a project management tool, instant messaging platform, or shared documents. Having a central hub allows team members to access information easily and reduces the likelihood of information silos. When I was the Director, Talent Management at Harman International (a Samsung company), I was rolling out programs to 20 HR Business Partners worldwide. In the first month, I established a shared hub where team members could add their work progress, feedback, and ideas. Documents could be accessed and updated by team members at any time. Shared folders served as a one-stop-shop for all the initiatives we were working on together throughout the year.

3. Defining the team’s goals and objectives, and communicating them regularly to their distributed team members is a must. This helps team members stay focused and motivated and provides a clear understanding of what they need to achieve. When I was working with the Sales team at Ad Colony, a mobile digital advertising agency, the CRO set monthly sales targets for his team and reviewed them in detail at the beginning of each month. This allowed the team to align their efforts and work towards achieving set targets.

4 Encourage having cameras turned on during team meetings, one-on-ones, and virtual collaborations. When cameras are on, face to face meetings provide a more personal touch to communication and helps team members feel more connected. When I was serving as Head of People for a fintech company based in Silicon Valley, team leaders scheduled weekly team meetings where team members could see each other via video. This practice not only encouraged collaboration but also helped team members build more personal relationships.

5. Finally, keep your one-on-ones, religiously. I know to some leaders who might say weekly one-on-ones are impossible. However, if you’re not meeting with each team member weekly, then you’re creating a bottleneck in their progress. Fast moving organizations keep their weekly one-on-one’s with their team members to give feedback, green-light next steps, and praise high performers. Leaders should provide timely feedback to their distributed team members to ensure they are on the right track and to encourage continuous improvement. A CEO I once coached was well admired in her field and everyone was excited to have her on board. However, weeks went by and most senior leaders were stalled because she was engulfed in her own agenda that she didn’t realize that many of her leaders were not making much progress without her feedback. - Felicia Shakiba

Know Your Audience

1 . Recognize the importance of effective workplace communication and create a culture around it.

Effective communication (or lack thereof) within an organization impacts every task, project, and person. It is critical for organization leaders to understand and recognize how important it is and take steps to ensure a positive workplace culture is created and effective communication is a priority. Do this by leading with intent and actively find ways within your organization to improve communication.

2. Know your audience.

Understanding how team members communicate is essential to creating a culture where communication and building trust between team members is a focus. It takes time so do your homework. How do team members like to receive information and through what channel? What are their personality traits and communication styles like? Taking the time to build an understanding of how team members communicate is imperative and helps to mitigate conflict in a distributed workforce.

3. Be cautious of your tone of voice.

When leading a distributed team, tone of voice is critical to communication effectiveness and can really make or break a conversation. The wrong tone of voice can cause conflict and frustration in the workplace, leads to lack of productivity, and can impact conversations negatively and set them on the wrong path. Choose words carefully and be aware of your pitch and inflection. It’s also important to pay attention to the medium you are communicating through. Whether through email, text messaging, phone, face-to-face or via video — tone of voice can be heard, so being aware and cautious of the tone of voice we use is important to building relationships and communicating effectively.

4. Become an active listener.

Listen to understand, not to reply. We’ve all been in conversations where words are sitting on the tip of our tongues waiting to be spit out but when we do that, we aren’t actively listening. Listening requires practice and involves focusing on the person who is speaking without interrupting them. Being actively engaged in the conversation through the use of body language (nodding of the head, etc.) is important. Once we have fully listened, we can begin to acknowledge and ask good, clarifying questions. Active listening means listening to connect.

5. Be authentic.

“Be fearlessly authentic. Bravely be you.” This is my favorite quote and resonates deeply because if we can’t be ourselves, who can we be? Being authentic with your team requires transparency, vulnerability, and integrity, however, this isn’t always easy. It can be challenging to open ourselves up but having the ability to be our authentic self builds stronger ties to our well-being, positive emotions, feelings of satisfaction and overall greater purpose in our lives. When we can live authentically and our team members see this, just imagine what that could do for your organization. -Dr Amelia Reigstad

New Challenges

1 . Clear, concise, and consistent communication — For starters, my team has been trained on how to deliver project updates and inquiries to ensure that nothing slips through the cracks and deadlines can always be met. I use very specific communication platforms that everyone can access. All video calls are recorded, and detailed notes are exchanged post-call. It can be a considerable amount of upfront work, but it ensures that everyone is kept in the loop.

2 . Personal Connection — My business partner maintains a positive and reliable personal connection with everyone involved in our projects. We‘re mindful of providing clear direction and expectations along with personal feedback on their value and effectiveness. Our team handles a heavy load of marketing, PR, podcast development, website management, and beyond. Letting them know they are appreciated keeps the morale up and creative juices flowing.

3 . Modern Technology — We use four major platforms for communication: Zoom, Slack, Google Meet, and Cellular. The entire team is aware of who uses which platform and when. To reduce misunderstandings, everyone is privy to the information exchanged within them. The fact that all calls are recorded and available for later review goes a long way here, too.

4 . Incentives — My team consists of several different companies working in tandem to address my business needs. I truly wouldn’t be able to do what I do without their hard work. Therefore, I like to provide them with occasional, additional financial gratitude for their efforts and dedication to our goals. In addition, small tokens of appreciation like bonuses or gifts (a bottle of wine or whisky, gift cards, etc.) keep everyone feeling motivated and valued.

5 . New Challenges — I like to expand the capacity of those I work with and those who work for me. So, bringing new projects to the table that will positively challenge my team members and their creativity is highly prioritized. Such projects are inherently rewarding as they instill in them the confidence to think outside the box and show them their true capabilities. This makes hitting our goals both easier and faster, and consequently, my business and team both benefit from more opportunity and revenue. - Wylie McGraw

Be Clear

Tailor your message to your audience. Consider who you’re talking to and adjust your message to be relevant and relatable to them.

Be clear and concise. Avoid adding too much fluff to your message and be direct to the point by using a language understood by the audience to avoid miscommunication.

Encourage honest feedback. Hearing your team’s ideas will make everyone feel comfortable in collaborating more and will help you improve to better meet the needs of your team.

Reiterate your points. By repeating your points, you ensure that everyone received and understood your message.

Set appropriate expectations and be transparent with them. By setting your expectations early on with your team, everyone can work towards this goal with full confidence and trust. - Will Yang

Communicate More Often

1 . Create connections with your team. Consider how you can make a disputed team not feel distributed. This requires us to “read the room” during all of our communications. If you are in the same physical space, take the time to read the body language of your team. Are they smiling or are they frowning? Is their body language open or closed? If your team is coming together over a video conferencing platform, turn on your camera and encourage others to use their cameras. As individuals are joining the meeting, what do you observe in their body language? This information is data that will help you connect with your team. If we can’t see others, then listen for the tone used when individuals are sharing verbally and the tone of the comments in the chat. We are all communicating even if we are not saying anything.

Consider how you craft your message for engagement and connection. Since many of us are focused on sharing information, have you considered sharing a story? Stories bridge the persuasion and inspiration, head and heart. Next time you hear a story in a meeting, notice your body. Many times we relax when listening to a story and feel a sense of connection. Allow time and encourage questions and discussion to build connection and understanding.

2. Communicate more often. When our team is distributed across locations and time zones, we need to communicate more often. One of the biggest mistakes we make is assuming that communication and understanding have taken place. When our team is distributed, we need to acknowledge that they are reading information at different times during the day. They all may have a different understanding of the information. If you are only communicating every two weeks, your team may not be working on what is most important. We need to find ways to communicate more often, this could be weekly or daily check-ins during a time that works for your team. I’ve found that shorter, more frequent communication helps move a project forward faster versus one longer communication.

3. Select the right communication medium for your team. Over the last three years, we have become more comfortable with technology. New information comes to us via email, chats, direct messages, and meetings. As leaders, we need to select which communication medium is the best for our team. Sometimes, quick questions and collaboration happen best through your chat platform. However, not all communication should be delivered this way. More detailed information might be shared via email followed up with a meeting to allow for discussion.

4. Set a clear communication objective. Be clear with yourself on why you are communicating and the intended outcome. If your communication objective is to build alignment with your team on a key project, then the information shared should be focused on what the team needs to know about the project, not other topics. Someone on the team may need to understand the current state of the project and others may need to know why this project is a priority. Having a clear objective allows you to select the right information for your audience.

5. Understand your team’s motivators and stressors. Think about a recent meeting you attended and left feeling unmotivated or stressed. If we understand what motivates our team, this provides us with information on how to celebrate their success. When our work is acknowledged and appreciated, even if the project is not yet completed, we feel good and find the energy to stay on course. As a leader, when we know our team’s stressors, we can acknowledge how the team may be feeling at that moment. Or, we may be able to reduce the stressor to keep the team moving forward. Being audience-focused requires us to build connections with our team. - Jennifer Maxson

Be Transparent

1 . Be transparent. The more transparent we are with our team, the more transparent they will be with us. No secrets, just honesty. Always provide transparent feedback, be mindful of how it will be perceived (and recognize that people interpret feedback differently), but don’t sugarcoat things or tip toe around.

2 . Trust your team and show them you trust them. In today’s work environment with many working remote, hybrid or across a wide geographic footprint, trust is critical.

3 . Communicate. We are communicators so it would be hypocritical of us not to communicate. Always maintain open lines of communication and be sure to keep all team members informed. Of course, should the team be apart this can be more challenging, but make sure that all team members are aware of what is going on and be clear.

4 .Listen. Listen to what team members are telling you. We often get our most valuable feedback when we shut our mouths and open our ears.

5 . Engage. Engage with team members. Don’t just delegate, work alongside a team member on a project or have check-ins along the way (without being a micromanager of course…remember trust). Everyone can learn a lot about one another, including getting insight about strengths and weaknesses while also providing different perspectives on a project, that ultimately help the team be more successful. Engaging also shows interest and it’s imperative that we take an interest in the work product of our teammates as well as our teammates as individuals. - Jamie Levin

Be Authentic

1 . Be authentic — It is important that your team sees you as real and approachable and that when you are communicating with them that your are not just putting on your “leadership act”. Avoid using corporate language, instead, speak using real human terms. Don’t be afraid to smile or laugh, and make sure you let it be known that you are open to their ideas and that you are not above making mistakes.

2 . Use more than one type of communication — There are some items that can be taken care of with a quick text or email, but for more important information, it is critical that you use more than one type communication. Everyone processes information differently, and so having an in-person meeting, or at the very least a phone call that accompanies an email or text, is important in ensuring that your message is fully understood.

3 . Follow-up — The follow-up is important in communication for two reasons. First, it ensures that your initial communication was understood and is being acted upon correctly. But secondly, and more importantly, it offers a chance for your team members to feel comfortable is asking questions. Many times, people are afraid to reach out because they think they will frowned upon for not fully understanding the initial communication. The follow-up helps create a positive company culture of support and encourages open dialogue for that issue and future ones.

4 . Know your audience- Different audiences often means different communication styles. The way you communicate with your team members is going to be different than how you communicate with your investors. This does not mean that you fully change some of the basic principles of communication, but understand how they see the world, and how their involvement in your business is going to change the way in which they process information. Being cognizant of that fact will help you adjust your communication style, whether it be including more visuals, documentation or in-person meetings, to be your most effective.

5 . Ask questions — Many leaders have experienced the room of nodding heads where everyone acknowledges that they heard and understood the information presented, but few actually have. The reason for this is that many are afraid to ask questions for fear that it will make them look silly or incapable. Ironically, in most cases, there are usually many in the room who have the same questions or are not clear on the some of the same points. Therefore, it is important that you ask the questions that everyone is thinking about but no one is verbalizing. By asking questions, even if they have obvious answers, you will set the room at ease, encourage others to ask more questions, and gain the actionable clarity that you desire. - Mackenzie Whalen

Be Polite

1 . SPEEKING RESPECTFULLY.

Every person prefers to be addressed in a respectful, non-patronising nor condescending manner, meaning that the leader conveys the point that he is at the same level as the audience. There is in psychology a concept known as the power of affinity — as a speaker it is possible to elevate to maximum one’s persuasion power by causing the audience to identify with him. By relating to people in a proper and professional manner, it is possible to gain their desire to cooperate, their trust and their respect.

No one enjoys when someone behaves towards him in a patronizing manner. Therefore, the speaker should not brandish his title or rank and he should also not exaggerate in showing off his authority. For example, if the speaker is a respected and highly qualified professor and meeting regular persons — they would appreciate if he would speak to them in a straightforward and clear manner, in particular because of the speaker’s high qualification which confers on him a higher aura of respect and formality.

2 . TALES AND EXAMPLES FROM EVERY DAY LIFE.

Tales and examples contribute not only to substantiate the leader’s arguments and to persuade his audience but also to create interest. People prefer to be told of examples taken from their daily life and not from locations and subjects that are far from their interests.

3 . Remember your points by heart and not read them out from the notes.

In the chapter that dealt with orderly speech, I mentioned the need to prepare a page that would assist the speaker during his presentation. I also strongly recommended that in any case the leader should never read out from the page, one reason being that in such a situation, answering questions would become much more difficult. Every question demands from the speaker a certain ability to improvise, the ability to think quickly about an aspect that he had not thought about earlier. If the speaker relies on continuously reading from the prepared page, at a certain stage he may start to sound monotonic and platitudinous and his dependency on what is written on the page, would become total. Under such circumstances, even a simple and easy question may cause the speaker to find himself in a difficult situation — many times I encountered speakers that were reading out their presentation from a page and when asked a question reacted in a dire manner to it — some of them started looking for the answer among their pages, some began to stutter and blush and tried to reply out of hand and some even simply ignored the question and continued to read out their presentation as if they had not heard any question.

What should one do in such case? The leader must learn by heart the main arguments and the key sentences of his speech. The page should only be an assisting tool, not the essence of the speech.

4 .ENDEAR YOURSELF TO THE AUDIENCE.

The best way to handle disturbances is to prevent them. And the most effective way to prevent disturbances is for the speaker to endear himself to the audience. This does not mean, “to tell the audience what they want to hear”. For example, the politician speaking at the party’s headquarters and having an opinion that is different from the prevailing one, does not have to change his views to identify with his audience’s. He should present his position on the subject and still cause the audience to listen to his speech.

How does one cause the audience and the other speakers to respect you? By showing respect to them.

Mutual respect is the key to the speaker’s relationship with his audience.

Be polite, courteous, patient and convey to the audience, every audience, the feeling that at that moment are the center of the leader’s world and that there is nowhere in the world that the speaker would prefer to be at that very moment.

5 . Meet the time that had been allocated for your speech. If the leader had been allocated 15 minutes to present his case, he should not take 20 minutes to complete his speech. In such a manner he sends a message to the audience that their time is also dear to him, and they will appreciate his attitude. It is also unfair that this speaker should take longer to present his case than any of the other speakers. By extending his presentation, the speaker will cause the following speaker to have his time shortened, giving thereby the impression that he does not respect him. - Dr. Yaniv Zaid

Set Future Expectations

1. Build trust through authenticity.

With a distributed work force it can be difficult to remain connected. And we have seen the importance of remaining connected become even more apparent in the last three years. In this time, we have also seen a lot of questions arise around what environments create best productivity (such as remote vs in-office). Well, I argue that performance is more important than productivity. In short, high-performing teams are productive AND they add an extra layer of influence on organizational success because they are invested and focused on goals (not just output of work). And trust enhances a team’s performance.

Trust can be hard to build with a distributed team. But it is very much worth the time to establish because studies show that employees who perform under leaders they trust suffer less chronic stress, have more energy at work, and are more fulfilled… which fosters performance.

Most of the time, we (as humans) develop an abstract form of trust between one another on an instinctual basis before our thoughts even register. When we first meet someone our “gut” gives us a signal telling us whether or not we can trust that person — whether or not we detect a level inauthenticity. We don’t easily trust something that feels fake.

Well, this is where I recommend leaders start to build trust among distributed teams — through authentic leadership. And “authenticity” might feel like a buzzword but let me add something important. Authenticity does not have to be complete vulnerability and transparency (that can make authenticity feel threatening). More simply, authenticity means that you are seen as relatable. Relatability creates a sense of security for others and leads to confidence and trust because they understand more about you and not some facade.

A team that relates to its leader, and to one another, develops a deeper sense of connection and understands that they do not exist within a vacuum (which can be easy to feel when you are distributed).

2. The subtle art of being candid.

There are times when you just want to speak your mind. When you are frustrated or flabbergasted or surprised (not the good kind), and a little voice inside advises otherwise. I am an advocate of speaking honestly, but usually this little voice causes us to hesitate and is suggesting that there is another way to say what we mean (that’s not quit so harsh and potentially damaging).

Especially when we have distributed workforces and rely on communication that is not in person, what you say and how you say it has a massive influence on the way it is received by the person who is hearing it. Even on a video call we are not able to read one another’s body language the same way we are in person, and things can be misread and misinterpreted much easier.

So being very clear, thorough, and deliberate about what you say and how you say it can save you from a lot of headaches with remote work forces. It’s the difference between being candid and being blunt. Candid is honesty with respect. Blunt is saying what’s on your mind without regard for how the other person will receive it. It’s the subtle art of being clear and concise, without saying exactly what’s on your mind.

“Help me understand” is one of my favorite tools when I’d really like to say exactly what is on my mind, but instead I choose my words (how I say what I say). For example:

When you want to say, “What were you thinking?!”

Choose to say, “Help me understand what led you to that decision.”

When you want to say, “Are you kidding me?!”

Choose to say, “Help me understand why that happened.”

It’s a subtle nuance and a choice of words that has a great impact. The subtle art of not saying exactly what’s on your mind takes conscious practice, and a little bit of self-control in heated situations. Being candid rather than blunt will make a huge difference in the success of your confrontational conversations among distributed workforces. Which is something I talk more about in the next leadership strategy!

3. Systems of accountability.

There can be a lot of temptation to micromanage (even accidentally) when your teams are distributed. And “micromanage” has a negative connotation because it doesn’t usually produce the result you are looking for and can even makes situations worse.

So when we don’t have our whole teams in-office, we have to find more productive ways to be sure people are doing their work — to hold them accountable. Improving accountability systems will improve performance and it requires effective communication. Two areas in daily work that are related to accountability and effective communication, are delegation methods and confrontational conversations.

My friends, there are so many headaches that can be avoided if you use delegation and communication more effectively. Delegation is complex, but it does not have to be complicated. Here is a basic recipe to ensure everyone is on the same page:

Provide clarity and thoroughness of information, and offer opportunities for questions.

Openly define the level of permissions and autonomy allowed.

Determine if this person will be trying to meet expectations that only exist in your head.

Be sure you don’t create a moving target of success (or what I call “changing the rules after the game has started”).

Secondly within systems of accountability, leaders need to be able to have confrontation without someone feeling shame or reprimanded. When you are discussing someone’s accountability and by the end of the conversation they feel anything akin to scolded, punished, or lectured… Well that will later turn into fear and shame. We as humans fear feeling ashamed and will avoid it at almost any cost. And your employees can cause a lot of harm if they have avoidant behaviors in the workplace.

Everyone makes mistakes. Some are small and some are massive. And the accountability conversation you have with a team member should hold the same amount of weight as the problem. But, if you intend to keep your employee onboard given the situation, then here is an approach to making the conversation constructive, even if it is a doozie.

Stay calm and meet in private. Respond to the situation rather than react with emotion.

Outline your intention for the conversation. Be specific and do not dance around the subject.

Open your perspective and be curious. Remember the difference between really listening to someone, and waiting your turn to speak.

Then put the matter in perspective for them. Take your turn to help them to see your perspective on why this is important, how it affects the team, and any prolonged consequences.

Set future expectations. Not only expectations related to their role and responsibilities, but also for how you expect them to handle this type of situation in the future (and how you intend to support them in carrying that out).

Move forward. Once the conversation has ended (unless there is a repeat offense) let the matter lie.

By applying this approach, you should be able to avoid damaging conversations, build trust, and see productive changes in accountability among your distributed workforces.

4. Communicate clear expectations

The success of most relationships is all about managing expectations. This includes personal and professional relationships. And when we are leading distributed teams that innately create larger gaps in communication, we must include very clear expectations in our communications.

Why are expectations so important? Because we as humans have a natural tendency to attach out terms of happiness to fulfilled expectations. There is nothing wrong with this in and of itself, but there are two more conditions that must also be met. There is nothing wrong with this if we (1) have a reason to believe that fulfilling an expectation will make us happy, and (2) we take the necessary steps toward fulfilling those expectations.

Believing that our expectations alone would bring us what we want, would be delusional — as though condition 1 and 2 were not required. It’s obvious when we talk about coffee — I can’t just expect a cup of coffee/happiness to “poof” into existence, I have to take the necessary steps to make it.

But for whatever reason, it is less obvious to us when our expectations involve people (like our teams). It is unrealistic to believe that just expecting our teams to behave the way we want will actually make them behave that way. (“poof”).

When we attach our terms of happiness to the expectation that other people will behave the way we want, simply because we asked them to, we set ourselves up for disappointment and resentment. And a leader with resentment is not an effective one.

The most valuable thing you can offer your team is to not make them guess what you want them to do, or what you expect of them. Setting and communicating more effective expectations will lead you to shape high-performing distributed teams because everyone will be clear about their role on the boat and will be rowing in the same direction.

5. Avoid the fingers crossed method

Something I see many leaders, entrepreneurs, and business owners survive on is their grit — a mix of determination and passion. But in business, what these people are really doing is running on the “Fingers Crossed Method,” and “fingers crossed” is not an effective or sustainable plan.

“Fingers crossed” looks a lot like hope, and hope is a powerful thing. It gets us through really tough times and helps us to envision a future that is brighter than our current circumstances. At the same time, we must understand that we play a greater role in making that future a reality, than just maintaining hope.

“Fingers crossed” are two words are spoken by a leader who knows there are opportunities available but has struggles with the implementation or execution.

Fingers crossed this remote work thing all works out.

Fingers crossed everyone still gets along.

Fingers crossed the team finally gets it this time.

Fingers crossed I can get a little time-off before I burn out.

Developing a business strategy, and executing it well, creates a 30% greater chance for growth. That’s pretty significant. If you are a growth driven organization then you need to know where you want to go, how you will get there from where you stand, and how your teams will help you arrive successfully.

This is what I call being “long-term oriented and near-term focused.” And this is another opportunity to avoid micromanaging, increase accountability, and communicate expectations. Allow your remote teams to function well together and support you achieving company goals. Sharing your plans allows your goal-oriented high-performers to know what is happening right now, what that means for the future of the organization, and how they play a role as individuals and a team. - Amanda HarNess

Active Listening

1 . Presence

One of the most important strategies is showing up authentically and bringing as much of your mental presence to the exchange. When you are present, you are more mentally and emotionally clear from the pains of the past or the fear of those past pains repeating. The more present you are the easier it is to listen and communicate effectively with clarity and genuine confidence, which leads to better results.

2 . Active Listening

Realize that any communication is an exchange, and that human beings are, by nature, concerned with their inner world; the receiver wants to feel heard. If they feel seen, heard, and understood as a human, this makes them more receptive to listening and reciprocating (doing a better job and being more invested as they feel more valued and appreciated as a human).

3 . Validation

Validating the receiver and lifting them up mentally & emotionally goes a long way to achieving communication buy-in for a more efficient exchange of information (not to mention getting more done with less effort).

4 . Subconscious Confirmation

This is an effective strategy for gaining rapport, using physical body mirroring (when visual communication takes place, like Zoom or in-person) and key-phrase responding (repeating key phrases back verbally or via text) allows the receiver to feel heard and understood, which deepens the communication, allowing more efficient results.

5 . Being The Observer

Witnessing the communication without emotional attachment allows a leader to RESPOND effectively instead of REACT emotionally. If you find yourself emotionally triggered (it happens to the best of us), work on the button, so you can show up with less emotional reaction and more effective response next time. When you are reactive, you are operating from some subconscious fear that cuts off your higher brain functions that allow clarity, compassion, and effective communication. As we feel safe and confident, we have more connection to our higher brain functions and can more effectively get our points across and achieve better results. - David A Caren

Give Precise Directions

1 . Invest and utilize efficient communication tools- Use smart communication tools at your disposal from virtual meetings to regular video conference calls. These tools will allow you to implement your communication strategy effectively and seamlessly. Effective communication tools will enable you to realize any communication strategy, no matter how ambitious.

2 . Meet in person with the staff- Despite the fact that many of us have been forced to conduct business increasingly remotely over the past year, I believe we can all agree that our interactions with coworkers have suffered. A lot of crucial non-verbal communication takes place while we are speaking to someone face-to-face. You should not ignore these non-verbal indicators because they influence conversation flow more than you may realize. Additionally, when you’re physically present, people are more inclined to focus entirely on you. As a result, even though it may not be feasible for every organization, we advise holding significant conferences and meetings in person.

3 . Give precise directions- The most crucial thing you can do to make sure jobs are finished in a timely and professional manner is to be clear and direct about what you’re asking an employee to perform. Giving your staff precise instructions — both verbally and in writing — will literally put them on the path to success.

4 . Create a welcoming atmosphere- When people feel comfortable expressing ideas without worrying about being rejected or mocked, they tend to be more creative. It is crucial that you make an effort to foster an open environment at work because of this. If your budget allows, one method to achieve this is through organizing team-building getaways for your personnel. Retreats can be inexpensive or costly in scale, but they always provide an opportunity for coworkers to connect outside of the workplace over shared interests. By allowing for anonymous input in meetings, you may foster an open atmosphere in the workplace. Although maintaining anonymity may seem to go against the spirit of transparency, allowing for this kind of feedback might actually give workers the impression that they can say whatever they want without worrying about punishment. Not only will your staff feel more at ease with this level of independence and transparency, but it will also encourage innovation.

5 . Celebrate successes- Everyone values being praised for a job well done, regardless of their position within a firm. In addition to occasionally offering their staff members congratulations, managers have a duty to create an environment that encourages both constructive criticism and good feedback. - Ryan Zofay

Listen To The Answers

1 . When it’s an important message, avoid background distractions; pick the right time and place. The other day, I watched a manager call in a remote employee for a 4:45 meeting on a Friday afternoon. Probably not the best time to capture someone’s full attention.

2 . Give them a reason to listen upfront: What’s in it for them? Start with an interest creating remark.

“This should save you 10 minutes every time you do that”

“In order to get that raise we discussed, here are three things you’ll need to do.”

3 . Pause occasionally when you’re talking

it gathers attention

and lets them absorb info,

keep them from feeling like you’re trying to run over them.

And gives them a chance for input.

I’ve seen far too many managers keep talking in a torrent, listing point after point, even though it’s obviously the person they’re talking to is still back trying to absorb point one or two.

4 . When appropriate, ask questions and really LISTEN TO THE ANSWERS.

Question like, “Understand?” or “Does that make sense to you?” are meaningless, if you’re the boss you’re going to get a “yes” even if the person has no idea what you’re talking about. Make your questions specific enough that they reveal if you really got through to to the individual.

5 . Be concise and to the point. Which means for important conversations think through what you’re going to say beforehand.

If it’s important enough, maybe even work out 4 or 5 talking points. If it’s really important, maybe you should even rehearse.

The more you rehearse important conversations, the better you’re going to get at them and the better those conversations will go. - Barry Maher

Keep An Open-Door

Implement daily, short, team-building activities. With that, you effectively replace the water cooler conversations. By staying connected, with topics that can be fully unrelated to work, you continue to build on relationships. And with these activities being recurring, and structured, people now interact with others they wouldn’t even pick out for a water cooler conversation.

2 . Because some non-verbal communication is much harder to pick up on during virtual meetings, describe what you see (when everyone has their cameras on), and check in if that’s correct: “I’m observing some distraction, who is in need of a 2 min break with cameras off? Or is there anything else going on?”

3 . Set clear expectations: “Can everyone turn their cameras on when you get to this meeting? It is much easier for me to detect potential issues when we are discussing A/B/C, when I can see everyone’s faces.” Call out the individuals who don’t comply with your request. If they have reasons to refuse, listen to them and decide if an exception is reasonable.

4 . Keep an open-door policy, even if that door is virtual/digital.

5 . Have the leaders go through conflict management skills training, or leadership communication skills training with a focus on conflict resolution. Conflict will happen, it is inevitable. The way we handle conflict can either lead to growth, or destruction. When leaders have insights into conflict, and use the right skills, they can help their teams manage conflicts effectively and guide the entire team toward growth. Growth, making progress in meaningful work, motivates all employees. Teach employees effective speaking-up skills. When, for example, they don’t think certain meetings add value and that’s why they let themselves be distracted, you’d want them to express that and start a discussion about whether these meetings do in fact add value, and if so, how they could be structured in a way that everyone stays engaged. Make attendees WANT to attend. - Hanne Wulp