DI – Dansk Industri
Leading across Borders
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Theoretical foundation
• “Identification with leader” by Stacey L. Connaughton & John A.
Daly (Distanced Leadership from the perspective of the dispersed
employee)
• “Leading from Afar: Strategies for Effectively Leading Virtual
Teams” by Stacey L. Connaughton & John A. Daly
• “Lederskab på distancen” by Anne Birgitte Lindholm
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DI – Dansk Industri
13
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
areas of main focus
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Objectives
After the training the participant is able to
• understand and act on the challenges with dispersed teams
• create a solid foundation for Distance Leadership (Distance
Charter)
• apply the principles in Distance Leadership
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
Content
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Leading from afar – Distance leadership
The distance employee
Distance leadership – the foundation
Distance leadership
2014
DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
Content
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Leading from afar – Distance leadership
The distance employee
Distance leadership – the foundation
Distance leadership
2014
DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Dispersed teams and
Distance leadership
• Definition – Dispersed teams:
• “Teams that are separated by some degree of
time and distance”*
• Definition – Distance leadership:
• “Leadership in those contexts”*
© People & Performance A/S Sources: Cascio & Shurygalio (2003)
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
What are the benefits in terms of collaboration and
leadership when allocated in the same office/location?
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
The advantages of
physically proximate offices
• Traditional office settings provide
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more frequent and spontaneous communication
immediate interaction for troubleshooting
the possibility to develop and maintain relationships
….
Source: Davenport & Pearlson (1998)
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
The Distance Leader’s Challenges
Dispersed teams, 10 years of research, 3,000 leaders
1.
2.
to find the most appropriate way to lead
to handle the “loss of control feeling”
3.
4.
to work across organizational boundaries and cultures
to create transparency about role priorities
5.
to develop and keep the team vision, spirit, approach, and feeling of joint
purpose
to maintain relations and create an atmosphere of trust
6.
7.
8.
to optimize the team’s performance and establish appropriate
performance management
to motivate
9. to develop a method for realizing an employee’s potential from a distance
10. to decide an appropriate level and methods for using communication
technology
Source: Center for Distance leadership, US.
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
Content
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Leading from afar - Distance leadership
The distance employee
Distance leadership – the foundation
Distance leadership
2014
DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
What challenges does
the distance employee experience?
Isolation
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Challenges for the distance employee
• fewer opportunities for informal communication
• feeling isolated from the central organization
• geographic dispersion makes effective interactions harder and
increase complexity
• hard to identify with the distant leader and organization
• ….
Reworked from Cramton (2002)
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Challenges # 1
Logistics and Technology
1. Distance leads to the fact that issues are postponed until F2F is possible
2. The corporation is complicated by different time zones
3. Travel costs and time consumption influence the choices of how to lead
and handle problems
1. Technophobia (fear) and Technophile (attraction) reinforces barriers
2. Web and phone communication is poor on cues compared to F2F
communication
3. Multiple communication channels and “side communication” increases
the complexity
4. Delays in asynchronic communication becomes an important dynamic
Sources: Solomon, 1995 ,Townsend et al, 1998, Warketin et al, 1997; Daft & Lengel, 1986
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Challenges # 2
Social interaction & culture
1. The traditional social mechanisms does not work
2. Communication dynamics, e.g. body language and intonation, changes
3. The nuances in members’ social and professional roles are lost or distorted
4. Integrating new collegues from a distance is hard
1. Multiple cultures lead to misunderstandings and distorted assumptions
2. The impact from national culture increase in comparison with the company
culture
3. Certain cultural differences are multiplied by distance
4. Building trust is hard from a distance, and the troubles are reinforced by
cultural differences
Sources: Solomon, 1995 ,Townsend et al, 1998, Warketin et al, 1997; Daft & Lengel, 1986
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
What matters to the individual
employee
Identification
Motivation
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Identification matters
• The symbolic value of actions used matters even more
• Considering the signal value becomes important
• How and from whom should the distance employees hear the news?
• How can we involve distance employees in decision processes?
• Reduce “us” versus “them” mentality
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Visits to HQ, get to know colleagues
Introduction to the national culture in HQ
Introduction to company culture
The distance employees are included – in the pictures hanging in HQ, in the flags
hanging on the wall
• Symbolic gifts has a place at a central spot
• Internal sources of information are spread – postal approaches, bulletin board, afterwork meetings, Friday morning coffee, on serious and "for fun" distribution lists, etc.
. Sources: Identification with leader & Leading from Afar, S. L. Connaughton & J. A. Daly
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Motivation matters
1. The distance employees were more satisfied with their jobs than the
employees closer to their leaders
2. Availability was an important factor for the satisfaction with the leader in the
distance group. In fact, the physical distance was not an important indicator.
Sources: Leading from Afar, S.L. Connaughton & J.A.Daly, Motivaiton, D. McClelland
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
The Distance employee
Isolation
Identification
Motivation
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
Content
•
•
•
•
Leading from afar - Distance leadership
The distance employee
Distance leadership – the foundation
Distance leadership
2014
DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Successful distance collaboration =
Discipline and Consistency
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Distance Management
Platform
Organization
 Media choice principles
 Technology access
 Knowledge Management
Process
 Dilemma reduction
 Reporting lines
 Job description
 Escalation staircase
 Frequency
 Team/1-2-1
 Templates (e.g. agenda)
 Publicly scheduled
Charter
KPIs
Ground rules
 Relevant KPIs
 Aligned effort priorities
 Review process
 Agreed rules
 Aligned behaviour
 Avoid “problem rules”
Objectives
 Distributed
 Line of sight (result-effort)
 SMART
Roles
 Team roles
 Collaboration roles
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Distance Management –
Objectives and KPIs
3
Distance
Skill-build
KPIs
Skill-build
targets
Skills
2
Effort
targets
Behavior
Results
1
Performan
ce targets
Results
Distance
Effort KPIs
6
5
Distance
Performan
ce KPIs
4
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Distance leadership
Aligned priorities at a distance
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Exercise
• Same groups as previously (3 persons)
• Pick one of your distance employees and make a prioritized list for the
tasks and efforts
• Time: 20 minutes
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Distance Management
Organization principles
• Clear about
• Base organization
• Allocation in split reference
• Reduce dilemmas
• Clear governance, who can delegate what to the distance employee
• Mechanism to coordinate ”above” the distance employee
• Ensure access to professional interaction
• Consider access to needed facilities (local markets, special facilities/
location)
• Ensure job, function, or project role description aligned to the result, effort,
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and skill-build targets as well as KPIs
Confederation of
Danish Industry
DI – Dansk Industri
2014
Distance Management
the distance escalation staircase...
Build clear criteria and a process for escalation to
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•
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empower
align expectations
ensure sufficient local initiative
overcome cultural differences
5th floor
4th floor
Get approval before initiating
Decide and Inform xx
Decide
3rd floor
Demand from local government that
trigger workload in our stores
2nd floor
Will probably trigger competitor reaction
1st floor
DKK 4,000 + local impact
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Distance Management
Platform principles
• The access to the media in use affect the distance cooperation
• Some media are better than others to certain forms of communication
• There is a risk of unequal access to influence and participation in the
cooperation due to differences in access to technology
• Deliberately choose media based on:
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Message (praise, conflict, problem solving, info, etc.)
Participants’ access, skills in using and bandwith
The need for two-way interaction (number of cues needed)
The signal value
. Sources: Identification with leader & Leading from Afar, S. L. Connaughton & J. A. Daly
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Platform – Media richness
Policies
Notes/minutes
Letter
Simpel web tools
Newsletters
Virtual world
e-mail
(live web meetings)
F2F
Phone
Chat
Rich media
Less rich media
Access to media and
support
S Kilde: Daft & Lengel
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Distance Management –
Ground rules
• Agree and Align to ground rules e.g.:
• We will identify meetings as “must” attend and “may” attend meetings. We
will all attend “must” meetings.
• Each meeting will have an agenda distributed before the meeting
• Meetings will end on time
• There will be no side conversations (by whatever media) during meetings
• F2F team meetings will, when possible, be rotated across regions
• Minutes will be distributed within three business days
• We will all respond to e-mails within one business day
• All e-mails will be less than one page (otherwise attach the file and direct
attention to specific issues).
• Avoid
• Establishing rules after a problem has arisen will reflect someone’s
misbehavior
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Sources: Identification with leader & Leading from Afar, S. L. Connaughton & J. A. Daly
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Distance Management Meetings
Meeting Management:
• Regular meetings with agreed agendas
• Publication of meeting series and content
• Formulate standards for preparation and participation
• E-mails, Excel, presentations etc. available for reading prior to the meeting
• Give clear preparation tasks: “Prepare to present your position/impact in
your market segment”
• Product focus = use template and joint formats for the preparation to
ensure aligned expectations
Meeting leadership:
• Check In and Check-out
• Adherence to procedures agreed
• Active involvement
• Do recurring meetings also when no problems justify it (free-flow chatting)
Sources: Identification with leader & Leading from Afar, S. L. Connaughton & J. A. Daly
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Distance Leadership
Leadership
 Lead leaders
 Accessibility
 Discipline and Consistency
 Two-way Gatekeeper
Trust building
Lead performance
 Self-disclosure
 Personalization
 On-site/face2face enough
 Social/shared events
 Check-in and Check-out
 Clear review format and
process
 Quality and effort alignment
 RAPID execution
Communication
Culture
 Over-communicate
 Communicate in pictures
 Create context and coherence
 Feedback loops and
Reciprocity
 Build cultural awareness
 Communication styles
 Sense of time and rhythm
Charter
© People & Performance A/S
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Distance Leadership –
Communication principles
• Over-communicate
• Multiple media, e.g. mail + phone
• Multiple channels, e.g. joint information + personal mail
• Communicate in pictures
• Screen dump with arrows
• Story-telling by using examples
• Create context
• Why before what
• Frame the communication
• Describe benefits and consequences of the effort asked
© People & Performance A/S. Sources: Identification with leader & Leading from Afar, S. L. Connaughton & J. A. Daly
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Lead the Quality alignment
Quality
”It is the leaders task to align expectations to quality and effort put in”
Time
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Distance Leadership
Lead (multiple) leaders
• The distance employee will have local and distance leaders assigning
tasks
• The challenge is to create consistent direction and align expectations
• The responsibility for aligning expectations to efforts and priorities
belong to the distance leader
• The distance leader is responsible for involving the local manager
• Informal leaders will emerge – enrol them
• Recruit the right employees for a distance position, being self-starters,
independent, active in communication
. Sources: Identification with leader & Leading from Afar, S. L. Connaughton & J. A. Daly
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
Distance Leadership Two stages in building trust….
2014
• Stage 1 – building trust F2F (with a new team, employee, or leader)
• Trust is critical in creating and sustaining effective distance relations
• Trustful relations promote open, candid, and ”to the point” information exchange
• Stage 2 – sustaining trust
• A leader can successfully manage the day-to-day issues of their teams from afar –
however the problem is…
• If a leader does not engage in F2F exchanges during the initial phase, it will create a
trust deficit
• The main challenge is to engage enough in F2F and maintain the interaction frequency
Sources: Identification with leader & Leading from Afar, S. L. Connaughton & J. A. Daly
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DI – Dansk Industri
Confederation of
Danish Industry
2014
Distance Leadership – Culture
• Cultural diversity is an important influence
• Sense of time and rhythm have great influence
• Awareness on differences in the team removes frustration
• Public and agreed approaches to address cultural diversity are important
© People & Performance A/S. Sources : Identification with leader & Leading from Afar, S. L. Connaughton & J. A. Daly
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