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Getting Honest Feedback from Remote Teams

7/26/2022

Listening to your employees and incorporating their feedback is important to you and to the culture of your organization. But sending out an employee survey once a year is not sufficient, says Carrie McKeegan, CEO and Cofounder of Greenback Expat Tax Services -- especially among remote teams who find it harder to build relationships. Collecting feedback on an ongoing basis will allow you to address roadblocks head-on, encourage creativity and collaboration, and drive innovation. Here are things you can do:

Ask “how are you?” Don’t let remote work make you eliminate pleasantries like, “How was your weekend?” Alternatively, do a temperature check by asking "What's the most important thing you're workingon this week?" or "How are you feeling about reaching your goals?"
Open Up: A culture of candor has to start from the top. That means being vulnerable enough to share your human side. By setting an example, you show it's okay for your team to share their struggles and challenges with you in return.
Do Quarterly Check-ins: The relationship between supervisor and employee plays a critical role in retention. Quarterly check-ins expose hidden issues and give team members a safe space to express needs, concerns, and ideas.
Listen, Don’t Defend: Faced with constructive criticism, just listen. Focus on clarifying questions that help you understand the employees’ perspective.
Act on Feedback: Actions speak louder than words. You don’t need to incorporate every piece of advice, but do recognize each contribution and share with your team how you intend to use their input. This type of transparency strengthens trust and encourages future feedback.

Is your remote team giving you frequent and honest feedback, and if not, what can you do to improve matters? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. We'd love to hear your feedack.

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Gratitude Strengthens Relationships

7/19/2022

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Romantic partnerships can be challenging in the best of times. And two years of pandemic togetherness have not made things easier for some. Writing in The New York Times, in an adaptation of that paper’s “Seven Day Love Challenge”, Tara Parker-Pope points out that even the strongest relationship can use an occasional tune-up. Among the strategies she suggests is practicing gratitude together.

“Write down three things about your partner for which you feel grateful. Take a moment to read what you wrote about each other. Are you surprised about your partner’s feelings? Talk about these moments of gratitude and how they make you feel more connected to each other.”

Showing gratitude on a daily basis is a common mindfulness practice proven to boost happiness, help us get better sleep and even reduce illness. And gratitude exercises can not only make us feel closer to our romantic partners, but also to our friends and co-workers.

In general, people who express gratitude together are more satisfied in their relationships. So consider gratitude a “booster shot” for any relationship you want to keep healthy.

When was the last time you shared feelings of gratitude with your partner, co-worker or friend? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. We would love to hear your feedback!

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Building Resilience

7/12/2022

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Resilience is defined by many as the ability to recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and keep going in the face of adversity. But certain kinds interpersonal dynamics can drain our ability to bounce back. When British researchers Sarah Bond and Gillian Shapiro asked 835 employees from public, private, and nonprofit firms what was happening in their lives that required them to draw down the reserves that power resiliency, they didn’t cite tragedies in the news, or the accelerating pace of change, or the challenges of a difficult economy. They pointed to their co-workers.

A whopping 75% of respondents said that the biggest drain on their resilience reserves was “managing difficult people or office politics at work.” Moreover, when asked where their reserves of resilience came from, fully 90% said “from myself,” a little over 50% said “from my relationships,” and barely 10% said “from my organization.”

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, senior editor Andrea Ovans laments, “That’s a pity, because at the end of the day, the wellsprings of resilience are equally applicable to organizations confronting historic challenges and to individuals confronting the thousand small cuts we may be inflicting on one another every day.” Citing Diane Coutu, author of How Resilience Works, Ovans explains that resilient people possess three characteristics:

a staunch acceptance of reality;
a deep belief, often buttressed by strongly held values, that life is meaningful;
an uncanny ability to improvise.

Says Coutu, ”You can bounce back from hardship with just one or two of these qualities, but you will only be truly resilient with all three. These three characteristics hold true for resilient organizations as well.…Resilient people and companies face reality with staunchness, make meaning of hardship instead of crying out in despair, and improvise solutions from thin air. Others do not.”

Do you consider yourself resilient? What about your organization? Which of the three qualities do you (or it) display most? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. We would love your feedback.

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Own Your Errors

7/5/2022

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Few of us like to admit it when we make a mistake. We’ve been trained since our childhood school years that only “correct answers” get rewarded. But two things are true: 1) Everyone makes mistakes, and 2) admitting to errors can actually be very beneficial.

Writing in Inc. , Ken Sterling, executive vice president of Bigspeak, contends that “admitting mistakes has the best rewards for you in the long term -- especially for your leadership style and building trust with those around you.” Great leaders, be they CEOs, elected officials, or even quarterbacks, take ownership of their errors and avoid blaming others. So, “If you want to become a better leader, it starts by being accountable…Ultimately, we are involved in creating, promoting, or allowing each situation we find ourselves in. When we realize this, it's quite empowering, actually. Otherwise, if it's not our fault, we're really saying we are victims.”

Leaders who refuse to be accountable create what Sterling calls a culture of fear. And fear leads to silence. People who are afraid of being blamed, don't want to speak up or contribute ideas. To do so would be equivalent to putting a target on their backs. What's more, failing to acknowledge mistakes pretty much ensures the mistakes will be repeated. Writes Sterling, “The key to learning -- be it martial arts, team sports, sales, or leadership -- is owning your errors. If you don't admit the mistake to yourself, then how can you ever improve on it?”

Owning one’s errors builds trust, and trust builds strong relationships. Research has repeatedly shown that employees want to trust their leaders and when that trust is there, leader honesty drives employees to be honest as well. “Candor is at the heart of good management and positive work culture. Imagine being a leader who can admit to personally messing up, and who sends the message that in this organization, you can mess up, too. It's liberating.”

When was the last time you admitted to a mistake, and how did that go? When did your boss last admit to a mistake? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

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Getting Honest Feedback from Remote Teams

Gratitude Strengthens Relationships

Building Resilience

Own Your Errors

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