This presentation provides 7 questions leaders and managers can ask in order to re-frame the challenges related to leveraging remote talent or telecommuting, while at the same time, accelerating their digital transformation journey! Even if you don't have remote team members, consider these 7 questions as a way to foster digital leadership in your organization. http://www.linkedin.com/in/josuesierra Full article also available at: https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/remote-work-digital-transformation-asking-right-questions-sierra

1. 7 QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD BE ASKING!
Remote Work &
Digital Transformation
By Josue Sierra | www.linkedin.com/in/josuesierra

2. It’s important that
leaders and
managers
reframe the
challenges to
leveraging
remote talent or
telecommuting.

3. Every business leader must do a reality check—
and ask themselves key questions—in order to
stay competitive and digitally evolve regardless of
whether you’re considering or further exploring
remote work.

4. Here are
7 questions
that might help
change the
paradigm by which
you
explore how to:
Take steps forward in your organizational
digital transformation.
Improve your team collaboration
capabilities.
Set up your organization to take
advantage of remote-work capabilities.
The Opportunity:

5. As with everything in life,
remote work does, in fact,
have both advantages
and challenges

6. Part of being a leader or manager is learning to inspire
teams and provide the digital tools to execute
successfully in order to achieve measurable results.
This is true whether your team is sitting in the same
physical location or not.

7. CUSTOMERS
BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS
VENDORS AND SUPPLIERS
MARKETING AGENCIES
FIELD SALES TEAM
THE REALITY CHECK AND PARADIGM SHIFT:
It is highly likely you’re already leading people
who don’t sit in your same location

8. Are you providing
clear, strategic
objectives or
priorities?
THE RIGHT
QUESTIONS 01

9. The biggest source of team
dysfunction is miss-alignment or
lack of clarity around objectives.

10. Author Patrick Lencioni argues that organizational silos occur
because executives fail to give their employees a compelling
context for working together--what he calls a “rallying cry”.

11. Without this context, everyone
moves in different directions,
often at cross purposes . This
results in conflict, breakdown of
trust, and even resentment.

12. In his book, "Silos, Politics, and Turf
Wars: A Leadership Fable about
Destroying the Barriers That Turn
Colleagues Into Competitors", Lencioni
describes what every professional on a
team knows--these team and
collaboration dysfunctions and issues
usually start at the leadership level.

13. "The problem is, they can’t do anything about it.
Not without help from their leaders. And
while the first step those leaders need to take is
to address any behavioral problems that might
be preventing executive team members from
working well with one another—that was the
thrust of [Lencioni's] book The Five
Dysfunctions of a Team—even behaviorally
cohesive teams can struggle with silos. (Which
is particularly frustrating and tragic because it
leads well-intentioned and otherwise functional
team members to inappropriately question one
another’s trust and commitment to the team.)"

14. Team health and cohesion comes from
strong leadership with a clear vision of
what matters the most.

15. “Strong teams are
strong teams because
they are clear on what
is the priority, and
have strong
leadership that is
engaged in setting the
direction and
communicating it
often.”
~ Josue Sierra

16. THE RIGHT
QUESTIONS
How can I
improve
communication
across functions
and teams?
02

17. All companies struggle with ensuring their leaders are taking the
opportunities to improve interpersonal and team communication.

18. Every company needs to continually
explore whether they are providing
the right tools to enable easier
communication and collaboration
among teams.

19. Too many
companies under-
estimate the value
of soft skills
essential to good
communication
and collaboration.
Consider providing development
tools and training in communication
soft-skills, emotional intelligence
and collaboration skills.
When you’re evaluating new hires
or training programs, interview for
soft skills, not only functional skills.

20. When you start identifying the challenges and opportunities, and
start applying the right corrective actions, and providing the tools
for improvement, you’ll find that where the team members sit
won’t matter.

21. This has the clear potential to
open up new benefits and
strategic advantages for your
organization in digital
transformation, as well as
retention, recruiting, and
productivity.

22. THE RIGHT
QUESTIONS
Am I mastering
the technology
tools needed to
improve team
productivity?
03

24. Most companies don’t use
these tools as well as they
could.
Most employees are not properly briefed
or trained on these tools.
And many times, the tools or technology have not been
set up correctly for maximum effectiveness and
adoption.
Common Existing Challenges:

25. When you’re physically located
in one place, team members
likely develop behaviors to
compensate for any gaps.
These behaviors could hinder
your company’s growth and
productivity.

26. Making sure your tools
are mobile-enabled.
Consider outside
agencies and partners
when determining access
needs.
Make sure accessing and logging
in to these tools is easy while
maintaining appropriate security
levels is essential.
THE RIGHT TOOLS
TAKE STEPS TO ENSURE THAT YOU HAVE
THE RIGHT TOOLS, AND THAT THESE ARE
SET UP FOR MAXIMUM ADOPTION.

27. Poor collaboration capabilities and set up should not be
an excuse to take a pass on remotely located employees;
rather, it provides an opportunity to address gaps in
your technology tools that will ultimately help your
organization grow and improve.

28. THE RIGHT
QUESTIONS
How can I help my
team members
build closer,
stronger
interpersonal
relationships?
04

29. Strong leadership is rooted in
effective followership and trust
building.

30. Leaders are faced with
continuous opportunities to
identify hidden relationship
problems and to continue
to grow and improve the
relationships that exist.

31. Building interpersonal relationships does not come easy to
everyone. Inevitably, you’re going to have employees who
struggle building strong, close interpersonal relationships, but
their talents and strengths make it worth the extra effort.

32. This is where investing in the right team-building
gatherings is essential.
It is unfortunate that, when things get tough during
downturns, relationship- and team-building efforts are
often laid aside.

33. When launching important or large
projects, invest in the early team-
building phase of the project and
plan for mid-way touch points
before you get further into the
effort, and friction and emotions
start running high.

34. Authors Kimball Fisher and Mareen
Duncan Fisher talk about key
practices that can help you build trust
with team members over distance and
suggest that there are various types of
meetings that warrant face-to-face
presence. Many, if not all, of these
practices could help you improve
relationships and build trust
regardless of the type of team you’re
leading.

35. THE RIGHT
QUESTIONS
How can I build a culture
of collaboration among
my teams, and what
tools should I be
providing to foster
better - and easier -
collaboration?
05

36. Many people think of
communication as the same
thing as collaboration.
Communication ≠
Collaboration

37. Every team leader needs to consider whether his or
her team has the right tools to collaborate and
share work output easily and effectively.

38. While it takes effective
communication to have
strong collaboration,
one can do a lot of
communicating and still
struggle with
collaboration.

39. You’ve most likely heard of popular new file sharing and collaboration
tools like DropBox, and Slack or Salesforce Chatter. There are hundreds
of different options designed to fit every unique situation and for
companies of every size and budget.

40. Here is the bottom line:
Email is not a collaboration
tool.

41. Companies and leaders that don’t understand this end
up punishing their employees and teams with
overloaded inboxes, and reduced productivity lost
in managing excessive email volume.

42. The need to review "useless" emails
and the time it takes to get focused
again on important tasks.
The "deluge" of information that
plagues organizations.
The "pile" of email that employees
end up sorting through after hours
and the associated drain on
employees' personal time.
Recently, Thierry Breton, the CEO of Atos, announced their
intention to eliminate email as a communication and collaboration
tool. In a Forbes magazine article, he is quoted as having outlined
three examples of how email results in wasted time:

43. Thierry Breton also points to
research showing that reading
irrelevant emails is bad for
concentration and that “it takes
64 seconds to get back on the
ball after doing so."

44. THE RIGHT
QUESTIONS
How can I provide
team members
with better
structure and
processes?
06

45. Does your organization have
effective structures and
processes to support your
employees in their work?
Or, if one of your key top
performers leaves, do all the
processes leave with him or
her?

46. Regardless of whether you have remote team
members or not, leaders need to ensure that:
that employees find them helpful and useful
structure and processes are formal and documented
tools to manage and enforce them are in place

47. The goal is not to create red-tape
but to provide structure.

48. Don’t under-estimate the
value of best-in-class
project management
practices, process-
improvement tactics,
and the valuable tools
needed to support
these.

49. Even if you’re running a small operation, having these in
place early in your business development can provide a
more effective growth runway and set you up for continued
success in the years to come as a larger organization.

50. THE RIGHT
QUESTIONS
How can I provide all
employees of diverse
personalities and
interpersonal needs
with the ideal
environment in which
they can thrive?
07

51. Many companies are experimenting
with various formats and setups of
their physical spaces, and there is
an increasing amount of data
around the impact office spaces has
on productivity.

52. I’m excited to see organizations slowly turning away
from the traditional “prime corner office” setup (that sits
mostly empty because the executive is on the road a lot).

53. Whether you test out open seating areas or want to give
different employees diverse options to foster optimal
productivity, retaining top talent in today’s market requires
proactive efforts in the area of work-space innovation.

54. For many of your employees, letting
them work from a Starbucks will
result in better output. For a working
mom, knowing she can be steps
away from her kids in a home office
will give her the peace of mind to
dedicate more effort to the
company’s success.

55. Consider that no country, city or region
has an exclusive lock on the variety of
talent you’ll need.
Opening up your organization to remotely
located employees can be a source of a
significant competitive advantage.

56. Author Adam Heitzman concluded an Inc Magazine article about remote work by
saying,
“The real takeaway is to be flexible in accommodating the
needs of different employees to cater to their strengths
and offer and environment of productivity, regardless of
whether that’s in the office or out of the office.”

57. #StartWithWhy
I challenge, inspire & lead
people and organizations to
be more effective
communicators and to
better connect and engage
their audiences utilizing
digital tools.
ABOUT ME:
@jmsierra
linkedin.com/in/josuesierra