Managing at a Distance
Distance can be physical or cultural, or both. It pays
to be conscious of the impact of distance
when you manage across borders.
AMONG THE MANY FASCINATING CHALLENGES you may face when doing international business is how you manage others who are somewhere else, perhaps someplace very different from where you are. A little forethought can prevent expensive missteps and save money, while getting the most from the people you work with.
Let’s suppose you’ve gotten up to speed with the culture (if not the language) of the people you manage long-distance, whether via reading, visiting or living for a while in the target market. You may have local people working for you. Or perhaps you’ve dispatched an employee to work abroad. The tips below will make your task easier and reduce the static that can sabotage communications, damage good will, and harm results. Some tips contradict others, but you can judge which action is best in a given situation. The tips fall into several broad categories.
Leadership
Build trust. Major global consulting firms like the Center for Creative Leadership report that trust, change and collaboration are the top leadership challenges these days. If you can build trust with the people you lead and manage, it opens the way to solving almost any internal issue despite distance and differences.
Find good people. It’s well known that if you manage a person who just isn’t right for the job, you can do everything right and still not get the results you want. So when you engage or hire someone abroad, or select someone from home to go live there, do all you can to get the right person from the start. Check references, do trial projects, role play, agree on a trial work period, specify targets and milestones that are measurable. Make time periodically to discuss and evaluate performance, and if it’s not going right, take steps quickly to change the situation (be sure you know the implications if you need to replace the person) and move on. Review the job description for its feasibility before rehiring.
Focus on goals. It’s your job to ensure that those you manage really know what they are to do and how their work contributes to the larger picture. At a distance, goals can become fuzzy very quickly, and you end up with a Lone Ranger or even a Rebel who’s got a totally different picture of what the goal is.
Be systematic. As much as possible, try to limit the randomness of your business activity. Your employees appreciate knowing how you operate and what you expect. They have enough challenges adapting to your strange ways too.
Assert. Notice this is not a suggestion that you be stubborn, aggressive, rude or bully people. You are the manager, however, and you need to lead with confidence and clarity, however unsure you may feel about the challenges that distances bring. It’s fine to assert, but also to admit mistakes or misunderstandings and to fix them. Particularly if your intuitions tell you something isn’t right, use your position to shine light on things and respond correctly.
Recognize cultural differences in manager-employee relations. Your employee abroad may be meek, brash, passive, rebellious, overly complimentary or deferential, or otherwise treat you in culturally defined ways. In some cultures, you must take into account the need to save face, or to overcome traditional prejudices or practices. You need to separate personal from cultural styles and work with them as you find them.
Communication
Share an agenda. A lot of managers just order tasks to be done. It works better to follow the PPP pattern in your communications so everybody shares the agenda from the start, at home and abroad.
PPP stands for Purpose-Process-Payoff. At the start of a meeting, phone call or email, explicitly tell people abroad why you are taking time for this event, how you plan to go through it, and what the benefit or goal—the payoff—will be. This can be done in less than a minute. Here are some examples:
• “For the next 30 minutes I’d like to review your August sales figures (Purpose). Let’s start with the Northern region and then discuss the South (Process). That way we can quickly review the North’s growth and focus most of our time on the problems the South is facing (Payoff). Is that okay with you?”
• “Hi Charlie, it’s Pat. I’m calling to confirm that our delivery will be late after all, and to decide with you which way is best to ship (Purpose). Let’s review our options and make a final choice of transporters, via air or rail (Process). That way our logistics team can get quotes on air vs. rail delivery, and we will know what the final cost will be (Payoff). Okay?
• “This email is to summarize the steps we routinely take to hire a new worker (Purpose). You will find attached all the documents you need to fill out, with comments in red. Please review them and reply with your comments and questions by March 14th, 09.00 Eastern US time (Process). This will help us gear up for the big order of widgets we need to deliver by January 1st (Payoff). I look forward to your input.”
You’ll notice that in addition to the PPP structure, each example ends in a kind of agreement or commitment action. That’s important, because the other person may well have problems or questions about what you’re proposing to do. Those need to be addressed before you begin the process.*
Document. After a meeting or important phone call, jot down and share your summary of the key points and actions, with deadlines and who does what. Over a distance, these things can fall out of focus. Your document will serve as a reminder and a measuring stick of progress.
Play back. Similarly, if you run into either differences of opinion or lack of clarity, it’s good to play back the final agreed version of the truth. “So just to be sure we all agree, the deadline is the last day of the month, whether it’s a work day or not. Right?”
Attitude
Be patient. Managing at a distance is trying for both sides. Try to adapt your expectations of what can be done to the real situation and allow for the inevitable disconnects and mistakes that seem much more annoying when you can’t walk down the hall to settle something.
Go slow. Of course, you can’t always do this. But slow and steady does deliver pretty well over distant team activities. Balance this approach with the moments when a sense of urgency is what really is needed. And be aware that the pace of business really varies a lot around the world.
Empathize. Being able to put yourself in another’s shoes goes a long way to being a good manager, anywhere. At a distance, it can be very frustrating for both parties if they are coping with the typical challenges of global business, like time zones and language gaps—and the reality that they were up all night with a sick child, or the electricity cut off again during a key process, or the bank is closed for a national holiday you forgot about.
Be cautious, even skeptical. Unfortunately, it at a distance it can be hard to tell if you’re being bamboozled. In small and large matters, distance can be used as a cover for mischief or worse. Be creative about finding ways to double-check things. Too many international managers take reports, numbers, commitments and even threats at face value, and the consequences can be serious.
Probe. If you suspect something is wrong, be creative about probing. Do you need to make an unscheduled visit or have a trusted local third party test the validity of what you are being told? (And by the way, this point does not assume you are dealing with a local national. Your own expat employee on assignment abroad could be just as vulnerable to temptations or mistakes.)
Surround. Do some creative thinking about checks and balances, information loops, sign-offs, etc. These don’t have to be embarrassing to the people you manage if you can present them as the way you routinely work.
Language
Repeat. It’s not insulting to restate key points, perhaps by summarizing them or giving an example. Sometimes, where language is an issue, this can help clarify a point that the other person doesn’t get, without having to call attention to the language gap.
Don’t get fancy. When language is an issue, try hard to use the simplest language you can, and cut out any unnecessary content. Don’t use metaphors based on your culture or which have a hidden meaning, like “Bob’s your uncle.” “I’ve got your back.” “Madder than a wet hen.” “Give a dog and pony show.” “Way off base.” Such phrases fog up rather than directly say what you mean, and lead to confusion and wasted time.
Don’t bluff. If it’s your language skill that’s in question, don’t pretend to understand things you don’t. It may be embarrassing to stop the conversation, but usually it’s better to get the point correctly than to miss it.
Tools
Take small steps. If necessary, break tasks or processes into smaller bits and supply lots of job aids, feedback loops, etc. to keep things on track.
Use technology. As much as you can, make use of the technologies that allow you to see, share and interact live over the distance. We all know how tone and body language tell volumes, and that goes for giving encouragement, correction, and a wealth of other kinds of messages—and also for picking up clues from the other person as well.
Humor. Carefully and sensitively applied, humor can be a wonderful bridge across all kinds of barriers. Consider it as a powerful management tool.
In the end, building solid, trusting relationships with those you manage at a distance is a challenge that has great rewards when it works right. It’s worth investing time, thought and energy in this aspect of your global business, because it’s actually part of the foundation and a key to success.
K.S.
* You can learn more about Purpose-Process-Payoff techniques in the Wilson Learning Library book, Win-Win Selling (Nova Vista Publishing, ISBN 978-90-77256-34-3). It is available in both print and e-book formats.