As a 100% distributed company, we intimately understand the challenges faced by remote teams. We’ve been overcoming those challenges for the past decade as our team has grown to 50+ (mostly) North American creatives, learning many lessons along the way.
Managing the nuances of engagement and productivity with a couple thousand miles between you and your team is both science and art. In 2010, our CEO Shane Pearlman gave a talk at NetWork in San Francisco about overcoming the challenges of distributed teams. Fast forward six years to the present and the rules are still the same:
Treat people well. Expect great things from them. Be human. And most of all, remember that the details make all the difference.
In this deck, Shane addresses some of the major challenges leaders face when managing distributed teams:
- Leadership
- Accountability
- Synchronicity
- Trust
- Culture
- Isolation
- Balance
At face value, these challenges may seem impossible to overcome. But at the end of the day, it’s about solving for three core issues – finding the right people, creating the right environment, and leveraging the right tools to keep everyone on track.