Quite a few years ago now my father and I were looking at different businesses to purchase and invest in. These businesses were existing, trading well and they were a physical or ‘bricks and mortar’ type establishment. One particular business that we did seriously consider was a fast food outlet. When we dived deep into the financials and thebusiness plan, we realized that while it look profitable on paper, that all it really did was to pay a wage to the owner who was required to work 50 to 60 hours in the business. This did not meet the requirements that we were looking for in purchasing a business as essentially, all we would be doing is purchasing a job.

As managers of a remote team we can easily fall into the same situation by micromanaging our teams. One of the key behaviors that I like to build as the culture of my team is innovation and ownership. This helps to keep me separated from micromanaging the individual and daily task of my team members.

I empower them and coach them to make decisions for themselves and to be innovative when they come across problems that require solutions in our projects. If you are unfamiliar with the term micromanaging, let me paint a scenario for you.

When I first started working with full time remote team members, I was collaborating with them via email and instant messaging for assigning work and outcomes for our projects. As we were managing over a dozen projects at any given time, I was spending my entire day fielding questions by instant messenger and replying to emails. Instead of building my business and doing my job, I now was micromanaging my team helping them to make decisions, doing research for them, and having to comb through a mountain of chat requests and emails everyday just to keep on top of our projects.

After managing a remote team for quite a few years now I have developed a comfortable set of tools, resources and systems to ensure that my time is not taken up with micromanagement. Here is a few of the key tools that I use:

 

1. BasecampHQ

This is a project management and collaboration system that I have talked about tirelessly when in relation to outsourcing and remote teams. It allows us to assign tasks, share files, and work spaces for the projects that we are working on. I can set deadlines, we can add comments, and can archive information to be looked at later if required.

There are many systems like this that you can use within your team and it really is just a matter of finding one that fits your requirements and you are comfortable using. Regardless of the size of your team or the projects that you use, I would suggest that you find some form of collaboration system like this rather than relying upon a manual process such us email and shared Google documents.

 

2. The Vault

My team has access to a simple WordPress blog that I call The Vault. It is an archive of all training material that we have used or I have created for my team that can be referenced at any given time. Whether it will be a new team member ,or an existing team member, instead of having to micromanage their requests I can direct them to The Vault which serves as our knowledge base.

 

3. Team collaboration

Some colleagues, and even clients, that I have spoken to regarding outsourcing and remote teams like to keep their team members separate. This means they do not communicate and act as a team, but rather they all have their separate tasks and may not even know that the other person exists.

I do not see any advantage in operating your team like this. My team all collaborate together, they chat throughout the day and they build relationships that exist outside of work. This means that I can harness the experience of one team member to support another team member. When they encounter a problem, or lack experience with the task they have, instead of relying on my assistance they can go to one of their teammates. This obviously saves time in my working schedule and also helps to solidify the team as a great working environment.

 

Ultimately, we need to look to resources and tools that take us away from the micromanagement of our team. We still need to have our fingers on the pulse and provide directios for our teams, but to avoid being occupied with questions and troubleshooting. The most important point I can make is to find a solution that is comfortable for you. I tried many different collaboration systems before, but I decided upon BasecampHQ. Thankfully, most tools and resources have a free trial that you can undertake to find the best solution for your team before you have to commit financially.