Is Your Distributed Team Ready to Face Another Crisis?

 Thu 11 Nov 2021 

Is Your Distributed Team Ready to Face Another Crisis?

If the last year plus has taught us anything it’s that it pays to be prepared for a crisis. This applies to your team too, and if you're managing a distributed team — one where employees are working from multiple cities, states, or even countries — it's possible that a disruption, such as a natural disaster, will impact some of your employees but not others. 

(1) To make sure the group is able to withstand turmoil and recover quickly, put in place digital tools that ensure any team member can find the latest project updates and files at any time so that they can carry on work if others are unavailable. 

(2) Also, make clear how people should communicate if your primary way of connecting goes down. Think through contingency plans — for example, who is the de facto decision-maker if the team is unable to get a hold of the leader? And routinely explain the logic and criteria behind decisions so that everyone has a shared understanding of priorities.

(3)  “What would I do if…” should become part of the team’s regular thought process.

(4)  Remember that the group will be able to better weather the crisis if they already trust one another and know how to cooperate, so, to the best of your ability, regularly bring your distributed team together in the same space to forge those connections.

This tip is adapted from “Managing a Distributed Team Through Natural Disasters (And Other Crises),” by Eric J. McNulty et al.