I have managed teams responding to conflict and natural disaster for the last twelve years. In Sri Lanka, my team and I were able to work together in the field but in Afghanistan I lead a remote team working in the north due to the deteriorating security situation. The teams were designed and functioned differently based on whether we were able to be physically present or if we had to adapt to work remotely.
When I was interviewing for my position I was asked if I had ever managed or worked with a remote team. The truth was I really had not. I had been a part of international work groups designing responses to sexual assault that relied on using communication technology such as Skype and email, but had never worked full-time leading a team working hours away in a complex environment.
When I took over as team lead for Afghanistan team, I realized I would need to adapt my management style to ensure my team had the support they needed to be effective. The team was tasked with working with communities to establish working relationships between the government and the community, to improve basic infrastructure by working directly with community based organizations, and to provide an opportunity to discuss and make progress towards stability.
The most important aspect to successfully leading my team was two-fold; ensuring communication systems were open and interactive and secondly, making sure the team was empowered to make decisions in the field based on their individual expertise and experiences. According to Northouse, “The traditional structure of many organizations does not support decision making at lower levels, and this can lead to the failure of many teams. Teamwork is an example of lateral decision making as opposed to the traditional vertical decision making that occurs in the organizational hierarchy based on rank or position in the organization,” (Northouse, 2016, p. 364.) Lateral decision-making improved the quality of the work produced by my teams. Everyone’s opinion was considered valuable. This provided opportunity for procurement staff to provide inputs into program development as well as for program staff to provide inputs to improve logistics.
An example of lateral decision-making is during our weekly brainstorm sessions on what interventions we thought would be good opportunities to foster stability within the community. The program development officers would be joined by drivers, grant specialists, finance, and drivers to talk about the current security situation. Everyone on the team was living in the environment we were working to stabilize and we leveraged their individual experiences to design broader community based interventions.
Communication was critical to ensuring success of the team. The program team was able to fly in to Mazar-i-Sharif to meet with me in person and I was able to travel to Kunduz on a few occasions to meet with the team at large, but the majority of our work was completed through email, phone calls, text messages, and weekly video conference calls. The video conference calls humanized our experience and provided an opportunity for us to see each other “face to face.” Each week we would identify the short-term goals and we would consistently reflect back on our overall targets through what we called dashboard check-ins. This kept the team accountable and invested in the important work they were accomplishing. Northouse cites Hackman (2012) in stating, “A compelling purpose energizes team members, orients them toward their collective objective, and fully engages their talents,” (Northouse, 2016, p. 368.)
Managing remote teams provided me an opportunity to think out of the box in terms of building and sustaining a competent team working in a complex, conflict affected environment to affect positive change. Through innovative technology, regular use of traditional technology, and through lateral decision-making, my team was able to work in extreme environments. Communication is the key to leading teams whether they be physically present or geographically diverse, the transfer of knowledge and rapport established through regular interaction establishes a foundation for effective implementation.
References:
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice, 7th Edition. Sage Publications.
Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2017). PSYCH 485 Lesson 9: Team Leadership. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1834747/modules/items/21827908.