Interaction
Styles
and Working Remotely
Adapted from
Susan K. Gerke, Linda V. Berens, Quick
Guide to Interaction Styles and Working
Remotely (Telos Publications, 2003)
*Used with permission
 Leading
and Teaming
The workplace has changed. We can no longer
assume that the people we need to work
with will be in our same location, let
alone the same time zone. These people
include our managers, peers, teammates,
and direct reports. When we are not in
the same location or working in the same
time zone, we are working remotely.
This
booklet is designed with two purposes
in mind. The first is to help you understand
the issues associated with working remotely.
The second is to provide techniques for
being successful when working remotely.
Some
of you are in leadership roles and some
are not. Some of you work on teams and
some don’t. We’ve put emphasis
in three areas: leading, teaming, and
individual contributor.
What
Is Leading?
When we talk about leading, we are talking
about the role you play when you are responsible
for someone else’s output. This could
be a manager, a project manager, a team
leader, or some other type of leader particular
to your organization.
Leading
can include a number of activities such
as setting goals, providing feedback,
assigning tasks or projects, managing
projects, and so on.
What
Is Remote Leading?
Remote leading occurs when the person
who is leading works in a different location
(country, city, building, floor) or at
a different time (shift, time zone) from
one or more followers. When the leader
or a follower travels extensively, the
relationship between the two may be a
remote relationship even though they may
have desks in the same location. What
often defines the relationship as remote
is whether there is a need to schedule
time to meet versus counting on casual
opportunities for interacting.
What
Is Teaming?
Teaming describes the activities two or
more people engage in to do work together.
They may be on a formal work team or project
team, or they may just have the need to
accomplish something together.
Generally
when people are teaming, they have a common
goal or objective as well as an interdependence
on each other to accomplish the work.
They may be teaming on just a portion
of their jobs, but that portion requires
them to interact.
What
Is Remote Teaming?
Remote teaming occurs when two or more
employees are working together on a common
work product, problem, or task and one
or more of them is working in a different
location (country, city, building, floor)
or at a different time (shift, time zone).
What
Is an Individual Contributor?
Any employee who isn’t part of a
team is an individual contributor. Some
employees participate in teams sometimes
and work as individual contributors the
rest of the time.
What
Is a Remote Individual Contributor?
A remote individual contributor is an
employee who works in a different location
(country, city, building, floor) or at
a different time (shift, time zone) from
his or her manager.
Interaction Styles and the Strengths of
Working Remotely
|
Chart-the-Course™
The independence
of working remotely is natural for
people of this style. Their natural
planfulness is an asset in this
environment. They like time and
space away from interaction and
electronic tools that allow them
to give thought to what to do. E-mail
suits their desire to have a choice
of response time and work with the
content at a comfortable pace. For
conference calls, they like to think
things through ahead of time and
create an agenda. They look forward
to disengaging to get their work
done.
|
Behind-the-Scenes™
People of this
style have patience for the slower
gathering of information and like
the opportunity for multiple sources
of input without pressure to speak—especially
on conference calls, where they
are less likely to be judged for
not speaking. They naturally tend
to do a lot of listening and tend
to be adaptable to varying work
ethics, cultures, and time zones.
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In-Charge™
The remote environment
lets people of this style accomplish
work at their own fast pace in situations
where others are not involved. Their
drive to accomplish and get things
done may override some of the issues
and obstacles others experience
when working remotely. These remote
challenges are experienced as nuisances
rather than show-stoppers. They
will tend to keep the group on task
in conference calls and work to
keep videoconferences on track.
They adapt quickly to new tools
when they see how the tools will
help get the work accomplished.
|
Get-Things-Going™
People
of this style will work to get
the involvement of everybody.
They get others engaged on conference
calls, using their facilitative
style and enthusiastic voice.
They recognize the importance
of face-to-face interaction so
are likely to be willing to go
the extra mile to make it happen.
They will let others know what’s
going on, in their own minds or
with the project.
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