Many many years ago, when remote teams, with team members and subordinates spread out in different locations and even different countries and time zones, was a new phenomenon, I followed a week\u2019s course in Brussels run by Global Integration. \u00a0It made a huge impact on me and have used much of what I learned time and time again, sharing my learnings with others. And I have kept in touch with the consultancy and followed their development.<\/p>\n
One of the sessions that I found particularly useful myself in many of my global roles, was a remote coaching exercise.<\/p>\n
In theory this was no different from any normal coaching exercise. In a group of three, each takes turns to be coach, coachee and observer.<\/p>\n
The coachee chooses the subject on which to be coached, which should be important to the improvement of their own remote management activities. And they obviously respond to the coach\u2019s questions. After the exercise (say 10-15 minutes) the coachee gives feedback to the coach (say 5 minutes total feedback from coachee and observer). How they felt, what went well, what was useful and where they felt they would have liked more or different support.<\/p>\n
The coach obviously does the coaching, following whatever coaching model is chosen.<\/p>\n
And the observer observes, also giving feedback to the coach on how well they followed the process, how well they asked questions rather than giving their own thoughts, how well they followed the interests of the coachee, what they liked and what could still be improved.<\/p>\n
The trick to the exercise though, is that coach and coachee sit on two chairs back to back to each other, <\/i>to simulate coaching over the telephone.<\/p>\n
We all know, despite years of experience, that successful coaching can be difficult even when you are with the person in the same room, but this exercise really concentrates the mind. It is simple, easy to do and it works.<\/p>\n
Of course nowadays with Skype and FaceTime this may seem old-fashioned. But in my experience with many companies in many countries, much of the attempted remote coaching, if it happens at all, still happens via the phone and voice. Like all skills, practice can help. And it\u2019s not just the same as talking on the phone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Many many years ago, when remote teams, with team members and subordinates spread out in different locations and even different countries and time zones, was a new phenomenon, I followed a week\u2019s course in Brussels run by Global Integration. \u00a0It made a huge impact on me and have used much of what I learned time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coaching","category-remote-teams-and-global-working"],"yoast_head":"\n