Leading from Anywhere summary

When Frank van Massenhove became the head of the Belgian Ministry of Social Security, he found a struggling organization. It was a drab, bureaucratic place teeming with underperforming civil servants shackled to strict timetables. 

But within a short time, Massenhove had transformed the ministry. It became an attractive place to work, with great team spirit, and an open, collaborative atmosphere. 

The software company Basecamp is anti-office – and that’s coming from the top! In fact, company founder Jason Fried and key programmer David Heinemeier Hansson call the office an “interruption factory.” They argue that the constant meetings and chatter destroy productivity.

They may be against the office environment, but they understand the extra effort that must be put in so remote employees won’t be working in a vacuum. Successful remote work requires fluid communication among team members.

We’ve all experienced the reasons why video meetings aren’t the best mode of communication. But sometimes they’re simply necessary. You may need to bring the team together or demonstrate something visually, rather than relying on audio and email. When that’s the case, it’s important to make sure that the meeting doesn’t descend into confusion or tedium. 

As a team leader, you have to facilitate this virtual meeting. But don’t worry – there are a number of golden rules that can help ensure a meeting’s success.

As companies scrambled to assemble remote teams in the face of the pandemic, many panicked about workforce discipline. How were they going to manage employees if they couldn’t physically check in on them? The answer for some was to invest in surveillance programs that monitor activity and screen time.

As the author argues, this was exactly the wrong way to go about things. Unsurprisingly, being constantly spied on didn’t inspire a great deal of trust or motivation! If your employer holds you in such low esteem that it feels the need to spy on you, why would you give your all? 

All this talk of remote working and the pandemic might leave you with the impression that it’s something brand new. It isn’t. The idea of “remote working” has a long history. In fact, it has ancient roots, especially if we interpret it as “working away from the central organization.” For example, Roman administrators in faraway European and Mediterranean provinces worked notably far from their empire’s capital. Likewise, in the nineteenth century, British imperial agents worked all around an empire that spanned the globe.

But the modern definition of “remote working” appeared more recently, in the latter half of the twentieth century. Since then, it has hit a number of stumbling blocks that have kept it from truly taking flight. It’s only the recent pandemic that pressured businesses into rapid change, making remote teams so widespread.