Thinking Remote: Inspiration for leaders of distributed teams

by Pilar Orti, Maya Middlemiss

In this collection of articles gathered together from the Virtual not Distant blog, Pilar Orti and Maya Middlemiss reflect on this transition from a change-management perspective, drawn from their experience of working with leaders of distributed teams.

Each article has been selected to cover one area of remote leadership practice and is followed by a set of leadership reflections to help you identify your next steps. Considering challenges from wellbeing to technology to communication, this series of articles will empower leaders at all levels to improve their personal practice and their team's performance.


1. Designing the digital what we can learn from the physical space
2. “Those tools are so last year…”
3. The dangers of ‘working out loud’
4. Now that I’m remote, can anyone see how hard I’m working?
5. Psychological safety in online meetings
6. Is work causing you stress? Going remote is not a magic pill
7. Sick and tired, working and not-working in a remote team
8. Sharing success in remote teams
9. To show frustration, first you need to show you care
10. Creating a culture of feedback
11. Keeping your team visible within your organisation
12. Virtually secure is not information security challenges for remote teams
13. Remote anytime, anyplace, anywhere

"At thirteen chapters and 100ish pages, you could conceivably finish this book in a couple of hours. I wouldn’t recommend doing so–if read right, this book works almost as a personal coach." Teresa Douglas, co-author of Secrets of the Remote Workforce.

108 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 18, 2019

About the author

Pilar has been writing since she was seven, although she never thought her work would be available to the whole world.

With the increase in popularity of e-readers, Pilar dug out some of her manuscripts and other pieces of writing and even sat down to research a new book.

The result is a collection of books on theatre (including a translation of Lorca's "When Five Years Pass" that was premiered by her own theatre company in London, some years ago), Spanish culture and professional development.

Pilar still lives in London, where she works as a voiceover and trainer/facilitator.

Reviews

[Tõnu Vahtra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book even does not try to be a book but it's rather a collection of essays (or blog posts and references from podcast). I took up the book because when Googling for books about remote working then it was referenced multiple times (next to Rework, Remote et al). In most areas it was quite basic or even too basic, but it kept coming back to the topic of visibility/reporting in remote working and I started looking into this topic differently as a result (keeping the balance between knowing what your remote workers are doing VS demonstrating trust and the same dilemmas from employee perspective).

I also got one practical suggestion from the book. When during weekly ops meeting people are speaking in turns and you often get this awkward silence then an interesting suggestion is for the person currently speaking to nominate the next person to speak.

[Jate Saitthiti]

The digital ecosystem should be designed as a physical workspace by making interactive spaces like mingling, private, and learning areas.

However, it must first be related to the company culture (collaborative or competitive). Collaborative cultures provide more sharing space in digital communication tools, whereas competitive cultures provide more private space for the team.

Choose a digital tool based on the workflow of the daily activities and roll.

My favorite idea from this book is colleagues can use a status function in digital tools to communicate the day's mood.

[Syd P · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a short book, this highlights some really simple but focused views of where to look within your remote business to strengthen it. It doesn't go too in depth, but instead gives a starting point of what may be missing in a business, and what to focus on building up.

[jessica cordova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Estupenda lectura

Recién estoy iniciando como líder de un equipo remote y este libro me ha ayudado a ver muchos puntos de los que no tenía ni idea