Counting Down My Top 10 Favorite Learning Experiences and Sharing Advice for New L&D Professionals

#7: Leading from a Distance: 4 Principles to Building Committed Remote Teams

Photo by Boris Mayer on Shutterstock

Recently I wrapped up an article series focusing on the four essential elements of impactful learning experiences. When facilitators execute these elements successfully, learners leave their training sessions feeling informed, engaged, entertained, and inspired.

I was eager to author another series but was drawing a blank on a topic. As I began reflecting upon my early years in the postsecondary classroom and more recent years in corporate training spaces, several learning experiences stood out to me.

While a late night talk show host gig is probably not in my future, I decided to compile a list of my top 10 favorite learning experiences.

I hope that by sharing my work, I spark your imagination, inspire you to experiment with new approaches, and encourage you to pitch audacious ideas for your learning projects. At the end of each article, I‘ll offer a few suggestions for you to consider.

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#7: Leading from a Distance: 4 Principles to Building Committed Remote Teams

With the country in the grips of Covid, companies shuttered their offices and issued work-from-home directives. For numerous organizations, including the one where I worked, that arrangement didn’t change once the pandemic ended. Faced with this new and now permanent way of working, managers who were previously accustomed to engaging with their team members in a physical office needed a different set of skills to lead their remote employees more effectively.

Photo by TheStandingDesk on Unsplash

I designed, developed, and facilitated this 4-hour instructor-led virtual learning experience for people leaders who managed a minimum of four remote direct reports.

The course consisted of five modules:

Module 1: Introduction

Module 2: Establishing a Healthy Culture

Module 3: Promoting Effective Communication

Module 4: Fostering Productive Collaboration

Module 5: Encouraging Meaningful Connection​

During the session, learners:

• Assessed and rated their remote teams in the key areas of culture, communication, collaboration, and connection

• Engaged in activities, exercises, and small group discussions with their peers to embed their learning

• Applied introduced concepts to devise solutions for their remote management pain points and challenges

• Created a preliminary action plan to successfully implement remote management strategies with their teams

Following the session, learners were encouraged to:

• Ask their team members to anonymously assess and rate their team in the areas of culture, communication, collaboration, and connection

• Meet with their teams to discuss the assessment results and complete their action plan based upon their team’s feedback

• Access the remote management playlists in the LMS to explore additional resources and continue their learning

• Attend an optional 45-minute follow-up session to share their insights, successes, and opportunities

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Why This Experience Makes My Top 10

Reason #1: I used a whiteboard activity to generate interest.

I created a whiteboard in Microsoft Teams that was associated with the meeting session. On each sticky note, I typed the name of one of the registered participants. One week prior to the session, I emailed my participants with a link to the whiteboard and instructions for the activity.

I asked them to use the text tool to type two or three of their remote management pain points on their assigned sticky note.

Microsoft Teams Whiteboard Example

This simple activity encouraged learners to start thinking about the concepts we’d discuss during the course. More importantly, they could easily visualize the pain points they shared in common. And receive some degree of consolation in realizing they weren’t alone in feeling the way they did. Their counterparts were also navigating similar struggles.

Reason #2: I included multiple ways for learners to engage.

This was a 4-hour virtual session with a 12:30 pm ET start time. The session logistics posed a few hurdles for which a plan for continued engagement would be important.

• Virtual format: In virtual sessions, the facilitator competes for the attention of their learners against the distractions of checking their email, replying to an IM from a team member, or turning their camera off to complete other work.

• Duration: In addition to being a virtual experience, the 4-hour duration presented a challenge. Even the most experienced and scintillating facilitators understand how difficult it can be to maintain their learners’ attention and focus for 4 minutes. Let alone for 4 hours.

• Start time: The start time also posed a slight challenge. Because our workforce was distributed around the country, my learners were joining in the early morning, at lunchtime, and all points in between.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

What was the secret to success for this session? A carefully-paced schedule of individual and group activities paired with strategically-timed stretch breaks during and between each module. I deployed a pattern of instruction, discussion, and activity, though not always necessarily in that order.

Read the remainder of this article for free on Medium here.