It sucks to consistently have critical job duties get pushed into the evenings and weekends because you’re spending a lot of the regular work hours in meetings. Constantly talking about the work without the time to actually do the necessary independent work demolishes morale and induces burnout.

You’re wondering who should be in each meeting, are you?

Tough question! Again, the answer to this question is circumstantial. But here’s the thing - big meetings make people sad.

As an agency, we’ve interviewed thousands of leaders and employees, and a common complaint we hear is, “I’m in too many meetings.”

This is what we call triangulation: Person A (Will) has a problem with Person B (Jada), so they talk about that problem with Person C (Jaden). It happens in families and in organizations alike, and if these behaviors are common in your workplace, beware.

Triangulation can be so common in the workplace that we can fail to recognize it. During our 25 years of working with organizations, we’ve seen organizational cultures truly damaged by workplace negativity, and often the leaders in these companies have no idea of the source or even the nature of the problem.

Some of us have been managing remote teams for years, but for many this is a brand new (and slightly anxiety-producing) experience.  Our 3-hour virtual workshop Managing REMOTELY with Mind and Heart (a spinoff of our popular 5-day leadership development workshop, Managing with Mind and Heart) provides new and experienced managers with ready-to-use skills for maintaining employee morale and engagement, communicating effectively, reinforcing team commitments and values, and managing productivity. 
 
Here are some quick and easy(ish) practices and tips to help you set your remote team up for success: 

The only thing worse than a poorly run meeting is a poorly run meeting filled with people who are behaving poorly. 

So how do you get people to bring their best selves to meetings?  Here are a few tips: