You just got the memo: the project is transitioning from temporarily to permanently remote!
- At a minimum, you've got to go in and clear out your physical office ... if you ever had one.
- And, you may need to go ahead and make an investment in renovating your home office
- Or, maybe it's time to rent some desk space somewhere so you have a place to go other than Starbucks to work remotely, but yet get away
Relationships
On a larger scale, many of your relationships will fade from familiar to official. Many team members you will never meet in person. If you are a team leader, those career very personal counseling sessions, mentoring moments, and casual exchanges that build strength and trust into a relationship may be gone.
Trust, respect, and fear
Trust and fear are often counter-parties to many relationships. Fear may come first, then respect, then trust. Generally, we don't trust strangers, though we may respect them. If they are somehow different from us, unconscious fears about differences that are the drivers of survival instincts may kick in until we get to know them and they are no longer strangers.
Body language is 50%
They say body language is 50% of our communication mechanisms. Well, Zoom may fill in a lot of that, but not all. Consequently, other communication skills will have to be strengthened and given more weight. Yikes! We may have to take greater care in text and email messages.
Velocity
And, it all slows down. There just isn't the bandwidth in a remote setting to duplicate face-to-face and the casual and fortuitous communications of the office espresso machine.
Meanwhile
Meanwhile, get a big box, go to the office, and clear out!
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