Because the world needs managers of humans in mission-driven organizations to have the expertise, skills, drive, and resources they need to manage equitable, effective, sustainable teams, and to do it remotely.

What are we doing here?

I’m starting this blog in April of 2020, as people and organizations are starting to figure out how to run their lives in the context of shelter-in-place orders, physical distancing, and radically new and rapidly shifting sets of expectations about what work, communication, and relationships look like.

The people close to me know that in The Before Times, I was working on a book about the core values that enable equitable and effective management, and enacting those values through management practices that I’ve had success with in supporting distributed (remote) teams. I’ve heard from a number of those folks that this would be a helpful resource right now, and in the interest of getting this out there in a moment where it can be most useful to people, I’m putting the book idea on hold and will be sharing parts of my draft as blog posts over the coming weeks. I’m aiming for a new post each Tuesday.

How is this different from all those other remote-work-tips blog posts?

It’s true that there’s a LOT out there right now about remote work, being productive from home, and even managing teams remotely. My goal is to take some of those practical recommendations (plus maybe even some you haven’t already seen!) and contextualize them as part of a cohesive, strategic approach to management that can be applied while working remotely or (someday) back in an office together.

What I’ll share here will be mostly aimed at folks in mission-driven organizations: nonprofits, but also for-profit businesses where there might not be all the resources you’d want, but there is a clear sense of purpose that (in normal times, at least) guides your team’s work. This is especially for those managers who, like me several years ago, find themselves in a management role that they didn’t expect and maybe didn’t feel prepared for. Most importantly, it’s for managers who want to make sure that their day-to-day practices are grounded in a set of clear values that can benefit them and their teams in the long run.

Do you really expect us to focus on management strategy at a time like this?

In writing about remote management strategy right now, I don’t mean to imply that this is the most important concern anyone is likely to have, or that it’s even necessarily realistic to expect to plan something that happens more than two hours from now. My hope is that when you’re ready to start thinking about longer-term planning, whether that’s now or weeks or months down the line, the posts I share here will help you incorporate practices that enable equitable, effective, sustainable team building that will let your organization benefit from improved staff retention, better communication, and stronger, more resilient working relationships.

So: we didn’t think we’d be here, but I’m glad you’re along for this. Welcome. Subscribe, if you like. Contact me and let me know what feels most pressing to you right now and I’ll do my best to prioritize posts that are meeting folks’ needs. I’ll see you back here on Tuesday.