Is everyone in your training department located in the same city, in the same building and on the same floor? If you said "yes" to this question, count yourself lucky! If you said "no," you are not alone -- read on.
Some of the common characteristics of a department where members are "remote" are: low trust, misunderstandings, feeling isolated, and not knowing what's going on. These characteristics create some tough challenges including but not limited to:
- It's tough to get decisions made on a timely basis.
- It's difficult to build a team and gain synergy.
- Work slips through the cracks.
- It's difficult to balance the workload.
- You aren't always sure that everyone in "on the same page."
So, what do you do? You work on relationships -- relationships between individual team members as well as between the leader and each member. When you worked side-by-side with colleagues, you got to know each other almost without realizing it. You would grab a cup of coffee or lunch together. Or, you would notice a picture of someone's children on their desk and ask about them. You didn't think about building relationships -- you just did it.
