When leading a team, communication is key. When you work in a regular office and see your team face to face, it’s easy to say…hey come here I want to show you something. And all you do is work together shoulder to shoulder to either train or problem-solve issues.
Well…leading a virtual team comes with a few challenges. Communication being one of them.
I’m a very visual person and most of the time, I can better explain something if I simply show my team what I’m talking about.
I may get a question from a team member about issues they’re having with an image loading correctly in maybe MailChimp and I’m asked to take a look.
Now I could just go in there and fix it and move on. But what is BETTER is that I show my team what I did to fix it so that they can fix it the next time it occurs.
As leaders, we need to be sure to share our experience so that our team’s experience and know-how grows.
I use Screencast-o-matic to quickly record my problem-solving steps in figuring out the problem. Usually, it’s a short video and I upload it to my Screencast-o-matic account and share the link to my team either in Slack or Asana, depending on what the message intent is.
Doing a video for feedback saves you and your team time. First, you’re recording your feedback on your own time when you are fresh in what you want to say. Your team can watch the video and rewatch during their work time which could be very different than your work time.
No more playing phone tag and trying to set up meetings just to solve a little issue. Just record what’s on your mind and share.
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Use Screencast-o-matic to save time writing policies & procedures.
No matter how wonderful your team is, the biggest challenge to overcome is communication. Effectively communicating with your team is essential in any case, whether you’re in a regular office or not.
When you’re a team of one, all the ways you like things done are simply bopping around in your head. When you bring on your first team member, it’s time to share what’s going on in your mind as to how you want things done to your newly hired hand.
Having policies and procedures down for your team to refer to helps your communication as your business grows.
When you’re ready to delegate a process or task that you routinely do yourself and you need to show your team member the steps you do, instead of setting up a meeting and showing your team how to do it, record it instead.
If I’m going to delegate a whole process to one of my team members, instead of writing down the steps which I typically dread. I find it faster to just use screencast-o-matic to record my entire process as I’m doing it in real-time. I’m showing my screen and verbally explaining all the steps as I’m doing it. Sure, it’s far from a polished video. There are lots of uhs and ums. But that’s OK. I don’t spend time editing these videos…the important thing is to get the information out of my head and into my team’s head.
Usually, that is the last time I’ll have to actually do the process. That video becomes a part of our policy manual. My team can create a checklist or cheat sheet from my recording.
It’s better than sitting right next to my team showing them, because what if they didn’t take good notes? What if they forget a step?
By recording the process, they can always rewind and watch over and over.
Besides, if you have turnover and need to train another person. Instead of having to sit down next to them and train them what you want…you already have a recording.
What a time savings!!