Managing Mondays: What Do You Want From Me?

Living up to other peoples’ expectations can be difficult and hard to figure out! And this is even more pronounced if you are an employee who works remotely from the office. So how do you get through the difficult challenges of meeting or exceeding expectations of others?

How do you determine if you are doing everything anticipated of you and delivering what is expected of you?

Ask Questions

If you want to deliver on expectations, you need to know what those expectations are. In order to do this, one must be up front with the people they work with and revisit expectations regularly to decide if you are on track. One has to discover not only what their manager expects of them, but what is expected from them by others.

Set Milestones

Setting milestones will keep you on track to achieve your goals. As you progress through your scheduled milestones, be sure to communicate them. This is key to allows others to get the sense of what you are actually accomplishing even though they cannot see you working first hand.

Clear Communications

No one can see and appreciate the massive effort you are putting in, so be sure to readily communicate what you produce in terms of actual results. Share your output with the team. Remember ,when you work remotely, no one is there to see your accomplishments first hand; the only way they will ever find out is if you are delivering on your expectations and sharing your progress. They only know what you tell them. So clear communication requires that you show them in a humble way so as not to be boastful.

Remember, you are simply communicating your progress.

Demonstrate Commitment

As with any great team, loyalty and commitment  are critical. Be sure to demonstrate the attributes of a good team member:

• On virtual team, everyone works together and depends on one another, so be sure to give your team members what they need in a timely fashion.
• If there is an announcement or break-through from which everyone could benefit, be sure the group is notified.
• Share success stories with your team; if something worked well for you and improved a process, it is likely something similar will work for others on your team. And before you know it, your point of interest has become a best practice for the entire group.
• For the most part, people enjoy helping others to succeed, it makes them feel good inside . So if someone helped you carry out a task you could have not otherwise done yourself or was just assisting you in meeting a timeline; tell the group. People appreciate the recognition and are grateful you recognize their efforts.

Sure it takes a little extra effort to keep everyone in the loop and to make sure you are living up to expectations, but in the end you will have achieved greater success through clarity and communications.

What are some best practices you have in place on your virtual team? How have you gone above expectations and communicated your best practices to your team? How have you encouraged others to think about clear communications and how it benefits everyone? What can you do in your next team meeting to stimulate conversation toward these goals? I would love to hear your thoughts!