You are a manager and hate remote teamwork? Here are three ways to sabotage it:
Put teams in time zone as far away from each other as possible
If teams work in close time zones, they can use their working time to collaborate. But that is exactly, what you like to avoid. Therefore, make sure that the difference in time between all your teams is as big as possible. The best is to have a twelve-hour time difference so that one team is going to bed, while the other teams are starting to work. That way it always takes a day to get an answer to your emails which slows down communication. Scheduling a meeting, that fits for all parties is nearly impossible. Isn’t that great?
Don’t allow modern communication tools
Give your team the worst communication tools. If possible, even prohibit emails (while telling your teams, that they should make use of face to face conversations). If you already have some tools in place, make sure to limit them to audio only. Video or screen sharing is only allowed for higher management (yourself) or needs a complicated application process (signed on real paper by managers around the world). You know, because of security. Somebody could walk by a meeting room and see some confidential information. Scary…
Don’t let them meet in person
The worst thing that can happen is that the whole team meets in person from time to time. This would lead to a better understanding between all the team members and eventual to a better (remote) team performance. You don’t have any budget for that, have you? That was exactly the reason, why you created that remote team: to save some money. So you cannot afford any travel expenses for those cheap workforces (That’s at least what you tell them).
Do you have any other ideas to sabotage remote teamwork? Put your ideas into your comments.
