2017-04-03 How to choose the Right Communication Channel with Your Remote Manager?

Hi Team

After Chinese New Year, I had very limited face time with you due to heavy traveling. It posed some challenge to have effective communication with you. So what is missing when your manager is not physically present in the same office with you? The most notable differences are:

1. He/she pays, even more, attention to ends than means;
2. You lose tons of small talk opportunities to calibrate your understanding and clear your doubts;
3. Both sides are trying very hard to establish trust.

In April, I’ll spend four weeks to share my thoughts on effective communications with your remote manager. There are 4 topics to be covered.

1. How to choose the right communication channel
2. How to write effective email communication
3. How to conduct effective teleconference update meeting
4. How to conduct effective teleconference brainstorming discussion

Week 1: How to choose the right communication channel with your remote manager?

Take one minute to think about the last time you and I had a quick chat at our desks or along the corridor, what was the conversation about and who started the conversation? Then imagine if I am not around, what would you do? Email, IM, call or fly over to meet me in person?

You may think what is the big deal, these are just small talks. What have missed are contextual cues and emotional subtleties that are exchanged in conversation. You need to spend more time to understand where I’m from, and trivia details I may not emphasize. That’s what I meant by “ineffective”. Thus we need to be mindful when choosing an effective communications channel for the specific scenario. I usually go through 4 dimensions to decide what is the most effective communications channel when my manager is not present.

1. Objectives

• Discussion for decision making
• Status update or check-in
• Q&A
• Performance review and career discussion

1. Impact

• Business critical
• Non-business critical

1. Timeliness

• Immediate response needed
• Regular or non time critical

1. Involved parties

• Multiple parties
• One party

Below is a quick How-to guide for your reference. Scenarios can be expanded, but the thinking process is about the same.

Scenarios	Objectives	Impact	Timeliness	Involved Parties	Preferred Communication Channel
Critical Decision Making	Discussion for decision making	High	Immediate response needed	Multiple	Get all parties into an audio/video conference call. Send email with clear objectives, agenda and data prior to meeting. Send another emails with discussion notes and follow-up actions after meeting.
Non-critical Decision Making	Discussion for decision making	Medium/Low	No immediate response needed	Multiple	Include all involved parties into an Email thread. Provide context (data and facts), recommendations and call for actions. Once Email discussion is concluded, send a summary email to wrap up everthing.
Weekly and Project Planning	Status update or check-in	Medium	No immediate response needed	1:1	Planning email (on Monday) and summary email (prior to next Monday) should cover 1) short term initiatives; 2) long term initiatives; and 3) BAU activities.
Project Progress Update	Status update or check-in	Medium	No immediate response needed	1:1	Weekly 1:1 via audio call. If the call is cancelled, take the initiative to reschedule or communicate via Email.
BAU Update	Status update or check-in	Medium	No immediate response needed	Multiple	Email with pre-agreed format. Proactively spot out exceptions in BAU. Analyze the root causes or those exceptions, assess the risk and propose actions if needed.
Quick update on progress and status check-in	Status update or check-in	Low	No immediate response needed	Multiple	IM or Email. If use IM, try to update in a group conversation, so that everyone is on the same page.
Align Deliverable and Objective	Q&A	High/Medium	Immediate response needed	1:1	Audio conference call is preferred. Prior to the call, send an Email with agenda, area you feel there is a discrepency in understanding and your recommendations. After the call, send another email with meeting notes, conclusions and follow-up actions.
Quick clarifications	Q&A	Low	Immediate response needed	1:1	IM or Email. If use IM, but you want to get immediate attention, ping the recepient directly and avoid group discussion.
Performance Review	Personal development	High	No immediate response needed	1:1	Should always be face to face communications. If impossible, try video conference.
Career Discussion	Personal development	High	No immediate response needed	1:1	Video or audio conference call. Send an email with your plan prior to the meeting.

Regards
Jianghong