An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Measuring results, not time. As the workplace continues to shift emphasis from physical to virtual, it is becoming less feasible to manage employees according to how much time they spend doing something. It’s easy to get a feel for productivity when you see someone in their cubicle toiling over a design or a contract. What you are measuring is often the time and the perceived effort level that is displayed physically and verbally. You sense the progress each time you pass by. In contrast, when managing remotely, it’s more important to view the result of that effort, maybe with milestones along the way. You’re not actually seeing that physical expression of hard work.
As a part of our series about the five things you need to successfully manage a remote team, I had the pleasure of interviewing Eric Plam, president Skyroam.
Eric is a leader in the tech industry with extensive experience working at the intersection of consumer hardware and global mobile communications. He specializes in building highly-performing sales and management teams, developing new markets, and creating successful partnerships. His favorites places to travel are Mongolia, the eastern Sierras and anywhere else in the world with minimal mobile coverage.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. What is your “backstory”?
I got a travel bug early in life — initially seeing the great sites in America as a child, then on to places further afield like Europe. These were all great experiences; however it was my first moment arriving in Hong Kong as part of university summer program in China that I realized that I was destined to move around the world. That summer in China, together with my study of Mandarin, shaped my career path and impact the rest of my life. Early on, I came to understand a couple of paradoxes: we’re all so different, but also alike. And the world is immense, but also small. Armed with these experiences and understandings, I’ve always focused in my work on helping to make connections between people.
Now at Skyroam, we have this great opportunity to help democratize internet connectivity, freeing people from the constraints of costly and restrictive service plans, wherever in the world they are. This has become even more important as the world contends with the pandemic and all the life/work changes that brings.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
In the late 1990’s I was based in Hong Kong, managing British Telecom’s Asia-Pac mobile satellite business. I spent a few days in Ulaanbaatar meeting with oil and mining companies. After boarding a Tupolev airplane for the flight back to Hong Kong via Hothot, the flight crew started handing out animal furs. After takeoff we learned the aircraft’s heating system was broken. That short flight felt like the longest ever at sub-zero temperatures! Anything for a sale!
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Early in my career I worked at a small tech company as business development manager. Those were the great days when I thought I knew a lot more than the senior management. I was getting resistance from my boss on a deal I was working, for no apparent reason. One day I decided to go directly to the CEO to make my case. The CEO patiently listened to my concern — and it felt good to be heard. However, the relationship with my boss soured and I left shortly thereafter. There are a few lessons I took away from this, some obvious, but the biggest one is that it’s critical to create an open and transparent work environment. I’ve tried to do that since then.
What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?
A company should always be building something or optimizing something — not just managing something. The same goes for your best employees, who want to apply their time, energy and passion to creating. Help your employees unleash that creativity by aligning them with challenging and achievable goals.
Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Some companies have many years of experience with managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?
I have been managing remote teams for about 20 years.
Managing a team remotely can be very different than managing a team that is in front of you. Can you articulate for our readers what the five main challenges are regarding managing a remote team? Can you give a story or example for each?
The challenges managing a remote team include:
- Measuring results, not time. As the workplace continues to shift emphasis from physical to virtual, it is becoming less feasible to manage employees according to how much time they spend doing something. It’s easy to get a feel for productivity when you see someone in their cubicle toiling over a design or a contract. What you are measuring is often the time and the perceived effort level that is displayed physically and verbally. You sense the progress each time you pass by. In contrast, when managing remotely, it’s more important to view the result of that effort, maybe with milestones along the way. You’re not actually seeing that physical expression of hard work.
- Maintaining human connections. While managing remotely, it’s often easy to forget that we’re all human beings. The computer screen in front of us much of the day tends to boil work down to tightly scheduled and organized sprints of work. We compartmentalize our hours in front of the screen into creative time, messaging time, spreadsheet analysis time, contract redlining time and meeting time. Although this can be productive, we have to remember that time with our colleagues, customers and partners cannot and should not always fit neatly into that structure. Interacting with others necessarily means yielding some control! That’s ok and should be encouraged. Let a meeting go longer or shorter than planned. Don’t worry about the dog bark — in fact, include the dog. Ask about the books on the shelf behind the other person! And make time for non-work conversational topics.
- Maximize in-person meetings. Building and managing remote teams can be efficient, effective, and scalable. But one advantage that a team that works together in the office has is that they really get to know each other well. They may spend lots of time together at the water cooler, at lunch and for drinks after work. Cost, time, and now pandemic restrictions mean that remote teams see each other rarely, if at all. It’s important to find efficient ways for you and your team to meet, when possible. One way is through industry events — instead of a dedicated team meeting, consider inviting multiple employees to help at a trade show or customer event. This way you can see your team in action and get to know them more on a personal level. And when visiting remote team members, be sure to invite them to a meal, a walk or a bike ride!
- Experiment with new business tools. We have evolved over eons to communicate in person with each other. We’ve only been communicating remotely for a couple hundred years, if you exclude flags, drums, smoke and pigeons. Over the last couple hundred years, communication technology has advanced dramatically, and the pace of innovation is increasing. Much of this advancement is focused on the workplace. It’s hard to imagine a work environment that excludes Slack, Zoom and Trello, but these tools are only about 7 years old. I’d find it impossible to manage a workplace, especially one with young employees, without constantly evaluating and deploying new tools. I’m looking forward to the day that email is retired!
- Accommodate different workstyles. As more of us continue to work from home, the lines between work and personal life continue to blur. You can almost make an argument against enabling an office-based employee to run errands in the middle of a workday. How will the other employees feel about you picking up your dry-cleaning? But how can you possibly do that with a home-based employee? And why would you want to? With teams flung throughout the world, we need to be up early to communicate with Europe and late to communicate with Asia. So the work days may stretch longer. Therefore life also may happen throughout the day. Some people work better hours heads-down, then separate themselves from work. Others may need to expand their days to be effective, but take more breaks in the middle.
Based on your experience, what can one do to address or redress each of those challenges?
In managing teams remotely, it is critical to remain creative, agile and human. And demand great results!
In my experience, one of the trickiest parts of managing a remote team is giving honest feedback, in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. If someone is in front of you much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language. But not when someone is remote. Can you give a few suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee?
It’s critical to provide employees with regular coaching and feedback. Giving feedback is much easier in person — constructive comments can be easily conveyed during a meeting. It can be more challenging remotely, since it’s harder to convey and pick up on the non-verbal cues. The key is more constant communication with a lighter payload. An example is to provide an immediate comment by text after a customer call, such as “Great call! Do you think we should circle back with more clarity on the pricing structure?” This is maybe more effective than, “Let’s setup a video con to discuss how you’re presenting pricing to our customers.”
Can you specifically address how to give constructive feedback over email? How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?
Providing constructive feedback via email is not easy, since email tends to be such an official and permanent form of communication. E-mail is more of a one-way method of communication. I try to minimize use of email when communicating with employees for that reason. I prefer to provide feedback via messaging apps, since that conveys a softer two-way dialog better. This gives a voice to both parties. Video or voice calling is a great way to communicate important topics. Begin the conversation with, “I think you did a great job on that project. Can I share a few points that could help with the next project?”
Can you share any suggestions for teams who are used to working together on location but are forced to work remotely due to the pandemic. Are there potential obstacles one should avoid with a team that is just getting used to working remotely?
Big changes that happen fast, such as with the pandemic, are not easy to navigate. The key is overcommunication. Reach out to team members frequently to discuss not only details of their work, but also how they are coping with the changes. The biggest obstacle to getting through fast change would be to ignore the significance of the impact on each person.
What do you suggest can be done to create a healthy and empowering work culture with a team that is remote and not physically together?
First, ensure you have an open and transparent company culture. Your employees invest a lot of time, effort and creativity in helping build your company. The least the company can do is to accurately convey information and create and open environment. Next, make sure you have a clear mission and well-defined goals. Then, empower employees to achieve their goals, often in different ways than you would expect. Communicate well along the way!
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I am passionate about democratization of access to the internet. Let’s face it, no matter where in the world you live, access to information and means of communication is empowering. By some measures, there are still 4 billion people in the world without access to the internet. Part of the reason for this inequity is inefficiency in the way we deliver services. Governments own and license spectrum for billions of dollars to a handful of powerful companies that build extremely fast services in limited parts of the world for a relatively small number of people. It is possible to make minor compromises in quality of service for the few in exchange for breadth of service for many more people in uncovered areas. Access to information, along with food, water and energy, can help bring people out of poverty.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My favorite quote is from Voltaire: “It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.” It is easiest to navigate your life and career if you adhere to conventional wisdom. However, it can be much more exciting and rewarding to strike a new path. I’ve always tried to look at things from different angles and apply creativity in solving problems. I think this approach originates from my early experiences traveling the world.
Thank you for these great insights!
Eric Plam Of Skyroam: Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Manage a Remote Team was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
