In the movie, Finding Forrester, Sean Connery plays an aging writer who mentors a high school prodigy. When the mentor discovers that the young man is dating a fellow student, he tells him, “The key to a woman’s heart is an unexpected gift at an unexpected time.” The next scene has the young lady opening a gift from her boyfriend and saying, “This is so unexpected!” The mentor’s advice actually aligns well with research on how to manage distributed teams.

A distributed team is one that works in different geographic locations; not officed all in the same building. The delicate nature of human communication—with its reliance on visual and auditory cues—makes leading and influencing distributed teams a unique challenge. Without the benefit of face-to-face communication, distributed teams are at higher risk of turn-over, poor innovative thinking, and lack of engagement. If there is one thing the pandemic has created, it is a massive shift toward a distributed team model; with some companies planning to make distance working a permanent part of their culture. But, to do so without planning on how to manage communication in this new environment can spell disaster.

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