No question: Trainings and personal development are essential even in moments like now, when face to face encounters should be minimised for health reasons. Still personal development is a key driver, the soul of what we do every day: learning! Even more there are skills like selfmanagement and virtual communication that need special attention in order to master these difficult times. And remote leadership – though known for long in many international companies – comes often to limits and is not easy going or self-evident.
So it’s essential, it’s reality, if you like it or not.
No question: Virtual trainings cannot replace face to face trainings. A lot of body language and other metalevels of communication are missing in an online encounter. As is the case for building trust in a team or with customers. The challenges of remote leadership have already been mentioned above.
Just trying to transpose what we did face to face is often not working. We really have to reinvent a lot of things. What we have realized is that it takes much more effort to plan meticulously our trainings in order to spend as little time as possible in front of the screen with boring one-way lectures, and make it as interactive and dynamic as possible.
Another approach, that has proven very effective, is one to one coaching. What usually was complicated to organise, because there was a lot of travelling involved for two persons only, is much easier online. Our suggestion: Do it shorter and more often.
Conclusion: Let’s not moan or weep about the restrictions, but let’s do the best of it.
- One: To cope best with the current situation.
- Two: Be creative the way you use new formats, new tools for interaction and for sharing what is essential: Learning is the energy that keeps us going.
Dan Wiener, 1. November 2020