How To Set Goals That Work

■ Mark Wager is an international leadership expert who regularly runs programmes in Fiji. Mark can be contacted at

It appears that here in the Asia Pacifc region the workplace is transitioning back to some kind of business as usual.

The Coronavirus pandemic has changed how we work with many people working from home and now, as the level of risk has decreased, many Managers are faced with the question of whether they bring staff back into the office and if so, how to manage that transition.

This question has been raised more and more in recent coaching sessions so I thought it would be useful to put together an article to share my thoughts on what I’ve seen Managers do both correctly and incorrectly and hopefully this will help you if you are in the same situation.

Team Productivity or Managerial Insecurities

Let me start with discussing a worrying trend I’ve seen happen in more and more workplaces. The rise in working from home has been a challenge for many businesses not only for the employees but also the managers. Leading a remote team is challenging and requires a very different approach than it would if the team was located in the same building. Unfortunately, many Managers have struggled with this transition and as a result have decided that having a team that works from home is not as effective as having them in the office when this is not necessarily the case.

The team is just lacking effective leadership because the Manager is struggling with remote leadership. This misunderstanding is resulting in Managers forcing people back into the office because it benefits the Manager personally and not the team, a decision fuelled not by productivity but instead by their own insecurities.

The “we’re losing our culture” myth

Here’s something else I’ve been hearing a lot about recently “We have to bring people back into the office otherwise we will lose our culture.”

Let me be clear, there is an element of truth to this because when people work remotely there’s a different level of emotional proximity which reduces emotional connections and slows down the building of relationships, however there are many examples of organisations who are able to establish maintain and grow their culture while working remotely. It requires clear values that are observable in each and every decision.

If an organisation doesn’t have clear values, then the culture, which is an extension of the values, will never be fully formed and by clear I don’t mean people can see them on their screensaver instead values are used as a filter through which every decision is made therefore the team can predict the behaviours of their organisation based on those values.

So if you feel you are losing your culture, ask yourself is it because people are not in the office or is it because you never had the culture you thought you had?

Do you have a Team or a Group of people?

One of the biggest factors you need to take into account when deciding if working from home or working together from an office is best, you need to ask yourself if you have a Team or a Group. They are quite different. The difference is based on the level interdependency. A team has people who are interdependent on each other.

They can’t complete their job to their highest expectation without input from someone else within their team whereas a group is a collection of people doing a similar role but they are self-sufficient. What has happened over the past twenty years is that people have been categorised together based on the similarity of their roles regardless of whether this benefits the individuals.

Based on the above definition if you have a team it’s better to be primarily based physically together in order to improve communication yet if you have a group then it really doesn’t matter.

The workplace has changed

Don’t fall into the trap of believing that the workplace will go back to what it was prior to the coronavirus pandemic because in the past few years, things have changed the business world forever and now there is a new normal.

Most notably, an employee’s expectations have changed when previously working from home was incredibly rare and thought by many Managers as being ineffective, now it’s been proven that working from home can work and with the right systems and leadership it can be more effective than the traditional model. Some people prefer to work from an office but the majority have found it more beneficial to their lifestyle and once people get benefit it’s difficult to take it away which is why going forward companies who are able to offer working from home options will have an advantage in attracting the best candidates. So if you want your team to come back to the office you may be placing your organisation at a disadvantage.

Evolve your Leadership

It’s vital that Leaders are able to evolve their skill set in order to lead remotely. When teams work from home there are three main differences that impact how they are led

■Emotio■a● proximity

■Socia● influence

■No■-verba● body language

In terms of emotional proximity people act differently when they are remote than they would if they were together in person. It’s easier to avoid communication, it’s easier to say because the more distant we are physically the more it makes us more distant emotionally. People are more influenced by the people around them rather than their Boss yet when we work remotely this doesn’t happen.

It’s difficult for someone to say they can’t make twenty calls a day when they are sitting next to someone who’s making thirty calls. Its difficult to moan about work if you are sitting next to some who is happy. Through working from home you see star performers continue to do well while poor performers have done much worse.

When we are physically together we pick up on all the non-verbal communication cues. If someone doesn’t say a word we can still tell how they are feeling based on their body language yet when you can’t see people it becomes much more difficult.

Throughout the history of business, Leadership has always continued to change. It’s evolved to suit the changes in society and the challenges we face with people working from home is just another one of a long line of changes that leaders have to adapt to.

The answer is not to ignore change instead it’s to embrace it and learn how to become an effective Leader in this new world. A lot of my coaching is now helping Leaders learn how to lead remotely. It’s achievable and Leaders just need to adapt and evolve their skills.