In today’s business landscape, leveraging remote relationships is a key strategy for success. Whether you have a client on another continent, a freelancer across the country, or even an entire team collaborating across time zones, successfully managing remote relationships is the cornerstone to your organization’s success. Executives, managers and employees shouldn’t gloss over or ignore that fact that remote relationships are very different from in person ones. Embracing the differences can help you formulate a nuanced management plan that will help your modernized business flourish. Begin with these key steps to optimizing your remote relationships:

Many companies are moving away from old structures that involve top-down leadership in favor of a newer approach called distributed leadership. Adding elements of distributed leadership to your organization’s way of getting things done will revolutionize the way your company functions. Distributed leadership can help spread decision-making ability throughout a team, particularly to those on the front lines of the operation. Encouraging initiative and collaboration, this technique allows those closest to the action to make the decisions that will most affect their success. Although it’s common for people to view a single person as the leader of an organization, such…

Appreciate Inquiry (AI) is the study of what breathes life into organizations, teams, and individuals when they are functioning at their very best. AI is the brainchild of organizational psychologist David Cooperrider: By definition it rests upon the principle that an organization will grow in whichever direction its members choose to focus and direct their attention. Here at Adventure Associates, we like to use AI in our team building and workshop events to uncover what is working in an organization, instead of solely focusing on what isn’t. Often this focus on strengths can create the type of growth that organizations…

Some teams fire on all cylinders — they function with boundless energy, intense focus, and passionate drive — but how can you get there? The answer is simple: intrinsic motivation! Motivation is everywhere in your life. Whether you’re at work, relaxing on the couch, or raiding the fridge, some kind of motivation has caused you to be doing whatever you’re doing. We can be motivated by love, fear, greed or something else. But not all motivation is created equal– sometimes the motivation isn’t strong to begin with, or it wanes over time, eventually resulting in a total lack of productivity.…