What Astronauts can teach us about working remotely

As leaders re-learning to build back better, here’s lesson 1: micromanagement = mutiny.In 2018 I had the extraordinary experience of meeting Commander Chris Hadfield the retired CSA astronaut, fighter pilot & the first Canadian to walk in space. Hadfield has flown two Space Shuttle missions & served as commander of the International Space Station, learning to speak fluent Russian! He sang Bowie songs at our big IBM THINK event in Australia!I was reminded of one of his lessons about managing teams remotely when reading this article: http://ow.ly/3MP950Dfe1HThe article shares the story of the US Skylab crew, which in 1974 rebelled against mission control. Simply put, crews in space do not like being micromanaged remotely.The central issue here is that leaders & their team members can “have misaligned needs” when working remotely. Leaders want to regain some of the control that they’ve lost in not being able to see work being done, while staff want a sense of autonomy in their work, which makes it feel more meaningful to them.So, to avoid mutiny and create happy & productive teams, we must all realign needs & goals to adjust to the different spaces in which we work!