It’s day 3 of my Advent Calendar and I’d like to share my CRUST technique to help with you manage your team remotely, our new reality! CRUST is a nice metaphor, as to me, it feels that it envelopes all the goodness within.

C is for collaboration. A great team works together, whether they’re together or a part with mutual respect a willingness to balance group and personal goals. Something we’ve really needed this year.

The R is all about being responsive. When someone needs help in your team, it’s about being quick to act in an appropriate way.

Understanding your team means that you don’t take a one size fits all approach. By getting to know each of them individually you’ll have a greater clarity of what will work of some and not for others.

When we’re in the office, we can easily turn to others to ask for help to complete a task. For us to be able to work best, we need to know the skills and capabilities of everyone.

Finally the T is all about Trust; the foundation of working together as a team. During the pandemic, managers had to learn quickly to manage the fine line between micro managing and not being in touch enough.  Think regular 121s and then the autonomy to get on with it!