Team Leads: Teaching in Distributed Teams
Distributed teaching is more than recorded slide decks.
As team leads, you’re constantly being watched, and you have a big influence over your team’s culture. People will look to you, subconsciously or not, on how to respond. You’re teaching all of the time.
Remember: models are there as a simplification. A lot of models are communicated linearly, like in writing (like this newsletter). It’s important to remember that most things don’t work like that. There will be overlapping stages here, and they’re often most effective if you weave them together. We’re going for a watercolor painting here: not block art.
That said, here’s a good rough path to follow. Just remember you might have to do some loops between stages before you make it to the end.
Tell.
Make sure you’re taking time to talk about the skills of the team and where there might be gaps. You can and should solicit topics people would like to hear about, but don’t shy away from taking a critical look at what skills you think the team is missing and filling them in.
When you’re laying out what someone needs to learn, whether that’s in team onboarding documentation or a live class, remember you need to start simple and iterate from there. There’s a reason we learn algebra before we learn calculus. Sometimes if it’s a topic that you’re passionate about, it’s easy to go from novice to advanced in a few minutes. I promise you, your team isn’t following. Start simple and then build on it from there.
You can expect to have to tell people something nine times before it sticks. A lot of what works in teaching children is effective in adults, not because the adults you work with are children, but because the children and the adults that benefit from this are all human. There are some teaching principles that we just don’t outgrow.
Recordings should supplement. They’re great for making courses accessible to those who couldn’t make the training, or for those who need to watch something multiple times to fully comprehend. The recording shouldn’t be the entire lesson plan. Nothing kills a good training faster than “how does this scale infinitely?” I’ve seen fantastic trainings become relegated to a recording no one engages with ever again.
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