Wayne Turmel

Wayne Turmel is a speaker, writer and co-founder of The Remote Leadership Institute. He’s passionate about helping people present, sell and lead people and projects using today’s virtual communication technology. His books include Meet Like You Mean It - a Leader’s Guide to Painless and Productive Virtual Meetings. Wayne is based in Chicago, IL.
The mortar in a project's wall
08 Jan 2021
What holds a wall together is the mortar between the bricks. And what holds a project together is the effective, clear and proactive communication between individuals.
How to take expert advice
14 Dec 2020
You could drive yourself crazy trying to follow every piece of advice you get - and often the experts disagree. So how is a rational person supposed to take all this advice without their heads imploding?
Staying on track isn't easy
12 Nov 2020
It's surprising how often teams lose sight of their goals. There are plenty of reasons, and maybe understanding some of the most common will help you and your team reassess where you are headed.
Don’t confuse task completion with productivity
21 Sep 2020
People who work remotely often claim to be ‘more productive’. But productivity is a long-term measurement that means more than just getting more tasks finished in a given time period.
Data, information and webmeetings
11 Aug 2020
Turning raw data into meaningful information is a key part of a manager's job. And smart managers know that webinars or videoconferencing tools can help translate one into the other.
Snip those email threads!
27 Jul 2020
if there’s one complaint everyone has about communicating with their teammates it's long email threads - you know, the ones that start as a simple request for information and grow like a virus.
Reacting vs responding
09 Jul 2020
Do you interrupt what you're doing to read incoming emails? Do you hit “reply all” when you probably shouldn’t? Too often, we react rather than respond. And that can lead to trouble, especially for managers.
Office politics when you're not in an office
24 Jun 2020
People who work remotely often view the absence of office politics as a real plus. But they’re wrong. Understanding organizational and inter-personal dynamics is a critical part of that thing called ‘work’.
Shut up first, talk later
17 Jun 2020
Sometimes it it can seem almost impossible to get people to contribute or share information effectively in a video conference. Here’s how you can change that.
Don't use technology as an excuse for bad management
05 Jun 2020
When it comes to managing a remote team, technology is not a communication problem. So stop blaming the tools if you chose the wrong one for the wrong reason.
Open questions, open communication
20 May 2020
Working remotely, we miss the non-verbal signals we see when working face-to-face. That's why asking open questions is one of the most critical skills the manager of a remote team can possess.
Do you run meetings or lead them?
11 May 2020
Why do some online meetings get the job done, while others don't? The difference is that successful meetings need to be led - and there is a huge difference between running a meeting and leading one.
Five ways to derail your remote meeting
06 May 2020
One reason video conferences and webmeetings often feel like a bit of a train wreck is because they tend to get off to a bad start. Here are the main things that derail virtual meetings and how you can avoid them.
Five reasons remote teams fail
20 Apr 2020
Many managers are now discovering that leading a remote team isn’t that different to leading a co-located one. But they do have to re-think how they do certain things. Here are five ways you can get that wrong.
Key skills for virtual leaders
26 Mar 2020
Suddenly finding yourself sitting at home leading a virtual team is a tough call, particularly with everything else that's going on in the world. So here are seven key behaviors that will make the task of virtual working much easier.
How different is leading remotely?
10 Mar 2020
If you've never led a remote team and you're worried about how you might cope if the Coronavirus puts you in that position, fear not. For a competent team leader, the differences aren't as great as you might think.
There’s nothing soft about the heart
12 Feb 2020
Every animal depends on its heart for its existence. And exactly the same is true of an organization, except that rather than a multi-chambered muscle, an organization relies on leadership, managers and flows of information.
A whole new ballgame?
14 Jan 2020
Adopting remote teams might seem like a whole new ball game, but it’s the same game - just played on a slightly different field. The WHAT doesn’t really change, it's the HOW that's different.
Getting virtual meetings to start on time
25 Nov 2019
Why do webmeetings always seem to start late? While there’s no silver bullet that will solve the problem, there are some simple things you can do to help your odds of starting (and finishing) on time.
Mapping the power in your organization
21 Oct 2019
Forget job titles, do you know who has the real power in your organization and who has real influence where it matters most?