14 years ago when Chuck Robbins started at Cisco, “you had a desk and you put your name outside the desk.” Now after more than a decade, the workstyle at the company has changed nearly beyond recognition, becoming incredibly accommodating to remote teams. And Robbins has thrived in this innovate environment, rising to the position of senior VP and running the organization’s sales team for the Americas.

What lessons has Robbins learned from leading through this transition at company that was not only an early adopter of flexible working, but which also builds a number of remote work solutions? He shared his wisdom with WebWorkerDaily.

Talent

Do experienced managers of co-located teams just magically make a smooth transition to a virtual workstyle? Not according to Robbins, who is a big believer in training, and not just on the technical challenges of web work.

“The technology actually tends to be the easiest part of this whole thing,” he told us, adding that the success of web work is often inhibited by “cultural acceptance by the leadership team that this is how we operate and it’s OK. Some companies equate productivity with being in the office, so I think, first of all, we have to make sure that we provide our leadership with education on things around, how do you manage a remote workforce effectively? What are the things you need to do differently when you can’t walk down the hall and grab them? We give that kind of training.”

Tools

Robbins’s pro-training philosophy extends to tech tools as well. He explains that team members are also trained in how to make the best use the of video conferencing solutions Cisco offers, answering questions like, “What sort of things should you be thinking about when you’re presenting to a customer over video and you’re not in the room and everybody else is? Or if you’re in the room and somebody else is remote, how do you make sure you continue to engage them?”

Video may play a big role for Robbins’s team, but email doesn’t. “Email is becoming the least favorite mode of communication with our team,” he said. Instead of sending individual messages, Robbins’s employees have “a new platform that we actually designed called Quad. It’s named after the college campus quad where everybody gathers. Think of it as Facebook for enterprise. People can build communities around different topics and they have their profile and their status and then we have integrated instant messaging.”

“New technology that enables single number reach for our sales organization,” is the final piece of the puzzle for Robbins’s team. “No matter where you are somebody doesn’t have to keep up with what phone numbers to dial. They dial your office and it rings whatever device you need it to ring,” he said.

Tips

In addition to tech and training, Robbins relies on an outcome-based management style to keep his team running smoothly. To succeed as the manager of a virtual team, “you have move to outcome-based performance, and to the extent that you can, outcome based compensation,” he advises. “That cultural thinking that, if you’re at your desk from eight to five, than you’ve been productive is no longer valid, so you’ve got to figure out how you create outcomes and metrics where you can determine success.”

All of these pieces have come together to create a deep change in attitudes towards flexible working at Cisco, Robbins concludes. “When we first started working from home, for some reason we didn’t want people to know we were working from home. You didn’t want the dog to bark or the kids to come and say something. You were always trying to mute if the dog was coming around. Today, if you’re working from home and your kid walks in, you tell them to say hello to whoever you’re talking to on the other end because it’s such an accepted thing.”

Think something similar won’t be coming to your company anytime soon? Think again, insists Robbins. “Any companies that don’t think they’re going to have to buy in to this approach, I think they’re going to be in trouble. For the first time ever we have conversations with companies about how to build their remote worker infrastructure and their collaboration capability in a way that will enable them to recruit the next generation workforce, because they believe that will be a retention issue. It’s become a strategic recruiting tool for many companies.”

Image courtesy Flickr user VanDammeMaarten.be.

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I’ve been testing quite a few training watches of late. Mostly it’s because I’ve been trying to get into shape and the only thing that has really succeeded was getting huge stomach cramps and going on an IV in the ER (lost 8 pounds! Thanks Oprah!). Sickness is the ultimate weight loss regimen. That’s neither here nor there.

So When Suunto sent me the t6c I was pretty excited. The watches I tried so far have had a fatal flaw – maybe the footpad was too big or the connection was poor or the heart rate monitoring was flakey at best. During my runs I’d constantly go back to the Garmin Forerunner 405, one of my favorite watches, simply because it had GPS built-in along with HR monitoring, making it considerably more useful than anything else I’ve used.

So how does this watch compare? Well, the Suunto is much lighter and with an optional foot pod you can assess distances run with a high degree of accuracy.

The Suunto watch also as a special feature called Training Effect. The watch gives you a 1-4 rating of your current effectiveness. There’s a little book included that tells you all the tips and tricks. I won’t go into those here.

It also has an altitude monitor to watch your ascents and descents in real time and customizable screens that allow you to add different settings to the watch face.

The heart rate monitor includes min and max heart rate alerts along with training tools like a countdown timer, stopwatch, split times, and, with the foot pod, vertical speed. It is water resistant to 330 feet.

Now – the big differences. Well, first there’s the price. The watch without foot pod costs $429 although I’ve seen it for about $325. The 405 is $299.99 and the 405CZ, the next-gen watch, is $369.99. All of these prices will fall by an order of magnitude in real settings, but off the bat I’m leaning towards the Forerunner. The Triathlon pack with foot pod, bike pod, and cadence pod, costs $629.95 at Amazon.

However, there is build quality. I’ve seen the Suunto factory in Finland and I came away impressed: for a mass-market, commodity device there is a lot of care put into the manufacture of these pieces. The t6c is much lighter and more compact than the 405 and when you’re running ever gram counts. The user interface is also slightly more streamlined than Garmin’s cascade of menus.

Sadly there is no OS X support for Suunto products, another ding against this watch.

Bottom Line
Of all the heart rate monitoring watches I’ve tried in the past few months, this model is the most powerful and easiest to use. It still hasn’t replaced the 405 on my wrist but it comes in at a close second.