Managers are stretched thin these days, especially those leading in a distributed environment for the first time. As a result, team members can struggle to connect with and get direction from their manager.

For example, a 2023 Gallup survey shows that US employees feel left out of the loop by their managers, and only a third say they recently received recognition for their hard work. Building strong connections and effectively supporting a team who are not co-located (and may span multiple time zones) requires managers to take a different approach to team communication.

Through this lens, The Team Anywhere Lab – a dedicated group of behavioral scientists that I lead at Atlassian – set out to design and test a way for managers to improve connection, recognition, and goal clarity on their teams. We made it a priority to help managers do this without adding a lot to their plates or asking them to spend more time in meetings.