They absolutely can! I lead a team of seven people, with three of my teammates working from our HQ in Penang, Malaysia, and the rest working elsewhere, myself included. Our marketing team is scattered across five different timezones; still, by adopting the right culture and mindset from the start and using different productivity and collaboration tools, we've managed it just fine for the past months. It does help I'm "in the middle" in Europe, though, because then I can easily communicate with Asia and the Americas within my working hours. This hugely improves our collaboration!

Before I go into details, there is one aspect that you cannot do without when managing remote teams. It's trust. You need to trust people and empower them to make their decisions. Giving people this freedom yields incredible results. I think it's similar in every relationship outside of work, too. We tend to get our daily dose of inspiration and energy from people and places around us, fueling our passion for work. Working remotely is working from a place that makes you happy. And happiness in life often equals happiness at work.

For me, there are three main areas to think about when considering working in or managing a remote team:

1. Bringing the right people on board

When I recruit people for our team, I make sure I see that special sparkle, which tells me this person is passionate about what they do, has a genuine interest in our product, and agrees with our company values. This, for me, is an absolute must and accounts for a long and healthy relationship.

I also look for people with entrepreneurial spirits who can make decisions, take initiative, and are proactive in their approach. We look for doers!

2. Proper onboarding

Even though we don't do much hand-holding and don't micromanage, it is essential to provide people with all the right tools and a bit of guidance in the beginning. We prepare a super detailed but fun onboarding document full of hints, links, learnings, and sources people can check out before starting to plan their tasks. The key is understanding how everything works and what others are working on, as well as our company and team OKR. It helps new people jump right in and help you, as a leader, identify areas where they could contribute.

We also try to fly people worldwide to feel our company culture and work alongside others when we can. This has been the hardest thing to convey over distance, and we've noticed that passion for work, productivity, and relations get immensely better after we've met face to face.

3. Constant communication

Communication is essential in every relationship, especially long-distance relationships. We have developed a daily, weekly, and monthly communication routine that helps everyone understand what others are working on and get on the same page. With the set of tools, including Slack, Status Hero, Google Docs, Periscope, Whatsapp, FIO, Trello, and others, we've maintained a constant flow of communication.

We keep learning and introducing new tools and processes as we go, and we are getting better every day at this. It's been an incredible journey so far!