Writing Remote Readiness - to connect leadership, resilience, and community
Remote work has never just been about where we work — it’s about how we lead, how we adapt, and how we stay connected. That belief has guided everything I’ve done through Remote Work Europe, from building our community of professionals to supporting organisations as they learn to operate without borders.
Over the years, I’ve seen what happens when distributed teams are led well — and what happens when they’re not. The difference comes down to three things: leadership, resilience, and community. Leaders need confidence and tools to guide remote teams effectively. Teams need resilience to stay cohesive across distance and uncertainty. And all of us — workers, founders, freelancers, and managers — need a sense of shared community to keep remote work sustainable in the long term.
Order now, and lets fix remote work!
Remote Readiness: A Practical Framework for Leading Distributed Teams grew out of that conviction. It’s my way of connecting those three essential elements — leadership, resilience, and community — in one place. I wanted to create something that didn’t just advise a single company or team, but could support the broader movement towards sustainable, human-centred remote work.
From lived experience to a repeatable framework
My own career has always been shaped by remote work. I’ve been both an individual contributor and a leader in distributed settings for more than two decades. Over that time, I noticed patterns that successful teams shared: clear communication, a sense of shared culture, the right collaboration tools, and a way to stay resilient when things went wrong.
These ideas eventually evolved into what I call the 5Cs Framework: Culture, Communication, Collaboration, Clarity, and Console. Together, they form a diagnostic and developmental tool that helps managers and leaders assess where their teams might be struggling, and what to do about it.
The framework is practical, not theoretical. It’s based on case studies, exercises, and reflection prompts drawn from real teams I’ve worked with across Europe, Latin America, and beyond. Each “C” interacts with the others to form a holistic picture of readiness - because a remote team isn’t only about tools or technology. It’s about people, systems, and shared understanding.
Remote Readiness provides the structure to help teams stay connected and consistent, even when they rarely (or never) meet face-to-face.
Writing a book for leaders - but with workers in mind
Although Remote Readiness is aimed primarily at managers and leaders, my ultimate motivation comes from a much broader vision: making remote work sustainable and accessible for everyone.
That’s the mission at the heart of Remote Work Europe, our community and resources dedicated to expanding location-independent opportunity across the region. Every job created in a remote-ready organisation creates potential for more flexible, inclusive, and resilient work. Every leader who learns to manage a distributed team effectively helps ensure that remote roles remain viable, rather than reverting to the old “bums-on-seats” mentality. And every new remote worker is a person consciously designing their own life and destination, inspiring others to do the same.
So while the book speaks directly to team leaders, its ripple effects matter just as much to job seekers, freelancers, and anyone striving to build a career without borders.
Defeating the RTO mandate, one team at a time
It’s impossible to ignore the pushback against remote work that’s emerged in recent years. The so-called “Return to Office” mandates may be dressed up as cultural revival or productivity strategy, but in many cases, they reflect a failure of management confidence.
Leaders who’ve never been shown how to lead remotely often fall back on old habits. It’s not that they don’t value flexibility, for themselves if not for othes - they simply don’t know how to maintain performance, cohesion, and trust without physical proximity.
That’s exactly the problem Remote Readiness was written to solve. By equipping teams with a clear operational playbook - one that addresses communication gaps, cultural misalignment, and performance anxiety - I want to make it possible for distributed work to flourish sustainably.
Defeating the RTO narrative doesn’t demand confrontation; it requires competence. When teams work well remotely, there’s simply no reason to drag people back to the office.
The ecosystem approach: connecting the dots
The publication of Remote Readiness is part of a much larger ecosystem I’ve been building — one that includes both Remote Work Europe and the Remote Resilience Hub.
The Hub supports organisations in developing the practical, cultural, and emotional resilience needed to sustain remote operations. The Community connects individuals and advocates who believe in a borderless, flexible, human-centric world of work.
The book sits at the intersection of the two. It provides leaders with the framework to make remote work workable, while our community ensures that individuals and teams have the visibility, support, and shared learning they need to make it sustainable.
Scaling lived experience into lasting impact
Every chapter of Remote Readiness reflects not just research, but lived experience. I’ve made the mistakes it helps others to avoid. I’ve seen teams struggle with silence, assumptions, and misaligned expectations. I’ve also seen the transformation that comes when clarity and culture align, when teams discover that distributed work can actually strengthen relationships, rather than weaken them.
Writing this book was my way of scaling that experience. I can’t be in every team meeting or leadership workshop, I can’t speak at every conference - but the framework can. It can travel across time zones, industries, and languages. It can help someone I’ll never meet to build a healthier, more connected team - and that, ultimately, is what this work is about.
Looking ahead: from readiness to resilience
The future of work in Europe and beyond depends on more than technology. It depends on trust, inclusivity, and the ability to adapt. My mission, through Remote Work Europe, the Remote Resilience Hub, and now through the Remote Readiness book, is to equip people and organisations to do exactly that.
Whether you’re leading a distributed team, joining one, or simply dreaming of a more flexible future, I hope this work helps you feel more confident that remote work can be done well, and that it’s worth fighting for.
We’re not just keeping remote work alive; we’re helping it grow up.