When you have an off-site manager who doesn't know how to manage remote teams, you're in for an uphill battle Dear Bob …You’ve been writing about telecommuting recently [for example, “Telecommuters, raise your hands,” Keep the Joint Running, 4/20/2009 – Bob].What about those of us who have a manager who telecommutes? [ Get sage advice on IT careers and management from Bob Lewis in InfoWorld’s Advice Line newsletter. ]I currently have a manager based in California. The bulk of the team is in Texas. We occasionally see the manager in person, usually for only a couple of minutes because when he does come into town he has lots of meetings with leadership, etc.Otherwise he works on California time and occasionally responds to e-mail, usually incorrectly because he does not have the entire picture. Further, this is at a time when the company is laying off people to “save on cost.”What can we do to give the clueless a clue?– Remotely managed Dear RM …One possibility that occurs to me is to count your blessings.A manager who manages teams he knows nothing about — as people, as a team, and in terms of what it is they handle every day — and is comfortable with the situation is a manager you just might be best off keeping at arm’s length. He’ll be annoying when he does give instructions and not much of a factor the rest of the time.OK, that isn’t much of a solution. Among other drawbacks, a manager who has no idea what you and your colleagues face every day is a manager who won’t put in much effort to get you the resources you need to get the job done. He’s also a manager who makes unrealistic requests because he has no idea what your reality looks like.What can you do? Probably very little, because if your manager was likely to be receptive to what you need him to know, he’d already be asking you for the information.Still, it’s worth the effort to find out. The best shot I can think of is for you and your colleagues to schedule a teleconference with him (if they aren’t willing to stick their necks out, I’d advise against your doing this solo — it’s too much personal risk with too low a chance of success).In the call, use the “Blame Acceptance Gambit” (BAG). The way this works is that you let the person who is clearly at fault off the hook, by finding a way to pretend to be the cause of the problem. So, you say something like, “We’ve been talking it over and realized we’ve done a very poor job of keeping you in the loop with what’s happening here in Texas. It can’t be easy managing a remote team like you are with us, and we want to make sure you have the information you need.”Now that it isn’t the manager’s fault, you can suggest whatever you think will work best: Web conferences where you provide a PowerPoint walk-through of what the team does; the architecture; facilities problems that need capital expenditures to solve — whatever you think the manager needs to know, using whatever format you think will work best.Very important: Don’t make it a one-time event. Make it weekly, for an hour. Your goal is to morph the briefings into your manager’s participation in a weekly staff meeting. That, of course, assumes you and your colleagues decide this would be better than keeping the schmo at arm’s length.– Bob Careers