A telecommuting COO? What would you do?

Hi:

I have what may be a unique but challenging opportunity. I've been offered a great COO position on the west coast, but I live on the east coast. I'm not moving for family reasons, so the company is willing to make it a full telecommuting position. I'd make visits to the plant once or twice per month. Everythng else will be done remotely.

While I'm sure this situation isn't common, I suspect it's has been done before. Does anyone have any ideas about the challenges I may face, and any technology or strategies I may use to make the job easier to manage? Thanks.

BM

I'm still unemployed but I looking for a similar situation so I'm interested in learning from your experience. I'd like to get another C-level job u there's slim pickings in NJ now. So, I just started looking nationwide for a job that allows me to stay in NJ for family reasons.
How did you find this job?

Hi -- This response is probably way too late to be useful, but I did exactly what you describe for two years as a nonprofit COO at a cancer research foundation: based in Washington, DC but managed 1 direct report in DC and 3 in Los Angeles via telecommuting (phone, email, go-to-meeting, and videoconferencing), and 1 or 2 trips a month. It was very difficult to manage across three time zones either way. I didn't have sufficient face time with DRs, and the traveling was a strain on me and hard on the family. It is very hard to be successful unless you have huge cooperation from your DRs, but it is difficult to develop and sustain the working relationship you need with them, unless you make a significant investment in travel at the outset. My monthly trips had to be at least a week in length to enable me to adjust to the time difference and get in productive time with DRs and staff. You and your DRs also must be comfortable with and very adept at the telecommuting technologies involved. Keeping momentum up on change projects or other non-routine initiatives is hard. Don't take the job unless you must or will get excellent experience, and have thoroughly thought through and discussed with your supervisor the ramifications of this kind of arrangement. On the other hand, you will get a lot of frequent flyer miles. Sorry to be a wet blanket. ~ Good luck from a "seasoned" executive.