7 Steps to Exceptional Virtual Team Communication

There’s no doubt that a virtual team brings a multitude of
benefits to organizations today; the ability to retain
top-notch talent from anywhere in the world, the incredible
diversity presented through global and cross-cultural
viewpoints and huge monetary savings in corporate travel
expenses if you have to bring someone in from a distance.
But pulling together a top-notch virtual team doesn’t come
without challenges.  There is the question of finding
quality technology that everyone can work with, concerns
about the accountability levels felt by each team member,
and the difficulty of creating foundation expectations
across the board.  But the biggest challenge is the lack of
connectedness between team members.  Without creating the
connections, a virtual team can’t do what it needs to;
function as a cohesive unit.

Most importantly, a virtual team won’t bring true
collaborative genius to your organization unless unshakable
trust is established.   So the question remains:  How do
you build trust in an environment where shaking hands,
watching each others’ expressions or body language cues and
knowing one another’s’ backgrounds, methods and
idiosyncrasies just isn’t possible?

It’s all in the team-building.

Knowing how to build a productive, integrated, low-turnover
team is key to its success.  Follow these seven steps and
your team will be on the way to connectedness and
profitability:

1. ATTRACT THE RIGHT TEAM MEMBERS:  Strong team builders
realize that they are not only looking for a potential team
member who has specialized skills and talents, but that
they also need to assess the “fit” of  the prospective team
member with the team as a whole.  Skills and quality level
of work are important, but the real key to building an
exceptional virtual team is to find team members who fit
the culture of the team.  Many people will have the right
skills – few will have the perfect “fit”.

2. VALUE AN INNOVATIVE MINDSET:  When you encourage a
pioneering approach within your team, you gain value beyond
expectation.  Teams that are a composite of experts with
diverse experience and perspectives have the innate
capability to feed off of each others’ innovative ideas and
naturally refine and improve concepts into amazing
solutions.  When a team member’s ideas are valued, the
willingness to believe in that team naturally rises
accordingly.

3. PROVIDE MEANINGFUL WORK:   Isolated team members have a
need to experience work that challenges them and brings
meaning to the tasks they are working on independently of
outside influence.  When each contributing member of the
team is engaged in work that motivates  and interests them,
they perform better, have a clearer picture of the benefits
and invest themselves more completely in that work.  It’s
win-win.

4. OFFER VARIETY:   It’s just boring to work on the same
thing or with the same person, day in and day out.  It can
be excruciating when you’re working in an isolated
environment. That’s why making sure your team members have
diverse partnerships, changing assignments and varying
schedules is a solid way to keep your virtual team
interested in their work and excited about upcoming
possibilities.

5. ALLOW INDEPENDENCE:  Every member of the team needs to
know that their ideas and opinions will be respected.  When
you allow individuals to be accountable for coming up with
new concepts and innovative solutions that will benefit the
team and the company, you’re basically giving them a sense
of control.  As an invested decision-maker, each team
member is more likely to feel like a valued contributor who
is accountable to the team and to the company.

6. CREATE FOCUS AND ALIGNED VISION:  It’s essential that
all team members are committed to the same goals and vision
– and that they have complimentary methods of achieving
them.  Often virtual team members have their own
distinctive goals and aren’t plugged in to the values and
needs of the organization building the team.  Since this
can bring differing agendas into the mix, it’s imperative
that the goals and vision of the work – including the end
result – are clearly stated from the outset and that the
team is aligned to them.

7. BE TRUSTWORTHY:  If you want to gain the trust of your
virtual team, earn it.  These team members are likely SMEs
with exceptional levels of creativity, innovation and
knowledge.  Being able to trust that they are working in an
environment where a strong work ethic is expected of all
team members (including leaders) is imperative.  When a
participative mindset trickles down from the top and all
ideas are respected and valued, trust soars and
productivity increases dramatically.

The bottom line is that when you build a virtual team, you
need to be sure that each member will be able to see the
value placed on them, the value of each other member, and
the value of the team as a whole.

A virtual team is more than the sum of its members – it’s a
culture with a life of its own. When a company and its
leaders view their virtual teams in this manner, it
reinforces to each member the value being placed on them,
and raises their accountability, productivity and
satisfaction levels immeasurably.  With this approach to
virtual team-building, the sky’s the limit.

—————————————————-
Margot Thompson is part of the INCEDO GROUP team. As a
virtual team member AND a virtual team manager, Margot
finds working virtually both exhilarating and
mind-stretching.   Find out how Incedo’s group of executive
coaches and communication experts bring dramatic changes to
a company’s mind-set, leadership capabilities, and
professional and personal productivity. Profitability is an
inevitable side effect. => http://www.IncedoGroup.com