No matter the structure of your team, no matter the challenge your team is working on, and no matter the proximity (or lack thereof) of its members, there are three ingredients all successful teams have in common:
- They are all made up of human beings
- Human beings perform better with great leadership (although not necessarily the traditional top-down kind).
- Great team leaders foster meaningful connection among the members of the team.
Teams thrive on collaboration made up of meaningful connection with one another, and individual team members will perform better when they feel like they’re all in it together. You need to connect your team members to one another on a personal level. So, if you find yourself leading (or being expected to lead) a virtual team, your primary job is to go out of your way to facilitate the very interpersonal connection that remoteness tends to inhibit.
[Tweet “”Teams thrive on collaboration made up of meaningful connection with one another.””]
And while nothing encourages trust and connection better than good old locked-in-the-same-room, face-to-face, oxygen-sharing meetings and social time, assume that you’ll never have that luxury with your virtual team. Even though it is, arguably, easier to lead a team that lives under the same roof, that’s a rarity these days. The good news is you can still get your team to know, trust and commit to each other by using virtual collaboration tools like web conferencing and social workspaces to enjoy face-to-face conversations and continuous collaboration.
Connection is all about conversation, and, as the team lead, you’re in charge of making sure those conversations happen.
So, what do you think? What conversations do you need to have with your team to get them connected, on the same page, and ready to work together across time and distance?
I’ll share my top 3 conversations soon.
Attended the ICME ACCE 2013 convention in Seattle, WA this week and was blessed to have Steve as a keynote speaker. As I was reading his book on the flight back, I started getting excited about all the wonderful knowledge I was going to impart upon my team once I was back in the office. Had a whole speech mapped out by the time I landed, and was ready to rock and roll my team into the promised land first thing Friday morning. And then I stopped and read a bit further. Looked at my speech. Realized that I was posing, not leading. Had the skateboarder pants on but was not really willing to go for the IS!M moment. So, I tore up my speech and instead wrote down two questions: 1) What do you love about your job and 2) What I am doing that is keeping you from loving your job. And a commitment to LISTEN to my team instead of giving them a speech.
Walked into work Friday morning. Excited. Nervous. Noticed something that I’ve missed in the past in my hurry to get into my office and start my day. The feel of our office. Excitement. Energy. People doing something that made a difference. Took a few minutes to recharge with that energy.
And I needed it. Beyond dealing with the issues and emails (OMG the emails!) that pile up when you are out for 4 days, I spent 1×1 time with several of my direct reports. Asked them the questions. Reminded them of our core value #3 (Open and Honest Communication). Found out what they loved and what I was doing to limit that.
I had more OS!M moments (and a few WTF!M) over the course of a day than I have in the last year. Had to listen hard and duct tape my ego and lock it in the closet. Still processing the information and will still be doing the 1x1s early next week (I have 26 supervisors, team leads, QA, training, and front desk people that report to me directly. Gonna take me a bit!) and continue to commit to making these discussion happen on a daily basis and will report back on how it is going.
I do have to say that I was worn out and a little discouraged at the end of a very long day. And then one of my supervisors, the one that I had more of a WTF!M with, came into my office, closed the door, looked me in the eye and said, “Andy, I may not agree with you on many things, but you having the honesty to admit your mistakes makes me trust you. And I figure if we have the trust, we can work on the other things. Together”.
Thanks for the opportunity to share.
Sorry, forgot to log in before I posted. That was me under guest
Very inspiring words, Andrew (aka “guest 🙂 Major kudos for pursuing your OS!M for all
the right reasons. Please keep us all posted on your (and your team’s)
progress!