Essential Actions for Effective Virtual Collaboration by Stewart Levine

We are navigating uncharted territory. Virtual collaboration in a world of distributed teams is new to everyone. People are free to thrive or fail based on their instincts and ability to listen to feedback, feeling their way along in this increasingly nonverbal world. Learning leaders play an important role in facilitating coordination, developing team spirit and fostering collaboration in the workplace. Here are some steps to make virtual communications more effective.

1. Be a conscious leader. As people learn together virtually, managers must help build trust, set expectations and create a formal communication process that addresses frequency, availability, method, technology and ways of reaching agreement and resolving conflict. In other words, the learning leader must create clear rules of engagement. Managers also must set metrics for process and productivity. It is critical to check in and take 100 percent of the responsibility for ensuring that creativity reigns. It’s also important to create doable tasks for staff and provide technology and communication training.
2. Invite, engage and build trust. Some old-fashioned rules still apply to virtual projects. Team members should be graciously invited into the project and introduced to others. Companies have found that setting up a Facebook-like virtual team space can be helpful. Project leads also should think about how to communicate the special skills individuals bring to the entire team. This kind of communication builds engagement and trust by breaking down the walls that exist between strangers.
And, as with any project, leaders must articulate the team’s mission, vision and values as a way to set up team norms. Virtual teams also need a detailed agreement that will serve as a charter for their activity.
3. Get creative. Come up with best practices that parallel what works in the physical, face-to-face world. Design virtual happy hours, lunches, walks, outings, celebrations, games and contests to keep engagement from dropping off as the project gains momentum.
4. Honor formality and process design. Pay attention to formality and detail when building trust and setting expectations. This means creating clear agreements for action and results and maintaining “beginner’s mind” — or the ability to see an activity as something new that will take time to master. It’s also important to establish an ongoing feedback loop to assess how the team and individuals are doing.
5. Remember the three V’s: visual, voice and verbal. According to Albert Mehrabian and Susan R. Ferris in the Journal of Consulting Psychology, our messages in the face-to-face world are conveyed in the following proportions: 55 percent visual appearance; 38 percent tone or mood; and 7 percent word content. That means that more than 90 percent of what we “say” is communicated nonverbally. Given that virtual-world communication is often text-based, it is critical that we paint a picture with our words. We want to generate an emotional response in the reader. That said, reread sensitive or important messages carefully before sending. Ask yourself how you would react if you were the recipient of the message. In a Web 2.0 world, self-editing is a useful skill.
6. Remember that higher touch equals higher tech. We have so many choices when it comes to communicating today: text messages, e-mail, online chat, voice mail, telephone, videoconference and face to face. Leaders must make deliberate choices about the communication channels they use. Think about the nature and importance of the interaction and the participants, objectives and user sophistication. If the subject is personal or intimate, consider speaking face to face. If the relationship between the parties involved is too heated or emotional, consider using e-mail or chatting online, even if the topic is of a personal nature. These communication channels provide a physical buffer and give the recipient the opportunity to deliberate over his or her response. It’s the difference between reacting and responding.
7. Recognize cultural differences. On the surface, every cultural group has unique characteristics. These traits include race, religion, national origin, gender, age, values, work habits and communication patterns — to name a few. Although these characteristics appear to create vast differences between people that are very real, they are not the entire story. Remember that beneath these surface disparities, we are all more similar than different. It’s important to become “multilingual” while maintaining awareness of cultural differences.
Thoughtfulness, emotional intelligence, consciousness — if we can communicate in a manner consistent with those principles, we will navigate the virtual world in a more effective manner.

 

Stewart Levine is a principal at ResolutionWorks, a strategy consultancy. He has more than 30 years of experience in training, consulting, management and mediation. He can be reached at editor@clomedia.com.