FEATURE How to overcome the challenges of remote
working – and ensure your team is effective By Ally Yates, author of ‘Utter Confidence: How what you say and do influences your effectiveness in business’
It is becoming more and more common for teams to be spread across the world, seldom actually ever meeting. Technology allows us to interact, in real time, with our colleagues on the other side of the globe. It undoubtedly bring many advantages for both the employer and employee – but it also brings some challenges too.
Here are ten steps you can take to ensure
your remote team is working effectively: 1. Create and agree a shared direction A common sense of purpose and agreed outcomes are particularly important for a remote team where it’s all too easy for people to go off-track. It is helpful to define both what the direction is and what this means for each person involved in terms of tasks and deliverables. Use these as the basis for measuring your progress.
Ally Yates
2. Embrace diversity High performing teams know the make-up of their diversity and work hard to leverage the value from the differing perspectives. Margerison and McCann’s work has found that high performing teams cover eight different team roles that each comprise a combination of types of work (e.g. upholding standards or creating ideas) and personal preferences (e.g. working with details, or requiring constant stimulus to keep boredom at bay). Covering all eight roles often requires members of the team to work outside their preferences. Working contrary to type means learning new behaviours and building different behavioural muscle, depending on the role you are fulfilling.
3. Set the rules at the start It’s useful to explore and agree how often you’ll connect, and for how long. Also, what happens in the space between diarised interactions? Establishing this clarity provides a drumbeat for your interactions which is overlaid by the percussion of appropriate ground rules: for example, everyone will arrive online on time; don’t interrupt the speaker. These are particularly helpful where people have different cultural expectations about what is acceptable.
4. Share the talking Research by Jarvenpaa and Leidner found that high trust teams had “predictable communication patterns”, where the team members’ contribution levels were evenly spread. In managing the distribution of airtime, each team member has a responsibility to keep track of who is in (or out of) the conversation and to rectify the balance. Monitor the level of your own contributions compared with others. Are you taking too much of the airtime?
5. Build trust High performing teams treat trust-building as a priority. To help you and your
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colleagues feel you are of the same tribe, or at least share some common ground, you can create some social time in your meetings, inviting people to share something of their personal and professional self. 6. Responsibility The more successful teams share leadership across team members, depending on where the relevant knowledge lay. Ensure each activity stream has a ‘single point of accountability’ (SPOA), an individual who is responsible for that strand of work. Allowing each SPOA to lead on his/her stream nurtures that accountability and often provides a development opportunity for a team member.
If you’re a team leader, it’s important to remember you don’t have to hold all the cards in your hand: you can practice your skills of delegation and provide development opportunities for others.
7. 24/7 working Many global virtual teams, especially in the tech sector, relay work around the globe from one time zone to another. Master your baton passing by providing a clear explanation of progress to date, suggesting or asking what needs to happen next, inviting and giving reactions, and recognising what has been achieved.
8. Allocate roles Meetings benefit from team members agreeing roles such as Chair, Timekeeper, Minute taker, a Scribe, and a Knowledge Manager who acts as the team curator, ensuring all the good work is recorded, not lost. This can also be a useful reminder for everyone as to what needs to be done, by who and by when.
9. Between meetings The larger your team, the more susceptible you are to fragmented, unclear communications. In between virtual meetings work with each team member to question, refine and develop their work. Wherever possible you can lead with questions, helping them to draw on their resources, extend their networks and learn from what has been achieved (or not). Using your time well between meetings helps team members continue to generate and evaluate ideas, respond to each other and plan for the next session so that everyone is prepared, no one feels under pressure and everyone can make a contribution. 10.
Appreciation
Regardless of whether you’re a team leader or a team member, you can notice what people have achieved, the effort they’ve made and the way in which they are contributing to the discussion. Showing your appreciation helps to accelerate the level of trust in remote teams, which is critical to successful working.
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