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September 2, 2010

5 Ways to Motivate Virtual Teams

patty wrote this at 7:23 am

by Patty Azzarello

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How do you motivate people you can’t spend time with in person?

1. Virtual Team Building (literally)

I always did team building exercises when I had my team in a room together. But somehow with a remote, virtual team, I never considered that it was possible. This was a brilliant idea that one of my members offered. I wanted to share this because it is a great idea that I wish I had thought of ages ago.

How to do remote team building

First, prepare.  Distribute a template ahead of time that each person fills out.  It should include a photo of them, and questions which help people get to know each other.

Some examples:

  1. What is on your iPod?
  2. What was your best/worst job ever?
  3. What are your hobbies?
  4. What is your favorite book, movie, sport, animal?
  5. What is something from your childhood that has stayed with you and you use in your work?

Then when you have your virtual meeting over a conference call, show each person’s template and photo, and have them talk about it.  It is an amazing way to help your team get to know each other as people, and build a much more productive working relationship.

Photos!

Photos alone go a long way to build trust and camaraderie.  If your team is comfortable with photos, create a social media, facebook sort of page for your team to share non-work things with each other.

This is something you can easily assign to someone on your team who is inclined to set it up and keep it alive.  Refer to recent posts in your meetings.
(note: if someone refuses to submit a photo, let it go, don’t force the issue.)

2. Improve the Quality of Communications

Another issue with virtual teams is often that they are spread around the world, in different countries with different native languages.

Conference call communication is difficult enough, but if it’s not in your native language it’s excruciating.

A colleague of mine created a brilliant process to deal with this. 

Add written reinforcemnent to conference calls

On all of their multi-country conference calls they use an additional IM window where people in each country type out the key points being made, translate any jargon, highlight questions and decisions, and clarify areas in the discussion that were moving fast, or unclear.

They also use blog updates which capture the key ideas and decisions from the conference call in writing, to re-inforce the key outcomes and have a record for later review and understanding.

Adding written communications to conference calls, improves understanding, relationships and productivity dramatically.  Brilliant!
(I would think these were good practices even if there were not language issues.)

3. Timing

Being sensitive to time zones can go a long way to make people feel like they count.

Use their time zone: Whenever I recommend a meeting time, I always note it in the time zone of the other person.
From their perspective, if they are not in the headquarters time zone they need to translate every single meeting. Just doing that one step for them makes a big difference.

Use GMT: Another idea that came from a member was to always note times in GMT so everyone has to translate equally.

Share the suffering: Also, if you need to get the US, Europe, and Asia on the phone at the same time, alternate the suffering.  Have the meeting on rotating schedule so that one time zone is always comfortable.

4. Individuals must exert their presence

As a leader, another thing you can do is let individuals who are remote know that part of their job is to make sure they are not invisible.  The more they step up to make their presence felt the more included they will feel and the more motivated they will be.
It just works so much better for the remote individual to own this.

5. Have Better Virtual Meetings

How to have better meetings when no one is in the room:
When people are in a meeting I expect them to be “present” – listening, participating, contributing, and NOT doing email. If people are not going to be present why have a meeting?

Insist on starting On Time.  Everyone is to call in 5 minutes prior and be ready to go on time.  If need be, start the meeting start at 5 minutes after the hour – sharp! No excuses. Being late degrades accountability for presence, and is a huge time waster.  Don’t tolerate it.

Start with a weather report (or another personal topic) from each person on the call.  This gives every person’s presence a chance to be felt even though you can’t see them around the table.  And it gives you an opportunity to treat people like humans, which always helps.

Insist that no one mutes their phone. I don’t care if I hear children or dogs.  This also makes it harder to type, or watch TV without getting found out.  Mute degrades presence.  And it’s another big time waster.  After a discussion has gone down the road a bit, someone will chime in and say, “sorry, I didn’t realize my phone was on mute and I need to go back to …”

Be there. Make it clear that if this is an important meeting you are supposed to have it on your schedule, be on a landline, and not be driving somewhere between more important things.  You need to set the example for this yourself too – or don’t have the meeting.

Have a clear desired outcome and the promise of a shorter meeting.  “We will finish this meeting at 9:45 so that you can hang up and do 15 minutes of something else before your next meeting.”

Reinforce the fact that you value each others’ time. “The reason we have a shorter meeting, keep our phones un-muted, and don’t do email is because we respect each other’s time and therefore commit to being present, even though we are not in the same room.”

What has worked for you?

Having your whole team int the same room these days is a rare exception.
How have you motivated your people around the world?
How did you improve productivity, communication or motivation for your virtual teams?
Please share your experience and ideas in the comment box so we can all get better at this.

—–
Patty Azzarello works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. She has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at The Azzarello Group Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello

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Filed under Successful Blog, leadership | 11 Comments »




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11 Comments to “5 Ways to Motivate Virtual Teams”

  1. September 2nd, 2010 at 8:57 am
    Chris Jordan said

    Hi Liz/Patty, I found your site through Chris Brogan’s AllTop page. I’ve recently struggled with finding the right virtual assistant team for my business, and this article has given me some great stuff to consider when I resume my search. I just had the unpleasant experience of hiring the wrong person for the job. While I’m only looking for one person, thank you for sharing some insight that will help me better-qualify candidates.

  2. September 2nd, 2010 at 4:19 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Welcome Chris!
    We talk a lot about great people and what motivates them. I know how hard it is to make that wrong choice and have to adjust for it. Now you know more about what you don’t want …

  3. September 3rd, 2010 at 2:26 am
    Claudia said

    I have read a lot about this on other articles written by other people, but I must admit that you is the best.

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  4. September 3rd, 2010 at 7:50 am
    Devesh said

    Very insightful and practical! My team is spread across US-Canada-India-Philippines and I’ve always found it very challenging to build a bond between these so far apart located team members. I’m going to practice as many as there are… Thanks for a useful read!

  5. September 3rd, 2010 at 8:59 am
    Patty Azzarello said

    Hi Chris, we have all made bad hires. It’s an awful feeling, and a pain to deal with.
    If you are hiring a person who need to work remotely, you are completely right to put the ability to work in that model as part of the spec. I can also offer another article: Being Remotely Present, as a resource for the individual who is remote. http://www.azzarellogroup.com/blog/2009/8/18/being-remotely-present/
    thanks, Patty

  6. September 3rd, 2010 at 8:59 am
    Patty Azzarello said

    Thank You Claudia!
    Patty

  7. September 4th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
    a tech swirl said

    Daily Twitter Posts – 09/03/2010…

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  8. September 21st, 2010 at 2:55 pm
    Claire Sookman said

    Thanks so much for bringing up these great ideas. I would like to add a few more tips which I hope will help your readers.

    1) Create Ground Rules
    Create ground rules. Ground rules are a document that is created by the team for the team and it guides the team’s actions and interactions.

    2)Provide a Summary during your meetings
    Our fourth tip is to summarize or recap what was discussed after each agenda item. This helps keep people focused and engaged.
    We also suggest you conduct a commentary. When there is some kind of activity going on at the leader’s location, it is helpful for them to describe to remote listeners what is happening. These verbal descriptions of activity make the meeting more “real” to virtual participants and increase feelings of inclusion.

    3)Conduct an Evaluation
    Our next tip is to evaluate the meeting-what worked and what didn’t work. Evaluating meetings give the team members a chance to make suggestions about what is working for them and what can be improved.

    4)Use language to Promote Engagement
    Language can either promote engagement or shut down the flow of conversation. Be aware of what you say and how you say it.
    For example if you say “Are their any questions? “ you may get silence, instead try the following
    -What questions do you have?
    -I’ll give each of you one minute to write down your question and then we will begin with Atlanta
    -If you had a question, what might it be?
    -When I first heard this information I had some questions and they were…so what might be some of yours

    5)Use Meetings Wisely
    Our next tip is to use meetings wisely. We suggest that you use meetings for brainstorming and decision-making rather than routine updates (status report). Instead have the participants read the status report prior to the meeting and spend the time during the meeting making decisions or brainstorming

    We suggest keep participants engaged during a virtual meeting by:
    Look for opportunities to verify that the person on the other end of the line is engaged and understood what was being discussed. We suggest you check with group regularly e.g. every 6 minutes or after 3 slides by:
    -asking questions
    -seeking comments
    -conducting a quick poll
    -calling on people by name for input

  9. October 28th, 2010 at 5:56 am
    John said

    Quite a comprehensive post on motivating virtual teams. Some useful tips shared by Claire too! The idea of working virtually has its majors benefits only if you and your colleagues work together efficiently. Working from virtual offices around the world, requires effective management from the manager as well to make use of his/her resources. I personally worked as a virtual worker for a few months and my contact with any of my virtual team member was like once a month. Not ideal!

  10. September 22nd, 2011 at 5:08 pm
    Team Working: 8 Indicators That Your Team Is Not Working | CallCenterBestPractices.com said

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    Virtual Team Building | CallCenterBestPractices.com said

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