We have been working for some time on a webinar to help geographically dispersed teams—whether separated by a wall or an ocean—achieve high levels of trust, engagement, and results when frequent face-to-face interactions aren’t possible.
Little did I know that the content would become so personal to the Brilliance Inc. team. Since our founding 2008, we’ve had the luxury of proximity. We could brainstorm around the same pad of paper or flip chart, share challenges and successes across the table, strategize and debrief meetings in the car pool lane.
And that luxury is about to become history as life takes us in different geographic directions.
So here are some reminders that I offer to myself, my team, and any of you who are charged with achieving great things with others at a distance.
Working remotely can feel like you are isolated on an island. Not entirely a bad thing at times, but posing real challenges. In order to truly feel like a cohesive team and exceed your goals, you need to build sturdy, reliable bridges. In our program, Communicating Across Networks, we focus on three of the most important links.
Bridge #1: Connection
Relationships and trust are critical to any high-performing team. And if you’ve ever been new to a team, or worked on a team with low trust, you know how much extra effort it takes to get stuff done. When teams have trust, benefit of the doubt, a sense of humor, and true connections, mistakes and misunderstandings are merely speed bumps. Without trust, mistakes become mountains, where people play a version of corporate musical chairs to avoid sitting in the blame seat. Strong relationships can be forged and maintained regardless of geographic location. But it takes intention, skill, and constant awareness and effort to do it over phone and email.
Bridge #2: Clarity
Misunderstanding is common. And when communicating across networks, misunderstanding seems to be the NORM. Communications via email and text, even in the same language, can require translation. I can relate to George Bernard Shaw’s quote that “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”.
In the age of texting and shorthand communication, it can be tempting to assume we understand and move on. Clarifying your statements, assumptions, expectations, requests and intentions becomes even more important when you can’t infer from someone’s body language or tone.
Bridge #3: Commitment
Ever wrongly assumed that silence meant agreement? Tasks fail to get done when we presume commitment that isn’t real or when we don’t clearly grasp someone’s full workload. Clarifying who’s doing what by when and with what support, will help strengthen the other two bridges (connection and clarity). It takes courage to admit that one is not committed to a task.
Best Bridge-Building Behaviors
Key behaviors help create effective, engaged, dispersed teams. Perhaps the most essential are these:
- - Assume positive intent in others
- Be curious and seek to understand
- Display authentic, appropriate humanness (e.g. admitting fear or fault)
- Adjust to the audience (tone, content, speed, medium, approach)
- Offer clear, requests, statements, declines, opinions, praise, and feedback.
- Recognize and appreciate differences
Here’s to the team (mine and yours)!
Conversations for Brilliance
