Mistake two: Communication happens ad hoc or is Manager centric

Have you felt bored during a Virtual Team phone conference?

Often Virtual Teams only call a Team conference when urgent issues arise.
And on these calls – often it is the Manager who does the bulk of the talking.
Debate based on trust and practice – has to relent to the manager’s monologue.
Another regular example– is experienced at ‘quarterly updates’ – where the manager presents facts and figures to a slightly bored work team who are easily distracted by other work issues

How can you break this “boredom” pattern?

Give everyone on the Virtual Team a responsibility to deliver during the call.
Let everyone have his or her own slot. Let them report back on their issues and debate their causes. Make sure the time agenda allows everyone fair time slots.

Let people report personal and professional highs and lows since last call.
This is the “salt”, the essence – to creating empathic and dynamic team relationships and how you can sustain and develop the interpersonal relationships over time.

The Fusion of Personal and Professional; formal and informal, input and debate is the antidote to Boredom

Having shared structured team communication plans nurture the interpersonal relationships and encourages Team unity and momentum.

Questions:

Do you have a plan for your Team conference calls?
How often should you have regular updates for your team?
How can you raise the level of participation for each team member?

Mistake three:
Lack of Reward for outstanding Success

Often virtual team managers take Performance of their teams for granted. Reward is reflected in salary or Individual Bonus but there is nothing exiting to further ignite the flame of Top performance.
People want to be heroes. They like to be part of a great-united Team that achieves a miracle.
In my own management practice I’ve witnessed multiple “miracles”, many examples of where an Appealing Prize has inspired Teams to deliver phenomenal results.

Prizes do not need to be monetary – Tickets to Industry – top events, access to celebrities – All sort of highly appealing Prizes can trigger team inspiration.

There are cautions before you set up your Aspirational Prize:
Often Mangers offer a reasonable Prize but expect exceptional Performance. The Prize has itself to be extraordinary and the Manager can afford it since the cost of delay is often significantly higher than the cost of really appealing prize.

Enticing prizes, offered well in advance and creative progress reports can lead to phenomenal performance and results.

Questions:

Does your team have Prizes for extraordinary achievements?
What event, travel destination or recognition of success would inspire your Team to go that extra mile?
How can you creatively report your Collective Goal progress?

Combining the 3 factors:

• Personality: support the unique potential of the Individual
• Structured Communication: nurture Trust between Team
• Appealing Prize reward for outstanding performance
– All can unleash incredible energy in a virtual team and inspire it to deliver phenomenal results.