Home alone

Remote (or virtual) teamwork has become an enduring legacy of the Covid-19 crisis. For a considerable period, entire teams worked from home ("WFH"). Although this may no longer be the common situation, we will examine ten essential skills that remote workers need to hone. We provide insights, but not all the answers, because working life is more complex than simple dos and don’ts. The questions we ask about your virtual context will help you to reflect on your working practices and will provide topics to discuss with other remote workers in your team. This will help you to develop the virtual team habits you’ll need to perform effectively.

What do we mean by “remote working”?

One of the difficulties of remote working lies in its definition. We typically mean “a situation in which people who are geographically dispersed and interacting via electronic communication channels, such as phone calls, conference calls, videoconferencing, email, team platforms, messaging software and chat forums”.

All individuals and teams work remotely to some degree. We are never always in the same place as our colleagues. Even in the same geographical location, we are often in different rooms, on different floors or in different buildings.

Virtuality is therefore always a matter of degree rather than something absolute. What the Covid-19 crisis has done, however, is dramatically increase the degree of remote working in relation to face-to-face contact. The challenge is to find optimal ways of working virtually. Here, we look at ten habits that will help you to do this.

1. Think positively

The first habit to cultivate is a positive mindset with respect to virtual working. Beyond the immediate global health crisis, there are many good reasons why organizations adopt virtual working practices. These include reduced commuting times, a lower environmental impact from road and air travel, the ability to connect and leverage skills across distances and the ability to appeal to the preferences of young-generation talents.

Also, research shows that individuals with expertise and commitment in virtual teams can outperform teams working in a traditional office. In other words, the idea of “virtual” as a problem is a self-limiting belief. And this belief can mask more fundamental challenges faced by virtual teams, such as a lack of resources, no clear priorities or the unpopular decisions they have to take.

Consider your virtual context:

• What advantages does working virtually offer your organization?
• In what areas can virtual communication outperform face-to-face interaction?
• What are the bigger organizational challenges that you face, which have nothing do to with virtual working?

2. Stay connected

One of the main challenges of remote working is dealing with a feeling of isolation that can come with working from home. The loss of connection with colleagues can lead to a lost sense of belonging to an organization. This form of alienation can quickly result in stress and anxiety. And this, in turn, can undermine motivation and commitment to the strategic cause, which may be almost invisible from home.

To remain productive in such situations, it is essential to connect to one’s own intrinsic motivations. It is also important to stay informed about your organization and to be curious about discovering how your role does make a difference. For those in leadership roles, it is essential to communicate the organization’s goals clearly and actively and to inspire others with the help of a compelling vision. And for all team members, touching base regularly with other remote workers can help to maintain emotional connections.

Consider your virtual context:

• What could you do to reduce the feeling of isolation of remote workers in your team?
• What strategies could you develop as a remote worker to unleash your intrinsic motivations?
• As a leader, how can you communicate your visions and goals more clearly to your virtual team?

3. Set your own agenda

Self-leadership is one of the most important success factors for remote workers. Home life normally has a different rhythm, intensity and sense of discipline from the values that drive one’s “at-work persona”. Successful virtual working therefore means applying traditional organizational skills in a new context. This means creating a quiet home space in which to work without interruptions, disciplining oneself to begin and end work, taking regular breaks and maintaining one’s full focus on work even when there are urgent home duties and other distractions.

Without the normal rhythm imposed by work in a central location, remote workers need to set a personal agenda for each day and remote teams need to define their priorities clearly. Holding regular virtual team meetings can help to provide an element of normal structure.

Consider your virtual context:

• How can you best structure your working day at home?
• How can you and your virtual team set priorities effectively?
• How might your working routine at home make life difficult for others?

4. Take decisions on decisions

One of the biggest challenges of working remotely is how to coordinate decision-making. It is important to clarify even more clearly than usual who is accountable for what and define who needs to be consulted before decisions are made. Many organizations today are engineered for collaboration, joint decision-making, shared leadership and iterative and flexible planning processes.

This is fine if you have lots of opportunities to interact, share ideas spontaneously and get information quickly. But virtual teams find it more difficult to achieve such flexible and collaborative decision-taking. It often takes time to get everyone on a call. And decisions may suddenly be taken by individuals or a minority rather than being discussed and then taken by the team as a whole. Moving to a decision-making process that requires less interaction might indeed be an option for virtual teams. But for many people, this is a regression to old-fashioned working practices. And those who are suddenly excluded from decision-making may be offended and become demotivated.

The solution is to discuss expectations openly and design a new, sustainable form of virtual collaboration, with clear decision-making principles and communication protocols.

Consider your virtual context:

• What difficulties have you experienced with virtual team collaboration and decision-making? What were the reasons for them?
• What is your preferred virtual team collaboration model? Why do you prefer this model?
• What are the risks of your preferred model? How can you manage these risks effectively?

5. Get technical

Technical competence is emerging as a competitive advantage in the job market. Being familiar with virtual communication tools, ranging from informal chat software to collaborative team environments, makes you more attractive to prospective employers.

The jury is still out, however, on whether sophisticated communication platforms really deliver on their promise of creating flows of information that are structured better. And there is a danger that remote workers and virtual teams might become overwhelmed by having too many communication tools and channels. Making clear decisions on which channels will be used for which purposes — and which technical skills are expected of individuals — is essential for effective collaboration.

Another key technical skill, which is seldom mentioned, is the ability to manage low-tech problems — what we might call “glitch management”. This includes being able to manage an important phone call that constantly disconnects, handling a conference call in which one of the most important participants is hardly audible, maintaining a videoconference that has a two-second time lag in the voice communication or getting an email to someone whose system constantly sends your messages to spam. How good are your glitch-management skills in such situations?

Consider your virtual context:

• Which technical skills do you need to improve, and by when, in order to increase your effectiveness when working remotely?
• Has your virtual team discussed and defined which channels of communication you are going to use for which tasks? If not, why not?
• What would be your advice for managing each of the glitches mentioned above?

6. Trust differently

Trust is an important issue in virtual teams. But the thinking on this key concept is often muddled or simply inaccurate. The consensus view is that trust needs to be increased when working and leading in virtual contexts. But it is more accurate to say that a different kind of trust is required, not necessarily more trust.

Trust is not without risk. Indeed, simply trusting more may lead to a greater number of errors made by less experienced team members. It may also lead to a feeling of stress among those suddenly entrusted with more responsibility, and a sense of loss among those feeling abandoned by their line manager or colleagues.

Ultimately, the key issue is not trust but performance. How can teams maintain high levels of performance when leaders are unable to wander around and check in informally with team members? How can leaders, for example, who send out emails to check whether or not a report has been completed, avoid being accused of micromanagement? In the end, it’s situational. Leaders need to profile their team members to see who needs what degree of virtual supervision and support. And they need to be ready to delegate more tasks to those who have the commitment and competence to take on more responsibility. The time saved can then be dedicated to helping and supervising those who may be struggling in their new virtual role.

Team members also need to develop a different form of trust towards each other, so that they are confident that key tasks will be performed on time. The best strategy is for teams to discuss the role of trust openly and define procedures for reporting to each other. And don’t forget: a key part of virtual trust is helping others to trust you. Developing a credible, reliable and likeable virtual persona is something few people think about. Yet it is an essential oil that allows the wheels of virtual teams to turn smoothly.

Consider your virtual context:

• When is trust important and when is trust dangerous in your virtual team?
• What are the factors that should make people trust you? How can you help this trust to develop more quickly?
• If you are a leader, how can you optimize the trust you show your team members?

7. Structure your interactions

One of the main problems identified by those working virtually is the disruption experienced when relying on email and audio-conference calls. People typically feel more in control during face-to-face conversations, when they can respond synchronously to others directly, both verbally and through their body language. A facial expression can signal disagreement or a lack of understanding, a raised eyebrow can indicate a question to be asked. Also, there is the possibility of renegotiating the rules of engagement during a discussion, for example by going to the flip chart and visualizing a problem with a drawing or diagram.

The asynchronous and slower nature of email interaction feels less efficient to many. And the lack of visual cues in emails and audio-conference calls makes it more challenging to manage interactions, particularly when there are dominant and reserved speakers in the same virtual conversation. Formally and explicitly agreeing on specific protocols for virtual interaction is the key to success. Below are questions you should discuss with your team. Although videoconferences more closely replicate physical meetings, many of the questions are still useful, given the limits of many videoconferencing tools.

For emails

• How long should an email be, and how is it best structured?
• Who should be in cc on emails, and in which circumstances?
• How, and how quickly, should an email be answered?
• When should one post in an online tool or make a telephone call rather than send an email?

For audio-conference calls

• What’s the best way to avoid the domination of conference calls by particular individuals, such as native speakers of English?
• Who is the best moderator of conference calls: a native speaker, a non-native speaker, a person in authority or another person?
• Which agenda format is best suited for the meeting?
• Should people always say their name before speaking?
• How should the facilitator best interrupt people who talk too long?
• How should the facilitator invite others to speak?
• Does everyone need to contribute? If so, how can this be guaranteed?
• How short should people keep their contributions?
• What is the best way to handle complex topics?
• To what extent is multitasking, such as the use of mobile phones, allowed?
• What is the best way to record the minutes?

Interestingly, many of these areas of clarification are the same as for face-to-face meetings. The difference is that, in such meetings, there is more scope to improvise and invent rules as you go. In virtual meetings, it is therefore even more important to set protocols in advance.

Consider your virtual context:

• Which aspects of your email style might frustrate or confuse others?
• Looking at the above questions, what could you do to improve your effectiveness in virtual meetings?
• Which rules regarding email and conference calls do you feel it is important to discuss with your team?

8. Look at things differently

How often have you heard a colleague complaining about an email or other message that they received? Or how often have you felt frustrated or angry about a message you have received from a virtual team member? We are often unforgiving in such remote contexts. Although we see the words clearly that the other person communicates, we can seldom see with the same clarity why they are communicating as they do, or the potentially positive intention behind their message.

The potential discrepancy between words and intent is often viewed through a form of telescope that magnifies confusion and negative reactions. And this can lead us to respond in a manner that escalates matters still further. An alternative is possible, however: reverse the telescope, reduce your emotionality and frustration, and think calmly about the potentially positive motivation behind the email. Then reply in a positive way that moves things forward constructively. The same applies when listening in conference calls. Remember — and this is important — your frustration and anger reveal more about your own intolerance than they do you about the other person.

Consider your virtual context:

• Which aspects of your own virtual behaviour might cause your colleagues to be frustrated or angry?
• What strategies might be useful for managing emotions when communicating virtually?
• How can we better understand the underlying intentions of an email and other forms of electronic communication from remote workers in our team?

9. Maintain informal contacts

Most of the literature on virtual teams focuses on formal roles and formal leadership. Organizations, however, thrive on the interactions of many informal networks of individuals, both internal (across departments, functions and national boundaries) and external (with customers, suppliers, consulting companies and partners). When people take on a virtual role, building and maintaining these informal networks is important but, at the same time, challenging. Periodic informal emails to check in with internal and external stakeholders is very helpful, combined with regularly scheduled calls and even impromptu surprise calls. All these measures can help to nurture relationships and keep them healthy.

Consider your virtual context:

• Which informal networks, both internal and external, should you pay more attention to?
• What structure of regular check-ins, via email or phone call, is best for each of your stakeholders?
• How many face-to-face meetings are ideal to maintain the relationships in your network? What can you do if such meetings are not possible because of travel restrictions?

10. Cultivate your intuition

Working virtually with sustained success calls for formal planning skills. It also requires a more intuitive and emotion-driven capability. This helps you to read between the lines of an email for what is unsaid. It enables you to hear the special tone of a voice in a virtual meeting, to hear which words seem to carry heavier stress and emphasis, and which phrases betray a challenge that people are facing with their internal motivation or commitment.

Intuition alerts you to the fact that text messages that used to be answered immediately now come back only after two or three days. You recognize the disappearance of small talk from the beginning of conference calls, and the use of a more transactional approach to problems. You notice more errors than usual in prepared documentation. The ability to pick up on such small clues is an advanced skill that comes partly from experience but also from paying attention to the very factor that virtual working threatens to undermine — the intimacy of working closely with others.

Consider your virtual context:

• How well do you read signals that reveal the emotions of others?
• How can you gain more insight into how colleagues in your virtual teams are feeling?
• What can you do to maintain positive emotions for yourself and others when working remotely?

Start the conversation

Many people have suddenly had to adapt to the challenges of working remotely, often in the isolation of their own home. Virtual collaboration, like all forms of collaboration, requires attention to sharing beliefs and expectations about the meaning of such key concepts as “team”, “communication” and “decision”. But remote working also presents its own special challenges. Use the questions above for self-reflection but, more importantly, to start conversations with others in your (new) virtual teams. The act of discussing these questions is, in itself, likely to bring you closer together and increase the effectivity of your virtual collaboration. Make a start today.