From the Coronavirus to Strategic Imperatives: 10 Tips for Leading Virtual Teams

Have you been tasked with leading a virtual team in the wake of the Coronavirus and a work from home mandate from your company? Or has your organization adopted a new remote working policy? Or perhaps your team added new employees who work either from home or from another office? Regardless of the cause, it’s critical to quickly galvanize your remote team so that you can maintain high levels of productivity, engage and retain your team members, and ultimately achieve team and organization-wide goals.

Below are 10 tips to leading a virtual team. Given the gravity of the Coronavirus outbreak, be sure to implement #10 right away to bring some fun and levity to the team.

10 Tips for Leading a Virtual Team

Confirm Team Mission and Goals: Making a shift to a remote team structure, especially if it happens abruptly, has the ability to disrupt the team and spark fear and uncertainty among team members. One of the first tasks a leader should undertake is to re-confirm the team mission and vision to ensure team members feel stability and recognize that the team mission and objectives will remain the same even with a new mode of work. Leaders we have coached through this transition have held a kick-off immediately after shifting to a remote structure to convey the mission and vision and to assuage any concerns about the changes underfoot. It’s imperative that the leader is candid and vulnerable so that team members have the opportunity to voice and resolve any concerns with the new team dynamic and its impact on the team overall and individual team members.
Establish Guidelines and Ground Rules: The most visible change from shifting from an in-person to a virtual team is to how teams work together, collaborate, and exchange information. In an office environment, it’s easy (though often distracting) to drop-in on colleagues to ask a quick question or to get feedback on a new project or proposal. The virtual equivalent of an office drive-by is a Slack message, urgent email, text message, or a phone call. Like office drop-ins, getting pummelled by an endless stream of texts, emails, and Slack messages kills productivity and can create tension among teammates. As a leader, it’s helpful to establish communications norms and guidelines to the use of each communication medium as well as recommended response times. It is also critical for you as a leader to model the behaviors you want to see adopted by the team and not succumb to the need for an immediate response.
Re-Confirm Individual Roles and Responsibilities: Shifting from an in-person workplace to a virtual environment will inevitably shift team members’ roles, especially to those default activities that might fall outside of a roles and responsibilities document. At the outset of such a shift, be sure to transparently convey any role changes as well as re-confirm the components of each person’s role that will stay the same. For example, one team member might have become the de facto facilitator and scribe in meetings which might change with the switch to a virtual team. Creating clarity around roles and responsibilities will ensure the team can adapt to the new mode of work and also stay aligned with the goals of the team and organization.
Provide Regular Updates: In an office environment, team members stay abreast of company news and updates through direct meetings, by talking to colleagues in the hall, and by holding discussions in shared spaces such as the kitchen, company gym, or outdoor patio. Virtual teams need to be more proactive in communicating critical updates as well as team and company news. Be wary of inundating people with a staccato like rhythm of emails and messages. Instead try batching updates into a weekly email or video town hall meeting. In addition, be sure to provide guidelines (e.g. what medium, how often) for team members to share updates so that messages aren’t shared through a fragmented mosaic of posts, emails, and messages.
Ensure Time for Personal Connection: Office environments are well suited to foster strong relationships among colleagues. From casual chats in company cafeterias, corporate gyms, and in the hallways to time for personal conversations at the beginning and end of meetings, in-person environments allow time to connect on a human level. With your remote team, be sure to dedicate time to connect on a personal level at the outset of team meetings. Try asking each person to share what’s going on in their life, both personally and professionally. Keith Ferrazzi suggests doing a “Sweet and Sour” - share one thing in your life that is going well (Sweet) and one thing that is not going well (Sour). Do what works well within your team and culture, but the point is to allow time for people to connect on a more personal level. Doing so will go a long way toward building and maintaining strong relationships and ensuring individual and team engagement.
Maintain Good Meeting Routines and Hygiene: When teams shift to virtual, there is often slippage in meeting hygiene. Meeting start and end times can slip without the constraints of conference room space. Team members can be left out from participating in a team meeting given the lack of visual cues to call on a team member who is sitting arms folded or with an inquisitive look on his or her face. Multitasking during team calls also can become a productivity and collaboration crusher. Be sure to build rules and guidelines to ensure that meetings stay on time, all members are engaged in meetings, and multitasking is kept to a minimum (Tip: Holding calls on video tends to help).
Hold Office Hours: One of the biggest productivity killers in an office environment are the seemingly endless drop-ins by colleagues who just need “2 minutes” that can accordion out to 30 minute conversations and more. In a virtual environment, drop-ins are replaced by text messages, instant messages, and emails that can be as disruptive if not more disruptive. One way to take control of your calendar and limit the onslaught of requests is to set virtual “office hours” where you are available for Slack messages, ad hoc video calls, or good old fashioned phone conversations. Be sure to proactively notify your team members of your office hours and note it on your calendar, Slack (or other IM platform), and other collaboration tools.
Don’t Hide Behind the Digital Curtain: The very nature of a virtual team leads to more time communicating with digital tools and minimal facetime. Many remote workers tend to hide behind digital communication which can create conflict within their teams. Instead of relying on an endless stream of Slack messages and emails, use video in your next conversation with your team members to help create greater connection and engagement. When in doubt, default to video calls even when you are reviewing a document or collaborating real-time on a Google Doc. Seeing the other person on video creates a connection that isn’t built through emails, messages, and even phone calls.
Provide a Home Tour: A fun activity with a new remote team is to do a virtual tour of each person’s home office. Start one by kicking-off a video call and walk around the house to show your team members your work space and to give them a sense of your work environment and who you are as a person. Show your pets too so they will understand if they hear an errant bark or meow in the background. A virtual office tour is a great way to create personal bonds among teammates, especially if you have never met in person.
Hold Virtual Happy Hours: One of the bonuses of working in an office is happy hours with your colleagues. I recall many amazing times working at Accenture and Gap where we would close out a busy, stressful week by heading to a happy hour at Boulevard Restaurant or one of the many hot spots in the Embarcadero district in San Francisco. With your virtual teams, turn on your webcam and crack open a beer or pour yourself a cocktail, glass of wine, or non-alcoholic beverage of your choice. You may miss the clink of glasses from an in-person happy hour, but virtual happy hours provide a nice social outlet, especially during stressful and chaotic times like the one we are living through in 2020.

The shift from in-person to virtual teams can pose challenges without proper planning and implementation of key strategies. Try using the 10 tips above and see how your virtual teams soar and might even outperform their in-person counterparts.