Emilie van Rappard's message in the Mission Team podcast with Patrick K Magyar was clear: The digital world has come to stay and it is better to embrace its opportunities that focus on its threats. To do so, a team culture is to be developed, that takes into account the opportunities, but also challenges, which come with the virtual world and remote collaboration.
Some of the key opportunities virtual/remote teams present, are:
- Bundle expertise across borders! One of the key benefits of a remote team is that it can promote collaboration across borders, hence workings with the best experts an organization has available anywhere. In a world where business becomes more national, continental, or even global, the ability to draw on the best resources and bundle them has become a key value driver.
- Encourage creativity. Members of a virtual team are not limited by geographic boundaries. This allows the inclusion of diverse ideas, views and perspectives coming from very different backgrounds. New perspectives help creating a more creative team culture.
- Enable quick (re)action. Since no travel is necessary, remote teams can be very fast in acting or reacting yet may involve all people that need to be involved. With speed being such an important competitive advantage, this becomes one of the key arguments for remote collaboration.
But what happens with team culture, with cohesion and social networking, when team members are located in different parts of the country or the world? How can you create a strong team culture when everyone is so spread out? Three recommendations to deal with these challenges:
- Prepare and run meetings respectfully. Preparing and running a meeting properly is as important in the digital as in the virtual world. Clear goals and agendas should be as matter of course as a full attention to the meeting. Switched-off cameras (as opposed to switched off microphones) are a no go as is a lack of proper preparation.
- Provide the best possible virtual space allowing for “social presence”. New collaborative platforms like Spatial Chat offer an opportunity to not just “video conference”, but to create “social presence”. If people’s movements and interactions in the virtual world become a mirror of their behavior in the real world, it becomes much easier to create a common attitude and develop a team spirit or culture.
- Allocate time for social exchange and cohesion. In the virtual world the chance of meeting somebody coincidentally for a coffee is rather slim. Also, meetings are normally limited to factual and work-related topics. Hence it is more important in the virtual than in the real world to create opportunities and to allocate time for people to get to know each other, understand their backgrounds and histories, create closeness and hence develop trust.
Emilie van Rappard has great experience with managing individual and teams in the real and the virtual world. Based on her conviction that meetings are primarily a human challenge, she founded Meeting Masters, setting the conditions for highly participative remote gatherings that are supported by technology, but that always put people first.
Patrick K Magyar has his roots in sports and events. His passion for people and teams drew him more and more into the world of education, team building and team performance. As the creator of Mission Team Digital Teambuilding, he shares his passion alongside different experts and thought leaders in the Mission Team Podcast.