How To Keep Virtual Teams Connected
How To Keep Virtual Teams Connected
Three Strategies You Can Employ in Your Next Online Meeting
Will Wise and I exist on the planet to make connection and engagement easy for leaders and educators—online and offline. This is what we love to do.
There are many ways to keep your virtual teams connected. But I’m going to share three strategies specifically that I think you will really like and can start using to connect right away.
“Normal is nothing more than a cycle on a washing machine.” This is one of the quotes I often share with groups near the beginning of a workshop. It’s credited to Whoopi Goldberg and is printed on the back of one of our We! Engage Cards. To keep your virtual teams connected, it’s quite likely that you’ll have to do something that’s outside the norm. You have to break the monotonous routine.
To change an embedded norm or your culture, you’ve got to point out the elephant in the room. If efficiency is taking the place of connection, you have to name that. Maybe when you meet you just click the Zoom link and dive right into the agenda. That may be preventing your team from having time to connect. The first thing you have to do is point out that dynamic.
You might even invite the group to comment and share their observations about the impact that routine has on them. They could talk about how it affects their energy levels, their productivity and the usefulness of the meeting. Then enlist their help to change the dynamic. Ask team members what they think can be done to break the old routine.
Now let’s jump into the three strategies you can use to establish a new normal and keep your virtual teams connected.
Strategy 1: Connection Before Content
I share this often. However, in this particular chapter, I’m going to give you a unique and specific lens you can use to help your team connect before jumping into a meeting’s agenda.
This is a year-long plan to create connections in your virtual teams. Yet it only takes a few minutes to put it in place.
You can do this by using We! Connect Cards. You can get this deck on Amazon or our website. But I also think information should be free. Good questions shouldn’t be held in a vault. That’s why we have a printable version of the questions in the deck available at www.weand.me/free
Pick one question to answer per week as a group. This can be incorporated into a weekly team meeting. If you don’t have a weekly meeting on the calendar, I work with several organizations that have set a weekly standup meeting simply to check in and connect. If you utilize breakouts, this could literally be a 10-minute meeting.
Let your team members know what you’re planning to do and why. Working remotely, everyone is spread out, and not just geographically. Their context, mood, energy levels and motivation are all over the place as well. As a result, we lose the organic connection we normally have when we work together in person.
To overcome this, tell your team that you’re going to replace that lost organic check-in time with more intentional, purposeful connection time. You’re doing this by answering one question per week as a team. That’s it. It’s a relatively small ask. Even the critics and the curmudgeons will usually go for a few minutes of well-framed connection before content.
This is equivalent to only having to work out 10 minutes a week to get healthy over the course of a year. In this case, however, all those conversations really do add up. You can learn a ton about each other. You’ll come away knowing more about who team members are and what makes them tick. You’ll learn about their likes, dislikes, preferences, opinions and styles. That will create communication shortcuts in the organization. An established culture of connection can even promote healthy conflict while preventing toxic combat.
The benefits go beyond just the team connecting too. Productivity always increases—to a certain point. A team can actually be too connected. It’s like a bell curve. On the way up, you’re connecting, and it’s productive. However, if you become more connected but don’t focus on the intended impact of that connection or a meeting or exercise, productivity can actually go down.
We specifically designed the 60 questions in the We! Connect Cards to accelerate and build relationships of trust. Although they might not be everyday work questions, they’re all appropriate for work conversations.
As a reminder, everyone has full autonomy and choice in how they answer the questions. This is an especially powerful disclaimer with a group. When you reassure team members that they have complete control of their response, it infuses choice and psychological safety into the conversation.
Strategy 2: The Unofficial End
I’ve talked in other chapters about the concept of the unofficial start. But the informal end is just as important, so let’s define that here.
First, think of how a typical meeting goes. Let’s say it’s scheduled from 9 to 10 a.m. We meet right until the official end time, or 10 a.m. Then we cut things off, shift gears, pee really quickly and jump on our next virtual meeting.
The unofficial end takes a different approach. This is about being a little bit more responsible and intentional with the way that we block out our time. You’re creating space for connection in the way a meeting is scheduled.
You can set the default settings on Google Calendar, Outlook or other calendars, when you create a meeting, to make it for only 50 minutes. When those 50 minutes are up, your meeting is officially over. The good news is that, according to Parkinson’s Law, the amount of time that you give something is the amount of time that it will take.
Set aside 50 minutes to complete your official business. Then block out the rest of the hour—that additional 10 minutes—for the unofficial end. Use this time to connect informally as a team. You’ll want to have the Zoom or Webex link (or whatever you’re using) remain live for those final 10 minutes.
Many people may jump off the meeting at the official end. It’s also likely some will stay on, have a quick conversation and reconnect. You can also finish up some last-minute work conversations during this time.
Let everyone know in advance of the meeting how you’re going to use that time during the unofficial end. Maybe it’s to wish a coworker a happy birthday, or to show your appreciation for your team.
Creating that unofficial end makes connection valid. Naming that time as the “unofficial end” removes the social pressure on your group to initiate connection, and allows you to build in time for it.
You can, as I said, create 50-minute meetings. When you meet for a half hour, you can schedule a 25-minute meeting, using the five minutes after that for an unofficial end. Alternatively, you can ask your team to block the half hour after a focused work meeting for an unofficial end.
Anything that goes beyond the official end time of your meeting that’s designed to help people connect, communicate and engage with each other more effectively is an unofficial end. By doing this you are essentially saying, “Yes, we appreciate efficiency and connection, and we’re going to make time for both.”
Strategy 3: The Walking Meeting
There are a few ways to do the walking meeting, but the basic idea is this: Let’s say you’ve got a team of 30 people. Everyone wants to stay connected in some way. A really beautiful way to do that is to get away from the screen.
Plan for a “mobile meeting.” If you’re scheduling a meeting invite, title it “phone meeting” or “walk and talk.” You can still invite your group to join via a video conference platform—just have them use their smartphone instead of their laptop.
As the host though, you should plan to be on a computer though so you can utilize the breakouts feature on the platform. Have people break into small groups to answer big questions.
- What was the highlight from your week?
- What is life teaching you right now?
- What are you struggling with?
- What are you hoping happens for you in the next six months?
Invite team members to plug in their headphones or just walk out the door wherever they are. Brains generally love conversations when combined with a walk or movement. You as the host or leader of the meeting have the ability to bring people back to the main session. Debrief, randomize breakouts again, and then send people back into small group conversations.
Obviously, the walking component is weather-dependent, and will also depend on the health and mobility of individuals in your group. Give team members the choice and ability to remain seated if they need to. If they want to break away from screens and sit down on a couch to have the conversation that’s fine, too.
There is some magic in actually moving—walking and talking. If you haven’t seen the TED Talk by Nilofer Merchant about walking meetings, check it out. You might just become a believer.
One fun add-on to the concept of a mobile meeting is inviting the group to walk toward something they want to show their partner. Then toward the end of the walk and talk, invite folks to turn on their cameras and share their surroundings.
Remember, if you want to keep your virtual teams connected over a long period of time:
- Put connection before content by asking team members one question a week.
- Block off five to 30 minutes for an unofficial end to your meeting to intentionally connect.
- Shut off your cameras and take your meetings as you walk.