How to Motivate Virtual Teams
How to Motivate Virtual Teams
Three Strategies to Start Smart
I have a T-shirt that says simply, “are you present?” I got it from a friend who asked me to officiate his wedding. It was a hugely thoughtful gift.
Being a professional speaker, I frequently get asked to officiate people’s weddings. And, 99.99% of the time, I say no. But with this particular friend, whose name is Spud—like the potato—I said yes.
Years ago, I had told Spud a story. It was about how 15 minutes before I got married, my mentor and friend, Jeff, walked up to me. He put his hand on my shoulder, and said, “Are you present? Because you don’t want to miss your own wedding.” It was such a powerful question, and it transformed the experience of getting married for me.
I share this with you because it’s very easy for us not to be present. That’s true in big moments and everyday circumstances.
Working remotely presents its own set of challenges when it comes to staying connected. You and your team might be experiencing Zoom fatigue. You could be burned out from working at home or staring at a screen.
But in my work with some of the highest performing organizations and universities on the planet, I’ve noticed winning strategies that successful leaders implement to motivate their virtual teams. Having worked with a bunch of all-remote teams, even pre-COVID, I’ve learned about the nuances of coming together virtually. Operating this way differs from meeting in person.
To help you motivate your team, I’m going to share three strategies to start smart when you meet virtually. Leadership expert Matt Church talks about how our “state matters more than script.” We must think about our state of mind, our state of being, and our audience’s state. These three strategies will help your group shift its state.
If you just try to motivate a person—or be motivational—it can backfire. Say somebody is feeling low and depressed. The last thing they need is for another person to get in their face and tell them, “You can do it, ace!” When you try to change people, usually there’s resistance and pushback.
A much more effective approach is to draw on a person’s internal motivations. These three techniques help people shift their state:
- Silence
- Shift (the act of hitting reset)
- Show up
1. Silence
As Cicero said, “Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.” Today, in a noisy, 24/7 connected world, silence is a lost art.
You might ask yourself, what can I say or do to motivate my team? But I would turn that approach on its head. Instead of trying to motivate team members with your words, think about when you can give your group time to be silent and reflect. When your team members do that it will help them answer for themselves that all-important question my friend asked me: Are you present?
It’s really hard to be motivated if you’re thinking about the pile of work that’s stressing you out or the fight you got in with your kid right before you hopped on your virtual meeting. If you want to motivate your virtual team, you’ve got to invite them to be present at the beginning of your time together.
When Will Wise, my co-founder at We and Me, and I have our heads screwed on right, we begin each internal meeting with 60 seconds of pure silence. We turn off our video. And we do absolutely nothing for one full minute. It consistently shocks me how much clarity of mind a single minute creates. I’d highly recommend you try this out in a meeting this week.
Go into “podcast mode” (i.e., everybody in the meeting turns their cameras off). That way they’re not self-conscious or focusing on others when they’re silent. Once there, mention your intention for starting off in silence and suggest they simply sit there and enjoy the quiet without feeling the need to do anything. That single minute can energize people—in a reflective way—and help them shift their state of mind. It’ll also increase the chances that you have a great conversation with fully present participants.
As a leader, it may feel a little odd at first, and it’s a bit of a social risk to initiate depending on the culture of your team. But resist the urge to pick up your phone or check your email. Be present and let your mind wander for 60 seconds. Do absolutely nothing. Sit on your hands if you have to, so you can be fully present in the moment.
If you do that, the chances that you’re going to be able to motivate your team with anything you say or do after that go up significantly.
2. Shift
Now use that silence to hit reset, and help your team shift their state of mind. When everyone has turned their video off, I will often invite them to check in with their own state of mind or being or energy level.
Have team members make a physical shift that will help them change their state of mind to where they want to be. Another way that I create that shift is to say, “OK, check in with yourself.” I’ll ask, “What state are you currently in?” You might be exhausted, burned out or suffering from low morale. Or you might be feeling like a million bucks.
Then in Zoom change your last name to the state that you would like to be in at the end of the call. Setting this intention can have a really powerful effect. When I become Chad Curious or Chad Peaceful instead of Chad Littlefield, as I connect with people on Zoom, they’re seeing that state. I’m seeing that state. I am publicly putting out that internal intention for all to see.
That kind of social accountability is really powerful. Research has found, for example, that people run faster when they run by other people. Maybe you’re jogging at a nine-minute mile pace in your neighborhood. Then, when you get downtown, you might pick up the pace until you’re running a seven- or eight-minute mile. It’s a really interesting phenomenon. The fact is that we all have a desire to be admired and to be liked.
When you put down the state of mind that you want to be in as your last name, there’s enough social accountability to actually invite some mindset and behavior change. You’re essentially saying, “This is who I’m going to aspire to be on this call.”
If a leader is trying to change your mindset by saying motivational things, that’s easy to shrug off. If you ask people to announce what state of mind they want to adopt, they’re setting that intention, and they’re internally motivated to get there.
3. Show Up
You’ve taken 60 seconds to be silent. You’ve invited your team to shift their state of mind in some way. Now, it’s time to turn the video back on and really be present.
To make “cameras on” more enticing and meaningful, you might have people give a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down to indicate whether they feel fully present—or not.
A pro tip here is to show up and immediately guide people to find the option in Zoom or whatever platform you’re meeting on to hide self-view. On Zoom, we spend a significant amount of our cognitive energy talking to somebody else while watching ourselves talk to somebody else. It’s immensely distracting, and one of the biggest contributors, in my mind, to Zoom burnout and fatigue. The Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab found the dynamic to be one of the top four contributors to Zoom fatigue.
To change this, hover over your video and click the ellipses button to open the menu. Then choose “Hide Self View.” Doing this will help you to be present, decrease virtual exhaustion and engage in a more natural way.
I had a teacher who always used to say, “You’ve got to show up to grow up.” It’s so true. It’s hard to motivate somebody if they’re not present.
More Than Starting Smart
These three strategies that I’ve shared deal specifically with the start to the meeting. But there are lots of ways and times to motivate your team.
Daniel Pink’s book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, talks about three pillars of motivation: mastery, autonomy and purpose. If you want to do a deep dive into motivation, that’s a really lovely read.
I trust all three of these strategies will help you start smart. The art of the start is not something to underestimate. If you start poorly, I can predict that the meeting will not go nearly as well as it could have. When a group is rooted in an unmotivated place, it takes a lot more effort to get them motivated. But if you start really deliberately and intentionally, and invite people to be fully present in the moment, half the battle is already won.
Motivation is not a one-time thing or choice. It’s something we choose every morning we wake up, and each moment throughout the day. Do we put on the running shoes or turn on Netflix to binge-watch our favorite show? Do we sit back and consume this meeting or do we lean in and contribute? There’s nothing wrong with taking it easy, but we have to be careful about slipping into demotivated cycles.
That’s why one of the most valuable things virtual team members can offer to each other is honest check-ins. Ask how everyone is doing and mean it. No really, how are you doing this week? Adding “this week” to an otherwise tired question, makes it more relevant and present.
There’s such a difference in asking that question with sincerity and actually wanting to listen to someone. Acknowledging what you’re working through is empowering. It creates social accountability, and makes it easier for others to support you. Oftentimes that intrinsic motivation shows up when we acknowledge our own lack of motivation in the moment.
If you want more activities and resources to kick off meetings with a bang check out our Connection Toolkit. The Cicero quote I mentioned earlier, “Silence is one of the great arts of conversation,” is included in our deck of We! Engage Cards, which you’ll find in the toolkit. If you want to get a bunch more motivating quotes, you can purchase the deck at www.weand.me/store or you can get a free digital version of the Connection Toolkit at www.weand.me/free.