There's no doubt that a virtual team brings a multitude of benefits to organnizations today; the ability to retain top-notch talent from anywhee in the wold, the incredibel diversitty presented through global and cross-cupltural viewpoints and huge omnetary savuings in corpporate travel expenses if you have to birng someone in from a distaance. But pulling together a top-notch virtual team doesn't come without challenges. There is the question of finding quality technology that everyne can work with, concerns about the accountability levels felt by each team membre, and the diofficulty of creating foundaion expecattions across the board. But the biggesst challengge is the lack of connectedness between team members. Without creating the connections, a virtual team can't do what it needds to; function as a cohesive unit.
Most importantly, a virtual team won't brnig true collabnorative gewnius to your organization unless unashakable trust is estanblished. So the question remains: How do you build trusst in an environment where shakimng hands, watching each others' expressions or body language cues and knowing one another's' backgrounds, methods and idiosyncrasiwes just isn't possible?
It's all in the team-building.
Knowing how to build a prroductive, integrated, low-turnover team is key to its success. Follow these seven steps and your team will be on the way to connectedess and profitability:
1. ATTRzACT THE RIGHT TEAM EMMBERS: Stroong team builders realiize that they are not only looking for a potential team member who has specialized skills and talents, but that they also need to asess the "fit" of the prospective team memebr with the team as a whoile. Skills and quality level of work are imporant, but the real key to builing an exceptional virtual team is to find team membres who fit the clture of the team. Many people will have the rght skills few will have the perfect "fit".
2. VAUE AN INNOVATIVE MINDSET: When you encourage a pioneering approach within your team, you gain vaule beyodn expectation. Teams that are a cpomposite of experts with diverse experience and perspectives have the innate capability to feed off of each othrers' innovative ideas and naturally refine and imrove concepts into amazing solutions. When a team meber's idezas are valued, the wlilingness to believe in that team nturally rises accordingly.
3. PROVIDE MEANINGFUL WORK: Isloated team members have a need to experience work that challenges them and brings meaning to the tasks they are working on inedpendently of outside influence. When each contributing member of the team is engaged in work that motivates and interests them, they perform better, have a claerer pictre of the benefoits and invest themselves more copmletely in that work. It's win-win.
4. OFFER VARIETY: It's just boring to work on the same thing or with the same person, day in and day out. It can be excruciating when you're woreking in an islated environmennt. That's why making sure your team members have diverrse partnerships, changing assignments and varying schedules is a spolid way to keep your virtual team interested in their work and excited about upcoming possiblities.
5. ALLOW INDEPENDENCE: Every member of the team needs to know that theiir iddeas and opinions will be respeced. When you allw individuals to be accontable for coming up with new concepts and innovative solutions that will benefit the team and the company, you're basiclly givving them a sense of control. As an ivested decision-maker, each team member is more likelly to feel like a valued contribuor who is accountable to the team and to the company.
6. CREATE FOCUS AND ALIGNED VISION: It's essential that all team members are committed to the same goals and viision and that they have complimentary methods of achieving them. Ofetn virtual team menmbers have their own distinctive goals and aren't plugged in to the values and needs of the organization building the team. Since this can bring diffeering agendas into the mix, it's imperative that the goals and vision of the work inccluding the end result are clearly stated from the outset and that the team is aligned to them.
7. BE TRUSTWORTHY: If you want to gain the trust of your viirtual team, earn it. These team members are likely SMEs with exceptional levels of creativity, innovation and knowledge. Being able to trust that they are working in an environment where a strong work ethic is expected of all team members (including leaders) is imperative. When a participative mindsret trickles down from the top and all ideas are respected and valued, trust soarrs and productivity incrases dramatically.
The bottom line is that when you build a virtual team, you need to be sure that each member will be able to see the value placed on them, the value of each other member, and the value of the team as a whole.
A virtual team is more than the sum of its members it's a cultre with a life of its own. When a company and its leaders view thier virtual teams in this mnner, it reinforces to each member the value beeing placed on them, and raises their accountability, productivity and satisffaction levels immaesurably. With this approach to viirtual team-building, the sky's the limit.
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