By:  Sean Irvine, MD & Lead Practitioner, Inside Motivations

Welcome to the “New Normal” of work life. I do not know how long it will last but we can use this time well. As our team management practices evolve from the office to home, how do we not only maintain effectiveness but maximise it?

Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford professor, did a two-year study on the productivity of working from home. He found that there was a productivity boost and a 50 per cent decrease in employee attrition, but that cannot be guaranteed. We have a unique opportunity to see how we can continue to accomplish our goals in the virtual world. Many organisations have been changing the way they work, but with little or no experience in teams working remotely, will they remain effective? There are new challenges that team leaders will face and there are some simple and highly effective strategies that can be implemented to overcome them.

What Comes Next?

First, let us contemplate how we can make our teams’ effectiveness increase as we work in our new territories. As we develop new strategies, we must assess the challenges and pitfalls that could be encountered on a virtual platform. At Inside Motivation we have formulated this list of the core potential challenges, as we step into this new environment.

Big Picture is Temporarily Forgotten

Often, team members become so focused on making day to day operations work in their new milieu that they forget where our company is going. It is so important that we, as team leaders, remind our team to periodically look up to see the big picture. As great as it is for team members to focus on daily tasks, highly effective leaders keep the big picture in the minds of their team members, as it keeps them motivated and moving in the right direction. Our goals manifest quicker when our entire team is envisioning the desired outcome. This also supports effective decision making, as well as promoting creative thinking as we move towards our team purpose.

Micromanagement

Due to the invisibility of our team members’ efforts from home offices, team leaders can tend to expend significant energy checking up on individual tasks. With this approach, team members can become insecure, demotivated and disengaged by trying to “prove” their efforts. Instead of strategically moving toward the desired outcome, they may become over-invested in proving their work. The focus of the team may be diluted when they feel they have to prove themselves rather than creatively achieving goals and pushing further towards the vision.

Team Meetings Becoming a Task Check

Real, interdependent teamwork that actively involves all members is hard, especially in the virtual world. Individual progress check ins are boring, as they tend to be a series of one to one’s, done as a group. Teammates may become used to zoning out in these meetings rather than utilising the viewpoints of their co-workers to keep the vision realised and bring new ideas. Without deliberate designing of new norms and work practices focused on how teams achieve essential tasks, ineffective routines emerge, and teams do not achieve to their potential.

“Zoom Fatigue” is Real

Dissonance between sound and picture requires significantly more effort to process. Verbal and non-verbal cues can be out of sync. Response delays can create a feeling of unfriendliness, even when it is caused by technology. Silence is a part of the natural rhythm during face to face conversations, but it can create anxiety in video conversations. Team leaders must rethink how to get the most out of team interactions using tools like Zoom without creating "Zoom fatigue".

Inclusiveness and On-boarding for New Members

Ideally, we would convene a team meeting face to face, to welcome in a new member. In the virtual world, it is not as easy to be vulnerable and confidently express oneself without team context. New members may be slow to learn and accept team norms and work practices. Not knowing how the team works collectively will reduce the contribution from a new member and their satisfaction, and hence their retention.

A Process to Maximise Effectiveness of Remote Teams:

1. Create Clarity around a consequential and challenging team purpose

• Left with a blank piece of paper teams have difficulty setting purpose. As team leader you must bring your idea of purpose to the team.
• Share your idea of purpose with the team and allow them to develop it further.
• Using the format “We will (our purpose) By (list of high task/work areas) So that (the impact of our work on others).’’ This will create complete clarity of purpose and a joint understanding and ownership.
• Don’t forget to be explicit about what we don’t need to do anymore.

2. Set Expectations and General Work Practices

• Identify the two or three key goals that will advance the team towards it purpose.
• Discuss expected challenges as a team, consider the goals and the virtual working environment.
• Discuss past examples of similar challenges the team has faced and how the team navigated them.
• Bearing in mind the preceding conversation, build a concise set of norms and work practices which support the achievement of these goals.

3. Avoid “Zoom fatigue”

• Keep team Zoom calls for tasks requiring inter-dependent teamwork such as making joint decisions, brain-storming or collaborative problem solving. In uncertain times such as these, ‘’question storming’’ is a useful technique to get everyone tossing around ideas, engaging and working creatively.
• It is better to have shorter and regular meetings. Share the required outcome of the meeting and any pre-work in a timely manner. End the meeting with a quick review of what worked well and what didn’t.

4. Avoid Micro-Managing

• Use a shared tool, such as Trello or Microsoft Teams, to help members and leaders track and coordinate their work and the work of the team. This allows all team members to monitor progress without wasting valuable team meeting time on mundane task checking.

5. It is a difficult time for all

• Do not underestimate the importance of social support amongst colleagues.
• The most effective teams come together to get work done; this is why they exist and where they get their satisfaction.
• Keep team meetings focused on interdependent tasks, and
• Provide an alternative forum for social support, perhaps schedule virtual morning teas or Friday afternoon drinks.

6. Growth and development of your team is important

• Conduct regular reviews of meetings and activities – what did we do well, what could have been done better and what did we learn?