Starting with the cohesiveness factor, we know that leaders within the armed forces, in every nation and throughout history, work hard to build cohesion within their military organizations. Boot camps, for example, use the principle of replacing a recruit's existing value set with a new one that reflects the values of the military unit. It's a cornerstone of that type of team building.
No doubt you've also seen the desire for cohesiveness become an issue in companies and other organizations. It can be anything from birthday parties for members of a department to a top-down, organization-wide initiative to increase morale.
And as you can imagine, cohesion and team building cannot take place without communication.
Members of a group can only develop a sense of belonging when someone communicates to them that they are a valued part. Sometimes, that communication comes formally, in an initiation ceremony, for example. Or, it may be informal, as in the sense of allowing new members to participate in group activities.
As part of the team building process, members may be expected to reciprocate. They must signal to other members that they value the membership they received. That may involve expressions of gratitude, or it may involve doing something, even if distasteful (as in a fraternity) or criminal. For example, becoming a member of a street gang or an outlaw motorcycle gang may involve the commission of crimes.
Leaders intent on team building must be acutely aware of their communicating role, and consistently evoke or invoke the shared values that hold the group together. Speaking of shared visions and experiences are two ways of accomplishing this. In some unfortunate cases, it may involve scapegoating individuals or groups that are unlike them in some way.
Then, we have to consider how the group communicates its cohesiveness to people who do not belong to the group. Members of Little League baseball teams wear team jackets, for example, and members of fraternal orders and service clubs wear vests or badges.
In talking about cohesiveness, the experts also, and invariably, mention the downside of this togetherness. They refer to groupthink, for example, which sees organizations make bad decisions because they put unanimity ahead of a good debate about the pros and cons of an issue. Members of the group think it's more important to avoid disagreements than to reach the right decision.
In addition, groupthink means the team may not get important facts and opinions from non-members before making decisions. Most often, the outside information that does get in supports existing beliefs.
In summary, good communication, is always a cornerstone of any team building effort. And, we can see the connections, from communication to cohesiveness, and from cohesiveness to team building.
There's no doubt that a virtual team brings a multitude of benefits to organizations today; the ability to retain top-notch talent from anywhere in the world, the incredible diversity presented through global and cross-cultural viewpoints and huge monetary savings in corporate travel expenses if you have to bring someone in from a distance. But pulling together a top-notch virtual team doesn't come without challenges. There is the question of finding quality technology that everyone can work with, concerns about the accountability levels felt by each team member, and the difficulty of creating foundation expectations across the board. But the biggest challenge is the lack of connectedness between team members. Without creating the connections, a virtual team can't do what it needs to; function as a cohesive unit.
Most importantly, a virtual team won't bring true collaborative genius to your organization unless unshakable trust is established. So the question remains: How do you build trust in an environment where shaking hands, watching each others' expressions or body language cues and knowing one another's' backgrounds, methods and idiosyncrasies just isn't possible?
It's all in the team-building.
Knowing how to build a productive, integrated, low-turnover team is key to its success. Follow these seven steps and your team will be on the way to connectedness and profitability:
1. ATTRACT THE RIGHT TEAM MEMBERS: Strong team builders realize that they are not only looking for a potential team member who has specialized skills and talents, but that they also need to assess the "fit" of the prospective team member with the team as a whole. Skills and quality level of work are important, but the real key to building an exceptional virtual team is to find team members who fit the culture of the team. Many people will have the right skills ? few will have the perfect "fit".
2. VALUE AN INNOVATIVE MINDSET: When you encourage a pioneering approach within your team, you gain value beyond expectation. Teams that are a composite of experts with diverse experience and perspectives have the innate capability to feed off of each others' innovative ideas and naturally refine and improve concepts into amazing solutions. When a team member's ideas are valued, the willingness to believe in that team naturally rises accordingly.
3. PROVIDE MEANINGFUL WORK: Isolated team members have a need to experience work that challenges them and brings meaning to the tasks they are working on independently of outside influence. When each contributing member of the team is engaged in work that motivates and interests them, they perform better, have a clearer picture of the benefits and invest themselves more completely 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 working in an isolated environment. That's why making sure your team members have diverse partnerships, changing assignments and varying schedules is a solid way to keep your virtual team interested in their work and excited about upcoming possibilities.
5. ALLOW INDEPENDENCE: Every member of the team needs to know that their ideas and opinions will be respected. When you allow individuals to be accountable for coming up with new concepts and innovative solutions that will benefit the team and the company, you're basically giving them a sense of control. As an invested decision-maker, each team member is more likely to feel like a valued contributor 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 vision ? and that they have complimentary methods of achieving them. Often virtual team members 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 differing agendas into the mix, it's imperative that the goals and vision of the work ? including 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 virtual 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 mindset trickles down from the top and all ideas are respected and valued, trust soars and productivity increases 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 culture with a life of its own. When a company and its leaders view their virtual teams in this manner, it reinforces to each member the value being placed on them, and raises their accountability, productivity and satisfaction levels immeasurably. With this approach to virtual team-building, the sky's the limit.
Both Robert F. Abbott & Margot Thompson are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Robert F. Abbott has sinced written about articles on various topics from Marketing and Communications, Writing and Marketing and Communications. Robert F. Abbott writes extensively about business communication, and his work includes the book, A Manager’s Guide to Newsletters: Communicating for Results. You can read more free workplace communication articles at. Robert F. Abbott's top article generates over 2900 views. to your Favourites.
Margot Thompson has sinced written about articles on various topics from Marketing and Communications, Organizational. Margot Thompson is part of the INCEDO GROUP team. As a virtual team member AND a virtual team manager, Margot finds working virtually both exhilarating and mind-stretching. Find out how Incedo's group of executive coaches and communication experts bring. Margot Thompson's top article generates over 3600 views. to your Favourites.