Facilitate Proceedings » Building Effective Teams

Discerning the Essential Skills for Leading Virtual Teams

Nancy Settle-Murphy — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:22:31 +0000

My friend and colleague Julia Young and I are collaborating closely –from 3,000 miles away–to create a blended (virtual, asynchronous and face to face) training program, Leading Virtual Teams, for a new client. As we interviewed a representative set of senior managers to better understand their challenges, we asked each one: Which is more critical for people to learn, how to plan and run more productive virtual meetings or how to lead successful virtual teams?

Time for a Virtual Work Fitness Workout

Julia Young — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:16:55 +0000

After 18 years as a telecommuter, I would characterize myself as a good virtual worker. But a recent article on the benefits of telework to both the employer and the employee made me realize it might be time to challenge myself to think about how I might work more productively.

Working from home can lead to poor work habits. Here are some useful questions to help assess the way we work and come up with our personal virtual work fitness regimen. Counting wasted calories, having a fitness goal, weighing in and reaping the rewards applies to working too!

Inside All of Us is a Great Virtual Collaborator

Nancy Settle-Murphy — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 02:35:44 +0000

In any given team, there are bound to be differences—in cultures, personalities, communication styles, work habits, expertise, seniority, and many other aspects. Rather than view differences as a challenge the team must address, think instead about how we can leverage differences, and at the same time nurture each team member to thrive in a virtual work setting.

Anatomy of a Great Virtual Collaborator

Nancy Settle-Murphy — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:05:54 +0000

Most people I know love working remotely. They say they get more done, prize their freedom and flexibility and have better work/life balance. But there are others who really miss being with people and feel isolated and lonely much of the time. People often ask me what qualities are the most important predictors of a successful virtual collaborator. Here are seven that come to mind.

Social butterflies tend to thrive.
May seem ironic, but sociable people crave contact with others and are motivated to maintain connections, either virtually – through phone, email or social networking tools—or face-to-face, when they can. Introverts who find it painful to stop and chat with an officemate may find it harder to cultivate social connections in a virtual world. For someone who’s introverted, social bonds are almost impossible to create and keep up when working from afar.

Are We Losing The Art Of Decoding Expression?

Nancy Settle-Murphy — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:21:19 +0000

With increasing reliance on text as a primary form of communication, younger generations may be losing the ability to read vital nonverbal cues. And for those of us who multitask all too often, we may be losing the ability faster than we think.
So what’s the real harm here? Absent constant opportunities to decode expressive forms of communications, we simply will not learn how to react or respond to others’ nonverbal cues. The ability to impart meaning from one’s facial expression, tone of voice, choice of words, or cadence is a nuanced affair that takes years of experience to get right even most of the time.

Research Briefs Reveal Gold Nuggets For Facilitators and Team Leaders

Danuta McCall — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:02:46 +0000

There is exciting research going on at universities across the globe focused on understanding the basic constructs that affect team productivity and well-being. It’s pretty clear why we should be interested in what this research is turning up. We work in a global and unstable economy where the rules are constantly changing. Our workforce is culturally diverse and often separated by barriers of time and distance. We have an overabundance of technologies to help us collaborate that work well when used appropriately.

In order to succeed in this challenging environment, managers and team leaders must understand the fundamentals of how groups communicate, innovate, and make decisions. Then we can create the right environment, norms and processes to help groups function optimally. If we don’t understand the core forces behind team effectiveness, we might make unfortunate choices in our communication systems (both technological and human) and management systems.

Here at Facilitate Proceedings, we’d like to help make the connection between this academic research and the community of practitioners who could benefit from it. So we have added a new category to our blog called Research Briefs.

8 Attributes of Successful Virtual Workers

Nancy Settle-Murphy — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:01:20 +0000

Many of my clients, like so many other organizations, are looking for ways to help them establish and cultivate a productive remote workforce. In some cases, they realize that greater workplace flexibility will allow them to attract and retain certain kinds of employees. In other cases, companies simply to have to slash costs, forcing employees out of company offices.

When starting up telecommuting programs, some of my clients start with a pilot program where a group of new telecommuters will pave the way for others to come. The first step: Making sure the people who are selected are likely to succeed in a virtual workplace. My clients ask me: Is there some sort of test or tool that we can put people through to make sure they’re the right candidates?

Bridging Cultural Boundaries in Global Teams

Nancy Settle-Murphy — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:11:45 +0000

In a recent post, I talked about the importance of helping your cross cultural teams develop cultural literacy, by which I mean an understanding of and sensitivity to values and beliefs that lie beneath the surface differences of language, cuisine and style.

Whether members of a cross-cultural team work in the same location or a couple of time zones away, everyone needs to learn how to navigate cultural differences successfully. In the absence of visual cues, these differences become much more challenging to interpret and address.

Here are some things to think about when you plan for team communication.

The Magic Number That Helps Teams Flourish

Danuta McCall — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:21:58 +0000

I was patrolling my corner of the blogosphere when I came upon a post that referenced research by psychologists Marcial Losada and Barbara Fredrickson about how positivity impacts team performance. Experiments have shown that positive affect (positive sentiments, attitudes and emotions) makes individuals, teams and organizations flourish – that is function optimally. People and teams who flourish are more flexible, resilient, creative and intuitive. On the opposite side, languishing teams exhibit narrow thinking, boredom, cynicism.

The Magic Number
Now, Losada and Fredrickson hypothesized that people or teams with a positivity ratio (ratio of pleasant feelings to unpleasant feelings) that meets or exceeds a specific threshold would be also characterized as flourishing. Losada studied a large group of business teams during their annual strategy meetings, tracking statements made in the meetings as positive, negative or neutral. He then measured the performance of these teams and determined that there is indeed a positivity ratio, and it’s (drum roll, please)…

9 Steps to Get Dysfunctional Virtual Teams Back on Track

Nancy Settle-Murphy — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:57:33 +0000

When virtual teams start falling apart, it can be hard to identify and address the symptoms. It’s tough enough to lead a dysfunctional team when you can see the members and speak openly eye-to-eye. But when you’re leading a virtual team that’s become disengaged and dispirited, it takes special skills and approaches to re-engage and motivate those who have drifted away. Here are some practical steps that I use to get remote teams back on track.

State your observations with examples and express your concerns. Start by sending an email with a strongly-worded header to implore people to attend the next team meeting. Describe the team’s behavior. For example: “I have noticed that many people have dropped off of our calls. Some of you are reneging on promises, and others are declining to pitch in to help others as you used to. As a result, I feel like the team is falling apart. I am asking that all of you fully participate in our next meeting so that we can explore the real issues and decide what we can do to get ourselves back on track.” Follow up with a phone call to make sure people have read your message and plan to attend.