What happened to trust in virtual teams? Yahhhhooooo?

Is there anything more demotivating than your CEO expressing to the world that your company is suffering from a lack of creativity and connection in the hallways? I was demotivated just reading about it in the news for the last few weeks. I can't imagine how the employees feel packing up their home offices and joining the lanes of traffic, losing time here and there: all to be a "part" of the new corporate Yahoo culture.

Is it just me or does that scream "I don't trust you"?

While we can all agree that leadership has changed and evolved over the years, we can also see something of a trend in virtual leadership. Everything begins and ends with trust. We know that from leadership lessons of years past. Yet with virtual leadership, the principles are the same, the practice is different. We know the WHAT. We just need to figure out the HOW. How can we trust when we don't see each other everyday? How can we create a spark around an idea when we are sitting in our home offices? How can we bump into Fred at the coffee machine and walk away inspired?

And let’s stop saying it can’t be done. Let’s change the conversation from what it isn’t, to what it is. Here are three best practices for virtual teams.

1. People need connection; make a connection. They might not get that spontaneously at the coffee machine. Instead of calling everyone into the office, start looking at the HOW. The principles of connection are the same.. the practice is different. If Twitter proves anything, it is that connection can be made by the abstract, linking the theme, and initiating a conversation. Start connecting and remember: to get trust, give trust.

2. People need clarity; create clarity. In F2F teams, this came from popping by with simple questions or reviewing a project during the walk down the hallways. Now people are dealing with endless Lync powerpoint dumps and presenters that sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Where’s our HOW? Visual project sites, the art of open questions, and interactive meetings are good places to jump start.

3. People need inspiration; start inspiring. Start building context with picture language for your team. Where are we now as a team? Where do we want to be? How can we get there? The “get back to the office so we can build a corporate culture” message is not inspiring. Especially when the intention was to inspire creativity happening in the hallways. Think back to your last inspiring a-ha! moment. Were you exercising, relaxing, or walking down a crowded corridor? Chances are you were exercising or relaxing and letting your brain process information. Start instead thinking about how you can activate someone from a distance. Inspire them with a-ha’s all over the place. Check out this advice to leaders for how to inspire creativity.

Yes, Yahoo's argument is to go back-to-basics… but now I wonder why we want to go backwards? Let’s evolve. Let’s keep working with our HOW to make virtual teams work. Let’s connect, clarify, and inspire!

Chris Hogan
christina.hogan@lorensbergs.se