Crossing continents, avoiding islands | How to engage with people across time zones

business women having a conference call, time zones
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Ally Yates shares best practice in engaging people across time zones

Virtual teams and telecommuting are well-established features of how we do business these days. You can join a meeting from your city office as easily as you can conduct an appraisal conversation from your kitchen table.

Engaging with people in real time across geographic boundaries, works best when you can see and hear the other people as if they were in the same room. Here are ten tips for high performance in a virtual team. Help your colleagues to avoid the islands of isolation that will inevitably create barriers to your success.

Establish clear rules for working together

Clear rules help you get the work done more efficiently and effectively. At the outset, it’s useful to explore and agree how often you’ll connect, and for how long. Set the ground rules for your calls. For example: everyone will arrive online on time; don’t interrupt the speaker; ensure everyone has a chance to contribute. These are particularly helpful where people have different cultural expectations about what is acceptable.

Create a shared direction

A common sense of purpose and agreed outcomes are particularly important for a remote team where it’s all too easy for people to go off-track. It is helpful to define both what the direction is and what this means for each person involved.

Build trust and familiarity

This is much harder to achieve when colleagues are scattered across the globe. High performing teams treat trust-building as a priority, and with good reason. As human beings, we are pack animals with an innate need to belong. To build the connections, create some social time in your meetings, inviting people to share something of their personal and professional self. Believe it or not, it’s the personal details that resonate most.

Share the airtime

High trust teams have “predictable communication patterns”, where the team members’ contribution levels are evenly spread. In managing the distribution of airtime, each team member has a responsibility to keep track of who is in (or out of) the conversation and to rectify the balance.

Consciously monitor your own contributions compared with others. Are you taking too much of the airtime or do you need to contribute more?

Share the lead

Successful teams share leadership across team members, depending on where the relevant knowledge lies. In a well-managed project, each activity stream has a ‘single point of accountability’ (SPOA), an individual who is responsible for that strand of work. Allowing each SPOA to lead on his/her stream nurtures that accountability and often provides a development opportunity for a team member. If you’re a team leader, it’s important to remember you don’t have to hold all the cards in your hand: you can practice your skills of delegation.

Allocate roles

A dispersed team can benefit from a Scribe who is adept at using technology so that discussion points are captured for all to see and a Knowledge Manager who acts as the team curator.

Allocating roles across the team and rotating these roles is another mechanism for distributing leadership.

Exploit diversity

In a global team, you’ll most likely have cultural, professional and personal diversity. High performing teams know the make-up of their diversity and work hard to leverage the value from the differing perspectives. Making the most of the diversity around you relies on your curiosity and your willingness to listen, understand and explore. Where diversity doesn’t exist (or more likely is less pronounced), create it – for example: play devil’s advocate; assume different roles; invite guests to contribute.

Facilitate round-the-clock working

Many global virtual teams, particularly in the technology sector, relay work around the globe from one time zone to another. Master the baton passing by providing a clear explanation of progress to date, suggesting or asking what needs to happen next, inviting and giving reactions, and appreciating what has been achieved.

Value people’s contributions

While all of us crave a sense of belonging, we also want to be appreciated and enjoy that dopamine hit. Regardless of whether you’re a team leader or a team member, you can notice what people have achieved, the effort they’ve made and the way in which they are contributing to the discussion. Giving credit where it’s due also fosters trust.

Team leaders facilitate in the meeting and guide outside the meeting

As a leader, if you’re acting on the nine tips thus far, you’ll find yourself comfortably in the role of managing the process whilst your team takes care of the tasks.

In between the drumbeat of virtual meetings, like the conductor of an orchestra, you can work with each team member to question, refine and develop their work. Wherever possible you can lead with questions, helping them to draw on their resources, extend their networks and learn from what has been achieved (or not). You can shape their performance and provide guidance.

Using your time well between meetings helps team members continue to generate and evaluate ideas, respond to each other and plan for the next session so that everyone is prepared, no one feels under pressure, everyone can make a contribution and your cross-continent connections get stronger with every interaction.

Ally YatesAbout the author:

Ally Yates is an expert in Behaviour Analysis and the interactions that define us at work. Her recently published book: Utter Confidence: How what you say and do influences your effectiveness in business (Panoma Press) draws on her rich experience as a consultant, facilitator and coach across a range of industries, providing practical examples of how behaviours improve results.

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