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Sticky Learning Lunch 30: How to Make Your Virtual Team More Effective
Exclusively to help line managers to discover ways to build a more effective virtual team, in Virtual Team Could be More Effective Part 2.
You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:
Nathan Simmonds:
Good afternoon. Welcome to Sticky Learning Lunches with me, Nathan Simmons. We are just gonna give it 30 more seconds. Just we’re all waiting for the last handful of people to arrive. How was everybody’s weekend? Let me know in the questions box or the chat box for those in the UK that had a bank holiday. How was your long weekend for those? Not in the uk. How was your weekend? Two days ago? I think there’s a few people still just trying to get back in the swing of things for a Tuesday. Hello, Colin. Fabian. Janine. Good to see you. Good to see you again, Pearl. Good to see you Stuart.
Nathan Simmonds:
I think with the long weekend here in the UK that we might see a few stragglers and a few people may be watching us on the replay rather than getting us live as they get back in the swing of things after three days or away in the garden. Windy to start, but so lots of time in the garden. Weed’s still winning. Nah, well, weeds are just plants with a different viewpoint put on top of them. I know this ’cause I spent time on my allotment. I’ve got some potato plants here in the garden that are actually being weeds right now ’cause they’re in the wrong place.
Nathan Simmonds:
Attendees, let’s just make sure we’ve got everyone here, Aaron, on. Good to see you, Tim. Good to see you. Welcome back. Let’s dive in because we have got a couple of key points to, to cover. Anyone misses the first part, they can dive back in and get the recording later, whether that’s on YouTube, whether you’re watching this on the replay or whether you can watch this live and you’re diving, we’ll get there or you will get up to date rapidly.
Nathan Simmonds:
Part two of engaging virtually with our teams. Last week we covered some people, ah, always so eager to deliver the content. First of all, let’s make sure we’re setting everyone up for success. Mobile phones, let’s get your mobile phones out, let’s make sure they’re on flight mode. So you zero out the distraction, a hundred percent attention on you. And you are learning and making sure that you are paying attention to what’s happening and where your thoughts are going rather than what’s happening coming through from your mobile phone.
Nathan Simmonds:
Thank you, Colin, for the reminder. Let’s make it on full screen. So that’s the first thing. Second thing is making sure you’ve got a drink and you are hydrated. It’s getting warmer here. Let’s make sure actually you are physically looking after yourself so you can mentally engage with what we’re doing. And the third thing is making sure you’ve got a blank page in your not put note, not put notepad with keepers written at the top.
Nathan Simmonds:
And keepers are the things that you want to keep hold of the things you wanna remember and the things you wanna remind yourself about when you read back through your notes and say, ah, now I remember that thing. Ah, this is how it helps and this is how you are expanding it. So it’s really important you’re doing these three things to give yourself the the the focus and attention and engagement so that you are winning from this from the beginning. Part two.
Nathan Simmonds:
Then virtual engagement, how we are building stronger teams wherever they may be across the globe, across the country. And whatever satellite location in relation to you, you are building a tight network that looks and works much like more like a structure of a chemical compound. Well connected, well thought about and deliberate. So one of the key, well three of the key things that we picked up last week was the three differences.
Nathan Simmonds:
One is distance, two isolation, and three is connection. And I wanna expand and dive into these just a little bit more to give you that bit of extra clarity on them. So as I was thinking about, you know, the, the, the key elements that are building psychological safety and how we do this as, as leaders, as as learning and development practitioners, as HR business partners. These are some of the key elements that we need to be aware of so we can start to build that psychological safety.
Nathan Simmonds:
And as I started to sit on these ideas and, and kind of just to see where my thinking was going and what’s important to this and doing a bit more research, you know, I came up with some really key elements that we need to be thinking about the first one and the expansion of those questions.
Nathan Simmonds:
And a quick recap, the expansion of those questions that we started looking at last week, which was now as a leader is asking more questions of your people. How are you? What’s going on? How can I help? Then making yourself available to them. So understanding that when you’re asking these questions, they’re gonna need support and make yourself available to them. Let them know when you are available, where you are going to be.
Nathan Simmonds:
So they’ve got a mentor pitch of, of your availability so they know when they can speak you and when they, when they need to wait, et cetera. And it just gives them that sense of security that they know they have someone they can call upon. And then the part last part there I put on there was do sweat the small things for these people, for your people that are in different locations, what you think may not be important to you may be massively important to them.
Nathan Simmonds:
And it is the small details that sometime get compounded over a course of time, especially with this intensity of proximity that we have with our families, with our works, et cetera. You know, and the analogy that I used on on Friday was, you know, if you’ve got a small pebble stuck inside your shoe and your climbing Everest, which one’s gonna seem bigger? The mountain you are climbing or the pebble inside your shoe. So think about this, ask these questions to your people and get them and, and get to understand what are those important small things for them so that you can eliminate those obstacles so these people can do their best work.
Nathan Simmonds:
And I wanted to dive into this distance and give some ideas to help shorten that distance. Question to all of you listening, watching right now, what’s one thing that you are all doing that’s helping you to stay connected to your people? What’s one trick or tip that you would like to share with everybody else in this session that is helping you to stay connected with your people and have a slrp of tea? Just while you are pinging in those suggestions,
Nathan Simmonds:
It is important we understand this distance weekly, one-to-one meetings via video. Good using teams allows, for instance, chats, messages, calls, video. Absolutely. So we’re using different platforms to stay connected at different points in in the day. We’re having a weekly session booked in with our people.
Nathan Simmonds:
The challenge that we have, especially with distance, as any more suggestions come in, the thing we have is now if there was distance in the office, whether there were interpersonal relationships or friction or tensions, these things are gonna be exacerbated over a longer, you know, e even more greatly because of the distance that’s being created by logistically and geographically.
Nathan Simmonds:
So it’s important we understand this and we need to find ways to close that distance and to get, make stronger connections. And, you know, when we return back to the office, if we can start using these techniques and ideas physically, it makes it easier to manage virtually. Couple of key things in, and we’re looking at the distances. We wanna start to learn how to collaborate more clearly. Maybe the people in your teams are working on different projects or working on one. How do they actually connect with each other? How are you encouraging them to connect with each other?
Nathan Simmonds:
How are you getting them to have conversations with them, with, with each other, even when you are not there? So rather than those individuals feeling like they’re siloed or segregated even by their own thinking, let alone by, you know, the thoughts or, or in intonations of other people, how are you making sure they’re connecting? Couple of things that we can do inside this space is one is create collaborations.
Nathan Simmonds:
Get people to work with each other, get people to have virtual coffee breaks with each other, just to have downtime to speak to each other in the team. So this is one element that we can use these, the technologies and the platforms that we’ve got, whether it’s by phone, because I said about this before, you can still use the phone, it still exists. Don’t have to use video chat all the time. Get correct.
Nathan Simmonds:
Create moments where people collaborate with each other. Make suggestions. If you are talking to someone in your team and you say, oh, that’s a really great idea, it will be really great if you shared that with so and so or with the rest of the team, could you have a conversation with them and encourage them to speak to other people in the team? They may already be doing it, but get ’em to carve out those little times a window to connect, to shorten the distance.
Nathan Simmonds:
The other thing is, is also getting them to lead meetings. So we talked about before the online presentations, and it’s now the same person comes on, here’s Bob, the team leader with his PowerPoint deck, and he presses at the beginning and he reads every single slide and you can’t see the video and most of the people have checked out and they’re doing something else.
Nathan Simmonds:
You want people to engage. And again, creating that shortening of distance and help build the connection that we wanna create. Get people to lead the meetings, ask people to contribute to those sessions. So it’s not just one individual delivering the content, it’s everybody and everyone is starting to learn to, to work together and collaborate this way. We increase the engagement and we’re getting more people and we’re shortening the, the we’re shortening the gap and bringing people closer together. So the first one is to collaborate on projects.
Nathan Simmonds:
The second one is to get them to lead the meetings as well. Takes the pressure off you doing it for yourself. Get them to think about the content, get them to think differently so they’re putting their points across and their challenges and their solutions. The third thing, which comes across as a strange idea, I was working in a team a year and a half ago, and one of the people in the team says, yeah, there there there’s these WhatsApp groups or, or Skype groups or, and, and what people do is they ring each other when they’re going to sleep.
Nathan Simmonds:
And I was like, so so what? What is, yeah, yeah. So what you do is you phone them up and you just put the phone next to your bed as you’re going to sleep and you just have that noise of someone else going to sleep next to you and it makes you feel connected or and I was just, I’m, I’m really confused. It’s like, well, surely if you want to go to sleep next to one someone, you end up with a stable relationship. And so you can do that rather than having to go to sleep with a phone next year. Struck me as very weird, but it’s a thing apparently.
Nathan Simmonds:
And this idea popped into my head and actually doing the accountability, buddy doing the collaboration. Use your video or use your phone con. So if you want to get some really focused work working with an individual or working on a project, use a Pomodoro technique, 20, 25 minutes of, of focused intent on a piece of work, but do it with another person now available so that you can then talk to each other just for a couple of minutes. So will you get, oh, I’ve got this da da da. And you start to build a little bit of accountability into the, into the relationship as well.
Nathan Simmonds:
So you shorten the distance, create the collaboration, and then get people to work together. Might be on separate projects altogether, keeping the video link open so you can have open dialogue. Couple of ideas to help bring this together. Another suggestion came in, create projects involving crossover, fun, cross-functional teams. Absolutely Fabian, you, you’re like a sto in the audience, which gets us onto isolation.
Nathan Simmonds:
Isolation in this reference is about work and being isolated to work, as I said. Now there’s this siloing that we experience sometimes because we’re working on our own and people, we can’t see what other people are doing or people can’t see what we’re doing. And we begin to become potentially become a little bit insular and almost introvert in our experiences. And you want those collaborations and you want people to talk to each other. But the thing is to be mindful of, especially in the current situation, it is am I being overworked?
Nathan Simmonds:
Am I being given too many responsibilities? Am I flicking between too many different projects? And as a result, I’m having to switch hats constantly and this is actually damaging my productivity because I spend, you know, six and a half, seven hours of my day in different kinds of meetings trying to work out what’s going on, but not actually getting anything done because I’ve got too much on my agenda.
Nathan Simmonds:
So as leaders, when we’re having these conversations with people with, it’s the one-to-ones, it is the coffee conversations, it’s, you know, it’s the weekly check-ins to make sure mentally and physically they’re okay and they’re, and they’re in the best place, is also finding out what they’re working on and helping them to, to stay connected and avoid the isolation and, and prioritize.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s our responsibilities as leaders and, and, and business professionals to think about what’s important right now to think about what’s critical, what’s moving the needle. And if we haven’t already done so and still doing is constantly readdressing and recalibrating those projects that we’re working on. Are they supporting the business? Are they moving us forward? Are the people in our teams and in our, in our in our business arenas, wasting time and energy doing things that aren’t beneficial to where we’re going.
Nathan Simmonds:
But as we start to add more responsibilities and it’s just making sure that we’re, we are pausing that stuff that may have been good for months ago that isn’t so beneficial right now. We pause that stuff, we put it to one side and we focus our energy on the things that need work. And that might be cross-functional teams, but doing the right things that we actually feel like we’re contributing and we’re moving the business forward. So it’s about checking the distance, shortening it, collaborating and removing the, the, the isolation we may feel doing certain projects so that we can create more of this connection.
Nathan Simmonds:
And like I say, it’s to that current situation, activities to do now that if you’re not already doing them, it is to be speaking to your leaders or speaking to your teams and reassessing on a weekly basis, monthly basis. What am I working on now? What are the current business objectives we’ve got going on? Who’s involved in these projects? Is it business critical and is it serving a purpose right now? Or do we need to readdress, park and pause and put that focus back on things or into new things that are actually gonna help us progress where we need to be.
Nathan Simmonds:
Just taking some of these actions here, shortening that, bringing people together and collaborating in different ways. Eliminating the isolate is about increasing that connection. As I’ve said before, reading Johan Hari’s book, the Lost Connections, the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. When we lack that connection to the people we work with, when we lack that connection to the work that we are doing and when we lose or lack that connection to how it’s helping others,
Nathan Simmonds:
How it’s contributing and having a sense of purpose in that, we start to find that our psychological you know, that psychological safety circle that we live in or we need to be living in at work starts to really depreciate and it gets a bit fuzzy around the edges. And we start to, you know, things that, like I say, were small start to to weigh us down.
Nathan Simmonds:
The overwhelm starts to creep in. But as we switch context we’re not quite sure where the business objective is. We don’t feel like we’re, we’re, we’re relating to people or feel that connection to the other people in our teams and we lose those things. And as a result of that, our work starts to suffer because our mental health starts to suffer. We start making personal and professional choices that aren’t of the highest caliber because we don’t feel we’re in the best possible place.
Nathan Simmonds:
So I hope these three concepts will help in a couple of these actions are beneficial, gonna help you get your team focused and keep them focused. And moving to the next few weeks, what’s been useful from today’s session so far? What have you picked up from today for the first day back in the hot seat, doing these these live sessions? What’s been useful from what we’ve covered today? Get others to these sessions. Absolutely. It doesn’t have to weigh all on you.
Nathan Simmonds:
I think what’s moving the needle forward always it is not even even mercenary in a certain situations. You know, what’s the one action I need to take right now that’s actually gonna get a paying client in? What’s the one action that I need to take right now that’s going to shift the team into this project is all these different elements. You know, there’ll be a question that focuses your intention much more clearly, and is it moving the needle forward?
Nathan Simmonds:
If it, you know, does it make the boat go faster? I can’t remember the the, the lady, she was a British I think rowing rowing champion, gold medalist. And her thing was, does it make the boat go faster? If it doesn’t, why are you doing it? Psychological safety zone. Absolutely. And we need to be building this now more than ever as we hit whatever.
Nathan Simmonds:
Is this the end of the, the lockdown? A lot of us are still in confusion, especially in the UK about what’s going on now. We’ve been doing this for 11, 12, 13 weeks in some cases, and as a result of that, our tensions and our capacities and now are fluctuating on a daily, weekly basis. And it doesn’t matter if all we are all in this together or we’re all going through the same thing. I know as a father and as a husband that I have my own priorities and, and, and working and these sorts of, is the, you know, these, these frustrations and tensions affect me.
Nathan Simmonds:
It doesn’t affect the whole nation. So it’s understanding that, you know, that your people, your teams are gonna have exactly the same thing going on for them as well. And it’s about, and it’s absolutely your responsibility because they are in your charge and in your gift for you to connect with them so they feel closer so that they are connected so they don’t feel the isolation and they’re able to do good work. Good. What questions have you got for me today around virtual teams and how to help them engage more fully?
Nathan Simmonds:
What has, what, what do you, what do you need some more clarity on right now? Or what can I add to support you on this? Steely silence. Just as that’s any questions are coming in link for tomorrow’s session. If you have not signed up for tomorrow’s session we have the link in the chat box for you right now that’s coming up in just a second. Get registered for tomorrow.
Nathan Simmonds:
Again, we’re gonna dive in just that psychology around making sure you are the best version of you at home and get some intense focused points of, of understanding to help you in your working from home situations, especially at the 12 week point. For a lot of us tensions have increased. That link will be in the chat box shortly. Questions coming in. What’s one thing? I, I don’t decide asking questions. What are the common signals that I can be mindful of to pick up on their vibes?
Nathan Simmonds:
I think the biggest one will be how distracted they are and how, how, how and the level of attention they’re paying. Now, if we, if we, if I’m working with someone, you know, unless I’m talking to them and they are, you know, taking notes because I’ve asked ’em a question or they’ve take, they’re doing actions or whatever it is, great. But if they’re flicking and they’re doing other stuff and they’re not really engaged fully in what they’re doing signpost.
Nathan Simmonds:
You know, we’re gonna talk, you know, shut down all your, all your windows, shut down your email, let’s just have a conversation. Are they distracted? What do you notice about ’em physically? Now how for some people it’s about making sure your hair’s done, making sure you’ve had a shave. For some people it’s about making sure the makeup’s done are these things out of whack to how they are normally.
Nathan Simmonds:
So we look for the things that aren’t common and we can pick up on and, you know, what sort of language are they using? Are they just feeling a little bit down today and they’re just checking in and having a conversation into that rather than ignore it? And it’s gonna be different for different people at different points. So it’s important we understand this as well. And as I’ve said before, you know, some people do not wanna work from home. They don’t enjoy it, it doesn’t work for them. They wanna be in the office, they wanna be around people. Great, fantastic. That’s different for different people and the signals will be slightly different, but it’s just looking for the thing that isn’t normal.
Nathan Simmonds:
How to get build and understanding of what the purpose of a business is in cultures that aren’t necessarily interested in finding out. That’s interesting. How to get, build an understanding of what the purpose of a business is. Every business has a purpose and whether or not it’s split and diverted and, and kind of the behaviors of the business have, you know, you’ve gone through that kind of that intersection, that y junction then great, every team also inside the business will have its own purpose and its own business drive.
Nathan Simmonds:
Part of that then is every individual that sits in that will also operate in their own business if they have this understanding. One of the conversations I used to have with people was when I’m talking to them is asking them, okay, well if this was your business, what would you do? What decisions would you make?
Nathan Simmonds:
Now you as a business, what product are you selling as the individual in this team? What is it you are selling? What’s the sellable service of Tim? Now what’s, you know, as a as as an organization, as a shop, how do you operate? How do you want people, customers to interact with you? What do people think when you turn up late when you are, you know, your quality is subpar, whatever it is. And it is taking it back to the individual level and getting people to think about it. How they would, either they would operate themselves as a business or how they would run the business if it was theirs.
Nathan Simmonds:
And it starts to spark kind of the entrepreneurial mindset, just enough. And then finding out what their, or getting or getting them to find out what their purpose is, what are their values, what’s important to them, and getting ’em to start building it on the inside out. The business isn’t doing it. That’s absolutely fine. That’s up to the business. How you lead individuals in that team and how you get you, you get ’em to connect to their own sense of purpose and their own values.
Nathan Simmonds:
That’s up to you. And that’s up to them. If by the successes of that part of the conversation, those individuals do better, that team does better. The business as a whole does better. And we get to start to, to, we start to get people to think like this for themselves.
Nathan Simmonds:
And we get to think about the products and service that they’re providing. You know, in the nicest possible way. We don’t do anything selfishly for other people. We do it for ourselves initially when we under. And that’s meaningful work. When we understand the difference though between what meaningful work is, work that is full of meaning to me and then how you make it purposeful work, work that is full of purpose to someone else, we can then make that transition, okay, what is it I’m doing? What do I get from this?
Nathan Simmonds:
Okay, in order to get that and to increase maybe my income, my holiday, whatever it is, what do I need to contribute to the people around me in order to create that as a fair exchange? And going back to those individuals, what is your sable service? What are your values that you want to back that up with? Go to the individual and the business will eventually fix itself. Yes, it’s a long game, but we don’t, you know, we’ve found out in this the problems we play in short games. This is all a long game. Hope that’s useful.
Nathan Simmonds:
Hope that has been useful from today. Awesome. Thanks Tim for coming back to me. Hope that’s been useful today. I’ve had some key to notes sent back to me saying things you’ve taken away. Really appreciate that. Make sure that you are signed up for tomorrow’s session. The other thing, and we’ve got the link in there for that. The other part is that who, you know, you’ve been in these sessions before you are in here today. Who would benefit, benefit from, you know, these sorts of sessions?
Nathan Simmonds:
Who do you know in your business that would benefit from, you know, even attending a sticky learning lunch and having a conversation about working from home? Who are your leadership team needs to get a deeper understanding of how to improve the engagement in their teams. How to support the, the mental health conversations that they’re having with their teams while they’re working from home still, who here right now has a business or has a team that would benefit from a conversation with me delivering some of these skills
Nathan Simmonds:
For this. If, if we have the virtual classrooms, we have me delivering live content into very specific groups and organizations, sharing the content that we do, whether it’s mental health conversations, whether it’s leadership coaching, whatever. So we have the link for the virtual classrooms there you can find a list of all the soft skills and leadership development points that we deliver and share very much in the style of these sessions. But very detailed and very specific on, on some core subjects. If your team, if your business would benefit from these types of conversations.
Nathan Simmonds:
This time training, you have the link for the virtual classrooms. Connect through there. Let’s have a conversation. Let’s see which, how we can help your teams be the best version of them with sticky learning, with MBM, making Business matter. Thank you very much for your time today. I look forward to speaking to you tomorrow. We’re gonna dive into some more concepts around the homework and element just to make sure everyone’s being the best they can be right now. And I look forward to catching up with you tomorrow. Any questions, please make sure you will email them to us and we’ll see you tomorrow at one o’clock. Thanks very.
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