One of the major tenets of this blog is that leading and working in remote teams isn’t intrinsically more difficult than working together, but it is different. So, we have to acknowledge and address those differences if we’re going to be successful. If we began listing the differences, the top would probably be the subject of trust, risk, and remote teams. Successfully building trust in our work relationships is a critical skill for remote leaders.

Suzanne Edinger is a researcher and assistant professor of Organisational Behavior at Nottingham University Business School. She has a particular focus on building social capital in teams and companies. We conducted an interview that produced so much good material, we can’t wait to share!

In this interview, we look at the effects of working in isolation from your teammates and what practical steps a leader can and should take to address them. She addresses a concept that had never occurred to me: the role risk plays in building or damaging team trust.

What are the long-term effects of working in isolation from each other?

Two of the most important processes in teamwork are communication and trust. Research has demonstrated that if team members don’t trust one another and don’t have effective paths of communication, their teams will be ineffective. These competencies are more difficult to develop in virtual situations, especially if team members are isolated from one another either geographically or technologically.

How does this impact trust?

Trust develops over time and is based on repeated interactions with another individual. As we see how a person responds in different situations, we assess their relative level of trustworthiness. This is a highly individualized process and can be culturally specific, which means building trust becomes more difficult as team diversity increases.

Two conditions are necessary for building trust: risk and interdependence. Without some level of risk, there is no need for trust. However, too much risk can be detrimental. For example, if the project the virtual team is assigned is make-or-break for most of the members on the team, the personal risk for each member is too high and building trust will be very difficult. Some level of interdependence of work is also necessary for trust building. Interdependence can be based on the task, the outcomes of the project, and/or the resources associated with the project.

Which leads us to communication. How does risk impact communication in a remote environment?

Communication is also vitally important in virtual teams, and more difficult to maintain when members are isolated from one another. Without good communication, conflicts and resentment build. Face-to-face team members often see one another on a daily basis, even when their teams are not meeting.

This proximity leads to ‘water-cooler’ conversations related to the project and the opportunity to bounce ideas off one another outside the context of a formal meeting. Virtual team members need to be encouraged to do the same things. Pick up the phone and call another team member to discuss a potential idea.

Virtual teams are often less efficient than their face-to-face counterparts because team members have gone in different directions between meetings and time has been invested in work that won’t be used by the team. Additionally, don’t underestimate the importance of non-verbal communication. In some cultures, this is much more important than the words a person says. Assessing non-verbal cues can be very challenging in virtual teams.

So what tools or skills should managers of traditional teams develop or learn in order to create trust and good communication in remote teams?

Lead by example. We know that one way individuals learn to behave at work is by copying the beaviours of their manager and other senior staff members. Demonstrate to your team that sharing information and trusting one another are “the way things are done here”. Provide them with strong examples to emulate

Encourage open communication. Ensure that your team meets regularly enough to maintain open lines of communication. Consider asking them to complete team contracts. These set out the norms expected of all team members, including honest and meaningful communication. Be clear that withholding information is not acceptable behavior.

Limit multitasking in meetings. Because everyone isn’t gathered together, and we cant’ see each other, we often have the tendency to work on to-do lists rather than devote full attention to the meeting and our teammates. This has a detrimental effect on trust. Make it clear that working off-task won’t be tolerated.

Spend time on team process and relationships. Make sure all team members know what is expected of them, and why they’re involved. This helps overcome the tendency to multitask and keep people engaged.

Increase appreciation. Increase the amount of recognition you give team members. Express empathy by using active listening without judgement and accept different opinions openly.

Don’t assume silence means agreement. Silence can have a number of causes; misunderstanding, lack of a safe environment, fear of risk taking, and differences in power. It might also mean they agree, but if you don’t ask, you won’t know.

Good relationships don’t happen organically in a remote environment: as a remote leader, you must take the initiative to develop trust between you and your team, as well as staying mindful of your team’s relationships with each other.

When there’s someone working remotely on your team (whether it’s full-time or just once a week), there are two questions to ask before communicating. And these critical questions can save you from any miscommunications that could disrupt your team’s synergy…

WATCH: Two Questions to Ask Before Communicating

Are you a remote leader? Visit our website for more resources, including our popular Remote Leadership Certificate Series. These interactive sessions are valuable for any remote worker! For more information about those sessions, click here.

I am a sociable person; I like going for dinner and drinks with friends, going to parties, and making new connections. I have good relationships with many people all over the world. But when I’m not hearing from my remote team often, it’s great.

This may seem surprising. Most of the time, the advice for engaging with telecommuters is to over-communicate.

Some say, “We don’t want people working from home to feel isolated, so we need to check in more often.”

Others are fearful, explaining, “Our office workers may feel contempt toward remote workers, so we need to get them talking to each other.”

While these aren’t terrible suggestions, they do miss the point of remote work. It’s right there in the term I just used: the purpose of remote work is to get work done.

Much of the communication we do in traditional work environments is out of convenience. It’s easier to yell over a cubicle wall than it is to look something up yourself. We can quickly pull people together for an impromptu meeting by grabbing them at their desks. Conversations or email threads can go on for days, covering the same topics repeatedly, because there’s no urge to be precise when you can just as easily get clarification.

However, communicating with remote employees requires clarity and precision; circling back to confirm something takes more effort. (It’s even harder when the hours they work don’t match up to our own.) On-site teams and remote workers often get into long exchanges to get answers or resolve problems. It’s bad in person, and it’s worse when people have to do it at a distance. It’s good to follow-up when you’re not sure, but a better question might be: why weren’t you sure in the first place?

In our firm, remote workers get things done because they have exceptionally clear instructions. They know what’s expected of them, and they know what the company needs to move forward. That means I don’t hear from them unless there is a problem. Since we’ve been working together a long time, there is almost never a problem! Work gets completed, and the emails are few and far between.

Some people might think this sounds like a lonely existence for our remote team. The truth is quite the opposite.

Since we don’t spend much of our social capital at work, they have more energy in their personal lives to be sociable with their friends and families. And that’s really how it should be, since these people selected us because they like the work and were selected by us because they are good at it. We didn’t choose them to be our friends, and while it’s fine if that happens, it’s fine if it doesn’t, too.

I personally love that I don’t hear from our remote team that often. What I also love is that we’ve found the right people to get the work done, and that they enjoy doing it. It’s a great relationship, but it’s based on work and mutual respect, not on hours and hours of long conversations.

And isn’t work and mutual respect what all of us really want at the modern organization anyway?

About the Author:

Robby Slaughter is a workflow and productivity expert. Robby runs a business improvement consulting company. His focus is helping organizations and individuals to become more efficient, more effective and more satisfied at work. Robby is a regular contributor in several regional magazines and has been interviewed by national publications such as the Wall Street Journal. His latest book is The Unbeatable Recipe for Networking Events. You can read more and see a complete list of books here.

As leaders, we frequently encounter challenges when conveying information to our teams, especially when our bosses delegate the messenger role to us and expect successful understanding and results. Often, it’s quite the opposite: communicating data ends with your remote team asking endless questions. In order to successfully communicate as a remote leader, we must learn that storytelling makes the difference when relaying data and other information.

Years ago, I was managing a team of technical instructors; each individual was a master of specific technologies that I barely understood. As you can imagine, it was tough for me to evaluate them, since half the time I had no idea what they were talking about. One thing that I always looked for and evaluated was their ability to use storytelling or analogies any audience could relate to and understand.

My favorite example was back in the days when dinosaurs (and Windows 95) ruled the earth. The class was struggling with the difference between Windows and DOS (If you weren’t alive during this era, count your blessings!)  Each instructor had their own way of explaining it with tech jargon, usually received with blank stares and furrowed brows from the audience. Fortunately, one trainer, had a brilliant analogy.

“Ever go through the drive-through at McDonalds?” he asked. “Windows is when you pull up to the speaker, give your order, and by the time you get to the window, your order is there. DOS is all the stuff going on in the kitchen that you usually don’t care about as long as it gets your order to the window.” Suddenly, it seemed as if I saw light bulbs flare up above the learners’ heads.

If you think that’s too ancient an example, let’s take a look at something a lot of us have trouble getting used to: using SharePoint or similar tools. If you Google, “What is SharePoint?” this is what you’ll find:

“SharePoint is a web application platform in the Microsoft Office server suite. Launched in 2001, SharePoint combines various functions which are traditionally separate applications: intranet, extranet, content management, document management, personal cloud, enterprise social networking, enterprise search, and business intelligence.  SharePoint servers have traditionally been deployed for internal use in mid-size businesses and large departments alongside Microsoft Exchange, Skype for Business, and Office Web Apps.” (Ready to sign up yet?)

Let’s see how one of our clients explained it to her team: “You know how you spend fifteen minutes before every meeting re-sending documents to people you’ve already sent? How would you like to never have to do that again?”

What she did, and good leaders do, is put complex information into easily understandable language for mere mortals.

Good leaders learn how to:

• Create analogies. “________ is like a __________.”
• Give examples people can relate to. “If you’ve ever tried to ______, this will let you _________.”
• Relate it to something they already know to reduce the threat of change. “In WebEx, they call it sharing applications. In Skype for Business, it’s called Sharing Programs, but both serve the same function.”

A key skill for managers, whether their teams are remote, co-located or a hybrid of the two, is the ability to translate complex information into simple language for any audience.

Storytelling makes the difference — whether you’re relaying information to one team member or an entire department – and will foster your growth as a successful, effective leader.

About the Author:

Wayne Turmel is the founder and president of GreatWebMeetings.com. For 20 years he’s been obsessed with helping managers communicate more effectively with their teams, bosses and customers. Wayne is the author of several books that demystify communicating through technology includingMeet Like You Mean It- a Leader’s Guide to Painless & Productive Virtual Meetings, 10 Steps to Successful Virtual Presentations and 6 Weeks to a Great Webinar. His work appears frequently in Management-Issues.com. Marshall Goldsmith calls him “one of the unique voices to listen to in the virtual workplace”. He works with organizations around the world to help people use technology to lead people and projects and build productive human connections in an increasingly remote work environment.