What is of interest to organisations is how to work remotely effectively. At best, remote working is far more efficient than physical working. Time can be saved on mobility alone, as the meeting can be moved instantly to the person's own workstation. The effectiveness of a meeting usually depends more on the participants and the methods used than on its physical or electronic implementation.
Challenges for remote teams
Let's take the example of a challenge: something small is bothering you and you need to raise it with a colleague or in the team. In the electronic world, there are no shared lunches, coffee breaks or trips to the customer. It's harder to chat about things in a natural way when you have to contact them separately, and difficult issues are usually best dealt with face-to-face.
Add to this the fact that even confidentiality has a half-life and the challenge of mere electronic collaboration is clear. trust tends to deteriorate when there are no clear ways to create or maintain it. At the same time, difficult issues are easily left unaddressed when there is no natural place to deal with them. This also easily leads to confrontation: those at headquarters, those salesmen, those Swedes, those Indians...
What can help? Remote team building. For example, chatting on instant messaging in a "virtual coffee room" and calls just to catch up. Team building needs to be done differently in a conscious way when the team does not meet and meetings do not become a social glue.
SmoothTeam also enables the development of remote teams
Our SmoothTeam simulation is also ideal for remote teams. In the simulation, the team takes an imaginary journey and learns from each other. The simulation makes visible what others think of me and I think of others.
Above all, the team gets to talk about who we are as a team, what we do and what our assumptions are about each other. A facilitator is involved in the simulation to help the team identify the most important issues to discuss, find constructive perspectives on them and come to concrete conclusions. The simulation can be played in the same room or in a video conference - I have also facilitated a simulation for teams with members on three continents.
Check out www.smoothteam.net and get in touch if you are interested in hearing more!
