Virtual Teams: Creating Synergy

In the traditional work environment we rely on physical proximity to tap into the spirit and energy of teams.  What if your team members work remotely from each other?  A virtual team must build the same sense of community and shared purpose.

The key is in our communications and the way we convey the common purpose of the group.  Since gatherings play such a big role in building shared purpose, this post will address the special considerations of virtual team meetings.

Before the Meeting

• Take time to build trust with team members one-on-one before you begin virtual team meetings.  Members of a virtual team who know they are trusted will be more forthcoming with ideas and will challenge group thinking in a healthy way.  Use one-on-one time to ensure each team member understands the bigger picture and is aligned with the individual contribution they can make.
• Be considerate of team members in different time zones.  There’s an excellent meeting-planning tool at timeanddate.com that allows you to input the meeting date and attendee cities to calculate best times.  The date feature is a real boon as not all areas participate in daylight savings time.

During the Meeting

• Pick your meeting tools in advance and stick with them.   If there are handouts, ensure they are sent to everyone in advance.  Avoid the temptation to create last-minute documents to hand to in-person attendees leaving the remote members at a loss.  If you have chosen to use net conferencing technology, familiarize yourself fully with tool functionality to increase group participation.
• Be aware of the group dynamic during meetings.  The most challenging meetings are those where some team members are gathered in the same room while others dial in.  Part of the challenge stems from our natural propensity for communicating through body language.  Think about the last meeting you attended in person.  How many questions were answered with a head nod, a sideways glance or perhaps by silently pointing to a sheet of paper?  We can counteract some of this by narrating for the remote members.  This inclusive behavior will keep your remote teammates informed and will also help everyone learn virtual meeting best practices.

After the Meeting

• Create an easy way for team members to update shared action plans or collaborate on documents.  Sharepoint is easy to use and can be quickly configured to allow for confidentiality if that is a concern.  If your company does not have a collaboration tool, you can use a blogging site like WordPress with appropriate privacy settings.

Painting with Words

Why do you blog?

There are as many different answers to this question as there are bloggers.  And by the way, the latest estimate of the number of public blogs is 156 million.

The blog you are reading is not my first.  About five years ago I was introduced to a site called CaringBridge.  I used it to keep relatives and friends informed during a family member’s critical illness.  Once the crisis was behind us I put blogging aside until I moved halfway across the country to my present location on the west coast. 

Two things led to my becoming a committed blogger.  The first is that I needed to find a different creative outlet when we moved to British Columbia.  Up until the move I was an avid painter but the wall-to-wall beige carpeting in our new home gave me pause.    Second,  I was  feeling a need for connectedness and words have always been my primary social tool.  In fact, I had begun incorporating words into my paintings – initially as accents, but slowly the words began to take a place of prominence on the canvas.  I still dream of painting an old tree with foliage made entirely of words.  I know I’ll do it one day.  That’s what vacations are for. 

So for me, blogging is a means of expressing my creativity and connecting with others by painting with words.

Do you have a blog?  Why do you do it?  Share your reasons in the comments section – perhaps we can create a mosaic of thoughts!

Would you like to make your own word picture like the one in this post?  Go to Wordle.net and have some fun.

A Newbie’s Foray into the Classroom

Sitting in the foyer of a local high school brought me back a few years. Although my high school is a 7-hour flight from here (and many years in the past) the sights and sounds are familiar: parents rushing in to sign forms or pick up students for dental appointments, office workers busily filing documents and answering phones, and the school bell that instantly mobilizes an entire building. Just one thing gives away the current era: mobile phones. They’re everywhere.

Waiting for the session bell to ring gave me plenty of time to realize I was nervous about teaching my first Junior Achievement class. I’m adept at presenting to professionals and executives – but how would I relate to tenth graders in a way that would provide value to them? I couldn’t help but remember the Sidney Poitier movie “To Sir With Love” where the girls are snarky, the boys look dangerous, and hormones abound.

At the sound of the bell I was met by my assigned teacher, Lorena. It quickly became evident that she cares for her students. I loved watching the way she brought them all in, got them in order, and explained what would take place for the next hour. Throughout the class she watched closely to ensure the students had what they needed. At one point when she offered clarification on an exercise instruction I had given I was reminded that good educators share a competency with the best business leaders: delivering clear expectations. We could probably learn a thing or two about clarity from teachers.

The students could not have been farther from the images in my imagination. They were quiet and mostly soft spoken. It was challenging to get them to participate but by the end of the class more than half of them did. They easily grasped the concept of making buy, sell, hold decisions.  In fact, they seemed to like the decision making part. And they certainly understood the appeal of investing.  I can’t wait to see what they do with the stock market simulation over the next few weeks.

I wonder what it is like for an experienced teacher to turn her classroom over to a newbie.  That might make an interesting future post.

In honour of teachers everywhere, here’s a recent remake of Lulu’s famous song “To Sir With Love” (from Glee). Click the link for a redirect to YouTube.

Are you a social media lurker?

If you are a social networking lurker you already know who you are, but just in case there is any doubt here are the symptoms.

- You have a LinkedIn profile but your name is hidden.

- You ignore connection requests – or worse yet – you have a LinkedIn profile but never sign in to manage your profile.

- You have a Twitter account but your tweets are private. Requests to follow you produce a shudder and immediate blocking of the dastardly would-be connection.

- You check your Facebook privacy settings weekly to ensure no one can find you.

Lurkers do all of the above as if to negate their online presence yet they spend time reviewing others’ profiles and watching networking activities.  I can think of a couple of reasons why this behavior is not in your best interests.

1)  In today’s connected world it’s tough to attain trusted advisor status if your legitimacy cannot be corroborated by a public persona.  I don’t have any hard data to support that claim but I can tell you that business prospects have returned my phone calls and told me that they checked me out on LinkedIn first before they decided whether to call.

2)  You may be missing an opportunity to connect with someone who can provide good advice or a service that you need.

3)  The most important reason not to lurk is this: Lurkers don’t give back to the community — and sharing is what social networking is all about.

Consider this an invitation to decloak and join the community.

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Recombobulation Area

A touch of kindness at Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee

Considering the degree to which air travellers must disrobe at airport security it’s a wonder we ever make it to our destinations as intact as we do.  I know I’m not the only one who finds it somewhat unnerving to be in the company of two dozen strangers in various stages of undress surrounded by the sounds of buckling, zipping and closing things.  There we stand,  clutching boarding passes, hawkishly scanning items as they exit the xray machine to ensure we leave nothing vital behind.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this announcement:

“Will the passenger who left a brown belt at security please return to collect it.” 

It gives me an instant mental picture of some poor soul – suitcase in one hand, holding up drooping pants with the other.

One airport is seeking to give its patrons a bit of relief by providing a recombobulation area.  The photo above is from the General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee.  We still have to disrobe, but now we have a calm spot in which to put it all back together.  I love it.  You have to appreciate the humor and humanity in this gesture.  Thanks MKE.

By the way — to show how community focused they are…  I tweeted this last night and they tweeted right back.  Impressive.  We should all listen and engage with our customers as well as this airport does.

For the next few months, I entered airport security with renewed curiosity and a sense of fun. As I made my way through each one I would look for a recombobulation area. Of course, none of the other airports had one, so I would then send a tweet to Mitchell Airport announcing that they are still the friendliest airport in all the land. I never would have believed that I’d develop a relationship with an airport, but there it is. And don’t you know if I have a choice of airports to make a connection, I’m going to choose this one over others. That’s a fine example of corporate social networking.