Sim Zacks
"Science may never come up with a better office communication system than the coffee break."—Earl Wilson
A team is a group of individuals working on interrelated tasks. And most teams seem to encounter similar problems:
- At points of integration between different tasks, miscommunication about responsibilities may occur
- A team member with more experience on a certain aspect of a project might not get assigned work that aligns with that experience
- Team members might miss opportunities to help one another with their work, causing issues with efficiency
These issues don't disappear when teams are distributed geographically. In fact, they can be exacerbated. Success as a distributed team—like success with any team—is more certain when that team works together as a cohesive team—a team whose capabilities exceed the capabilities of all individual members. A cohesive team consisting of average-skilled employees can easily outperform a non-cohesive group of superstars. To get to this level, where "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts," each individual contributor must work in an interlocked fashion with other contributors.
In this chapter, I'll explain the following seven qualities that lead to cohesive teams:
- Understanding the team goals
- Informal interactions
- Communication
- Diversity
- Regular feedback
- Effective retrospectives
- Celebrating success
Perhaps unsurprisingly, each one is in some way related to interpersonal relationships. And when team members think and act openly, each one of them improves.
To build a cohesive team, you have to work on all the aspects that surround work, though they are not necessarily part of the team's workload. Each one of these dimensions raises its own challenges when the team is working in a remote environment—and even more so when the team is distributed globally.
Everyone on a team has individual tasks to complete. However, the more each member understands the bigger picture - what everyone else is doing, and why - the easier it will be to shift direction if they need to. It will also be easier to ensure that the solutions they're developing are indeed the best solutions (and the more opportunities they'll find to add unanticipated value to each other's work).
So how do team members discover others' goals?
A team physically co-located can derive a great deal of information through osmosis—overhearing spoken conversations, seeing what people are drawing on the whiteboard, and talking to people over a coffee or smoking break. They can ask and answer questions, exchange valuable context, and their understanding of what the team is working on slowly emerges.
Because remote team members don't always see other team members doing their work, they don't receive that osmotic information, and they aren't guided as much by natural curiosity. So a remote team must consciously plan to disseminate the information that'll pique curiosity.
However, since this kind of osmotic information isn't always directly related to the work that each person on a remote team is dealing with, certain members might feel it's irrelevant—and filter it out. So teams need to deliberately reinforce osmotic information flows and constantly ensure that it's tying each person's specific work to the team's goals and objectives. During meetings, for example, it's important to ask everyone providing a status to also relate to their work in terms of the team's broader objectives. This will help everyone focus on the team's joint mission, and not get bogged down on the details of their specific tasks.
In distributed organizations, people are often assigned tasks appropriate to their professional profiles—not necessarily based on their personal abilities. So teams might not be able to infer the full extent of their teammates' talents and interests simply by observing the work they're doing. Therefore, creating ample opportunities for information interactions between distributed team members is essential to team cohesion.
First, doing this can help team members locate and draw out hidden talents on the team. Teams are comprised of individuals, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, even when they all qualify for the same job description. Remote teams—all teams, really—are successful when they draw out their members' strengths while minimizing weaknesses. In this way, every team can tap individuals for the aspects of the work to which they can best contribute. One person may be better at external communication, another at learning new things quickly, and a third at graphic arts. These attributes might not be readily observable. Rather, team members learn about them from one another through interpersonal interactions, perhaps while taking coffee/smoking breaks, eating lunch together, or going to the bar after work.
Fostering informal interactions on a distributed team is also important for helping that team collaborate more effectively. In short, they're more likely to work better together when they understand and recognize one another more completely. Here's one example of what I mean: As a member of a team, you often have to trust your teammates and understand what they mean when they say something. Someone who says "I'll have that done by tomorrow" might mean one of several different things by that sentence from a practical perspective. Some people will have it done on time (or before), and if you ask them about it beforehand, they will consider that annoying. Others need reminders and a bit of pushing if they're going to deliver the work to you as promised. On a distributed team, you'll only understand nuances like these if you've spent some time really getting to you know your teammates and understanding their personalities. The more you know about your teammates, the more you will be prepared for anything they throw your way.
Having a personal relationship with people in a remote/global environment can be more challenging, as you must explicitly build relationships instead of having them slowly develop organically by virtue of simply occupying the same physical location. One strategy for fostering these relationships is schedukling regular coffee breaks. In this case, a "coffee break" is a block of time in which a few people get together on a video call for specifically non-business conversation. It might seem a bit contrived at first, but with time, you'll find it helps build and cement interpersonal relationships.
In face-to-face environments, people have access to multiple means of communicating. Tone, facial expressions, and body language are just as important (if not more so) than the words people use when interacting. These channels are rich sources of meaning, and learning how your teammates convey ideas is critical to understanding what those teammates are saying. ("The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said," Peter Drucker once noted.)
Yet on distributed teams, faceless communication—facilitated perhaps with email or text chat—so much of that nuance can be lost. And opportunities for misunderstanding can multiply.
When communicating with a remote team, try to keep in mind the following ideas:
- Each communication medium has plusses and minuses; try to find the best medium for your specific communication goals
- Assume good intent; it's possible you aren't reading the message in the same "tone" it was sent
- Try not to use sarcasm, cynicism, or other communication styles that require the kind of nuance that can't be easily understood through some channels
- Use emojis to convey tone, but keep it simple and professional
- Use video and interactive dialog to keep people engaged, especially in remote environments where distractions abound
Every person is unique and has their own way of viewing and interpreting any situation. Everyone's perspective is generally colored by their life experiences, education, and neurodiverse cognitive patterns. A team composed of people with similar backgrounds will have a much narrower range of perspectives than a team made up of people with different backgrounds. This diversity enables the team to look at a situation through a multi-faceted lens, giving them a wider degree of understanding of the big picture.
Diversity is one of the few components of cohesive teams that is potentially stronger in a remote environment. That is, distributed teams can have members anywhere; teams comprised of people from multiple backgrounds, countries, and cultures have the ability to work together and increase the value they provide. A team whose members learn to interact with each other and feed off of each other's strengths will be able to blend into a cohesive mesh.
Feedback is one critical aspect of a team's ability to constantly improve. Team members must understand what they're doing right so they can continue doing that. They must also understand the mistakes they've made so that they can work on those issues. Feedback can come from multiple source and travel in multiple directions. Managers who oversee a problem with people working together can suggest methods of improvement. Teammates can make suggestions to each other regarding problems they've seen and suggestions on how to improve. Customers can provide feedback on the improvements that will improve their lives.
Managing these feedback loops is much more difficult for remote, distributed teams. Fewer interactions between team members means certain people might not feel comfortable giving constructive criticism. (See the section above, on informal interactions!) Leaders and managers don't always observe team member interactions and may not be aware that some of the team members are not working well together. The feedback loop has to become an object of deliberate structure and care (more than, say an informal discussion in the cafeteria).
To accomplish this, team leaders and managers should hold regular one-on-one meetings with team members. To be most effective, this should include a review and status update of both task- and career-based objectives. During these meetings, leaders should provide feedback about the tasks for which the team member is responsible and ask team members for feedback on those tasks, on the team leader, and the team's general direction. This should be an open conversation, where all parties feel safe and valued.
When a project reaches a milestone—or wraps up—it's generally a good idea to conduct a retrospective (or "post-mortem") to review how the team succeeded on the project and how it may need to improve in the future. This involves analyzing the entire project process—both the "good" aspects as well as "bad." An effective retrospective process enables team members to provide feedback to their peers and for everyone to learn from one another. During this retrospective, each team member should learn about methodologies other team members used. Comparing methods this way will often highlight strengths and weaknesses, as well as gaps and collaboration opportunities. By learning all of this, and building bridges to mitigate problems for the future, you'll greatly increase the team's cohesiveness.
In a remote environment, a retrospective should be a multi-step process that looks something like this:
- Survey
- Review and follow-up
- Meet and discuss
- Action items
Ask participants to collaborate on writing questions to ask the team about the project. Each retrospective will be unique and require its own questions. But here are a few examples you can customize:
- Was the initial project definition sufficient for understanding the scope of the work?
- During the course of the project, what did the team learn that it should have known in advance?
- Were there times when the project could have used more collaborative efforts?
- What would you do differently if you were starting the project from scratch today?
- Was the decision-making process transparent, and did you have the ability to influence the way the project unfolded?
Your goal is to ensure that everyone's ideas and concerns are taken into account and included. After the team agrees on the questions, they should compile them and send them to all team members in the form of a survey. As much as possible, every question should lead to actionable outcomes; based on the group's answers, that is, the team's process should change during its next project, if necessary. Moreover, when possible, questions should have fixed options as answers. This will enable you to generate statistics per answer. Your survey should also include a place for additional comments, so everyone has the opportunity to provide their complete feedback.
When all survey results are complete, publish them for the entire team to see and review. Leaders should address any questions about the results so everyone on the team understands them. Everyone on the team should keep track of their own comments on each result.
After the individual review is complete, it is time for the retrospective meeting. During the meeting, review each question and allow everyone on the team to share impressions and comments. The result of this session should be a list of the aspects of team workflow and process the team feels should change in future projects (and those that should remain the same).
Send the finalized list to the team for an additional review to gain final feedback before declaring the process complete.
Celebrate when the team successfully completes a project or process. Doing this not only reinforces a culture of positivity but also enables the team to spend time together, informally socializing.
For co-located teams, this might involve going out for drinks or dinner after work, sharing a cake, or any other type of celebration that brings the team closer. Moments like these enable the team to relive the victory and discuss future plans.
On a remote team, celebratory traditions like this are more challenging, as it can seem like members are celebrating on their own. To espouse a culture of positivity on a distributed team, consider beginning regular team meetings by asking members to share something they appreciate. This provides every participant the opportunity recognize someone else on the team who did something positive. This peer-recognition is a great way to reinforce every team member's value. If the team has a budget for awards, it might consider initiating something like a "member of the month" award (or similar), for which the winner is sent a small token of appreciation (like a restaurant gift certificate). And if every member of the team is working in the same (or closely aligned) time zones, the team might gather on a video call at the end of the work day and share a drink.
In conclusion, there's no doubt that developing a cohesive distributed team is more challenging than it would be in a co-located environment. However, by thinking through all the stages and keeping this goal in mind while establishing workplace conventions, you can acheive similar results.