The Keys to Trust & Collaboration in Remote Teams
Trust is essential for organizational and team effectiveness. Employees in high-trust companies report 76% more engagement, 50% more productivity, and 40% less burnout than those in low-trust organizations [i]. While building trust is challenging even face-to-face, how can teams cultivate it when working remotely? How should leaders approach trust-building differently with remote teams?
There are many different definitions of trust out there, but most distill down to three components:
- Competence, or the belief that a colleague has the ability to do the job for which they are responsible
- Integrity, or confidence that they will keep their commitments and tell the truth
- Benevolence, that they have your (and the team’s) best interest at heart [ii].
A groundwork of trust enables teams to weather storms, dismiss small lapses in judgment or follow through, evolve their operations, work efficiently, and allow for vulnerability in the face of uncertainty [iii].
Leaders managing new virtual teams should capitalize on ‘swift trust’ – a temporary, presumptive form of trust based on initial impressions rather than behavior. Teams with high swift trust outperform those without [iv]. To encourage swift trust, leaders should:
- Promote team identification and shared purpose from the start. For example, leaders can share information about team members’ backgrounds and skills, even before bringing the team together for the first time, to promote a sense of shared purpose, commitment, and competence.
- Create opportunities for personal connection
- Model honesty and vulnerability to normalize a climate of openness and transparency
Beyond the lifespan of swift trust, there are four core components of effective remote collaboration:
- the right team
- the right leadership
- the right touchpoints
- the right technology[v]
Here, I’ll address the first three; the question of the right technology is one for the tech experts.
The Right Team: Optimal remote teams are appropriately sized, have the right people in the right roles, and foster collaboration. Virtual teams of more than ten are more susceptible to “social loafing,” or the tendency of individuals to put in less effort when working in a group context, and communication is more likely to be negatively impacted within larger teams [vi].
When a remote team has an appropriate number of people whose skills fit the needs of the team, there are many ways to strengthen collaboration and trust, such as:
- Rotate pairs or trios to work on challenging but achievable assignments.
- Organize thoughtful team-building exercises to stimulate creativity and build camaraderie.
- Implement brief virtual workplace tours to provide team members with a view into their colleagues’ work environments, which can contribute to a sense of a shared experience.
- Create “expertise directories” to make team member talents easy to reference and facilitate skill sharing.
- Establish and regularly review team norms to help guide behavior, decision-making, and communication. Especially in the virtual environment, clear expectations around response times depending on the mode of communication used are valuable.
The Right Leadership: Leadership competencies valued in face-to-face environments are also essential when leading remotely – clarity in strategy, communication and decision-making, emotional intelligence, compassion, and more, are all critical when helping a team navigate virtual collaboration. Remote team leaders can cultivate trust by offering team members autonomy [vii] through:
- Clear expectations surrounding performance metrics, deadlines, and quality of work
- Recognition of performance
- Frequent and transparent communication
Leaders may need to adapt their management style from in-person approaches like ‘managing by walking around’ to more structured virtual check-ins.
The Right Touchpoints: Effective virtual meetings should have clear agendas and objectives. To enhance engagement:
- Rotate facilitators and note-takers
- Include team-building activities
- Discuss substantive, discussion-based content (e.g., current challenges, case studies)
- Add “structured unstructured time” for team members to connect more personally
By leveraging swift trust, developing the right teams, encouraging adaptable leadership, and implementing effective virtual communication, organizations can build and maintain trust in remote environments, leading to more engaged, productive, and resilient teams.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
