Virtual team interaction: here's how to improve people's virtual-collaboration skills - Training 101

T+D, Oct, 2002 by Randy Emelo, Laura M. Francis

Computers represent a great ironic dilemma: While they serve to connect us to information and people around the world that we'd otherwise never know, they also drive a wedge between people and inhibit genuine human, personal interaction. People seem to spend more time with their computers than they do with co-workers. Research from Gartner indicates that by 2010, 70 percent of the U.S. population will spend 10 times longer per day interacting virtually. With more job duties taking place virtually, many people are working and collaborating with virtual teammates.

The job isn't easy for people who train others to collaborate and work together in virtual teams. The task becomes more complex when taking into account how people typically communicate. Humans communicate through body language and tone of voice. Those cues are missing when communication is distance-based and computer-mediated. That can cause confusion and anxiety for people who are new to virtual teaming. Working virtually takes intentional collaboration from all ream members--a skill that must be practiced continuously.

Many people aren't equipped to handle the demands of virtual collaboration. It requires seeking consensus with group members, resolving to accomplish pre-established goals, keeping others on task, making decisions that affect the group, and helping others reframe their perspectives based on circumstances and tasks--all while using computers and technology in a dispersed work group. People on virtual teams often lose sight of team goals and become enveloped in their own work--an easy thing to happen considering the physical isolation of members.

To help virtual ream members, here's a three-step process for developing virtual-collaboration skills:

1. Practice intentional action.

2. Broaden awareness.

3. Improve quality of communications.

Step 1: Practice intentional action

The first step is to reach team members to practice intentional actions rather than raking action without planning or fore-thought of the consequences. That means making people aware of the effects of their actions and helping them apply meaningful and intentional purposes to each action. A first intentional action is to capture a vision of what effective collaboration will look like in the virtual team. The vision can be a resolve to encourage and nurture open communication or be more specific, such as a 15-point plan on how the team will collaborate. Once team members have a clear vision for effective collaboration, they can learn techniques to develop strategies to fulfill the vision:

* Determine behaviors or practices that, if changed, will model the type and style of collaboration envisioned.

* Write a fictional article describing how the team developed its virtual collaboration environment.

* Identify what plans and strategies haven't worked in the past and why, and resolve to nor repeat them.

When all's said and done, each member should have a solid idea about the ream's purpose and how he or she will participate in achieving it. Each ream member's vision can be to harmonize activity among the team. That can include helping others understand his or her activities and their effect on the ream. Or a member's mission can be nor to hold up other team members' activities by ignoring duties he or she thinks are unimportant.

Step 2: Broaden awareness

A second step to developing virtual-collaboration skills is to broaden one's personal awareness. It's typical for people to be unaware of their behaviors and others' reactions. Team members can begin to broaden their awareness by testing their assumptions. That enables them to open themselves up to discovering more about their effective and ineffective virtual behaviors. The team facilitator or leader can help members test an assumption by having each person ask whether what he or she believes, sees, or thinks aligns with what the other ream members believe, see, or think. The results can be startling. When people discover inappropriate or ineffective actions, based on how others perceive them, they need to adjust their plans and actions developed in step 1. That will help team members increase their collaboration skills by refocusing actions to align with their visions, based on their broadened awareness of how they affect the team.

Step 3: Improve the quality of communications

The third step is to help team members improve the quality of their communications. Virtual teams are greatly influenced by the effectiveness of communication. Unfortunately, many teams are unprepared for the steep communication demands of a virtual work environment. One way to help people increase their communication effectiveness is to balance these speech territories: framing, advocating, illustrating, and inquiring--as described by Dalmar Fisher, David Rooke, and Bill Torbert in their book, Personal and Organisational Transformations Through Action Inquiry.

Framing is the explicit statement of the purpose, dilemma, or assumptions associated with a situation. It's important because it helps people express intent (refer to step 1) and gives purpose to and reason for conversation. Framing keeps communication flowing and purposeful. It's important to help people understand and keep in mind that framing must be explicit to work, meaning that the originator of a message has to let others involved in the conversation know what the frame is for that particular communication so they know the context for the message.