Sponsored Post: 4 Tips for Virtual Collaboration With Your Team
When you’re managing a virtual team remotely, you can’t afford to make assumptions or gloss over key details. Communication and collaboration are integral to your overall success. If you mess up in this area, it can create some real headaches and seriously undermine your efforts moving forward.
The Need for “Togetherness”
According to a report from McKinsey, 97 percent of employees and executives believe a lack of alignment with the team impacts the outcome of individual tasks and projects. And guess where alignment comes from? Good communication and collaboration.
Effective team collaboration is one of the most important aspects of running a successful company. In fact, it’s almost impossible to run a healthy and profitable organization without having your team on the same page.
“Synergy” might seem like a buzzword, but it’s absolutely paramount in the grand scheme of growing your business. When you have a remote team, you have to find ways to bring people together and forge some sort of alignment. Here’s why:
- Collaboration breaks down silos. When your team interacts with one another and has good synergy, it eviscerates any silos that could otherwise form. This is one of the biggest benefits of encouraging collaboration.
- Collaboration boosts creativity. As anyone in an executive or strategic leadership position knows, nothing kills a company’s ability to innovate more than poor collaboration. The more you can get your team to collaborate, the fresher your ideas will be.
- Collaboration improves culture. Even though you run your company remotely, you’re still trying to create and maintain a culture. High-level collaboration makes this possible.
4 Tips for Virtual Collaboration
If you’re worried about your virtual team’s synergy, it’s time to stop worrying and start acting. Now’s your chance to be proactive. Here are several tips:
- Encourage Video Meetings
Nobody wants excessive meetings – that’s not what we’re encouraging. But, if you’re serious about increasing collaboration, you do need to get in front of people face-to-face. Video meetings allow you to do this.
One option is to start each day with a 15-to-30-minute Zoom huddle with cameras on. This allows your team to begin with an immediate connection that makes virtual communication and collaboration easier throughout the day.
- Use the Correct Tools
In addition to video, there are some other tools you should integrate into your tech stack to get people on the same page. One of them is a note-taking app.
Collaborative note-taking apps, such as Box, allow your team to take notes together during a team meeting or other sessions. Everyone can engage, edit, and add information to the same resource. This prevents unnecessary back-and-forth messaging and speeds up deliverables.
- Cast a Clear Vision
You might be able to get people in the same digital “room” when you use video meetings and other collaborative tools. But if you want to get them together on a deeper level, you must cast a clear vision for the company (and the individual roles each person plays within the company).
A vision is more than a mission statement or set of clear values. It’s an open and honest conversation about why the company exists, what the purpose of individual products is, and who the customer is. When employees understand the company’s DNA, they’re much more likely to act collaboratively toward achieving unified goals.
If your business doesn’t already have a unique sales proposition (USP), you should create one. While most business leaders think about a USP in terms of differentiating the brand in the customer-facing marketplace, having one also offers internal clarity.
- Move Away From Email
Email serves a purpose. It’s a powerful marketing and outreach tool that can generate serious revenue for your business when properly leveraged. It’s not, however, a very effective internal collaboration tool. It’s impersonal, clunky, and frustrating.
The better option is a dedicated chat application, such as Slack. With a tool like Slack – and feel free to use one of the many alternatives – you’re able to effortlessly send messages, create threads, set up channels for different purposes, and even enter into video or audio-only “huddles.”
Putting it All Together
If you want to develop a successful company that’s positioned for insane growth in your industry, it starts with getting your team on the same page. Good collaboration and healthy communication give you an opportunity to do big things.
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