Can You Really Collaborate Effectively When Working Remote?

I’ve been spending a lot of time speaking with clients and partners over the past year. With so much disruption in the market, I’ve made it my mission to reach out and seek as many perspectives as possible. In these calls, it’s been great to catch up with old friends, expand existing relationships, and collaborate on future initiatives.

I’ve also heard a common thought from many of my clients and partners - they just don’t feel like they can collaborate when they’re not all together.

As a business and technology consultant, and someone who is passionate about distributed teams, I shiver when I hear this. Here’s my opinion on the subject as someone who has been working with a largely distributed team for nearly 5 years:

Collaboration is BETTER online:

I say this without any hesitation. Meetings and collaboration are BETTER online. I hope we never go back to the old days where people cram into a meeting room, have trouble getting remote participants to join the call by a PHONE CALL, and then realize they’ve brought the wrong version of the project drawings. Who cares anyway… half of the people on the call can’t see them. This sounds like I’m stretching the truth, but I would suggest that this was the probably scenario on about 75% of the planning and collaboration meetings I attended pre-COVID. Most were a waste of time and required several meetings after the meeting just to get the right information - not to mention the lost time that was spent just getting to that meeting. Enough said.

In a well-run online meeting, all participants have a seat at the table. People can see, hear, and be heard. Nobody should be left out - after all, why did you invite them if you don’t want them fully engaged?

Here are 5 things that you can do to make sure you optimize your productivity in online meetings.

(1) Turn your video on, be part of the dialog.

(2) If you’re hosting the meeting, be sure to introduce folks. Help them get connected with one another.

(3) Get online 5-10 minute early, and make sure your audio and video are ready to roll. If it is, then mute your mic and camera and continue with your other work until the others arrive. You’ll be amazed how much time you save in a day. This early start also often gives you the opportunity to engage with others early and connect on a more personal level. A great way to build stronger connections.

(4) Have your sharing items ready. I make a point to have my various files open on my desktop. When it comes time to share, they’re ready to go. No fumbling around or wasting people’s time.

(5) Invest in your technical skills. A little practice will go a long way to making you more comfortable and help you perform better in online meetings. There’s a growing digital divide in business. Companies who fall behind in these skills will be left behind.

Yes - you can still have spontaneous connections online:

A few folks I’ve spoken to recently have lamented that they just can’t connect with others in the same way. They want to be able to “pop in” to someone’s office and share an idea on the fly. All of this is still very much possible online if you’re using the tools available to you. You may have heard the term “Unified Communications”. This term refers to online systems that merge team messaging, voice calling, and video calling. Unfortunately, most of the customers I deal with each week have a disconnected concoction of different platforms and none of them are truly “unified”. By unifying your communications, a platform like Teams, RingCentral or others can help you re-create those “on the fly” engagements with team mates in a way that’s more powerful that you might have done in person.

Despite the number of video calls we’re all doing, I’m convinced that the messaging app is truly the foundation of this unified approach. Within our messaging platform, I’m able to see who’s available or not. I’m able to organize communications more effectively around subject or topic, better able to solicit feedback from multiple members of our team and able to quickly and easily escalate the chat to voice or video with a single click of the mouse. Need to connect everyone on a project team? That’s easy too - just hit the conference call button and we’re all instantly connected by voice OR video. This creates a nimble team where we never need to keep track of where everyone is. Some in the office, some working remotely, some on a project site and some in the car. It doesn’t matter. We all come together quickly and easily.

The tool you use (and how you use them) are important

We help clients plan and implement their navigation to cloud communications. As consultants, we don’t care what our clients choose as a platform, only that they understand what they’re getting and how it meets their needs. That’s the value we bring to customers.

One area of concern that I often see is clients who have made large scale investments in new communication technologies, but don’t know how to use even some of the most basic features. They’ve invested significantly in modernizing their communication tools, and then using them like a single line phone from 1910. A little time invested in change management can help an organization optimize their new systems, build comfort across your teams and ensure you’re on the right side of the growing digital divide.

In-person meeting still matter:

I’m sure you’ve read the paragraphs above and you’ve come to the conclusion that I’m an anti-social introvert, hiding form the world and incapable of communicating with other humans effectively. Perhaps Dr. Spock comes to mind. I can assure you I’m not so astute.

What I can also tell you, is that in-person connection still matter, but maybe not for the same reasons you think they do. Ultimately in-person connections have always helped us build strong relationships and cement those we’ve already started. I believe this will continue to be the case in the future. Let’s re-think when and why we need in-person meetings. Our team recently had a brainstorming session on this to determine when and why we would want to hold an in-person meeting in the future. The dialog was diverse, but some clear thought presented themselves:

(1) In-person meetings can often be more powerful after you’ve developed rapport online and through video. It’s like meeting an old friend after time apart.

(2) If you’re going to meet in person, then focus on the personal aspects of that meeting. Have a meal, enjoy a drink together. Make it personal and invest your time and focus in the other person.

Our team ultimately forecasts and hopes that most of our day to day meetings will continue to be online, where they are often much more efficient and effective. They will then augment those online meetings by making an effort to invite clients and partners to our office for the express purpose of connecting in a more human way. Perhaps lunch, a coffee, or a drink. Our office has been reworked with this future in mind - a place to connect in person in truly human ways. Casual seating, training spaces, a lounge and a cafe space.

The future its hybrid:

I believe that 2020-2021 will go down as a driver of structural change in how most of us engage in work. We have been forced to rethink out relationship to work, to our commute, to our families and to our teammates. I believe the global pandemic didn’t change the trends in the market, it simply magnified the trends that were already happening and ultimately it smashed the line of thinking that was preventing the widespread success of distributed teams. In the years ahead, I anticipate that thoughtful organizations and people will draw from the pandemic the lesson learned and will seek to keep the best aspects of distributed work while also seeking out the human connection we’ve often lost. My bet is on a hybrid future where most knowledge workers are virtual and come and go from their physical workspace(s) as they please.

I want to hear from you:

Let me know what you think about the subject above. I want to hear from you and enjoy learning from different perspectives. I may even use your insights in a future article. Email me at ColbyH@ForteDesigners.com

About Colby Harder

Colby is a business leader, consultant and a champion of the distributed workforce. With 20+ years of experience creating and leading businesses, he works with senior executives to provide perspective on technology adoption that is grounded in experiential design - focusing on how normal people interact with technology as a tool.

About our Distributed Workforce Transformation Practice

Forte is a boutique business and technology consulting firm. We work with clients like you to help you define opportunities, identify risks, and implement strategies. We have a specialization in distributed work transformation, audiovisual technology & cloud communication migration.

Often, our team just gives you the extra human bandwidth you need to implement fast change. Our team of consultants include business leaders, technologists, financial professionals, and HR consultants.