When is a vacuum useful? When it’s sucking dust off your floor (preferably pushed by someone else). Perhaps when you’re packing those clothes away in clever flatpack bags. Or to facilitate external relocation of the gigantic spider in the corner near the ceiling.
So when is a vacuum not useful, possibly even destructive? In team communications, particularly geographically distributed or virtual teams.
This has come into my focus this week as I work with a group on an assignment. While most of the time we live within a 30 minute drive of each other, our various responsibilities prevent us meeting face-to-face except on rare occasions, and there are some technological issues that impact effective Skype-ing. Much of our communication consequently occurs via email yet this method is often like communicating into a vacuum where matter (ideas, actions, etc) zoom their way to group members at the push of ‘Send’ and that is the end of that. Nothing comes back out because it’s a vacuum.
It takes personal leadership excellence to be a successful member of a virtual team. Every single member of the team has a higher obligation to model the way particularly in effective communication, which often can only occur most regularly via email.
One of the most important elements of communication is to listen and to show that you are listening. Participants in the communication need to take turns at doing this to create a dialogue. As social beings, we’re pretty good at doing this face to face. As our world’s barriers diminish through the power of technology, we humans still need to actively engage in communication.
When emailing, chatting, tweeting or any other media involving a keyboard or characters, ‘listening’ becomes a more abstract concept. It begins to describe the act of reading, absorbing, thinking and engaging. And it is absolutely critical to remember that the other person cannot see you doing any of this – ‘so what’ you say? The lack of visible non-verbal cues requires substitution or the quality of communication immediately begins to erode.
Sure, of course you can have an automated acknowledgement. Really, though, that’s no better than an ‘arrival receipt’. It neither shows you listened nor heard.
What methods do you use in virtual teams to ensure you are ‘listening and seen to be listening’? What has been most successful for you, or what has been a total failure? What peeves or delights you about virtual communications?
Share your experience with us here (you don’t have to use your real name if to do so would have a negative impact).
For other ideas on leadership communication, checkout Geoff’s book The leader’s beacon: the 55-minute guide to leadership communication.
