Building an Effective International Team

Recognize both the challenge and opportunity. There are clearly challenges when your team members are scattered across time zones and space. Remember, there are opportunities too. People who are remote have been found, in most cases, to be individually more productive. When your team isn’t together you will have different perspectives and inputs (and perhaps more cultural diversity too), which means you should get more varied ideas and be less susceptible to group think. Remote teams bring great opportunity; make sure you are capitalizing on those opportunities.

Have clear goals. Along with clear expectations, we must have well-defined goals. What is the team trying to accomplish? Do they all know, and can they all consistently describe, the goals? What are you doing to remind people of these goals and keep them in front of them? While this is always important, it is especially so when people are not in consistent contact with each other. As a leader you must make sure the goals are clear and everyone is focused on moving towards them.

Manage team dynamics. Make sure you are thinking about team dynamics. On conference calls, is everyone participating? Do you have people checking out or disengaging? Is your team the right size for achieving the desired work product? Are there better ways to manage various pieces of the work? Is there another means of communication that might work better?

Find small ways to nurture relationships. Relationships can be challenging at a distance. Find ways to engage people with each other beyond the business and tasks.  Communicate with team members in the way they prefer. Send a tweet, connect on Facebook, call unexpectedly to check in, or send a text. Whatever you do, make sure you are making time to build relationships with each team member and helping team members connect with each other, also. Do it proactively; don’t wait until you have fractured relationships to get started.

 

As you’ve read this you may think that many of these things would be true for a “normal” team too. If you are thinking that you would be completely correct! Many of the items here do apply to all teams. Why? Because virtual or remote teams are still teams of people first. Remembering that is the first step towards success. Focus on team first, and virtual second.