Using a Conditions of Trust Inventory developed by John Butler of Clemson University, we have identified the 6 most likely to be compromised when teams are virtual.
1. Availability is obviously significantly compromised when you go virtual. You aren't there and therefore you aren't easily available.
Solution: You need to make yourself and the other members of your virtual team available on a regular basis. By creating a communication plan you lay out all the scheduled meetings and you should include an office hours' section. In addition if you have IM, the team should agree to keep their status up to date. This will tell other team members when you are potentially available for communication.
2. Competence is not compromised when we go virtual, but the impression of competency is. We normally develop a respect for co-workers competence, by observing them. When we are virtual, we don't have this opportunity.
Solution: We must be much more deliberate about letting everyone show their competencies. Team up members of your team for a month or a quarter and have them work on some projects together. As a leader you need to give all team members challenging assignments so you can see how they react. It frequently is easy to give the most important tasks to people you know and are around you, but it is a major complaint of distant virtual team members.
3. Consistency is something that is difficult to maintain when virtual simply because people can't see context and therefore have only part of the story when things happen.
Solution: You may be perfectly consistent, but you need to give people the context as well as the information of what you've done. Consistency is key to letting relationships between team members and the team leader develop. It removes anxiety and allows a relationship to blossom.
4. Fairness is the most critical item that distant team members worry about. Any indications that you are treating them differently than people at your site will be interpreted that you aren't treating them fairly.
One crucial area of this is team meetings. If you are meeting with the local people in a conference room while distant team members call in, they aren't on a level playing field with the others and they know it! In these circumstances, many remote team members simply do their email. They don't feel like valued members of the team. They aren't being treated fairly.
Solution: You should be meeting using web conferencing rather than audio conferencing with everyone meeting from their own desktop. A good onLINE meeting can actually be better than a face to face meeting if done properly.
5. Openness tends to be lost when we go virtual, yet a study done last year by Frost and Sullivan pointed out that openness is one of the biggest factors in improving performance by virtual teams. When people don't know one another, when they can't see who is present in a virtual meeting, or when they can't see how people are reacting to their comments and suggestions, they tend to close down. .
Solution: The leader must make it safe to speak up. You need to hold interactive onLINE meetings in which everyone participates. With the tools most web conferencing technologies have, this is actually easier to do onLINE that in person. Use the feedback tools widely. Learn when and how to make input anonymous and when and how to make it non- anonymous.
6. Promise fulfillment is a significant issue for virtual team members who worry about "being out of sight and out of mind." This is brought home when people at the leader's site forget about them and fails to deliver what was promised or what is given to the people at the manager's location.
Solution: Don't trust your memory in this important area. Have a system that writes down what is expected of everyone and make sure it is available to all. A team room is a great place for this type of reminder. It is readily available and should insure that everyone comes through with what they promised.
