What do you do if your remote team is struggling with communication and trust issues?

A tool I like to use with any team, remote, in-person, or a hybrid model, is to complete a communication style assessment, like eDISC. It's not about personality traits or leadership styles; it's learning about how each team member collects and processes information. When the team knows that about each other, they can identify the best ways to communicate to most effectively be understood. You know who needs the 8-page spreadsheet to feel like they understand and who needs the highlights of success or issues. Knowing this information about each team member, helps create a common dialog about how to be heard and how to understand where each team member is coming from.

I think starting with self reflection and self assessment is important before addressing the issues together as a team. Every team member may experiencing different challenges and have different perspectives. Give each one some prompts and subjects to reflect on their experiences is helpful for the team to understand where every team member is coming from and to eventually work through it together as a team.

Clear guidelines only work if your team feels respected, so start with showing respect. Create guidelines that make sense and leave the non-sense out. Only focus on things that matter. In my experience, people want to perform well but they don’t want to waste time on things that don’t really matter or make sense. If you make people work on irrelevant things, they feel like their skills are not valued. Rather let them have a coffee break to bond than waste time on non-essential things that don’t move the needle. Invest time on listening to what they have to say about solving the situation and creating guidelines. You will learn about your people and prevent similar issues from rising in the future.

Clarifying expectations reduces conflict and ensures everyone on the team understands their responsibilities and contributions toward the team's success. It is also vital that you understand and clarify their expectations of you as the manager and of each other as a team to navigate the team dynamics and address unrealistic expectations before conflict arises. Leading by example is essential for building trust and relationships; demonstrate trust and respect to nurture the same behaviour in your team members. In remote teams, it is important to check in with your team members daily for a few minutes as you would greet them in an office setting to show them you are present and available to support and guide them when needed.

Remember, working remotely can have its challenges, so empathy can go a long way. Be understanding of distractions and importance of work-life balance for your team. Scheduling regular 1:1s for feedback and foal setting allows for personalized discussion and strengthens trust.

Just as a skilled navigator charts the course for their vessel, set a clear path for communication within your remote crew. Establish regular check-ins, define communication channels, and ensure everyone has a compass (or in this case, tools like Slack or Zoom) to stay connected. Remember, clarity is the North Star that guides us through even the darkest of nights.

Ask them what they want. Not everyone wants additional meetings. A lot of people can manage with just the knowledge that they have the support if they need it. Define what it is that you need to know from your team and let them choose the methods to communicate. Build connection with your team members by creating trust and psychological safety. You don’t have to make a big fuss about staying visible to the team members. Giving positive feedback frequently can help your team members feel appreciated. Just remember to say thanks, it really goes a long way.

To encourage open communication, you can be transparent about challenges, which will help create a safe space for honest feedback. Lead by example by sharing your observations and asking for the team's input. Transparency about company goals and project progress also builds trust and fosters a sense of ownership among the team.

In the vast ocean of remote work, transparency serves as our guiding light. Share information openly, provide regular updates on projects and initiatives, and encourage open dialogue within your crew. When the seas get rough, transparency becomes the lighthouse that leads us safely to shore.

Leaders of remote teams need to be strategic in choosing technology that replicates informal knowledge-sharing, visualizes progress, enables specific feedback, and compensates for the lack of in-person celebration. A game-changer for introducing new tools is a shared agreement on communication norms for chosen tools, which is also essential. The tool may be great, but managing that change for people can help maximize utilization.

Use easy to use technologies for progress tracking. Leave non-essential things. Trust your team and let them know that by letting them manage their time and workload while being there for them. Think about your emotional state before jumping on a call. How are you feeling about going on that call? Is that the emotion you want to convey? Think before you send an email. How does it make you feel? Is it something you want to convey to the recipient? Building trust and open communication with your team starts with you.

For virtual teams, I host once-a-month team connection points or "happy hours" that are only 30 minutes. The only requirement is that we don't discuss work. It's about different topics: different music genres, plans for the weekend, a new movie, book or tv show that someone has found interesting. It's a chance for people to look up from the world of spreadsheets, dashboards and PowerPoints, look at each other and smile or laugh. The 30 minutes really flies by and people walk away feeling more connected to their team and energized. If those teams are in a variety of different time zones, you may have to adjust the time of day, to be fair to anyone who needs to participate.

When hosting team meetings allow the team members to take turns hosting a short icebreaker activity. This gives everyone a chance to connect on a personal level, showcase their creativity and maybe even spark additional conversations outside of the meetings. It can help breakdown shyness and encourage open communication.

Seek to understand. How is this a problem? Hire employees with good writing skills for your team. If you are remote you need clear, concise writers for emails and work spaces. Model vulnerability and open communication. Allow for mistakes. Encourage collaboration not competition.

From my perspective, it’s key to establish effective communication channels, where as far as possible to be proactive to either anticipate or sense the environment regularly. Build the psychological safety for team members to raise work or team member issues. As the leader, would be best to have one-to-one dialogues to review & address the ‘issues. It’s important to not to wait too long and let ‘issues’ manifest, which would bring about more concerns. If the need to have an open team dialogue to discuss with the parties involved, would be best. And to then without being too detailed to discuss openly as a larger team with the intent of learning from this encounter & setting certain team norms to prevent a possible recurrence.

Se sua equipe remota enfrenta problemas de comunica??o e confian?a, é essencial agir para resolver essas quest?es. Promova transparência, estabele?a diretrizes claras de comunica??o, incentive a honestidade, utilize ferramentas de colabora??o, promova o trabalho em equipe, construa relacionamentos, ofere?a oportunidades de desenvolvimento e concentre-se em construir confian?a. Essas medidas s?o fundamentais para superar os desafios e fortalecer os la?os na equipe remota.

It's important to remember that everyone has their perspective, in other words separate realities. When five blind-folded people touch an elephant from various sides, they'll experience the same elephant in different ways. They're partial truths, yet to each person that's the whole truth! This needs to be repeatedly discussed in team meetings. The shared pool of meaning and context can be expanded by adding individual perspective of all constituents.