The Most Popular Trends in Today's Virtual Teams

Since April, COVID-19 has forced the great majority of us to work from home. For the most part, we have responded well. 

But the longer this period of lockdown and remote working lasts, the more we need to start adapting this remote style of work for the long term. We have to set goals remotely, resolve conflicts remotely, develop a structure of communication and maintain the team spirit – all from a computer screen!

To do this, businesses have needed to develop new systems that work in a virtual world. This article will cover five ways that companies have adapted their teams to work remotely. 

They are:

1. Distributed teams
2. Hybrid teams
3. Virtual teams
4. Fully remote teams 
5. Flash teams 

I will also discuss how each of these teams can be mobilised to drive innovation and then explore this further using Netflix as an example.

Distributed teams 

Distributed teams have been around for a little while, particularly in global companies that employ hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

They have several hubs with multiple people distributed across various locations, all working on the same project or for the same business function. One of the keys to running a successful distributed team is to set goals from the bottom-up. 

As a manager, there might be a temptation to have everything cascade down from you because you have corporate targets to hit, but you need to be able to debate with your team and set the team goals in a co-creative process.

In my blog "How to Set Remote Team Goals" I give a detailed process for goal setting in remote teams – feel free to check it out!

This idea of 'bottom-up' is the same for the decision-making process. In any virtual team, decision making should not just be the prerogative of the manager. Important decisions should be made as a team. 

Hybrid Teams

A hybrid team is a team where you have some people collocated in one location, e.g. head office, and other so called ‘satellite members’ working alone remotely. In such a hybrid team the satellite members do not have the same context as the people working in the head office. They don't have the same proximity to the boss and may feel disconnected from you.

If you want these satellite members to feel empowered and to give you their all, you have to provide this bigger context for them. You have to over-communicate and explain the big WHY. They need to know why we do what we do, and what the overall goal is so make sure you involve them keenly in the decision-making process.

Virtual Teams

Recently, I've been talking to Dropbox about their teams and their culture of 'virtual first'. This means three things.

First, it means any individual work, or contribution that can be done remotely, is done from home.

Second, if you don't have good conditions at home, they will provide you with a budget to secure a proper, productive coworking space to work in. Third, they have Dropbox Studios – beautifully designed, creative spaces, where people can get together to establish goals, collaborate, make decisions and have fun together.

It allows their teams to integrate and feel like part of a community. This is a good example of virtual teams and how they can be effective. The level of remote work will always increase, but make sure there are always opportunities to get together, set goals, and celebrate too. 

Fully remote teams

Even before COVID-19, I met with companies with thousands of employees, who decided not to have an office at all – their teams are fully remote. 

For those that succeeded, the key element was that they managed to build their strategic product roadmap together, as a team. These companies have a leadership team who meet with everyone twice a year to discuss their desired outcome.

However, six weeks before this meeting, the leadership team – usually the founders and other key managers will get together and create a process and flow for the joint workshop including individual and group contributions. Then, people are put into small groups to fine-tune and work on particular issues. Finally, everyone gets together and makes a group decision on the bigger goal. 

The key is to run the workshop in a highly engaging and co-creative manner. Only then you can ensure that your team members will own their goals and will be highly committed once they return to working from home.

If you have a fully remote team, you have to provide time and space for people to get together – twice a year is a minimum. 

Also, you need to provide opportunities for people to integrate into local communities.  Humans are social creatures, and we require that personal touch, so it's important that you are fulfilling that need. This may require investment, but it pays back big time when it comes to commitment and retaining top talent.

Try letting the individual pick the community and support their integration – they will thank you for it later with their performance!

Flash teams

Flash teams have been around for a little while now, but only recently have they started to grow. Essentially, this term means virtual teams on demand. 

They are teams of experts that are mobilised for you, by a service provider, to work on a project. They are particularly popular within the IT space (programmers, IT engineers, etc).

These people have been profiled and given a 'micro role' according to their key expertise. Once they are given a project, the service provider breaks it down into digestible chunks, and matches the requirements to the experts on their database.

Now, the key here is to not only have a big database, but also to have a process which controls the handover points.

Once somebody delivers on their part of the project, it has to be checked for quality and handed over to the next expert. Otherwise, you will waste time and produce poor results – this is what enables flash teams to work.

Flash teams are gaining popularity, and do deliver results, but they are not applicable everywhere. For instance, if you want to drive innovation, having a flash team won't work. However, if you have a need to build something quickly, like some digital products, I can see how a flash team can be effective.

Innovation – 'No Rules Rules'

The more innovation you want to drive within your team and organisation, the less rules you need. I've always said that micromanagement is not an option in virtual teams – it is a counterproductive method.

Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, and Erin Meyer, author of ‘The Culture Map’ have recently released a book called 'No Rules Rules', in which they analyse the culture of the tech giant Netflix.

What they discovered is that having no rules delivers better results particularly for highly innovative industries. Netflix don't have a policy for vacation or even expense approval – they have unimaginable freedom!

The book is well worth reading, but for this article, I want to highlight three of its principles.

Talent density: Netflix do their best to gather the top talent available wherever they can. As the late Steve Jobs once said in one of his interviews:

"Most things in life have a dynamic range in which average to best is at most 2:1. For example, if you go to New York City and get an average taxi cab driver versus the best taxi cab driver, you'll probably get to your destination with the best taxi driver 30% faster."

And in the digital space, the difference can be much larger. There was an experiment in California that showed the best programmer is 1000 times better than the average one!

So, Netflix made it part of their culture to acquire the best talent in the digital space, and they fight hard to keep them there.

Don't please your boss: Sometimes, you can disagree with your boss and make the decision you believe is right provided you follow the context of the bigger picture.  

Provide your team members with guidance and give them the freedom to make decisions – don't try to micromanage.

As long as you provide the right context at each level of the project, your people will figure it out. The right context will empower your talented individuals to make their own decisions, even if the manager disagrees with them!

Candid feedback: Always be honest when you give feedback because making a mistake is okay, as long as you learn from it.

There are some beautiful formats around 360-degree feedback that you can use to make sure you are doing it in an honest and constructive way. One way you can do this is to have all the team members publicly give feedback to one recipient at a time.

You can split up the feedback into three categories:

• Continue doing this.
• Stop doing this. 
• Start doing this. 

So, one-third of the feedback is good, and the other two-thirds are development opportunities. This may sound a bit harsh, but if you do it with care and appreciation, it has an extremely powerful bonding effect on the team. 

It establishes a culture of feedback where mistakes are okay. 

Remember, we are here to learn, grow and develop together. 

I hope you found these tips useful. You can find many more tips like these in my new book “Power Teams Beyond Borders”

Alternatively, for more useful information feel free to subscribe to my blog by clicking the link here. 

More next week!

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Peter Ivanov is Virtual Teams Expert, Keynote Speaker, and Executive Coach. 

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