Teamwork and collaboration in a virtual work setting.
To build trust with a virtual team, the goals, objectives, and level of commitment must be established early and clearly; if everyone’s not at the same page, the team’s productivity and spirit will falter. Regular communication must be established to drive motivation and accountability; however, it’s also important to recognize the situations of each employee (time-zone issues, scheduling conflicts, self-care, etc.). A space needs to be provided where team members feel open to connect with each other, so they feel more invested in their team. Feedback should be encouraged (to remind others the value of their work), and opportunities to be challenged and grow should be provided (so they feel like their time is valuable despite unideal work circumstances).
Effective collaboration requires people to put in work without being focused on their personal benefits but more of the collective outcome that’s produced. Leaders must unify the workers under the same goal without being obsessed by their power (this role isn’t about the schism in authority or privileges but more of a difference in responsibility in the collective team). Everyone else must trust each other to fulfill their responsibilities, but be critical when things aren’t up to the standards established (friction is a demonstration of commitment to succeed and not necessarily always counterproductive).
I work with students from U of I, Texas Tech, and Insper (Brazil). We try to fill in our gaps of knowledge to establish a common ground that we can build off of. However, early on in my internship, we didn’t have frequent meetings without our advisor from the company, which made us rely on our past individual experiences to guide our work. This was a mistake since without clarification of the expectations, you run the risk of people not being accountable or not achieving the level/quality that’s expected. Since we were all new to the experience and the company’s culture emphasized freedom to innovate, we took that literally and worked on things by ourselves to our own interpretation. However, we realized that “freedom to innovate” does not mean structure can’t be established and we can’t talk to each other about our work. We transitioned to more effective collaboration by giving feedback, making sure we are on the same page of what’s expected, and asking questions to each other about our projects.
There is a degree of diversity lacking on our team in that we are all engineers. We tend to choose to work things out by ourselves when a problem arises instead of asking others for help. However, we are diverse in the educational backgrounds we’ve had, cultures we’ve assimilated into, and degrees of experience. These factors could create friction, but when personal matters are set aside and a tolerant environment is established, it’ll only help us recognize the value in assessing the strengths and weaknesses in each other’s ideas and help with our final project geared towards penetrating a global economy (which, in of itself, is an inevitably frictional, yet high-potential endeavor).
My Stakeholder Map (Individuals):
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I think that's a great point about establishing goals and clear communication within a team. If this doesn't exist, the team isn't nearly as effective. In regards to your point about the lack of communication early on within your internship, how would you say the dynamic has changed since you provided feedback? Are there any other changes your group has made that have helped? Also, in terms of diversity, I agree that it's helpful to have people with different academic backgrounds/majors. How has your team adapted to having a team of all engineers? Would you say that you've had to teach yourselves other, more business related concepts? - Emily Julien
Hi Emily! Since the feedback, things have been less tense and we were able to talk more about our experiences outside of the internship. I would say before the dynamic was very individual and almost like a class where our mentor was giving us instructions and we executed the tasks at hand by ourselves. Towards the middle and end, it started to feel more like a team. Our mentor felt more like someone who we could talk to freely and give advice, and we felt more in it together as a team despite doing individual projects. We showed each other’s projects and gave feedback, checked up on each other’s progress, and just overall being less tense with one another. Although our team is all engineers, we have different levels of experience within and different types of engineering. However, it’s been helpful since those who have had more experiences either within the field of engineering or know more about the topic are able to help people when they’re confused, and vice versa. For business-related concepts, we kind of worked on it together with the Brazilian students leading the way since they kind of have a general idea as to how the market operates in Brazil. - Josh
Really appreciate your sharing. I agree that when we form a team, the interests of the team come first. As all individual tasks make up the team's result, communications between members are crucial in teamwork. Especially before initializing the task, well discussion is a great opening of the project. Assign the tasks clearly is the keystone of team harmony and the guarantee of work efficiency. Also, as you have noticed, the company's culture is not just a word. You have to experience the culture from events but not just by reading. I am interested in how you promote the team dynamic and adjust yourself to suit the company's culture? Hope you enjoy your project. - Kelvin Jiang
Hi Kelvin! I agree with you. Communication is important throughout the entire process of a project, but especially important in the beginning. If things are not clear in the beginning, you’re setting yourself up for lots of misunderstandings, potential conflicts, and setbacks. I really like how you said you really have to experience the culture because it’s definitely much more complex than their motto. There are so many dynamics even within the culture that it really depends on where you are in the company as well. I would say I adjusted myself to suit the company’s culture just by being open to the innovative process. That way, I was able to realize myself the ways that my usual strategies when tackling problems would not apply and help with the task at hand. - Josh
OK- where to start? I'll start by expressing my thanks-thanks for a great submission and Thanks to Kelvin and Emily for contributing...
'Effective collaboration requires people to put in work without being focused on their personal benefits but more of the collective outcome that’s produced. Leaders must unify the workers under the same goal without being obsessed with their power (this role isn’t about the schism in authority or privileges but more of a difference in responsibility in the collective team). Everyone else must trust each other to fulfill their responsibilities, but be critical when things aren’t up to the standards established (friction is a demonstration of commitment to succeed and not necessarily always counterproductive).'
This passage really struck me. your reflections on power and also, friction, I think, are significant in our learning here...So then does the ideal worker put aside personal goals and our aspirational achievements to excel in order to work collectively and for what is best for the whole? Are both possible (i.e. personal gain and collective recognition/progress /productivity)? I really appreciated your thoughts here Josh- Thank you! Also- It is very obvious that you and Kelvin and Emily have similar thoughts on teamwork and communication- I wonder to what extent this is optimal (the characteristics you describe) versus the reality(?!) - Kate Abney
I think the idea of the ideal worker is actually hard to find. We are all driven by our own motivations and would like to maximize our own benefits. However, I believe that both are possible. If you state your personal goals for the work or internship experience right in the beginning and the goals of the collective group, there could be some compromise that is reached where both sides could gain something (unless your personal demands are in the extreme, in which case, you probably wouldn’t be allowed to continue). Once trust is established between the group and a compromise is reached, I believe both sides could be happy with the outcome. I think my previous reflection of power and friction are so important to realize. Leadership roles are often fought for and when deciding on a leader in a group, it’s important to consider which person will not only do their best with the role but also which person would allow most progress on the attainment of overall goals. It’s important to relate their capabilities to the project itself so that the focus becomes more on what they could bring to the table for the project, not so much about their own strengths. Again regarding the friction, I think a little bit of friction is needed. Too little of it and you fall into the trap of groupthink most likely and are not putting out the best product your group is capable of. Too much and the trust is most likely broken with one another, resulting in tension and counterproductivity. There is a difference between friction and tension. Friction must happen for ideas to be adjusted and for opinions to be voiced and taken into account. Tension is counterproductive, could be personal, and results in demotivation to work together to achieve the task at hand. - Josh
Hi Josh，
I agree with your point that a clear communication set stones for building trust for virtual teams and effective teamwork need people to sacrifice their own benefit. Glad to see you are making progress on your internship experience as I remember last time we met, you seemed to be a little frustrated with your experience. Hope you have a good closing on your project! - Jackie Kang
Thank you for your comment Jackie! I did reoslve those issues I had initially during my internship and learned something bigger from it about myself. Communication is key for everything, whether it be in-person or a virtual format. It is the capstone to any good teamwork. Looking back on it, I was impressed how I was able to identify the different roles of groups as well as how to minimize the tension that these roles would create in a group. It's really important since this is usually the first points of tension that starts to snowball within a group since these repsonsibilities are established really early on in the process. - Josh
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