Is Zero-Carbon global team development possible? 10 Top Tips.

Recently I was facilitating a large team off-site event, with over 40 people over 2 days. It was an annual event, for the whole department, bringing together a global team to build relationships and learn together. The energy was high, the formal learning opportunities that we were running gave the delegates the opportunity to learn, practice together and build common skills needed in the business. The informal relationship building, happening through the coffee-breaks and evening activities enabled people to forge deeper relationships, find common interest both at work and outside of it.

The only sadness with the event was that a few people from one country were not able to attend this year’s event, due to the coronavirus outbreak and travel restrictions placed on delegates by the company to minimise risk.  The group missed the presence of their colleagues and were conscious of them feeling excluded from the rest of the team.

At a break, the function head approached me in a moment of reflection.  She expressed her sadness that this type of event would be a thing of the past, as the organisation is aiming to be carbon neutral, and reduce travel in the coming years.  Big events where global teams come together will be rare for them in the future.  She expressed a belief that you just cannot build relationships any other way.

There’s no doubt that face to face interaction is great – BUT… it is possible to develop a team’s relationships and enhance collective performance without being face to face.  At People Untapped, our entire team works remotely.  We have a community of over 70 people that we connect and interact with on a daily basis, and honestly, I can say this is a high performing team that supports one another towards common goals.  So, how could we think differently about team development with a carbon-neutral or more virtual lens? How can we build a great team, without getting on a plane or getting in a car?

Technology is clearly an enabler, but not the only answer… it’s the actions, behaviours and leadership that really make the difference.  Let’s think about the attributes of great team working and development interventions, and translate them into a zero-carbon option. Here’s my top 10 tips for making it work:-

1. Consciously create space for informal interactions. Don’t only ‘get down to business’ in your virtual meetings.  At the start of team meetings, allow every team member to properly check-in. How are they doing (really)? How was their weekend? What’s on their mind?  As a leader, role model this – the level of openness and vulnerability you demonstrate will be reflected back to you by your team in what they say.  Aim for at least 25% of your team meetings to be dedicated to this. It’s not wasted time. It’s the coffee breaks and dinner conversations that you aren’t having without burning fuel. 
2. See people face to face.  SWITCH ON THE VIDEO. It really doesn’t matter if you are wearing pyjamas, if your make up is on, or your headset makes you look like you work in a call centre!  Seeing everyone face to face means that you can read emotions, laugh together and also focus fully on the conversation in hand.  If you can see your colleague isn’t paying attention to what you are saying – you’ll soon change your approach. Multi-tasking when working in virtual meetings has to stop. All video conferencing platforms have this capability, you just need to switch it on!
3. It’s all or nothing - have everyone virtual (or buy a robot). It’s not great being the lone voice on the end of a spider-phone in a room where the rest of the team are together. It really excludes the virtual team members.    Or, buy a telepresence robot where people can attend a meeting in a more physically mobile way (I’ve written an article about them before!)
4. Enable informal communications.   We and many of the tech start-up clients we work with, swear by the app SLACK as a retained instant messaging and collaboration system.    80% of it’s use is work related, simplifying communications in topic threads.  But 20% is not – it’s the chat about our holidays, the view from the window today, or a joke shared.   And it’s this that helps the team feel connected, even when they don’t sit together.  You can celebrate, communicate, reward and feel like a team. Other platforms exist too – work out what will work best for you.
5. Hold facilitated team development events. They just have to be designed differently, and facilitated by an expert who can leverage the technology for small group conversations (using virtual breakout rooms), activities that can be completed on screen etc.  No longer than 3 hours (our screen eyes need a break), so make team development more regular and shorter, to extend accountability for change. Agree team behaviours together, stick to them and review them regularly.  What if you held a team development 2 hour session, every month, rather than 2 days face to face every year?  
6. Create buddy relationships. In addition to formal and informal activities, create buddy relationships within the team, a circle of the team, where person A buddies person B once a month – general peer support, check-in and peer coaching. Person B buddies person C and so on.  
7. Mix up the leadership.  Ask different members of the team to lead each meeting, always starting with some strategic, or long-term vision context. This way the team don’t just hear the leaders’ voice – but everyone takes their turn in leading and aligning for the future.  And on the occasion that the team leader dares to be on holiday – the team needs to meet anyway. This makes for a sustainable team. 
8. Learn together.  Find ways of learning together as a team – have invited guest speakers or trainers, or invite team members to share their learnings from a training programme or conference they attended.  You don’t need to be sat face to face to learn.    We also use Black Box Thinking sessions in our virtual meetings – what’s the “mess-up-of-the-month” – how can we improve our performance by learning from things that didn’t go so well? It encourages dialogue, open conversations and improves collective performance.
9. Measure it. Regularly check in both qualitatively and quantitatively on what is working and what isn’t with suggestions for improvement.   We have some simple High Performance Team diagnostics that can be used with teams – whether virtual or face to face, or you could develop your own quick pulse survey according to your own team’s commitments to virtual ways of working.
10. Be respectful of the time-zone.  For truly global teams, it’s a challenge to find the right time that works for everyone. Rotate the early morning / evening pain. Be conscious. And for those times someone can’t be there – what stops you from recording the meeting for the absent member (or have a buddy brief them afterwards for those that are allergic to recordings). 

What are your top tips for building a high performing team without growing your carbon footprint?