Make your distributed team talk

Sasha created a small but passionate distributed team for his startup. The team members were from across the globe and culture. The big purpose of creating something from scratch kept them awake and lively. Even with a 90-degree time zone difference, they would be together at all times, talking on skype. Discussing projects, plans, requirements and a bit of laughter, songs and jokes too.

Not sure what exactly triggered it, one day a senior in team proposed that writing would save time over talking. May be it was a process improvement initiative. He believed that instead of waiting to talk, the team could text discussions in the skype group. And slowly that became the norm. Team members would hear each other’s voice only once in a while. There were some who were not good in framing written sentences and so would hesitate to bring up their point. A few would just miss a message or two in those long chats. Sometimes, a light sarcasm or criticism that would previously evaporate in laughter would now stay in the mind as long as it stayed in the chat. The team would talk less now and write more. All this killed the connections somewhere. Can you believe? but that killed the passion somewhere.

A distributed team does not mean not talking. It certainly does not mean to only chat and mail. That makes survival difficult. Talking — always brings clarity, saves on time, creates a connect.

Is your distributed team also doing less of talking and more of writing? Beware… its killing the team!