How To Make Your Team More Effective
Creating shared context for distributed teams
Earlier this month, GigaOM Research released a report on the “Future of work: collaboration and the trust of teams.” The author, David Coleman, examines changing workplace dynamics as teams become more geographically and culturally diverse. He argues that these trends make it harder for teams to function, but also believes that the obstacles can be overcome.
Coleman’s proposal for modern, distributed teams is “shared or common context.” It’s fairly straightforward: if team members understand one another better, they’ll work better together. But it’s also easy to see how finding that shared context is becoming increasingly difficult.
Today, in addition to typical differences like age and culture, team members often don’t even share the same language or office. Many companies rely heavily on freelancers, consultants, and remote assistants. Other companies use a more flexible model for teams, meaning that relative strangers may suddenly work together for a few weeks or months. It’s more difficult than ever for team leaders to get everyone on the same page.
Coleman identifies four different contexts that it’s important for colleagues to share: personal, work, company, and project. The first may be the most difficult to tackle, or at least the one where a team leader has the least control. A manager should have experience articulating expectations and responsibilities that create a shared work context. Personal context is trickier. It’s hard to make people become friends, but there are tools that can help.
A company retreat or regular happy hours are common ways to build personal context between team members. These events create shared context via a common experience and memory; there’s no substitute for spending time with colleagues outside of work.
But that may not be possible for a remote team, or a team that will only work together for a few weeks. So what can you turn to, instead?
Refresh uses the wealth of information online to find and highlight the most relevant insights about the people you’re meeting. Often times that’s someone you’re meeting for the first, second or third time. But in other cases it may be a colleague who you don’t know well, have never met in person, or only know as an email address. In these cases, Refresh also provides critical context for someone you already know, but just haven’t connected with.
Something simple like a Facebook post about a favorite TV show, a shared vacation designation, or the realization that there’s a mutual friend can spark a conversation between teammates. That sort of dialog lays the foundation for the shared context that makes teams function better. As Coleman put it, shared contexts “enable you to collaborate and work together more effectively.”
So the next time you’re building a new team, adding a remote colleague, or just want to get everyone on the same page, give Refresh a try. Ask your team to download the app and use it to learn more about their colleagues. The small talk that precedes a conference call will be more substantive and deeper than ever before.
By William Leiter
