My fellow bloggers and I have made many recommendations on this blog about how to improve the functioning of virtual teams. When we recently presented these recommendations to an audience, we were told that it would be useful if we could take some of the most critical recommendations and frame them in a way that makes it easier for someone to start implementing our recommendations. In response to that, I have come up with the following.

There are two aspects of a virtual team that are very critical for a virtual team leader to address:

• Removing uncertainty; and
  
• Creating ownership.
  

I elaborate on what these mean and the steps to achieve them.

Removing uncertainty
Members of a virtual team must often deal with uncertainty, causing their self efficacy, or the feeling that they will be able to successfully accomplish their task, to suffer. Consequently, motivation suffers, too. Yet motivation of team members is critical when they have competing demands and have to decide where they should put their efforts. A great way to empower team members is simply to remove uncertainty. Common areas of uncertainty include:

• What do I have to do?
  
• How do I do it?
  
• How will I interact with others to do it?
  
• Why should I do it? What’s in it for me?
  

Creating ownership
In a typical exchange relationship, team members will do something for the team leader or other team members, but only to a limited extent. Most people will exert a certain level of effort for a salary, but past a point, salary is no longer a strong motivator for exerting strong effort. You have to make team members into owners of the project. Team members will be strongly motivated to exert effort and perform if they are invested in the project.

Steps for addressing uncertainty and ownership

1. Spend time one-on-one with your team members to learn more about them. A face-to-face meeting would be great but if you cannot do it face-to-face, then use the telephone. Remember to focus on their skill sets, their self-concept (i.e., how they think of themselves), and their aspirations. When focusing on their skills, don’t just focus on their technical skills but also on their skills to work with people. Ask them for specific examples when they have demonstrated their skills. Tell them that their illustrations could come from experiences within or outside of their work life. When learning about their aspirations, ask them to describe to you a picture of how they see themselves in the future.
   
   Think about the requirements for your project. Consider not only technical or task requirements but also the social requirements of keeping the group together and working collaboratively (see social roles that are required here). See how what you have heard from team members fits with the task and social requirements. If there is a gap between the requirements and what the team possesses, you will need to figure out a way to close the gap. One way to do that would be to determine a plan to develop members of your team to help them fulfill the missing requirements.
   
   Then think about how the project fits with the self-concept and aspirations of team members. This is very critical. You will have to think about the project broadly and outside the box. When you do this, you will begin to think about how you can reframe or redefine the project in a way that matches the self-concept and aspirations of team members. This does not mean that you have to abandon the initial objectives and parameters of the project. You can still include these while clarifying other objectives that could be fulfilled while accomplishing the initial objectives.
   
   Can you go back to your team and do what I have indicated above if your project is already in progress? Yes, you can. Be honest with your team and tell the members that you have recently come across strategies to improve the functioning of the team and would like to make things better for the team and its members. Chances are that team members will support you.
   
   
2. Create a team compact with members of your team. A while back we shared with you a method for creating a team compact. There are a few things that you should ensure during the creation of a team compact.
   
   Often, we have seen the team leader create a team compact and present it to the team to follow. Sometimes, the leader may invite discussion. We strongly believe that a team compact should be the whole team’s creation. You, as team leader, should simply act as a facilitator and, more importantly, as another member of the team (like everyone else) during the creation of a team compact. Don’t force your ideas onto others. Give them ideas to consider – but as questions (what will happen if you don’t receive a response to your email within 24 hrs?). The thing that you will have to be firm about is the project’s objectives and parameters that have been handed down to you by the project’s sponsors.
   
   During the creation of a team compact, help team members see the linkages between the project and their self-concept and aspirations. This way, the project ends up getting redefined for them in a meaningful way as their project. Use the creation of a team compact to spread leadership within the team. For example, in a web application development software team, one member could become the database lead, another could be the security lead, a third may be the interface lead, and so on. Shared leadership does not mean that everyone has an equal say all the time – it simply means that someone has more say than the others for different aspects of the task or at different times during the task. Make sure that you include a time table for After Action Reviews (AARs) in the team compact.
   
   One more thing: follow the team compact yourself! In my research, I have seen role-modeling to have a very powerful impact on others. As Mahatma Gandhi said: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
   

When you execute the steps above, you will be addressing the uncertainty and ownership issues in your team. With that, many of the expectations or challenges faced by a virtual team will be addressed. For instance, when you create a team compact, each member’s role and deliverables become clear. With this, it becomes possible for you to assess both team performance and individual performance. Collaboration is facilitated because there is less uncertainty about who has to do what, how, and when. Moreover, there is ownership that makes members want to help others and enable the project to succeed (i.e., a cooperative interdependence is created). Ownership also creates energy among participants because they are doing it for themselves. A properly conducted AAR (see tips for facilitating AARs) will prevent finger pointing and reduce conflict and misunderstandings in the team. Conflict is also avoided when one is clear about who has to do what, by when, and how. A detailed team compact addresses all these issues. The rules of engagement matrix helps you create some of the details described here. Remember, the more details you have in your team compact, the less uncertainty and conflict/misunderstanding there will be. You will need a minimum of 3 AARs to support productive and cohesive team functioning.

The steps that I have indicated above take time, but the time will be well spent. In the long run, you will be saving time and frustrations for yourself and the members of your team – planning and negotiating saves the team from rework. With shared leadership, you won’t need to call remote workers as often. You will be seen as someone who is helping others rise or develop with you. In other words, by creating leaders in your team, you will be seen as a true leader!