Trust in Virtual Teams
Chris shares strategies for building trust in virtual teams: (a) meet the other people on your team, (b) share ownership in the outcomes, (c) have predictable patterns, and do what you say you will do, and (d) develop consistent processes, among others. “Why is trust so vital to a successful, productive team? In the simplest terms, a team works together to be productive. And in order to work together, rather than work simultaneously, team members need a level of comfort with the abilities, competencies, and intentions of their teammates. Trust enables a team to focus on tasks at hand rather than protecting each member’s own interests. The interests of the group become the interest of each individual.“

Social Network Analysis
The power of social network analysis is in revealing where you need to build additional connections. “ … it allows to you find where these weaknesses are in your network and strengthen those areas. For example, if John is the key connection between the HR and Finance functions and no other strong relationships exist, it’s quite obvious that relationships should also be built by with several other people. This is a simple and obvious example, but extrapolated to the macro-network, one easily sees the benefits this type of analysis presents. Were John to leave, and the organization had successfully build multiple other relationship points, critical communications would still have communication avenues, and breakdown of relationships would not occur.“

Quick Links
– Collaboration tools support professional immortality.