Comments on: Building Trust on Virtual Teams, the Web Way

By: Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal Skills — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:39:48 +0000

Excellent points. I like the 2 by David Harper too. It is true, trust is probably more difficult to build in a virtual environment. You need to have the same values and vision across the board. Then you can play from the same songsheet so to speak. And trust is built more easily. And one of the values that I think is most important is integrity. That has been pointed out in David Harper’s point 1.

By: Daily Links | Akkam's Razor

Daily Links | Akkam's Razor — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:22:11 +0000

[...] Building Trust on Virtual Teams, the Web Way ” Web Worker Daily (tags: communication collaboration business work trust management team) [...]

By: links for 2007-10-06 | SOJo: Student of Online Journalism

links for 2007-10-06 | SOJo: Student of Online Journalism — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 12:25:16 +0000

[...] Building Trust on Virtual Teams, the Web Way « Web Worker Daily (tags: collaboration work communication) I wrote this on October 6, 2007 at 7:23 am and filed it under links. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback. « Journalism Conferences [...]

By: Some random thoughts « Vague Conceptions Weblog

Some random thoughts « Vague Conceptions Weblog — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:21:27 +0000

[...] http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/09/26/building-trust-on-virtual-teams-the-web-way/ [...]

By: BNET Intercom mobile edition

BNET Intercom mobile edition — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:26:18 +0000

[...] Clear communication is the hallmark of effective leadership, but it becomes even more important when your staff’s all over the map. You need to have confidence in both your employees and the systems you have in place — and your workers need to be on the same page. BNET’s feature package “How to Manage Employees in Remote Locations” offers a few tips for building trust. Building on BNET’s framework, The Web Worker Daily blog offers some insight into using web communication to foster trusting workin…. [...]

By: ebrown

ebrown — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:02:33 +0000

Good post Anne. I saw another list that would be a great add to this article, by Linda Gratton of the Wall Street Journal. Her 10 Tips for Virtual Teams really hit the mark. David's comment is good as well. I echo the part about communication. I try to err on the side of over-communicate so that there is little misunderstanding. Yet, often the longer emails are skipped over because of the length. Part of it goes back to knowing the personal communications styles of the team members -- some like a lot of verbiage while others want bullet points only.

By: David Harper

David Harper — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:53:09 +0000

These are good. Trust is sort of hard to define. To the above list I would add:

* Follow through on your promises. Virtual work deemphasizes the non verbal and emphasizes the verbal. So, be careful with language. Since nothing erodes trust faster than blown deadlines, if you say “I will do this then,” do this by then. You build trust by aligning your saying with your being and your doing.

* Be a better, more specific giver of direction and receiver of feedback. Most of my (many) virtual breakdowns go back to some confusion on expectations (“Oh, you wanted X, I thought you wanted Y”). It is a hard skill to give specific instructions, harder still to give constructive feedback.

In my opinion, some of these new web tools and techniques are a sorry band aid for a lack of good team/interpersonal skills. But they can’t. You can communicate too much and still be untrusted; conversely, you can communicate less frequently and engender great trust. One of my longtime clients (who I subcontract for), he is a world class teamworker, but his “trustworthiness” is indifferent to online status, it’s in the quality not the quantity of the interactions. We’ve got new tools but we need more old schools.