CAVO Ep 34: Building Team Connections in a Virtual World

In this episode, Dr. Bill Quinn, Vice President of Operations for the Roscom group of companies, is joined by Christopher Littlefield to discuss virtual team development. Christopher is an International/TEDx Speaker, Harvard Business Review Ascend Contributor, and founder of Beyond Thank You. Christopher is an expert in employee appreciation and recognition and has trained thousands of leaders across six continents at organizations like Accenture, Boston Medical, Salesforce, Reserve Bank of Australia, U.S. Army, United Nations. Connect with Christopher on his website: https://beyondthankyou.com/ 

Transcript

CAVO Ep34

00:02

Welcome to the Center for the advancement of virtual organizations podcast when team building connections in a virtual world, on built win, and today, we're joined with Chris Littlefield, author of 75 plus team building activities for remote teams. Welcome, Chris. And thank you so much for taking the time to come and chat with us on building team connections in a virtual world.

00:23

Excited to be here, Bill, and Happy New Year.

00:26

I've recently had the pleasure of reading your book and really enjoyed many of your ideas. So we'll hop right into it. In this book, you've got Joseph greeny saying that virtual teammates are 2.5 times more likely to perceive mistrust in competence, broken commitments and bad decision making with this and colleagues than those who are co located. What advice do you have for leaders in a virtual workspace to combat that?

00:50

I think the interesting thing is specifically about that quote is that's actually from I think that was published in HBr. Article back in like 2016, or something. So that challenge was prior to the pandemic. And prior to everything we were dealing with, we can only be even more complicated now. And I think the most important thing to understand when it comes to that, right is to first understand it's like, why is it we perceive more mistrust and broken commitments with bad decision makers than people that are co located. 

And I think the thing that we have to keep in mind and that I always remember, it's like, you know, when you write an email to somebody, and then they don't respond, and then they don't respond the next day. And all of a sudden, I don't know about you, but my mind starts to spin like, Did I say something offensive, you know, do they not care about my work, and when we don't have that visual, that other person, we don't see we don't interact with them, when we don't bump into them, it's really easy to fill in those gaps that would be filled in in a physical office space, with a whole lot of made up what's going on and perceptions. Because we don't understand where that other person is when we don't see them. In now specifically in the pandemic even more. So when we're not seeing anybody at all. Right, we have to be constantly aware that people have other worlds going on when the cameras off. Right. 

And so I think that if we want to build that trust, if we want to, you know, build that relationship is we have to kind of fill in the gaps, where that time that we would have spent when we are co located, is lost by creating and consciously building in time to connect as individuals, as humans, dealing with a pandemic, dealing with everything that's going on in our worlds, regardless of wherever we are in the world, can be able to build those relationships that allow us to understand that there's a human that I'm communicating with, not just a person on the other side of the screen.

02:41

Yeah, I couldn't agree more building relationships are really one of the main categories we need to do in order to be to exist in a virtual workspace. So what can a leader do to assure successful activities to help build those kinds of connections02:56

I think that one is we just have to have a fun, we have to have a fundamental mindset shift in how we think of our relationships. You know, if you if you think about it, and I know you, you know what we were chatting prior that you've been working virtually for a long time. And I think that that element is that when we are when we're co located with somebody, right? When we're in that same space, the majority of our relationship is built in between those meetings. Right? When we're not talking about work, right, I worked for project adventure and Outward Bound running team building programs for a long time. 

And I've been doing that in organizations virtually and in person for a long time now. And I think that element is when we are when we are there in that physical space together. That downtime is where a relationship gets built. And I only call the book team building activity. So I knew people would be searching for Team activities. But it's really not about the activity. It's not about when we were in person about the ropes course it's not about the game we're playing, it's about the fact that we're taking time to spend time together as human beings. And we're building that it's not that you were up on the ropes course together, it's that you were doing something outside of the context of work, to understand each other that the boss took time to listen and check in. 

And I think that if we want to be running successful activities, or to build and nurture these relationships, then we have to connect with the whole person. And make time for that, that replicates or replaces that time that's been taken away that was in between those meetings. So when it comes to, you know, running activities, it's shifting to saying instead of just hopping on a call and saying, okay, how's everybody doing? checked, I've checked in and then moving on to work, remembering that a check in just can't be as simple as that. Right is that in specifically now in the context of the pandemic, and the I call them the three P's the pandemic, the protests, or the politics and the politics that everybody's dealing with over this last year? Is that hey, we need to be checking in with people. 

I was talking to somebody you know, a few hours ago. He's like, you know, after what happened yesterday. in DC, he's like, it's like you're getting on. And you know that people are thinking about this, and they're talking about it. And we need to at least acknowledge that that happened. Right. And so that element of like when we get onto our calls, want to build those relationships, it's not just about the activities, it's about recognizing that everybody's dealing with everything they're dealing with outside of, of work, and acknowledging that, whether it's the pandemic, whether it's politics, whether it's the Black Lives Matter movement, whether it's whatever's going on where people are located in the world, to acknowledge that people are dealing with that, and addressing that. 

And those are just the things that we know that all of us are dealing with in one form or another, and then being able to ask about the stuff that we're not seeing, you know, I have a family member that is dealing with some major health issues right now. Right, and is very critically ill, right. And knowing that that's when that's going on, hey, if less I share about that, nobody knows I'm dealing with that, unless a manager asks about that. Nobody shares that about that. And so I think that the first mindset shift we need to make when it comes to running successful activities, is building the relationships where people want to participate in those activities with you by taking time to be an empathetic leader, an empathetic co-worker, right from the start. 

And earlier this year, I wrote an article in Harvard Business Review about how to be an empathetic co-worker. And the first step in that is constantly spending time to understand what people are dealing with when the cameras off, understanding what they're facing, and knowing that that's changing all the time. And once I have that relationship, right, then people are going to be participating in the work dialogue, and in the activities to keep on building relationships as well.

06:46

Yeah, and interpersonal connections and relationships are critical to a successful team. Needless to say, the virtual workspace definitely makes that little bit more of a challenge. What if any advantages Do you feel a virtual workspace environment provides to the organization and the individual that a traditional setting would not?

07:04

Well, I think, you know, when I was when I was thinking about that question, right, is, I think one of the trade offs is who we spend time with during our transitions in downtime. You know, if you think about it, when we're in the brick and mortar, you know, in the onsite situation, that downtime is spent with our co workers. And when it's virtual, we spend that downtime with our family. Who was I with five minutes before we got on, I was with my five year olds, you know, having lunch with my wife. And I have spent more time with my five year old wife than I never I would have normally do, I work as a speaker most of the time. So I was I think I shared with you prior is that I did 120,000 miles in 2019. 

And last year, I did five. And that's because I had a trip to the Middle East in Boston, from Santiago, Chile, where I was living at the time. And so that was 5000 miles. But other than that I didn't travel. So all of last year, I got to spend time with my wife and a daughter, which Hey, I don't want to spend that much time with anybody over this last year. But you know what? Here, I got to see that I got to reconnect with my wife, all that stress in the majority of the stress that I had, personally, was getting my daughter dressed, getting her out the door, negotiating the car, getting my daughter to school each day, getting dressed for school, getting her to class, where a lot of that stress is removed, so that when I show up to work, I have not fought five battles before I got there. 

And so I think the benefits when it comes to working remotely is that people do get to connect with the people that they are working to support. Right. So that family connection, right that many companies try to nurture prior to the pandemic, right. And you know, when they're in person, we get to spend time with those people that we're supposedly working to support opposed to spending time away from them all the time. Right. And in many times, you know, I been a part of a Best Place to Work Study for the last last three years. And during that Best Place to Work Study, right? One of the things that comes up every time is that, right? 

All of these organizations that are trying to nurture an amazing environment, one of the primary things that they're doing is trying to remove the barriers so people can live the lives of the life that they want outside of work, right and the challenges now that we're in a remote environment, many people, it doesn't matter where they're located, right. And so that ability for people to live those lives, to be able to have to use that transition time getting to and from work, to be able to do those activities that they love to take care of themselves more to spend time with family to not have to work out additional childcare things so they can be in a physical place. 

That means that they get to use that time to do the things that help them take care of themselves, that take care of their lives that allow them to be happier so that they can show up and there's flexibility to be able to work. So one other advantage to working remotely is the ease of meeting So I was doing an interview with somebody who works at Capital One. And he works on the tech side of it, and they had a challenge, some big thing came up and they had to fix something. Well, he was telling me, he goes, when we were working on site, it would have taken us an hour, two hours to get that group of people together in a meeting room, he goes, we would have had to book a meeting room, find a location, get everybody there to that same location, so we can sit down and problem solve, he goes, when it happened, this time, we send a message on Slack, everybody was in a virtual meeting via zoom, within five minutes, we resolved the issue in 15 minutes and rested. He goes, the ability to get people together is just easier now. Because everybody's ready that if they're working, they can just show up. 

And so the ability to be able to do that is much faster now than it was before. And then one last advantage, I think of working remotely, is many times there's more of a disconnect between our work and our personal lives. And we don't share it as much. But now, I don't know about you. But I've been in so many meetings now where someone's kid comes in to the call, and then I meet their child that I wouldn't have met otherwise, you I see the things that they've chosen to put in their physical space, I can see the band poster that's up on the wall or that guitar, the team and it gives me things to ask about to build relationships, that I wouldn't see if they were just in their office unless they chose to put it on their desk, right. 

And so we get a window into people's worlds and where they are and what they do that we wouldn't get otherwise. And we get to meet each other's families that that was not something that was normal prior, because how the organizing a bring your family to Work Day was a very complicated and very expensive thing. And it gives us the ability to connect in that way where we couldn't prior.

11:40

Yeah, and that really is fantastic. I know that I've been with my company for 20 plus years since before my daughter was born. And recently in a zoom meeting, some of my long term co-workers understood that my daughter was home from college, and actually asked me to go get her and put her on the thing because I hadn't seen her since she was a young child. So it was nice to see these people who knew her and heard all the stories of her growing up and interacting actually got to interact with her directly.

12:06

Well, in one amazing thing is that we never did it before. But you know, one of the activities in my book is bring your family to work day. And regardless if your family is somewhere else around the world, you can still bring them now. You can have people show up and invite their family if they're if they're co located with them into the same space. Or you can actually organize something, invite people in virtually in all they have to do is have a connection. Right. And one thing that you know we mentioned prior to hopping on today, too, is that, Hey, everybody. Now, one positive result of pandemic is everybody is trained to meet virtually, and almost to a fault. 

Because if you ask someone just to get on a call, they're like, you don't want to zoom. Right? It's like no, get on where you don't have to look at each other. We can walk around and look at other things and do the dishes and all those other things. Sometimes it's refreshing to not always have the camera on. Right. But everybody's trained, whether it's my 75 year old mother, to friends and family, whoever people know how to use it. My daughter knows how to at five years old knows how to start stop, mute and unmute. Change the view on a zoom meeting. Right at five. Right? I hadn't even seen a computer at five years old.

13:15

Really just amazing. So to that point, are there any tips you can give people that might help them facilitate meetings virtually when they're more used to the face to face interaction? You mentioned your 75 year old mother who now knows how to use zoom. You know, what would you tell people to try to get them around the basis a little bit quicker?

13:34

Yeah, so I think that there's there's one of just taking time to be first virtually self aware of ourselves, right. And I think we need to start out in that I wrote an article in Forbes about virtual self awareness. And that's just part of it. I was on a meeting with somebody and they literally had the camera up to their eye, I never saw the rest of their face for the whole meeting. It's really odd. I was like, hey, Emma's a little close, can you pull it back in. So I think that first part, you know, and then just ran a workshop with it, or I'm going to be running retreat for an organization. 

So I ran a little pre workshop with the leadership team, just say, hey, let's get on, here's how to put a backdrop up, here's how to change your camera angle, here's where you should be in the composition right here, you know, put your eyes in the top third, put some good light on you and those basic skills just so you're comfortable on there. And people can connect with you. Because they can see, right and your sound is good and all those things. 

And then when it comes I think facilitation, right, we just need to look at how do I work with? What I have is resources. You know, how do I understand the tools and functions of our platform this organization has worked with, you know, they've been using zoom, but they never had once used a breakout room. Right? And when you have those features to understand all the features you have available to you and then think of how can I use those and thinking about what you're designing and experience. Many people think about designing an experience for our customers, but they don't think about designing an experience for our employees. 

So if somebody is getting into a meeting, right, can I started out by just sharing some music when people hop on, you know using the feature and if you Go into zoom and you go into sharing, there's advanced sharing, you have basic and then advanced, if you click on that, you can share the audio from your computer. And so I will often start a meeting by playing some fun music in the beginning. So when pm on all of a sudden, there's music playing, right, and you bring that on. And then you can actually use the music. If you have your music up there to play name that tune, and put a song and see who can be the first person to name who the actual artist is in the chat right there. Right. 

And then when you're getting on to check one of my favorite checks, is doing what I call a pulse check question. So instead of just asking people when they get on the call, just Hey, how's everybody doing? And knowing that nobody really cares? Or nobody thinks you'd care? To really answer that question, asking a post check question like, hey, on a scale of one to 10 right now, what's your energy level today? And then have people either put up on their hands, put the number into the chat if it's a large group?

15:53

or hold it up on a piece of paper? Write and then have people explain why they picked the number they did? And is there anything they the team or you as their leader can do to better support that? And it's a way to just alternatively check in because not everyone can explain what's going on, right with them. And then you can ask them, Hey, how are you feeling a day ago? And just doing those portraits? Hey, how are you feeling about what happens, you know, at the Capitol the other day, right, like, and then you just give it you give a scale. And then people can quickly check out check in on that and say, Hey, you know, what, if anybody needs to talk, I can just let me know. 

And I'll reach out to you later to check in, right to be able to, to be able to signal to people, you know, another facilitation tip is just simply, you know, having something to start, it's I always say that every meeting should start with connection before content and always finish with gratitude before goodbye. Right? So that connection for content is always doing something in the beginning to connect as human beings before we go into the word content. And that may just be a welcome question. Like one of my favorite ones to ask is, what were you doing five minutes before this call today? And the reason why I asked that question is largely, we're all running from one thing to another, like I shared a few minutes ago, what was I doing, I was hanging out with my daughter who's in the other room and just got a virtual school and she was having her lunch. 

And I'm sitting chatting with her actually, at the same time cutting out puppets for shadow puppet thing that she's building out of a cardboard box, that we just got a couch, and she turned the box into a shadow puppet thing. She'd been in a virtual workshop on that the other day. And so that's what I was doing five minutes before. And if I asked you what were you doing five minutes before, I know that I hit that Dr. Rawlings was was in another meeting before and when we ask that question, we get present to the worlds that people are dealing with prior to getting on the calls. Right. 

And also lets us know, you know, what people are doing in their life. And so I think taking time to ask those welcome questions, Sue's pulse check questions. And then other great siltation technique that I love, personally, is, hey, if I've got 30 people on a call with me, if I ask everybody a question, then if we take time to answer that's going to use up our whole hour. So what I'll often do, you know, and I'll recommend to managers is put a bowl on your on your desk and print out the names of every single person on your team, maybe five people and maybe have 20 people that early in the meetings. 

And then, but a second bowl on your desk. And so each meeting, okay, pick a question, and then pick a name out, and then ask that person to be able to answer it, and then move their name to the next bowl. Right? So you know that they've answered a question, then pick another name and ask that question, then you pick two names, every meeting to answer a question at random, and then move the names over. 

And then once you've gone through everybody, you shift the bolt over the other side and go through it again. Now, another thing, like I said, is use the functionalities that you have available to you in zoom, whether it's breakout rooms, many people won't use those, right, if you have zoom, and I think I don't think teams has it. But I think teams should be should have gotten it last month, I don't know if it's there if it's up and running or not now, but use those breakout rooms, ask a question and then put people out so they get a chance to speak together for five or 10 minutes one on one, facilitate that interaction. You know, one great thing is that, you know, especially for the organizations that you know, have been virtual for a long time, is organized virtual meet and greets, you know, one of the activities in the book is is across the cross department networking event. 

We're bringing people on to a zoom meeting, post a question, and then place them into breakout rooms together to be able to discuss and meet somebody new, or invite the boss into discussion for people to be able to ask questions. The one thing that I love about the pandemic is people are more available right now. Right? If you're asking the boss to come in enjoying one of your meetings, that's a much different ask than then having to travel to a different location or three floors down or three floors up to build a 10 year meeting. 

So people more available say Hey, would you be willing to drop in for 1520 minutes for people to ask you questions because they've never met you before? Sure, why not? And do that, but just the option to be able to do things virtually just gives us a lot more flexibility. Right and to use those breakout rooms. Use those different facilitation tips. 

Oh and one other one that I asked Love this camera off camera on, right to use that feature and in one New Testaments connection before you do it. But I'll do a lot of activities where I'll ask a question. And people that feel one way, turn your camera on, people feel another way, leave your camera off. One of my favorite games that that I do right now is one that I call virtual. Have you ever and this isn't the book and there's a series of questions in there. For virtual Have you ever and this is a good one to get a laugh and just kind of share about the reality that we're living in is okay, I have everybody turn their cameras off. 

And then I'll ask the question like, if you've ever hidden things under your desk to make your office look cleaner than it actually is turn your camera on. And then people turn their cameras on. And they laugh because they know that everybody's got stuff hidden under the desk to make it look cleaner. And then I'll ask you a question like, okay, and everybody turn their cameras off again and say, okay, turn your cameras on, if you have ever completely forgotten about a meeting until someone called you to say, Hey, are you joining and you're like, yeah, I'm joining, I'm just getting something, and you completely played it off and lied about it, and then hopped on the call, like you knew it was happening all along, right. And so just playing simple games like that to get some laughs But then also connecting on a personal level as well to be able to build that relationship and build that connection. Because it's that connection, right? 

And that time to connect, laugh, play, and talk about what's really going on our lives. that triggers that empathy that triggers that connection that helps us better take care of ourselves, feel understood, and also understand when that person doesn't email you back right away. It's not because they're pissed off, or they didn't like what you said, or you did. But you probably understand that they got three kids at home. And they may not be able to respond until nine o'clock at night when their kids are finally in bed and asleep. And they have an hour of headspace to be able to respond to that email.

21:47

Yeah, so very true. So we've talked a lot about tips and ways to make virtual activities better. For you personally, what is your favorite virtual activity as a facilitator or a participant?

22:02

Well, I think that you know, one of the ones I just shared right there is the virtual Have you ever is a personal favorite? If I if I think of it really at the heart of it, I might my favorite thing is questions, right is just simply a good question is going to bring you in a lot of different locations, right? It's just asking that great question is going to draw out the conversation. When it comes to games, the one that I I've been running for a lot of organizations in really love right now is just organizing a virtual scavenger hunt. And for me what that looks like, I just ran this for up for an all staff for a nonprofit up in Boston, we had 170 people. And what I do is I create that scavenger hunt, and I'll send people's everyone send it their computer. 

And so what I will what I will create this in the book, it's called epic virtual scavenger hunt. And I will create a PDF with a bunch of links in it. And I will go on Google Maps, and I'll pick a random location on the map. And I'll tell people figure out where are you right now? I want you to go two miles over to the left, and what store Are you in front of, or go to plots this way? And then ask questions with math problems and questions about things with people with kids, like, hey, name, the names of the original pop patrol pups. And those parents who are at home who's who are putting their kids in front of Paw Patrol, we're going to know that answer and that person who his kids are in college aren't even going to know what Paw Patrol is, right? 

And then ask a couple algebra problems, stuff like that. And have those teams work together be able to answer those questions about the organization about their missions, about their values, and have them running around figuring that out in playing and laughing together in small groups while they answer these questions. That's one of my larger activities that I think people really enjoy and have a good time with, because they get the last play. And then also putting photo challenges in there. Things like, hey, I want you to take a picture of all your team, pretending to be the CEO on a virtual call, right. And that only works if the CEO has the has the humor to be able to do that. let's organize something like that, where people get to do something together. 

And in some of the ones I've interviewed a couple organizations. Another one I love is that people have gotten together for a lot of happy hours. But do those happy hours with a structure have an activity around it because people sometimes don't have things to talk about all the time. So one other activity that I love that one organization that I interviewed, they were doing, I think it was an architectural firm or design firm, and they were just coming up with really creative themes for their team happy hours, or they would have weekly team competitions. 

One of them was doing an art project where everyone had to recreate a famous piece of art with things around the house using themselves at the model for it. In some of the stuff that people created. Were just absolutely hilarious. One person has the Mona Lisa, with a blanket over her head to look like she had black hair, somebody with a towel. Somebody did a Salvador Dali, you know, recreation of the melting clocks. And it's just it's just creating ways for people to be able to use that creative aspect of themselves without ever getting there without ever You know, leaving their house, you know, cooking competitions and teaching other people to be able to cook recipes that they always cooked at home, you know, just finding fun ways to be able to connect in that way. 

One other activity that I love to do, whether it's in person, or remotely, which is what I call Houston sessions, and this is also in the book and a Houston session is, hey, we are often struggling by ourselves to be able to deal with something and I always say, you know, to clients I'm working with is if you're ever sitting with a problem for over three or four hours and not moving anywhere on it, instead, stop right there. Think of all the things you've tried, and then invite to other colleagues that you really respect their opinions to what I call Houston session, as in Houston, we have a problem, right? 

And what you do in Houston session centers asking people, hey, I need your input on this. What you do is you invite two people and say, I invite Dr. Rawlings and Bill here, and I say, Hey, we're, I want to get your input on this issue. Here's the issue that I have. Here's the things I've tried already. Here's the things I'm thinking, and I would love your input. Can you give me your thoughts on this problem? And what you would do or what questions you would ask me, to help me get unstuck, to be able to resolve this issue. 

And so I think just through all of this is just using a little bit of creativity, right? To be able to make these interactions in all we have to do is, hey, we have a way to be able to meet right now we have a way to be able to connect right now. So using that and thinking about it not as a barrier to our connection, but as an opportunity to be able to connect in a way where people can be anywhere, you don't need to be in your house. So let's go for let's go for a walk together today for our virtual meeting, and have our conversation via phone while we both walk our dogs or we go for a hike and we have a conversation. 

And so just using the physical space using the technology, and instead of looking at as a limitation, look at as an opportunity that we can show each other different places, we can connect in different ways we can bring other people into the conversation. And we can meet in ways that would have been complicated before. And just an easier way now.

27:02

Chris, thank you so much for joining us in the sport for the center of the advancement of the virtual organizations. I've enjoyed speaking with you, we truly appreciate your insights and we know our listeners will benefit from your experiences.

It was a pleasure speaking with you today and thanks for the opportunity to be able to to connect with you and your audience and all these folks who have made a commitment to living powerfully inside this context, whether it's the pandemic or prior and just creating a virtual environment where people can work from where they want to work and make a difference regardless of where they are.