Above all, be specific about contributions and how they seem to be helping. These frequent written gestures are like handshakes and smiles in the virtual environment. Make your presence known with comments as is appropriate for you and your team! You are the manager. It’s up to you to sense your team culture and what it needs!
These five points will help your team to create its own personality and culture and identify each other as valued team members. Remember that a culture arises organically from regular engagement: actively shared purpose, actively knowing each other’s traits and skills, and actively encouraged protocols (real actions and real attitudes) for quality communication. Providing a structure with interaction guidelines will assist your team to thrive in a unique culture.
Renita C. Wellman, Ph.D. organizational psychology, virtual team consultant, has researched methods for increasing cohesion and mutual support within virtual teams (Renita@theWellmanMethod.com).
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