Remote Work and Creative Collaboration

I will just say it: There is no magic formula to ensure a highly creative remote team. 

If you lack the foundations, moving a team to virtual meetings will not suddenly make everyone more creative. The good news is that if a team already works together effectively, then there is a good chance they will continue to come up with creative solutions even if they can’t meet in person.

Let’s review the basics: Two key features make creative and collaborative problem-solving much more likely. First (and most important) you must have a culture where people feel that their input is welcome, and that their ideas will be give fair consideration. If you have somehow given the impression that critical feedback is not welcome, people will hesitate to speak up.

The second factor in a creative team is diversity. In particular, you want team members with a diversity of experience, viewpoints, and temperaments. If everyone around the table is pretty similar (say male, white, 40-ish, wearing chinos, grew up in Toronto), you might want to consider expanding the team to get a greater variety of outlook and attitude.

Let’s assume that the basics are in place. Moving to remote team meetings will still pose challenges. For one thing, attention spans are shorter when people aren’t in the same physical space. If the meeting seems dull, people will be tempted to minimize the meeting window on their computer screen and check email or look up news reports instead. On top of this, there are all the distractions of home, plus less accountability. There is no one beside you to notice that you’re not fully engaged. For these reasons, I would suggest that remote meetings be shorter than in-person meetings. (Most meetings are too long anyway – but that is a topic for another day!)

Second, it is harder to have genuine personal contact in virtual as opposed to in-person meetings. The person facilitating the meeting therefore has to make an extra effort to have people connect with one another. One way to do this is to start the meeting with a “check-in.” Have each person answer a question like, “How is the day/week going for you so far?” or “What has been your biggest win this week?” or “What is your biggest challenge at work right now?” or even “How did you spend the weekend?” The meeting chair should answer first. Others will take their cue from the first person who responds and likely answer at similar length and with a similar demeanor. If the chair answers in a joking way, that is likely how others will respond as well. 

Finally, the person chairing or facilitating the meeting should make a practice of repeating and summarizing what has been said. This will help keep everyone on track and focused, as well as help everyone catch-up if technical problems cause glitches. (Obviously, use your judgment. Don’t interrupt a good discussion to repeat and summarize – wait for a natural break.)

While no one knows exactly what the post-Covid workplace will be like, every indication is that remote work (and remote meetings) will be more common. So it make sense to master best practices and get the best from your team as soon as possible.

About the image:  Dali Atomicus, Salvador Dalí and Philippe Halsman (1948): Wikipedia