Episode 98 - Making Virtual Team Feedback Real

<h2 data-pm-slice="0 0 []"><strong>Summary</strong></h2> <p class="">Feedback is tricky at the best of times, but particularly challenging in virtual teams. Research demonstrates some ways to improve that situation.</p> <p class="" data-rte-preserve-empty="true"> </p> <h2><strong>Transcript</strong></h2> <p class="">Hello and welcome to episode 98 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore ways of improving feedback in virtual teams.</p> <p class="">There are many challenges associated with leading and working in virtual teams. Not having everyone in the same place at the same time is tricky. Things we take for granted, like giving and receiving feedback, can fall away completely. </p> <p class="">We have covered feedback quite a bit on this podcast because it really matters to performance and development. We know that as we progress in an organisation, we receive less feedback. We also know that as our performance moves further away from expectations, we also receive less feedback. It seems at the moments when we really need to know how we’re doing, the feedback we need is missing.</p> <p class="">Virtual teams provide further challenges when it comes to feedback. When we’re not working together face-to-face, we’re less likely to ‘see’ each other in action. There are likely fewer opportunities to provide feedback, and fewer things to provide feedback about. </p> <p class="">So what can we do about this?</p> <p class="">Research by McLarnon and others specifically looked at Global Virtual Teams. Not only did these teams not have the opportunity to work together face-to-face, they had additional challenges of navigating multiple time zones and cultures. The research involved trials of different ways in which virtual team members could provide feedback to each other.</p> <p class="">What they found worked best in virtual teams was structured, regular feedback. Setting up a structured way to request and distribute feedback made a big difference,