Leading at a Distance

CHAPTER 2No Trust = No Team: The Formula for Building Cohesive Relationships Virtually

We were recently working with a global virtual tech team with members in London, New York, and Chicago. People within each of these locations worked together well, but they did not often include team members from other locations. As a result, silos formed. Not surprisingly, the silos and lack of information sharing were impacting team performance. Morale was low, decision-making was slow, and things were getting bogged down.

Happily, there are ways to break down the silos, build trust, and increase collaboration. It starts with the chicken-and-egg question. That is, do high-performing teams create trust, or does trust create high-performing teams?

Our previous global study on virtual collaboration found that top-performing virtual teams report higher levels of trust than teams that are less successful. This research confirms what we have learned from many years of experience with virtual teams: Trust is a foundational ingredient and precondition for their success.

Despite the importance of trust in virtual collaboration, building trust can be quite difficult. Our Virtual Experience survey reinforced this, with 39% of respondents reporting that trust is a challenge virtually. Many organizations do not appreciate how working remotely makes it more difficult to build strong relationships. Physical distance makes it harder to find shared experiences that human beings use to help forge personal ...