Building Trust and Collaboration in Hybrid Teams

By Deirdre Murray, Executive Coach, Trainer and Facilitator with PEOPLE RESOURCES 

We have undergone the biggest global social experiment over the last two years. What’s important now as we emerge from the pandemic is to maximise the advantages of how we adapted and re-imagined work during Covid, and at the same time, reflect and change what’s not working in this future hybrid world.

Good communication and trust within teams and with broader stakeholders has always been essential in business, but no more so than in a post-Covid environment. We’re communicating on a 24/7 basis with every means of technology but often the message is misread, misinterpreted, or misunderstood. Despite the fact that we are communicating all the time, studies by Harvard Business Review would suggest that over 87% to 91% of business issues are a result of difficulties in interpersonal communication.

Some people are still anxious about returning full-time to the office; others have decided to WFH full-time, while others within the manufacturing sectors have been on site all through Covid anyway. Some employers have decided Covid is over and it’s back to business as usual with requested 100% attendance in the office. This might seem highly logical, but people’s values have changed during Covid as they have highly valued a balanced work-life integration and the flexibility of working in a hybrid mode or working totally on a remote basis.

Now, the challenge is to clearly establish how we want to work together in future and the level of flexibility and modes of work and communication that will be most efficient and appropriate. In many instances, even those who are in the office may still be communicating online, if half the office team is working from home.

With this fluid situation, trust and flexibility within the team is paramount. The team leader must continue to build trusting relationships within the team in the longer term, as this fragmented and changing structure presents communication challenges.

Working in a post-Covid world requires a whole new style of leadership. We can no longer manage by “walking around.” The combination of full-time, hybrid and totally remote working is here to stay. Managers must learn to adapt their normal preferred modes of communication and Covid has really put that to the test. (CCL)

The most important question to ask is, “Can the job itself be adapted to a remote basis?”

Many managers may be concerned about how they will control the quality and quantity of work done, but Covid has demonstrated that productivity in the workplace has been affected very little. The World Economic Forum has indicated that productivity has increased or remained stable in relation to remote working  during the pandemic. (W.E.F. Nov, 2020). People value the trust shown to them and have reciprocated in high quality outputs. The virtual workspace allows for less supervision, so it is critical that the individual values autonomy, is experienced in their role, is self-motivated with a solid work ethic and has the self-discipline to achieve their goals and doesn’t need to be hand-held.

The key is to establish clear, mutually-agreed outputs that produce high quality work. Someone who is new to the role or is inexperienced will require more intensive mentoring and support and may need to attend in person to build up their experience, relationships and build important networks.

Lynda Gratton from the London Business School summed it up well, when she stated that there are two key factors that determine remote working – focus versus collaboration. If a person needs concentrated time to work on a task, then they can easily work remotely. If its collaboration on a key project, or to brainstorm with colleagues or to review future strategy then face-to-face meetings can be a huge advantage. Many clients tell me that the thing they miss most regarding remote working, is the impromptu conversations in the corridor, the “water cooler” moments to have a quick chat or bounce an idea off someone. With online systems, everything needs to be booked in advance and even phone calls now are scheduled and no longer spontaneous, and it may be harder to maintain visibility.

As employers invite employees back in on a phased basis, it is important to promote a common social bond and check in personally with the team, not just invite them in for a task-focused, “production type meeting.”

The Center for Creative Leadership has identified 3 key aspects for leading in  a post-Covid environment they called DAC Leadership:

1. Direction

People have undergone a collective trauma. They have lost loved ones, have not been able to grieve normally due to restrictions, or have maybe had to balance a laptop on the end of their bed or on the kitchen table. Leaders need to acknowledge the difficulties that they have gone through and are maybe still going through. They need to reset the direction and vision for the team and clarify where we go from here. Clear goals and boundaries need to be re-established.

2. Alignment

Leaders need to ensure that there is strong co-ordination of team goals, clarity about roles and responsibilities and that values of the team are aligned in achieving these goals, so it is important to revisit this with the team.

3. Commitment

The team needs to be fully bought-in to the goals to ensure trust, mutual responsibility, and commitment not just compliance.

As Professor Peter Hawkins tells us, leadership is not vertical, it’s horizontal: “Major challenges lie not in the parts but in the interconnections.”

For trust to flourish in a team, Patrick Lencioni outlines 5 key principles that must underpin good teamwork:

1. Trust trumps everything. It is the bedrock of good teamwork. The leader must show trust to be deemed trustworthy. If there is an absence of trust in the team, people will be protectionist and there will be no real collaboration or sharing, only superficial exchanges. Building trust requires vulnerability from the leader. As Brene Brown tells us, vulnerability is at the heart of leadership as it is about courage, creativity and innovation.
2. Conflict is dealt with constructively and not allowed to fester. As Kim Scott, in her book “Radical Candour” outlines, we need both challenge and support to develop optimal constructive challenge. Too much challenge can be perceived as aggressive but too little leads to passivity and rescuing.
3. Commitment – As the CCL outlined, there needs to be clear messaging around direction, roles and responsibilities.
4. Accountability – there is no room for ambiguity in clarifying who does what, by when and how.
5. Celebrating positive outcomes and sharing accomplishments. Too often, we ‘tick box’ the task and move on without celebrating the team’s achievements and formally recognising team results.

This is illustrated below:

Source: Patrick Lencioni “The 5 Dysfunctions of Teams”

Leading in a post-Covid world gives the team leader the opportunity to re-establish a clear vision and direction for the team, establish key ground rules that reflect core values and behaviours and ensure that roles and responsibilities are clear and unambiguous to build commitment to achieving team success in the longer term.

About the author
Deirdre Murray, Founder and Director of PEOPLE RESOURCES, partners as an Executive Coach, Trainer and Facilitator with leading multinationals and public sector bodies across all sectors.

Deirdre is co-author of “Emotional Intelligence (EQ) – A Leadership Imperative!” Her second book in the management briefs series, “Communicate with Impact! Communicate & Influence Successfully,” is out now at www.peopleresources.ie. She is a regular motivational speaker at conferences, seminars and on radio broadcasts and provides journal entries for leading business magazines.