Can Virtual Teams Demonstrate Emotional & Social Intelligence?

by Marcia Hughes, Donna Dennis, James Terrell

When Manuel cut off Maria and implied her research was simplistic during the recent team webinar, most of the other team members checked out and started doing email.  Maria wiped a tear away and swore to herself that she wouldn’t risk participating again.  The Team Leader, who is a top notch engineer and is signed up for his first management training class next month, said nothing.  This interaction cost the team and the organization in terms of engagement, trust, and willingness to take risks with one another, yet nothing may ever be done about it.  Virtual teams face big challenges in being able to connect at an interpersonal level.  They are challenged with non-verbal communication, conflict resolution and forming a strong identity.  Virtual teams are likely to struggle more than other teams in using their brain biology support system of mirror neurons, spindle cells and oscillators, which Dan Goleman and Richard Boyatzis recently described as core to using social intelligence (Harvard Business Review OnPoint, Spring 2011).

Yet no matter how big the challenges virtual teams are proliferating. So what should a good leader and organization do?  Applying a team centered model to measure and build ESI (emotional and social intelligence) will provide the framework for understanding and proceeding successfully to build measurable team ESI skills.  First, let’s understand what we mean by ESI and by a virtual team.

ESI is a set of emotional and social skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way. 

 Another way to think about ESI is that it encompasses your ability to recognize and manage your own skills and to recognize and respond effectively to those of others. These skills, or their lack, are exhibited daily by individuals, leaders and teams.  The question is how well these engagement skills are demonstrated.  The answer is to have a deliberate process for expanding the skills the particular team needs.

Virtual teams are teams that are working from dispersed locations so that they do not have the opportunity to work together face to face frequently.

ESI challenges for virtual teams include:

• Developing emotional awareness of one another
• Resolving conflicts
• Developing trust
• Communications challenges prevail due to:
  • Confused or ignored commitments on response time to one another
  • Lack of visual and non-verbal cues
  • Often cultural and language differences
  • Lack of emotional and social tags that create a sense of connection
  • Relying on email to get work done

These challenges need to be taken seriously because they can cost the organization, team and individuals in many ways including through lessened engagement, decreased productivity, higher turnover, and missed creative opportunities.  Fortunately, these challenges can be addressed.  By using a solid model through which the team members are given a voice about their functioning as a team their ESI can measurably grow.

The model we explore using is the Team Emotional and Social Intelligence Survey® (TESI®), which is composed of seven scales that measure a team’s strengths or challenges.  The survey is an internal 360 on team performance as it results from team members responding confidentially to a survey about their team performance.  With the data in hand from the survey, the team can frankly discuss their strengths and opportunities as well as their different experiences of being on the team.  Best of all they can then create an action plan to support their development.  Later the team can retake the TESI and measure their progress, which will be depicted through a pre-post chart.

7 TESI Skills & Opportunities for Virtual Teams

Team Identity reflects how well the team connects with one another and demonstrates belongingness and pride in the team.  It also includes role and responsibility clarification. Virtual Teams can grow this skill by:

• Making agreements and keeping them- trust builds through keeping commitments in virtual teams
• Establishing communication agreements, e.g.  response time
• Clarifying roles & responsibilities
• Creating a logo or motto
• Naming themselves

Communication reflects how accurately the team members send and receive emotional and cognitive information.  It indicates how well they listen, encourage participation, share information and discuss sensitive matters.  Communication indicates the extent to which team members acknowledge contributions and give feedback to one another.  Trust must be built faster in virtual teams and if key components are not attended to early, the team is not likely to have the foundation it needs to get work done at a distance. Trust is initially built by making and keeping agreements.  Thus strong communication strategies will support the team in moving forward to experiencing trust beginning with trusting the communication process.  Virtual Teams can grow this skill by:

• Establishing a communication process with understood time commitments
• Practicing active listening virtually
• Setting up conversations in pairs – virtually have coffee or lunch
• Building reflective skills

Emotional awareness measures how sensitive and responsive team members are to each other’s feelings. Does the team value and respect negative as well as positive feelings? This scale measures the amount of attention the team pays to noticing, understanding, and respecting the feelings of its members.  Virtual Teams can grow this skill by:

• Taking a personality assessment and use the information, such as the MBTI or Emergenetics. Understanding work preferences will facilitate smoother interactions with team members.
• Working with the TESI to build understanding of preferences.
• Matching technology to task
• Telling stories about something that happened when working alone
• Asking questions and listening, checking out the accuracy of what is understood

Motivation is the competency that shows the team’s level of internal resources for generating and sustaining the energy necessary to get the job done well and on time.  It gives feedback on whether creative thinking is promoted and whether competition is working for or against the team.  Virtual Teams can grow this skill by:

• Setting stretch goals
• Intentionally reinforce what works
• Catch each other succeeding and talk about it- make sure team members know this is a part of what they need to do as well

Stress Tolerance is a measure of how well the team understands the types and intensity of the stress factors impacting its members and the team as a whole.  It addresses whether team members feel safe with one another, and if they will step in if someone on the team needs help. Stress tolerance reflects the level of work/life balance that the team is able to achieve including its ability to manage workload expectations.  Virtual Teams can grow this skill by:

• Talking about a non-work joy
• Agreeing to all go for a walk at the same time
• Getting up and stretch during the virtual session

Conflict resolution scores show how willing the team is to engage in conflict openly and constructively without needing to get even.  It measures the ability to be flexible and to respond to challenging situations without blaming one another.  Virtual Teams can grow this skill by:

• Expanding dispute resolution skills
• Pacing one another
• Practicing paying attention

Positive Mood reflects the positive attitude of the team in general as well as when the team is under pressure.  Positive mood scores indicate the members’ willingness to provide encouragement, their sense of humor, and how successful the team expects to be.  It is a major support for a team’s flexibility and resilience.  Virtual Teams can grow this skill by:

• Going to the movies together (in different cities)
• Supporting team members in setting up a time for two to use Skype or an equivalent and have a drink together, be it coffee or…
• Making a big and consistent deal of celebrating successes!

There are many resources that will support your ability to use these resources.  Attend or watch our webinar on this topic, our books Developing Emotional Intelligence:  Exercises for Leaders and Teams, The Handbook for Developing Emotional Intelligence, A Facilitator’s Guide to Team Emotional and Social Intelligence, A Coach’s Guide to Emotional Intelligence, The Emotionally Intelligent Team, and Emotional Intelligence in Action, Second Edition.

We welcome your contacting us for more information.

Acting with Collaborative Intelligence: Your 10 Step Guide

Collaboration is a result of people working together to reach a mutual answer to a challenge or opportunity.  As our world becomes more integrated and boundaries become more blurred the need and desire to collaborate is heightened.  We see this on the internet, such as with Wikipedia, in organizations of all sizes and shapes, such as the better efforts at the United Nations and in performance goals for individuals and leaders, such as the Executive Core Qualifications (ECQ’s) that leaders in the federal senior executive service are to meet.

Organizations frequently list collaboration as part of their mission or vision statement or as one of their values.  With all of these forms of embracing collaboration, we know it’s something good, the key question is how do we collaborate and when is it useful? We’ll answer this question for individuals by exploring 10 steps for individuals to follow in order to act collaboratively and briefly review how teams build collaboration.

Collaborative Intelligence™ is a key outcome teams can reach as they build their skills.  Collaborative intelligence is a result teams profit from when using the seven skills measured by the TESI^® (Team Emotional and Social Intelligence Survey.  When teams build their skills in forming a strong team identity, engaging with motivation, building emotional awareness, enhancing communications, supporting one another in work life balance to manage stress, growing their conflict resolution skills so they can benefit when conflict occurs and act with positive mood they will be engaging multiple strengths and acting collaboratively.  Developing these seven skills helps team members learn how to be collaborative and to use this outcome wisely.

Collaboration is a communication and problem solving process that is based on a structured engagement style and process.  Those who collaborate well pay attention to personality styles, behavioral engagement strategies, and timing of the decision making as well as who is invited into the discussion, often referred to a stakeholders.  Individuals and organizations can act in a collaboratively style informally and accomplish a great deal.  More formal collaborative process can be deliberately engaged in more challenging situations and may benefit from engaging a facilitator.  Because the process can be slow and deliberative it may be the wrong formal process to use in an emergency, when a quick decision is needed or when the stakes are low, such as choosing where to have lunch.  Even in these circumstances when individuals act with a demonstration of inclusivity and intentionally listen to others and incorporate their suggestions as appropriate, they can build buy-in and loyalty that expands their base of support. The following 10 steps will help individuals and leaders be successful in their collaborations.  These skills can be integrated into one’s natural behaviors so the benefits of collaboration abound with minimal effort.

 10 Steps to Act with Collaborative Intelligence

1.     Be aware.  Notice what is happening so you can choose how you are involved.  Breathe deeply to benefit from adding oxygen to your brain, to your heart and to feel calm and resilient.

2.     Apply Intention and Attention.  Form your intention so you know specifically what you want to accomplish and how.  Then decide what steps in the process you will pay attention to in order to keep yourself on track.  Intend to collaborate, which means intend to work together, to listen and to respond in order to accomplish your goal together.  Clarify your own purpose and goals; this is not a process you can accomplish on auto-pilot.

3.     Commit to the process.  Collaboration takes time, energy and patience. If you’re hesitant about using the process you’ll hold back, be protective of “your” information or rush through the process.  One way or another without commitment you are most likely to minimize the potential for success.  You may end up feeling annoyed or antagonizing others or both.

4.     Attend to others.  Create a foundation for engagement by creating a personal connection.  It’s out of little personal discussions where you find you have things in common that form the basis for trusting one another.  You might find you both have daughters who sell Girl Scout cookies or you might both climb 14,000 foot mountains. Continue paying attention to other participants throughout the process.  Often there is a valuable message behind the specific words someone is using; paying attention will help you discern the real message.

5.     Mutually establish goals and other criteria. Be sure you are headed in the same direction!

6.     Express your opinions and share your knowledge.  If you keep what you know close to your vest you undermine the ability of everyone to make a good decision, you role model that the process isn’t fully trustworthy and neither are the people involved.  Remember your actions speak louder than your words.

7.     List commonalities and differences.  It’s amazing how often people struggle over principles they already all agree on because they didn’t take time to recognize the agreement. If you clarify where there are differences and where you agree then you can begin gathering information to move towards a mutual solution.

8.     Apply divergent thinking.  Be willing to listen to other people’s perspectives even though they may be very different from yours.  At attitude of curiosity will be helpful.

9.     Be appreciative.  Keep noticing what works and through this positive process explore what seems to be off-center, to just not work.  Explore these inconsistencies with curiosity to find points of agreement.

10.  Make decision(s).  At this point everyone comes to a convergent answer and agrees to support the one answer.  Before you sign off though, apply some hearty reality testing.  Future pace by imaging it’s sometime in the future and you’re observing how well the decision works.  Is anything askew?  Did you take on too much at once?  Does anything else need adjusting?  If so make the changes now.

The result of collaborative decisions is that you have tapped into everyone’s smarts, built trust and have gained mutual commitment to success.  What’s not to like about that scenario!

Top 10 Reasons for Playing!

1. It feels good and makes you happy!
2. Happy is good!  Good for your health, for your decision-making, for your relationships….. Heck, what isn’t it good for?
3. It’s good for our world economy – a stretch?  Maybe, but what about the recreation dollars we spend even if we’re just driving to a great hike in the forest and taking a picnic.  And happy people have more capacity to slug through the difficult conversations to get to good collaborative decisions.  Tell that to the G-20 – or even the G-8 leaders!
4. We build resilience, defined as the ability to recover quickly from setbacks and elasticity, as in the ability to spring back after things are bent out of shape. Resilience is enhanced through play, through relaxing and through nourishing reflecting.  Play regularly to be prepared for life’s twists and turns.
5. It makes other people happy.
6. You can get good exercise and increase your cardio vascular functioning.
7. Brain health and well-being.
8. We satisfy our own developmental need to be creative and feel competent.
9. We can be more creative while playing with novel possibilities in an environment where we can be flexible and relaxed.

10. To interact and be reflective without it seeming so serious – “Hey, why did we miss that grounder when Holly hit it?”  “What shall our team do next time?”

Play has been described as unplanned behavior, in other words activity that emerges and evolves spontaneously from within its own context. It occurs in a climate that facilitates creativity and innovation. Young children accomplish the majority of their most critical early learning through play. But guess what, adults learn best in the same sort of attitude — relaxed curiosity.  We just don’t emphasize play nearly as much as can serve us. For children play is considered valuable because it develops their social relationship skills, helps build positive interactions between the child and their classmates, and provides the chance to let off a bit of steam (reduce or prevent anger). It also builds on their skills of sharing and taking turns.  Isn’t this what we want for ourselves, our families and our teams?  Of course it is! 

At Collaborative Growth we’re declaring July as a great month for playing.  We hope you take time to enjoy this beautiful month whether it’s quite sunny for you in the northern part of our globe or snow is whitening your world in the southern hemisphere.

We also want to express our gratitude for Freedom.  In the United States where we live, July 4^th is the day we celebrate our nation’s Independence.  Let us all embrace freedom with our intentions that really includes liberty and justice for all to help build a world that.  Neurologists assure us that seeing requires believing so let’s join our combined vision in seeing a world that works for all!

Blessings and our thanks to all of you!

Teambuilding with Emotional Intelligence Competencies

Team EI CompetenciesUsing a team model to measure and strategically target team emotional growth – The Collaborative Growth team model provides a process for successfully implementing team EI competencies.  The seven scales measured in the outer circle are all competencies, the implementation of any one supports successful implementation of the others, which is why the model is presented in a circle.  However, some scales will be more relevant to particular goals, such as demonstrated in Figure 2.   The middle circle shows the four desired results of team engagement, such as trusting one another, are more complex competencies that result from developing the first seven scales.  The inner circle, or bull’s eye, demonstrates the long term benefits teams and their organizations gain when these competencies are implemented.   The TESI is a team 360 which measures the team members’ assessment of how well they are implementing the seven scales in the outer circle.  It can be used to measure team progress through taking it before development begins and again as the strategies are being implemented.

Teambuilding with Emotional Intelligence Competencies

Team Emotional Intelligence Competencies are implemented through a complement of skills, attitudes, behaviors and information.

When we are talking about team competencies, we are speaking of the skills or abilities needed to perform the specific tasks or functions assigned to the team. Accomplishing the competency is based upon their attitudes and behaviors as well as having the skills and knowledge needed.  To be successful, teams need strength in emotional intelligence competencies such as trusting, risk taking, communicating, conflict resolution and being respectful and productive.  We consider each of these areas as their own competency domain, and each competency domain is implemented through a complement of skills, attitudes, behaviors and information that are called for in a particular setting.

Team Leaders Motivate Your Teams!

How will we know when we have a team that functions with emotional and social well-being?  The Collaborative Growth team model measures the seven specific skills seen in the outer ring.  Your team can take the TESI, consider their skills and opportunities, and engage in intentional growth.  The model shows that as teams are deliberately enhancing their skills they develop the benefits shown in the middle circle, such as trust, and then progress to being a team that enjoys emotional and social well-being.  This is a highly productive and engaged state which leads to sustainable good results.  However, be sure to pay attention to maintaining those skills.  High performance requires constant attention.  What is your team paying attention to?

Team Leaders Motivate Your Teams!

What’s your team attitude?  Discuss the power of attitude with your team.  Ask team members to explore current attitudes and then set intentions for the attitude they will express in the future.  Be specific about who does what so you can notice as engagement improves.

What inspires your team members and the team as a whole?  What about giving some time to a worthwhile community project?  You and the team could spend an hour at a soup kitchen or a day helping build a house.  There are many ways to contribute.  Challenge the team to consider options and find one a suitable project.  After contributing your time get together and debrief.  Talk about how it felt, what you learned about your community and what it means to volunteer as a team.  Has your team given time?  How did it work?