How to Have Meaningful Conversations in a Remote Team

Meaningful communication remains the cornerstone of successful collaboration in any team. But the shift to remote and hybrid work poses a new set of challenges, demanding new responses.

This article delves into the intricacies of communicating with remote team members. It examines the barriers and pitfalls, reveals the conversations that can be particularly difficult, and explains ways to encourage meaningful conversations in a remote setting.

What Are Meaningful Conversations?

Meaningful conversations in the workplace are those that go beyond surface-level discussions and often delve into topics that contribute to personal and professional growth. [1]

Characteristics of meaningful workplace conversations include:

• Authenticity. Meaningful conversations are genuine and sincere. Individuals can express their thoughts, feelings and opinions openly.
• Connection. These conversations build bonds and understanding between colleagues, helping to establish strong relationships and trust within teams.
• Purpose. They're driven by a clear intent or goal, whether it's to solve a problem, make a decision, provide feedback, or offer support.
• Empathy. Meaningful conversations involve active listening, where participants seek to understand one another's perspectives and experiences.
• Learning and growth. They provide opportunities for personal development, whether through sharing insights, exchanging feedback, or discussing challenges and successes.
• Respect. Respectful communication is essential in meaningful conversations, where all participants feel valued and heard, regardless of their role or position.
• Impact. These conversations have a tangible impact on individuals and the organization, leading to positive outcomes such as increased productivity, morale and innovation.

Examples of meaningful workplace conversations include one-on-one feedback sessions, team strategy discussions, brainstorming sessions to generate new ideas, and mentoring conversations aimed at career development.

What Are the Challenges for Remote Conversations?

Genuine dialogues foster trust, understanding and empathy in all teams, but they’re particularly important in remote teams, in which team members might otherwise feel disconnected and isolated.

In remote teams, communication barriers can undermine the quality and depth of meaningful conversations. These barriers include:

• The absence of non-verbal cues. Remote communication makes it harder to interpret emotions and intentions accurately, even in video calls. This can lead to misunderstandings or misinterpretations and can hinder the establishment of trust and rapport.
• Asynchronous communication. This is any communication where the people involved aren’t present at the same time. For example, they might be in different time zones, or working on different days. Relying on email or messaging platforms often results in delayed responses and fragmented discussions. Without real-time interaction, team members may struggle to engage fully, reducing the richness of the exchange. [2]
• Technological barriers. Connectivity issues, software glitches, and differences in tech capability among team members can all hamper remote conversations.
• Information overload. Managing the influx of emails, messages and notifications produced by remote work can be stressful and disorientating.

5 Strategies for Fostering Meaningful Remote Conversations

Managers of remote or hybrid teams can use various approaches to overcome these barriers:

• Use video calls for important conversations. Video calls aren’t perfect, but they reinstate at least some visual cues, fostering a more personal and connected environment.
• Establish clear communication norms. These include the response times you expect to emails or chat messages, and which communication channels your team members are to use for each type of conversation. This helps to keep discussions coherent. Using collaborative tools, such as shared documents or project-management platforms, helps to organize thoughts and ideas, even in asynchronous exchanges.
• Build a culture that promotes openness. Active listening, curiosity and empathy encourage an atmosphere of psychological safety. They help team members to understand perspectives fully, encouraging deeper, more meaningful conversations.
• Establish regular check-ins and virtual team-building activities. Nurture trust and camaraderie by cultivating an environment in which people can talk openly and honestly.
• Provide technical training. Make sure all your team members have the necessary skills to use your communication technology.

How to Handle Challenging Conversations Remotely

In remote working it’s vital to keep communication consistent, frequent and fair. For example, be sure to deliver feedback between performance reviews, not just as a set piece, and mediate disagreements as they occur rather than letting them escalate out of sight.

The following sections cover the most common kinds of demanding conversations you’ll likely take part in.

Performance Reviews and Feedback

Make performance review as much like a face-to-face meeting as you can. Use video calls to maintain a personal connection and to achieve a more nuanced exchange.

Share any feedback, discussion points or questions you particularly want to cover in advance – and encourage your team members to do likewise. Don’t spring unexpected, negative feedback on them in the review. [3]

As a manager, try to be flexible, lenient and compassionate. This helps to develop richer conversations and draws out issues you might have missed – the kind of things that are easier to observe in person.

Use one-on-one meetings to ask about wellbeing, what’s gone well since your last meeting, and any issues currently faced.

Remote and hybrid working can often be stressful. Make allowances for the challenges of remote and hybrid working, but not at the expense of performance and accountability, and encourage people to open up about their challenges.

On the other hand, recognize and celebrate team members who are engaged and work hard. This will help to combat feelings of isolation and boost motivation levels.

Conflict Resolution

Conflict in a remote team can be hard to spot. If you and your team members aren’t all present in the same place, you’ll likely miss a lot of the signs of tension. So, during one-on-ones and team meetings, keep an eye out for disparaging comments or dismissive reactions.

If you do spot the signs of conflict, have an informal one-on-one with each team member involved. This way you can hear people's concerns in a safe, confidential setting. Ensure you ask each party the same questions, to remain impartial. Encourage each party to be frank, while remaining respectful.

Also, look out for problems that have occurred at the same points in projects, time after time. They could have a common culprit, with whom you can engage to head off trouble in future.

When conflicts do break out, resolving them virtually demands active listening and empathetic communication. Encourage open but respectful dialogue through video conferences or chat platforms, allowing team members to express their perspectives without interruption. But be clear that all communication on the subject should be open, respectful and visible.

Brainstorming and Creativity

Engaging team members remotely in collaborative, cerebral tasks such as ideas generation can be challenging.

Possible difficulties include encouraging full and active participation, building on initial ideas, and helping people who are struggling with the digital tools.

But taking some simple steps can help you to make the most of the conversation:

• Keep meetings as short as practical and start with clear goals.
• Minimize participant numbers to keep the conversation focused and to allow everyone's opinions to be heard.
• Make use of online visualization tools such as Miro to capture, sort and build on ideas. And offer some tips for using them at the start of the session.
• Use breakout groups to encourage original thinking, which will also allow quieter team members to be heard.
• Stick to the agenda and watch out for off-topic chat.
• Arrange a follow-up session to present a summary and decide on next steps.

How to Create Opportunities for Meaningful Conversation

To promote meaningful conversations within remote teams, explore different channels and platforms.

Structured meetings serve as focal points for discussions on projects, goals and challenges. But you can supplement these with informal chats, via designated channels or by means of online “coffee breaks.”

These help to build rapport among team members. Virtual team-building activities like online games, collaborative projects, or virtual lunches can further strengthen a sense of belonging.

Successful initiatives in remote teams often revolve around proactive communication strategies. For instance, implementing a buddy system pairs team members for regular check-ins, promoting peer support and mentorship. Additionally, rotating facilitators for meetings encourages diverse perspectives and prevents monotony.

Establishing "virtual watercooler" spaces, where team members can engage in conversations unrelated to work, can also cultivate a sense of community. And encouraging feedback through anonymous surveys or dedicated feedback sessions empowers team members to voice concerns and suggest improvements.

These practices not only enhance communication but also contribute to a more cohesive and productive remote-team environment.