Kellogg School of Management professor Leigh Thompson shared the results of a simple simulation she performed with her MBA students. The managers in her Kellogg class were paired with peers at Stanford. Their challenge was to resolve an intra-organisational conflict remotely.

The rules are as follows:

• Talk about anything they want, but they have to do it via email.
• They have a week to carry out the task.

Leigh ran the simulation several times face-to-face, so she knew what to expect. She predicted that about 85% of the participants should be able to reach an agreement in about 1-2 hours.

By the end of the Kellogg simulation, over 1/3 of them failed to do so.

It gets stranger – the participants made attribution errors and blamed the other side. Some of them even called it a “bloodbath”. The outcome was unfortunate because the simulation contained potential to benefit both sides and the larger organisation.

With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote teams have now become essential. But given the simulation results, what can virtual teams do to function better?

Leigh outlines several steps on how to optimise your virtual team.

Step 1: Test the technology

The Kellogg simulations revealed that over 50% of virtual teams have technological breakdowns.

Leigh calls failure the “LCD effect” (i.e. lowest common denominator) where if one person can’t connect, it brings the whole team down.

The lesson here is to ensure that your tools work in the first place.

Step 2: Schmooze or lose

Leigh notes that most virtual teams don’t appreciate the importance of having an initial upfront face-to-face experience or even a phone call. In her research, she capitalised on this by allowing people to have a 5-minute non-business phone call prior to an extended email-only interaction.

The results were dramatic. The non-business call led to:

• More trust.
• Good feelings.
• Belief in the organisation.
• A desire to work together in the future.

Best of all, they reached a resolution to the conflict.

Step 3: Humanise members

A video conference is ideal for virtual teamwork. If you can’t have everybody there, put a picture of the absent team members on your desk.

Here’s why – Leigh and Kellogg did a study on humanising remote colleagues where she gave some members a thumbnail picture of their counterpart located elsewhere. The results show that:

• People who had the thumbnail picture of their counterpart were able to reach an agreement 96% of the time.
• People who didn’t have the thumbnail picture of their counterpart were able to reach an agreement only 78% of the time.

Leigh says that when she does her own webinars from Kellogg, she always places a picture of a lecture hall of students in front of her so that she can humanise her audience.

Step 4: Look in the mirror

Leigh means it literally; put a mirror on your desk in front of you.

In one research investigation, North Americans who had to communicate in front of a mirror were less likely to cheat and much more self-critical than those who didn’t have the mirror.

Leigh says she’s not suggesting that remote teams should stay in the same place. As a matter of fact, her research at Kellogg indicates that teams are going to be more creative and innovative when working individually.

Here’s the key: you want to have what she calls a cave and commons design. Go to the cave when you need to generate novel ideas or think about controversial ideas. Return to the commons when you need to debate those ideas and get alignment.

The best teams know when to work individually and when to come together as a team.

Here is Leigh Thompson’s complete video:

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