Experiences from Fostering a High Powered Virtual Team during the Covid-19 Crisis

Around 10 am on 26^th Feb this year, I received a call from a Sr. Australian leader in our firm seeking input on managing international travel for our consultants flying from India to client destinations; specifically focusing on their transit routes due to the fledgling Covid-19 crisis. While I had been an observer of the unfolding outbreak as well as our firm’s proactive response globally, this was my first engagement with this crisis. The ensuing period has no parallels & has left me with an incarnation of adjectives such as surreal, dystopian, unprecedented….

59 days later, on a bright summer evening in Bangalore, I reflect on the collective experience of our team (based in multiple Indian locations delivering to a global client) during this challenging period. While undergoing a complete metamorphosis, we have transitioned our large unit to a completely new way of working & subsequently delivering well. I use this column to distill my learning, good practices imbibed during this demanding period into 14 key points:

1. A Rapid Response Unit

On 1st March, we setup up a cohesive team of team leaders who would go on to work together to oversee/resolve all matters regarding the crisis affecting our team. This has since morphed into a hierarchy-free leadership team that continuously (almost round the clock) deliberates, identifies risks & mitigation, dissipates information to our large team, actively identifies best practices in an organized way. The effective way we engaged with our firm’s outstanding support teams enabling our firm’s response has been vital (HR, procurement, workplace support, mental wellness, travel).

 2. A Culture of Compassion

This period of isolation, health concerns & unpredictability renders fears & insecurities amongst the strongest of us. Recognizing this was the starting point. We considered it our primary responsibility to empathize with these feelings amongst our staff; addressing these in a personalized way. We created an atmosphere where staff were encouraged to reach out to Sr. mgmt. with concerns & the remedial mechanism were embedded in the workings of our Rapid Response Unit. From our experience, this culture wasn’t just about dealing with health or emotional concerns but also real personal needs – we worked to help resolve issues ranging from housing problems (where staff were evicted due to closure of their accommodation by the Govt., landlords), internet connectivity & backup power issues et al.

This situation also presented a major cultural shift within families. The way we took onboard staffs’ WFH (work from home) environment limitations was also key – for e.g. our staff juggling between work, domestic chores, kids, them dealing with lack of cooks/maids.

Lesson: A culture of compassion is of course humanitarian but also lets respect, loyalty towards the firm grow manifold.

3. The Client

This situation has placed new demands on our client’s business, altered their priorities, reshaped budgets, imposed WFH challenges & impacted them in myriad other ways – being close to their needs & delivering to evolving commitments has improved our standing as a trusted partner. Coincidentally, my personal bonds with some of my clients (both past & present) has grown stronger. We also exchanged our respective firms’ best practices in dealing with this problem. Getting Sr. client stakeholders to meet, present & recognize our larger teams via VC also had positive motivational outcomes.

4. Security is Fundamental

This new way of working is entirely underpinned by the client’s trust in our ability to protect their data & not compromise on security. Security concerns add a layer of complexity to this virtual model. From my experience these following measures can help:

Reviewing existing protocols to find any need for change & being transparent about this with the client, even in the event of no change – encouraging a review with the client on security controls & bolstering their trust. Reinforcing all protocols (client & our firm’s) via trainings with our staff in small focused groups as well as enhanced monitoring both via technology & as part of heightened operations.

5. Embrace Extreme Agility. Goodbye Cognitive Ease.

I recall Kahneman & Tversky elegantly writing about how our brains & being are hardwired to make fluent decisions & perceive tasks effortlessly based on association, availability heuristics & past experiences – Cognitive Ease as they called it. But as I reflect on our actions, I believe we desisted defaulting to this Cognitive Ease at several important junctures – this was crucial.

Agility in redrawing processes, operating models & revisiting them constantly (sometimes even daily) has been vital to successful establishment of what we call ‘The New BAU’ (aka new norm aka new operating model). A critical aspect of this agility is in establishing feedback loop via surveys, transparent communication thru standups & resulting tweaks to our models rapidly to align with new realities.

 6. The New BAU

The New BAU will need to encompass a rapid yet comprehensive look at our communication channels, organizational hierarchies (flattening if possible), aligning to newer KPIs based on client & internal need, delivery operations changes such as quality reviews / reporting / shift rosters et al. While embracing agility, a key success factor was also the sustenance of this New BAU & its innate ability to mature, evolve along with our clients’ & global situations. As it stands I believe whatever vestiges of siloed operation & hierarchy that existed in our team has been driving to extinction by this transition.

7. Centralizing & Decentralizing

Early on, we recognized that our large team pushed to work virtually, could quickly descend into confusion. For e.g. working virtually would lead to uncertainty about who to approach on specific matters, the means to approach them & when to do so – leading to delays as well as general lack of clarity. Central to The New BAU was in establishing a framework for governance, decision making that is centralized in a few hands but whose execution responsibilities is decentralized – & ensuring awareness of this structure. Key to this were cohesive, small teams with clear reporting lines & focussed goals. This also simplifies processes such as onboarding new members, who went onto integrate faster while stepping into these smaller units.

8. Communicate Communicate Communicate

Increasing social interactions within the team, esp. through one-on-one catch ups, guards against feelings of isolation, demoralization & creates space for people to speak up as well as share their thoughts.

Consistent upward communication with high quality, transparent insights to the firm’s leadership also built confidence.

The many modes of communication available must be used with forethought – one on one calls, conference calls, townhalls, VCs, group chat, email et al. Also careful thought must be given to other communication considerations – synchronous vs asynchronous communications, 1:1 or 1:N or N:N, formal or informal communication styles et al. Personally, I’ve been texting our entire unit with multiple weekly updates as well as personal sharing; I’ve found this a more humane way of communicating than the normal ways of communicating via formal emails.

9. Bringing Inspiration

We recognized upfront that the team’s top leaders being hands on & driving every aspect of this crisis mgmt. effort was critical – personalized issue resolution, client focus, participation in daily team standups et al. A simple example – steadfastness of a lead to ‘be the last person to leave the floor’ during the evacuation increased trust.

Recalling achievements of these same teams from the past & relevant stories of inspiration from the wider world have increased our staff’s morale & ‘primed’ them for sustained performance.

 10. The Element of Fun & Collaboration

Of special consequence was creating a sense of community during the void in physical interaction built on fun & engagement. Keeping work & non-work interaction on different platforms encourages participation. The fact that we already had one such vibrant virtual platform gave us a head start. On this platform, we devised & launched several events – Weekly Challenges (Plank et al), nightly quizzes, free-hand fitness training, book-movie reviews. Consistent presence & participation of Sr. leads on this forum was vital for its continuity & engagement. This spectrum of fun activities strengthened boding, made hierarchies flatter & increased overall productivity.

11. A Nudge to Learn

Nudging teams to learn serves multiple purposes – the obvious skill enhancement, beating loneliness, lending an additional sense of purpose, utilizing the time saved in travel & reinforcing the feeling amongst the staff that their leaders are partners in their growth.

My belief is that enforcing a curriculum will prove counterproductive; rather we as leaders play a enabler-facilitator role. In this situation, a plethora of institutions from Harvard to Coursera have charitably allowed free access to some fine content. Firms like ours, with a strong track record in learning already own great content. In the role of learning enabler – we played a part in curating this vast deluge of content; evaluating needs of our staff, future client requirements & tailoring content for specific groups within the larger team.

Also, having someone serve as the Learning Champion to coordinate the learning initiatives would be useful.

12. Rise of New Leaders

“Never let a crisis go to waste” – the only context where I’d use this (in)famous Rahm Emmanuel quote is in context of using this opportunity to develop, empower new leaders. These new leaders were assimilated into the Rapid Response Unit. We believe this rise of new leaders will also negate the ‘Spotlight effect’ on the established leadership, relieve stress & provide for consensus-based governance.

13. Giving Recognition

Consistently recognizing the heroes of The New BAU & high performers (both internally and in client events) enhances morale & productivity of the teams.

14. The Productivity Angle

The team’s productivity in The New BAU has pleasantly surprised us & exceeded our expectations. A conscious effort was also made to rationalize the amount of ad-hoc reporting & redundant data gathering – this & removal of unnecessary meetings continues to be important.

Several weeks into this new working model, our sustained learning-based engagement, communications, care initiatives & fun activities have helped mitigate fatigue & weariness. And ensured the initial productivity surge & connectedness has neither dropped off nor ‘regressed to a mean’.

In conclusion – the unprecedented turmoil, global scale, overwhelming speed & utter unpredictability has evoked enormous demands of us as executives operating businesses & services. These measures & approach have helped our team meet this demand.

Thank You & Best Wishes!

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Credits & With Thanks

Pietro Mangione for taking the time to peer review this piece & his general encouragement.

Acknowledging the massive support from the leaders of our firm.

Most significantly – heartfelt thanks to Rapid Response Unit & the most amazing team that has been the centerpiece of this experience; they made the impossible happen!

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 an ode to Kahneman, Ariely & Thaler