managing a transition to virtual work with unapologetic corniness

When you’re managing a shift from in person to virtual work with a teammate, the most important thing to ask yourself is what you anticipate changing for the worse if you're virtual with this person. 

Next ask yourself: what is the virtual equivalent of delivering the pivotal thing that would otherwise disappear? 

A common concern is that your teammate’s energy will flag, based on the belief that that energy has something to do with being in the same place with you or has something to do with the accountability of checking in with you. 

If your teammate’s energy comes from simply being in your presence, they will probably benefit from virtual meetings that are less dense and more frequent. Set up your calendars so that your teammate never goes very long without being in your presence, at least virtually. 

In addition to raw time together, achieved with the number and duration of your virtual meetings, it’s important to consider all the things that are happening during your current in person time together that contribute to your teammate’s energy. Chances are, you aren’t dedicated your entire meeting to silently meditation or the line by line parsing of spreadsheets. There are other informal modes of interaction that spark your teammate. 

Maybe you’re joking and laughing when you're together live or commiserating over things that are hard. Perhaps you’re also debriefing things that you didn't schedule dedicated time to debrief. You connect extemporaneously over things that are top of mind and otherwise unresolved.

Your list of energy-generating inputs may be different. You want to artificially build whatever is on your list of informal, in person energy generators into your upcoming virtual time together. So, for example, if you meet daily, you could have a reminder in the calendar event to discuss one thing that made you laugh over the past day, or one thing that you want to commiserate over from last week, or one thing that you want to debrief really quickly. 

Bake all those things in. Decide that you’re not going to feel weird about this. 

To some degree, your success in the new virtual relationship depends on not apologizing for or avoiding the artificial structuring of those valuable moments. You can’t depend on them to arise informally day to day the way you might have in person. Don’t let a fear of corniness or inauthenticity cheat you of their value.

-Ben