{"id":347,"date":"2012-10-02T02:05:10","date_gmt":"2012-10-02T02:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/?p=347"},"modified":"2012-10-02T02:05:10","modified_gmt":"2012-10-02T02:05:10","slug":"the-effects-of-virtual-distance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/the-effects-of-virtual-distance\/","title":{"rendered":"The Effects of Virtual Distance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Virtual distance is what many of us remote workers deal with every day.\u00a0 Many people feel that communication has been degraded by technology, but perhaps we just\u00a0aren&#8217;t\u00a0using it correctly. Keith Ferrazzi, Author of \u201cNever Eat Alone\u201d and CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight a Strategic Consulting and Experiential learning Service, explains this in detail.\u00a0 He says that virtual distance is broken into 3 groups, physical distance, operational distance, and affinity distance.\u00a0 They can be described as the following.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Physical Distance \u2013 What it sounds like. The distance between the people on a map.<\/li>\n<li>Operational Distance \u2013 This is the difference in goals and vision\u00a0among\u00a0staff working on a project.\u00a0 If they are aiming for different objectives, it increases their operational distance.<\/li>\n<li>Affinity Distance \u2013 This breaks down to familiarity, innovation and trust.\u00a0 The closer your staff are to each other in an <em>emotional<\/em> and <em>trusting<\/em> way, the better they will work.\u00a0 If they have no familiarity with each other, their affinity distance will be increased.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Although we all have to deal with virtual distance to a degree when we work remotely, there are ways to limit it.\u00a0 In a recent webcast called \u201cHow Virtual Teams Can Outperform Traditional Teams\u201d Keith Ferrazzi labels some tips to help reduce your distance.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Do what you can to accelerate intimacy among your staff.\u00a0 This can include games, outings, or even charitable events.\u00a0 Online games have shown to be a great way to build connection between coworkers, especially with staff who work far away from each other.<\/li>\n<li>Make sure you have employees with high commitment.\u00a0 It is an absolute must to keep working smoothly.<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t put too much weight on physical distance.\u00a0 Most can be solved by technology like Videoconferencing, meeting software, or softphones.<\/li>\n<li>Use the time before meetings to talk to your co-workers and show that you are human.\u00a0 Share personal stories and ask about theirs.\u00a0 This builds trust, and lessens that affinity distance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Building trust in a virtual environment can be tough but is essential to being a successful team.\u00a0 There are lots of ways you can achieve this.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Find common ground &#8211; Using basic conversational skills, find out what you can about each other, and what qualities and experiences you share.<\/li>\n<li>Use Facebook and LinkedIn &#8211; These are great ways to see that your coworkers are human like you.\u00a0 This is a great way to connect with them personally and build a relationship with them.\u00a0 This can help you gain empathy for them by seeing them through a personal lens.<\/li>\n<li>Share and rotate power \u2013 Don\u2019t put everything on one person.\u00a0 Allowing the power to rotate makes everyone feel important and also limits the burden for everyone.<\/li>\n<li>Quality in Communication \u2013 Focus on the quality of your communication, not the quantity.\u00a0 Don\u2019t send 10 bad emails, send one good one.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are just some tips on how you can limit your virtual distance.\u00a0 If you follow these practices you can improve your virtual teams and make them excel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Virtual distance is what many of us remote workers deal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[508],"tags":[419,392,756],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}