Two-minute Check-in Connecting a Virtual Team

Keeping Your Virtual Team Connected

It’s not uncommon to have a time during the week where the entire team comes together. I’ve sat through Tuesday morning sales meetings, Thursday afternoon production stand-ups, bi-weekly all hands, and the more sporadic town hall meeting. While all of these meetings have a place, more often than not the purpose of these meetings are focused on driving revenue and completing projects, and less on connecting with your team. 

Now, more than ever, as teams transition to a virtual or hybrid environment, “water-cooler” conversations are sparse. Sure, we have superficial outlets for sharing “kudos” about your coworkers, or have a channel dedicated to nothing but memes, but ask yourself, “when was the last time you had a video call just to connect with a teammate on a human level?” If the answer to that question was more than 7 days, chances are you need to be more intentional with how your team is staying connected. 

As we covered in our blog Committing to Hybrid and Virtual Work Environments, managing a virtual team is more than just project deadlines. Without being able to see your team on a daily basis, you won’t know when someone is feeling burned out, has something challenging going on at work or outside of work, and you may be opening the door to losing quality members of your team. 

The Two-Minute Check-in

I know everyone has sat through an awkward “video call icebreaker” before. Typically, a question is posed and everyone quickly rattles off answers so the discussion can shift to the real reason the meeting has been called. For our weekly meeting, I didn't want that. Even Brené Brown’s Two-word Check-in can border on the superficial side, depending on the group. So, for me, it was important to make those honest connections with teammates the sole purpose of the meeting.  

Wait, am I saying that every week I pay our entire team to come together and share about how they are doing on a personal level? Isn’t that a huge waste of time and money? 

No. 

For traditional office environments that require employees to be in office 5 days a week for 8 hours a day, a study was done that revealed that of those 8 hours, employees are really only productive for 3. That means 63% of their day is spent on non-productive tasks. The study goes on to say that on average employees are spending 40 minutes a day chatting with coworkers about non-work related things. So, using this logic, if an employee is already spending that time with coworkers, why not embrace it as an entire company for one day a week. For virtual teams, there really isn’t an easy outlet to connect with co-workers unless it’s intentional, so without a meeting like this, you can assume your employees are connecting with their significant others, friends on text, or anyone else who is within earshot. 

So what exactly goes into our “Two-minute Check-in”? The talking points for each person follow the same structure, allowing us to draw parallels and piggy-back stories, successes, learning opportunities, and developments together. To create an open environment I pulled on some of my favorite emotional intelligence and leadership books outlined below.

The Happiness Advantage - Shawn Achor

To begin, each team member starts by stating their level of happiness using a scale 1-10. While this is somewhat qualitative, it allows each team member to track their happiness score from week to week. Using the findings in Shawn Achor’s book The Happiness Advantage, if a team member is at a happiness level of 6 or below we recommend doing something that may increase their overall happiness level. While this isn’t a requirement it is nice to take a moment and be intentional about how a team member can elevate their outlook. 

To incorporate gratitude journaling, also recommended by Achor, each team member shares three things they are grateful for. There are no restrictions on what each person can be grateful for, and some of the answers we receive can spark a smile or quick story from the person sharing or another team member. 

Permission To Feel

In Permission To Feel author Marc Brackett identifies that most adults are not equipped with the emotional vocabulary to identify how they are feeling. By allowing each person to think beyond, “happy, mad, glad, and sad” we build a moment to reflect and identify how we are feeling below the surface. 

Since we log these emotions week over week, this also allows each team member to look back on their core emotions and draw broader perspectives on their general outlook and dispositions. This is never something we “weaponize” against our employees, but instead can be used as a guide for support or development.

Living Our Core Values

As fully realized at Zappos and summarized by the late Tony Hsieh in Delivering Happiness, core values are more than just words on a wall. In order for us to better define the way our core values are illustrated in our work, each team member shares a short story centered around each core value: 

• Stories of Help: These stories define how the eGuide Team member has helped either a client, friend, or family member in the past week. This can be illustrated through project work, conversations, or acts of service that embodies the core value. 

• Finish: Everyone has something they need to finish, and we use these stories as a way to call attention to something personally or professionally that is hanging over our heads. By voicing the project or task, the team can help with accountability and awareness. 

• Learning Opportunities: We embrace failure at eGuide and part of failing is learning and teaching how to overcome that challenge should it arise again. By sharing either struggles or new skills with the rest of the team, we are able to draw on each other’s experiences collectively and grow together. 

Surprises We’ve Discovered

Without fail, every meeting leaves me with tangible takeaways that I am able to apply in my own life or with conversations with the team. From moments of vulnerability, sharing professional and personal struggles, to surprises like finding unexpected connections, each person brings their own unique voice and stories to the table, and we are able to get to each other on a more rooted level. Knowing and checking-in with one another allows us to look beyond the project deliverables to the person, become more self aware, and practice empathy with each other and with our clients.