Influencing Virtual Teams
Influencing Virtual Teams: 17 Tactics That Get Things Done with Your Remote Employees
Introduction
Three Reasons Why You Need This Book
Rule 1: Be Reasonable
Rule 2: Be 100% Clear-Cut
Rule 3: Always Set Deadlines
Tip 1: Use Direct Language
Tip 2: Ask for Volunteers
Tip 3: Assign to Individuals
Strategy 1: Know What You Want
Strategy 2: Be Direct in Your Description
Rule 1: Type the Task Message in Real Time
Rule 2: Always Type Out Verbal Tasks
Step 1: Verify Skills
Step 2: Be Explicit
Step 3: Lead by Example
Step 4: Count on Others
Step 1: Get Personal
Step 2: Encourage Social Interactions
Step 3: Over-Communicate
Step 4: Meet Face to Face
Step 5: Be Positive
Step 1: Ask Them to Repeat It Back to You
Step 2: Get a Time Frame
Step 3: Develop an Obligation
Step 4: Stress Importance
Step 5: Confirm Action
Step 6: Show Appreciation
Step 1: Isolate Them
Step 2: Ask Them One of Four Questions
Step 1: Keep Emails Short and Concise
Step 2: Highlight Your Calls to Action
Step 1: Decide On a Need
Step 2: Define the Objective
Step 3: Determine the Attendees
Step 4: Draft an Agenda
Step 5: Send the Invite, Agenda, and Reminders
Step 1: Appoint a Leader
Step 2: Go Through the Agenda
Step 3: Remain on Topic (and Time)
Step 4: Capture Meeting Minutes
Step 5: Close with a Review
Step 1: Distribute Meeting Minutes
Step 2: Follow-Up With a Written Summary
Summary of Action Steps Before, During, and After Each Meeting
Tip 1: Tone
Tip 2: Speed
Tip 3: Enunciation
Tip 4: Silence
Step 1: Write Their Name
Step 2: Summarize the Email’s Topic
Step 3: Write Down a Deadline
Conclusion
Notes

Tactic #1: One Word That Influences Your Virtual Team

There’s a famous experiment called the Xerox Study 1 that was conducted back in the late 1970s.

The idea was to discover if there was a best method for cutting in front of people who were waiting in line to use the photocopy machine.

Three requests were used (with different people at different times):

1. “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”

2. “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?”

3. “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I have to make copies?”

The first request got a compliance rate of 94%. In other words, nearly everyone who was asked that question agreed to let the person use the photocopy machine ahead of them, maybe because they sympathized with the person who was in a rush.

The second request got a 60% rate of compliance. This decrease in compliance was probably because the person who made the request didn’t give a reason.

The third request got a rate of 93%, nearly as much as the first.

However, there is something unusual about that third request.

The reason given, “because I have to make copies,” is ridiculous. Of course they needed to make copies! Why else would they ask?

It turns out that the study proved that it wasn’t the reason that mattered in influencing people, but the use of the single word “because” that did.

In other words, using the word “because” increased the compliance rate by 33% regardless of what the justification was.

So the main lesson here is this:

Use the word “because” consistently to increase influence with your virtual team—in your emails, in your instant messages, in your meetings, and in your voice messages.

What comes after the word because doesn’t matter, but try to make the reason credible.

Here are a couple of examples:

Example 1: “John, I need the status report by Thursday because I want to review it before Friday.”

Example 2: “Sara, please schedule a meeting for next week because we have to discuss our strategy.”

There you go—it’s as simple as that.

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