Influencing Virtual Teams
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    • 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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