Virtual Popcorn For Distance Teams
Can you recreate the energy and dynamic of a live meeting with your team located across the country? This technique works best if you to cut air travel, cut hotel costs, and cut event production costs – but still want to have a highly productive and fun meeting.
It turns out that some things in life are still a whole lot of fun. Popcorn is one of these things.
When you’ve got a long, potentially deadly boring meeting – such as a review of your entire training curriculum, or an evaluation of your yearly budget, or a strategic planning review down to the action steps meeting – use this technique.
Send popcorn to all the members on your distance team. Make sure it comes in advance. Also confirm that everyone has an air-popper. You can still get great tasting popcorn with fewer calories and less salt.
Make sure that everyone has received his or her popcorn.
Now, roll your sleeves up. Get a big handful and get down to the tough work ahead.
Sure, you can hear everyone munching away. But since everyone is doing it, it makes the hard parts of this mind-numbing meeting seem a little easier.
Many distance teams and work groups enjoy doing things they would do if they were meeting in person. This may include everyone sharing the same snack, coffee, or tea.
Some teams send local food specialties to their teammates. This is a fun way to share local culture. It provides variety and at the same time brings a human touch to a distance team.
While it sometimes seems that ‘time is of the essence’ and this kind of socializing is too fluffy, everyone seems to love the popcorn and the mood it creates. Remember, it is not ‘just chit-chat.’ Something much more valuable is going on.
Distance team members are breaking down the boundaries. They are doing something, which every culture does with friends, family and people they care about. They are eating together.
Even if you and your distance teammates have never met in person, this is a way to build an informal and highly effective work group. You’ll breeze through the same content so fast that you won’t even realize what happened. And you’ll find that this way of working gets everyone participating, enjoying and truly working as a team.
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