Communication – Part One: How To Ensure Your Communication Style Sets You Up For Success With Your Virtual Teams

Communication – Part One: How To Ensure Your Communication Style Sets You Up For Success With Your Virtual Teams
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In the first episode of our three-part special, we delve deep into the world of communication and take a look at how your ability to communicate effectively with your virtual team is often the difference between your success and failure.
Communication is not only one’s ability to listen; communication is the response you get.
 
This episode is full of insights from both Barbara and Matt on how to communicate with your team effectively for success. Some of the areas covered are:
 
Understanding the differences between the three communication styles.
Accepting that one style of communication is not going to fit every single task.
Communication must happen regardless of how experienced your VA is.
You must have clarity on how you want to be communicated with in order to promote work flow.
Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.
In this episode:
02:36 – Communicate effectively
03:14 – “Communication is the response you get”
04:25 – Setting up for success
05:48 – Styles of communication
07:49 – Communicate what failure looks like
11:20 – Slowdown in order to speed up
12:22 – Communication must happen regardless of experience
17:00 – Reporting back
18:14 – Clarify how you want to be communicated with
21:10 – Wrapping things up
Barbara: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Virtual Success, where I’m joined with my fantastic co-host Matt Malouf. Hey, Matt, how’s it going?
Matt: I’m well, Barbara. How are you?
Barbara: I’m good, thank you, and excited about today’s show.
Matt: I know. It’s a really interesting and exciting topic we’re going to be talking about today.
Barbara: Absolutely, absolutely, and just for the listeners, we’ve been talking about, Matt and I have had the topic of communication written on our podcast show list for quite some time, and it’s a show we haven’t done yet. And actually today, I was just saying to Matt off-air that I’m really glad we didn’t do it yet, because today we have such a powerful episode for you based on actual live case studies and actual live problems that we are seeing with some of our clients in Virtual Angel Hub, and we’re going to dissect them on this podcast, and actually on a few, we’re going to split this podcast into three episodes, that’s how deep this topic is.
We’re actually going to kick off today with talking about, how do we actually set up for success? How do we make sure that our communication sets up for success with a virtual team?
Then episode two, we’re going to dive into giving effective feedback, with emphasis on the word “effective,” and then in episode three, we’re then going to move on to having the tough conversations, because these, obviously, are the things that can derail us emotionally, can be very challenging to attack, and we’re going to give you some great strategies and tips on how to attack those tough conversations in a constructive way.
Matt: Just to add to what you’re saying, Barbara, I think, for the listeners, I want everyone to understand that, what we’re teaching in these three episodes are relevant to not only your virtual teams but your teams that you may have in your offices or locally as well. These teachings are universal and you need to really understand that communication at all levels in your organization is critically important.
Communicate effectively
Barbara: In fact, actually, I would say, and I know you’ll agree with me here Matt, for me, in what I’ve observed over the last couple of years of dealing with clients, dealing with virtual teams, I would say that your ability to communicate effectively together actually is the difference between success and failure with this. Task lists and processes and all those things are vitally important that...