A Top Performing Virtual Team is a Must in 2022

One thing that I learned from Robert Glazer was about a person’s passion for business when he said, “I don’t want to create a company I don’t want to work with.” Another thing that I’ve been impressed with the last couple of years because Robert Glazer has had remote teams for 14 years. Yes, that’s long before COVID and all the remote team stuff we all have to do now.

A Virtual Team is a Must in 2022

Bob has been in the business of virtual teamwork for 14 years, something the rest of us are just finding out how to do because of COVID. Remote teams may be the only way to stay afloat in the years to come, and Bob has the market cornered.

But all of the information that Bob has garnered has not come for free. He spent literally years doing consulting in many different companies watching the culture and learning about what he wanted his own business to be.

And by the way — when you go to the Justin Donald site — you can get 30% off Bob’s course: Discovering and Developing when you buy his book, How to Thrive in the Virtual Workplace.

You’ll want to listen as Robert Glazer explains how to find yourself. Here are a couple of hints. Know what you want in a company — or watch and find out what you want. Be honest and care for people who want the same culture with the same values.

Are the people working for you interested in the cutthroat paces and places that don’t align with your thought processes? Or are your central employees committed to working for family-type businesses that value tenure and loyalty, but are, maybe, lower on the innovation scale?

Your Core Values

Robert Glazer talks about how most people think a certain way about good and bad culture in a company. Such as, a lousy business culture cheats employees and is dishonest, and a good culture treats employees fairly and helps them out. But as Bob points out, so many company cultures are just not honest.

Bob suggests that you approach your hiring in a way that puts your core values out there right away:

“Look, here’s what we are. Here’s what we stand for. It’s not for everyone but if these things are really you, you’ll love it here.” –Robert Glazer

I’ve talked before about a friend, Darius Mirshahzadeh, who wrote The Core Value Equation. Darius has a similar mindset about defining who you are within your business-culture-values — and accomplishing the values, you hold most dear. Robert Glazer says that our personal core values should hold a differentiated point of view.

De-risk Your Deal

When you get a capital partner and become part of that company, you de-risk your deal slightly. However, Robert says that when you go into a capital partner’s platform, you are joining an existing team, an existing brand, and there are ideas and ways to run things that may not be what you want for your company. So you have to go into these situations of pros and cons with your eyes open.

Like Bob says — it’s a lot more work to be the platform, but if your culture is critical to you, you have to be the platform so you can do what you want to do.

Watch the Signs

No matter what business you are in, it’s essential to watch the signs of what’s going on around you. I think that’s why I’m thinking about virtual teams today. We can’t always think our business will continue to grow if there isn’t a change that occurs.

Bob and I talked about the private equity firms and their model of rolling in equity that has started to put a squeeze on earn-outs. So you have to watch for those signs. Bob also mentioned how strategically you need to think about doing deals differently. You just don’t want to align yourself in a company where you’re being bossed around in a way where you no longer run your own company.

Watch for this sign the most. Watch for places where you are growing and growing and growing but where you will be in a worse financial position than you are now.

An Upside in Your Investment

Here are a few of my little life tidbits. I’m a big fan of having an upside in your investment. Always look for a smaller piece of a bigger pie. Stay out of a scarcity mindset where you want the most significant piece.

Figure out who the strategic partners are they can help you grow. And if you believe in your business and in who’s coming in — leave some chips on the table because even a tiny percentage will be a big win of house money.

Where is Thought Leadership in the Virtual Team Space?

One of the most incredible things I learned from Robert Glazer is how he began to write. You’ll want to hear him talk about it on the podcast.

 “I started to my team every morning, which was originally called Friday Inspiration which was just about improvement or getting better, started to get shared outside of our company. It had kind of ballooned to now almost 200,000 people around the world every Friday and called Friday Forward.”

 If I figure out something that works better than an existing thing, I actually don’t want to keep it to myself, like it’s more enjoyable to me to crowdsource it. — Robert Glazer

Okay — that’s how you do a virtual team and keep the thoughts together cohesively. No wonder Bob is such an inspiration to his virtual team and knows how to keep his hundreds of employees working even through COVID.

If you want to have a message out at 7 AM in all time zones around the world — you can find out how to do that on this podcast.

I hope you will help yourself by listening to the Robert Glazer podcast.

Image Credit: Christina Morillo; Pexels; Thank you!