Work meetings are not fun. They are time-consuming and way too often ineffective. And virtual meetings are no exception to that rule. The first rule of a meeting should be: Only have meetings that are necessary. And the second: When in a meeting, get the best out of it. But how to do so? By engaging the whole team from the first minute on. Short virtual icebreakers boost your meeting by creating an engaged and…

Why is it important to foster company culture in a distributed team when leading virtual teams? To get everybody on the same page. So you can ensure that everybody is moving in the same direction. To give teammates stability and a work environment that they care about. Give people something to believe in and they will go all the way with you. Company culture is shown in the underlying rules of how people work together.…

Or: How to kill your co-worker by ignoring Slack messages “One of the surest ways to lower individuals' self-esteem is to reject them.” (Forsyth, Donald Group Dynamics) Imagine: You are on social media, Facebook, Slack, Whatsapp, you call it. You write a message to a contact that is online. The addressed somebody received the message and read it. But then: nothing. Minutes pass, and nothing. The person you texted does not reply to you. How…