How to work with people you have never met..

A dummy guide on how to collaborate with people at a distance

As you might have already read, our team started our healthcare challenge while we were in lock down. The first time I saw my team mates was through a computer screen. We all studied at the same university, but almost no one knew one another. As you can imagine, the first meeting was very silent. Me especially, because I was in doubt whether to take the initiative or wait, I wondered how we would ever be able to have a functioning team which had not even met in real life. And this is how I lived through the first weeks. I joined the meetings, I did my bit in my research group and that was it. It was a bit awkward to do anything different. After a few meetings, I started to notice that everyone had the same kind of struggle. And this struggle made us all equals in a way. This meant that although it was weird at first, the more meetings we did, the easier it became to talk during meetings and call a teammate even when there was no group meeting, I felt that we were becoming a team which was able to function properly. I was even confident enough to assume the role of chairman. In a weird way I was able to trust a group of people I have never seen, to do their bit for this team, to help me when needed and to respect me in how I am. I still am amazed that everybody had the same drive to make this project work, even though we knew little of each other’s competences.

But there were some reasons why we made it work. As I already said, our personal situation was the same. We were students in lockdown with too much time on our hands, we wanted to help out in any way we could during this COVID crisis and we all came with the “can-do” mentality needed to make progress. So our mindset was in a lot of ways the same. The subject we wanted to address (helping healthcare professionals during the COVID pandemic) was in my opinion also a great motivator for everyone to make it work. For everybody had the urge to be useful during the lockdown period with all its uncertainties. And the topic which we were going to investigate was interesting as well. Being in the same situation and having the same kind of interest and having the need to help out where the basis on which we could understand each other. Which made it possible to function as a team and to work towards our common goal.

Even though I was amazed about how well we functioned in online meetings, our first offline meeting did make a noticeable difference. The moment we met during our first teambuilding activity, the friendly faces on my screen became real people, which made it even more natural to seek their assistance, but also to make a joke or have a laugh during a meeting. This feeling not only made my online meetings more enjoyable, but also more productive in my opinion. I have become more confident that when I speak my mind, my teammates will not see it as some kind of insult, which I was not sure about before.

Therefore, if you would ask me if it is possible to start a student team with members you have never met and won’t see them in person for the couple of months, I would say yes, it is possible, but offline just works better. I would advise to take the first opportunity you get to meet them in person for the amount of fun you can have as well as the overall productivity within your team will rise through the roof.