“Ice breakers, when done well, help us see our colleagues as people with feelings that should be respected,” says Douglas.

Taking the time to build rapport - for example, by using virtual team icebreakers - allows all your team members to get to know each other better, which can help minimize that conflict and create a deeper sense of harmony and inclusion on your team, no matter where they’re located. So, while someone on your team might easily brush off a terse email from their work BFF in the cubicle next door, they might take that same email much more personally from a remote worker they don’t know as well-which can lead to unnecessary conflict on your team. “It’s very easy to jump to the wrong conclusion if someone you don’t know well sends you a terse email or appears angry in a video call.” “Distributed teams start off with fewer context clues than co-located teams,” says Teresa Douglas, co-author of Working Remotely: Secrets to Success for Employees on Distributed Teams. Why is building rapport with distributed teams so important?įirst things first - before we jump into how to use icebreakers to build rapport with your distributed team, let’s quickly cover why building rapport with your remote team is so important.

Icebreakers for zoom meetings