Thought Leaders II

Leading Virtually: Making Virtual Global Teams Work

Since they were pioneered by technology firms in the 1990s, virtual global teams have been growing rapidly. "Virtual work is ubiquitous in the knowledge economy," says Ana Reyes, a consultant and faculty member in organizational dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania. "Environmental complexity and rapid, unpredictable changes require that organizations become capable of continually forming fluid configurations of internal and external partners to collaborate on solving business problems. But it is difficult to do well."

The current economic crisis has created the need for more virtual work. "We are seeing growing interest in virtual teaming," she says. "For example, executives I know in a professional services company, who used to fly around to visit geographically dispersed teams, are now doing teleconferencing. Many companies have to meet virtually; they have no choice."

But the cost savings in travel are often swallowed by additional costs of technology and training, as well as dysfunction. These teams require unique structures for success, and many managers have little experience in how to design and manage them.

Strategies for Working Smarter Virtually

Reyes has consulted with companies on improving their global virtual teams and taught students how to build and manage such teams successfully. Among the strategies for improving virtual global teams are:

• Create transparent processes: "You have to manage by objectives rather than by walking around," Reyes says. "Management practices have to be much more conscious and explicit than when people are close by. Face time is useless. You can’t find out what they did all day. You need to know how to manage technology-mediated work and communications." Reyes recommends developing explicit, transparent processes (approaches, methodologies, workplans, and procedures) and outputs (deliverables, records, milestones, outcomes, and documents). "This enables your team to produce consistent results in a consistent way," she says.
  
  
• Develop a blend of technology and human systems for communication: While many companies initially see virtual teaming as a technology challenge, addressing the human issues is at least as important. "Most people are selected for virtual teams because of their technical competence," Reyes says. "Virtual work requires two sets of skills — not only good technical skills but also good interpersonal skills. You have to figure out where the bumps in the road will be and, in many cases, do more group work than in face-to-face teams. Think of technology as a human process that has been put into a machine," Reyes says. Virtual teaming requires careful consideration of the use of communications channels such as voicemail, teleconference, fax, and e-mail. To illustrate, Reyes recommends that members of virtual teams use the subject line of an e-mail to make a clear statement or request. "It will help your message stand out in the recipient’s crowded in-box," she says. For example, don't write "information please" when you can ask "When's Stage 1 due?" Don’t reply with "Here’s your answer" when you can write "Stage 1 Due March 2."
  
  
• Get design right: Managers need the right configuration of teams, geographically, organizationally, functionally, and hierarchically. The shared workspace is defined by communication, so managers need to decide how the team will communicate, on what issues, and how frequently. "How often should the team communicate? Several times a day, daily, weekly, or only when required?" she asks. Managers also need to understand weak points in design, such as cultural gaps that need to be addressed. The right design has a major impact on the functioning of the virtual team.
  
  
• Narrow your "virtual distance": While distance in physical office can be measured in feet, distance for virtual teams means psychological distance from co-workers, defined as "distance created between people by over-reliance on electronic communications." Studies by Dr. Karen Sobel Lojeski and Dr. Richard Reilly of Virtual Distance International have found that the greater the virtual distance among team members, the more problems such as miscommunication, lack of clearly defined roles, and even personal and cultural conflicts. High virtual distance leads to a 50 percent decline in project success, as measured by on-time, on-budget delivery, as well as lower levels of innovation and job satisfaction. Narrowing virtual distance, on the other hand, boosts innovation and job satisfaction.
  
  
• Address cultural differences: In addition to psychological distance, managers also have to be aware of another type of distance, "affinity distance," which is the emotional distance between team members from different cultures. Since virtual collaboration often uses technology-mediated systems, culture needs to be addressed in the systems. "The practice becomes very rigid, and machine driven," Reyes says. "Suppose a European manager has designed a very sequential work practice and put it into a calendar, so you have to schedule appointments one at a time. But Middle Eastern employees might expect to do multiple things at once. These decisions are context driven. You have to understand what technologies do to human practices."

Reyes says organizations face different challenges at each stage of their development of virtual global teams. First-generation firms are just beginning to explore virtual teams. These newcomers are challenged by the technology issues and how to select people for teams. They also have to overcome mental obstacles to virtual work. Second-generation organizations have many people working virtually. They face the challenge of creating support systems in IT, HR, and other areas. Finally, third-generation companies such as Intel, IBM, Google, SAP, Accenture, and Cisco, have a broad base of virtual work. They are focused on how to build and extend an enterprise capability in virtual work, make their systems more efficient, and build capacity for virtual leadership.

• Creating and Leading High-Performing Teams
• High-Potential Leaders: Accelerating Your Impact
• Leading a Resilient Organization: Achieving Results during Challenging Times
• Leading and Managing People
• Leading Organizational Change
• The Leadership Journey
• Take February's Poll on virtual teams