Groups & Teams Overview
Do virtual teams benefit or harm group productivity? How should managers lead virtual teams, considering that team members or subordinates are at remote locations?
Martin of Intranet Focus recently published a research note on Managing Virtual Teams (2012). The extended research note provides an overview of good practices in managing virtual teams both in team meetings and between meetings. Ten recommendations are based on Martin’s experience managing virtual teams from 1975. Appendices set out the elements of a profile of virtual team members and also the structure of a training course that Intranet Focus delivers. An article by Martin on the management of virtual teams and virtual meetings was published in Business Information Review.
Although the current language of business speaks of ‘collaboration’, it does not speak of ‘virtual collaboration’ but of virtual teams. This is useful because not all teams work in collaboratively with a common cause. A team can be defined as a collection of individuals who are interdependent in their tasks, who share responsibility for outcomes, who see themselves and who are seen by others as an intact social entity embedded in one or larger social systems, and who manage their relationships across organizational boundaries. A team, therefore, has a unity of purpose and a social structure, and its members share a joint responsibility for outcomes which is not necessarily a common cause.
Probably the most comprehensive survey of virtual team adoption was undertaken by the Economist Intelligence Unit in late 2009.
The main reasons quoted in the report for establishing virtual teams were:
- Improve collaboration with other business units
- Tap into a larger pool of expertise
- Improve competitiveness through faster response to opportunities
- Cost reduction, especially travel costs and the need for internal meeting spaces
- Improve collaboration with customers, suppliers, and partners
The challenges of working in virtual teams were seen as
- Misunderstandings due to differences in culture, language, and an inability to read people’s expressions
- Difficulty in leading teams remotely
- Difficulty in building camaraderie and trust
- Difficulty in managing the productivity of virtual teams
- Managing information overload
Building a virtual team takes a lot of care and effort. The recognition of language, location, time, and culture must be considered in selecting the staff concerned and in setting up and managing each meeting. There may be a vital virtual team member who does not have good spoken language skills. It may be necessary to bring in an interpreter who may not have the security clearance to participate in the meeting.
Adding someone to the team may be required, but removing someone could be difficult. In a physical meeting situation, a quiet word to a manager may be effective, but in a virtual team, that call has to be made by ‘phone, and the person who is asked to leave may feel that not enough has been done to enable them to contribute to the meeting. The newcomer may also change the dynamics and levels of trust in the team.
The word TEAM provides a helpful mnemonic for virtual teams
- Trust between team members and that their work is worthwhile is essential. Once broken, it cannot be rebuilt
- Engagement is very difficult to achieve in a virtual team and so has to be worked on in a step-by-step approach recognizing that each member of the team is an individual
- Achievement, both personal and as a team, should be recognized and used to build engagement and trust
- Membership needs to be kept under continuous review, as just one person that fails to achieve and/or fails to engage and/or fails to understand the importance of trust will have a significant impact on every other member
Culture, time, and place
Virtual teams have three dimensions to their operation:
- National and organizational culture (which includes language)
- Time
- Location
Leaders need to consider these at all times in the planning, execution, and review of virtual meetings.
Most multinational companies adopt English as their corporate communications language, but companies outside of the USA are aware that this is a guideline and not a command. This is especially the case in Europe, where it is difficult to travel more than 500 miles from a city center without entering a country with a different language.
In meetings with attendees from different countries, it is often easier for them to understand English as a second (or even third) language than English spoken by a native speaker because of the use of idioms and inadvertently complex sentence constructions. An important, often overlooked point is that native English speakers need to allow time between sentences to allow others to ‘translate’ concepts (rather than words) into their language.
When planning virtual team meetings, it is crucial to understand the four elements of language skills
- The ability to speak,
- The ability to understand what is said,
- The ability to write, and
- The ability to read.
Individual team members may have different skill levels in these areas, and making assumptions could lead to significant problems with understanding and decision-making.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we know the concept of an individual’s location is complex. Members of the virtual team could be on different floors in the same building, in different buildings, in different countries, and of course, not even in a building but on a train, plane, or in a hotel dining room. With audio or video conferences, it might not be apparent where the attendees are sitting. However, the location may impact ambient noise levels on whether the attendee can be overhead by colleagues, family members, or strangers. The location may influence if the attendee can write notes about the meeting.
It is essential to understand that even when one person is remote, it changes the dynamics of a meeting. This is because another aspect of location is the distribution effect. Suppose the majority of the participants are in one location. In that case, they will be a dominant force in the discussion, especially if the leader of the meeting is also present at that location. They will also have the benefit of being able to see the body language of their colleagues and to time their contributions to the discussion.
Some time challenges in virtual meetings include time zones and public and religious holidays in different countries. When a meeting is scheduled at an unusual time, we can participate in the meeting. We may do so in a less-than-constructive way. Even a tiny change in time, from 9:00 to 8:30, could make it difficult for people commuting by public transport to accommodate easily.
Training requirements
Given the increasing importance of virtual teams, companies should provide managed virtual teams training but very few do so. Team leaders, in particular, will need some additional skills.
These include
- Understanding the skills and experience that team members need to have to be influential members of a virtual team
- Maintaining close working relationships with the managers of team members to ensure they are aware of the organization and office environment in which team members are operating
- Taking additional time to prepare for a meeting so that, for example, all team members have the documents they need several days in advance
- Being adept at using conferencing and social media applications to help the team achieve objectives
- Being able to motivate team members that they have not met and may not have chosen to be a member of the team
- Being ready to call team members by name to contribute, remembering which team members may not have spoken for some time
- Accepting that it is very difficult to concentrate on leading a virtual team meeting and make notes of the discussions and actions
A team leader who is excellent at managing physical meetings may not be equally proficient when managing virtual team meetings. If leading or even participating in virtual teams is a core activity, their performance should be included in annual performance appraisals.
Some companies have built a certification process into virtual team participation so that employees (and managers) initially build up expertise in a single country/same time zone virtual meetings and then progress to managing complex multi-national, multi-cultural teams in due course.
Recommendations
My ten recommendations for getting the best out of virtual teams and virtual team meetings are
- Recognize virtual teams are increasingly important to organizations and ensure that current and potential participants have access to training and mentoring on virtual team management and virtual team meetings.
- Virtual teams should have very clear objectives so that it is possible to set the investment in the team against the outcome. Also, team members bring appropriate skills, expertise, and authority to take action.
- Leadership skills that work for physical teams may not be as valuable in a virtual team environment. Other skills are needed and have to be acquired through practice, not just through reading or teaching.
- Without good team meetings, a virtual team is very unlikely to achieve its objectives, so take care when developing virtual meeting guidelines and facilitating feedback.
- Develop firm profiles of each team member, consider the local availability of technology and offices, which can be used to participate in virtual meetings (especially in the case of open-plan offices), and language expertise.
- Ideally, each team should be able to meet with other team members at the outset of the team set-up. When this is not possible, there should be an initial virtual meeting for team members to introduce themselves and gain experience with the technology before the first formal meeting of the team.
- Team dynamics of virtual teams can be pretty fragile and often depend on a very high level of trust in people they may not have met. Introducing a new team member into an existing team may mean starting the process of rebuilding trust.
- Social media applications can be valuable in supporting virtual teams but may need to be tailored to specific team requirements.
- Issues of language and culture need careful consideration but should never be an excuse not to bring specific individuals into a team.
- Every virtual team member should feel that they have gained from their participation the experience that is useful to their local situation and their personal career development.
Source: Marieke Guy, https://remoteworker.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/virtual-teams-benefits-challenges/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.