Virtual teams have been around for over 25 years. As a result of technological improvements and steady globalisation, teams of all kinds are becoming increasingly virtual. In Thailand, the increased emphasis on digital collaboration and increasing expansion and consolidation of conglomerates in the Mekong region, means that now is a good time to review what we known about virtual teams and how to manage them effectively.
Today you’d be hard-pressed to find any team of knowledge workers that doesn’t have some virtual element. It may be work-from-home Fridays. It could be working with colleagues located in other cities. In whatever case, professionals are frequently required to collaborate closely with other professionals whom they rarely if ever see face-to-face. Some teams are composed entirely of members who live and work in different geographies and will almost never connect live. As such, virtual teams exist on a continuum and those with a high degree of virtuality are able to take advantage of many of the benefits that new technologies and globalisation have to offer. However at the same time they are subject to challenges which arise from a lack of consistent face-to-face interaction.
The Benefits of Virtual Teams:
Obviously virtual teams benefit from not being restricted by geography and therefore the best team members for the job can be selected. It also enables organisations to stay connected over long distances and gain synergies by taking best practices from one market to implement in another. Additionally, research shows, perhaps due to increased flexibility and intellectual stimulation, that virtual teams also benefit from improved productivity ranging from 10%-43%, decreased turnover and reduced costs. In fact, 85% of HR professionals state that their organisation’s virtual work programs have a positive impact on retention. Finally, Increasingly user friendly technologies like cloud system architectures, webinar programs, online messaging and others, enable many kinds of complex interactions and remove barriers to the viability of highly virtual teams.
The challenges with Virtual Teams:
Despite all these benefits and technological advances there is still some obvious and research-based drawbacks to collaborating virtually. First, managers and team members will often find it difficult to train new employees and to keep track of more junior employees. Additionally our research shows that if virtual teams are not led effectively, team cohesion can suffer significantly. If not corrected, this will ultimately lead to lower long term performance and higher staff turnover. Therefore a junior team that requires lots of on-the-job training and doesn’t have a strong leader should reduce reliance on virtual collaboration. By contrast, a team staffed with experts tackling an intellectually complex problem with a strong leader should attempt to take full advantage of every reasonable virtual collaboration.
How To Effectively Lead A Virtual Team:
Based on our experiences leading and working with multi-country virtual teams as well as research conducted by our co-author, we recommend that organisations should seek out and build transformational leadership capabilities for managers of virtual teams. Transformational leaders are defined as being highly capable in setting a common shared vision, building trust, encouraging talent development, stimulating intellectual discussion and building a personal connection with each of their team members. If a virtual team is led by a manager with these capabilities, they are much less likely to suffer from lower team cohesion and therefore are able to maintain high performance and retention of key team members.
For managers leading highly virtual teams attempting to build team cohesion we can make the following recommendations:
Build personal connections: use one-on-one video conferencing to meet with each team member every other week to give them time to discuss any issues that are on their minds, make sure to discuss something additional to, outside of work, and ask questions to get to know them as persons.
Create a practice of questioning and evaluating: Consider using a Wiki or shared document to capture any questions or ideas for improving the projects currently being worked on. Make sure to spend time and attention on this document at every team meeting and also during your one-on-one conversations.
Set the vision: When kicking off the team, describe the objectives from all angles and paint a picture of how success will look and how it will benefit the organisation as well as each of the team members, both as a group and individually. Be sure to refer back to the vision frequently and express genuine enthusiasm as progress is made.
Clarify roles and ways of working to build trust: A lot of time should be spent ensuring that all members understand what they’re individually and collectively responsible for as well as the norms for working together in order to reduce ambiguity, which over time can significantly erode trust. If team members mention challenges with each other during one-on-one meetings, they should be brought together to resolve any issues constructively. A good leader can use this as a learning example for the rest of the team to collaborate together more effectively.
Clearly virtual teams are here to stay but they are not always the best option. Before introducing too many digital and virtual components to teamwork, organisations must ensure that they have the right staff and skilled leaders in order to avoid declining performance, disengagement and loss of critical professional staff. When establishing highly virtual teams, organisations would do well to consult an organisational design expert and to provide coaching or leadership training to the new leader.
Authors: Justin Paul, CEO of Latchmere Performance Solutions, global Talent Management expert (Justin@Latchmereconsulting.com).
David Mazer: Ph.D. Hofstra University, Associate at Latchmere Performance Solutions, virtual teams researcher (mazer_david@yahoo.com).
Series Editor: Christopher F. Bruton is Executive Director of Dataconsult Ltd, Chris@dataconsult.co.th. Dataconsult’s Thailand Regional Forum provides seminars and extensive documentation to update businesses on future trends in Thailand and in the Mekong Region.
