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Management Leading virtual teams
Summary
The rise of
globalization and
technology has seen an
increase in the use of
virtual teams. Despite
this, relatively little
is yet known about the
best practices of
how to manage such
teams, from the tools
required to alternative
management practices.
97%
Percentage of Accenture
employees in an internal poll
who agreed that new
videoconferencing technology
was a good substitute for
face-to-face meetings.
$2.2b
The estimated size of the
telepresence videoconferencing
market at end 2010, which is
expected to more than double
to US$4.7 billion by 2014.
• By Kim Thomas
The days when a team consisted of a group
of people who arrived at the same office at
9:00 a.m. each day are long gone.
Knowledge workers now often work from home,
and may live in different parts of the country or
even across several countries and time zones.
This change has been driven by a combination
of factors: a recognition that staff may need to
balance work with family commitments; an
awareness that the ability to work offsite is a
useful option during epidemics, riots or bad
weather; a desire to save on travel and office
costs, especially during difficult economic
conditions; increasingly capable and cost-effective
technology that can help make collaboration far
easier and more effective; and ongoing
globalization, which makes cross-border global
teams a now common and essential part of doing
business. In her recent book, The Shift, London
Business School Professor Lynda Gratton argues
that virtual working will largely become the norm
for most office workers in the coming decade.
There are some clear benefits to this approach,
not least of which is the opportunity to bring
together different experiences and perspectives.
But it also brings obvious challenges for
managers: in a team of people who rarely see
each other, individual members can feel isolated,
and may lack the opportunity to share ideas or
engage in casual conversation that can spark a
fruitful idea. While research shows that people
who work from home tend to be more productive
than those working in an office, the opposite is
the case for virtual teams, according to a recent
study from The Society for Human Resource
Management. As Richard Edwards, Principal
Analyst at Ovum, points out, even in co-located
teams, managers need to accommodate the fact
that people have different styles of working. “It
can exacerbate and challenge team-working more
if you are separated,” he says.
Rethinking virtual management
So what is the secret to managing a virtual team
successfully? INSEAD Professor José Santos has
found that teams where each member has a
clearly defined role and focus work better than
ones where roles are loosely defined. The
measurement of performance also needs to
adapt – toward a system where team members
are measured on outputs. “You have to focus on
performance rather than on how people are
behaving with you,” says Bill Shedden, Director
of the Centre for Customised Executive
Development at Cranfield School of Management.
Other things can help. Although it’s not always
feasible, teams that have had a chance to meet
before they start working virtually tend to be
more effective. Without this, team meetings can
be challenging, especially for a team that spans
multiple cultures. Some may wish to speak but
find it difficult to interrupt a conversation in
mid-flow and so will opt to stay silent.
Until recently, videoconferencing has
remained an imperfect alternative, often with
out-of-sync audio and video, or an inability to see
participants clearly. This is quickly changing.
Sales of telepresence videoconference
technology, which uses multiple screens and
high-quality audio to simulate people sitting at
the same table, have increased rapidly. In 2010,
the market grew 18%, totaling US$2.2 billion, and
analyst firm Frost & Sullivan expects it to more
than double to US$4.7 billion by 2014. Already,
as costs reduce, such systems are becoming
more widespread. Accenture is just one example
of a multinational that is rolling out a significant
number of telepresence systems globally; it
already had over 50 in place by early 2010. In an
internal poll, 97% of Accenture employees said
that the technology was a good substitute for
face-to-face meetings. “To see people’s faces
makes the discussion just more productive,” says
Thomas Efkemann, an Executive Director for
Assignment Services at Ernst & Young. “You see,
for example, when someone doesn’t agree with
your comments – how someone is shaking their
head or trying to get into a call.”
Technology isn’t the only answer
But technology alone is not the answer;
management practices have to adapt too. “One
consideration is to reduce the number of
meetings,” says Efkemann, “but to make sure
that those you do hold have very clearly defined
aims.” Shedden agrees, not least due to often
challenging time zone considerations. “You’ve
got to pay a lot of attention to the managing of
the team in terms of who’s going to be there,
what’s the purpose of the meeting, what are the
outcomes we expect, because for some people it
will be at an unsocial time. You also want to
ensure that you stick to time, because a person
might be waiting to go home – he might be
waiting till eight o’clock at night because he’s in a
different time zone to you.” To grapple with this,
some teams opt to rotate the times of meetings.
Managers also need to ensure that everyone
has a chance to speak, particularly when there
isn’t a common first language. With meetings
typically defaulting to English, some team
members may need more thinking time, rather
than being rushed into a response. One way of
helping this along is to give team members in
different locations a turn at chairing meetings, so
it’s not always the same manager who chairs.
Another common solution is to record a
teleconference and make it available later for
those who were unable to take part, allowing
them to add written comments.
A further consideration relates to cultural
differences. Team members in different countries
will be used to different meeting styles. In an
38 T Magazine Issue 07 Ernst & Young