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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
Credit: Cisco Pics Virtual technology is shrinking the business world by connecting team members from across the globe. article for Forbes magazine, INSEAD Professor Erin Meyer identified that Swedish teams, for example, make decisions through lengthy consensus building, while in Japan, decisions tend to be made in informal one-on-one discussions before larger meetings. “Trying to force these different styles into a single mold can be tricky – but can also be seen as an opportunity to do things differently,” says Efkemann. “Sometimes it’s good to learn how the different ways are successful, because you may want to apply them to one of your future projects.” Going social Of course, meetings are only one part of keeping the team running smoothly. What happens between meetings can be even more important. While email and phone are tried-and-tested ways of staying in touch, they can suffer from being overly formal and stilted. In recent years, however, a range of new enterprise social networking software tools, such as Yammer or IBM Connections, have emerged. These mimic consumer applications like Facebook and Twitter as a more effective way of holding informal discussions, sharing tips and ideas or getting a group conversation started. Edwards describes such tools as a “glue to provide the connectiveness that we have lost as we become more distributed in our working locations.” These methods of working enable those who find it difficult to speak up in meetings to express themselves in their own time, thinking through their response. They can also be a valuable way of sharing personal and organizational insights, which a number of multinational companies are now adopting as part of a suite of collaboration tools. Gratton argues that such tools are even helping to deformalize organizational structures, replacing traditional hierarchies with a more meritocratic structure. Furthermore, many are realizing the potential for such social-style tools to help cut email overload, freeing up workers to collaborate more effectively. As part of this, Efkemann also suggests using what he calls a “virtual coffee corner” – a web space where team members can just chat, whether it’s about personal issues or work issues, without the pressure of an agenda. Others make much use of instant messaging tools, which can be a useful replacement for either the phone or email for quick, informal communication. This is especially popular among younger employees who have grown up with the technology. Even with all this, some of the basics of management remain the same: focus on what the team has to achieve, keep lines of communication open between meetings and make sure issues are brought out in the open and dealt with swiftly. “You can’t just go into the corridor and shout three people in for a meeting,” says Shedden. Virtually there Technology vendors such now provide dramatically more capable videoconferencing systems, known as telepresence, to better facilitate virtual meetings for teams scattered around the world. As costs have fallen, corporate uptake of such systems has increased markedly, not least as travel budgets come under pressure. Ernst & Young Issue 07 T Magazine 39
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