(MBA9001 – Managerial & Leadership Skills)
by
Kheeran Dharmawardena
With the proliferation of communication technology businesses have become global operations. A company may have its head office in the US, with the manufacturing plant in China, while the technical support team maybe based in Australia. Such businesses are becoming increasingly common in the 21st century.
When new projects are being initiated within such an organization it would need to draw in expertise from each of these sections. Such teams are often brought together today through the use of advanced communication technologies. These teams are known as virtual teams and have electronic media as their main form of communication.
The different form of communication, the physical separation of members and often with team members never meeting each other face-to-face brings about a set of unique challenges for managers of such teams. While many still believe that co-located teams work best, others, such as the authors of “Virtual teams that work” believe that virtual teams can be successful if they are formed, trained and managed properly.
Drawing upon the review of Gibson & Cohen's “Virtual teams that work” and on other literary work, this article explores some of the challenges faced in the effective management of a virtual team.
The two distinguishing aspects of a virtual team are the members of the team are geographically dispersed (often being in different countries) and the use of electronic communication technologies as their primary means of communication within the team (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002). In many cases such group members would not meet each other except via electronic media.
Gibson & Cohen, 2003 state that managers are the key to the success of the virtual teams. This is a view shared by Roebuck & Britt, 2002 . With the team being dispersed across the globe, the role of the manager becomes very crucial towards the success of the team. Within a virtual team, managers play a more pivotal role in “holding the team together and keeping the members motivated” (Joinson, 2002).
The skills required of a manager of a virtual team is somewhat similar and yet significantly different to that of the skill-set required to manage a co-located team. The manager of a virtual team must be willing to relinquish the traditional control a manager has over his or her staff. Instead the manager must be committed towards tutoring and mentoring their staff through the project (Gibson & Cohen, 2003).
There is no consensus amongst the researches as to which technique works best with virtual teams. Some, such as Gibson & Cohen believe that the same techniques used to manage co-located teams can be used, while others, believe that different techniques are needed. Which ever opinion is taken, managers must be more explicit and clear in their intentions and expectations of a virtual team than when managing a co-located team.
Within any organization or team, communication is a significant aspect of achieving successful outcomes. With dispersed teams with little time spent face-to-face, the importance of communication increases dramatically. The need for regular, clear communication between all team members is seen by many managers as paramount towards the success of virtual teams.
Daly (1996, cited in Grosse, 2002) states that a communication has occurred successfully when the team member understands the intended meaning of the communication. A large part of human communication is conveyed through non-verbal cues (Wilson, 2003). A virtual team that communicates primarily through teleconferencing or via email would be deprived of these non-verbal, visual cues. The emphasis on the spoken word or the written word is then heightened as it then becomes the sole conveyor of the meaning of the communication. This means that the team members must be very skilled in being able to convey their message through spoken or written words.
Virtual teams often have members from different countries and different backgrounds. They may not all speak the same native language. Team members using a second language to communicate will be faced with a weaker grasp of the language and have trouble articulating their thoughts and ideas clearly. Coupled with the increased importance of clear, effective communication this can prove to be a significant challenge to the effectiveness of the team. Roebuck & Britt suggests to keep communications clear and simple so that every member can easily understand the meaning of the communication.
With different cultures comes different styles of communication. Differing expectations, values and attitudes can result in the style of communication within various communities to become starkly different. For example, communication in Western cultures is focused on facts and data. Whereas in some Asian cultures the relationships and roles play a significant part in the way people communicate (Simmons, 1998 cited in Roebuck & Britt, 2002). Thus, while the American colleague may be quite happy to interrupt the team leader to point out additional facts, the Japanese colleague would not as it would be considered rude in his culture.
If attention is not paid to such differences, valuable contributions can be lost to the team. Furthermore if the other team members are not aware of the cultural differences the differences can be seen more as a personal characteristics of the team member and can create a source of conflict between members of differing cultures.
As illustrated in the US students vs Finnish students experiment (Roebuck & Britt, 2002) in the cultural differences that exists within the team can work against the effective forming and subsequently the performing of the team. Thus careful attention needs to be given at the forming stages of the team to ensure that these differences are brought into light and all team members are aware of the cultural differences and the potential misunderstandings that may arise due to it.
Roebuck & Britt says that use of metaphors and humor should be avoided by virtual teams as they are rarely universal and can lead to confusion. A typical example is given in Roebuck and Britt where a Mexican team member stated that a meeting with a client was going to be “superclassico”. While the Toronto members took this to mean a pleasant meeting with the client, in Mexico this typifies a grudge match and meant quite the opposite.
As a team, working on a process to clarify such misunderstanding can aid in resolving any misunderstandings quickly and effectively during the later stages of the team's life.
Building of rapport and trust amongst the team members takes on a higher significance within a virtual team than when forming a co-located team. Because members do not meet each other when they are performing their work, yet rely on each other to progress tasks a stronger level of trust is needed between them. Yet the opportunity to build this trust is minimal due to the physical separation of the members.
In the view of experienced managers (Kostner 2001 as cited in Grosse, 2002, Joinson 2002, Roebuck & Britt, 2002) providing at least one opportunity for the members of a virtual team to meet face-to-face leads to an increase in group cohesion and trust between members. This leads to more open communication between members. If the team members have never met before, and are unlikely to do so, the opportunity to meet each other via a video-conference session is seen as beneficial (Roebuck & Britt, 2002). It allows the members to put a face to the name and to build at least limited relationships with each other.
With a virtual team being scattered in different locations, there is no central location where the work of the team occurs. The challenges and struggles faced by individual team members are hidden from the sight of the team manager. If the team members do not voice it out the manager can easily be oblivious to such struggles and thus be unable to address them.
The training requirements within a virtual team environment is also larger than that of the technical skills required to perform the tasks. Skills such as verbal and written communication, proficiency in the use of the technologies all need to be addressed for a virtual team to be effective.
With virtual team's members coming from around the world and from different departments, the problem of who is in charge of a team member's time and priorities can become an issue (Simmons, 1998 cited in Roebuck & Britt). Team members may face conflicting priorities between that of their local supervisor and the manager of the virtual team.
As the manager of the team may not be physically present to address such issues, they can easily go unnoticed until too late. Therefore managers of virtual teams need to effectively manage the expectations and make it clear to both the team members and their local supervisors what is expected of them and how to address any conflicts of interest that may arise.
The function of any team involves performing many tasks that contribute towards a common outcome. Keeping track of the tasks to be performed is a challenge in all environments, however it is specially challenging within the virtual team environment. The physical separation between the team members makes it necessary to have proper reporting and tracking mechanisms in place to ensure that tasks are progressing as expected.
Identifying tasks requiring special attention becomes a key factor as it is likely that attention to problem areas can become easily obscured. Bell & Kozlowski suggests that development of appropriate “habitual routines” so that teams are more self-managed can help in reducing such issues.
The enabling force for the virtual team is modern telecommunication technologies. The effective use of technology is a vital part of any virtual team.
Virtual teams today have a plethora of technologies at their disposal. These range from email to teleconferencing and videoconferencing to groupware applications. The technology utilized by the team may vary depending on the purpose of the team and the tasks to be performed. A virtual team needs to decide on what set of applications they are going to be using for their collaborations (Wilson, 2003). Often they may choose to use multiple tools during the course of their work (Wilson, 2003).
However all team members must be familiar with the technology that is to be used. Not only must they know how to drive the technology, they also need to learn how to use the technology effectively within the virtual team environment. In a teleconference for example, learning when to turn on the microphone, when to mute it, when to direct it to a different speaker etc. are skills that the team members need to learn in order to make the meeting into a success (Joinson,2002).
In many virtual teams the majority of the communication occurs via email. Some managers estimate that up to 75-80% of their communication can occur via email (Grosse, 2002). Use of email also serves as a way of overcoming the language barrier between team members. With email, the writer gets time to construct their communication carefully while the reader gets the time to go over and absorb the meaning of the communication. It relieves the pressure of having to quickly construct an effective communication in a non-native language if they were sitting in a synchronous meeting.
Groupware applications are designed to aid virtual teams collaborate effectively during meetings and brainstorming sessions. While these applications can be very effective in aiding the collaboration everyone within the team must be very familiar with how to use the application. If members are unfamiliar with the application, they are likely to either spend time trying to learn the application, or tune out of the meeting. However research has shown that when members are familiar with the technologies, creativity is higher within the settings of a virtual team than within a co-located team (Roebuck & Britt, 2002).
With the globalization of businesses, virtual teams are here to stay. An increasing number of projects and activities will be undertaken within a virtual team environment. While there has been a very long history and a large volume of knowledge on issues pertaining to co-located teams and the management of co-located teams, we currently only have a few years of experience with the virtual teams and the challenges related to managing them. Yet many obstacles that face virtual teams are known today and can be overcome by drawing upon the knowledge gained within the co-located team environment.
Managers of virtual teams need to be acutely aware of the challenges faced them. They need to understand the differences and similarities that exist between virtual teams and co-located teams. In order to have effective virtual teams, the managers of virtual teams need to pay special attention to managing aspects such as those highlighted in this paper.
The success of a virtual team is dependent on the ability of its members to communicate effectively with each other, the cohesion within the team, and the teams ability to utilize the technology effectively. If these aspects of the team are managed successfully it can lead to the formation of an effective virtual team.
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