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Leading a Virtual Team

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is a process; working together is a success.” By Henry Ford.

Being the Project Manager of a virtual team can be very challenging. The normal rules don’t apply to the virtual teams. The normal rules for teams who are co-located does not apply to the virtual teams, it’s a completely different ball game. The technology is changing every day and with the advancement in technology, it has become very easy to organize, meet and manage the teams. However, remote management or leading a virtual team has its own advantages and challenges.

Leading in a Virtual Environment is a challenging endeavor, but one that, if Mastered results in:

·         Improved on time/on budget performance

·         Improved innovation

·         Higher job satisfaction

·         Trust, role clarity

The competitive edge in today’s world resides in what we have in our brains and how we exchange, rework, distribute and absorb what is there. Therefore it is critical to map the virtual distance within your team to identify the impact and apply management strategies to mitigate virtual distance enhancing effectiveness. Why you should do that? Engaged teams mean elevated team performance leading to improved business results. One of the biggest problems is that companies usually treat their virtual teams in the same manner as they treat teams who are co-located. As managers and leaders, we need to understand that there are different rules of the games and different practices for virtual teams.

What is virtual distance

Most people think of distance as a geographic separation. However geographic separation is only a part of the distance equation. Distance can refer to separation in time, separation between two points or emotional separation. There was a research conducted by Karen Sobel Lojeski and Richard Reilly with virtual teams began with the notion that geographic separation created emotional distance between coworkers. However, they quickly realized that geographic separation was only one and not even the most important element in creating a sense of distance. They coined the term virtual distance to refer to the psychological distance that results when people interact mainly through electronic media – no matter where those communications originate from or end. You can refer to Microsoft Executive Leadership series, “Uniting the Virtual Workforce” introduces the concept of virtual distance. It goes a step further and offers proven methods for measuring the costs and guidance on managing them.

Lojeski and Reilly crated this model to help manager ‘map’ the virtual distances on their teams.

Physical distance since this is the aspect that most people associate with virtuality.  These factors are based on both space and time.

·   Geographic distance: Distance that can be measured. It could be tricky because we cannot read body language.

·         Time distance: Seperation caused by time zone differences, it affects and can upset people’s normal body clocks and can have negative impact on performance and innovation.

·         Organizational distance: Sense of separateness brought on by differences in organizational reporting structures, practices these days to work across organizational boundaries, creates Us vs. them (Global vs. Regional), same business groups in different regions.

The following Virtual Distance Estimation tool can be used for mapping the physical distance;

	Low	Medium	High
Geographic	Same Location	Same country	Different country
Time	Same time zone	Within 3 time zones	More than 3 time zones
Organizational	Same team	Similar group	Different GBU or company

Affinity distance is what develops when we don’t establish the kinds of personal relationships that satisfy our social needs. In business relationships, its affinity that holds teams together despite location, nationality or organizational affiliation. When people can’t attach themselves to one another, then work suffers. According to Lojeski and Reilly, when managers tell us they have trouble motivating those whom they don’t see it’s because there’s no affinity in the group.

·         Cultural distance: Different work values cause problems through something as simple as differences in communication styles.

·         Social Distance: Develops when people hold a range of different social positions or status.

·         Relationship distance: The extent to which you and other lack relationship connections from past work initiatives.

·         Interdependence distance: The psychology behind team member’s commitment to one another or lack thereof, the sense of inclusion.

Like Physical distance, Affinity distance has a virtual distance estimation tool for mapping your affinity distance.

	Low	Medium	High
Cultural work ethics & values	Embrace	Respect	Tolerance
Social	Status based on contribution	Status somewhat based on contributions, some on formal title	Status based mainly on formal titles
Relationship	Most knew each other from previous work	Some knew each other from before	Few knew each other from previous work
Interdependence	Working towards same goals & depend on each other	Some working towards same goals & somewhat depend on each other	Do not work toward the same goals and do not feel the need to depend on each other

Operational distance is a sense that you are on a different playing field than those you work with. It is made up of a mix of troubles that plague us occasionally. It causes people to mentally shut others out.

·         Communications: A sense of separation from other resulting from less than meaningful interactions, for example vague emails.

·         Multitasking: When occupied with many and varied tasks, we tend to feel far away from pretty much everything, because we can do more, we do.

·         Readiness distance: Feeling of detachment that grows when technical support can’t fix problems.

·         Distribution asymmetry: A sense of being far away from others either by virtue of isolation or too many people residing in one place where there is a lot of power.

	Low	Medium	High
Communication	Face-to-face or phone interactions for more than 50%	Face-to-face or phone interactions for 20 – 50%	Face-to-face or phone interactions less than 20%
Multitasking	Assigned to one project or task	Assigned to two or three projects with some deliverable schedule overlap	Assigned to more than three projects with a high level of deliverable schedule overlap
Readiness	No technical support problems	Intermittent technical support problems	Regular technical support problems
Distribution asymmetry	Everyone sits together, or everyone works at a distance	Part of the group sits together, part work at a distance	Most of the team in place where there is a lot of power

Virtual distance, each project, each team, is affected by these elements to some degree, not just virtual teams. In the study conducted by Lojeski and Reilly on more than 300 different projects, some of them were where companies made a conscious decision to collocate all of its employees. While, as expected, there was little virtual distance from physical factors. It was also discovered that operational and affinity distance factors created almost as much virtual distance as they found in globally distributed teams. Virtual distance can have significant impact on organizational performance and individual job satisfaction. It contributes to lost revenues, lower innovation and reputation damage.

Manager are like the air traffic controllers in terms of virtual distance. It is important to know exactly where virtual distance problems are. Mapping virtual distance provides a way to see up close the effects on your team. By virtual distance estimation tool for the physical, affinity and operational distance you can do mapping of virtual distance.

Once we understand the mapping and identified the distance and relationships that need the most attention, there are two approaches we can take, short-term tactics or choose long term strategies. Many of these tactics and strategies might be repetitive in nature and you might have been doing or might have done. While doing the mapping just think about areas where you need to pay more attention and increase your efforts. Physical distance creates the sense that others are far away which results in a sense of isolation. While we cannot reduce or do-away with physical distance or time zones, however there are few practical tips that can help reduce this sense of isolation; 

·         - Judicious use of face to face meetings and virtual classroom

·         - Establish regular interactions or meetings to convey a sense of reliability about when things are going to happen etc. Time distance creates the sense of isolation and a sense that we are not well connected. This way people will begin to experience more closeness by anticipating work schedules that are dependable.

·         - Practice precision in communication

o   Listen actively

o   Share contextual information

o   Use bullets and outlining

o   Spell things out

·         Virtual meetings provide an opportunity for managers to bring their remote teams together

·         Multitasking, be aware of when the team members are overburdened and help them set boundaries and priorities.

·         Part of the responsibility rests with the individual. The team needs to make better decisions about what to work on, when and set boundaries for themselves.

As we think about leading in virtual environment in the affinity component, we move to long-term strategies. Key strategy is to combat perceived isolation by building and maintaining trust. Isolation causes people to start getting anxious or alienated and mentally switch off or become resentful. Leaders need to encourage conversations and share experiences. There are three important factors that lead to the development of trusting relationships, they are, ability, integrity and good will. These are actions that the manager should take as well as encouraging them in their employees. Giving trust and getting trust. In order to reduce social distance, highlight other people’s accomplishments, recognize people’s contributions and recognize unsung heroes. Use scheduled project meeting to showcase team members. Think back on the virtual distance map that I mentioned earlier, think of these short-term tactics and long term strategies and understand where your opportunities are by managing the virtual distance.

Virtual teams is a reality in almost all the organizations, more so in IT organizations. With increased communication and the right tools to aid in project management, virtual offices or teams can increase efficiency and effectiveness. Project management can be the key to better task organization and communication, and can keep those home based companies focused on the main objective – increasing business success. It’s about time, stop thinking of virtual teams as a special case, instead start developing strategies, methodologies and competencies to deal with the challenges virtual teams create.