Virtual Teams: Explained.

Virtual teams will soon simply be called “teams.” Yet, and unfortunately, the extent to which virtual teams are utilized in corporations has exceeded the research done on the topic. Virtual teams consist of an interconnected group – this interconnectivity comprises shared goals or expected outputs from organizations. Virtual teams are dispersed throughout the nation, or world, and this trend is increasing as globalization continues to prosper. RW CultureWizard (2016) completed a survey consisting of 1372 business respondents from 80 countries; 85 percent of the participants worked on virtual teams. 85 percent! The extent to which virtual teams are prevalent points to the necessity of continued support for managers, and employees alike, under this virtual framework.

I recently spoke with a peer who was promoted several months ago. She shared with me her new manager is unaccustomed to managing from afar. In fact, the notion of managing a virtual team member is as foreign to him as the German language is to me. This points to the reality that managers who are being asked to manage virtually need just as much advice and/or coaching as the team members who are virtual. 

There are a lot of benefits of virtual teams. Geographic variation can contribute to less time in transit for client travel (think of territory allocation), diversity in teams increases creativity and problem solving (interested in the literature?), and productivity can increase due to time zone variation.

But, I would be remiss if I did not mention the disadvantages. Team engagement can suffer as a result of less frequent communication, disjointed (non-media-rich) narratives, damaged trust due to miscommunication, confused staff responsibility, minimal empowerment, and managerial-staff conflict.

At the root of it all? Communication. If you have been managing a virtual team, take a moment to reflect with me. What cadences do you have in place to communicate with each team member? What is the frequency? What process ensures communication among team members (needed for camaraderie and collaboration)? Now, what is the intent of those meetings? Is each and every conversation goal-oriented and work-specific? Or do you work diligently to incorporate the development of “human stuff” -- AKA interpersonal relations?

Each and every team is different; thus, I cannot say the issues you face are going to have a similar resolution as another group. What I can say is this: even researchers are busy getting to the theoretical undertones of what makes a virtual team effective. Do not despair, there are plenty of tried and true ways to work in a virtual environment. A couple of my favorites include (a) leveraging technology wisely, (b) putting your people first, and (c) understanding the necessity of unifying your team.

The best approach to understand what challenges you face require gathering information – this is true for both virtual and non-virtual teams. Knowing where you are – comprehending challenges, opportunities, and perception — will give you significant insight into blind spots, areas for improvement, and empathy for the challenges virtual team members face.

An area research has identified to be relevant for virtual management is the behavioral profiles of those who lead virtual teams. Since these managers must counteract the absence of a face-to-face dynamic, his or her ability to be even more engaged (and engaging) becomes front and center. The ability to facilitate member engagement, appreciate cultural diversity, and build trust, are paramount. Remember, media-richness is not on your side. Utilize tools that are the next best thing e.g., video chat and group discussion forums. If this is all too new, let’s come up with a plan. If you are facing some challenges within your virtual team, we can tackle one at a time to verify team alignment and maintain accomplishment.  

Hacks to Increasing Team Effectiveness

Effective teams lead to greater productivity, better use of resources, sophisticated problem solving, and an increase in innovative ideas or creativity. Then, why is it, we struggle to craft these invaluable cohorts?

As you prepare for the New Year, consider the following to help you reset the stage for managing your team.  

Clarity in Goals.
I know, I keep coming back to this (but it’s essential!). Removing ambiguity and providing clarity is very powerful in management. To that point, team goals need to be just as clear. Why? First off, team members can tell whether performance objectives have been attained. Second, without clear team goals, several obstacles are likely to get in the way. These include (a) team members setting their own goals that may be in opposition to what the team needs to accomplish (b) personal agendas may get in the way of identified targets, (c) power issues can and will contribute to personality conflict and dilute time allocation.

Vague tasks leave team members questioning the details and unsure about the overall necessity of what they’re aiming to achieve. A compelling and shared purpose not only motivates team members, but it also requires full engagement of their talents.   

Competency.
It seems logical, but team members need to be made up of the right types of people. Technical aptitude cannot be replaced – each person needs to possess the right level of competency to achieve team goals. Further, members also need interpersonal and teamwork skills. A common mistake (and this goes back to clarity): an assumption is made that people have the technical and/or interpersonal skills to be effective in their assigned roles. Team leads need to not only set expectations about technical and interpersonal capability but must identify the normalcy and helpfulness in continued education. If a team member is underperforming in one of the areas above, he or she needs further direction. Make sure they understand why they need it and come up with a plan to help them get it.

Collaborative Climate.
A collaborative climate may seem like a no-brainer. If you want a capable team – you need to have collaboration. What allows a collaborative environment?

1. A space that allows for healthy but respectful debate

2. Active listening skills

3. Empathy

4. Honesty

Each team member has their uniqueness; they bring with them different perspectives, opinions, and expertise. It’s about channeling differences to ensure discussion. Team members must take ownership of wanting a collaborative environment. If collaboration is failing, it’s a two-prong failure. 1) The team needs to coordinate their individual contributions and look to items 1-4 to achieve improvement. 2) Effective team leaders can facilitate a collaborate climate by managing their own need to control, ensuring a safe space for communication, and guiding the team into this problem-solving framework by also integrating items 1-4 into group dynamics and expectations. [This framework is correlated to the need for clear norms of conduct: how are people expected to behave?]

Support and Recognition.
As discussed, a clear goal is needed to ensure accomplishment. But once accomplishment is reached, what then? New goals can be crafted and implemented, but too, recognition of success needs to take place. Take note: if the team is truly functioning as a team – team performance and accomplishment should be recognized and rewarded, not individual performance; this can cause a divide among team members.

Additionally, a widespread mistake is to assign challenging feats, but not provide adequate support to accomplish assignments. Researchers Hyatt and Ruddy found that having systems in place to support teams e.g., clear direction, data, resources, rewards, and training, enables teams to be more effective and achieve goals.

Principled Leadership.
It is up to the team leader to implement programming that supports the collective. If you’re a team leader and you are realizing the number of goals set for your team may be overwhelming, look to see what can be removed, clarified, and reintroduced to the team. Further, if you are concerned about competency, look to your leadership to ensure resources will be provided to help your cohort succeed. Ultimately, it’s up to you to create an environment that is collaborative. If you’re struggling on how to implement changes, approach the people you report to, or are generally unsure about some challenges, let’s schedule a time to speak.   

As we enter the holidays, I am going to take a several-week break. I look forward to sharing leadership and management recommendations as well as proven tactics for improvement when I return in 2019!

Bringing Ethics into Your Leadership Strategy

In recent years ethics in business have been studied more closely. With what seems to be increasing opportunity to behave unethically in business, costing credibility of the company, its individuals, and innocent bystanders, what are the checks and balances to ensure moral behavior? 

The dynamic at play is of unique consequence; laws have been implemented to insist upon certain transparencies and practices, e.g., penalizing the act of bribery or inflation of revenues. Yet, according to the National Business Ethics survey, employees – or members of the organization – on whom society relies for whistleblowing, are consistently silenced for fear of employer’s retaliation. With this knowledge, researchers seek to understand what influences individuals to behave ethically.

In sorting through the data, I think the most helpful insights are as follows: individuals rely on their judgment about an ethical issue but place more importance on social expectations. Meaning, when social consensus is high (agreement that something is unethical) individuals more often than not follow suit – e.g., charitable behavior is “good.” This shared behavior can supersede the self-view, acting as a motivator to behave ethically. (If interested in the full study by Albert, Reynolds, and Turan, 2015, I will gladly make it available to you.)

The reason this matters: societies – and micro-societies (your office) can drive and influence behavior. Knowing this, I wanted to look for how. How can we make sure we are leveraging ethics as a culture-driver?

It’s two-fold. Companies have an opportunity to incorporate their values into decision-making. Further, the company values should align with ethical expectations. In fact, researchers emphasize the importance of trust and trustworthiness as a guiding principle. After additional research by Hoover and Pepper (2015), it was found the practice of sharing ethics statements, publicly, increased approval ratings both externally and internally.

Sure, anyone can conjure up an ethics statement, but it circles back around to the essentiality of using frameworks every day. The example I often return to is the importance of a vision statement. This isn’t merely a statement. It needs to be the leading force and the guiding light behind every employees’ behavior. From an ethical perspective, leaders have an opportunity to integrate a complementary ethics statement. (Just in case there is any uncertainty about how a person should behave!)

The goal is to enable each person to take responsibility for their decisions, irrespective of the existence of a formal organizational hierarchy. This ownership mentality – guiding employees to do the right thing – helps decrease the fear of retaliation for the expectations are ubiquitous. This, in turn, creates commonality among team members and social expectation which, as the research tells us, influences others through social consensus.

Changing "Me First," to You, First.

It’s a “me first” society. I’d even argue our self-centered approach is worsening; from entitlement, to straight up narcissism, the absence of humility and selflessness is becoming systemic. It’s finding ways into every corner of our lives, including the workplace.

Robert Greenleaf crafted the phenomenon of servant leadership over 40 years ago. Empirical research has since been completed to identify not only what servant leadership should ideally be, but what it looks like in practice.

I am a proponent of not only adopting the behavioral components of servant leadership but honestly believe the ripple effect of servant leadership is incomparable.

Servant leadership is about others. From attentive listening to empathizing and nurturing, servant leadership focuses on developing each person’s full potential. From my viewpoint, the most powerful part of servant leadership is the desire to put followers first, empowering them in the process.

I am not saying you should forget about your needs, but instead, understand the principles of servant leadership to grasp the associated benefit (for you and for others!). One of the critical elements of servant leadership is ethical and sustainable behavior. Meaning, servant leaders not only lead with ethics as the cornerstone of their decision-making, but make an exerted effort to be concerned for those with less fortune. Are there inequalities and injustices in the workplace? As a servant leader, your goal is to try to remove them; this transcends beyond daily leadership and into global influence.

The essential piece to servant leadership is the ability to empower. As a leader, you shift authority to those you are leading. Helping team members be self-sufficient and make decisions on their own builds followers’ confidence. Sharing control is monumental. How do leaders lose their way? Power. Control. Egocentrism. By providing freedom and encouragement to employees to handle difficult situations, they buy into the notion that their decisions affect others. As a result, he or she become motivated and accountable members of the organization.   

The focus here is on the leader’s behaviors; the north stars are empathy, placing followers’ needs first, helping followers succeed, behaving ethically, empowering, and creating value for the community. Why is servant leadership worth investigating? Outcomes of servant leadership include an increase in follower performance and growth, improvement in organizational performance, and societal impact.

Having a deeper understanding of servant leadership allows you to determine if this approach is right for you. If you’re interested in testing your current servant leadership capabilities, send me a note.