Three Disruptive Ideas: Working in a Virtual Team

Virtual teams, global teams, and cross-cultural teams. Is there a definition of these terms? We'd suggest that the term virtual team refers to two thngs:

  • The geographic dispersion of the team members (who could be in the same city but not in the same office) 
  • The way we are working (with teams that work in different countries and timezones that require cultural appreciation as well as evening and weekend meetings).

As technology breaks down geographic barriers and the speed of business accelerates, we all need to think differently about our global work style. I was the keynote speaker at a conference at McDonald’s in Singapore last week and I presented three disruptive ideas about working in a virtual team: 

  1. You do not need to work face to face in order to develop relationships and trust. Relationships can be developed by fostering a personal relationship through phone and email. You can build trust by delivering projects, reponses, feedback, etc., as promised.  
  2. Working in a virtual team is not more challenging than working in the same office. Working in a virtual team can certainly be frustrating, but is it more frustrating than constant office chatter, interruptions, and the annoyances of shared office space?
  3. There is no such thing as "work hours" anymore. This means that work doesn't "start" and it doesn't "end." If you need to take a call at 9 p.m. in order to get the US, Asia, and Europe on the call, then you should be able to recapture that time the following day or the following week.  

I also offered twelve tips for working in a virtual team:

  1. Spend time working on how you work and know how you like to work (and how your boss likes to work)
  2. Clarify the process and the expectations
  3. Overcommunicate
  4. Work towards deliverables
  5. Anticipate next steps
  6. Don’t forget the opton of communicating by phone
  7. Use technology
  8. Be accountable: build trust by delivering
  9. Give feedback, starting with the positive
  10. Begin with a personal check-in
  11. Prioritize tasks, or ask for help prioritizing
  12. Set working ground rules, such as who has the evening or night-time call

Please contact us at info@writeitwell.com for more information about keynote presntations, onsite training sessions, and webinars on Working in Virtual Teams.

 

— Natasha Terk