Virtual teams
Virtually
successful
In 2012 I nearly lost my business, it
wasn’t through a lack of work – on the
contrary, we were very busy – it was
due to a failure to find a way of working
effectively.We had abandoned our
offices as no-one was ever in: instead we
were all out on the road with clients and
perfectly capable of working from home
in between. This meant more time with
our families and less time travelling to
an office. As a people-centred business,
wanting to apply best practice, this
seemed to be the best idea. Offering
flexibility both in terms of where people
work and when people work is one of
the many advantages of virtual team
working. It’s the old concept of ‘flexi-
time’ but on a whole new level.
Whilst virtual team working suited
everybody better in terms of the work/life
balance, we did not have the mechanisms
in place to work together virtually – we
lost our mojo. During this time some of
our best people left and I ended up buying
out my business partner: our sense of
connection, shared purpose and ability to
address issues as a team had faded.
Whilst staring into the ashes of the
crisis, wondering if the phoenix was going
to emerge, I realised we needed to do
things differently. I began to look into
virtual teamwork, and the more I read,
the more I realised how important it was
that we improved our virtual capability.
I also came across clients struggling to
find effective ways of working with their
colleagues on the other side of the world.
Here is what I have learnt over the last
18 months:
Virtually the same
We prefer to communicate face-to-
face. Evolution has led us to a place
where “synchronous face-to-face
communication has been the primary
mode of communication” (DeRosa,
Hantula, Kock and D’Arcy). To put it
another way, the more face-to-face
communication we can achieve, the
more likely it is our interactions will be
successful. Unsurprisingly, email is a very
poor way of working together – it’s about
as bad as it gets. You will have experienced
an email exchange getting out of control
as each party misinterprets what’s written
and fires a challenging missive back,
generating more ill-will in a vicious cycle
of mutual self-destruction.
So the challenge is simple: find
technologies that enable you to
communicate as close to face-to-face
as possible.
TOP TIP
Telephone calls are better than email
and video calls better than telephone
calls. If you have a choice, upgrade the
communication medium to the highest
possible available to you.
The challenges of technology
Technology on its own is not enough and
brings its own challenges.When my own
business was imploding due to an inability
to work virtually we did have some
technology solutions in place, like ‘chat’
services and face-to-face tools such as
Skype. However it was not as easy to use
as it is today. The technology had glitches:
it was unreliable and harder to use than
email or making calls and therefore we
stopped using it.We learned the hard way
that the technology has both to work
and be very easy to use. As Nunamaker,
Reinig and Briggs noted in their article on
effective virtual teamwork, “technological
glitches will cripple the productivity
of even the most knowledgeable and
motivated virtual teams”.
These days we use Google+. It is
integrated into our email system, and it’s
easier to make a video call than it is to
pick up the phone and dial. Too frequently
we have problems getting connected or
sharing screens or obtaining sufficiently
good image quality. However, its ease of
use means it is our first port of call for
contact.
Making a video call has become the
equivalent of sticking your head around
Based on his own experiences and hard learned lessons,
Dominic Irvine, founding partner of Epiphanies, offers his Top Tips
for communicating effectively within a virtual organisation
someone’s door and asking “…have you
got 5 minutes?”. Video calls have been one
of the things that has made the greatest
difference to the business.We have two
team video calls each week: on Monday
morning it’s about business administration
issues and work coming up that week; and
on Friday morning it tends to be focused
on specific client issues. In between we
communicate as often as we need via
video, conference call, phone, email or
SMS – in that order of preference.
TOP TIP
Use technology that is as easy to use and
as reliable as possible.
Distractedly present
Years ago, the challenge for a facilitator
was making sure people stayed focused
on the topic in hand. I remember on one
occasion, before mobile phones were
day-to-day objects, someone trying to
read a newspaper surreptitiously in a
meeting. These days it is the lure of the
flashing LED, the quick vibrating buzz
announcing to the owner that someone
wants to tell them something, followed
by furtive attempts to unlock the phone,
casually open the right app and read
the content, all the while nodding and
pretending to listen. It’s tedious. You can
either concentrate on your device or the
meeting, but not both.
Similar things can happen in virtual
team working sessions. For example, if the
medium is a telephone call, people can
mute the microphone and go and make a
tea or coffee or respond to an email. Even
when using video software, if everyone
magazine
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01732 759725
Continued...
“technological
glitches will
cripple the
productivity of
even the most
knowledgeable
and motivated
virtual teams”
