Transcript Virtual Teams and Virtual Collaboration across the Globe

High Performance from
Global Virtual Teams
Martha Maznevski
Copyright 2001 © IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland
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My Background
 Anthropology / Linguistics
 Education (Development, Learning)
 Organizational Behavior
• Business context
• Social psychology, sociology, anthropology,
political science, etc.
• Dependent variable is effectiveness
(organizational and personal)
Copyright 2001 © IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland
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Research Stream
 Global team effectiveness
• Multicultural, multifunctional, often
multiorganizational
• Highly complex tasks, tight deadlines
• Map-Bridge-Integrate model
• “But most of the time we work virtually…”
 Global virtual team effectiveness
• Presented here
 Global virtual network effectiveness
• Current work, introduced here
Copyright 2001 © IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland
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Introduction
 Virtual team
• Group of people working together on a shared task
• Members are in different locations
• Members communicate using technology significantly
more often than face-to-face
 Great potential!
• Get the best people, no matter where they are
• Members bring perspectives from their own locations
• Test ideas in multiple contexts before making final
decisions
Copyright 2001 © IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland
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Research Overview
 Main empirical study
• Multi-method, in-depth study of 3 teams in one
organization over almost 2 years; one success,
one failure, one mixed.
 Other studies
• Less formal in-depth research with several
teams over several years
• Interviews and observation in many teams,
many organizations to test and validate research
ideas
Copyright 2001 © IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland
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Technology Is Not the Most
Important Part!
Teams that focus on the issues of being
“virtual” sometimes do well, but often
don’t.
Teams that focus on being a team and getting
their job done well generally figure out the
technology anyway.
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Three Simple Rules
1. Choose the right technology.
2. Manage by the task.
3. Sequence technologies in a rhythm.
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Rule 1: Choose the right technology
Choose technologies by their “richness”
Face-to-face
Videoconference
Telephone – 1 person
Teleconference
Email – 1 person
Email – List
Fax
Letter
Media are richer to
the extent that they
• Allow for feedback;
and
• Communicate using
multiple modes
(senses, channels) at
the same time
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Rule 1: Choose the right technology.
Complexity =
Richness
The more complex the message, the richer the
medium required.
More complexity:
• Higher stage in the decision-process
• Number of messages in the same interaction
• Greater degree to which information depends on
context to be understood (tacitness)
• Number of cultural, organizational, professional,
geographic, or time boundaries crossed
• Degree to which the message must generate
commitment from the receiver
Copyright 2001 © IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland
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Rule 2:
Manage by the task.
Most important task factor is Amount of
Required Interdependence.
A
Task
A
B
C
Task
Sequential (moderate)
C
B
B
Pooled (low)
Task
A
C
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Reciprocal (high)
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Rule 2: Manage by the task.
Interdependence =
Frequency + Richness
The more interdependence the task requires…
… the more frequent the communication should be; and
… the more complex the messages usually are, requiring
richer media (see Rule 1).
The task may require different amounts of
interdependence at different stages.
Copyright 2001 © IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland
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Rule 3:
Sequence Technologies in a Rhythm
 Create a heartbeat
• A rhythm set by face-to-face meetings
• Pumps oxygen and blood into the life of the
team and its relationships
• Face-to-face meetings do not need to coincide
with major decision points! Rhythm is more
important.
• Time between heartbeats depends on task
(interdependence and complexity) and team
member cohesion
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Heartbeat Evidence 1
Effective team:
• Meets face-toface every four
months.
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Heartbeat Evidence 2
Effective Team:
• Meets face-toface every six
months.
• Meets by formal
telephone
conference
every two
months.
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Heartbeat Evidence 3
Ineffective Team:
• No established
rhythms of faceto-face meetings.
• No rhythms of
contact using rich
media.
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Some Finer Points
More effective teams and relationships…
… also select technology based on receiver preference
… often use 2 or more technologies simultaneously (e.g.,
phone and email or shared database)
… explicitly talk about using different technologies
… if the relationship is strong, address and resolve
conflicts over the phone rather than face-to-face
(exception to the Rule 1)
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Supporting Global Virtual Teams
 Support your employees who are on virtual
teams
 Make available as many communication
technologies as possible; give people access
to good training
 Remember this is dynamic: what you set up
today is probably not how people will work
next year
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Current Research
 Notion of “team” is too constraining…
• Connotations of stable, bounded,
unidimensional
• Real work flows are dynamic, open,
multidimensional
• Capture this in networks
 Working much more with nature of
knowledge and knowledge flows, as well as
collaboration and influence processes
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Social Capital: Assets in Relationships
Managing Knowledge with Social Capital
Organizational
Resources
Team
Resources
Virtual Team
Organizational
Performance
Combine Team
and External
Resources
Team Output
External
Resources
Organization
External Environment
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Empirical Study
 35 global account management teams in a large
professional services firm, 10-100 people per
“team”
 Team networks for task advice, “people” advice:
• Within the team
• Between the team and the rest of the organization
• Between the team and the client
 Technology use
 Two points in time
 Multiple interviews, observations, etc.
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Q3: How often have you gone to each of the people on your
team to talk about task-specific issues
11
12
3
4
2
5
1
13
6
10
7
9
8
14
Team (US
based)
Team (overseas)
Team (not on partner’s list)
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Q5: How often have you gone to each of the people on your
team about account related people or HR issues
3
4
2
5
1
6
1
0
7
9
8
Team (US
based)
1
4
Team (overseas)
Team (not on partner’s list)
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Q8: ... have social relationship with people on your team
3
1
2
4
2
5
1
6
1
0
1
6
7
9
8
1
5
Team (US
based)
1
4
Team (overseas)
Team (not on partner’s list)
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Q9: How often have you gone to people within the firm not
on your team to talk about task-specific issues
2
5
2
7
2
9
3
2
6
2
4
2
8
3
0
4
3
1
2
5
2
3
2
2
1
1
0
4
0
4
2
3
3
6
2
1
4
1
3
2
3
4
7
8
9
4
3
3
8
3
9
3
6
3
5
3
7
Team (US
based)
Team (overseas)
Firm source
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Q13: How often have you gone to CLIENT managers for
task-specific issues
5
8
5
7
2
5
5
3
5
5
5
1
2
7
6
7
4
3
1
2
5
4
3
4
2
8
2
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8
9
3
8
3
9
8
1
3
6
7
8
7
9
7
7
6
6
3
2
7
0
7
1
3
3
7
2
3
4
7
6
8
6
9
6
1
0
Client source
6
5
3
0
1
4
1
8
3
2
9
3
4
0
8
4
2
8
Team (overseas)
Firm source
6
3
2
1
5
6
8
5
6
2
6
1
Team (US
based)
6
4
2
3
2
2
5
2
5
4
2
6
2
4
5
9
3
5
3
7
7
3
7
4
7
5
7
6
8
0
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