Virtual Teams: Run like Google, Skype and Shutterstock
// By Simone Janson
Many German companies still have a presentivism culture, but collaboration in virtual teams is on the rise and companies like Google, Facebook or Shutterstock have been successful. How is leadership at a distance?
Virtual Management: Lead decentralized teams
For large and small companies, especially in the IT industry, the management of decentralized teams is becoming more and more important: not infrequently the employees of a project sit hundreds of kilometers apart or even on different continents. A study by the consulting firm RW3 CultureWizard under 30.000 employees shows that digital work across locations and national borders is already part of everyday life. 87% of the management and 50% of employees of multinational corporations perform their work at least partially virtually.
But virtual collaboration challenges employees and management alike, as the RW3 study also shows: 75 percent of respondents said it is difficult to develop trust in virtual teams. 79 percent complained too little time for relationship building and 71 percent too little sympathy. At 33 percent, half of the team members did not live in their own country, so different time zones make communication difficult. And 70 percent are bothered by cultural differences in conflict management, especially since 41 percent never met their virtual colleagues in person.
Difficult to keep track of
These difficulties apparently affect even IT companies: While companies such as Microsoft or Coca Cola are now giving their employees the choice of when and where they want to work and communicating this splendidly, Yahoo did the opposite in March 2013: under the leadership of Marissa Mayer completely abolished the US group home office and teleworking. Steffen Hopf, Managing Director of Yahoo Germany, describes the consequences of this measure as entirely positive: "Teamwork in particular benefits from this: decisions can be made faster, the quality of the work is increased."
And at Coca Cola, too, the employees are far from being as free as it appears at first glance. The HR Director of Coca-Cola Germany, Nadine Ziese, states: "Working from home is not the right thing for everyone: For example, working in a company also requires personal interaction with one another. You have to decide on a case-by-case basis whether a task can be done at home or whether agreements require presence in the office. " A study published by CHRIS at the University of Bamberg together with the Monster job exchange confirms this: Of 7.040 participants, 43,8 percent of those surveyed in the home office have fewer social contacts with colleagues and are therefore at risk of being cut off from informal communication. And 24,3 percent fear even reduced career opportunities. So does digital collaboration not work in the end?
Onboarding: Technology is not everything
The answer is yes: digital collaboration can work if the management is right. For example, as a first step, leaders need to dispel exactly those concerns when they want to lead virtual teams to constructive collaboration. No easy task, all the more because they often face a momentous error, such as management consultant and executive coach Roswitha A. van der Markt, whose customers include HP or SAP, explains: "Managers often think that everything is done with the introduction and training of new technology. But that's just the beginning of digital collaboration. "
Because virtual collaboration does not just mean transferring work processes to digital; Rather, the technology allows completely new forms of collaboration, like the consultant Dr. Anja C. Wagner, co-founder of the social learning platform UnuniTV, states: "We regularly work on projects in video conferences. Participants can record the dialogue in an Etherpad document - all together and in real time. " This results in several prejudices: everyone knows what the other has contributed. And it saves time because you don't have to wait for others to edit it or you don't know exactly which version of a document is the latest. However, in order for digital collaboration to work smoothly, clear rules and common goals are required: "Great things can come about through digital collaboration - keyword collective intelligence. But it takes trust, then virtual teams are more creative, "Wagner is convinced.
The management has to invest a lot of time
The management should therefore invest a lot of time especially in getting started with virtual collaboration: not just explaining the use of the tools, but also offering all team members long-term orientation and support. In particular, everyone must be informed about how knowledge, documents and results are stored in knowledge and project databases and how communication is maintained.
This means setting up precise rules as to which wording and response times are common and also how conflicts are communicated with each other. In addition, it helps to appoint mentors from leadership and colleagues who are available for questions.
From the employee to the team
Because for virtual collaboration to work, one thing must be above all else: Employees must understand each other as a team. Because if everyone does not pull together, every project will fail. The composition of the team and the traits and abilities of its individual members, however, play only a minor role, as revealed by an investigation by Google. For two years, the search engine giant has interviewed more than 200 employees and analyzed them through 180 teams. Success therefore depends on how employees interact with each other, how they structure their work and how each team member perceives their personal contribution to the company's success.
A key factor here is the psychological security: Employees must dare to ask questions, to admit mistakes and also to express criticism, without constantly being afraid, taunt or ridicule. For only then can difficulties be recognized and eradicated in time; And even more: Even innovative ideas are more likely to arise if not all team members are in accordance with the opinion. Employees who work in teams with high psychological security are even more motivated after the Google investigation and change the company less often.
It's about trust
LinkedIn co-founder Konstantin Guericke, meanwhile consultant for the Berlin venture capital company Earlybird, has had his very special method of building trust for years: hiking together. "I believe that if you share special experiences such as hiking or eating together, then it welds you together," explains Guericke, thereby showing how important personal closeness and trust are for building a sense of community:
Everyone in the team must feel that they can rely on everyone else. Goals, processes and also your own role must be known exactly. And the joint project must be personally important to every team member, and moreover, each individual must be convinced that his work will make a difference and contribute to the company's success.
What virtual leaders need to do
The difficulties of working together as a "normal" team are multiplied by virtual teams: Because virtual leadership means maintaining an overview with a high level of dynamism and dealing with a wide variety of thinking and working styles as well as decision-making. Precisely because the individual team members rarely meet in person, it is more difficult for them to build trust over the distance, at the same time the risk of communicative misunderstandings increases - everyone who has ever heard of eMail has a conflict, knows the problem. Ironically, the Estonia boss of the video communication service Skype confirms that: Although he also regularly holds conferences and job interviews with Skype, in the daily work Andrus Järg even waives its own office. Reason: He prefers constant communication with his team in the open-plan office in order to work creatively.
Here, executives are asked to precisely communicate performance requirements, growth opportunities and expectations. This also applies to the strategy and goals: Every employee must believe in the meaning of his work and know what result he is working towards. He needs regular success and must know and share the common values. This is exactly what management needs to create the framework in which it sets clear processes and structures and thus creates security. At the same time, however, a virtual boss must also accept different working styles or adapt goals flexibly to changed circumstances.
Holocratic management helps
Holocratic management methods, which promise no universal-perfect solutions, are always helpful here, but always seek the appropriate alternative for action at that time, which changes something but is not harmful. Like a bike tour, which you plan roughly, while you align yourself on the road again and again to the conditions of the route. The goal is to continue working with a new idea. Any decision can always be replaced by a better one. This allows quick reactions, reduces pressure and reduces the fear of mistakes. And because all employees can bring in ideas anytime, they feel responsible.
But not only in the organization, but also in the communication, the general conditions must be right: at meetings, executives should choose communication channels that are easy for everyone to work on, set goals and set a fixed time for the meeting, and ensure in advance that the technology works too. A particular challenge will be meetings with attendees whose sites spread across multiple time zones - a task that Google Ireland Sales Director...
