2.3 The new workplace is everywhere
Making virtual teamwork roll along smoothly
In addition to our ability to work together in worldwide teams, the simple fact is that most work done locally is being transformed by the same technology. Some estimate that up to 85% of workplace communication today occurs via virtual technology—even when people are working in the same office!
There is a 15 meter or 50 foot rule, as some virtual working consultants have called it. This means that in addition to virtual teams and dedicated teleworkers, most of us in today's workplaces work virtually with each other most of the time if we are more than this short distance away from each other physically.
Virtual working does not make cultural differences disappear, it simply make them less visible and harder to manage. To see how culture plays out in virtual collaboration, think of virtual global teamwork as the wheel of a high speed train. Imagine the following parts:
 graphic
Virtual Teamwork Model
 
At the centre of the wheel is the axle that supports the carriage of the train. The axle around which teamwork revolves is a task or set of objectives. The successful performance of this task by the team supports the organization as it goes or "rolls" forward to reach its goals and fulfill its mission.
Surrounding and supporting the axle are four sets of challenges that must be dealt with successfully if the wheel of virtual teamwork is to roll along smoothly and in balance and stay on track. These challenges are:
1.  How time & distance affect the ways in which we must communicate, lead, work and manage people and projects in a distributed environment.
2.  How we define, select, form and maintain a high-performing, diverse, and distributed team.
3.  How we manage the terrain or contexts in which our distributed team works. This means making sure the parent organization(s) and other stakeholders recognize, understand, support, cooperate with, and reward virtual teamwork and virtual team workers.
4.  How we choose the right technology or virtual working tools, and then learn to use them appropriately, both to do the team’s assigned business task as well as maintain the social solidarity and motivation of the team.
Culture is a key factor linking all of these, because it deeply affects not one but all of these four virtual teamwork challenges. Returning to the image of the wheel, culture can either be “grit” or “grease” that gets between the wheel and the axle, that is, between the team and its performance of the task. It can slow down or even halt the virtual team, or it can be turned into added value for even higher performance.
Culture is thus an essential part of every discussion of these teamwork challenges as one can see clearly in this wheel metaphor. Even how we define our task, the importance with which we see it, its feasibility and how difficult it is to achieve will differ by culture. The outcome of our virtual collaboration will either be enhanced or endangered by the diverse perspectives of the team about its task.
As we go around the wheel, we see that each part of the wheel needs attention from a cultural perspective.  
  • Time & distance. Differing concepts and expectations about how time is or should be used and the absence of face-to-face contact are can quickly cause breakdowns in communication, authority and commitments.
  • Multicultural Team formation, difficult in intact, collocated teams, demands an even higher level of attention to the social and interpersonal dimensions of work when working at a distance from each other. Culturally team members may have a wide range of understandings of what a team is and extremes of attitudes toward actions what require individual initiative and what activities demands group cohesion.
  • The terrain or contexts in which our distributed teams work may be different in different countries. Team members will experience different styles and levels of management support and differing approaches to decision making and delegation. Leaders and team members need to know how to strategize to get what they need to function well together across a variety of organizational and regional cultures. This is particularly true when team members have different local pressures and demands. A solid stakeholder analysis is an invaluable tool for a team to appropriately manage its terrain.
  • Even technology is not culture free. What tools one uses when one uses them tools and how they are used can differ significantly because of cultural preferences among team members and working locations.
Each of the four team challenges needs to be culturally considered and revisited during the life of our virtual teams, if we want to avoid a rough ride or it will run the risk of being derailed. If today's communication is largely virtual, the question for today's intercultural professional is: To what degree does my training and coaching take this fact into account and how can I adapt what I know about face-to-face exchanges to the new ways of working online?
Adapted from, Simons, G. et al., ed., EuroDiversity: a business guide to managing difference for value within and beyond the European Union, (2002, Butterworth-Heinemann, London). This book project was a collaboration of SIETAR Europa authors.
Dr. George F. Simons
www.diversophy.com





 
 
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