Organizational Behavior

Achieving Success in Virtual Teams

and generate unneeded tension among team members

and managers.”8 As Joseph Grennya Writing in Leader- ship Excellence, observes: “The challenge [that] Virtual

teams face is productiv_yel"brainstorming ideas, solving

problems, and executing on projects with people whose

physical location—not to mention specialty, and in some

cases, culture—makes it difficult to freely and clearly n9

“Harnessing the power of virtual worlds is now a neces- sity as industry penetrates every corner of our planet and workers are required to be in touch with teammates on the next block and on distant continents at any time. In most companies, participating in virtual teams is no longer an exotic exercise, but a bottom-line requirement.”1

“Often widely separated geographically and located in distant time zones, virtual teams are frequently composed of members from different cultures who work

speak one’s mind. Reporting in The Wall Street journal, Lynda Gratton

in different organizations with unfamiliar standards and models of behavior.”2 Members of Virtual teams most likely have never met each other in person.3

NetAge, a company that provides consulting services for networked organizations, maintains that the secret to successful virtual teams is 10 percent technology and 90 percent people.4 Likewise the failure of virtual teams is largely due to people. The substantial role of people in the success of virtual teams prompts the question: What are some human factors that contribute to the success of virtual teams, and what are some human factors that contribute to the failure of virtual teams?

Virtual teams require interdependent work relation- ships. “Interdependent work teams share common goals and responsibilities; at the same time, the team members are self-reliant and self-motivated.” Effective virtual col- laboration requires an understanding of people, cultures, and organizations.6 Employees who can tolerate or rel- ish ambiguity in their job responsibilities tend to func- tion well in virtual teams, whereas employees “who like regimented schedules and concrete instructions on how to do their jobs won’t perform as well in virtual work settings.”7

Two key human factors that determine the success or failure of virtual teams are communication effectiveness and stimulating work. I 0

When it comes to communications in virtual team settings, ambiguity increases the chances of failure and clarity of communication contributes to success. “Employees must write well to draft easy—to—understand and to-the—point communications. Ambiguity can be a detriment because the way virtual workers write and comprehend written communications can alter meaning

observes that the work of virtual teams is frequently unsupervised and consequently team members’ tasks should be challenging and stimulating. Otherwise, disinterest could cause the virtual team to disintegrate.10 When team members do not experience the work as stimulating and challenging, “[t]hey simply fade away, with fewer and fewer dialing into the weekly confer- ence calls or posting ideas on the shared site. It’s not that the members don’t like one another. It‘s simply that the atmosphere becomes more like a country club than a dynamic collection of inspired people." ‘1

Volvo has taken the issues of communication effec- tiveness and stimulating work to heart in working toward making its virtual teams as effective as possible.12 With a significant global footprint of manufacturing in nine- teen countries and sales in 180 countries, and 120,000 employees with half of those being information work— ers, the Volvo Information Technology (VIT) unit seeks to support team effectiveness around the world.13 The mission for improving the effectiveness of the company’s virtual teams is to “[a]ssist teams with establishing effec- tive ways of communicating and collaborating to reach business objectives.” ‘4

Volvo evaluates the effectiveness of its Virtual teams with various metrics in four major categories that can be framed in the form of the following four questions: “How aligned is the team’s understanding of goals» actions, and expected results? How familiar is the team with roles and responsibilities? How comfortable is the team with communicating internally? How clear are project timelines and milestones?”15

At peak performance, Volvo’s Virtual teams WO111d be lUdged as having attained “shared accountability

nd] shared leadership for achieving team objectivessw I I

Alattaining this level of Virtual team He only by having interesting wor1 t _

bS rs to do and effective commumcae

3. Explain how cultural diversity can affect the effective functioning of virtual teams operating in a global economy.

performance is pos- k for the team mem— tions among them.

4. Is Volvo’s approach to evaluating the effectiveness1 of its virtual teams one that could serve as a usefu model for other organizations to follow in evaluat—1 Describe the attributes that contribute to the

' r.ing their own virtual teams? Justify your answesuccess of virtual teams and those that contribute to the failure of Virtual teams.

Discussion Questions

T W W i d The Louis S.his C356 as ritten .MlChaCl K. MChiCUd y,

2 h. h r C ic S and Mary L. Morgal Chair Of Chrlstlan BUSIHCSS Et CS and P refessor 0f. . . .t 'l h tt - Management, College of Busmess, Valparaiso Umver51 yI i ' t e a r1-effective groups over apwell—functioning, . butes that contribute to the success of Virtual teams.