Ethical Considerations in Global Expansion

“The art of communication is the language of leadership.”

—James Humes

We frequently encounter virtual team leaders who think they are effective. However, when it's time to bring everyone together and really “get stuff done” they struggle to effectively communicate with and engage their team members. That's right. One of the biggest trouble spots for leaders is the virtual team meeting.

We hear stories all the time about marathon v‐meetings—some even lasting all day—that quickly lose focus and end up being a waste of everyone's time. We also often hear about regularly scheduled v‐meetings that are conducted without clear objectives and agendas, but that continue simply because they are on everyone's calendar.

As we've touched on in earlier chapters, virtual team members are time‐crunched and often spread quite thin between their day‐to‐day responsibilities and their virtual team responsibilities. Poorly run meetings not only waste their already scarce time, but they can also jeopardize the team's ability to meet its deadlines.

These factors are why many of the executives we interviewed reinforced the importance of knowing how to effectively manage virtual meetings. For example, Theresa Zeller of Merck stated, “Managing work/life balance is a huge challenge. You need to be flexible but also do not want to reinforce working 24/7, as you want to be respectful of setting virtual boundaries. Therefore, it is important to have much better practices in terms of meeting etiquette and managing meetings.”

Given that successful virtual meetings are essential, in this chapter we offer up a few practical strategies and tools to help virtual team leaders and meeting facilitators better manage v‐meetings, advance their quality, and improve the results they produce.

The Facilitator's Role

The virtual meeting facilitator, regardless of whether the person filling the role is the team leader or a team member, plays a crucial role in making v‐meetings a worthwhile experience. He or she guides the process, encourages suggestions, keeps the team on track, summarizes actions, creates a positive climate, and anticipates pitfalls.

Great facilitators are prepared to interrupt meetings or discussions when necessary in order to realign the team with the meeting's goal, refocus on the agenda, and help the team improve its productivity.

Naturally, active participation is very important during virtual meetings. But how can a facilitator make sure everyone is participating when the meeting is being held over the phone or via a videoconference? The key is to listen closely and be patient with the team's progress.

As a facilitator, you should give team members an opportunity to express their thoughts without being influenced by any input from you. Save your ideas for last. You may even want to put your contributions in a “what if…?” form.

In high‐performing virtual teams, team members often take on a facilitation role as needed, depending on the meeting objectives. Everyone takes responsibility for keeping the group on track, ensuring that time is well‐managed, and ensuring that meeting objectives are being met.

To reinforce the shared nature of the meeting, arrange for different people to lead parts of the session. If appropriate, you can even ask team members to rotate the facilitator role itself. The facilitation tips shown in Table 7.1 will help build a collaborative v‐meeting environment.

V‐Meeting Checklist

In order to make the most of your v‐meetings, you must lay out what will happen before, during, and after the meeting. Table 7.2 summarizes the key elements of effective meeting management by outlining the steps that need to be taken at every stage.

Building a V‐Meeting Agenda

The agenda is the key to virtual meeting success. It should be set and distributed electronically as far in advance of the meeting as possible so team members can begin planning how they will contribute.

When creating a meeting agenda, start by identifying the main goal or purpose of the meeting. Next, draft a list of potential agenda items—including a list of items to cover, follow‐up items from the team's last meeting, and items suggested by attendees (from previous meetings or via email in preparation for the meeting). Once the list of agenda items is compiled, prioritize it and then determine how much time will need to be spent discussing each item and how long the meeting as a whole will be.

If your time frame is fixed, ensure that you do not have too many agenda items to cover. Be aware that items requiring decision making or problem solving will take longer than items that only require information giving or gathering. And keep in mind, the larger your team, the longer decision making and problem solving will take.

Keeping Virtual Meetings on Track

Now that you have structured a meeting agenda, how do you keep everyone on track during the meeting to ensure that all your objectives are accomplished? First, be up‐front with your team. Tell them that staying on track is everyone's responsibility. Next, be well‐prepared. And finally, use process intervention when necessary.

Process intervention occurs when the facilitator, team leader, or a team member interrupts the meeting or a certain discussion to refocus the participants and/or to rebalance group interactions. The goal is to help team members achieve their desired outcomes by keeping them on track and to balance participation with results. Be supportive when you intervene and always start with the most subtle and least threatening method of intervention. For example, during a conversation about a topic that is clearly tangential to the planned agenda, share your observation that, although it may be interesting, the current discussion is taking the group off the meeting agenda. Then ask the team whether they would like to continue with this discussion (with the understanding that they may not have time for the planned items) or if they'd rather “table it” and take it up at a later time.

Three key practices help meeting facilitators determine when an intervention is required and what type of intervention should be used.

The first is observation. Pay close attention to the flow of the discussion. Are the comments and issues being raised aligned with the stated agenda? Also, attend to the team's or a team member's interactions by focusing on behaviors and patterns. Keep in mind that you won't have the luxury of being able to see the meeting participants' body language or other visual cues. Therefore, it is particularly important to keep up with the level of participation of individual members and to listen carefully to their tone and choice of words.

The next step is the diagnosis. Is the topic something the team should discuss even though it is not on the agenda? Is there enough time to take a “side trip” or is sticking with the planned agenda more important? Here you also analyze the participant's behavior to determine whether it requires attention. For example, is the behavior getting in the way of team productivity or progress? Are team members staying focused on the goal and agenda?

Finally, based on your observation and diagnosis, choose the appropriate intervention technique for the team. This might include asking a question to assess a point of view, refocusing the team toward a goal, or summarizing a point under discussion.

To illustrate how different interventions might work, Table 7.3 shows strategies that Ted, a high‐performing virtual team leader, uses when his meetings get off track or when disagreements pop up.

Three common situations require intervention to keep a virtual meeting on track—staying on time, ending a long, drawn‐out discussion, and managing conflict. Table 7.4 lists suggestions on how to intervene in each situation.

Dealing with Other Common Challenges

In addition to this trio of “derailers,” there are three other important challenges v‐meeting facilitators must be aware of to ensure that meetings are a good use of time for their team members. They are scheduling, communication, and matching technology to task. Let's focus for a moment on each one.

One of the most common difficulties is finding a meeting time that works well for all team members, especially for global virtual teams whose members may span multiple time zones. Team members we interviewed often complained of having to work longer hours—working at 10:00 p.m. or even getting up at 3:00 a.m.—to accommodate their virtual teams.

Zeller discussed her team's challenge with finding times that were convenient for members across multiple time zones. She recommended rotating meeting times so that the same team members do not always get stuck working at undesirable hours. If you are a global virtual team, this is one way you can alleviate a significant burden on team members.

Another common challenge on cross‐cultural virtual teams is communication. Language barriers can pose big problems, and these problems are exacerbated when people are not face‐to‐face. Some virtual teams have warm‐ups, or informal (non‐work‐related) conversations, at the beginning of meetings. These warm‐ups help team members transition from their native language and listen to one another to become accustomed to accents or unfamiliar pronunciations. They also allow people to get to know each other, which helps build trust within the team.

A virtual team we worked with had several members for whom English was a second language, which often inhibited communication during teleconferences. The team leader asked each team member to share a brief story or update in English at the beginning of each meeting, which had positive results. Other virtual teams may use native translators to help clarify key messages and ensure that any cultural nuances are not lost when team members communicate with one another.