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10 PEOPLE & STRATEGY

perspectives – counterpoints

In some ways, communicating through technology can help. For example, we learn to be more explicit and direct on conference calls, and people who have a more limited capability in the common language often prefer written communication such as email because it allows them more time to check the vocabulary and think about a response.

However, working through technology robs us of a lot of nonverbal communication and can undermine trust through misunder- standings.

Because of this, successful virtual teams tend to adopt some shared explicit behaviors and mechanisms. For example, silence cannot indicate consent on a conference call. Because you cannot really read expressions and iden- tify levels of commitment, you need some mechanism for making this explicit — for example, by polling each individual, asking them to commit formally to what they’re going to do.

One way I do this is to ask each individual to summarize whether they agree and what they will do as a result of this decision. It is important to listen carefully to the answers; any evasion or indirectness in the answer shows a lack of real commitment to the implementation of the decision. Sometimes I ask people in webinars to type in the number in a poll between one and 10 that indicates their agreement to implement the decision immediately. If anyone scores below seven, I don’t take this as a decision that has really been made.

Kevan Hall is the CEO of Global Inte- g r a t i o n , s p e c i a l i s t s i n m a t r i x management, virtual teams and global working. He trains his clients through his method of Speed Lead: Faster, Sim- pler Ways to Manage People, Projects and Teams in Complex Companies and he consults with major multinationals around the world.

The Virtual Challenge: It’s More Than Cultural Differences By Richard Lepsinger

A s Yael Zofi observes, virtual team- work is on the rise, which creates a variety of challenges for team mem-

bers and leaders. As virtual teams cross time zones, communication and coordination become much more difficult. While cross- cultural issues impact communication and collaboration in a virtual setting, they are just one hurdle that virtual teams face.

regardless of their location. Different time zones, the third characteristic, make it more difficult to collaborate and to involve people in decisions that affect them. It also makes scheduling team virtual meetings difficult (someone has to get up early or stay up late) and inhibits spontaneous interactions.

The challenge for virtual leaders and teams is to use technology and a shift in their behavior and habits to bridge this “virtual gap” and diminish the impact distance has on collabo- ration and communication. Examples of actions used by the most effective virtual leaders and teams in our study to close the virtual gap include:

A study conducted by our firm, OnPoint Con- sulting, found that more than 25 percent of virtual teams were not fully performing. But why is that the case? We believe there are three characteristics of working in a virtual setting that impact the ability of employees and team leaders to “just do what they’ve always done.”

First, the lack of face-to-face contact makes it more difficult to build personal relationships and establish trust. A great deal of the knowl- edge we have about people and their values is gained through spontaneous, informal interac- tions during a coffee break, lunch or through informal breaks when we visit with people to chat. Unfortunately, that type of spontaneous informal interaction is absent in a virtual set- ting and can be difficult to replicate.

Technology, the second characteristic, has been a significant catalyst for virtual teams, but it creates challenges of its own. No matter how “rich” the technology is, it is not as rich or natural as face-to-face communication because a lot of information is lost in a vir- tual setting.

One advantage of virtual teams is that orga- nizations can leverage the best talent

• Meet face-to-face at least once early on in the team’s formation to build relationships and learn about team members’ capabilities.

• Use tools such as an electronic team page and bulletin boards to create a sense of shared space.

• Find a comfortable midpoint for informa- tion sharing and decision making that ac- commodates the cultures represented on the team.

• Partner team members at different loca- tions and rotate these periodically.

• Leverage synchronous tools (e.g., instant messaging) to increase spontaneous com- munication.

• Choose communication technologies that are most appropriate to the task (e.g., email for information sharing, conference calls for interactive discussion).

• Make wider use of videoconferencing for more complex decisions or discussions.

• Share the inconvenience. Rotate the time of virtual meetings so no one person always has to get up early or stay up late.

• Make work visible. Use SharePoint or some other collaborative software and

Successful virtual teams adopt shared explicit behaviors.

VOLUME 35/ISSUE 1 — 2012 11

perspectives – counterpoints

or foe. And here’s the challenge: People you don’t know tend to be classified as foes until proven otherwise, and a virtual environment offers little opportunity to connect enough with people to dampen down this natural threat response we have of strangers.

Which kind of people you non-consciously think you are surrounded by has a big impact on brain functioning. You use one set of brain circuits for thinking about people whom you believe are like you, a friend, and a different set for those whom you view as different from you, a foe. When your brain decides someone is a friend, you process your interactions using a similar part of the brain you use for thinking about your own experience. And when people in your in- group experience pain, you relate to this using a different brain region than when people are in your out-group.

When you interconnect your thoughts, emo- tions and goals with other people in your in-group, you release of oxytocin, a pleasur- able chemical. It’s the same chemical experience that small children get when they make physical contact with their mothers. In a paper published in Nature in June 2005, a group of scientists found that giving people a spray containing oxytocin increased their lev- els of trust. The paper reports that in nonhuman mammals, “oxytocin receptors are distributed in various brain regions asso- ciated with behavior, including pair-bonding, maternal care, sexual behavior and normal social attachments. Thus, oxytocin seems to permit animals to overcome their natural avoidance of proximity and thereby facili- tates approach behavior.” Our animal instincts seem to naturally cause us to withdraw and treat others as foes, unless a situation arises that generates oxytocin. This phenomenon makes sense: It explains why facilitators and trainers insist on “icebreakers” at the start of

workshops and why “establish rapport” is the first step in any counseling, customer service or sales training manual. And it explains why things can go so wrong in virtual teams with- out good leadership.

When you sense someone is a foe, all sorts of brain functions change. You don’t interact with a perceived foe using the same brain regions you would use to process your own experience. One study showed that when you perceive someone as a competitor, you don’t feel empathy with him or her. Less empathy equals less oxytocin, which means a less pleasant sensation of collaboration overall. Thinking someone is a foe can even literally make you less smart, according to one paper published in 2002.

When you think someone is a foe, you don’t just miss out on feeling his or her emotions; you also inhibit yourself from thinking his or her ideas, even if that person is right. Think of a time you were angry with someone. Was it easy to see things from his or her perspec- tive? When you decide someone is a foe, you tend to discard his or her ideas — sometimes to your detriment.

All of this points to the need to be more aware of the automatic nature of this friend/foe response and more consciously question whether our automatic reactions to other people are always in our best interests. In a virtual environment, where there are fewer smiles and pleasant faces to dampen our natural threat response, we have to work even harder to ensure that everyone on the same team actually treats each other as truly on the same team.

Dr. David Rock is the founder and CEO of the NeuroLeadership Group, a global consulting and training firm with operations in 24 countries. Rock coined the term “NeuroLeadership” and co-founded the NeuroLeadership Institute, a global initiative bringing neuroscientists and leadership experts together to build a new science for leadership development.

post work and action plans so team mem- bers can check on progress.

• Clarify decision authority so action can be taken in a timely manner even when time zones make inclusion difficult or im- possible.

Rick Lepsinger is the president of OnPoint Consulting. The focus of Lepsinger’s work has been on helping leaders and organizations close the gap between strategy and execution, work effectively in a matrix organization, and lead and collaborate in a virtual environment. His most recent book is “Virtual Team Success: A Practical Guide for Working and Leading from a Distance,” which is co-authored with Darleen Derosa.

Virtual Teams from the Neuroscience Lab By David Rock

Y ael Zofi’s article touches on many issues that researchers are studying in the neuroscience lab, in particular

within a field called Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (or SCAN for short) — a new field that has emerged in the last decade.

In the SCAN field, researchers study issues such as persuasion, automatic bias and preju- dice, attitudes and stereotypes, empathy, theory of mind and in-group/out-group the- ory. This last area is of great importance for the whole issue of virtual teams. It turns out that the brain classifies every person you meet as similar to or different from you, as friend

When you decide someone is a foe, you tend to discard his or her ideas — sometimes to your detriment.

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