Virtual Teams

Leading any team involves managing people, technical oversight, and project administration, but leaders of virtual teams perform these functions from afar. Leading Virtual Teams walks you through the basics of: Connecting your people to each other--and to the team’s mission Surmounting language, distance, and technology barriers Identifying and using the right communication channels Don't have much time? Get up to speed fast on the most essential business skills with HBR's 20-Minute Manager series. Whether you need a crash course or a brief refresher, each book in the series is a concise, practical primer that will help you brush up on a key management topic. Advice you can quickly read and apply, for ambitious professionals and aspiring executives--from the most trusted source in business. Also available as an ebook.

To advance in today's workplace requires virtual team skills. Most individuals assume their face-to-face skills will translate, but competency with virtual communication and teamwork requires an entirely new set of skills. This book guides readers down the path to success. Electronic communication is now embedded in our daily experience, as is work involving off-site collaborators. Virtual communication has become an essential job skill that is critical to individual and group success, yet most people just muddle through it without giving it any thought. Drawing on decades of scientific research in the fields of psychology, organizational behavior, and sociology, this book explains how to master the art and science of communicating virtually. The author first analyzes the subtle but significant changes that result when conversations are moved online, providing examples and tips to avoid common pitfalls, then discusses how team behavior and decision making can best be guided in this realm. Readers will fully understand what makes teams "click"—what inspires trust, how to get a team "off on the right foot," and what steps to take in order to make good collaborative decisions—as well as other key topics for virtual teamwork, such as best practices for working in the cross-cultural environment. The book serves as an ideal guide for anyone who participates in or manages a virtual team but is also suitable as a supplemental textbook in a business school course on organizational behavior or business communication.

The Handbook of High-Performance Virtual Teams is an essential resource for leaders, virtual team members, and work group leaders. The editors provide a proved framework based on five principles for working collaboratively across boundaries of time, space, and culture. Written by experts in the field, the contributors offer practical suggestions and tools for virtual team who need to assess their current level of effectiveness and develop strategies for improvement. This important resource also contains an array of illustrative cases as well as practical tools for designing, implementing, and maintaining effective virtual work.

The book Managing Virtual Teams, explores the critical elements that must be considered in managing virtual teams in organizations – from structural, managerial, and process points-of-view. Based in solid research, the book provides a deep look at the nature of virtual teams and the factors that enable their success. It lays out in clear detail the key characteristics of virtual teams and traces their emergence within organizations and the research literature. It makes a valuable contribution with clear guidelines for managerial practice - both to researchers interested in learning about virtual teams and to managers and organizations dealing with the challenges of managing virtual teams.

Praise for the First Edition of Virtual Teams "If you want to see where organizational communications are going in the future, heed what these pioneers have written today." —Howard Rheingold, author, The Virtual Community, and founder, Electric Mind "Lipnack and Stamps have written an important book for the twenty-first-century corporation." —Regis McKenna, The McKenna Group, author, Relationship Marketing "This book provides a long overdue perspective on how to apply the discipline of real teams in the fast-moving, increasingly dispersed information age of the future." —Jon R. Katzenbach, author, The Wisdom of Teams "For those who want to lead the movement, catch up with it, or simply know where it is going, this book is packed with useful information and interesting stories." —Dee W. Hock, founder and chairman emeritus, VISA "Virtual Teams provides valuable insights into global teamwork and management through network technologies now available to all companies, large or small." —Jim Lynch, director, corporate quality, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

A proliferation of new technologies has lulled many into thinking that we actually have to think less about how we communicate. In fact, communicating and collaborating across time, distance, and cultures has never been more complex or difficult. Written as a series of bulleted tips drawn from client experiences and best practices, Leading Effective Virtual Teams: Overcoming Time and Distance to Achieve Exceptional Results presents practical tips to help leaders engage and motivate their geographically dispersed project team members. If you’re a leader of any type of virtual team and want to help your team members collaborate more effectively, then buy this book. You will learn how to: Build trust and cultivate relationships, virtually, across your team Design and facilitate virtual meetings that are focused and engaging Influence without authority Motivate and galvanize a virtual team for top performance Blend asynchronous and synchronous communications for better virtual collaboration Navigate cross-cultural and generational differences in the absence of vital visual cues Assess skills, strengths, aptitudes, and preferences from afar Handle other tough issues that can trip up virtual teams The ideas in this book are based on Nancy Settle-Murphy’s decades of experience working as a change management consultant, facilitator, and trainer for project teams around the world. Designed to be read section by section in any order, this book shares approaches and techniques to help you address some of the toughest challenges virtual team leaders face, including keeping team members engaged from afar.

Yael Zofi’s proprietary Trust Wheel model is a proven solution to the unique challenges managers must overcome as more people migrate to partially or fully-remote working situations. Based on the author’s twenty-plus years of consulting experience, this powerful tool encourages cohesiveness and engagement among team members--even if they’ve never met. A Manager’s Guide to Virtual Teams does this by providing a practical road map for bridging the physical distance among coworkers, incorporating self-study exercises and simple, fun activities that develop trust and ensure your team’s success. The book explores the most critical elements to success for a team founded in trust, including: accountability, communication, conflict management, and deliverables. Complete with examples, case scenarios, and strategies to help you navigate even your biggest hurdles, A Manager’s Guide to Virtual Teams will help your disparate collection of people get their work “out the door” faster and better.

Virtual Teams That Work offers a much-needed, comprehensive guidebook for business leaders and managers who want to create the organizational conditions that will help virtual teams thrive. Each chapter in this important book focuses on best practices and includes case studies and illustrative examples from a wide variety of companies, including British Petroleum, Lucent Technologies, Ramtech, SoftCo, and Whirlpool Corporation. These real-life examples demonstrate how the principles identified in the book play out within virtual teams. Virtual Teams That Work shows how organizations can put in place the structure to help team members who speak different languages and have different cultural values develop effective ways of communicating when there is little opportunity for the members to meet face-to-face. The authors also reveal how organizations can implement performance management and reward systems that will motivate team members to cooperate across multiple boundaries. And they offer the information to determine which technologies best fit a variety of virtual-team tasks and the level of information technology support needed.