Culture

Articles about culture in virtual teams and how culture affects virtual teams.

manage temporal diversity

How Important Is It To Manage Temporal Diversity in Virtual Teams?

  During the last weekend, I had a chance to observe a couple of workers who were installing new backsplash in my kitchen. One of them was setting the tiles as quickly as he could. It was clear that he wanted to finish his task and get out as quickly as possible. The other went about his work patiently. He… Read more →

How Harmful is Facebook to Reputations and Relationships?

I recently deactivated my Facebook account.  Although it had been a handy tool for reconnecting with old friends, keeping up with some colleagues, and socializing with family & other loved ones, in the past few months, I began to experience a downside to the social networking site. This eventually led to the deactivation of my account. Although social networking can… Read more →

Virtual Worlds: A Potential Tool for Cross-Cultural Training

Previously, Surinder wrote a blog post on his observations about different cultural expectations and implicit communication patterns.  He discussed some ways that virtual team leaders could help limit cultural snafus in teams. As more companies are working with partners around the world and multicultural teams occur more and more often, understanding of cultural differences is important for team members and… Read more →

Is Virtual Etiquette Different from Real World Etiquette?

  I had an interesting experience recently that reminded me of Surinder’s post on what he sees as some negative trends in email communication, only this experience happened in Second Life. I was visiting an area dedicated to online learning when I ran into another avatar–I’ll call him Mike–who began speaking with me. Mike immediately told me that he was… Read more →

What President Obama Teaches Us For Leading Virtually

  I watched in awe from early this morning as the world got ready for the inauguration of Barack Obama as President. I felt joy and hope as I read my dad’s email this morning saying that he was so excited to see the moment that he had dreamed of, but thought might never come in his country. And I… Read more →

The Leading Virtually Digest, June 2, 2008

What: Forbes.com article about doing business in geographically dispersed virtual teams (also see: accompanying slide show). Posts to which it is related: Implicit Communication and Culture: What it means for leading virtual teams; Culture Matters in Virtual Teams. Bottom Line: The author has a consulting business that helps companies manage IT-focused virtual teams that are globally dispersed. He points out… Read more →

Implicit Communication and Culture: What it Means for Leading Virtual Teams

I came back from a short trip to India about two weeks ago. I made some observations during this trip which might be relevant to leaders of virtual teams. Many virtual team leaders are leading work that is accomplished partly or fully in India due to outsourcing or offshoring arrangements. I have heard from such leaders about the challenges that… Read more →