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 →
A new report from Forrester Research is encouraging businesses to consider virtual worlds as a necessary next step in helping collaboration among team members and businesses. Reports such as this strengthen our conviction that, just as the Internet revolutionized the way we communicate and collaborate with each other, virtual worlds and the 3D world wide web will soon have the same transformational effects on the way we communicate and collaborate.
Fittingly, “Leading Virtually” has been operating as a virtual team over the past several weeks. I am currently in New York City, while each of the other team members are located in various parts of New York State and Pennsylvania. The whole team has not had a chance to get together for some time as everyone works on their own… Read more →
When the rest of the LeadingVirtually.com team asked me to contribute to this blog, I was initially at a loss as to what I should write about. There was not much, I thought, I could say about virtual teams. As an officer in the Korean military, I thought, “I am a military man who is trained to fight.” My team… Read more →
Last week I read a report called Leadership in Games and at Work: Implications for the Enterprise of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMOGs), put out by an organization called Seriosity (condensed report, full report). Their study investigated the lessons that MMOGs might have for leadership in the workplace, with the suggestion that experience in MMOGs or virtual worlds crosses… Read more →
Leaders of virtual teams often talk about having to deal with cultural challenges in their teams. Yet, they have been offered little to help them think systematically about how to adjust their leadership when dealing with such challenges. Things are beginning to change, however. During the recently held International Conference on Information Systems in Montreal, I had the pleasure of… Read more →
A recent Wall Street Journal article “Boeing Scrambles to Repair Problems with New Plane” (December 7, 2007) underscored the importance of controls in virtual teams. Controls are mechanisms used by companies to ensure that the individuals working on their projects act in accordance with their plans. When Boeing embarked on the production of its new 787, it did two things… Read more →
People in organizations have known for a long time that trust is an important antecedent of effective teamwork. So it would make sense for this to hold true not only in face to face groups, but also for virtual teams. This week the Leading Virtually team came across a posting by Bridge the Distance offering help in building trust in… Read more →
I recently heard from a virtual team leader facing challenges in building ownership in his team. It got me reflecting on my own experience with virtual work and the importance of ownership. I have found that when team members think of the project as “their project,” they have a positive attitude towards it and they put in a lot more… Read more →