Managing a new team seems a quite complex task which becomes even more difficult when the group is partially or fully virtual.
In the past, new managers often had the privilege of being able to build their managerial experience on teams they could interact with directly: groups of people, located in the same place, who met and were able to share moments and experiences. This seems trivial but creates the path for a gradual learning that gives great benefits when moving to virtual.
Unfortunately, today’s increasingly global work environment no longer guarantees all the time this possibility. Many managers (first-timers or not) find themselves leading a team that is scattered far and wide and need to make it perform in a very short timeframe. Because globalisation while increasing the footprint of the organisations, decreases at same time the “time to market” of your performance.
Managing a distributed team can feel overwhelming as it requires mastering many different types of distance: geographical, temporal, cultural, linguistic and organisational. Each of these dimensions affects team dynamics and, therefore, have an impact on effectiveness and performance.
Clearly a complex thing to handle but which becomes easier when we gather the correct view on what aspects of team dynamics are, or are not, affected by distance.
Distance makes relationship more complex
All of the different types of distance affect us in a way or another, but they do so mainly through two mechanisms: identity and context.
Care about who you as a team are
Distance affects how you perceive your relationship with people. Dealing with the types of distance related to “where you are” triggers soon a sense of ‘social distance’ – an unshared sense of identity, or an ‘us versus them’ feeling.
A lack of shared identity has a much stronger impact on team dynamics than any kind of individual distance. And a shared identity embeds the fact that you know where expertise is: when teams function effectively, they know where different knowledge is located in the team and how to access it. For example, if everyone knows that a colleague is an expert on couriers, the team can save time by assuming that they are responsible for any new information in this area. Fail to do so and conflict arises.
Care about sharing a view
On another point of view, distance affects what you know about people. Working remotely is much more difficult to know what your co-workers know – and vice versa, creating an asymmetry very dangerous to the sense of team.
Why is this important? Because a shared sense of context, a unique understanding of not just what you do but how you do it and why, is a key element of the ability to coordinate and collaborate. Organisations with a shared understanding are more effective. They waste no time ensuring everyone is aligned and have fewer miscommunications.
Remember that a team is still a team…whatever…
Distance doesn’t change the fundamental rules of the game. A virtual team is first and foremost a team – just because its geographic location is distributed doesn’t mean that all the dynamics that characterise the most effective teams don’t apply. You need to have a good team effectiveness model in place and use it to evaluate and improve dynamics and processes.
Remember that either you are in presence or in a distributed team, people remain people and groups are made up of people like any other. The more you and your team members keep this in mind, the better your results will be. As a manager, encourage everyone to engage in one perspective: Think about how you would act if your roles were reversed. This is a small way to remind your team that collaboration is not magically brought about, but requires a costant effort to be achieved.
