Achieving High Performance in the Distributed Workplace

The concept of “workplace” has changed significantly in the last 25 years.  Working in one location with colleagues in the same location is less the norm and more the exception.  The transition from working in co-located teams to working in distributed (1) teams seemed reasonable yet leaders and team members did not always clearly understand what the transition meant in practice.  Can we lead and participate in co-located teams in the same way that we lead and participant in teams distributed across a nation, a continent or the globe with colleagues of same or different business units or partners outside our own organization?

To begin, working in a virtual team will become even more prevalent.  Our work in the future will clearly require fluency in leading and participating in virtual teams.  There are several reasons why virtual teams are becoming more the norm.  At the heart of the issue, virtual teams are able to create value; therefore, organizations interested in more efficient and effective ways to create value have increasingly turned to virtual teams.  This, by the way, does not mean that if a team is not efficient and effective, making it virtual would solve the problem.  Not at all!  Creating value in the distributed world requires intention, discipline and hard work.  However, it is clear that virtual teams are creating value by

•    Improving efficiency as global teams can literally extend operating hours
•    Providing flexibility for talented team members who would be willing and able to participate in new projects but are not able to travel all the time or relocate
•    Leveraging resources across a wider base
•    Tapping into diverse skill sets, experiences, knowledge and culture.

What is required to achieve high performance in virtual teams?  Research and experience point to four key elements that support high performance in virtual teams:

1.    Virtual teams need to work diligently to establish clarity as this is the foundation for trust.
2.    Virtual teams need to be supported with the right resources to improve efficiency.
3.    Individuals in virtual teams need to be comfortable with the challenge of distributed teamwork.
4.    Virtual teams need engagement to enhance the emotional connection of the team.

While these success elements are also required to succeed in co-located teams, creating them in distributed teams requires intention and discipline as distributed teams have a smaller margin of error.

How does your organization build high performance virtual teams?
Laura Vargas
Senior Partner at Pertec Consulting

(1) Team is  “a small number of people with complementary skills committed to a common purpose, a set of specific performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.” (The Discipline of Teams, J. R. Katzenbach, D. K. Smith).  A virtual or distributed team does this while being in different locations, separated by time, space, or even organization.  For our purposes, a virtual team is the same as a distributed team.