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Challenges |
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1)
MISCOMMUNICATION: A lack of
discernible body language and voice
intonations means a higher potential for
problematic miscommunications. Our
facilitators help virtual team members
find alternative ways to signal their
emotions and feelings online through
summarizing and paraphrasing or by
impression checking and behavior
description. 2)
DISTRUST: A lack of effective
communication can negatively influence
trust and lead to its reduction. Our
facilitators recognize that interpersonal
trust comes in many forms and each of
these can be developed by an effective
combination of action and
conversation. 3)
INFORMATION OVERLOAD: The enormous
amounts of data exchanged in a virtual
gathering can overload team members. Our
facilitators help teams compensate for
this with topic reduction, division into
sub-teams (one per topic), increased break
times, and slowed pace of
contributions. 4)
PARALLEL PROCESSING: The
simultaneous multiple topic discussions of
some virtual teams can cause parallel
processing concerns. Our facilitators help
members to compensate for this by
identifying clear topic threads, focusing
on related threads, and increasing topic
reflection times. 5) HIGH
SPEED EXCHANGES: The high speed nature
of virtual conversation can leave some
members lost behind: some synchronous
situations favor extroverts for their
quick thinking and outgoing nature, while
other asynchronous cases favor introverts
for taking time to think before expressing
their opinions. Our facilitators encourage
the inclusive mixing of both
exchanges. 6)
OPPORTUNITY TO HIDE: Technology
allows some members to hide and avoid
contributing to exchanges. This makes
identifying who is engaged (and who is not
participating) a very difficult task in
some instances. Our facilitators utilize
other side channels of communication to
contact people and gain their full
attention and complete
involvement. 7)
POORLY CHOSEN CHANNELS: The wrong
choice of communication tool or technology
can be disastrous for virtual teams. While
the final choice is up to you (based on
your needs, intent, literacy, and
resources), our facilitators will make
careful recommendations that help you to
to consider the best common denominator
for all virtual team members and thus
avoid excluding anyone. 8)
SPLIT GROUPS: Many virtual teams
are a hybrid of an assembled majority in
one location with a dispersed minority
spread around the world's geography and
time zones. Hybrid virtual teams often
experience split team personalities with a
number of associated problems. Our
facilitators work hard to ensure that team
members are aware of this potential
division and find ways to address
it. 9)
SYNCHRONICITY: Some virtual teams
contribute at the same instant in time,
while other members are only able to
contribute at very different times. The
time lags or response delays that are
frequent with such mixed interactions can
cause team members to feel bored and
ignored. Our facilitators remedy this by
preparing people for slow interactions, by
encouraging them to reflect before
responding, and by their scheduling
synchronous conversations on side
channels. 10)
DEPENDENCE ON TECHNOLOGY: A
dependence on technology can push some
virtual teams into chaos when that
technology fails to work. Our facilitators
work with your technicians (or we supply
our own back up technicians) to quickly
rectify minor breakdowns in technology and
we are ready with contingencies for most
major problems. 11)
FEAR: Fear of failure or
retribution is a common concern of people
in any organization where learning from
mistakes is devalued and risk taking is
diminished. Many virtual teams have the
added concern that everything they say,
write, draw or do is recorded for
posterity in a technological archive. Our
facilitators discuss the ethical dilemmas
of anonymity, confidentiality, security,
risk, and support at the outset, and we
stand ready to introduce learning from
failure concepts to the organizational
culture. 12)
HUMAN DYNAMICS: The usual
problematic teamwork that is found in face
to face teams is also present for virtual
teams: personality conflicts, resistance
to change, incentives to be uncooperative,
and so on. Our facilitators have years of
experience working with all kinds of teams
and they are well trained in a number of
advanced techniques that have proven
successful at dealing with
difficulties. |
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