Leading Effectively: What is your Global Management Style?

February 25, 2009

5 of 10

Virtual Team:

Essentially, teams are a network organization including a series of nodes linked together. In a geographically co-located team the communications between team members form these links and are supported by all types of dialogue, exchanges and communications, primarily face-to-face. On a virtual team, each team member is a node in the network, however the links are primarily through the various technology channels available today. Nodes + Links + Software or Team members + Technology + Groupware.

Drivers for Virtual Teamwork

Globalization: The demand for six sigma performance everywhere in the world. Virtual teams allow the best resources to be drawn together, no matter where they are located in the world and this flexibility allows more competitive responsiveness to the dynamics of the marketplace and client demands. Also, our increasingly integrated service offerings require that we provide these to our clients on the global workday of 24, not 8, hours. Employee Expectations: Expectations of workers themselves have changed. Especially the Gen Y workers demand personal flexibility and less time spent commuting. The 21st century workers have grown up with technology and are accustomed to teaming and learning online, demanding that the workplace mirror this environment with increasingly sophisticated technology to support their performance and productivity. Technology: The technology we have available today to support virtual work and teamwork enables new styles of collaboration and communication were not available in the past. Flat World: Organizational structures have changed as well, from more hierarchical to collegial, collaborative horizontal communities of geographically distributed knowledge workers.

5 of 10