Discussion 2: Shared Practice: Managing Teams in a Virtual Environment

Discussion 2: Shared Practice: Managing Teams in a Virtual Environment

 

The internet age now allows you to connect to work from virtually anywhere in the world. However, managing a team of remote employees presents unique challenges. Monitoring, communicating, organizing, and motivating remote employees and coworkers can be difficult, even with available technology that helps remote employees meet and collaborate in virtual spaces. As you review the Learning Resources this week to prepare for your Shared Practice posting, imagine the following scenario:

At your current employer, or at a company where you would like to work, you have been assigned to manage a virtual team. Your virtual team is composed of some individuals in the office, some that work from home in various time zones, and some others that work out of another office several time zones away. Consider the challenges of managing virtual employees and how these challenges compare to managing a traditional “non-virtual” team.

With these thoughts in mind:

By Day 5

Post a response that addresses the following:

  • Explain benefits and challenges that a manager has when developing, leading, and motivating virtual teams and how those challenges are unique to virtual teams.
  • Explain which of the challenges you identified that need to be addressed directly by a manager, and which challenges should managers empower or allow the team to address.
  • Describe how you would meet the challenges and contribute to the virtual team if you are assigned to manage the team. Be sure to identify obstacles you think you would have and how would you address them.

Hint: An exemplary response will draw on the themes from previous weeks, such as ensuring a positive and productive environment, handling difficult conversations, motivating employees, providing feedback, maintaining levels of trust, etc.

Required Readings

Document: Week 6 Weekly Briefing (PDF)

 

The Weekly Briefing provides an essential introduction to the content and concepts that you will be studying during the week. After viewing the weekly Introduction, the Weekly Briefing should be your initial reading each week.

Berry, G. R. (2011). Enhancing effectiveness on virtual teams. Journal of Business Communication, 48(2), 186–206.

In this article, Berry argues that fundamental team dynamics do not change when teams interact virtually. He reviews these fundamentals, examines how managing virtual teams can be a more complex task than managing face-to-face teams, and shares the skill set that managers need to work with virtual teams.

DeRosa, D. (2009). Virtual success: The keys to effectiveness in leading from a distance. Leadership in Action, 28(6), 9–11.

In this article, DeRosa succinctly lists the challenges of leading virtual teams and what managers must do to make these teams more effective.

Dewar, T. (2006). Virtual teams—Virtually impossible? Performance Improvement, 45(5), 22–25.

Communications technology has certainly made working across distances easier, but does it make teamwork any easier? In this article, Dewar examines how technology both facilitates and complicates teamwork. She also discusses research-based suggestions to improve teamwork for virtual teams.

Emelo, R., & Francis, L. M. (2002). Virtual team interaction. T+D, 56(10), 17–19.

In this article, Emelo and Francis discuss how virtual teammates can develop and enhance communication behaviors. The authors contend these behaviors will make the virtual team more collaborative and effective.

Lindner, R. & O’Brien, D. (2019). The Global Virtual Teams Project: Learning to manage team dynamics in virtual exchange. In A. Turula, M. Kurek, & T. Lewis (Eds.), Telecollaboration and virtual exchange across disciplines: In service of social inclusion and global citizenship (pp. 81-89). Research-publishing.net. https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2019.35.943

Mockaitis, A. I., Rose, E. L., & Zettinig, P. (2012). The power of individual cultural values in global virtual teams. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management. 12(2), 193–210.

Culture, while not visually distinguishable in many virtual work teams, still influences the team dynamic. The authors examine the relationship between culture and team dynamics in a virtual environment.

Murashev, D. (2018). Communication for diverse teams. Training Journal, 23–25.

 
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