The Exec-Ed Zone

The Exec-Ed Zone welcomes back guest contributor Rudi Plettinx. Rudi is Managing Director of the European operations of the Center for Creative Leadership, in Brussels, Belgium. Here he looks at the new challenge of dealing with virtual teams.

My friend Susan got blasted into cyber-space last week. A research VP for one of those VERY big, global corporations, she’s hi-tech-savvy in the extreme. Trouble was her cyber-space jaunt wasn’t for fun and games – it was strictly business and it came complete with a pre-assembled team of techno-geeks with IQ’s of 130 plus and an average age of 22.

She’d been assigned by her mega-corp employer to develop their presence in Second Life (SL) – a 3-D virtual world that users can visit as though it was a real place. Visitors explore, meet people, participate in group activities (everything in SL is created by the residents) and participate in its economy. SL’s popularity has mushroomed attracting the attention of big business. Global brands like L’Oreal, UBS, Nissan, Cisco IBM, Reuters, ABN Amro and the BBC have set up virtual offices and are selling virtual products and services.

Susan’s job – and that of her team - was to use SL as a test site for an upcoming product launch in the real world.

After her first voyage into that “other” world she called me. “Rudi,” she asked, “ have you got any tips for leading a team in a virtual work environment ?”

My first thoughts were totally wrong-headed. Why ? Well, I was thinking techno-gimmickry, maverick employees, people with long hair and sandals.

Then it hit me. Virtual employees are the same as remote teams. When Susan’s team plunge headfirst into Second Life each day they are not all sitting together in some downtown office. No way! Like remote team members in the real world they are logging on and jumping in from as many locations as there are team members.

Interestingly, one of the biggest obstacles to remote teams being effective (and consequently well led) is their inability to meet face-to-face. However, these cyber-explorers didn’t have that problem at all. Their avatars (the digitised character that represents them in Second Life) meet up and work together inside the virtual world.

So my advice to Susan was use the power of involvement to create trust. The way to do that is give everyone a role – and therefore a responsibility in the team’s success.

And if you are thinking, “well this won’t ever happen to me.” Think again. All of us are going to have to learn how to survive, manage and lead in cyberspace. So how do we set out those roles for our team members ?

Here’s how.

Get the chatty one and make him or her team communicator. The job ? making sure that all information gets to ALL the team ALL the time. Remember, with remote teams the greatest fear is being left out of the info loop.

The team must stay focused, so you need a task monitor to stop everyone heading down blind alleys and wasting time.

Get the really nerdy one (yes, there’s one in every team!) and make them logistics co-ordinator to schedule team meetings (real and virtual) and contacts with the great outside.

Make the curious one the process facilitator, focusing on how the work gets done and exploring different approaches and strategies.

The super-techy genius becomes the technology co-ordinator to problem solve and train team members in using all the connective gizmos you need to make the whole team work inside and outside cyberspace.

And you’ll also need an executive champion (in this case Susan’s boss) with a vested interest in seeing the team succeed (possibly part of his annual bonus!)

Lastly, find Mr Friendly (yes, they are there too!) and make them social co-ordinator. Looking after the social needs of the team and creating the glue that binds them together. Oh yes, and also organises the all-important Friday night cyber-party ! Way to go, team!

Assigning roles like this ensures no one gets left out and everyone has to work with everyone else.

Anyway Susan tried it and it works. She said the Friday night party was great but posed a question I couldn’t answer. “How do you cure a virtual hangover ?”