Virtual Team Successes and Stresses

Virtual Team Successes and Stresses

Question 1

The initial agreement between all team members was that they share crucial information with each other. Nevertheless, Rebecca – the team leader – learned that most team members did not freely share information with other members, and most of them were mostly withdrawn during meetings.  Rebecca assumed that the team members were nervous, and she even tried using jokes to cheer them up; she hoped that her jokes would make them more interested in group activities. To her disappointment, her jokes worsened things because she soon discovered that certain members completely went mute during meetings, and some of them even started missing group sessions.

Question 2

The members of Rebecca’s team are drawn from different countries, meaning that they each have different thought patterns because of their different cultures and beliefs. This is a very crucial factor that Rebecca should not have ignored. The first thing she should have done was to try and understand the cultural differences in her team, and this she should have known by simply having personalized or individual talks with every member of her team. Considering that her team members were mostly drawn from different cultural backgrounds, they must have also had different thought patterns and unique ways of approaching issues. Individualized talks with the team members would have enabled her to, for example, know that countries like Japan have strict rules that regulate data sharing. But because she ignored the small detail, she was not in a position to understand the reason behind the behaviours of her diverse team members.

Question 3

As explained in question two above, different countries have different beliefs, cultures and ways of doing things. For instance, organizational structures in a country like Korea are in nature, hierarchical. This implies that before taking any action, junior employees must get approval from their seniors. One of the members in Rebecca’s team – Woo-jin, was from Korea, and she found herself restricted by hierarchical structures in her country. Limited by hierarchical organizational structures in her country, Woo-jin was not very forthcoming with information during the group’s sessions.  Just like Woo-jin, Kamiko was also restricted by tight rules and regulations that govern information sharing in Japan.

Question 4

For the effectiveness of virtual team members to be assured, team members and team leaders must learn the skills for working and leading in a virtual environment, respectively. For example, cultural differences can hamper collaboration in virtual teams. For this reason, team members and team leaders in virtual teams must exercise cultural acceptance. They must also understand that words or jokes in one culture may be interpreted wrongly in another culture (just like Rebecca’s jokes were not taken to be humorous by some team members). This implies that when cultural differences are most likely to lead to misinterpretations in cultural teams. Therefore, team leaders and team members in a virtual team ought to exercise cultural competence and cultural awareness at all times for them to be able to work collaboratively.

Question 5

There are a number of strategies that can be used to ensure that virtual teams are just as effective as traditional teams, such as investing in excellent communication solutions. Timely completion of projects entirely depends on effective communication, and virtual teams are mostly affected by communication challenges. Besides allowing team members to be on the same page at all times, communication also connects virtual team members together in a way that makes them feel important and included. Excellent communication solutions will allow virtual team leaders to keep their team members in the loop for them to be motivated in group activities.

It is also important for procedures and policies to be made clear for all virtual team members. In traditional teams, for instance, employees and managers can be disgruntled and frustrated when they are not in agreement about requirements and expectations; the situation can even be worse for virtual teams. However, similar potential challenges in virtual teams can cleverly be tackled by creating clear procedures, policies and expectations.  The virtual team members should also be given the guidelines in accessible formats so that they can refer to them when they are not sure how to proceed.

Promoting healthy balances between work and life is also another strategy to make virtual teams effective. Remote employees may have the flexibility to balance their work and personal lives. For instance, they are in a better position to manage things such as home tasks when taking breaks from their work. At the end of the end, however, they always feel as if they are constantly working, and this can lead to burnout, work-related stress and decreased productivity. For these reasons, therefore, virtual team managers must always make sure that they carefully monitor the working hours of virtual workers. They should pay more attention to workers who are always required at work or those who work for long hours. When they have ongoing tasks, they should be made aware that it is okay for them to work on them the following day. In short, managers of virtual teams must always take care of their employees and ensure that none of them is overworked or overwhelmed with work. They should also encourage virtual employees to speak up whenever they have an issue.

References

Nemiro, J. (2004). Creativity in virtual teams: Key components for success (Vol. 6). John Wiley & Sons.