Endless Knots

Extremely connected and incredibly creative

Thanks to Robin Chase, the extremely insightful founder of Buzzcar (and cofounder of Zipcar), whom I got to know when we both participated in Springboard, please enjoy this metaphor of how one thing can lead to another in the hands of an artist, in this case (see NY Times, "Turning a Page, the Joseph Herscher Way," "[who] builds Rube Goldberg machines in Williamsburg, Brooklyn."

 

 

 

 

 

Ware & Grantham: Managing Remotely

I'm about to give a series of workshops ("Managing a Remote Workforce") and to make sure I'm current on the best thinking, I naturally did my (re)search by googling that title.

Up came this great white paper, Managing a Remote Workforce: Proven Practices from Successful Leaders, from my old friends and colleagues, Jim Ware and Charlie Grantham. Their research was sponsored by Citrix, the gotomeeting folks.

Here are five practices that I've "stolen" (with their permission) for what I'm presenting today and tomorrow:

1. Develop formal, explicit, strategic programs with senior management sponsors

2. Work differently

• Redesigned business processes
• New technologies
• New ways to communicate
• Outcomes measured, rewarded not monitoring employees

3. Training is critical

4. Collaboration technologies are central to success

5. Unsuccessful without thoughtful planning; aggressive implementation; significant organizational, cultural change

 

Take that, Gladwell: Vinegar, onions, social networks, and soccer nuts a revolution do make

For anyone who still doubts (Malcolm Gladwell) the role of informal communication, aka social media, in bringing about monumental change before the whole world's very eyes in Egypt, see today's lead story (headlined in print version) of NY Times, "A Tunisian-Egyptian Link That Shook Arab History."

Excellent, detailed, and insightful reporting lays out the sequence by which, the online subhead reads*: "Two-year collaboration of dissidents gave birth to a new force — a pan-Arab youth movement dedicated to spreading democracy in a region without it."

I've been pondering this post for nearly two hours, trying to figure out a way to summarize the low-tech/high-tech amalgam that so fundamentally reshapes the chemistry of the future. I can't do better than to quote the first few paragraphs, though the whole thing is definitely click-worthy. In fact, I just read a bundle of grafs from one of the jump pages (there are two) to a traveling family member. It's remarkable, friends, right down to the people in Cairo (perhaps elsewhere) protecting themselves with "body armor," if you can call it that, made of "cardboard or plastic bottles...worn under their clothes to protect against riot police bullets."

Here's the beginning of David Kirpatrick and David Sanger's remarkable journalism:

"CAIRO — As protesters in Tahrir Square faced off against pro-government forces, they drew a lesson from their counterparts in Tunisia: 'Advice to the youth of Egypt: Put vinegar or onion under your scarf for tear gas.'

"The exchange on Facebook was part of a remarkable two-year collaboration that has given birth to a new force in the Arab world — a pan-Arab youth movement dedicated to spreading democracy in a region without it. Young Egyptian and Tunisian activists brainstormed on the use of technology to evade surveillance, commiserated about torture and traded practical tips on how to stand up to rubber bullets and organize barricades.

"They fused their secular expertise in social networks with a discipline culled from religious movements and combined the energy of soccer fans with the sophistication of surgeons. Breaking free from older veterans of the Arab political opposition, they relied on tactics of nonviolent resistance channeled from an American scholar through a Serbian youth brigade — but also on marketing tactics borrowed from Silicon Valley."

These are big claims for a lede article in the paper of record. The reporters go on to substantiate the assertions in the next section, headlined "Bloggers Lead the Way:"

"The Egyptian revolt was years in the making. Ahmed Maher, a 30-year-old civil engineer and a leading organizer of the April 6 Youth Movement, first became engaged in a political movement known as Kefaya, or Enough, in about 2005. Mr. Maher and others organized their own brigade, Youth for Change. But they could not muster enough followers; arrests decimated their leadership ranks, and many of those left became mired in the timid, legally recognized opposition parties. “What destroyed the movement was the old parties,” said Mr. Maher, who has since been arrested four times.

"By 2008, many of the young organizers had retreated to their computer keyboards and turned into bloggers, attempting to raise support for a wave of isolated labor strikes set off by government privatizations and runaway inflation.

"After a strike that March in the city of Malhalla, Egypt, Mr. Maher and his friends called for a nationwide general strike for April 6. To promote it, they set up a Facebook group that became the nexus of their movement, which they were determined to keep independent from any of the established political groups...

"Just a few months later, after a strike in the Tunisian city of Hawd el-Mongamy, a group of young online organizers followed the same model, setting up what became the Progressive Youth of Tunisia. The organizers in both countries began exchanging their experiences over Facebook. The Tunisians faced a more pervasive police state than the Egyptians, with less latitude for blogging or press freedom, but their trade unions were stronger and more independent. 'We shared our experience with strikes and blogging,' Mr. Maher recalled."

And on it goes. I could continue excerpting but it's better for you to read it yourself. It is more than evident that those responsible for this miraculous transformation in the geopolitical scene simply used the tools of their time, just as the Committees of Correspondence used a nascent postal service to refine their strategy and tactics among a million or so people in a troublesome land that became the US of A.

Which brings me back to the title of this post: The naysayers around the importance of new media also disparage those who have had the courage to keep at it. Again, it's people who made the difference here. Thank heavens they had such powerful tools with which to communicate.

Last thing: the Times article says the protestors have been strongly influenced by "an American political thinker, Gene Sharp." I've never heard of him. Start following the links from here, which include the Serbian youth movement, Optor!'s, which helped bring down Milosevic.

And when you lose faith again that dictators can be deposed and retreat to thinking that the future looks terribly bleak even in places where there are no dictators, only zealots, turn your attention to the next generation. Perhaps one day "they" could become ideologues too but the best part of this story is that there is no monolithic "they" this time. Just a loosely structured network of energized activists whose architecture of revolution--and tools--are barely understood.

Also, see Nicholas Kristof's "What Egypt Can Teach America" in yesterday's NY Times.

* I never realized before how different the print and online heads are in NYT articles - subtle but different.

Uptick in teleconferencing

Re: the volcano disrupting travel and thus promoting virtual working: One of many articles to come in the next few days, I'm certain, this, thanks to Amy Millman, "Stranded Travelers Turn to Teleconferencing," by Kevin O'Brien in the NY Times. My favorite anecdote:

In one case, a couple stranded in Dubai decided to televise their wedding vows over a Skype video conference to guests gathered for their wedding ceremony on Saturday in England, Ms. Milosevich said.

Saves on catering costs, never mind those costly centerpieces.

Iceland causes virtual teams to finally erupt

From Reuters/Ingolfur Juliusson, plasmastic

Quite a good post ("Eruptions") from Hugh Tonks at workshifting.com. Clever walk around his team looking at what the shutdown in air travel has meant to them. How many more volcanoes will it take before virtual teams gain some respect?

Inc. goes virtual - for a second

Those following the field know that Inc. magazine carried out an experiment in February: it sent everyone home to experience working virtually. Thanks to Virginia Adamson at Volvo IT, I just read Inc. Senior Writer Max Chafkin's very good article about it, "The Case, and the Plan, for the Virtual Company."

I've complained before about how thin most of the material about virtual working really is with the endless lists of "ten ways to" and "three things that you should do..."

Chafkin's article is thoughtful, extraordinarily well written for material in this field (admittedly dominated by techies not writers), and provocative. The set of things he comes up with are very important:

1. Crunch the numbers to figure out the savings and expenses associated with stashing everyone at home.
2. [For]Get the tech. He makes the argument so clearly. It really doesn't matter. Spend your time doing your work, not in training with new collaboration technology. While many people have advised us to change our old motto "90% people, 10% technology" to "80-20," I might go in the other direction after reading this: 95% people, 5% tech.
3. Settle in. Great stories about the tension of working at home. Reminds me of a family classic when our girls were little (we've worked at home since the dawn of internet time). Adorable little girls come into office to ask question/get a hug/aka interrupt. Immediate need met, I say, "Would you like to leave yourself or should I escort you out?" The older of the two says, "'Scort me out." She, btw, is now working two days a week from home with little people nearby who have quite limited vocabulary at the moment.
4. Master your emoticons and everything else about working online. Self-explanatory. Everyone interviewed for the piece, both within Inc. and outside, which is one of the great gifts of this story, struggled with isolation and loneliness even while benefiting from the ability to concentrate. This allows me to throw in another motto: "Isolate to concentrate; congregate to collaborate," which of course can be done at a distance or in-person.
5. Explain yourself. The publishing world, or at least a blogger at Columbia School of Journalism, interpreted Inc.'s experiment as the opening shot in its shutting down.
6. Consider your culture. Here's my beef with the piece, Mr. Chafkin. I don't agree that "going virtual means moving away from a culture of collaboration by a group of competent generalists and toward one based on specialists who are cheap, efficient, and good at meeting deadlines." Snope. Not at all. It's not the content/expertise of the collaborators that matters; it's the way they collaborate. Yes, you can limit virtual working to brain-picking for specific expertise; it's very effective. But the big mushies of collaboration can and do still take place virtually. In fact, generalists benefit from virtual working as they generally surf more. I have no data to back this up but think about it. The most interesting stuff I've picked up today has been on Facebook News Feed. I would not be seeing it if someone were looking over my shoulder. And, please, before you think I'm saying FB should replace real news...I'm not. Just an anecdote about how we spend "idle" time.

So...turns out that most of the Inc-ers wanted back to the office. (I failed to mention that they have 10,000 absolutely gorgeous square feet in downtown Manhattan. But then again, Inc. has always had great offices - I remember going to the waterfront in Boston when they were located here in '90s.) My read on this: of course. It was an experiment, not meant to last, with coming back together to reflect built into the test. Were Inc. to seriously go virtual, it would make a plan to address the tough stuff, to build a space-and-time spanning culture, to promote norms and perks that make it easier for people, and, most importantly, it would hire differently. Everyone in the experiment had been hired into a bricks-and-mortar position. Make that same position virtual and different people would apply.

I could argue a few more points but, geez, Inc., good for you. And really good for you, Max Chafkin. Very enlightening piece.

Interesting notion: Spend 3/4 of your time with those not co-located

It's not just because "Selling a Global Business: Teamwork Working Like Clockwork Around the Clock" quotes us (thanks) that I'm pulling out its virtual team guidelines. Click-worthy for the whole list of nine, I'm pulling out four that are particularly good:

Have explicit meeting preparation and management

It is more difficult to follow standard meeting processes over distant locations, cultures and time zones. Take the time to state the meeting preparation expectations for the project. Find the best time zones for the team and alternate between them. For example, in a recent client engagement involving a US company expanding in an Asian market, we had meetings every Tuesday, but alternated between 7 am and 7 pm US CST. We were all equally inconvenienced, and that is the only fair way to do it.

Repeat names during the meeting. Since you cannot see body language, proactively monitor meeting reactions and performance, and address problems promptly.

Rotate meeting leadership and scribe roles

To promote inclusion and participation, rotate leadership and scribe roles. Wake up the team by raising your expectations of them. Whoever takes the minutes should be the next meeting’s leader, since one prepares you for the other.

Spend 70-80% of time with team members that are NOT co-located

It is easy to stay in the pattern you are already in: building relationships, sharing information and spending time with those already in your location. Global virtual team leadership requires you to go beyond your comfort zone and not just reach out but to focus on those that you cannot easily communicate with. Schedule one on one conversations for feedback and focused conversations.

Assess team and leader skills, and design training to close gaps.

With a team that is in your location, you may have a better understanding of what the team’s skills are. With a team in another location, special effort needs to be made to understand the team’s skills, and where and how to improve them.

Virtual lunch, very noisy

This is from a longer post, "Seven habits for successful video meetings," on Virtual Teams Blog, run by Al Jury who did his Ph.D. in virtual team leadership. Critical issue here. Food at virtual meetings:

6. Be careful ordering food during the meeting:

In meetings where food is ordered it can be very disruptive to meetings. Most video meeting rooms have very sensitive microphones which pick up lots of noise from cutlery etc which can be very disruptive to meetings. I have also been in meetings where the majority of participants are in one location and only food is ordered for that location. So participants often have to sit through the meeting hungrily looking on at all the others eating their lunches. This doesn’t help feelings of inclusiveness. So either have food ordered for all participants irrespective of their locations or none at all.

Virtual teams poorly managed, say 1 in 3 execs in Economist study

Looks like some quite solid research from the Economist Intelligence Unit, "Managing virtual teams: Taking a more strategic approach." In the study, conducted in Fall 2009, a third of those executives surveyed said that their virtual teams were not well managed, yet most endorsed using them nonetheless. The major findings (go to link to download the study):

• Executives are generally positive about working in virtual teams. More than two out ofthree survey respondents believe that the advantages of working in a virtual team outweigh the disadvantages. Three out of every four respondents also state that they travel less as a result of working virtually.

• The single most common challenge, selected by 56% of executives polled, relates to the misunderstandings that emerge as a result of cultural and language differences from teams operating globally. Just one in 20 executives say they have never experienced any difficulty in managing a virtual team.

• More than one-half of executives say that their virtual teams use video conferencing on a regular basis. This rises to about two-thirds (64%) for the largest firms (those with annual revenue in excess of US$10bn), prompted in part by significant cutbacks in corporate travel budgets over the past two years. But visual communication does not always equate to better communication. Both cultural and gender-based differences need to be taken into account when choosing methods of communication. Research suggests that that men find eye contact threatening, while East Asians are more comfortable using other approaches, such as instant messaging (my bolding not theirs).

• One in three companies has set up virtual working so that they can tap into the global talent pool. One of the most significant benefits of being able to use technology to collaborate globally is the ability to draw on a much deeper pool of skills, without being constrained by geographical location. Yet the majority of survey respondents say that virtual team members are recruited by local managers (58%), suggesting that most companies only recruit in locations where they have an office, thereby severely curtailing the size of the talent pool on which they can draw. Also, relatively few managers embrace the actual technologies they use to communicate in their virtual teams as the method for meeting and interviewing new prospects.

Virtual Team Intelligence - webcast now posted

Thanks, Tom Heck, president and founder of the International Association of Team Facilitators, for inviting me to participate in your virtual team series and for posting this interview, with the vaunted title, "90% People, 10% Technology - Virtual Team Intelligence."

I particularly enjoyed this event because Tom posed questions I'm not normally asked -- and because we used a new audio conferencing service that is very cleverly designed, allowing the presenters to do quick polls, see who's listening, and chat in a back-channel all effortlessly.

UPDATE: Having now listened to the webcast in which I seem to be talking extremely fast, even for me, I learned from Tom that there was a download/compression problem. If I sound too much like a crazy person, come back in a week or so and it will be fixed, Tom tells me.