Endless Knots

Leaderless? No, leader-full in the virtual workplace

Terrence Seamon, whom I had the chance to work with a few years back when American Management Association was putting together a new course on leading virtual teams (I was subject matter expert for the course and Terry held the management development portfolio there; together we did a webinar that you can listen to here), has a nice reflective post on what it takes to work successfully from a distance. He calls out the role of leadership in his virtual experience -- in his example, there was no appointed leader, as is the case when this works successfully, many people took on leadership roles:

Leadership - We were a leaderless group, where no one was appointed (or elected) as the leader. However, since a team needs leadership to be successful, leadership emerged as we went along. For example, several members of our team kept us informed of direction and guidance from the editors. Getting this input from time-to-time kept us on track, and kept us going.

The myth that virtual groups -- and networks -- have no leaders is one of the most pernicious misunderstandings about these work arrangements. It leaves the impression that they have no direction and no accountability for results ... and it's wrong. One of the gifts of these organizational innovations is that they allow all kinds of leadership modalities to surface.

Thanks, Terry, for the chance to board this particular bandwagon again!

 

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

 

Adapting agile development to virtual teams

This one's for the developers out there: "The Paradox of Agile PM and Virtual Teams" by Dr. David F. Rico. For those not developers, agile software development is the "just makes sense" way to go about what used to be called programming, doing small bits of work in small teams that include people from diverse functions, then running the code quickly to detect problems, then repeating the process again. As I am not a developer, I'm ready to take some heaved tomatoes for getting this wrong technically but...you get the picture. Make a little, test a little, then do it all again.

Of course it's more complicated than that - and it has its own special schools of thought (viz. lean development) but anything that involves people across functions and tests, tests, tests before full commitment to a final product/process has got to be good.

So, point of this post: see Rico's article, which takes many of the key practices of agile development and interprets them for virtual teams. Here, for example, is one set:



As we receive a fair number of requests from IT organizations, I'm posting this for their benefit. (And not just because the article quotes us ... but that's nice too.) Take a look, developers, and let us know whether this tracks for you.

Going it alone

Some heartening research for introverts. In this age of collaboration (telecommuting, virtual teams, remote working, etc), we might take a page from people who spend time alone (and not like this-alone, at the computer), according to "The power of lonely" by Leon Neyfakh in yesterday's Boston Globe. Witness these gems (and forgiveness please for not spending more time--alone--throwing in all my thoughts about this; have to go meet some people...):

[A]n emerging body of research is suggesting that spending time alone, if done right, can be good for us — that certain tasks and thought processes are best carried out without anyone else around, and that even the most socially motivated among us should regularly be taking time to ourselves if we want to have fully developed personalities, and be capable of focus and creative thinking. There is even research to suggest that blocking off enough alone time is an important component of a well-functioning social life — that if we want to get the most out of the time we spend with people, we should make sure we’re spending enough of it away from them. Just as regular exercise and healthy eating make our minds and bodies work better, solitude experts say, so can being alone.

One ongoing Harvard study indicates that people form more lasting and accurate memories if they believe they’re experiencing something alone. Another indicates that a certain amount of solitude can make a person more capable of empathy towards others. And while no one would dispute that too much isolation early in life can be unhealthy, a certain amount of solitude has been shown to help teenagers improve their moods and earn good grades in school...

...In an age when no one is ever more than a text message or an e-mail away from other people, the distinction between “alone” and “together” has become hopelessly blurry, even as the potential benefits of true solitude are starting to become clearer...

...When we let our focus shift away from the people and things around us, we are better able to engage in what’s called meta-cognition, or the process of thinking critically and reflectively about our own thoughts...

...Teenagers, especially, whose personalities have not yet fully formed, have been shown to benefit from time spent apart from others, in part because it allows for a kind of introspection — and freedom from self-consciousness — that strengthens their sense of identity...

[According to Univ of Illinois Professor Reed Larson,] teenagers weren’t necessarily happier when they were alone; adolescence, after all, can be a particularly tough time to be separated from the group. But Larson found something interesting: On average, the kids in his sample felt better after they spent some time alone than they did before.

And lest we forget:

The leaders of the world’s great religions — Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses — all had crucial revelations during periods of solitude.

Six easy pieces for "Virtual Team Success"

It's out! Virtual Team Success from Darleen Derosa and Richard Lepsinger is good stuff, based on research, and written by people who've been thinking about this topic for a while. We liked it so much that we wrote the Foreword.

Great summary of the book in two blog posts on Tech Journal South. Introduction to the research and first of six lessons here; the other five lessons here.

And here's our Foreword:

 

When Darleen asked us to write the foreword to her book, we were immediately inclined to do so. With a Ph.D. in organizational psychology for which she wrote a dissertation on virtual teams and subsequently having conducted two substantial research studies on the topic as a management consultant, she has the bona fides to write authoritatively on the subject.

That Darleen and her co-author and business partner, Rick Lepsinger, have chosen to tackle the sore spot of virtual teams—why they fail—is testament to their expertise, energy, and insight.

A decade ago, Darleen’s earliest work in this field was a research study of how “naturally” virtual teams perform over time using different kinds of media. While the technology studied then seems primitive by today’s standards, her foresight in tackling this topic when few others were considering it is laudable. Technology, she concluded, plays a role but other factors in real work settings may prove equally or more important.

She continued her work in the putative “real world” as a management consultant, teaming up with Rick, and ultimately leading to this comprehensive examination of what trips up virtual teams and what leaders can do about it.

Here you will find numerous research-based “devices” for clearing the hurdles that virtual teams present. It’s not enough in a 24/7 global work environment to take the old face-to-face techniques and apply them when people are not co-located. Failed projects and missed deadlines in countless organizations indicate that we need new ways to work. The demands of contemporary work environments—distributed, asynchronous, multicultural, and without the benefit of hallway time—require us to think—and behave—differently.

The many frameworks, guidelines, checklists, and recommendations in this book will make life easier for the newest managers, those leading virtual teams. There’s no school for this yet but when the first is established, Virtual Success: A Practical Guide for Working and Leading from a Distance will certainly be the core curriculum.

 --Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps, authors of Virtual Teams, The Age of the Network, and many other books

Telecommuting goal to reduce carbon footprint in Hubei province

Remember my obsession with "green teams" and ideas generated by readers to use virtual meetings to clean up the carbon? Encouraging article in China Business News: "Telecommuting to solve Hubei’s carbon emissions problem." Check out the optimistic last paragraph about the impact of virtual meetings on carbon emissions. (My only nit is whether the virtual meeting carbon reduction is corrected for emissions of the IT infrastructure to support such meetings - a quibble, to be sure):

When the China Mobile Hubei Company recently called on other companies and the public sector to work together on a low-carbon smart city initiative, to turn Hubei province into a “low-carbon area” a dozen companies applauded the idea...

The National Development and Reform Commission selected Hubei, earlier this year, as one of the first group of bases in the country for low-carbon pilot tests.

It did not seem to be an easy job. The province is famous for its traditional concentration of heavy industries and scant regard for the environment, but, emerging telecom developments seem to paint a much more hopeful picture.

In fact, the telecommuting sector has the greatest potential for carbon emission reductions in China, and could save 340 million tons of CO2 emissions in 2020, Guo told the audience of environmental experts, local government officials and company representatives.

In the long run, he said, savings from virtual meetings will increase at a much greater rate – about 623 million tons of CO2 annually – by 2030, thereby cutting commercial aviation emissions by nearly 40 percent...

And then I said...

Manuela Zoninsein's "Keep it Personal: Technology certainly has its place when managing virtual teams, but it’s the relationships that truly count," in this month's PM Network, hits all the right notes about virtual working.

I did my interview via email; Zoninsein then picked quotes for the article. Thought you might enjoy seeing everything I said as this gives a bit of insight into how such pieces are constructed. For those new to being interviewed by the press, you'll get a view of how much you can say and how little actually makes it into print. This is not a complaint. I find it useful to do interviews for the simple reason that it helps me clarify my thinking. Here's my full response to the questions I received: 

Q: How do you define and then identify critical success factors while working with a remote team? How do you identify appropriate methods and metrics to evaluate success and results of a virtual organizational structure?

A: Teams need to think about four key areas when evaluating their success: Purpose—is it clear and does everyone define it in the same way; People—who’s involved and how clearly do they understand their roles and responsibilities; Links—how strong are the relationships among people and how well do they use the available technology; and Time—how aware is everyone of the obvious time differences when working across distance and cultures and how clear is everyone on where the work is in the project lifecycle. We’ve developed this model over 25 years of research into virtual and remote teams and have constructed a Virtual Team Assessment to measure individual and team performance.

Q: Are there technological tools you use that help with this process?

A: Research (54 teams in 26 companies in 15 sectors) that we conducted with two business school professors and which we published in Harvard Business Review, “Can Absence Make a Team Grow Stronger?,” indicates that successful virtual teams use two principal technologies: conference calls and shared workspaces. Email was regarded as a poor means of communication except for 1:1 communication. We anticipate video becoming a more useful tool as bandwidth issues improve but seeing people’s faces is probably less important than everyone having the same information to focus on during calls. Combining the two is a good solution but screen real estate is a real issue.

Q: Does integration of information systems pose a particular challenge?

A: Yes, it’s a huge challenge. After twenty years of “knowledge management,” organizations are still struggling to get the right information to the right people at the right time—and to find ways for people to seamlessly share what they have when others need it. One very important clue lies in teams using shared online workspaces that document their work as they do it rather than trying to capture information separately. That’s onerous and no one wants to take the time to do it.

Q: How are the following factors affected by remote working conditions:

• determine confidence levels amongst team members

A: Developing trust among team members is key from the beginning. Ongoing communication, shared small group activities, and pairing people with differing perspectives are a few ways that confidence develops quickly.

• identify schedule drivers

A: Understanding all elements connected with Time, as per above, is critical to the team achieving its objectives.

• determine contingency and risk response plns, and incorporate these changes into your projects

A: Likewise, thorough discussion of the team’s purpose and those elements that put it at risk are mandatory for team success.

Q: Are there technological tools that you have found help you resolve challenges amongst the aforementioned factors?

A: The principal technology “tool” is communication, in whatever form suits the team. Some teams are comfortable using IM on a regular basis; in other companies, it’s still banned. Others depend on some video while still others have not used it yet. The technology is not what’s important; it’s the depth of honest and ongoing communication that is.

Q: As per a KPMG survey of 252 organizations, technology is not the most critical factor. In fact, inadequate project management implementation constitutes 32% of project failures. Do you find this to be representative of what you’ve experienced in your own company and professional practices?

A: Our conclusion based on years of study is that success depends on 80% people factors and 20% technology. In our first edition of Virtual Teams, published in 1997, we said it was 90% people and 10% technology, but since then, technology has improved so much that we threw another 10% its way.

Q: Are there cases where team members have stepped up to the plate and taken on project or team leadership roles? Was that aided or hindered by working remotely? Were there technological tools which aided this process?

A: Shared, rotating leadership is key to these teams. Leadership shifts depending on the task at hand which means people also need to learn how to be better followers. Shared team sites that capture the People-Purpose-Links-Time elements make it much easier for people to move among roles.

Q: Have you ever worked with a coach, someone to oversee you as you manage different projects? How did that relationship evolve, if you based remotely? What tech tools did you use to enhance the relationship?

A: I’ve served as a coach in many cases, using the technologies mentioned above. Coaching requires continuous communication, which in the 1:1 relationship also benefits from use of email and person-to-person telephone calls (not group conference calls). Face-to-face is nice too but not mandatory.

Q: Do you feel you are conscious of the technological resources available to you? How do you keep up with innovations and developments in technological tools?

A: Yes. I read, talk with people, speak at conferences, and am constantly learning.

Q: Have you ever been in the need for synthesising different opinions of a group of disparately-located stakeholders in order to reach the best alternative for a decision making problem? What technological tools did you turn to?

A: Again, yes, and as per above. Technology helps but it’s the depth of honest communication that really matters.

Q: Have you felt an increasing tension between the role of the expert – you, the project manager – and the opinions of the masses, as in your staff unit? How do you balance the growing integration of “the masses” while moving projects forward in a timely, efficient, successful manner?

A: Talented project managers know how to help “the masses” own and grow their own expertise. The greatest attribute of a project manager is being able to celebrate the growth of the people on the team.

What motivates us

Stumbled upon, so to speak, this video from Dan Pink (Drive, A Whole New Mind), which in 10 minutes reminds us of what we know deep inside: People do their best work when they're doing something that they're really interested in.

Our friends at Atlassian have put this idea into practice, taking the old midnight hack into a whole day of condoned behavior. Once a week, people are free to work on something that really interests them. No real surprise in the results: bugs get fixed, new product ideas emerge, people are excited. And then they have a party. Money, Pink points out for those who haven't caught on yet, is hardly the only motivator.

Autonomy, mastery, and purpose are the big three, says Pink, which squares precisely with our findings on successful networks and virtual teams. Self-direction (everyone's a leader), competence (expertise, confidence), and shared vision ("Purpose is the glue; trust is the grease") are what make us want to work--and make us work better.

 

 

Foucault via John Hancock

Posting picture big to convey how it feels to stand by it

This jacket belonged John Hancock (as in, see sig), the first governor of Massachusetts. His home, the Old State House, is in the heart of old Boston, about a stone's throw from Fanueil Hall.

We had dinner there as a prelude to a conference** a few weeks ago. Before dinner, there were drinks and hors d's in the room where this jacket is englassed. It was noisy so people took refuge in the corners to talk. Soon we were in converation with an insurance industry lobbyist who, it turned out, had been up until 3 am with his twin boys, and whose family has had a lot of cancer. We exchanged many stories rapidly and when it was time to go into dinner, Justin commented on our talk: "Discourse produces meaning," not his words, he clarified, but those of French philosopher Foucault.

He amplified in a further note: "I think I apply it a little differently than Foucault, but my interpretation is that honest, empathetic discussion benefits us all.  Not only in increasing what we know about the world, but also in terms of developing understanding for what someone else is going through.  Something tells me that the world needs more, not less of this."

**Post on distinctions in virtual teams came from the interviews I did to prep for this conference.

Leading Virtual Teams - Harvard Business Pocket Mentor

Harvard Business Press publishes the Pocket Mentor series, all-you-need to know in under 100 small pages. We served as mentors for Leading Virtual Teams, which meant writing the intro and reading carefully for content, adding bits of material here and there. Since we didn't write it, I can praise it. Good, with all the fundamentals. Readable in an hour or so and excellent for stimulating conversation in a virtual team.