A Distressing Virtual Reality: 40 Percent of Dispersed Teams Underperform

Virtual teams have a very real impact. According to a new study by RW3, 80 percent of corporate managers work virtually at least part of the time, yet 40 percent of members on virtual teams believe their groups are underperforming.

Published

Jun 21, 2010

Virtual teams have a very real impact. According to a new study by RW3, 80 percent of corporate managers work virtually at least part of the time, yet 40 percent of members on virtual teams believe their groups are underperforming.

Site Staff

They may be simulated in nature, but virtual teams have a very real impact. After all, according to a new study by intercultural training consultancy RW3, 80 percent of corporate managers work virtually at least part of the time and 63 percent are members of global virtual teams. However, a staggering 40 percent of members on virtual teams believe their groups are underperforming, according to the survey. “There’s nowhere else in business where 60 percent success is considered successful,” said Charlene Solomon, executive vice president for RW3. “That statistic, alongside the fact that virtual teams are just growing exponentially, is just really profound.” Respondents cited several main hurdles that were inhibiting top performance, one of which was not having the time and face-to-face contact necessary to develop relationships and build trust. “Half of these teams never meet in person,” said Michael Schell, CEO for RW3. “They don’t get time to create any kind of rapport, which is very important when you’re working across cultures.” For example, consider a global virtual team consisting of Americans, Europeans and Indians. Each country has its own culturally ingrained rule book for making decisions — such as “by consensus only” vs. “executive rule” — as well as ways in which meetings are conducted. “For example, the Indians [may desire] to have harmony or try to put the best face forward, [but] the team members on the American side may say, ‘They’re not telling us the truth,’” Schell said. “When you think about what that does to a team and the ability to work together, you can see where the long-term implications are.” Along those lines, 94 percent of respondents said the greatest issue they face when working on virtual teams is the inability to read nonverbal cues. “There are a lot of misunderstandings as a result, and frustration and lack of productivity,” Solomon said. It’s also possible that to some extent, virtual teams suffer simply by nature of being virtual — meaning that people take them less seriously or think of them as more informal from the outset. “I think that people underestimate the cultural challenge of a virtual team,” Schell said. “If I’m going to take a trip to India, I’m going to get prepared to be in tune. [But] when I get somebody on the phone who’s using the same technology as I am, who’s using the same software as I am, [and] we’re looking at the same document, I tend to be more casual about it. Because technology has made it so easy, we don’t realize that we’re still dealing significantly across cultures.” Further, it’s easier for participants on a call or Web meeting to attempt to multitask, which can result in less productivity. Thankfully, there are several steps learning leaders can take to help virtual teams work together more effectively. “Part one is teams need to recognize that culture and style preferences will have an impact on the way their team behaves. People will know that philosophically, but they need to go through a cognitive recognition,” Schell said. “Step two is to learn how culture does that. There [should be] a discussion of how culture can impact team behavior, then there’s a learning process of how we do it and discussing how you do it. Step three is to define the challenges that your team then faces, because now you’ve given people a safe environment in which to discuss that. The key is to get a uniform, agreed-upon team operating structure — a uniform, acceptable rule book for behavior.” Solomon added that virtual teams also should have an opportunity to meet regularly. One solution that RW3 has implemented internally is to conduct brief, virtual water-cooler meetings. “We do them twice a week. [There is] a very hard start time and end time, and the rule is you don’t have to come — it’s like a water cooler where you’re just kind of going to chat or [share] information,” Solomon said. “[But] if you come, you have to come on time and it always ends on time.” Another quick tip to get around any language barriers is to assign one person to take notes during each conversation or conference call and disseminate the resulting document via e-mail. Finally, learning leaders should consider conducting virtual training sessions on these issues as well, Schell said. “It puts the learning lessons about virtual teams in the virtual setting. You could have a great facilitated training that won’t quite replicate the virtual environment. It’s really worthwhile,” he said.