CHAPTER 2

Setting Up Your Virtual Team

Virtual teams are teams that “work together apart,” whose members may be scattered across the street, across the continent, or across the globe. Although members do not share the same location, they must still work collaboratively to meet common objectives, managing their roles and daily responsibilities in challenging circumstances. What keeps these individuals organized, communicative, and productive without the ongoing face-to-face connection that people who work in close proximity share? The answer is twofold: (1) Tools, guidelines, and processes are set up to enable connection, and (2) the manager acts as the main “connector,” keeping members who are beyond arm’s reach aligned to each other—in essence, bringing “together” people who are “apart.”

A human connection in a virtual world is the most important one of all. This connection is made possible through collaborative applications and new modes of 24/7 communication. Despite distance and time considerations, the potential for a broad, deep, and wide connection exists inside as well as outside your team: Businesses connect to customers, prospects, vendors, partners, and others. People connect with web tools. You connect with your brand. Your virtual team connects with other virtual teams. The message is this: Just connect!

Why has connection become so important to organizations? Over the last 100 years, strategic leadership initiatives have transitioned from focusing on development to transformation and, finally, to connection. During this period, leadership was about managing change, and the leader was the Agent of Change. Today, the role of the leader is one of linking resources and talent, the building blocks of business success, to achieve goals. In a virtual setting, an added dimension to achieving tangible goals is the logistical challenge of connecting people, who may never have met, across various locations. I call this concept the Agent of Connection. For more than a decade I’ve been advocating that our roles as leaders and managers have transitioned from managing change to creating and enabling this human connection in the virtual workplace.

How do you foster relationships with people you rarely see? This is probably your greatest challenge as a manager because it sets the tone for how your virtual team will operate, communicate, coordinate, and conduct business.

Importance of Setting Up Your Team

This entire chapter is devoted to setting up a team. My experience as a consultant to virtual teams has taught me that top talent, good intentions, and high expectations don’t guarantee success in the virtual space if this crucial step is missed. My clients often put great effort into selecting the most talented virtual team leaders and members, and providing technology to facilitate connectivity. They then expect high performance to materialize in due course. Where is the training or team development time that enables leaders and members to come up with an operational “roadmap,” set up norms, and establish expectations? Without these solid preparations it is all too easy to fail. I often get the “call of desperation” from managers looking to engage my services after their virtual team has been up and running for several months, because that’s when the team starts experiencing communication, trust, and conflict issues.

How do you create that connection among people who come from disparate cultures, have different communication styles, and can’t eyeball each other to establish a strong face-to-face connection? Your role as a virtual manager begins with taking that first step of setting up the team.

Putting the Wrong Foot Forward …

Here are some typical complaints and concerns I often hear from VT members and leaders about what is missing from their teams. Do these situations sound familiar?

“We don’t have a way of working together as a team because we are missing a sense of purpose that can drive us toward working cohesively.”

—VT MEMBER, MOBILE DEVICE MANUFACTURER

“I don’t know what my role is now that two members just moved out and it is all a moving target. Now motivation is decreasing and people are tired because they have not been on the same page from the start.”

—VT MEMBER, WIRELESS TELEPHONE COMPANY

“Our team was never set up [right]. We just reorganized several team members, so the work and emotional elements are tense and people want to figure out how to address that. Everyone has different expectations, and if everyone can voice concerns and managers address them, it might help clear the air.”

—GLOBAL TEAM MEMBER BASED IN INDIA, HIGH-TECH SERVICE PROVIDER

These comments are typical of many others I have heard, and they sound a cautionary note of what not to do. Now let’s see how you can start out on the right foot.

Putting the Right Foot Forward …

Think of setting up your team as if you were preparing for a long road trip. You’ll need to have a roadmap to guide you. To create this Virtual Roadmap, which I first introduced in Chapter 1, you need to:

1. Determine your team’s purpose, mission, and goals (otherwise known as your Team Destination).

2. Articulate an overriding structure for how the team will operate (what I call the Rules of the Road).

3. Develop a Team Code of Conduct.

4. Be prepared to realign your Team Setup, if necessary.

Team Destination

Just as Alice in Wonderland wasn’t sure what her true destination was, if you are not clear about your goals, you will never be sure when you get to the right “somewhere.” The destination is very important, and the secret to getting there lies in the planning. You can deploy competent people, tools, and processes as an effective leader, but always start with the destination in mind and then plan backward. With various tools you can measure activities and track deliverables along the way.

Clarify Your Team Destination

To get started, ask yourself the series of questions outlined here:

What Are You Charged with Accomplishing?

Develop products or services for a new market.

Work on a new business process or system.

Work with people across the organization to solve a problem or find more efficient ways of producing something.

Organize an event involving various groups.

Share experiences around key topics such as best practices, medical research, or business trends.

Take the group in a new direction.

Who Are the Sponsors, Stakeholders, and Interested Parties?

Who has a shared interest in making sure my virtual team is successful?

Is our sponsor strategically positioned in the organization?

How do we make sure there is strong support for our results?

Will our sponsor be available to promote the team’s activities, find resources, remove barriers, and provide advice?

What Will Success Look Like?

What is the “burning platform” that we, as a team, need to work on most?

What are the team’s purpose, mission, and goals?

What planning is necessary to create synergy?

What deadline are we working toward?

What resources are available for this journey?

As a leader, do I have the tools to make decisions?

Who Should Be Part of My Team?

Who are the best available people for my team?

What are the special requirements of working virtually?

Whom do I need to talk to before I bring team members on board?

What are good questions to ask when setting up the appropriate team?

Identify Purpose, Mission, and Goals

Newly set up or transitioning teams are charged with goals and expectations that should be clear to members as well as to your senior management. Some virtual teams are formed out of great necessity—to meet a deadline or fill a gap in production capacity, for example—and the vision is an afterthought at best. This haphazard organization can lead to misunderstandings and hold the team back from succeeding. (To address that situation, see the material, later in this chapter, on developing a Team Charter.)

My recommendation is to recruit the team you need to attain defined goals. Of course, if the team makeup is determined by management, then you need to quickly acquaint yourself with your team. In either situation, though, you must ask yourself, and others, what objectives the team or project must meet. Do we have what it takes to get the team to buy into those objectives, and what actions must be taken to do it? For example, if I determine that the team can do quality control (QC) on a certain part for a new gadget in X days, others may not share my optimism and therefore will be reluctant to agree to this goal because the odds of completing the QC process in that time frame are low. However, if I can convince the team that the new type of metal used in the manufacturing process improves resilience and tests well, then I will have a greater chance of convincing others to buy into my vision.

As a virtual manager, you are responsible for motivating the team and keeping the shared vision in the team’s sight. You might ask for feedback on the stated goal(s) so that everyone can buy in and gain greater clarity of the vision, even if team members have no say in initial goal setting. This is particularly important with virtual teams because people can disengage or fly under the radar. So, whether in person or through a video/phone conference or other means, bring the team together and help members feel as if they are stakeholders, with something to gain or lose.

Having in place certain key elements leads to results: You need a clear project plan, the discipline to fulfill that plan, a clear division of responsibilities, across-the-board accountability, and continual internal checks. You want to set yourself and your team up for success from the beginning, so destination is paramount. Knowing that what was initially promised was delivered in the end, with feedback and approval throughout, is the main key to success.

Determine Project Sponsors and Generate Support

How do you ensure that your team has what it takes to achieve results? As the leader you need to keep things on track, vigilantly monitoring the actions of team members. Many times virtual teams are hastily formed when a senior executive says, “Let’s get a team going to resolve problem X.” The team starts out with a clear mandate, but if a strong sponsor doesn’t continue to champion the team’s work, people have a hard time buying into the mission. Members can be pushed into joining the team, but that alone will not engage them into fulfilling its mission, either. Ideally the team has a powerful sponsor who vocally and consistently supports its goals and is able to elicit members’ energy, skills, and efforts along the way.

Sponsors are champions who can link the team to a management power structure across locations and organizational boundaries. They can help virtual team leaders break through barriers to resolve issues, obtain necessary resources, and relate the team’s work to the rest of the business. Some sponsors are strategically positioned within the organization and therefore do not follow the day-to-day activities of the team. Others may be lower in the hierarchy and work more closely with team leaders and the teams in their chain of command. As you run into roadblocks, your sponsor can help resolve them. However, my consulting experience has shown me that virtual team leaders who continually turn to a powerful sponsor to smooth over difficulties will diminish their own power. Accountability is a joint responsibility.

Consider Who Will Come Along for the Ride

In an ideal world you could pick the best people for your team from the labor pool. In reality, however, you usually have to go with available talent. Also, you may inherit a team or arrive during a transition when the team is ready for realignment after gaining or losing team members.

Even though your choices may be limited, you may still have a say in who joins the team. Therefore, if possible, talk with potential team members about their expertise. Your main goal in recruiting is to balance a range of experience, knowledge, and skills, including softer skills, such as ease of communication and ability to work well across cultures. Whether you have the option of picking the people for your team, your biggest test as a manager is how well you blend people of different skills, experiences, and cultures into an effective unit.

Qualities to Look for When Selecting Virtual Team Members

There are mixed opinions as to whether it is better if a team member is an introvert who prefers to work alone or an extrovert who is more vocal. Most managers I’ve interviewed prefer team members who enjoy initiating input and who seek to communicate and reach out to others, which is why I like to list an extroverted personality as a desirable quality to look for. With that in mind, here are the qualities you want in your team members:

Self-starter

Adaptable and resilient in the face of change

Comfortable with autonomy

Able to deliver on time

Can work on technical issues and complex problems

Gets satisfaction from being involved with team projects

Has the interpersonal skills to build relationships with others

Able to open up to strangers and share knowledge and ideas easily

Good self-management and time management skills, as well as the internal drive to stay on target

Extrovert

Team Charter: Setting the Course for How You Will Operate

Developing your Team Charter may be the most important activity in the team destination phase. The charter summarizes direction and purpose. I highly recommend getting the team together in person early in its life cycle (if possible) to develop this charter and set the course for how the team will operate. That way you reduce the number of issues that might arise later due to conflicts, misunderstandings, trust breakdowns, shifting priorities, and the loss of resources. If the project is complicated, a face-to-face session is especially recommended, although restricted travel budgets may make this option unrealistic. Under these circumstances, use alternative means to conduct a meeting via videoconference, a conference call, or audio with text and graphics. If the Team Charter has been predetermined, as is sometimes the case, the team then needs to focus on getting buy-in and putting the charter into operation.

Here are the building blocks of creating a Team Charter:

Identify a clear vision and have the team agree on its mission and goals.

Have goals and plans written out clearly for each team member.

Create an operational project plan to support the team’s purpose.

Clarify the standard operating principles of the team.

Let teammates know their roles and responsibilities.

Identify resources (what you have, what you need, what you will get).

Discuss how to identify milestones to acknowledge progress along the way.

Agree to check in periodically and align the Team Charter as direction changes.

Outline any channels of support (organizational, technological).

Clarify sponsorship.

Team Rules of the Road

Establishing the Rules of the Road for how you and your team plan on driving along the virtual highway is an important part of the setup process because all team members need to work within the same guidelines or things fall off track. Just as on a road trip you can drive along a highway or use local roads, team members need to create rules that apply across the team while being mindful that certain guidelines may be unique to specific locations.

During this phase, team members decide on ground rules for how they will operate and how they will hold each other accountable for various work processes. They create procedures to meet deadlines and quality standards. Guidelines related to which communication modes to use in various situations are discussed as well (e.g., phone calls for emergencies; e-mails to communicate information; instant messaging to respond instantaneously). Sharing these guidelines saves time and eliminates a guessing game that is all too common in the virtual environment. Be clear when designing team processes because misunderstandings can occur quite easily. Consider appropriate procedures for projects with tight deadlines as well as for those where there are fewer time and budget constraints.

Conduct a Team Orientation Session

I recommend having a nonvirtual (face-to-face) kickoff or initial team orientation session. Even if members don’t meet again after the Team Setup process, teams that meet in person at least once are better off in the long run. The purpose of this orientation session is to learn about each other’s work preferences, establish norms for communication, and explore ways team members will make decisions and hold other team members accountable. Some welcoming activities that are fun and boost the team spirit are highly encouraged, especially since they jump-start the initial bond that can grow into a stronger web of team relationships later on.

Virtual teams can be set up within a large organization or a smaller outfit, such as a technology, consulting, or service provider firm. In all cases, though, they can benefit from an initial meeting in which members meet face-to-face to set the tone and launch appropriate procedures. Here are a few ways that various companies, large and small, encourage face-to-face time when building a virtual team:

“It is most important to meet in person, set expectations, and establish ownership. Once you do that, there is credibility with people that helps make the virtual team successful.”

—MEMBER, LITIGATION CONSULTING FIRM

“I found that when the team comes together for a kickoff, it helps to build credibility and trust. We brought the whole team together for one day. The rest of the time members worked in smaller groups and traveled to meet with clients. [But, because of that initial meeting], we have a better connection when people go back to their home locations. We know what people look like, and we can continue to develop strong ties to our members.”

—MANAGER, PROFESSIONAL SPORTS LEAGUE

“My entire practice is based on forming SWAT teams of senior-level freelancers. I never work alone. I coordinate virtual teams, like on the original Mission Impossible shows, and pick out [the people] I need based on skills, languages, knowledge, and abilities. I make sure that I interview and know the key players, who they worked for previously, and conduct reference checks. We hardly meet in person since everyone is spread out, but those of us who are local get together once a month, for happy hour, to connect.”

—OWNER, PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRM

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CASE STUDY

Leading a Virtual Team Orientation and Creating Rules of the Road

One client, a director at an optical imaging company, contacted me when she was charged with upgrading several product models simultaneously. Let’s call her Tamara. With little ramp-up time and a limited travel budget, she needed to create one cohesive team to meet tight deadlines within cost constraints. Here is Tamara’s situation and what she did to set up a high-functioning team.

Situation

Members of three different virtual teams were brought together to work on Tamara’s project. Each team was located on a different continent—Asia, Europe, and North America—with each team reporting to an on-site boss. When Tamara assumed leadership of this project, team members were brought in based on specific functional expertise and experience with complex assignments. Tamara needed these teams to work closely with each other to ensure a seamless research and development process; engage with a web of global suppliers and distributors; and handle many issues related to marketing and sales, manufacturing, QC, strategy, and general operations.

Team Destination Process

We created a plan where Tamara first held a conference call with each location and then followed up with a conference call with the entire team (all three regions). It was a logistical challenge to set up calls with the team operating across many time zones and required making decisions about who would wake up at 4:00 a.m. and who would stay awake until midnight. Calls were set up in advance with a promise to rotate them in the future so that no one region would bear the brunt of a punishing schedule. During initial calls Tamara communicated, clearly and simply, 1) the mission—which was to upgrade several models by X date, 2) how it impacted the bottom line (the business needs to introduce new models to stay competitive), and 3) why it was time-sensitive (the top two competitors had already made inroads in the market with offerings).

Tamara understood that each member needed to feel important to this project. As she explained, “I made them feel special. They all looked at the same spreadsheet showing each member’s job, and deadlines for major deliverables, with plenty of room left for individual comments.” Since she was stationed in North America, she added that “I told everyone I planned to visit the other two sites within three months and that I would spend time with senior management at each location to give everyone some visibility.”

Tamara then set up meetings with directors and vice presidents to talk about the new models. She patiently created opportunities to build relationships with potential sponsors across the organization. As a result, many decision makers outside her area learned about the team’s efforts and innovative solutions to complex problems. “I knew that in our company we played ‘musical chairs’ with assignments,” she said. “Any one member could end up on another team; it was just a matter of when. Keeping open relations helps everyone in the long run, because when you know someone’s reputation, it’s like shorthand when you finally have to work directly with that person.”

Team Charter

Tamara held brief phone conversations with every team member before planning a face-to-face session. From information gathered she created a “straw dog” document that included the Team Charter, operating principles and procedures, and a deliverables time line. To build consensus, this document was shared with every team member before the in-person meetings. Tamara didn’t use a majority-rules approach to get members to sign off, because some folks had issues with certain areas and she was determined to reach a resolution that satisfied everyone. She made it clear that everyone would succeed or fail together, and her actions convinced teammates that the purpose was worth participating in. Tamara told me, “We were successful because team members believed in the vision and wanted to follow it.”

Team Rules of the Road

Tamara and the team planned a three-day on-site meeting to establish team norms and operating guidelines and to lay out agreed-upon major deadlines. Over this three-day period, many subgroup meetings took place. For example, engineers from Singapore, the United States, and Germany worked together to figure out how they would communicate going forward, and procurement specialists set up QC standards and narrowed down an approved supplier list. Other subgroups explored the Team Charter that Tamara created from her phone meetings. Because of the size of this group, teams were divided into three groups that explored various aspects of their Rules of the Road. Participants in each group shared their thoughts and added/edited/changed rules, as necessary, to create consistency and consensus. Each group presented its findings at an all-hands meeting before the teams returned to their respective locations.

During this meeting, the team explored questions related to its information needs, organizational alignment, and roles and responsibilities, as follows:

Team Information

• What is this team’s purpose or mission and goals (reiterated)?

• What is the time frame for meeting these goals?

• Where can the team go for the information it needs?

• What resources are available to the team?

Organizational Alignment

• What strategic goals of the organization does this team support?

• What are the expectations around what this team needs to accomplish?

• How is the team going to make decisions?

• How is team success measured?

Roles, Responsibilities, and Expectations

• What are the different roles and responsibilities on this team?

• What do you expect from your teammates?

• What can your teammates expect from you?

• Is there a gap in expectations and reality?

• What can you do to enhance team effectiveness?

Team Operating Principles

The guidelines and agreements that came out of their meeting are as follows:

• We agree to follow the Team Charter and believe it represents what we are about. It will be honored, and revisited if alignment is needed.

• We agree to disagree respectfully and resolve problems (early) as they occur.

• We will call each other when things are not what they should be; in this way, we set up permission to be honest with each other.

• We are engaged and committed to the project. If anyone feels disengaged at any time, raise the issue and let’s talk it through.

• We will be conscious about the version of English used (British English, American English, or Indian English).

• We will share language around team norms.

• We will create a shared “e-room” for documents to be accessed, as needed, by all stakeholders.

• We will rotate time zones and availability on evenings and weekends for necessary calls/updates.

• We agree to communicate regularly according to this protocol: weekly meetings via WebEx to update each other on progress and key deadlines; daily meetings with subteams on their related work; phone call for emergencies—otherwise use e-mail but expect a response within twenty-four hours; instant-message and text for a quick one-line response.

• If budget permits, team members will meet annually at a rotating location. At the very least, department heads from each location will meet for an annual update.

As Tamara told me, “By the time we left the meeting, everyone felt exhausted but exhilarated. Every major deadline, operational procedure, and potential catastrophe was looked at and how we would address it. It wasn’t easy to find a common way to look at the various components of updating our models, but we had to do this, and everyone knew it, and we found a way for everyone to make decisions. Everyone had input, and we also made sure to include some bonding time as well. I asked people to bring a picture of themselves, with or without their family, or an action shot doing a favorite activity. Someone actually brought a picture of himself holding a bowling trophy. By the end of the three days, everyone felt they were a part of the team. We knew what we had to do and, as much as possible, we came up with very concrete ways to make sure that we could count on each other to do what was necessary.”

Not every virtual manager deals with a situation as complex as Tamara’s, but anyone who bears responsibility for deliverables in the virtual environment can take cues from her situation and plan ways to make the team work effectively.

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CASE STUDY

Setting Up a Virtual Team … Virtually!

For many virtual teams, it is not always possible to conduct face-to-face meetings. In such cases, I recommend having a videoconference or finding some mechanism so that people can interact “virtually in person” to develop shared guidelines, norms, and operating principles. Of course, scheduling and coordinating specific issues and ensuring appropriate technology across all locations requires additional planning.

Jerome, an aerospace conglomerate manager, was given the difficult task of setting up a virtual team during a merger. His core team consisted of thirteen direct reports; half of them were based across the United States, while the rest were located in regional offices in Singapore, Germany, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. These individuals managed an additional pool of 150 virtual members who were widely dispersed throughout fifty countries. Not one of Jerome’s direct reports worked out of the same time zone, and, to further complicate matters, no budget existed to hold a face-to-face team kickoff to establish the cohesion.

Jerome consulted with me to plan how to set up his team under such challenging circumstances. We determined that it was essential to ask his direct reports to share their thoughts about the merger in several open-ended conversations. Phase two would involve conversations with the greater team. He scheduled three phone calls with each individual, listening to their concerns, hopes, and suggestions. Jerome told me, “I listened until I was tired. I did not hang up on any call because I wanted all my direct reports to feel heard. It took me over two weeks to complete all thirty-nine calls. Then, after I digested everything they had to say, I planned a phone conference with all fourteen of us. We had a series of discussions.”

Jerome discovered that the merger had generated many intense feelings. Direct reports were very protective of both their own culture and the local company culture. “There were many emotions about the merger,” he said. “Some people took a back seat while others were very vocal about how they felt. I had to draw some people out. It took a lot longer than a face-to-face experience, but after three weeks of intense conversations, we started to move faster; we started to become a team.”

During this three-week period the core team created a Team Charter and Rules of the Road and addressed any issue that was brought to the table by the local teams. “At each phone call, I fed my team the questions that guided the process, and that was the framework for our Rules of the Road,” Jerome explained. “I made sure that all my direct reports pushed these questions down to their own teams. We used trial and error to draw people out because I didn’t know at first what would work with each direct report, and they also didn’t know how their people would react. We used some video-conferencing, especially with Asia, because I wanted to establish a real connection with people I had less familiarity with.”

This virtual team was successfully set up without any face-to-face contact among the members. “I still haven’t met some of the people on the local teams,” Jerome told me, “but I travel to Singapore, Mexico, Germany, and the U.K. every year, so I finally met all of my direct reports, but since they don’t travel, they’ve never met each other.”

Here was a virtual manager with energy, empathy, and common sense. He was charged with setting up a rather large team that handled complex projects across many locations, cultures, and time zones. By organizing his thoughts, planning carefully, and exhibiting an optimistic attitude, he accomplished what he set out to do. “I’ve never had an experience like that one since,” Jerome told me. When asked what the toughest part of this situation was, he didn’t hesitate before responding, “We had so many people involved; too many time zones; things became really complicated because there was so much coordination necessary. But even though things took longer, we got the job done, and we met the objectives the head office gave us during the merger.”

If you are the leader of a dispersed team that will rarely or never have the chance to meet in person, you must be the connector and find a way to travel to your team members’ work locations periodically. Your whole team may not be able to meet, but at least team members will feel personally connected to their leader.

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Steps for Existing Virtual Teams

What if your team already exists? Teams are dynamic entities, and new members often join or depart from them. How an existing team handles this transition differs from a newly formed team.

Managers of existing teams may choose to undertake some of the activities described in this chapter. Many of these activities are also appropriate when “Refreshing” the team, redirecting the work, and addressing problems. When a team’s makeup changes and it is necessary to indoctrinate new team members, then revisiting these elements becomes essential. In addition, managers can conduct a lessons-learned session to explore ways to improve the team’s process after an intensive project is completed or once a key product/process is delivered. The session presents a good opportunity to reestablish team operating principles, Rules of the Road, and communication plans. If face-to-face gatherings are possible, you can use such gatherings to review team effectiveness and reorient current and new team members as needed.

The following is a list of activities to consider when orienting new members to an existing virtual team:

Prepare the New Team Member. Set up either a face-to-face or telephone meeting with the new team member to cover these items:

Provide an overview of the team’s vision, mission, purpose, and charter (a team destination document).

Discuss team goals, schedules, and current deliverables.

Review team members’ roles and responsibilities.

Confirm each new team member’s role, deliverables, expectations, and accountabilities.

Discuss current plans, status meetings, and updates.

Provide access protocols for telephone, e-mail, video setup, etc.

Outline what characteristics are important for the team member to demonstrate to be successful.

Provide an overview of team norms and codes. Give new team members a one-page overview of the team’s process, code, and approach. (A common practice is to design this document and maintain it on a shared drive to help integrate new members faster.)

Review technology requirements and any software setup issues.

Review how the team member will get introduced during the first meeting.

Get Your Team Ready. Preparing the current team for the new team member is equally important. Introduce new team members to other members either via an initial team call or more informally. Also:

Involve current team members in the onboarding process. Allow them to get to know each other before the newest member joins the team.

Make the first day special.

On the first day, start the new team member at an office where other team members work, if possible. This helps new recruits make connections that will grow into valuable relationships.

Pair Up for Success. Assign new team members a “buddy” to help orient them to the organizational culture. Provide information about team operating principles, project history, organizational policies, any specific Team Codes involving use of meetings and audio/video-conference calls, and where to go for answers to questions about specific issues.

Introduce new team members to their respective buddies and make sure to clarify that this is their “go to” person while they are learning about the ins and outs of your organization.

Review and answer any questions relating to preparing the team member for success.

Discuss the organizational history surrounding the project, team, and business environment.

Integrating new team members is a constant reality for most virtual team projects, and teams that have organized and established techniques are more successful at helping new members ramp up faster and integrate more smoothly. Your role as a manager is to orchestrate this transition and make it as transparent as possible for everyone. A good idea is to have an integration plan that maps out the first six weeks of new team members’ employment, including who they will meet, aspects of the business they will be exposed to, and how they will report back to you. You’ll want to include daily check-ins with new team members during the first week and at least weekly check-ins the following weeks.

Taking steps to lay the groundwork for a successful team member integration and onboarding will pay off for you in the long run.

Develop Team Spirit

One project manager in a technology firm told me, “I don’t think it’s necessary to see people in person to get work done, but socially it’s a nice thing to have. The main problem is that the physical distance, combined with lack of face-to-face [contact], can become lonely.” I detected some wistfulness in his tone, and a preference for some nonvirtual interaction. Later in our conversation he confessed that he would like to sit down for a cup of coffee with someone, go to lunch with colleagues, or stop by their desk for a brief chat. Even though he enjoyed working virtually, he missed team spirit.

As you establish your team’s Rules of the Road and agree on team norms and operating principles, make sure to generate excitement and create conditions that motivate team members. Engaging in fun activities is a way to generate a common bond, but maintaining this bond in the virtual world takes some work. The trick is to uncover commonalities among members.

My clients have shared with me how successful this exercise is in establishing helpful rapport between team members. Think how much easier it is to establish a bond with your coworker in Moscow when you can discuss a mystery brilliantly solved by Adrian Monk or laugh at Seinfeld’s adventures with his friends.

Team Code of Conduct

The Team Code of Conduct is about how the team communicates. Team members decide, for example, on how they will conduct phone calls, handle e-mail, and deal with a variety of issues that naturally arise in the average workday. There is a code for acceptable and unacceptable behaviors that guide every aspect of team life. Virtual teams may require more detailed Team Codes than on-site teams because they specify behaviors about the intangibles inherent in virtual situations that are less important when you can walk over to someone’s desk. Examples include when to use e-mail, phone, texting, certain team shorthands, and/or three-letter acronyms (TLAs).

Issues the Team Code Should Explore

How often will we communicate?

What issues require what kind of communication?

Who will be notified? When? How?

When is it appropriate to escalate issues?

When should we use telephone, video, audio, and other technology tools?

What is the etiquette and protocol for participation? When someone is on speakerphone, when should the mute button be used to give people from other cultures additional time to gather their thoughts?

How does the team keep everyone informed? Who takes and distributes minutes, and do roles rotate?

When will the agenda be distributed (X hours or days prior to the meeting)?

Who will record meeting minutes (or action items or agreements)? Where will they be posted (on the team website or distributed another way)? When will they be posted (hours/days after the meeting)?

Which meetings are mandatory and which ones are not? Can a certain number or percentage of team members attend, or are meetings rescheduled if there will be absences?

How does the team handle different time zones?

What are acceptable time frames for online communications, returning e-mails and telephone calls, and rescheduling?

What are the guidelines for using (or not using) e-mail? What are the guidelines for structuring messages (e.g., what kind of messages to flag and what to write in the subject line)?

What is the appropriate time to respond to requests?

What technology may be used by team members to stay connected?

How do we handle time lags and delays of asynchronous messages that constrain communication and might make it difficult to form group consensus or reach conclusions?

What procedures exist for scheduling meetings using group-scheduling software?

How do we handle trust breakdowns and communication gaps and stay focused?

How will the work be reviewed? Who reviews the work? Who approves the work?

How do we hold each other accountable for using our Team Code guidelines so that communication is reinforced and our communication mechanisms/methods don’t break down?

These questions should be explored (ideally) during the in-person Team Setup meetings, and then the answers need to be posted publicly for current and future team members to understand operating norms. You can decide how you want to publicize these details and hold people accountable. Some teams choose to communicate more informally while others create a Team Code of Conduct that they post on their shared drive or shared workspace and refer to it when needed. We will examine in more depth actual Team Code samples and suggestions in Chapter 3, “Context Communication.”

Realignment: Make Adjustments as Necessary

If you have adequately addressed the issues noted in this chapter to set up your team, you have an excellent chance of leading a high-performing virtual team. However, Team Setup is not an exact science, and it is possible that you may need to rethink certain rules that were established when you began the process. Just as you would take a new car out for a test-drive, your team may try out certain procedures and determine that certain adjustments are required. You might have to realign work schedules in different locations and adjust how often colleagues communicate with each other.

Here is where the real work sets in, when the team works on a daily basis within the parameters that you (and your team members) have worked so diligently to set up.

In a Nutshell: Mastering the Four Elements of Successful Virtual Teams

My consulting work over the years with various global and local teams has shown me that four themes recur in organizations that have high-performing virtual teams, regardless of sizes and types. If your teams are to be successful, these four elements must be continually mastered throughout the team’s life cycle. The next four chapters deal in depth with these four elements or themes, as briefly introduced here (with the relevant chapter in parentheses):

1. Ensuring effective communication (Chapter 3)

2. Creating accountability/trust (Chapter 4)

3. Managing conflict and handling misunderstandings (Chapter 5)

4. Developing work systems to get deliverables out the door (Chapter 6)

Often, virtual managers like you work tirelessly to engage members and drive business results without sufficiently addressing these core elements during the Team Setup phase. Frustration can set in when the team functions less than optimally and you question what’s not working. Many managers fail to take the time up front to deal with these four critical elements. However, their importance can’t be overemphasized. If you don’t address them early, you may end up dealing with them later, when energy and time will be spent fixing problems and addressing performance issues that have festered and grown in severity.