Acknowledgments

Connection! That’s what it’s all about.

All my life I’ve been a student of people—how they collaborate and develop lasting relationships. My work has revolved around facilitating connections to build strong teams, and for many years these sessions occurred in face-to-face environments. With technology and globalization transforming the workplace, physical presence is not always possible, which brings up an interesting question. In virtual situations, how can you strengthen the human connection? Physical presence by itself is one factor in a relationship, but feeling connected is the key factor. I began to wonder how to sustain connection despite time and space constraints, and set out to explore virtual teams.

This book was written as a practical, non-theoretical guide to manage virtual teams. However, it is deeply rooted in management theory and over 20 years of observation and practice in the field. I was fortunate that experienced authors, such as Geoff Bellman, Bob Lee, Deb Himsel, and Shoya Zichy gave me helpful writing advice. I learned from practitioners, Dick Beckhard, Warner Burke, Tom Barbieri, and from great colleagues at Accenture, Price Waterhouse Coopers, and JP Morgan.

The greatest thank you goes to Susan Meltzer for being my true friend, confidant and writing partner. You truly deserve a medal for staying by my side throughout the entire experience. I couldn’t have written this book without your guidance, editing comments, and reality checks. Your pointed remarks, late night jokes, and practical suggestions encouraged me to stay focused on the end goal.

In writing this book I have been supported by my great AIM Strategies^® team. Jenna Thornton managed the AIM operation and kept me on track to meet my deadlines. A dedicated group of interns, consultants and peers helped in the research, data crunching and analysis, and coordination of many details. A heartfelt thanks to: Emily Linder; Galit Ronen; Michiko Sato; Tenzin Gonsar; Ken Reid, Yuko Takahashi, Raphael Binet; Pooja Jhaveri; Kira Lewis; Perin Colah; and Catherine Montcastle, and Simranjit Mallhim, among others.

Also, the editing team at AMACOM who believed in this book from the beginning and have helped shape the manuscript. Thanks to Editors: Christina Parisi, Barry Richardson, Karen Brogno and particular thanks to Jim Bessent who oversaw the manuscript through the production process.

Many people gave their time, their expertise and their suggestions. The utmost thanks go to the 150+ virtual managers, dispersed team members and global leaders who contributed. I also want to thank clients who gave me access to their world to gain a close up perspective on the topics that follow in these pages. Their experiences come alive through the cases, stories and learnings that are so vital to this book.

Lastly, the most important acknowledgement goes to the people closest to me, my family. I am lucky to have a supportive family who helped me juggle so many responsibilities during this project—running a consulting practice, teaching a graduate course at night and most importantly having my second daughter. Truly overwhelming at times! Thank you to my husband Ted who kept our family going and stood by me every day, supporting me during my many sleepless nights writing, writing, writing. My mother, Tamara, for watching over my girls. Most of all, my daughters Maya and Ella challenge me to be better each day and teach me that the upcoming “Keyboard” generation is catching onto things fast.

—Yael Sara Zofi