Join the Friends of Point Lookout Get the E-Book!	Archive: By Topic   By Date Sign Up for A Tip A Day!
Create a perpetual bookmark to the current issue
@ Follow @RickBrenner	Random Article

Archive of Past Issues

Virtual and Global Teams

Here are links to the previous issues of Point Lookout that touch on Virtual and Global Teams. Bookmark this page. Or browse this archive by date. Subscribe now.

Coming May 29: Managing Hindsight Bias Risk

Performance appraisal practices and project retrospectives both rely on evaluating performance after outcomes are known. Unfortunately, a well-known bias — hindsight bias — can limit the effectiveness of many organizational processes, including both performance appraisal and project retrospectives. Available here and by RSS on May 29.

And on June 5: Pariah Professions: Part I

In some organizations entire professions are held in low regard. Their members become pariahs to some people in the rest of the organization. When these conditions prevail, organizational performance suffers. Available here and by RSS on June 5.

Other topics:

• Conflict Management
• Emotions at Work
• Ethics at Work
• Workplace Politics
• Organizational Change
• Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness
• Project Management
• Rhetorical Fallacies
• Effective Meetings
• Effective Communication at Work
• Writing and Managing Email
• Managing Your Boss
• Problem Solving and Creativity
• Critical Thinking
• Virtual and Global Teams
• Devious Political Tactics

April 17, 2013

Toxic Conflict in Virtual Teams: Virtuality

In virtual teams, toxic conflict sometimes seems to erupt spontaneously. People who function effectively in co-located teams can find themselves repeatedly embroiled in conflicts that seem to lack specific causes. What triggers toxic conflict in virtual teams?

April 10, 2013

Toxic Conflict in Virtual Teams: Minimizing Authority

Toxic conflict in virtual teams is especially difficult to address, because we bring to it assumptions about causes and remedies that we've acquired in our experience in co-located teams. In this Part II of our exploration we examine how minimizing authority tends to convert ordinary creative conflict into a toxic form.

April 3, 2013

Toxic Conflict in Virtual Teams: Dissociative Anonymity

Toxic conflict in teams disrupts relationships and interferes with (or prevents) accomplishment of the team's goals. It's difficult enough to manage toxic conflict in co-located teams, but in virtual teams, dissociative anonymity causes toxic conflict to be both more easily triggered and more difficult to resolve.

June 2, 2010

Communication Traps for Virtual Teams: Part II

Communication can be problematic for any team, especially under pressure. But virtual teams face challenges that are less common in face-to-face teams. Here's Part II of a little catalog with some recommendations.

May 26, 2010

Communication Traps for Virtual Teams: Part I

Virtual teams encounter difficulties that rarely confront face-to-face teams. What special challenges do they face, and what can we do about them?

August 12, 2009

Long-Loop Conversations: Anticipation

In virtual or global teams, conversations are sources of risk to the collaboration. Because the closed-loop response time for exchanges can be a day or more, long-loop conversations generate misunderstanding, toxic conflict, errors, delays, and rework. One strategy for controlling these phenomena is anticipation.

June 24, 2009

Long-Loop Conversations: Clearing the Fog

In virtual or global teams, conversations can be long, painful affairs. Settling issues and clearing misunderstandings can take weeks instead of days, or days instead of hours. Here are some techniques that ease the way to mutual agreement and understanding.

June 10, 2009

Long-Loop Conversations: Asking Questions

In virtual or global teams, where remote collaboration is the rule, waiting for the answer to a simple question can take a day or more. And when the response finally arrives, it's often just another question. Here are some suggestions for framing questions that are clear enough to get answers quickly.

November 5, 2008

On Virtual Relationships

Whether or not you work as part of a virtual team, you probably work with some people you rarely meet face-to-face. And there are some people you've never met, and probably never will. What does it take to maintain good working relationships with people you rarely meet?

June 11, 2008

Inbox Bloat Recovery

If you have more than ten days of messages in your inbox, you probably consider it to be bloated. If it's been bloated for a while, you probably want to clear it, but you've tried many times, and you can't. Here are some effective suggestions.

June 4, 2008

Virtual Presentations

Modern team efforts almost certainly involve teleconferences, and many teleconferences include presentations, often augmented with video or graphics. Delivering these virtual presentations effectively requires an approach tailored to the medium.

April 9, 2008

Remote Facilitation in Synchronous Contexts: Part III

Facilitators of synchronous distributed meetings (meetings that occur in real time, via telephone or video) can make life much easier for everyone by taking steps before the meeting starts. Here's Part III of a little catalog of suggestions for remote facilitators.

April 2, 2008

Remote Facilitation in Synchronous Contexts: Part II

Facilitators of synchronous distributed meetings — meetings that occur in real time, via telephone or video — encounter problems that facilitators of face-to-face meetings do not. Here's Part II of a little catalog of those problems, and some suggestions for addressing them.

March 26, 2008

Remote Facilitation in Synchronous Contexts: Part I

Whoever facilitates your distributed meetings — whether a dedicated facilitator or the meeting chair — will discover quickly that remote facilitation presents special problems. Here's a little catalog of those problems, and some suggestions for addressing them.

March 19, 2008

TINOs: Teams in Name Only

Perhaps the most significant difference between face-to-face teams and virtual or distributed teams is their potential to develop from workgroups into true teams — an area in which virtual or distributed teams are at a decided disadvantage. Often, virtual and distributed teams are teams in name only.

October 17, 2007

Virtual Conflict

Conflict, both constructive and destructive, is part of teamwork. As virtual teams become more common, we're seeing more virtual conflict — conflict that crosses site boundaries. Dealing with destructive conflict is difficult enough face-to-face, but in virtual teams, it's especially tricky.

May 16, 2007

Virtual Termination with Real Respect

When we have to terminate someone who works at a remote site, sometimes there's a temptation to avoid travel — to use email, phone, fax, or something else. They're all bad ideas. Terminating people in person is not only a gesture of respect. It's good business.

May 9, 2007

Have a Program, Not Just an Agenda

In the modern organization, it's common to have meetings in which some people have never met — and some never will. For these meetings, which are often telemeetings, an agenda isn't enough. You need a program.

March 15, 2006

Problem-Solving Ambassadors

In dispersed teams, we often hold meetings to which we send delegations to work out issues of mutual interest. These working sessions are a mix of problem solving and negotiation. People who are masters of both are problem-solving ambassadors, and they're especially valuable to dispersed or global teams.

April 6, 2005

Email Ethics

Ethics is the system of right and wrong that forms the foundation of civil society. Yet, when a new technology arrives, explicitly extending the ethical code seems necessary — no matter how civil the society. And so it is with email.

February 9, 2005

Virtual Communications: Part III

Participating in or managing a virtual team presents special communications challenges. Here's Part III of some guidelines for communicating with members of virtual teams.

February 2, 2005

Virtual Communications: Part II

Participating in or managing a virtual team presents special communications challenges. Here's Part II of some guidelines for communicating with members of virtual teams.

January 26, 2005

Virtual Communications: Part I

Participating in or managing a virtual team presents special communications challenges. Here are some guidelines for communicating with members of virtual teams.

March 10, 2004

Outsourcing Each Other's Kids

Outsourcing is now so widespread that it has achieved status as a full-fledged management fad. But many outsourcing decisions lack the justification that a full financial model provides. Here are some of the factors that such a model should include.

January 14, 2004

Email Antics: Part III

Nearly everyone complains that email is a time waster. Yet much of the problem results from our own actions. Here's Part III of a little catalog of things we do that help waste our time.

September 3, 2003

Dispersed Teams and Latent Communications

When geography divides a team, conflicts can erupt along the borders. "Us" and "them" becomes a way of seeing the world, and feelings about people at other sites can become hostile. Why does this happen and what can we do about it?

June 11, 2003

Conventional Foolishness

Every specialization has a set of beliefs, often called "conventional wisdom." When these beliefs are so obvious that they're unquestioned and even unnoticed, there's an opportunity to leap ahead of the pack — by questioning the conventional wisdom.

November 6, 2002

Dispersity Adversity

Geographically and culturally dispersed project teams are increasingly common, as we become more travel-averse and more bedazzled by communication technology. But people really do work better together face-to-face. Here are some tips for managing dispersed teams.

May 2, 2001

Make a Project Family Album

Like a traditional family album, a project family album has pictures of people, places, and events. It builds connections, helps tie the team together, and it can be as much fun to look through as it is to create.