Getting Virtual Teams Right PDF

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Getting Virtual Teams Right Student Name: Sharifah Sayed Student ID: 6731557 Submitted To: Dr. Ritu Saghal Submission Date: 12th March, 2020 The steady growth of digital world has enabled organisations to grow globally, creating a path for the formation of geographically dispersed virtual teams. Greater work flexibility, globalization and outsourcing, owning most technically qualified team members and cost effectiveness are the primary reasons why virtual teams are becoming common in

organisations. However, as per the chosen article, Ferrazzi (2014) mentions that setting up the right virtual team can only allow organisations to acquire these benefits and the research carried concludes that there are 4 must-haves which will create an advantageous virtual team for the organisations. These four must-haves are the right team, the right leadership, the right touchpoints, and the right technology. This essay will discuss the four must-haves and back it up with other research works completed by different authors to support Ferrazzi’s conclusion.

In order to have the right team, the mangers need to hire the suitable people, decide on the optimal group size and assign roles matching the employee’s specification (Ferrazzi, 2014). Virtual teams have greater cultural diversity so the managers need to recruit employees who have certain common characteristics such as being a skilled communicator, have intelligence in the emotional sphere, independency and respect towards other multifariousness members. Said by David Ogilvy, “A company is only as good as the people it can attract and keep. Everything else flows from that, so create an environment to make those people as successful as they can be.” (Brown, Huettner and James-Tanny, 2007). Optimal team size according to OnPoint Consulting’s research is groups with 13 members and less. Smaller groups lead to higher productivity and efficiency since it avoids social loafing in technology-supported team settings. Social loafing is the possibility that individuals would withhold contributions to a task in a team in case of large groups as they feel that their donation to the task is not recognised (Alnuaimi, Robert and Maruping, 2010). Different members play different roles, as identified by the article there are three tiers of team members: core, operational and outer. The core consist of employees responsible for handling large issues and suggesting strategies, while the operational group takes decisions regarding day to day work and the outer group is usually part-time workers. Individual members come with distinctive strengths and skills, so different roles are assigned and the responsibility is shared in order to accomplish goals (Pandey and Karve, 2018). Technical resources such as accumulated skills and experience in the team would be used and maximized to the favor of the organisation when efficient teamwork is secured by the required range of team roles (Belbin, 1981). Right leadership is considered as a key mechanism for maximizing motivation and coordination gains and maintaining team effectiveness when teammates are scattered (Hoch and Kozlowski, 2014). For a leader to manage in a right and superior manner, the author of the chosen article mentions three prime characteristics that a leader must possess, they are fostering trust, encouraging open dialogue and clarifying goals and guidelines (Ferrazzi, 2014). Nowhere trust is as censorious as in teams where individuals have various goals, values, and ideologies. Trust is referred as an “efficacious means” for garneting a successful collaboration. Trust issues are further problematic in case of distributed teams where members are geographically dispersed, are unfamiliar to one another and shortfall a shared social context, and generally communicate through an electronic media, with very limited face-to-face encounters. As viewed by O’Hara-Devereaux and Johansen, trust is

described as “glue” that assesses in forming virtual team relationships (Sarker et al., 2011). Open dialogues are encouraged when the team is able to establish trust,...