Face time matters when managing a virtual team

The challenges of managing a virtual team spread in different locations across the UAE and overseas.

I have taken on a new job managing a team of 20 staff. However, only five of the team are actually in the office with me. The rest of the team are based in other locations in the UAE and overseas. And some even work from home. How can I keep track of the team when I have to effectively manage them virtually? DG, Abu Dhabi

This is a problem I have experienced in the past, and one I am dealing with at the moment. It isn’t easy – but there are some things you can do. If your problem is that the team don’t keep you informed of where they are, then you need to remind the virtual team members quite sharply about their responsibility to deliver within team protocols. If you need to know where they are, then they simply must keep you informed. I found that asking the team to keep their electronic diaries open so I could see where they were was a simple step but a great help.

If you are asking how to keep leading this team well when they are scattered, with some virtual and some live, then that is a different challenge. Lots of us are new to virtual teams and some of us combine lack of experience with techno fear, creating a rich mix which is bound to lead to muddle and confusion. So here are some tips I find useful when managing virtually.

One key is technology. Make sure you have the best your company can afford, and make sure that technology is compatible across all the countries you operate. How many times have I sat down to start a video conference call only to find our highly expensive kit is incompatible with their highly expensive kit? Very frustrating, especially when you work in a service industry where different clients all seem to choose different, mutually incompatible systems. My techie colleagues tell me this is a diminishing problem, but my experiences don’t seem to be getting any better.

When I started running virtual meetings, I soon found that they always improved when the participants could see each other. So as you want people to pay you high- quality attention, make sure they can make eye contact with you. Skype is a cheap and pretty robust option here, and there are also Facebook applications like FaceTime. Webinar providers offer more expensive but also fuller solutions. You will need to schedule telephone conversations and other virtual interactions so that you don’t spend fruitless hours trying to contact people who are elsewhere doing other things. Don’t forget time zones either – I regularly have to remind people that the time they are suggesting for a conference call is actually in the middle of my night, when I am rarely at my best, and certainly don’t want to be seen on video.

The second key is relationships. You must be aware of the culture, customs and practices of the different countries where you have team members. It gets more complicated: for example, an Asian sales director may be working for a UAE organisation and representing them in an African country. Your responsibility is to understand all of these cultural complexities, and to work with the team in an appropriate way. Plus, you have to know how many are using a second or third language when communicating to the wider team, and you have to cut them some slack. When that team is a blend of virtual and same-space then the management challenges can be even tougher. You will need to build bridges between the element of the team that works virtually and the element that shares your office space. It’s important that they are seen as one team, not two. Seize every opportunity to meet your team face-to-face. Make specific trips if you can but certainly make sure you get to gatherings like sales conferences or regional meetings – take every single opportunity to meet the virtual element of your team face-to-face.

Another challenge you have to accept is that many people find it easier to build and maintain face-to-face relationships. So, if one of your team has, for example, a dotted relationship in-country, that relationship may well be stronger and easier to maintain than the direct line but virtual relationship with you. The ease of that relationship may be aided by factors such as cultural alignment, proximity, the ease of social interaction. A result may be an unintentional distortion of the reporting line.

Doctor’s prescription:

Managing virtual teams can and should be as rewarding and exciting as managing real-time teams. It really is the case that the more effort you put in the more rewarding it becomes, so get on the right track and enjoy the challenge.

Roger Delves, director of the Ashridge Masters in Management at Ashridge Business School, is an expert on authentic leadership, organisational politics and iterated relationships. He is also co-author of The Top 50 Management Dilemmas: Fast solutions to Everyday Challenges published last year. Email him at business@thenational for the Workplace Doctor's advice on your challenges, whether as an employee, a manager or a colleague