The authors single out Karan Sorenson, CIO for Johnson & Johnson's Pharmaceutical Research and Development, as an example of an ambassadorial leader. She was charged with creating a shared IT service among more than 200 operating companies in 140 countries that was expected to save about $50 million over three years. Instead, she saved the company $200 million and brought the project in under budget and faster than originally asked for.
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One way that Karan showed members that they were valued is she scheduled meetings to respect different time zones, not just her time zone. She also created a core team with two representatives from each of the 4 key regions so that she avoided making decisions that were too centric to a particular country. And she was careful to recognize people for their contributions and not for their positions in the organization. And because they had to do a lot of audio conferencing, she asked everyone to send their pictures in. The photos were printed and then displayed by each person's phone. Video conferencing was used too, but the pictures were a way of keeping the "emotional connection" with other team members. Said Sorenson: "You would catch yourself looking at the picture of the person who was talking on the phone. I noticed that by doing something that simple, they tended to connect a little bit better than just talking at the air. It gave everyone a point of focus." In addition, Karan got senior management to agree to a set of metrics to evaluate the team's performance. And in the end they all ended up with 120 percent bonuses.
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Karan's experience managing widely dispersed workers is not unique. What is new is finding new ways of managing that experience that is not based on the techniques that were developed for an earlier age.
Content reprinted by permission of Wiley. Excerpted from Uniting the Virtual Workforce: Transforming Leadership and Innovation in the Globally Integrated Enterprise by Karen Sobel Lojeski and Richard R. Reilly. Copyright (c) 2008 Wiley; All Rights Reserved.
Also of interest:
- The Virtual Work Forum, moderated by Karen Sobel Lojeski at Ciozone.com. This group focuses on improving productivity and innovation through enhanced virtual workforce management and supporting collaboration and social software technology selection. If you have questions for Karen about managing virtual workers, go to her forum and ask your question.
- Virtual Teams That Work: Creating Conditions for Virtual Team Effectiveness" by Cristina B. Gibson and Susan G. Cohen, published by Jossey Bass, 2003. A guidebook for helping virtual team thrive.
- Preoccupations: E-Mail Is Easy to Write (and to Misread), by Daniel Goleman, published by The New York Times, October 7, 2007. The trouble with e-mail.
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