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Jan 03
2011
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Can Staff Be Managed Virtually?Posted by epearlman in workplace, virtual teams, virtual boss, remote management, organizational structure   |
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The 20-person staff she would manage is all located in Philadelphia; she is the only team member in New York (close to many of the key clients). Would it work to manage the team virtually? Would the organization accept such an arrangement?
It's certainly becoming more common to have virtual teams. According to The Corporate Lattice: Achieving High Performance in the Changing World of Work by Cathleen Benko and Molly Anderson there are more than 13 million people in the U.S. (about 9 percent of employees) who work outside a traditional office space and another 10 million that telecommute at least one day per week. Worldwide, the authors note, the number of remote workers is expected to reach 1 billion in 2011. Many companies are adapting to this new workplace of virtual teams, utilizing Web 2.0 and social technologies to foster collaboration. But is the world of work ready for arrangements where the only virtual person in a department is the boss?
A Google search on the term "virtual boss" returned millions of results. The top ones were mostly software products designed to help with scheduling. There was an article or two about reporting to a virtual boss and how to stay connected to them. But the subject of how to manage a staff when they are at headquarters and you are in the field didn't crop up at the top of the results.
The Corporate Lattice examines many subjects about new ways to work and provides material on a lattice model of work (as opposed to the traditional corporate ladder model) that changes how careers are built, how work is done and how collaboration is encouraged. But while careers may be moving off the linear model of success to a flatter, multidirectional path, the book didn't address the specific problem my friend is grappling with-namely should she pursue this position on her terms, tailoring it to her career-life needs?
The book did say that career strategies on this latticed world should focus on mutual benefit. "Lopsided arrangements are usually short-lived, so maintain a spirit of collaboration and compromise. Sustainable options benefit both you and your employer."
That passage suggests to me that if she plans on moving forward with this opportunity she needs to sell the benefits of this organizational structure to her employer. She has to address how this new arrangement could provide benefits to the organization they don't currently enjoy; sell them on her leadership capabilities and her ability to lead from afar; and have a plan for how to manage the problems that virtual distance can cause.
Has anyone encountered a similar structure? If so, how did it work out?
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"The short answer to your question is - it depends...which is probably not what you wanted. I know of situations where this works well but only after an extraordinary effort by the leader. Following Virtual Distance guidelines, I'd estimate that Virtual Distance is very high going in so the situation is plagued by a number of issues that would have to be addressed:
1. Physical Distance would be very high in the beginning. This is something that would be important to minimize up-front. Not knowing the situation regarding the existing relationships of your friend with the new team members, I would recommend highly that she plant herself in their office for some amount of time ... maybe a month or every other week for at least 1-2 months. Establishing trust and in her case, leader effectiveness, will be much more easily accomplished if she is face to face in the beginning on a regular basis. Because it's NY/Phili this would be possible and well worth the extra trouble in commuting, etc., in the long run.
2. Operational Distance - there is very very high Distribution Asymmetry in this situation - where the leader is the "outlier". Operationally she would need to set up regular, reliable and stable communication platforms including all modes - face to face, phone, and electronic communications to minimize this factor. Usually when entering a new position like this, it's common for the leader to do one-on-ones and group meetings as well to get the lay of the land. As part of that process, she needs to understand what the current norms and preferences are regarding communication and leader/team communications. She needs to be very clear in how/when she will communicate and ensure that either formally or informally there are some "rules of engagement" put in place that people can rely on over time.
3. Affinity Distance - this is the "biggy" when it comes to any situation. In her case though, establishing trust through an initial show that cultural distance is low (meaning demonstrating that her values are aligned with the teams' values) will be extremely important. It's hard to do this if you are virtual only - especially, as I said, in the beginning. Building good best practices to recognize people either privately or publicly, depending on what is appropriate and when will help to reduce social distance but as a new leader, she needs to get the lay of the land first obviously but ESPECIALLY because she is virtual and not sure how people will react to certain types of messaging. She needs to establish a strong sense of interdependence between her and her team from the outset and also make this visible to all. There are situations where people never meet their boss and this poses great difficulties to the organization. The more she can establish that she is highly dependent on them and they on her, the better the operation will run.
Generally speaking this situation only works when the leader travels quite often to the team's location. A great example of this is in the second book I wrote, "Leading the Virtual Workforce". There's a chapter on Creating Context in which I describe Susan Roser who is the senior vice president of operations at Western Union. While she sits in Denver, she does not have any team members located in her office. While she holds very frequent conference calls - both one on one and with groups - she stresses the importance of traveling to all locations to ensure that she meets people in person. This helps her to take away some of the "God or Queen-like" power that people might ascribe to her if they don't see her very much. She also stresses that she needs to know their location and all of it's context as well as they do in order for her to put communications into context on a regular basis - for example - she has people in South America that travel very far from their homes to get to the office. She tries to oversee scheduling so that they are not too inconvenienced. But she really got to "know" their situation by meeting with them and talking to them - especially in the beginning. The other good 'rule of thumb' is to follow the Virtual Distance Leadership model that stresses: 1) Creating Context 2) Cultivating Community and 3) Co-Activating New Leaders. This has to be done continuously while at the same time managing the more micro Virtual Distance factors."