Accelerating Virtual Team Performance - Essay Example

Accelerating Virtual Team Performance I Developments in communications and information technology help create new opportunities for businesses to build and manage virtual teams worldwide. Such teams have to employees with unique skills, situated at a distance from each other; employees must collaborate to accomplish important company tasks. It based on a broad set of interviews with a given subset of team members, general managers, team leaders and executives (Duarte & Snyder, 2013). . It is a fact that the office of the future say decades from today might not be an actual office at all. In fact, as virtual teams become more and more prevalent, businesses edge ever closer to a culture where "job" means logging in to companys online project management site from ones home or collaborating with individuals who each work for various teams or roles at their local co-working setting. "Company headquarters" is becoming more and more of a concept than an actual premise (Duarte & Snyder, 2013). . And as physical establishment becomes less essential, companies today can hire the best talent regardless of their geographical setting. In addition, firms can enhance efficiency in their operations by handing off work across different time zones, enabling the companies to be productive around the clock. Therefore, there is a link that exists between performance boosters and virtual team. Through appropriate performance, boosters perfect virtual team leaders can be selected to enhance growth of the company. Virtual team leaders are required to be very diligent about how they coach, influence, recognize and hold team members for meeting commitments as the skills are essential in long-run efficiency of virtual teams (Duarte & Snyder, 2013). Physical Observation Limitations in the past caused lack of trust. Building trust was the greatest challenge in the past in creating successful virtual teams in the organization. Trust has always been referred to as the real glue of the global workplace. Most of leaders of the team in the past tends to be arranged on the assumption that workers cannot be relied upon or trusted, even in tiny matters of management. For instance, in the past the organization believed that it is unwise to trust workers whom they do not know well, employees who the company felt they have not observed in action over period of time, and who are not committed to the same goals. When trust lacks, it can undermine every other safety measure taken to ensure successful virtual work channel. What could have been done to combat the problem was by recognizing the effort and contribution of team member? II Currently, evaluating virtual team performance has proven problematic as leaders in the business organization narrowly focus on outcomes as opposed to process on ground—especially since those outcomes prove challenging to measure and monitor. As in historical job settings, certain jobs lend themselves to easier outcome monitoring and evaluation in virtual team settings compared to others (Duarte & Snyder, 2013). Despite this, when objective, results-based measures of performance are not available, the capability of virtual team managers to ascertain performance accurately since increasingly challenging considering their minimize capability to observe and measure the process. Currently, the best thing to do to get on track is to in all ways gain team members commitment. It is in order to change from the traditional lack of support from the leader to focus more on encouraging members to carry out requests and implement decisions effectively. It will be upon the team leader to understand the needs of the team members to act positively. When all these are done in a proper way, it will foster and accelerating virtual team performance. Closely related to this currently there still exist the challenges of lack of trust between the leader of the team and team members. Most of the leaders to date tend to be arranged on the assumption that workers cannot be relied upon or trusted, even in tiny matters of management. This can be corrected through rational persuasions. It mainly involves using logical arguments and explanations to team and giving facts to help explain the benefits of a proposal or a request (Duarte & Snyder, 2013). III In future, the company should allow for utilization of alternative Sources of Information during evaluation. Furthermore, to evaluating virtual team performance should be against objective measures put in the balanced scorecard or other given index, there will be need for managers to assess individual team member performance, this ought to be both objectively as well as subjectively. Moreover, virtual team manager in future can track virtual team member behavior for instance, taking leadership positions during virtual team meetings, coaching new team employees off-line, suggesting internal quality improvement strategies and other intangibles that raise team performance (Duarte & Snyder, 2013). Studies indicates that virtual team leaders may have an advantage into tracking such invisible actions as opposed to those heading face-to-face teams, team emails, and even other team activities are more accurately recorded in virtual team performance environments. Managers may also supplement their evaluations with modified 360-degree performance evaluations—gathering peer and clients input electronically. Finally, there is a need for the company in the future fostering an atmosphere that enhances virtual team is crucial to effectively monitoring and evaluating it. Through this, it ensures managers work harmoniously with team members. This will help correct mistake that has been in the past where team leaders struggled to hold team members accountable. It is important to realize that virtual team members help in the long run in increasing overall performance. Furthermore, mutual knowledge has the possibility positively to affect virtual team inputs, task processes and outputs. Through proper communication virtual team project managers can help establish mutual understanding among all team members through first introduction and team building actions as well as giving team members access to descriptive project documentation this will go long way in fostering prosperity (DeRosa & Lepsinger, 2010). . As a conclusion, there is a need to realize the importance of virtual team performance in any organization. It is also essential to underscore the importance of the three main aspects to a virtual team - which are purpose, people and links (Duarte & Snyder, 2013). All these aspects should run efficiently at all times and ensure their workability even more in the future. References DeRosa, D. M., & Lepsinger, R. (2010). Virtual team success: A practical guide for working and leading from a distance. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Duarte, D. L., & Snyder, N. T. (2013). Mastering virtual teams: Strategies, tools, and techniques that succeed. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass. Nemiro, J. E. (2008). The handbook of high-performance virtual teams: A toolkit for collaborating across boundaries. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Read More