Build the Right Virtual Team – Management Tip of the Day

Virtual teams are hard to get right. If you want to effectively lead and manage one, start by assembling the right team. You won’t get anywhere without hiring and developing people suited to virtual teamwork, putting them into the right-sized groups, and dividing the labor appropriately. When building a team, conduct behavioral interviews and personality tests to screen for qualities like good communication skills, high emotional intelligence, an ability to work independently, strong resilience to recover from snafus, and sensitivity to other cultures.

Source: legacy.hbr.org

Stegmeier Consulting’s Insight…

Virtual teams are employees that work in conjunction with one another despite being located in different areas.  Sometimes these individuals are spread out across different time zones and even in different countries!  Because of this, teams must understandably be formed with care to ensure a cohesiveness can exist and the team can thrive.

This article offers up some great suggestions on how to assemble an all-star virtual team.  Employee engagement is a great first step.  This article recommends getting to know your people and conducting assessments to better understand their styles of work, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses.  Once a profile of the employee’s attributes is formed, the organization can plan on how to integrate that person’s strengths with the rest of the team, and shore up through training any identified areas that are lacking.

At Stegmeier Consulting Group, we’re willing to bet that the concept of virtual teams isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. With technological advancements that are consistently improving online collaboration, as well as increasing costs of travel and corporate office space, organizations will quickly realize the advantages of enabling employees to work virtually (if they don’t already.)