I recently spent 6 months
managing a virtual team with people all over the globe. Quickly getting into the very bad habit of
sitting in an office, talking into a telephone, for 12 hours a day. It changed
the way I work, and it reminded me of some of the coaching I used to give to
junior managers about how to run meetings.
So I have some observations that I thought I’d share.
With the exception of the
British, people in most European countries have a reasonable work-life
balance. They get the work done, but on
their terms. In contrast, I found that some
Americans would accept meeting invitations at all times of the day or night. Once or twice, as a favour to me, I know that
people will attend meetings while on vacation, or on their way to the baby
crèche. However, I became careful with
my timing as I didn’t want to push my luck.
To cover mistakes or gaps in
meetings we often use humour. So, for
example, I tend to crack a joke during meetings or share some banter when
waiting for people to join. These
attempts at humour were not received well by some people from the Far East. It’s not that they are sour, just that they didn’t
appreciate throw-away comments. I became
very serious-sounding – for most of the time.
Relationships
within the client are already well established; often going back years. As interims we start an assignment as guests
at the table. So some behaviours can
seem quite a surprise to the newcomer.
Aggression was an example of this.
On a number of occasions I was taken aback by very sharp exchanges of
views on the line. Aggression is hard to
handle, because the team cannot pick-up on non-verbal cues while on the phone
to anticipate or de-fuse it. On the
positive side, aggression often got disputes resolved quickly without dancing
around handbags. So although this was my
virtual team, to some people it was family – and that is how they behaved.
My
big fear was that key participants would find my meetings tedious or
non-productive, and would start skipping calls.
This would be terminal. Anyone dialing-in
during their early morning or late evening wants a slick, well-prepared meeting
with defined objectives. We all know how
to do this. I found that I was going
into my meetings having pre-cooked much of my content. Even to the extent that I would rehearse the
start of some sentences; so I would never say: “No, but
..” instead I used “Yes, and …”. We all know how to do these things, but
meeting with people who we can’t see needs a focus on process and content.
There
are some major benefits to running meetings on-line. These come from the technology. For example: many of the calls were with people
from outside our immediate team. So
before these calls we always opened an on-line text messaging session, but
limited to the core team. Incredibly
useful – like passing notes at the back of a classroom.
Now
that I’ve had an assignment which was almost entirely virtual, I do have one
major worry about on-line meetings. My
concern is that they are less than useless for problem solving.
Yes,
there is technology out there which is meant to enable problem solving by
virtual on-line teams. So I’ve shared
virtual whiteboards, and I once worked with a Fintech entrepreneur who insisted
on us doing mind-maps together on-line (it
didn’t work). My view is that nothing
beats a meeting room with a white board for resolving a knotty problem, or when
designing a solution. There’s just
something about being there.
With thanks to Alan Greenwood for another interesting insight into Interim
To discuss how we can help with any recruitment requirements, please call 01423 704153 or email steven.wynne@macallaminterim.com
