The Virtual Team

WHAT?

For this week’s blog, my example comes from using my mom’s experience in the workplace. She has worked for the Anthem Insurance Company for over ten years now. After a number of different promotions within her time at the company, she currently works as a program manager in the sr. risk and recovery department. This position allows her to work out of the house; therefore, all of her job communication is through the computer and telephone. She enjoys the flexibility of such a position, but the fact that she and her co-workers only connect through technology does take away some of the advantages of being in an office environment. When issues come up, it becomes difficult to handle—more difficult than would be if everyone was together in person.

SO WHAT?

Working in a modern organization like Anthem, a lot of the technology and ways of handling everything is very up-to-date. Even so, problems emerge, and working strictly online comes with its disadvantages. Just as is the case with any virtual team, communication becomes a factor. Levi makes a point in his book on the chapter about virtual teams that it has its advantages and disadvantages, such as conformity is reduced but that makes it more difficult to manage conflicts. She has had issues, more recently when one of her co-workers neglected to do her job correctly and my mom had to go in and correct the whole mess on top of all the other work she was already responsible for. She has also mentioned to me that at times, they have meetings which are held via telephone. She finds it difficult to become involved in the discussion at times and admits that it becomes drift away from what is happening. Also, it is difficult to maintain interpersonal relationships. She has some co-workers that she is fairly close with and some, not as much. She says that although she enjoys her position, she does miss the direct contact with people that she got from the office atmosphere. 

NOW WHAT?

To improve upon the virtual work setting, it is important to develop more of a trust between work members. Levi suggests that there needs to be face-to-face meetings from time to time to really get the ball rolling. This is not necessarily possible because Anthem is a national corporation and my mom works with people literally scattered around the country. But web-cam meetings of some sort probably could not hurt. At time they could have more social meetings, not strictly work-based, to develop more of a trust factor. According to Levi, “…leaders can encourage trust by dividing the project into defined tasks, establishing clear performance expectations, and monitoring their completion.” This aspect was especially true in my mom’s case, with the incident she had with another co-worker who did not do her job sufficiently. Ideally, once trust is established and communication becomes more concrete, the office should see issues emerge less than normal.

The Ultimate Mistake

WHAT?

As mentioned in one of my previous blogs, I am a member of the Women’s Ultimate Frisbee Club team here at Virginia Tech. A lot of the concepts we have discussed in this class seem to parallel experiences I have with the team—one of which I will use as an example in this week’s blog. The last tournament I went to with the team was held in Statesboro, GA a few weeks ago. At the time, the weather was freezing here in Blacksburg (typical) and it was supposed to be in the high 80s where we were going so we were very excited. Well, it turns out this heat would be the very factor that caused us to make the textbook team mistakes that occur. We won a couple of our games, but one particular game sticks out in my mind where we just unraveled at the seams. Our team lost…bad. We never got our act together and definitely were not acting like the team we were supposed to be. Looking back at the situation, I can see a number of reasons this was the case:

SO WHAT?

The first primary issue, and Lencioni’s third dysfunction of a team was lack of commitment. No one seemed to care or want to put any effort into our ultimate goal which was to win. The heat had taken its toll on us so we all expected others to pick up the slack. Secondly, and I think this is one of the most common team dysfunctions I typically experience, was absence of trust. We were just not on the same page at all. And I think trust goes hand-in-hand with communication which was non-existent. We would get extremely flustered and make dumb decisions because there was just no rationality and no confidence. Avoidance of accountability was very evident as well. We were not holding each other accountable at all. Things just fell apart and there was no motivation to improve. Finally, I guess you could say fear of conflict was not really an issue—I mean some of us did resort to screaming at one another. So there was some conflict, but not the healthy, productive kind.

NOW WHAT?

Our team had a lot of room for improvement in this game. And honestly, we are typically a laid-back, very trusting team, but this was an example of a situation that just got the best of us. We just needed to act like the team we usually are. We need to trust and encourage each other again. There is nothing wrong with conflict as long as it is not malicious and harsh. We needed more order and understanding of differing ideas. There needed to be more clarity in the situation—get everyone on the same page and motivated to achieve our final goal. I think in a sports setting especially, there is always room for improvement so we all need to hold each other accountable to do our best. This was just a classic case of “what not to do” and Lencioni’s five dysfunctions of a team seemed to fit our situation very well.