Dr. Arv Malhotra The Kenan-Flagler Business School The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

1. SIM WISCONSIN CHAPTER Leading, Leveraging & Managing Far-Flung Teams Dr. Arv Malhotra The Kenan-Flagler Business School The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Arvind_Malhotra@kenan-flagler.unc.edu

2. Agenda for the Talk • Examples of Far-Flung Teams • Technology-Use Practices of Far-Flung Teams • Leading Far-Flung Teams • Managing Far-Flung Team Process

3. Example: Telecom Infrastructure Provider Component Supplier Production Germany Corporate HQ Ohio Leading Customer NJ Germany Global Logistics Group Oklahoma AIM: Global Demand and Supply Planning

4. Example: Wireless Devices Manufacturer Marketing Group U.K. Design Engineering Group Marketing Group Texas Hong Kong Marketing Group Hong Kong Marketing Group Brazil AIM: Test New Products (Pre-Launch) in Global Market

5. Example: Electronics Manufacturer Cambridge Berlin Montreal Tokyo Boston Italy U.S. West Bangalore AIM: Develop a Global Standard Processes for the Co.

6. Far-Flung Teams:Virtual Teams Version 10.0 PURELY VIRTUAL GLOBALLY DISTRIBUTED FAR-FLUNG TEAMS REGIONALLY DISTRIBUTED VIRTUAL TEAMS GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE FACE to FACE TEAMS SAME LOCATION SAME FUNCTION SAME COMPANY VALUE CHAIN MEMBERSHIP

7. Challenges of Far-Flung Teams • “Communications challenged” • most work/interaction through electronic media • different kind of discipline needed • “Culturally challenged” • different countries, functions, companies • “Task challenged” • uncertainty in content of outcomes, • uncertainty in processes, • tough to coordinate because of team size, # languages, # time zones

8. Far-Flung Teams: The Key Benefits • If working in a far-flung “virtual” mode is so challenging then why do it?

9. Far-Flung Teams: Top 5 Objectives

10. Technology Enabling Far-Flung Teams: Points to Ponder E-Mail is Be All End All Rest is Just Fancy Shmancy One or two “all team” audio-conference sessions are more than enough Things Could Be a Whole Lot Better with Video-Conferencing Face-to-face meetings are required for brainstorming

11. Simulating Reality: Building a “Virtual Workspace” Project Scheduling Tool Asynchronous Interactions Synchronous Interactions Instant Messaging Electronic Discussion Threads Audio Conferencing Virtual Work Space Team Knowledge Repository Web Conferencing Meeting Scheduler Templates

12. Technology-In-Use in Far-Flung Teams % teams using the technology

13. Technology Enabling Far-Flung Teams: Best Practices E-Mail is Be All End All Rest is Just Fancy Shmancy Most successful far-flung teams banned use of E-mail for team communications One or two “all team” audio-conference sessions are more than enough Audio-conferencing is the lifeblood of all highly successful far-flung teams (SLICE team @ Boeing-Rocketdyne had 74 sessions in 9 months)

14. Technology Enabling Far-Flung Teams: Best Practices Things Could Be a Whole Lot Better with Video-Conferencing Teams found web-conferencing (audio + application sharing more useful) Face-to-face meetings are required for brainstorming Far-flung team found electronic brainstorming (if done correctly) much more productive

15. Running Audio-conference Meetings as Managed Events • Review discussion items to focus on disagree- ment • Assign agenda items • Rotate meeting facilitation • Refocus on timelines & progress tracking • Create feeling of team as a social entity • Keep everyone engaged • Check-in through voting, • IM • Application sharing & verbal discussion • CONVERGE • Clear allocation of action items • Meeting minutes posted rapidly • Visibly ensure follow- up with discussion threads • Update timeline & progress tracking Activities Pre Start During End Between

16. Audio-conference Meetings: Letting the Lifecycle Guide Frequency & Content Zone 1: Building Team Spirit Medium Frequency Zone 3: Converging Ideas Low to Medium Frequency ENTHUSIASM LEVEL Zone 2: Conflict Resolution High Frequency TEAM LIFECYCLE

17. 11 Key Capabilities of Far-Flung Team’s Knowledgebase • Know who contributed a piece of knowledge • Find specific entries contributed by specific individuals • Identify historical connection between entries • Link external sources of knowledge to team’s knowledgebase • Find summary as well as detailed information • Link notes, multimedia info. and documents in the knowledgebase • View multiple entries simultaneously for comparison • Contains information about decision rationales that can be revisited • Attached keywords to the entries for later retrieval • Inform team about changes to the knowledgebase • Easily be able to change the identifiers on entries as knowledge evolves SOURCE: Majchrzak, Malhotra & John, 2005, Information Systems Research 16:1

18. Instant Messaging: A Technology Tool Whose Time Has Come • Teams that used it swore by it • Why they loved it • Immediacy: expertise at hand • Team visibility • Water cooler • Backchannel communications during meetings (the Blackberry effect) • Downside: security & loss of discussion content

19. The “Virtual Workspace” Philosophy COLLABORATION COORDINATION “The wrong approach” COORDINATION COLLABORATION “making coordination embedded” “making collaboration easier” “The successful far-flung way”

20. Leading Far-Flung Teams: Point to Ponder Leading a far-flung team is all about finding the right people to work on the team … so what are the characteristics of an ideal far-flung team member?

21. An Ideal Far-Flung Team Member Broad Process Awareness Deep Functional Expertise

22. An Ideal Far-Flung Team Member • Cultural and functional sensitivity • Ability to pick up subtle non-visual cues • Rich functional & geographical experiences • Excellent verbal communicator • Multi-tasker • Technology savvy • High ambiguity tolerant • Willingness to make personal sacrifices

23. Leading Far-Flung Teams: Points to Ponder Far-flung team leadership means “hands-off” leadership… Let the team manage itself

24. Leading Far-Flung Teams: Communication Intensive Style • An effective far-flung team leader leads by … • … walking the virtual hallways • frequent one-on-one check-ins • one-on-one mentor discussions • … establishing communication norms • closely monitor that norms are being followed • be flexible to change the norms that are not working • … motivating others through inclusion • ensure all members are contributing & being heard

25. Far-Flung Team Leadership: A Distributed Leadership Style • Virtual meetings facilitator • Team knowledge manager • Agenda maker and minutes taker • Rolodexer • Electronic discussion maintainer • Team progress (schedule) tracker • External presenter (written & verbal)

26. Leading by Simultaneously Encouraging and Controlling Diversity Peak Performance Cognitive Diversity Behavioral Diversity Source: Majchrzak, Malhotra, et al., “Can Absence Make a Team Grow Stronger?” Harvard Business Review, May 2004

27. Defining Far-Flung Team Leadership He who talks the most, leads the least. Leading is being an active listener and passive controller

28. Trust in Traditional Teams EXPERTISE BASED TRUST in traditional settings SOCIAL CUES BASED

29. Trust in Far-Flung Teams EXPERTISE BASED SWIFT TRUST in far-flung teams SOCIAL CUES BASED

30. Trust in Far-Flung Teams is built through… Establishing Communication Protocols Early (and being flexible to change)

31. Developing a Far-Flung Team Communication Protocol … RELATED TO VIRTUAL TEAM MEETINGS • Who schedules the virtual meetings (and when)? • Who facilitates the meetings & and what is the general expectation from virtual meetings? • Who will attend the virtual meetings & what etiquettes will be followed? • How agenda for virtual meetings will be developed & distributed? • How team meetings’ minutes will taken & distributed? • How often (and when) will virtual meetings be scheduled? • What are the expectations from team members between virtual team meetings? • How will information be shared between team members? • How information will be stored & retrieved via the knowledge repository? • What information (and how) will be provided to senior execs., business partners, and clients? • Who will provide this information (and when)? RELATED TO INFORMATION SHARING IN THE TEAM RELATED TO EXTERNAL COMMUNICATION Adapted from: Mastering Virtual Teams by D.L. Duarte and N.T. Snyder

32. Trust in Far-Flung Teams is built through… Clearly Specified (& Visible) Timelines and Tasks + Individual Accountability

33. Building Trust: Creating Interdependent Sub-teams Sweden SUBTEAM A India Brazil Argentina SUBTEAM B

34. Leading by Making the Virtual Visible STEERING COMMITTEE Senior Executive Senior Executive Senior Executive Senior Executive Team Leader FAR-FLUNG TEAM Team Member Team Member Team Member Team Member Functional Expertise A Location A Functional Expertise B Location A Functional Expertise C Location B Functional Expertise D Location C

35. Measuring Team Success: Using a Balanced Scorecard Perspective TEAM PERSPECTIVE OUTPUT PERSPECTIVE LEARNING & GROWTH PERSPECTIVE INDIVIDUAL DIRECT BENEFITS Measure of Far-Flung Team Success INDIVIDUAL PERSPECTIVE PROCESS PERSPECTIVE

36. Framework for Managing Far-Flung Teams STRATEGY PEOPLE • Picking the people for the team • Leadership for far-flung teams • Chartering far-flung teams • Objectives of far-flung teams STRUCTURE PROCESS • Corporate policies • that support far-flung • teams • Structuring and • leveraging sub-teams • Executive stewardship • of far-flung teams • Establishing norms to work together • Creating common procedures • Planning & conducting virtual • meetings TECH. • Using technology for coordination & collaboration • Managing technology impact on group processes

37. FINAL THOUGHTS Far-Flung teams require a special culture and communication intensive leadership that stresses managing & sharing knowledge by leveraging collaborative technology