Dr. Arv Malhotra

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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_at_kenan-flagler.unc.edu
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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

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Example Telecom Infrastructure Provider
Component Supplier
Germany
Production
Corporate HQ
Ohio
Leading Customer
NJ
Germany
Global Logistics Group
Oklahoma
AIM Global Demand and Supply Planning
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Example Wireless Devices Manufacturer
Marketing Group
U.K.
Marketing Group
Design Engineering Group
Hong Kong
Texas
Marketing Group
Hong Kong
Marketing Group
Brazil
AIM Test New Products (Pre-Launch) in Global
Market
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Example Automotive Engine Manufacturer
Customers Main Office
Customers Main Office
U.K.
U.S.
Design Engineering Group
Germany
Design Engineering Group
U.S.
Customers New Market
Mexico
Design Engineering Group
Brazil
AIM Design New Engine for a New Market for the
customer
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Example Electronics Manufacturer
Cambridge
Berlin
Montreal
Tokyo
Italy
Boston
U.S. West
Bangalore
AIM Develop a Global Standard Processes for the
Co.
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Far-Flung TeamsVirtual 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
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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

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Far-Flung Teams The Key Benefits

• If working in a far-flung
• virtual mode is so
• challenging then why do it?

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Far-Flung Teams Top 5 Objectives
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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
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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
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Technology-In-Use in Far-Flung Teams
teams using the technology
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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 _at_ Boeing-Rocketdyne had 74 sessions
in 9 months)
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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
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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
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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
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11 Key Capabilities of Far-Flung Teams
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 teams
  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 161
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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

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The Virtual Workspace Philosophy
COLLABORATION
COORDINATION
The wrong approach
COORDINATION
COLLABORATION
making coordination embedded
making collaboration easier
The successful far-flung way
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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?
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An Ideal Far-Flung Team Member
Broad Process Awareness
Deep Functional Expertise
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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

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Leading Far-Flung Teams Points to Ponder
Far-flung team leadership means hands-off
leadership Let the team manage itself
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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

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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)

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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
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Defining Far-Flung Team Leadership
He who talks the most, leads the least.
Leading is being an active listener and passive
controller
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Trust in Traditional Teams
TRUST in traditional settings
EXPERTISE BASED
SOCIAL CUES BASED
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Trust in Far-Flung Teams
EXPERTISE BASED
SWIFT TRUST in far-flung teams
SOCIAL CUES BASED
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Trust in Far-Flung Teams is built through
Establishing Communication Protocols Early (and
being flexible to change)
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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
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Trust in Far-Flung Teams is built through
Clearly Specified ( Visible) Timelines and
Tasks Individual Accountability
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Building Trust Creating Interdependent Sub-teams
Sweden
SUBTEAM A
India
Brazil
Argentina
SUBTEAM B
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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
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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
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Framework for Managing Far-Flung Teams
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

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