Uniting the Virtual Workforce

I'm waiting for my copy of Uniting the Virtual Workforce by Karen Sobel Lojeski and Richard R. Reilly to arrive so can't give a first-hand review yet but Rachael King does a nice job teasing out what's helpful here in Business Week's "How Virtual Teams Can Succeed." Here's a representative paragraph from King's review:

The authors coin a term, "virtual distance," to refer to the feelings of separation engendered by communicating by e-mail, instant messaging, audio conferencing, and other tools. If you've ever had a misunderstanding with a colleague via e-mail, you've experienced virtual distance. But more than just making people feel bad, the authors say, this virtual distance can be a serious problem that inhibits collaboration, impedes innovation, diminishes employee satisfaction, and hurts the bottom line.

I like it. Also like the authors' summary of a global infrastructure project run by Karan Sorensen, chief information officer for Johnson & Johnson's pharmaceutical research & development. Sorensen brought people together face-to-face at the beginning, which is also how Volvo IT launched its global SAP and its global infrastructure programs. (The research from our Harvard Business Review study said otherwise; at least among our sample of 54 teams, this initial face-to-face was not regarded as necessary.) From there on I agree that J&J's virtual team got it just right:

Early on, they set up rules of engagement, such as how each individual liked to communicate best, to address cultural differences. On conference calls, the staff kept photos of everyone by the phone, and Sorensen made sure to alternate call times so that certain people weren't always stuck dialing in at midnight. By getting her team to collaborate better, Sorensen completed the project under budget and well ahead of deadline, saving J&J more than $200 million over three years.

Worth the read. Here's the link again.