Time to retire those "war rooms"

It's hardly a shock when you think about it, what with the general state of travel, cutbacks, and four more obvious state-of-the-world dilemmas: Virtual teams are on the rise. According to a new survey from Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), "more than two-thirds (67%) [of companies surveyed] foresee their reliance on virtual teams mushrooming in importance. In companies with more than 10,000 employees, the virtual team concept jumps to more than 80%."

According to Mary Key, i4cp’s leadership "pillar" director. “What it foreshadows, however, is the greater need for the development of virtual leadership skills. I expect more and more corporations will put more effort into developing this skill set internally.”

I don't know what a leadership pillar is but I agree with Ms. Key that the need for greater virtual leadership skills is very great indeed. We're wrapping up a project where we've been working with a crack team charged with developing a handbook for leaders who have to work in this new way - across organization, culture, timezones - AND with peers. Command and control, obviously, doesn't cut it in situations like this so what's a "virtual leader" to do?

For one thing, get rid of those long-standing war rooms, skunkworks, as per the scent that arises from people working in windowless settings dressed in flip charts and armed with magic markers. "Don’t look now,  but your project team meeting room is virtually disappearing," says the Institute for Corporate Productivity's press release.

Again, I agree. I'll come back to this in the weeks to come but will leave it here for now. Our team decided to focus on three verbs in the handbook--Communicate, Collaborate, and Develop--laying out simple processes for each that are natural to leaders.

Comments

[MAJ(P) Greg Penfield]

I operate in a collaborative world as a planner in the U.S. Army. There are many reasons for obtaining a virtual meeting capability...limited funds for travel expenses (yes, we are adamant about good stewardship with taxpayer money!), and physical barriers (ie geographically dispersed planning cells) to name a few. I employed many different mediums and methods, often in combination, to conduct planning meetings in a combat theater of operations. I used VTCs, teleconferences, internet protocol applications, and chat rooms to facilitate discussions as we tackled complex problems. This allowed me to quickly gather the requisite skill sets among dispersed planners without subjecting them to unnecessary travel in a hostile environment. Follow-up emails and posting to a sharepoint in real time allowed for validation and refinement of group products. Also, the comment on virtual leadership skills is not without merit...it is a difficult but essential skill set to lead these virtual groups. Companies would be well-served in focusing part of their leader development regime on this critical skill. I also grant you lose some of the valuable non-verbal feedback and personal rapport gained in a face to face meeting, but early team-building garners trust within this virtual group. Thoughts? As an aside, I attended your workshop at Fort Leavenworth today...incredible value and well worth the time! "The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government."

[jessica lipnack]

Sounds like you've done a really stellar job of using technology with sociology to get the job done, Greg. I agree that there is something lost without face-to-face but participated in research that we published in Harv Business Review indicating that virtual teams *can* outperform face-to-face ones. And thanks for the nice words about today. It was a terrific audience and I appreciated the opportunity to pull the ideas together. Thanks for coming.