How Successful Virtual Teams Collaborate
How Successful Virtual Teams Collaborate
by Keith Ferrazzi | 12:00 PM October 24, 2012
I have worked on many teams in which we dutifully did our jobs, and the group fulfilled its objectives. And then I have worked on other teams in which everyone energetically collaborated with one another, and the results were spectacular. Not only did we surpass our goals, we also thoroughly enjoyed and benefited from that process as individuals.
In other words, there's a world of difference between merely working together and truly collaborating with one another. Collaborative activity is the "secret sauce" that enables teams to come up with innovative new products or creative, buzz-worthy marketing campaigns. But people can also collaborate creatively around a seemingly mundane project — like the installation of a new accounting package — and use that initiative to transform the way in which an organization does business.
Achieving true collaboration — in which the whole is definitely more than the mere sum of the individual parts — is difficult in any environment. People have to set aside their egos, trust one another, and share their expertise willingly. In a virtual workplace, collaboration can be all the more difficult to attain, especially when team members work for different companies, are essentially strangers to one another, and have different cultural and professional backgrounds. We have interviewed a number of researchers on this topic and have also studied dozens of virtual teams, some that possessed that magic of collaboration and numerous others that didn't. Here are some of the lessons we've learned.
Adjust for size. Teams have been getting larger and larger, some even exceeding 100 people for complex projects, according to one study. This trend has made true collaboration increasingly difficult to achieve. One solution is to use a flexible, fluid team structure that consists of three tiers: a core, an operational level, and an outer network. The core consists of individuals responsible for strategy and important decisions. The operational level includes those who are doing the day-to-day ongoing work and might make decisions about their portion of the project but they don't tackle larger issues (which are handled by the core). And the outer network consists of temporary or part-time members who are brought in for a particular stage of the project because of their specialized expertise. Using this hierarchy groups together those who need to collaborate with one another for particular purposes (and exclude others who aren't important to that process). Another tool that I recommend is the Relationship Action Plan, which can be used to manage an organization around loosely configured, flexible teams.
Don't be afraid of social media. People are more prone to collaborate with others who are similar to them. So how, then, do you get dissimilar people to collaborate? The trick is to find the common ground between such individuals, and social media — blogs, wikis, online collaboration tools, etc. — can play a huge role in doing so. Many managers have been fearful of using social media beyond marketing purposes. But those companies that have begun to use social media for internal purposes are starting to reap the benefits.
The chipmaker Xilinx, for instance, has reported an increase in engineer productivity by around 25% thanks to social media tools that encourage and enable employee collaborative activities. Employees could, for example, maintain wikis or online forums that help share best practices and workarounds for particular problems. The open source community routinely uses such approaches to spread knowledge of programming tricks and tips.
Play games. Another effective way to get team members in the right mindset for working together is to have everyone play virtual games that encourage collaboration. In one study, team members played an online version of "scavenger hunt." Such games can be customized to a particular company so that players have to pool their knowledge and internal connections to find, for instance, examples of the most offbeat uses of the firm's products. In another provocative study, researchers investigated how companies could use online role-playing games like "World of Warcraft" and "EverQuest" to build leadership and teamwork skills. In such multiplayer games, players must collaborate to survive in a fast-changing environment with fierce competitors and incomplete or ambiguous information from which to base important decisions — that is, an environment not unlike many hypercompetitive global markets. In these games, members must continually do what's best for the team. Leaders, for instance, will often step down to allow others who are more qualified to take the reins. This helps encourage an atmosphere of collaboration as well as sacrifice for the greater good of the team.
Train for collaboration. Many skills are difficult to train and develop. Some experts, for example, contend that leadership is more nature than nurture. Not so with collaboration. PricewaterhouseCoopers, for instance, has had great success in training employees to collaborate by targeting communication skills, emotional intelligence, teamwork, and networking. At myGreenlight, we have also had great success in teaching various relationship skills and behaviors that enhance team collaboration.
Have role clarity but task uncertainty. Many managers believe that teams collaborate best when the roles of members are flexible but the group has a clear idea of how to get from A to B. But the reverse is actually true, according to a study of more than 50 teams in different industries. That research found that collaboration increased when people had clearly defined roles but were uncertain about how to achieve the team's goals. The uncertainty encouraged everyone to collaborate and think more creatively about different ways in which to fulfill the group's mission.
Consider a project with the goal of making food taste good with less sodium. A manager might instruct his team to find a salt replacer that was healthier. But that would just restrict the group's collaboration. If the team isn't given directions about how to accomplish a goal, people can brainstorm and could come up with more innovative solutions. What if, for instance, the team could find a way to trick the taste receptors in a person's tongue to perceive that food contains more salt than it actually does?
Getting teams to work together is essential for bringing in projects on time and under budget. But going beyond that and getting teams to collaborate is when the real magic occurs. Think of how small, independent films have often surpassed the creativity and quality of big-budget offerings from Hollywood. Such successful collaborations don't have to happen only on a movie set; they can occur in virtual environments too. But the trick is to pro-actively remove the barriers to collaboration. Only then will the team have a chance for true magic to flourish.
我已经和许多团队一起工作过，我们尽心做我们的事，团队也能完成它的目标。此后我和另一种团队一起工作，每个人都很有激情的与他人合作，成果也很惊人。不仅是超出了我们的目标，我们每个人也完完全全享受这一过程，并从中受益。
换句话说，仅仅在一起工作与每个人与他人一起真正合作是完全不同的两个概念。合作活动才是团队开发出完全创新产品或策划出有创意有回报的市场活动的“秘方”。但人们也可以在某个看起来像按部就班的项目上创造性的合作，如安装一个会计软件，并由此改变一个组织做事的方式。
达成真正的合作，就是整体成效明显要远超每个个体贡献的简单加总，是一件在任何领域都很困难的事。人们不得不放下自我，信任他人，主动分享各自经验。在虚拟工作环境下，合作更是难以达成，特别是团队成员来自不同公司，原本就互不相识，还有不同的文化和职业背景。我们曾与许多这一领域的研究者面谈过，也研究过数十个虚拟团队，有些拥有合作的秘方，有些没有。以下是一些我们学到的教训。
调整人数。团队会越变越大，据某项研究，有些复杂项目团队甚至会超出百人。这一趋向会令真正合作更难以达成。一个解决办法是使用灵活而不固定的三层团队结构：一个核心层、一个执行层和一个外围网络。核心层由能负责战略和重大决策拍板的人组成。执行层由那些做日常工作和仅需要就项目中他们自己部分的事务做决定的人组成，他们不需要关心大决策（那由核心层负责）。外围网络成员由临时或兼职人员构成，他们由于特定的才能在特定阶段进入项目服务（也排除了那些对项目不重要的人员）。另一种我推荐使用的调整工具是关系活动图，可用来管理组织里松散型、灵活的团队。
别害怕社会媒体。人们更倾向于跟他们自己相似的人合作。所以应怎样将不同类型的人放在一起合作呢？秘诀是找到他们之间共同的东西，社会媒体----博客、维基、在线合作工具等，这些能在合作中起重要作用。许多管理者害怕使用社会媒体，除非处于市场目的。但那些开始在内部使用社会媒体的公司开始收获效益了。
例如Xilinx，一家芯片制造商，发布报告称由于使用社会媒体工具使员工合作活动获得鼓励和施行，工程生产率增长大约25%。如员工能通过维护维基或在线论坛来共享最佳实践和解决特殊问题。开放源码社区也一套类似流程使得编程技巧和诀窍的知识得以传播。
玩游戏。 另一种有效的方法让团队成员在和谐的状态下一同工作，就是让每个人来玩鼓励合作的虚拟游戏。在一项研究中，团队成员玩在线游戏“寻物游戏”。这种游戏可以为某个公司定制，员工可将各自的知识和内部联系聚集起来，比如来寻找最多种的不同寻常的公司产品使用方法。另一项令人兴奋的研究中，研究者调研了公司应怎样使用在线角色扮演游戏，如魔兽世界和无尽的任务，来建立领导力和团队合作技巧。在这些多人游戏中，游戏者必须合作，以便在快速变化的环境中生存，这需要在凶悍的对手及不完整或模糊信息下做出重要决策，就像在许多竞争性超强的全球市场环境下一样。在这些游戏里，成员必须持续地为团队做最大贡献。如领导人，也将会经常退下来让那些更有能力的人上去指挥。这将有助于鼓励合作的氛围，也有助于大家为成为更好的团队而奉献。
合作精神的训练。许多技巧很难训练和开发。如有些专家争辩出领导力是天生的难以教会。合作精神却可以教会。例如普华永道公司，集中于沟通技巧、情商、团队合作、人际网络方面来培训员工的合作精神，已经获得巨大成功。在myGreenlight公司，我们也在教授增强团队合作的各自关系学技巧和行为上取得巨大成功。
角色清晰而任务模糊。许多管理者相信最好的团队合作是成员角色选择是灵活的而如何让团队从A到目标B的概念是清晰的。但根据不同行业的50多个团队的研究表明，结论恰恰相反。研究发现人们有了清晰的角色定义但对如何达到团队目标不明确时，合作增强了。这种不明确激励每个人合作并想出更多的创造性方法，来完成团队任务。我们来考虑一个项目，要达到让食物尝起来好吃但减少钠盐摄入量的目标。一位年长者可能指导他的团队来找到更为健康的盐的替代品。但那将只会限制团队的合作。如果团队没有给予如何完成任务的指示，成员能头脑风暴并提出更多创新的解决方案。例如团队能否找到一种方法，它能欺骗人的味蕾使人觉得食物比正常的更咸？
让团队一起工作对保障项目按期按预算完成非常重要。但更重要的是让团队能一起合作，那才是奇迹发生的时刻。想想那些小型的独立制片人的影片是如何经常性的超越好莱坞大制作影片的，无论是在影片创造性还是质量上。这些成功的合作并不是仅仅发生在拍电影上，它们也能发生在虚拟工作环境里。但诀窍是主动移除团队合作的障碍。只有那时团队才有机会源源不断的产生真正的奇迹。
by Keith Ferrazzi | 12:00 PM October 24, 2012
I have worked on many teams in which we dutifully did our jobs, and the group fulfilled its objectives. And then I have worked on other teams in which everyone energetically collaborated with one another, and the results were spectacular. Not only did we surpass our goals, we also thoroughly enjoyed and benefited from that process as individuals.
In other words, there's a world of difference between merely working together and truly collaborating with one another. Collaborative activity is the "secret sauce" that enables teams to come up with innovative new products or creative, buzz-worthy marketing campaigns. But people can also collaborate creatively around a seemingly mundane project — like the installation of a new accounting package — and use that initiative to transform the way in which an organization does business.
Achieving true collaboration — in which the whole is definitely more than the mere sum of the individual parts — is difficult in any environment. People have to set aside their egos, trust one another, and share their expertise willingly. In a virtual workplace, collaboration can be all the more difficult to attain, especially when team members work for different companies, are essentially strangers to one another, and have different cultural and professional backgrounds. We have interviewed a number of researchers on this topic and have also studied dozens of virtual teams, some that possessed that magic of collaboration and numerous others that didn't. Here are some of the lessons we've learned.
Adjust for size. Teams have been getting larger and larger, some even exceeding 100 people for complex projects, according to one study. This trend has made true collaboration increasingly difficult to achieve. One solution is to use a flexible, fluid team structure that consists of three tiers: a core, an operational level, and an outer network. The core consists of individuals responsible for strategy and important decisions. The operational level includes those who are doing the day-to-day ongoing work and might make decisions about their portion of the project but they don't tackle larger issues (which are handled by the core). And the outer network consists of temporary or part-time members who are brought in for a particular stage of the project because of their specialized expertise. Using this hierarchy groups together those who need to collaborate with one another for particular purposes (and exclude others who aren't important to that process). Another tool that I recommend is the Relationship Action Plan, which can be used to manage an organization around loosely configured, flexible teams.
Don't be afraid of social media. People are more prone to collaborate with others who are similar to them. So how, then, do you get dissimilar people to collaborate? The trick is to find the common ground between such individuals, and social media — blogs, wikis, online collaboration tools, etc. — can play a huge role in doing so. Many managers have been fearful of using social media beyond marketing purposes. But those companies that have begun to use social media for internal purposes are starting to reap the benefits.
The chipmaker Xilinx, for instance, has reported an increase in engineer productivity by around 25% thanks to social media tools that encourage and enable employee collaborative activities. Employees could, for example, maintain wikis or online forums that help share best practices and workarounds for particular problems. The open source community routinely uses such approaches to spread knowledge of programming tricks and tips.
Play games. Another effective way to get team members in the right mindset for working together is to have everyone play virtual games that encourage collaboration. In one study, team members played an online version of "scavenger hunt." Such games can be customized to a particular company so that players have to pool their knowledge and internal connections to find, for instance, examples of the most offbeat uses of the firm's products. In another provocative study, researchers investigated how companies could use online role-playing games like "World of Warcraft" and "EverQuest" to build leadership and teamwork skills. In such multiplayer games, players must collaborate to survive in a fast-changing environment with fierce competitors and incomplete or ambiguous information from which to base important decisions — that is, an environment not unlike many hypercompetitive global markets. In these games, members must continually do what's best for the team. Leaders, for instance, will often step down to allow others who are more qualified to take the reins. This helps encourage an atmosphere of collaboration as well as sacrifice for the greater good of the team.
Train for collaboration. Many skills are difficult to train and develop. Some experts, for example, contend that leadership is more nature than nurture. Not so with collaboration. PricewaterhouseCoopers, for instance, has had great success in training employees to collaborate by targeting communication skills, emotional intelligence, teamwork, and networking. At myGreenlight, we have also had great success in teaching various relationship skills and behaviors that enhance team collaboration.
Have role clarity but task uncertainty. Many managers believe that teams collaborate best when the roles of members are flexible but the group has a clear idea of how to get from A to B. But the reverse is actually true, according to a study of more than 50 teams in different industries. That research found that collaboration increased when people had clearly defined roles but were uncertain about how to achieve the team's goals. The uncertainty encouraged everyone to collaborate and think more creatively about different ways in which to fulfill the group's mission.
Consider a project with the goal of making food taste good with less sodium. A manager might instruct his team to find a salt replacer that was healthier. But that would just restrict the group's collaboration. If the team isn't given directions about how to accomplish a goal, people can brainstorm and could come up with more innovative solutions. What if, for instance, the team could find a way to trick the taste receptors in a person's tongue to perceive that food contains more salt than it actually does?
Getting teams to work together is essential for bringing in projects on time and under budget. But going beyond that and getting teams to collaborate is when the real magic occurs. Think of how small, independent films have often surpassed the creativity and quality of big-budget offerings from Hollywood. Such successful collaborations don't have to happen only on a movie set; they can occur in virtual environments too. But the trick is to pro-actively remove the barriers to collaboration. Only then will the team have a chance for true magic to flourish.
我已经和许多团队一起工作过，我们尽心做我们的事，团队也能完成它的目标。此后我和另一种团队一起工作，每个人都很有激情的与他人合作，成果也很惊人。不仅是超出了我们的目标，我们每个人也完完全全享受这一过程，并从中受益。
换句话说，仅仅在一起工作与每个人与他人一起真正合作是完全不同的两个概念。合作活动才是团队开发出完全创新产品或策划出有创意有回报的市场活动的“秘方”。但人们也可以在某个看起来像按部就班的项目上创造性的合作，如安装一个会计软件，并由此改变一个组织做事的方式。
达成真正的合作，就是整体成效明显要远超每个个体贡献的简单加总，是一件在任何领域都很困难的事。人们不得不放下自我，信任他人，主动分享各自经验。在虚拟工作环境下，合作更是难以达成，特别是团队成员来自不同公司，原本就互不相识，还有不同的文化和职业背景。我们曾与许多这一领域的研究者面谈过，也研究过数十个虚拟团队，有些拥有合作的秘方，有些没有。以下是一些我们学到的教训。
调整人数。团队会越变越大，据某项研究，有些复杂项目团队甚至会超出百人。这一趋向会令真正合作更难以达成。一个解决办法是使用灵活而不固定的三层团队结构：一个核心层、一个执行层和一个外围网络。核心层由能负责战略和重大决策拍板的人组成。执行层由那些做日常工作和仅需要就项目中他们自己部分的事务做决定的人组成，他们不需要关心大决策（那由核心层负责）。外围网络成员由临时或兼职人员构成，他们由于特定的才能在特定阶段进入项目服务（也排除了那些对项目不重要的人员）。另一种我推荐使用的调整工具是关系活动图，可用来管理组织里松散型、灵活的团队。
别害怕社会媒体。人们更倾向于跟他们自己相似的人合作。所以应怎样将不同类型的人放在一起合作呢？秘诀是找到他们之间共同的东西，社会媒体----博客、维基、在线合作工具等，这些能在合作中起重要作用。许多管理者害怕使用社会媒体，除非处于市场目的。但那些开始在内部使用社会媒体的公司开始收获效益了。
例如Xilinx，一家芯片制造商，发布报告称由于使用社会媒体工具使员工合作活动获得鼓励和施行，工程生产率增长大约25%。如员工能通过维护维基或在线论坛来共享最佳实践和解决特殊问题。开放源码社区也一套类似流程使得编程技巧和诀窍的知识得以传播。
玩游戏。 另一种有效的方法让团队成员在和谐的状态下一同工作，就是让每个人来玩鼓励合作的虚拟游戏。在一项研究中，团队成员玩在线游戏“寻物游戏”。这种游戏可以为某个公司定制，员工可将各自的知识和内部联系聚集起来，比如来寻找最多种的不同寻常的公司产品使用方法。另一项令人兴奋的研究中，研究者调研了公司应怎样使用在线角色扮演游戏，如魔兽世界和无尽的任务，来建立领导力和团队合作技巧。在这些多人游戏中，游戏者必须合作，以便在快速变化的环境中生存，这需要在凶悍的对手及不完整或模糊信息下做出重要决策，就像在许多竞争性超强的全球市场环境下一样。在这些游戏里，成员必须持续地为团队做最大贡献。如领导人，也将会经常退下来让那些更有能力的人上去指挥。这将有助于鼓励合作的氛围，也有助于大家为成为更好的团队而奉献。
合作精神的训练。许多技巧很难训练和开发。如有些专家争辩出领导力是天生的难以教会。合作精神却可以教会。例如普华永道公司，集中于沟通技巧、情商、团队合作、人际网络方面来培训员工的合作精神，已经获得巨大成功。在myGreenlight公司，我们也在教授增强团队合作的各自关系学技巧和行为上取得巨大成功。
角色清晰而任务模糊。许多管理者相信最好的团队合作是成员角色选择是灵活的而如何让团队从A到目标B的概念是清晰的。但根据不同行业的50多个团队的研究表明，结论恰恰相反。研究发现人们有了清晰的角色定义但对如何达到团队目标不明确时，合作增强了。这种不明确激励每个人合作并想出更多的创造性方法，来完成团队任务。我们来考虑一个项目，要达到让食物尝起来好吃但减少钠盐摄入量的目标。一位年长者可能指导他的团队来找到更为健康的盐的替代品。但那将只会限制团队的合作。如果团队没有给予如何完成任务的指示，成员能头脑风暴并提出更多创新的解决方案。例如团队能否找到一种方法，它能欺骗人的味蕾使人觉得食物比正常的更咸？
让团队一起工作对保障项目按期按预算完成非常重要。但更重要的是让团队能一起合作，那才是奇迹发生的时刻。想想那些小型的独立制片人的影片是如何经常性的超越好莱坞大制作影片的，无论是在影片创造性还是质量上。这些成功的合作并不是仅仅发生在拍电影上，它们也能发生在虚拟工作环境里。但诀窍是主动移除团队合作的障碍。只有那时团队才有机会源源不断的产生真正的奇迹。
