Close
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
Search
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home IT Management
    • IT Management

    Make Your Team Stronger by Bridging Virtual Distance

    By
    Joe Mullich
    -
    June 16, 2005
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      In this era of global partnerships and outsourcing, companies are trying to figure out ways to help virtual teams become more effective. A key step is to reduce “virtual distance”–the mistrust people feel when they communicate primarily through technology rather than face-to-face.

      The term was coined and the concept primarily described by Karen Sobel Lojeski, program director for the business and technology program at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J.

      Her research, which we sketched out in our first article on virtual distance, shows that even the productivity of people who are located in the same office can suffer when their primary means of communication are e-mail or instant messaging.

      Such methods lack the nonverbal communication and camaraderie that happen almost unconsciously during in-person meetings.

      The exact factors that create virtual distance vary from company to company, and from team to team. Those factors can be broken down into two categories–pre-existing (personal attributes or outlooks that particular people bring to any virtual team) and ingrained (factors that are caused by the characteristics of a particular virtual team). Pre-existing factors are the most difficult to change, but addressing them provides the biggest impact.

      Lets look at two ingrained and two pre-existing factors that create virtual distance, and examine how a CIO can begin to change them.

      Cultural Values. It doesnt take a degree in psychology to know that people, groups and organizations have different values and communication styles that affect how they work together.

      But Lojeski said her research indicates that people often misunderstand what those differences mean to the productivity of global virtual teams. Most people assume that cultural differences are primarily a matter of demographics–that South Asians, for instance, will have different values than Northern Europeans.

      In reality, cultural values can vary significantly among team members within the same country, especially in the United States, a country populated almost exclusively by people whose ancestral culture developed somewhere else.

      At ISO Properties Inc., a risk-management company, divisions that have been part of the business for a long time tend to be more conservative and need more information to make decisions. People in groups formed by recently acquired companies tend to be entrepreneurial risk-takers.

      “We need to appreciate that when we put together teams, so we dont have too many of a certain type of folks,” said Roy Nicolosi, CIO and vice president of ISO. “If we are dealing with new technology, we cant have a team where everyone is adverse to risk or nothing will get done.”

      The first step in addressing cultural values is to understand the perspectives of members of a team. In the past, after an acquisition, ISO would have people from an acquired company come to its facility, often creating in them a greater sense of uneasiness.

      “Recently, weve changed this and now we first send our people to their facility,” Lojeski said. “We make a great effort to get to know them from the start and dont immediately try to ISO-ize them.”

      /zimages/3/28571.gifRead the full story on CIOInsight.com: Make Your Team Stronger by Bridging Virtual Distance

      Avatar
      Joe Mullich

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      eWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      Zeus Kerravala - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      Wayne Rash - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more
      eWeek


      Contact Us | About | Sitemap

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | Advertise | California - Do Not Sell My Information

      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×