Virtual Leadership

Practical Strategies for Success with Remote or Hybrid Work and Teams

Penny Pullan

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781398604285
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Virtual work and teams have become normal in organizations around the world. This book is the guide for those who cannot always be together in person with colleagues, whether fully remote or hybrid. Virtual Leadership offers practical strategies and proven methods for getting the best out of hybrid or remote work and teams. This useful guide explains how to create cohesive teams, collaborate creatively and effectively, connect across barriers of distance and culture, building on the foundation of a leader's own mindset and approach. It provides clear guidance on how to run engaging and effective meetings, as well as how to encourage high performance from motivated and happy team members in between meetings.Fully revised throughout, this second edition:
- provides a new chapter entirely focused on hybrid ways of working;
- offers advice for those leading teams in a formal capacity, as well as for those where leadership is an occasional part of their role;
- gives ideas and practical tips on how to overcome the many complications of virtual work;
- presents diverse case studies and examples from business, education, community, healthcare and beyond, sparking insights that can be adapted to other environments.Leading virtual teams effectively requires a new set of skills and a facilitative leadership approach. Written by a leading expert in the field, Virtual Leadership is here as your guide.

04

Technology for virtual work

This chapter looks at how technology underpins virtual working. It considers the range of different types of technology that people use for virtual work, looking at what works best in different situations. Please note that I will not refer to specific technologies, except in case studies or stories, in order to keep this book fresh. Instead, this chapter looks at the key concepts, applicable to whichever particular proprietary tool or application you choose to use. I explore how to use technology in ways that harness the powers of our own human technology, our brains.

By the time you have finished this chapter:

• You will have an understanding of the wide range of technologies available to you as a virtual leader.
• You will be able to choose the most appropriate type of technology for the different constraints that you face in virtual work.
• You will be prepared for the inevitable mishaps with technology that often delay virtual meetings.
• You will know how to use technology in ways that work best with the human brain.
• I hope too that you will be inspired to make the best use of whatever technology you have available to you and perhaps even try out something new.

Technology is only an enabler

Advances in technology and widespread broadband have allowed a huge number of people around the world to connect with one another and work together in new ways. During the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual working went mainstream and technology underpinned it all.

It is important to remember that the technology itself is only an enabler. Alone, it does not make virtual working effective. Indeed, it’s only the foundation. Consider electricity in a home: it is needed for normal life, certainly to run technology, but we don’t obsess about electricity. We make sure we have it safely installed and then forget about it, focusing elsewhere to make a house a home. Virtual working technology should be like that, in the background rather than the focus.

It is more important to choose and use the appropriate technology to support the work that people are trying to do together and their communication preferences. Think of the choice between trying to innovate as a team purely over an audio call, or having a full visual collaboration tool, complete with sticky notes, drawing tools and voting dots, as well as being able to see and hear each other? Which would you prefer? I know what my preference would be – the visual tool every time!

Figure 4.1 A mind-map of this chapter

Figure 4.1 details

The technology for virtual work is in the middle. It is associated with references and further reading, questions for reflection, summary, a day in the life, Rachel Smith, going beyond what’s possible in this physical world, technology working with human brain, technology barriers to virtual work, technology is only an enabler, people need to be able to use it, types of technology and what works when. Technology working with human brain further leads to using faces to engage people and Using visuals and graphics. Technology barriers to virtual work further leads to video quality, audio quality, costs, storage limits, individual needs, connectivity, accessing information, broadband access or lack of it, familiarity or not, incompatible software or hardware, cross-company issues and security concerns. The types of technology are same time and different place, different time and different place. What works when leads to in-person meeting, message, audio call video call, high-end video conference suite, call with shared screen, smart whiteboard, co-creation tool, visual collaboration tool, remote working robot, virtual world, extended reality, xr tool, email, recording, transcription, collaboration tool, social media and survey.

Don’t fall into the trap, as many organizations do, of providing training for new virtual technologies, but not providing any support on how to work together effectively virtually. The culture of your organization and the behaviours of your people will have much more impact on virtual success than the particular tools you choose. There is even a 90/10 rule, which stresses how a virtual team’s success is based 90 per cent on the people involved and 10 per cent on the technology (Lipnack and Stamps, 2000). Others agree, saying: ‘It’s never been easier to communicate or collaborate with people anywhere, any time. The missing upgrade is for the human mind.’ (Fried and Hansson, 2013). This book is designed to provide you with that upgrade so that you can show virtual leadership and gain improved results.

People need to be able to use the technology

However clever the technology, it is not going to work well unless people can use it effectively. Ensure that your teams are either: 1) already accomplished in the tools you wish to use; or 2) willing to learn, plus supported with everything they need to become proficient. Appropriate support might include training, a user guide and/or virtual learning. It depends on each individual and their situation. If you make assumptions that people will be able to use technology, they may never get to grips with it, which could hold you back. I find two extremes in my work: some people do not come forward to say that they need help with technology, while others assume they need lots of help, when they would be able to get started on their own.

Here is an example: I generally consider myself to be quite quick at learning new technologies. I’ve worked with technology for decades and used my first computer at primary school. However, I am part of a virtual group that makes extensive use of online systems for working together. The group is part of a professional association – a special interest group. I had had no training in the particular tool that we used and, as a result, I muddled along for years. When I finally set aside time to work through the online user guide, I was able to be more involved in discussions and it saved me time. Then they moved to a new system…

Types of technology

To separate out the different technology options for different types of meetings, consider the two-by-two grid shown in Figure 4.2. The top row is labelled ‘same place’, which would align with traditional working in the same location, and the bottom row is labelled ‘different place’, which means virtual working. The left column is labelled ‘same time’, which indicates synchronous work such as live meetings, and the right column shows ‘different time’, or asynchronous work.

Figure 4.2 The time-and-place grid

SOURCE Adapted from an idea by Johansen (1988)

Figure 4.2 details

The details of the grid are as follows: Traditional meetings, same time, same place; display boards, different time, same place; Synchronous virtual working tools, same time, different place; Asynchronous virtual working tools, different time, different place.

You can see that virtual technologies fall into either of the lower two quadrants. They are either different place/same time – synchronous, or different place/different time – asynchronous.

Same time/different place

Synchronous virtual working tools include the following. (Note that the descriptions given are generic as tools change quickly. For a list of current tools, go to www.virtualleadershipbook.com.)

• Messages, such as chat, text or instant messages, which also work asynchronously.
• Audio calls, such as one-to-one phone calls or group calls.
• Video calls, where people are able to see each other in real time during discussions. With large numbers of participants, each person will appear very small and not everyone might be visible. Breakout rooms are often available for small group discussions.
• High-end video conference suites, sometimes branded as telepresence, where remote rooms are made to appear as close to meeting physically in person as possible. They need very sophisticated, highly expensive video and audio equipment, plus dedicated rooms. You can whisper to a remote person and only they will hear your message.
• Calls with shared screen, allow people to share their screens so that everyone else can see what they are working on. Most people’s video won’t be visible even if shared. Those whose video remains visible b...

Table of contents

• Preface to the second edition
• Foreword to the first edition
• Introduction
• 01 The ups and downs of virtual working
• 02 Virtual leadership, mindset and approach
• 03 Working virtually with others
• 04 Technology for virtual work
• 05 Leading virtual meetings
• 06 Virtual working in between meetings
• 07 Virtual working complications: time zones, language, culture and generation
• 08 Hybrid
• 09 Potential pitfalls and how to overcome them
• 10 Inspiration for your virtual leadership
• About the author
• Acknowledgements
• Index