(by 4 people)
We are all beginners at leading people and teams in a virtual context.
True beginners need to dive into this, and see what works for them. ;)
In this lens I share my own expertise as a virtual coach with you, giving hints and advice as we roll on. There are many aspects of virtual coaching, and if you want me to steer my lens over any particular part of virtual coaching - just tell me.
Virtual Coaching on eBay!
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Pages that will clear the fog, bit by bit...
- Virtual Teams
- Virtual Teams are tricky to lead. In fact, most people stumble even on the definition. Here is a place that sorts out some lingo and points in good directions.
- MentorCoach
- A short introduction to how therapists (and others) can coach virtual groups. But I am unsure of this link right now - cannot really decide if it is irrelevant at the moment. I'll give it a week or so, then zonk it.
- iCohere definitions
- They are trying to sell you their software and stuff - never mind that. Just check the sidebar for downloadable PDF:s with good info on definitions of "Communities of Practice", "Learning Communities", "Project Communities" etc.
- Expedition WOW
- Those of you who dig Swedish will fina a virtual crash course in Virtual Leadership on this site. A gem. Not for free, though.
Great books on Amazon
Work Team Coaching: An Interpersonal Approach to High Performance
Amazon Price: (as of 10/06/2008)
Coaching Team Basketball
Amazon Price: $18.95 (as of 10/06/2008)
Coaching Team Defense
Amazon Price: (as of 10/06/2008)
The Knusper Blog
leadership development and process facililtation
This is my own blog, covering various aspects of leadership. Since I have this fetish for virtual coaching, that topic tends to re-surface quite frequently. The same goes for coffee and mountains.
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Instant assistance how to facilitate specific virtual situations!
- MISCOMMUNICATION: A lack of discernible body language and voice intonations means a higher potential for problematic miscommunications.
FACILITATE: help virtual team members find alternative ways to signal their emotions and feelings through summarizing and paraphrasing.
MISTRUST: A lack of effective communication can negatively influence trust and lead to its reduction.
FACILITATE: recognize that interpersonal trust comes in many forms and each of these can be developed by an effective combination of action and conversation.
INFORMATION OVERLOAD: The enormous amounts of data exchanged in a virtual gathering can overload team members.
FACILITATE: help teams compensate for this with topic reduction, division into sub-teams (one per topic), increased break times, and slowed pace of contributions.
PARALLEL PROCESSING: The simultaneous multiple topic discussions of some virtual teams can cause parallel processing concerns.
FACILITATE: help members to compensate for this by identifying clear topic threads, focusing on related threads, and increasing topic reflection times.
HIGH SPEED EXCHANGES: The high speed nature of virtual conversation can leave some members lost behind: some synchronous situations favor extroverts for their quick thinking and outgoing nature, while other asynchronous cases favor introverts for taking time to think before expressing their opinions.
FACILITATE: encourage the inclusive mixing of both exchanges.
OPPORTUNITY TO HIDE: Technology allows some members to hide and avoid contributing to exchanges. This makes identifying who is engaged (and who is not participating) a very difficult task in some instances.
FACILITATE: utilize other side channels of communication to contact people and gain their full attention and complete involvement.
POORLY CHOSEN CHANNELS: The wrong choice of communication tool or technology can be disastrous for virtual teams.
FACILITATE: make careful choices that help you to consider the best common denominator for all virtual team members and thus avoid excluding anyone.
SPLIT TEAMS: Many virtual teams are a hybrid of an assembled majority in one location with a dispersed minority spread around the world's geography and time zones. Hybrid virtual teams often experience split team personalities with a number of associated problems.
FACILITATE: work hard to ensure that team members are aware of this potential division and find ways to address it.
SYNCHRONICITY: Some virtual teams contribute at the same instant in time, while other members are only able to contribute at very different times. The time lags or response delays that are frequent with such mixed interactions can cause team members to feel bored and ignored.
FACILITATE: remedy this by preparing people for slow interactions, by encouraging them to reflect before responding, and by their scheduling synchronous conversations on side channels.
FEAR: Fear of failure or retribution is a common concern of people in any organization where learning from mistakes is devalued and risk taking is diminished. Many virtual teams have the added concern that everything they say, write, draw or do is recorded for posterity in a technological archive.
FACILITATE: discuss the ethical dilemmas of anonymity, confidentiality, security, risk, and support at the outset, and stand ready to introduce learning from failure concepts to the organizational culture.
