Strategy 5: Can t Get Everyone Together? Be an E-Team

Whether you're working with a local group and several key people are unable to attend a meeting or you're part of a virtual team spanning time zones and cultures around the world, you can use the ten-step process to resolve tough issues. In fact, these situations particularly require the clear and inclusive method.

Meeting the Special Needs of Virtual Teams

Global markets, fast-paced technical developments, a crunch on cash, and pressure for results have spawned virtual teams. These teams often cross geographic, cultural, and organizational lines.

For example, Chris, the president of the U.S. subsidiary of a company headquartered in Western Europe, was responsible for launching a new product in the United States. The product's lead developer worked in the Australian subsidiary. He is Scandinavian and emigrated only a few years ago. Chris needed to pull her farflung team together to understand the technology, figure out how it might fit in the U.S. market, garner support from the parent company, and complete the product launch. But investment capital was tight, and Chris's team members needed to resolve their issues promptly and implement them efficiently. The competitive markets wouldn't give them a second chance.

If you're working with a global team like Chris's, you'll understand her dilemma. You don't have to be part of a multinational corporation, however, to have difficulties getting the right people together. Key people might be out of town. Maybe you don't have time to wait for everyone to meet, or it might be impossible to get all the stakeholders and information providers together at once. Yet you need input and commitment from everyone to be successful.

How do you resolve tough issues in a complex organizational setting? What tools can you use? Who should participate and how will they span potentially vast differences in cultures, locations, and time zones to communicate effectively?

Decision-making styles and ways of working vary. Some virtual teams limit themselves to discussing those items upon which everyone can agree. Others let dominant participants fill the leadership void. Some groups work well in person but fall apart when their members go back to their respective locations. A virtual team with outstanding talent will get caught in those dilemmas unless it finds a common process and satisfying ways for participants to plug into it.

Dispersed groups, especially those with cultural or organizational differences, particularly benefit from the ten-step process. It defines roles participants can fill and opportunities they can take advantage of wherever they are.