The first was a monthly editorial meeting with the executive editor of Japan Harvest. Most it is a meeting that gives us accountability with regards to bigger-picture stuff related to the magazine and communications with the organisation who publishes it (Japan Evangelical Missionary Association). The call only spanned about 9 km, but allows both of us to work from home with no commuting time or cost.
The second call was to the UK, with a member of OMF's International Communications team. She was providing support to me in my role as part of the mobilisation team for OMF Japan. She taught me a new techie trick to use with my social media role.
Both these calls were very useful and extremely convenient. Not to mention time- and cost-efficient.
Over the last seven years I've become an experienced geographically distant team-member. I didn't know this term until I went to a workshop in Bangkok last year and spent a week learning about teams. I was puzzled at the time because the teams I'm involved in are quite different to the face-to-face ones they were talking about, so I did some research and discovered a the term "geographically distant team" (also known as geographically dispersed/distributed, remote, or virtual team). In this world of increasingly fast internet speed, the sorts of teams I'm a part of are increasingly common. Teams where the members work from their homes, or from locations that aren't favourable for regular commuting.
Below I've pasted part of an assignment I researched and wrote following the above mentioned workshop (which was called Project Timothy 3). I wrote it before the mobilisation team of OMF Japan was formed formally, so that team is not mentioned.
If you're working on such a team, you may find it useful (sorry, it's a bit longer than my usual blog posts).
Project Timothy 3 focused on understanding
teams and how to best help them work, but the type of teams the course focuses
on is teams that work closely together, they see one another often, and are in
the same geographical location. The team that I am most involved in is a
geographically distant team. We produce a magazine, Japan Harvest, for
missionaries in Japan, but do it from our own homes. Our team lives in several
prefectures in Japan and two other countries. So for this assignment I sought
to understand geographically distant teams better and then took a look at my
own team, at what’s working for us and what needs some attention.
What
are they?
Geographically distant teams are
increasingly prevalent in this world as companies and organisations take
advantage of the technology available to them to connect teams in ways that has
never been possible before. A broader
term that’s used more frequently is “virtual teams”. They are groups of
individuals not physically in the same place but united by a common goal.
Wikipedia defines a virtual team as “A
group of individuals who work across time, space and organizational boundaries
with links strengthened by webs of communication technology.”
Powel, Piccoli, and Ives define virtual
teams as “groups of geographically, organizationally, and/or time dispersed
workers brought together by information and telecommunication technologies to
accomplish one or more organizational tasks.”
(http://www.managementstudyguide.com/virtual-team.htm)
Virtual teams communicate predominantly by
the use of technology and may never meet. In some cases they have cultural,
language, time zone, and ethnicity differences also.
Some virtual teams are temporarily formed to
accomplish a set or limited task. Teams
aren’t necessarily from the same organization, are frequently topic-specific
and dissolved after the completion of the task. Some teams are formed with
specialists for the purpose of making recommendations, other teams have more
powers to effect change and make decisions. Some virtual teams are set-up to
outsource specialist tasks, like software development.
Where
do you find them?
“Today
it isn't uncommon for companies to have as many as 50% of their
employees working on virtual teams” (http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/27807/Virtual-teams-are-different).
You
can find them everywhere, from multimillion dollar
companies to small business, and even in mission. NASA uses virtual teams to
run space missions. Whirlpool developed the chlorofluorocarbon-free
refrigerator using a virtual team. You see them in customer service support,
consulting firms, management teams in national and international companies, and
offshore teams for software development.
OMF International has many virtual teams.
For example, the Field Leadership team in Japan—the members live in Tokyo,
Tohoku, and Sapporo. One member is currently on home assignment. They sometimes
meet in person, but many of their communications are via email, phone, and
Skype. Another virtual team on our field this year was the Field Conference planning team. This is an example of a team that came together for a specific purpose
for a short period of time.
How
do they work?
There are different types of teams.
Variables include: purpose of the team, whether members are from the same
company or multiple companies, and the length of the project. Some teams regularly meet, for example, the
TED tech team has 29 members spread across several US states and two other
countries, they meet via videoconferencing every week, as well as in person
every three to four months (http://blog.ted.com/8-tips-for-virtual-collaboration-from-teds-tech-team/).
Other teams meet less often or never at all.
A friend of mine in Australia works for a
Christian organization called Scripture Union, that especially reaches out to
school students. My friend supervises chaplains in schools across a wide
geographical region. She periodically drives for several days visiting them at
their place of work, and they periodically gather together at conferences. But
she told me that the most meaningful thing they do to promote team unity and
productivity is meeting weekly via Skype for time of reading the Bible and
sharing and praying for one another.
Advantages?
Virtual teams:
- save money,
- allow people with necessary gifts to contribute regardless of their location,
- can be more efficient,
- are more flexible to meet needs,
- can work at times that suit them best,
- individual team members have more control over where they work,
- they save time wasted on commuting, and
- at times it means that they can make decisions faster.
Disadvantages:
- Essential technology can be expensive and can break down.
- Trust is hard to build and easy to break.
- Collaboration is difficult to manage.
- Conflict can more easily arise from misunderstandings that come with a lack of the non-verbal cues that are part of face to face communication.
- Members may feel isolated and lack the motivation that being physically with a team can provide.
- Self-discipline is a must for a well-functioning team.
- Not being in an office can be less productive.
- Communication in general can be more difficult.
- Building trust.
- Managing collaboration
- Avoiding and resolving conflict.
- Accountability.
- Team spirit and motivation.
- Finding ways to meet.
Are you a part of a geographically distant team? How do you make it work?
