1 Nov. 2013
Rule #1 of international business travel: Always check the time zone of your new destination upon landing!
The morning of Wednesday, 18 September 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia sounded quiet from the window of my hotel room. I was enjoying the view wrapped warm in my plush, terrycloth hotel robe when I received a call from a pleasant voice: “Good morning, Malii!” It was Stefan Meister, , one of the three co-facilitators of the VPA (Virtual Performance Assessment)® Licensing Workshop scheduled for that morning. We exchanged pleasantries. And then, in a matter-of-fact way, Stefan reminded me that the workshop would start shortly, and that my arrival was anticipated. Oh no—my watch was still set to Berlin time! And, as you know by now if you did not already, there is a time difference between Berlin and Tallinn—of one hour! I dressed in a whirlwind, and joined the workshop shortly after our scheduled time. When I arrived, the participant group was in lively conversation, and the facilitators had not yet shut the door (as is the German custom when officially starting a work meeting). I walked into the room, and into the possibilities of virtuality that we would explore that day. This piece shares some refined insights and questions that I gained that day.
From Berlin, Germany to Tallinn, Estonia to Chennai, India VPA Licensing Workshops hop the globe. The workshop in Tallinn was hosted in response to demand on the part of registered participants of the SIETAR[1] Europa Congress, an annual conference of intercultural practitioners from around the world. This year’s theme was, “Global Reach, Local Touch.” Tallinn’s VPALicensing Workshop, like all VPAworkshops, supported consultant-participants in better equipping themselves to build “glocal”[2] and high-performing teams amongst the far-flung teams of their client-partners.
Co-facilitated by Dr. Marcus Hildebrandt (of learning.de), Line Jehle (of Perform-Globally) and Stefan Meister (of intercultures), this was the __th licensing workshop this year. The next VPA Licensing Workshop is schedule for November 2013 in Chennai. The three co-facilitators are also co-developers of the VPA tool, and co-authors of the upcoming book, “Closeness at a Distance,” with Susanne Skoruppa. The book includes a Forward by Jessica Lipnack, author of Virtual Teams and The Age of the Network, and a pioneer in the area of virtual teams.
As one resource in a blended portfolio of Virtual Performance Improvement products and services that boost performance in virtual collaboration, VPA is an assessment tool that lays the basis for high performing virtual teams, groups, and networks. It sparks and guides discussion for those endeavoring to increase performance in virtual spaces. In this process, strong competencies are needed on the part of the process leader(s) to facilitate people in virtual teams, group and networks through a discovery of how they currently perform, and how they may reach increased levels of virtual performance.
The workshop began with some examples of virtual communication via email that are both commonly received and misunderstood. Consider these sample emails received by an employee named Carlos from two different colleagues with whom he works remotely:
Email 1
Need meeting minutes until tomorrow end of business. Chuck
Email 2
Dear Carlos,
How was your weekend? Did Barca win the derby against Espanyol? Following up our meeting from last week (I liked the way you dealt with Chuck J), I wanted to ask you where you’ll be able to send me the minutes, as I want to distributed them internally. Warm regards, Maria
The workshop group speculated upon the context of the relationship between Carlos and his two colleagues; the possible national cultures with which his colleagues identify; and, how Carlos may have perceived the tone of each email. The learning points were twofold: 1.) Email 1 reflected more of a Cognitive Presence in that Chuck was primarily communicating the task-at-hand; 2.) Email 2 reflected more of a Social Presence in that Maria blended a social exchange with her work request to Carlos. In working and communicating virtually—especially on a global scale—team members and the consultants that train them must have an understanding and acceptance of the range of communication orientations that team members may take in various scenarios. What about you? In a work context:
- How might you respond to Chuck and Maria?
- What tends to be your orientation when communicating via email?
- How do interpretations of the emails you receive and send affect the performance of your team, group or network?
As taught by the co-facilitators, “virtual closeness” is the means through which globally-dispersed virtual teams best collaborate and collectively improve their performance together. Some may know about Karen Sobel-Lojeski’s foundational work on Virtual Distance (and the Virtual Distance Index) that had some influence on the conception of the term. A definition of virtual closeness was offered during the workshop: “Virtual closeness describes the perceived closeness between two or more group members and their perceived closeness to the context and space wherein they interact after a period of little or no face-to-face contact.”
The interactive space between and betwixt virtual team members has been coined by Hildebrandt, Jehle and Meister as “purple space.” It is a figuratively space co-created and shared by the members of a team, group or network in which they build social presence and relationship that enables productive virtual work relationships. Sreemathi Ramnath, an intercultural management training consultant who is licensed in the Virtual Performance Assessment tool, thinks of “Purple culture as a synonym to talk about a culture that comes out of negotiated strengths from different regions and this is when the org can really benefit from the diversity present. Purple because it is not a primary color; it’s a secondary color coming together from other colors. Therefore, it’s a metaphor for synergy.” Ramnath adds that leaders of today are to go beyond the ideas of tolerating cultures, and “should be thinking:
- ‘How do I leverage these different cultures?
- How do I bring out the purples from the red, blue and green?’”
Purple space presents a solution to the challenge of identifying a management model to fit modern businesses that are global and evolving quickly. If the first business management model began with the “family” model, it was followed by the “machine-like” model. The former was characterized by personal closeness; the latter was characterized by the all-important goal of efficiency. Both models were based on control by management of employees. However, in today’s virtual work world, attraction is the key to influence; in this world, control has declined an effective means to influence others.
In response, effective and modern management models are shifting from “push” to “pull” technologies. Pull medias are technology-based medias that offer people access to information as and when they prefer to consume it in taking responsibility for their knowledge and learning. Examples of pull media include LinkedIn discussion threads, internal intranet systems, DropBox, etc. It is through such pull medias that Purple Space is born, when people are allowed liberties to connect and collaborate on their terms. Push medias are technology-based medias that are delivered to people for them to receive and consume within an (explicit or implicit) time frame as expected by the sender. Examples of push media include email, hard-copy memos and other documents, etc. By assessing the extent of virtual closeness between teams within five different categories, VPA provides a blueprint of where increased or decreased influence exists and where pull technologies can be created and/or improved.
Threaded throughout the VPA Licensing Workshop was discussion about how to create a management model suitable for the global, intercultural and virtual environments in which professionals work and network. By thinking differently about, and broadening our understanding of, virtual performance, I and other participant-consultants were able to consider new possibilities that opened our imagination to new questions. Some of the questions discussed in the workshop and subsequently in the online-based Virtual Performance Improvement Community of Practice included:
- How do we shift from a “push” to a “pull” management model?
- Where is the border between virtual and non-virtual communication?
- How do feelings of closeness change one’s sense of responsibly to the team, group or network?
- Do we expect more from technology and less from one another, as Sherry Turkle has stated?
- How can people most effectively and positively influence the virtual networks to which they belong?
- Does a virtual working group’s perception of itself as a „team” affect its productivity?
The VPI Community of Practice is a LinkedIn-based network. All are welcome to join.
In addition to the new insights and new questions we gained during the workshop, participant “take aways” included a fashionable, “intercultures yellow” materials folder, including an expanded version of the PowerPoint presentation shared that day; a technical guide on how to navigate the online VPA management site; packets about the concept of “virtual closeness” and the Virtual Performance Improvement consulting process; a copy of Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps et al’s influential Harvard Business Review article, “Can Absence Make a Team Grow Stronger?”; a signed, personal VPA® licensing certificate for each consultant-participant, among other materials.
And, without “short-changing” those who have not yet read the article—Yes, absence can make a team grow stronger! It’s worth a read.
Virtually yours,
Malii
Malii Brown
Director of Global Network Communications
intercultures
Please send comments or questions to Malii at brown@www.www.intercultures.de. Thank you!