For virtual project teams, visions of high performance often vanish near the middle of the kickoff teleconference. People commonly experience virtual teams as awkward and frustrating. Many attribute the difficulty to the nature of virtual teams, because they are dispersed in space, time, and/or organization. Some teams are also dispersed in language and culture, but high performance can be compromised even when the dispersion is only geographical. The term "high-performance virtual team" need not be an oxymoron if we change our approach to leading, managing, and supporting virtual teams. The required changes are challenging, because they touch every part of the enterprise, including the way we think about investing in people. But they are achievable.
展开▼
