Working Together... When Apart - Article Review Example

The article focuses on virtual teams which involve people working in different location. This is because organizations are expanding on a daily basis as telecommunication becomes more common; work groups open far-flung office spaces, private homes, and hotel rooms. About 80 percent of workers prefer operating in dispersed teams as long as they are armed with laptops, mobile phones, and a Wi-Fi. In the article, the appeal for the formation of the virtual team is evident. Employees across the globe manage their work and individual lives more flexible and get the opportunity to interrelate with the other coworkers across the world. It is in this sense that organizations can use virtual teams to reduce real estate cost and the overall operations. A well-managed virtual team can beat those that share office space. The article has highlighted on ten golden rules that can be used to make the virtual teams productive.

According to the article, organizations have embraced the idea of the virtual team as a result of the benefits related to cost reduction and improvement of the overall performance. Moreover, many organization managers have varied perception to the barriers in managing the teams. Some of the obstacles include time difference, cultural difference and language barrier which then hinders the performance. The overall influence of subjective things like behavior over organization performance assessment is evident. Lack of an effective communication network, language barrier, and cultural barriers have affected the performance of the teams. It is therefore essential to identify and correct the items for the success of the team.

This vice has changed the organization behavior given the heavy investments made by organizations in the internal communication and systems in the company. Theoretically, there is currently no challenge in working closely with colleagues distributed across the globe. Employees are more likely to be productive and innovative if working with other people they know. In this case, a heritage relationship is created, building networks among the team members.

Organizations use the virtual teams in gathering experts in various functions of the organizations to accomplish the set goals and objectives. The nature of virtual teams creates challenges to the effective collaboration and team results hence the need to formulate a conceptual framework to hypothesis the relationship between knowledge sharing and team effectiveness in a virtual team scenario. Sharing knowledge among employees creates a positive trust and collaboration within the virtual team members. Team members can work together and attend to various contemporary issues within the team.

Disagreements have become apparent in a virtual team environment as compared to the conventional face-to-face meeting. However, social learning theory has helped achieve its incorporation into different organizations. Procedures have been circulated to team members on how team members can operate and laid out the individual member expectations in relation to particular contribution, timelines and the need to cooperate and work together for the benefit of the team. Organization managers can enhance the learning process further by actively getting involved in the team sessions, the motivation of the workers and correcting abnormalities from the main practices. The requirements of the team members and the entire group are presented at the inception and can be effective. Team leaders should have such elements as objectives of the organization, listening skills and how various issues can be handled within the virtual team. A team log needs to be provided for each deliverable with detailed information of every member together with a review of the entire team.

Reference

Gratton, L. (2007). Working together... when apart. Journal Report: Business Insight, 1.