Improving communication and collaboration is crucial as work forces become dispersed

AMY OLSTEAD
Special to the Globe and Mail

Every team needs a coach, even ones that meet on-line instead of on the ice or on the field.

"More and more, people are
communicating through means
other face to face," says Sheila
Goldgrab, a professional corporate
coach who usually offers advice on
careers and leadership skills.
"Along with that comes new skills
and new opportunities for a
coach."
This summer, Ms. Goldgrab, who
has a master's degree in adult edu-
cation helped a "virtual team" - a
group of workers who didn't meet
in person - organize a conference.
She's betting there's an emerging
market, one where geographically
scattered employees could use her
services to improve communica-
tion.
Despite high-speed Internet ac-
cess, corporate intranets, group
software, video conferences and
high-tech home offices, new tech-
nology hasn't solved all the old
problems associated with teams
spread across the country.
And as technology replaces the
middle manager who once directed
activities and communication, em-
ployees have to become more self-
motivated and adept at working in-
dependently.

"The real difficult part isn't the
technology," says Stan Skrzeszew-
ski, a principal of Advanced Strate-
gic Management Consultants,
which helps organizations create
collaborative work groups. "It's
how you enable people to work to-
gether effectively. How can we
work together as a team? How can
we do it virtually?"

Experts say people are accus-
tomed to talking their way through
their work days, reading visual
cues as they discuss deals and problems.
They keep most of their knowledge
in their heads, not in digital docu-
ments. They're used to watching
the same clocks as deadlines app-
roach and exchanging ideas in hallways.
It's no wonder people and proj-
ects get tied up in E-mail, voice-
mail and conference calls.
"The shift is so fundamental,"
says Praj Patel, director of product
marketing at Waterloo, Ont-based
Open Text Corp., which makes
software for teams, called Livelink.
"It's accelerated in the past couple
of years. There are different ways of
working, a different discipline in an
on-line world."

Open Text is tackling the issue by
organizing regular meetings of
Open Text users so they can get to-
gether and discuss how they got
around problems they encoun-
tered.

Mr. Skrzeszewski and his partner
Maureen Cubberley live 300 kilo-
metres apart in London and Burk's
Falls, respectively. Over the past
seven years, they have themselves
been working together on-line and
have found virtual teams more col-
laborative and consensual, less
driven by one leader calling the
shots by making key decisions.
Richmond Hill, Ont-based
Changepoint Corp. makes software
for teams in the IT services busi-
ness. It launched its first product in
1997 and has watched companies
struggle to adjust to the new technology.

"Two years isn't a long time for
the business community to start to
understand and utilize techno-
logy," says Gerry Smith, president
and chief executive officer of Changepoint.
"A lot of people still work like
squirrels: They run out and get
their little nuts and store them
for themselves."
Changepoint learned to consult for
companies and mould the software
so that it fits the particular style of
the organization, even building in
special terminology and integrating
new team functions into familiar
applications - such as filling out
time cards.

But common frustrations still
plague most virtual teams as people
adjust to the new ways of working.
They include the difficulty sharing
documents and ideas, and getting
answers to questions quickly. With
-out trust built up from working side
by side, virtual teammates can
jump to the wrong conclusions in
the absence of information.
Zita Cobb, senior vice-president
of strategy and integration at To-
ronto-based JDS Uniphase Corp.
works on a regular basis with em-
ployees in different countries who
also travel a lot.

"The most frustrating part is not
that they're in 15 sites around the
world, it's they're not where they're
supposed to be," says Ms. Cobb. "If
you don't have fundamental trust
in your team members, people
have a tendency to fill in the blanks
with the wrong information.
"Things can very easily get dis-
connected in the relationship."
Some employees struggle with
virtual team because they need a
social environment to be creative
or they just don't see the point of
doing things differently.
Simple problems can cause real
headaches, such as E-mail and
voice-mail that don't get answered,
conference calls that people don't

'A lot of people still
work like squirrels:
They run out and get their little nuts and
Store them for themselves.'

pay attention to, and tasks that fall
through the cracks because of a
lack of communication.
While it's natural for people to
blame their frustrations on the
limitations of the technology, peo-
ple who have experience with vir-
tual teams say the solution lies in
learning new work habits.
There are some tips to make vir-
tual teams more productive. Face
-to-face interaction can't be
scrapped entirely. In fact, an in-
person meeting can be the best way
for a team to establish a common
purpose and build trust, says Mr.
Smith at Changepoint.
It's also crucial to set up ground
rules since old routines will no
longer work, says Ms. Goldgrab,
the consultant.
How quickly should employees
respond to E-mails? How often are
conference calls needed? Who will
keep track of who is performing
which tasks? How will documents
be stored and shared?
There needs to be a system in
place if someone finds communica-
tion is breaking down.
Deadlines need to be met and
consent gathered, without the op-
portunity to hash things out later
over the water cooler.
New rules for reaching consensus
need to be developed to replace
one person's approval, says Mr.
Skrzeszweski.
New places - such as E-mail
groups and common on-line fo-
rums - must be set up for people
to get together, share ideas, ex-
change documents and be creative.
If done correctly, virtual teams
can deliver on the much-touted
cost and time savings.
Ms. Goldgrab points to her expe-
rience as a virtual coach for the con-
ference sponsored by Fast
Company magazine. "In person,
meetings went on forever, "she
says. "By teleconferencing, we
never went to 60 minutes."
Ultimately, she says efficiency is
about people as much as comput-
ers. "It isn't the technology that
stands in the way," she says. "it's
that we haven't looked at the add-
itional skills you need to make it ef-
ficient and productive. It can help
us, support us, in getting the pro-
ductivity up, but it's all in how you
use it."