Achieving Success in Virtual Teams

With the increased globalization in the world, companies and organizations have opened branches in different sections of the society which must work to gather to bring success to the organization. The ability of these companies to coordinate requires well-coordinated teamwork, which carries a victory to all aspects of that organization.The virtual team is becoming one of the most essential components of such organization management and any organization which knows how to utilize it becomes successful in the market.Even though the geographical locations with distinct time zones are may be a challenging factor in the team coordination, there is a need to identify specific methods that will help to bring an unbeaten team from highly diversified cultures and beliefs in different regions of the world. This discussion focuses on the particular ways of achieving success in a virtual group based on the possibilities of overcoming the various challenges that come with it.

Factors that contribute to the success of a virtual team

Collaboration from a distance is becoming a healthy way of the transaction and teamwork. Even though the cost of travel continues to rise, the search for talents is no longer restricted to distance.  The application of virtual team leadership becomes a critical element in this case of distance issues. One of the factors that promote effectiveness is the ability to focus on the problems of people in the team. The fact that the lack of human contact is an issue implies that there is an association between team members that are likely to lead to conflicts.It is a conflict that can emanate to a fight of “us vs. them” perspective among the team members in different subgroups or locations. To avoid such frustration in the team, there is a need to focus on the issues of the team members. Among such initiatives may include coming up with a team page or initiating collaboration software that enables the vital team to get to know each other and share information.This can also be achieved by creating a platform for interaction and effective communication among the team members.

The next factor that contributes to the success and failure of a team is the concept of building trust among the virtual team members.This trust can be made at the task level. Among the factors that indicate a lack of confidence in a vital team include the inability of the members to identify with the group, not knowing one another and not showing farewell to one another. Lack of trust is also demonstrated by the open negativity and lack of commitment and assertion on others credible.To ensure confidence in the virtual team, there are various steps which can be taken.  One is holding a face to face meeting at least once during the formation of the group. This should be followed by open communication and resolving problems that may arise rather than avoiding them. These steps can ensure the creation of the effective virtual team and preventing the failures that may occur.

Alack of soft skills causes a failure of a virtual team. This involves skills that are vital in interpersonal interactions. The inefficient of skills can be promoted in a firm through a thorough training on the soft skills. The skills will enable efficient communication and enhance team performance for the betterment of the company.

The extent to which the characteristics of well-functioning, active groups overlap the attributes that

Contribute to the success of virtual teams.

A vital group requires developing specific attributes that help to understand and direct the group members. However, it becomes challenging to improve such characteristics since there is a constant overlap between them. One of the critical quality of teamwork is interdependence work relationship with a common goal. At the same time, each team member is required to be self-reliant and self-motivated. The extent to which each team member is self-motivated varies, and the fact that it is not easy to meet for a vital team makes it difficult to develop a common goal with common motivation required. This, therefore, leads to an overlap in the virtual organization with the normal and a well-functioning team as needed.

Even though communication is essential in a virtual team, effective communication may be difficult to achieve,especially in the cases where there is an ambiguous communication. This over connection or ambiguity may be misleading and lead to inefficiencies in the virtual team. The fact that the chances of the meeting may be difficult, the coordination based on the communication platform may not facilitate a proper understanding and clear personal relationship that ensures a clear understanding of individuals characters of the team members. This, therefore, creates an overlap based on the attribute of the requirement for effective communication and its danger on the development of efficient teams in the organization.

How cultural diversity can affect the effective functioning of virtual teams operating in a global

Cultural diversity involves the fact that every individual h in the virtual group has his or her cultural backgrounds based on his or her beliefs. Team members, therefore, do not have the same culture and practices. This has a severe impact on the performance of the team in both the negative way and the positive way. A focus on the positive way reveals that cultural diversity in a virtual group influences the different role that each play. Culture can bring the best out of an individual, especially in tackling the business issues that are common to a particular religion. Combining the various culture lead to the creation of a work environment that is accommodative and creates positive energy towards the success of the company.

On the other hand, cultural diversity may be a hindrance to the success of a virtual team. Since different cultures have different social norms, coordination may be impossible as some group members may avoid taking some activities due to cultural restrictions. This restriction may be based on the rule set in a particular colure that may prevent an individual from taking actions that are crucial to the team. As a result, there is likely to be negativity in creating a well-functioning virtual team. For an active virtual group, there is a need for the members to understand each other’s culture and ensure that they delegate duties that are compatible with the various religions. They should also maintain an official behavior that does not undermine one another’s culture and create a general harmony for the success of the team

Volvo’s approach to evaluating the effectiveness of its virtual teams

Volvo, being one of the companies which have taken a serious the issue of communication stimulation and efficacy as the central core of promoting virtual team has been in the fore-line of ensuring that their approach works well.It has hence evaluated the effectiveness of their virtual team with different forms of matrices based on four factors. These include the efficiency of the team to understand the goals and their expectation, the comfort of team communication, the clarity of the project timeline and the familiarity of the team with their roles and responsibilities. This method is vital for other companies as a way of evaluating the effectiveness of the virtual team. Many attributes of it make it one of the most effective approaches. Among them is the fact that it has summarized the criteria that are needed for the proper functioning of such a team. It also elaborates the concerns of both the company and the respective employees in the group. Adopting such evaluation criteria implies that the company has a capability of understanding all the dynamic that is involved in the virtual team management and  the success of  the team

Conclusion

In conclusion, the ability of a company to maintain a well-functioning team depends on its ability to place an effective team management strategy that caters to the concerns of all the team members. In this case, it allows for cultural diversity and ensures that it takes care of the interests of each team member. it, therefore, creates effective management that provides that the teams meet the standards through constant evaluation and monitoring of their progress.

Do you need high quality Custom Essay Writing Services?