Zoe Atlas

Chapter 3
MG 610

This article, entitled, Can Absence Make a Team Grow Stronger? by Ann
Majchrzak, Arvind Malhotra, Jeffrey Stamps and Jessica Lipnack discusses the strengths
of a virtual team and the necessary elements needed to achieve a successful virtual team.
Bob Carmen, at Rocketdyne was able to design a reusable rocket engine, called
SLICE, in only one-tenth the amount of time it took to develop its predecessors even
though the only physically meeting the team had included five of the members and the
members only spent about fifteen percent of each work week over ten months. Carmen
was able to pull this off by using modern communications technology to fashion a
virtual, far-flung team of diverse talents that no face-to-face team could match. (275)
Through this team and its success, three principles were established that should guide
most teams. The first has to do with how these teams were composed, the second has to
do with how they used technology to coordinate their efforts and finally, the third is how
team leaders encouraged a group of strangers that have little in common to functions as a
fully supportive group.
The first rule to a successfully virtual team is to exploit diversity. Carmen chose
people for his project based on the strength of their differences. These people and their
disciplines were so different and each subgroup had a distinct style of working and
different approach to solving problems. Each team member had areas of competence
that were uniquely his or her own, and inevitably, disagreements arose over matters
within one persons area of expertise that had repercussions for other team members. But
the clash of perspectives produced solutions instead of acrimony. (276) Much of these
solutions were determined during conference calls, in which all members engaged in
conversations and discussed different alternatives. By encouraging everyone to talk and
by the necessity of being a virtual team needing everyone to contribute, the level of
attention is raised to a high level. This ensures that there is a far more detailed
conversation than there would be with a face-to-face team. In addition, every member of
the team is required to take a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and agreed to remind each
other of the results during conversations. These of kinds of inclusive conversations
proved to be indispensable for many of the teams. (277) Even though these
conversations often took a long time, the results made up for it. As a leader of a team
said, We got to a shared view much more quickly than any of us anticipated. (277)
The second rule is to use technology to simulate reality. The studies demonstrated
that email was a poor way for teams as a whole to collaborate. This is because one-on-
one email exchanges between team members can make the other members not feel
included, which can diminish trust and lead to dysfunction. In addition,
videoconferencing did not appear to be helpful. The majority felt that the time delay
created problems and the different hemispheres often created issues. The best use of
technology for these virtual teams turned out to be virtual work spaces. With these virtual
work spaces, the team members can post their work in progress electronically and
examine their other members postings. These work spaces were a constant reminder of
the teams decisions, rationales and commitments. In addition, leaders of the team used
online team rooms to hold virtual conversations. All of these avenues kept all the
members interested and up to date with all the details for the project.
The third and final rule is to hold the team together. There are common problems
that can occur with any team, whether virtual or face-to-face: mistrust, cliques,
uninformed managers and the allure of other non-related work. To avoid these problems
from manifesting, team leaders rarely let a day go by without members communicating
with each other. There are frequent phone conversations between the leader and
individual team members. The team leader, early on in the team creation, would try to
push for a common language and create a necessary glossary for technical terms. In
addition, leaders need to create coherence when they were trying to blend the work
processes of the members home organizations. (278) Another strategy to create
connections is to have members work in ad hoc pairs for a week or two. This allowed
members to get to know each other and to avoid the creation of cliques. In addition, to
avoid the problem of members being allured by other work, team members negotiated in
advance the extent of the teams claim on a members time, made clear how the home
office and the individual member stood to gain, and kept the home office abreast of the
teams and members progress. (279) Finally, even though diversity was incredibly
important for the team, it was recognized that identifying commonalities of members
would strengthen loyalties to the group. All of these approaches and realizations by the
team leader allows for a successful virtual team.
With many offices having international offices and many divisions, virtual teams
have become prevalent, however, there are certain things that must be achieved to avoid
the hurdles. This article discusses three points that will allow for virtual teams to be more
successful than face-to-face teams.

Works Cited
Majchrzak, Ann, Arvind Malhotra, Jeffrey Stamps, and Jessica Lipnack. "Can Absence
Make a Team Grow Stronger?" Classic Readings in Organizational Behavior. By J.
Steven. Ott, Sandra J. Parkes, and Richard B. Simpson. Belmont, CA:
Thomson/Wadsworth, 2008. 275-81. Print.