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Management Challenges in a Virtual World: Finding Managers with the Right Stuff

by Teresa Sinel - January 9, 2013

Management Challenges in a Virtual World: Finding Managers with the Right Stuff by Teresa Sinel, tsinel@vipdesk.com, 802.334.5321

In my seventeen years of working from home, I have been asked many times about the challenges people managers face in a virtual setting.

The human issues that arise in a virtual world are no different than those we experience in any other setting, but what we lack in a virtual environment is the ability to have face-to-face communication with our teams. For some businesses that rely on in-person customer service, going virtual may not be a great fit and can present too many concerns to be viable. For other businesses where going virtual represents lower costs, better efficiency, and higher morale, it can be a dream come true, but it is not without its challenges.

A key piece of the virtual game plan is getting the right virtual management team in place from the very beginning, blending technologies and soft skills to find the right balance to keep teams motivated and productive. I have seen very talented managers fail in the virtual world for a variety of reasons, but most are caused by reality not meeting expectation. While working from home sounds grand to most of us, being by yourself in your own home office can be extremely isolating. For some, that translates to a demotivating experience that can be avoided if the right players are put in the right positions with the right expectations.

The following point cannot be underestimated: Finding the right virtual managers for your team is as critical as the virtual operation itself. Fortunately, many of the same traits that define entrepreneurs also define virtual managers, so keep a keen eye out for these success characteristics when you are putting your team together:

  • Able to work without supervision. Plain and simple, any manager who requires moderate or massive amounts of supervision is not going to make it in a virtual environment.
  • Able to manage others from a distance with excellent results. Virtual managers cannot be there in person with their teams, so they rely heavily on phone calls, email, and instant messages to stay connected with their direct reports. The success of the team depends on the virtual manager establishing rapport, many times with team members they’ve never seen and never will see. For some managers, that thought alone can be incredibly daunting.
  • Self-motivated / internally driven to excel. A manager with these traits needs no one lighting a fire under them…they do a fine job of that all by themselves. Ideally, they will, by example, inspire that in their teams as well.
  • Engaging by phone, email, and instant message as well as in person. Think of that person in your office who finds a way to make every meeting interesting, productive, and fun. Those qualities go a long way in keeping virtual teams inspired.
  • Strong on written and verbal communication, particularly written. Virtual teams rely heavily, almost exclusively, on the written word. Virtual managers must have excellent writing skills (grammar, punctuation, etc.) and clearly communicate messages that convey the right tone as well as the right words. Misunderstood posts are the cause of more team upsets than a string of NFL fumbles.
  • Thrives on change. Boring, this is not. Look for the person who jumps into new situations head-on and employs solid thinking in their approach to problem-solving.
  • Able to think creatively on their feet. In order to work successfully in the virtual world, a manager has to be able to punt when there are new situations thrown their way, and it happens a lot. You’ve got the realities of your business and the added complexities of a virtual setting to deal with, and as a result, there is no such thing as a routine operation. Virtual managers and their teams are essentially carving a new path for their companies, so they need to be able to apply their critical thinking skills in all situations and not be afraid to make a decision.
  • Thinks redundantly. Systems go down and you have to plan for that. Managers need to be thinking about what they will do if any kind of functionality is lost, even at the most basic level. For example, most managers have at least one phone meeting with their virtual teams each week to inform and inspire. If your conference system is down, what backup plan do you have in place to ensure that the show will go on? And communication is even more essential in a virtual environment, particularly for 24/7 operations. How will your team communicate if instant messaging goes down at 10 o’clock at night during a key sales promotion?
  • Always expect the unexpected. Depending on the company, virtual teams may be scattered around the city, the country, or around the world. Your managers need to be prepared for any eventuality and any people situation, whether it’s a regional system outage or a hurricane approaching some of your team members.

No matter where a manager manages people, whether in a brick-and-mortar building or out here in the virtual world, there are people challenges that have to be met and teams that need to be properly motivated to contribute their best work.

One important thing to remember is that going virtual is not for everyone, and that applies to your management talent as well as your line staff. It’s all about placing team members in positions where they can thrive, whether that ends up being on land or in the clouds.

 
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