The business environment has changed a lot with more challenges being faced by business establishments. In bid to wear down these challenges, many business have engage themselves in strategic operations that have included the increasing their business presence in new regions of interest. In this regard, establishments have come up with virtual teams defined as teaming networks and tasked with various roles aimed at achieving business goals and objectives (Mackin, 2007). However, the success of any organization that employs virtual teams rest on how effective the virtual team is established. These provide a gap between successful enterprises from those that trail behind.
Success in today's business arena demands that organization has efficient participation that will promote high trust on effective leadership of both the technical and support teams making up the virtual teams and scattered across numerous geographic limits. To build an a unique and distinctive virtual team, the manager has to understand another of key principles that will assure the establishment of an effective virtual team that will work well to meet the set goal.
To build an effective virtual team, the manager in charge must choose and correctly use appropriate means of communication for the entire team (Kreitner, 2004) Timely communication is very necessary in virtual teams as it ensures that orders are given correctly and precisely and that feedback is received in time. This will in turn ensure that all the operations of the team are coordinated with every member of the team being aware of what is required from them. Use technologies such as email, remote access, and satellite, the quality of communication process can be enhanced greatly.
An effective virtual team is one where the members of the entire team are fully aware of their expectations. As a result, managers must ensure that their teams have full knowledge of what is expected of them in order to execute their roles well (Havard Business School, 2010). To achieve this, the manager must be able to outline the goals of the entire team or the specific target for each and every member. This will bring a common vision for which the team will be working towards and at the same time create unity of purpose. A virtual team with no common goal is a recipe for failure as their operations cannot be synchronized or directed by the manager. Establishment goals and delegation of roles ensure provides a firm foundation of success.
Kreitner (2004) believes that effectiveness of virtual teams rest on how well coordination and collaboration takes place across the whole team. These processes are very critical in ensuring that the whole team works in an organized manner with each and every step being controlled in order to ensure that the specified objective are met. Through coordination and collaborator, the virtual team will be able to work together despite the geographical dispersion to achieve their expectation. A manager who understands this principle will therefore succeed in coming up with an effective virtual team.
The ability of a virtual team to respond to changes in objectives or goals on short notice is very crucial. Managers must strive to develop flexibility within their virtual teams in order to promote flexibility necessary to address contingencies. This is often achieved by ensuring that the member of the virtual teams are trained to think, make decisions and apply corrective measures when need arise. Manager must instill scientific thinking their teams to foster efficiency (Thompson, 2008).
The efficacy of a virtual team is critical in any business community where attainment of goals forms the basis of their existence. Through the use of timely and appropriate communication, setting of goals, coordination and collaboration, and flexibility, virtual team can be effective in their work. It should therefore be the focus of each and every manager to ensure that these principles are nature and developed in order to justify the use of such teams in areas such as sales, marketing and support.
