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Combining Virtual and Face-to-Face Work

2015-07-02 07:45:06

Nancy Dixon

July 01, 2015

Many companies feel they face a conundrum when it comes to determining remote

work policies. Perhaps the most common misconception about adopting virtual

work is that it is an all-or-nothing proposition, such that once we have

networking tools in place, there is no need to come together or conversely

that we have to be in the office all the time. But this paradigm often forces

knowledge workers to choose between two strong drives: the need for autonomy

and the need for a purpose that inspires and unites them.

It is neither wise nor effective to turn our backs on the benefits of having a

virtual work force. But it is also true that in this increasingly digital age,

we stand to lose something integral to what makes organizations both humane and

productive places to work: the relationships and sense of purpose that can only

be built by having in-depth, face-to-face conversations about important issues

what I call collective sensemaking (based largely on the work of Karl Weick).

The way to satisfy both needs is to blend sophisticated virtual tools with

periodic face-to-face meetings. This involves what I call the oscillation

principle, which allows you to tap the best attributes of both virtual work

and face-to-face convening.

Virtual work allows for:

Drawing on the global talent pool

Reducing costs from office space

Providing greater autonomy to workers by giving them room to experiment and

control their workflows

Being able to respond quickly to local customers

More satisfying integration of work and family life

Convening fosters:

Strong commitment to jointly made decisions

Shared understanding of goals and a larger purpose

The ability for components, developed independently, to smoothly come together

into a meaningful whole

Diverse and innovative solutions to complex issues

A sense of community, cohesion, and belonging

One example demonstrates how. Proquest, an information company, has a Research

Solutions Division comprised of three remote teams, with members scattered from

Amsterdam to San Diego. They are in daily communication with each other using

multiple forms of media, but everyone comes together for a three-day Summit

every four months to plan the work they will be carrying out virtually. Taco

Ekkel, the division manager told me, We would need four scheduled calls to

accomplish what we get solved around a white board in an hour. Without the

Summits it would definitely slow things down.

During the Summit, he creates a culture to foster collective sensemaking. This

means: 1) actively seeking members input into the agenda, 2) abandoning

hierarchy and giving decision-making power to the group, 3) whiteboarding to

jointly design features and build group ownership of ideas, and 4) preserving

social time to help team members build important relationships. (He makes sure

work sessions end promptly at 5PM so they can socialize at 5:30PM.)

Outside of the Summit, he maintains this collaborative culture by holding

(almost) daily virtual meetings so everyone is aware of what everyone else is

doing.

And they ve learned which virtual media is appropriate for certain tasks. For

example, email works best for requesting or passing on factual information,

while a teleconference is typically necessary for a problem solving task, such

as deciding who should represent the company a client meeting. A face-to-face

meeting might be needed for a brainstorming discussion about ways to alter a

product s design. Proquest usually saves larger conversations about new

features for their Summits. We d never really effectively get them

conceptualized without the richness of face-to-face contact coupled with

sketching, Ekkel said.

In this example, workers are both virtual and remote. But the oscillation

principle is equally applicable to organizations where workers spend some of

their time working remotely in a client office, at home, or even at temporary

hot desks when they re in the office. If these workers aren t periodically

connecting, in person, around issues that matter, they ll find themselves

disconnected from their colleagues and the driving mission of their unit.

And how frequently your employees come together depends on task interdependence

or the extent to which one person s work affects what other team members do

and complexity. The greater the interdependence and complexity, the more

frequently collective sensemaking meetings need to occur.

The more virtual organizations become, the greater the need for oscillating

between being remote and coming together on a regularly scheduled basis. I can

conceive of a time when employees will conduct their individual work where it

is most convenient to do so. They will come together to innovate, share new

experiences, understand issues they are all are facing, solve problems, and

develop strategy. There will be an understanding that when they convene it is

to make use of all the knowledge and analytical ability that is in the room.

Everything else will be effectively conveyed virtually. The normal way of

working will be: isolate to concentrate, convene to collaborate.

This post is one in a series of perspectives by presenters and participants in

the 7th Global Drucker Forum, taking place November 5-6, 2015 in Vienna. The

theme: Claiming Our Humanity Managing in the Digital Age.

Nancy Dixon founded Common Knowledge Associates to help managers make the

oscillation principle work in addressing difficult organizational issues.