Having enjoyed and learnt from a rich corporate IT experience in the past, Corporate E-Learning has definitely peeked my interest in many ways. Its growth seems exponential and the possibilities of innovation - endless.
Though I am a skeptic when it comes to the extensive use of games and simulations in learning, I am but forced to acknowledge that Virtual Team Building is a model that might soon become a very prevelant practice in the bringing together virtual teams from around the world.
Why team building at all, some corporations may ask? Why can't we put 10 people together in a room and let them do their job? After all we pay them for it? This hardly works. The strength of a team lies in its differences.The more varied the thought processes are, the better the ideas. However along with this comes the ability to work through differences, make adjustments and compromise opinions. Many teams have failed to work, not because of the capabilities of the individuals but the capabilities of the team as a whole. Interpersonal associations, ability to compromise, ability to appreciate and welcome new suggestions and ideas and the ability to add on and build on existing ideas are key to a healthy team functioning.
Does team dynamics get easier to manage as you go higher up in the organization's hierarchy? Well, it depends, but is not always true. Bigger egos are at stake at this level. Individual growth up the corporate ladder becomes more important that we see so often reflected as flare-ups in board meetings and corporate strategy and decision making meetings.
Hence right from the fledgling employee right until the head of the organization, team building becomes key to the growth and in some cases even future existence of the organization. Team building is a continuous process, no doubt, but it all has to start somewhere. Conducting a team building workshop is a key function of the Learning and development team within the organization. However there are times when project development managers take this up on themselves to build better teams and improve performance of their individual projects. The goal of a team building exercise is many-fold. While this is the time for the team to shed their personal differences and understand each other a little more personally, this is also the time for the team to reflect upon their current problems and brainstorm ways to work better in the future. I personally have conducted and attended many team building workshops and the end has always been good ! The road to the end, well lets just say, the end justifies the means !
Having established the importance of healthy team dynamics and the need for team building exercises itself, lets shift our attention to virtual teams. Virtual teams are teams that have come together from across the world for a specific objective. These teams interact through tele-conferences, online meetings, emails and other electronic means. Most team members have not seen each other and may know nothing more about their team members other than their name and their professional background.
Do virutual teams need team building exercises too? Absolutely.
Many times we find virtual teams being dissolved or decisions taken to move the teams to a physical location so that performance of the team can be improved. However this may not always be possible. Virtual teams are definitely going to be a prominent feature very soon in the corporate world and we need to make them work ! Just like we have team building exercises for physical bound teams, why not conduct virtual team building sessions for teams that are geographically dispersed? With the growth and expanse of e-learning within corporate development models, this should be possible.
Does this mean that once teams are trained in Virtual team building, they can carry these learnings life-long and work effectively in teams ever after? No. This is no fairy-tale ending ! As Clark & Meyer (2008) point out, team building exercises bring groups of people together and train them to look over differences and carry on a healthy team dynamics. However once the teams move on to other projects and assignments and have to work in other groups, their performance goes back to an untrained team's performance. Hence virtual team building is a constant exercise that needs to be imparted to teams every now and then in order to achieve good results. While research conclusively proves that prior team-skills training produces superior collaborative group work compared to an untrained, unfacilitated group, it must be noted that changing the people in the group, changes the attitudes and hence the group dynamics. This then results in the collapse of an untrained team.
It is pretty conclusive that virtual team building exercies are being looked at now more closely than ever. How do we get people from across the globe to come together in a virtual workshop?
Watch this youtube video to understand how Second Life builds a Simulation for Virtual Team Building.
References:
Clark, R.C., & Mayer, R.E. (2008). e-Learning and the Science of Instruction : Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning. San Francisco : Pfeiffer
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