Virtualized Teams - Applying Game Theory to the Workplace

One of the greatest challenges that I have seen companies and professionals face time and again is the dreaded geographically distributed or virtualized team. Issues can range from a sense of disconnect between individuals and groups, lack of involvement, and missed deliverables due to miscommunication of requirements. Depending on how long and deep these issues are they can create higher levels of dissatisfaction about overall effectiveness leading to dismissal or voluntary resignations.

When one objectively describes a virtualized team it is usually described as a situation in which one or many individuals are working together collaboratively towards a common goal or deliverable. While tremendously difficult to achieve for many corporations, there are in fact a vast number of people that actually have successful experiences outside of companies; most notably in gaming. The first sorts of games that come to mind are team games where the objectives are fairly simple such as first-person shooters such as Halo where real-time reflexes and interaction are key. However a gaming genre far more applicable to business situations would in fact be what are called Massively Multiplayer Online games or MMOs. These games are capable of allowing individuals from vastly different geographic regions to participate in fairly complex game and social interactions in real time or even in the cases of turn-based MMOs such as Mafia or Vampire. In some of the largest games hundreds of thousands if not millions of people participate not as part of a job requirement but rather because they enjoy it. Enjoy it enough to pay money.

Many of the success factors that create engagement in these games are actually common to successful corporate virtualized teams. Yet in spite of having individuals willing and able to engage in high levels of virtual participation for hours on end, most companies have failed to consistently tap into this experience. From my years of working and engaging in both corporate virtualized teams and games such as MMOs here are some of the key factors:

• Clearly explained and understood rules for the virtualized experience. For games and companies rules are absolutely necessary. They help get everyone on the same page, help everyone involved to understand what is expected, and the requirements necessary to participate. This can range from voice discussions, to chats, and many more. Any virtualized team without clear rules is going to spend a lot of time figuring it out that may in fact not align with business expectations.
• Guild or group association. In MMOs there is a concept of a guild or organization who has a stated mission, purpose and general principles of operation on how it interacts in a virtual setting. This for companies is the equivalent to a group charter. It is the common understanding of what the members who are working together are working toward. It also helps virtual participants to easily be recognized and identify themselves. Just like the real world, virtual participants take their association with these guilds very seriously. A guild's reputation immediately extends to it's members once they join. If a guild has a good reputation, people want to come and join. If a guild has a bad reputation, people do not want to. This basic mechanism is the same for groups and companies. If the general feeling is that the group a professional is joining is of a dubious nature they will be highly suspicious and resistant.
• Roles and duties. In all games there are the concepts of classes or professions that are at a conceptual level understood by all participants. Similar to titles within an organization these easily identify what part the virtualized team member plays. However in such cases their roles and expected duties must be well communicated. For example in MMOs if one person is say an expert healer the immediate assumption is that the person will be helping the group. However it may be the case that the group leader would like to have one healer tend to the group's wounds primarily while the other concentrates on a particular individual. Again what duties are performed are based on the needs of the group for specific instances. Since you are not necessarily face-to-face it helps to have these defined on a common page that all virtualized members have access to. 
• Communicate. Someone who just runs around either not typing into chat or not using voice communications is quickly removed from groups as not being a team member or left out of group interactions. This is the same behavior that is seen in virtualized teams. If members do not actively communicate, they quickly find themselves isolated and doing very little or being asked to do things that they had no idea were coming their way. As part of any virtualized team, it is absolutely critical that it is explained that a certain level of communication is absolutely necessary for success. Whether it be via email, chat, voice communications or whatever, a virtual team lives on consistent communication.
• Engage. Communication is not the only criteria for success. Virtual participants are expected to engage with their team on issues, problems, goals and work as an active member. This also has to be communicated with appropriate expectations such that everyone knows what is expected. Otherwise people will do what they think is appropriate. This can be as simple as setting the expectation that as new project topics appear on a forum, that team members post at least 1 thought about the project (good/bad/indifferent) within 48 hrs. Any member that does not do so should provide a very good and acceptable reason why they could not. 
• Virtual Leadership. Participants expect that their leaders will be equally if not more more responsible or active in their virtual interactions. This is where games differ significantly from many companies and is actually what I consider a significant risk area. In games leaders take their responsibilities very seriously. In fact having worked in that role in an MMO for over 2 years with a guild of over 200 members I can compare that experience to being like a director of a 200 person division. The expectation is that there is a chain of command with the leader appointing responsible and respected delegates. I managed expectations of communication but also made an effort to meet with virtually everyone in my guild whether they had been there 1 day or since the beginning. I explained, managed and enforced guild conduct. It was not always pleasant but it needed to be done. I was also expected to have a vision for the guild and it's members and insured that everyone was moving in that direction. This is no different than in real world leadership. Visibility and connection are tremendously important. The benefit of virtualized communication is that it can help a leader reach out to many more members than can be done physically. It is when a leader delegates the "leadership" aspects to a virtual leader that things change. Virtual team members feel more connection to people that they deal with, not people they report to and hardly see. Many companies miss this vital point. If their organizational leader is NOT making the effort to interact with a virtual team, then they have a very negative view of that leader. Someone that engages the virtual team effectively as the leader, is the leader. No ifs, no ands, no buts. If a leader is going to create and cultivate virtual teams, they need to make the time to participate. Just like any conference call or team meeting, a leader needs to show up in their virtual space and engage.

There are a number of other areas that I can mention but these are some of the chief ones. All virtualized teams want and crave a sense of community and belonging. They want to know that they are valued, recognized and can participate. In almost all companies that I see their ability to handle virtualized teams is fairly rudimentary. They almost classically fall into physical habits. That is to say they will deal with people when they see them face-to-face and interact with them daily. Virtual teams are almost an afterthought. That view is easily picked up by members of a virtual team who usually respond by distancing themselves and refusing to participate. This creates disruptions in the form of missed deadlines, poor deliverable quality, and stress among all members to name a few.

Companies need to place more emphasis on not only establishing good virtual team practices and behaviors with collaborative tools, but evolve them as the group grows and matures. What worked 5 years ago may no longer be effectively today. Constant evolution and change is key.

In the end when I am inevitably confronted about virtualized teams by companies I always counter with the observation that their children or other individuals with not a lot of years of business experience, no technical expertise, and in many cases no formalized training are capable of conducting themselves in vast virtualized teams across the globe everyday willingly and are not only effective but enjoying themselves. If the technology and practices have come so far that a 14 year old can participate well among adults, it is not that it cannot work, it is the company is not making the effort to succeed. And if a company is not making any effort to follow current trends of their customers and employees, is it no wonder they are suffering heavy losses in a recession.