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Implementing
High Tech and High Touch Teams:
Pros and Cons of Virtual vs. Real Teaming
The
Art of Practicing Safe Stress
by Mark Gorkin, LICSW
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What's your image of teamwork: University of Maryland basketball, the efficient
cooks and servers at your favorite breakfast place, frequently communicating sales
and marketing departments or a coordinated trade show/production outfit? Traditionally,
the concept of team has been a group of people with varying backgrounds and biases,
experiences and expectations along with supplies and skills working together to achieve
short-term outcomes and long-term goals. One operational assumption is that achieving
such results would be unrealistic or, at least, more elusive through solitary pursuit.
Another unstated assumption is that the productive channeling of task energy and
conflict along with trust and cohesiveness building results from members eyeballing
and calling out to one another.
However, in our rapidly evolving, 24/7 telecommunications, increasingly security
conscious world, instant cyberspace travel and videoconferencing can seem alluring
when compared with the current burdens of air travel and live conferencing. When
e-zines bypass time zones, and latitudes and attitudes are magically bridged by bulletin
boards, webcasting or the click of a mouse, familiar notions of team will be profoundly
tested. Let's focus on two interrelated dynamics -- one structural (the medium),
the other psychological (the motivation) -- that are challenging common sense forms
and functions of teaming:
1) Medium: "Virtual"
or Electronic vs. "Real" or In-Person Teams and
2) Motivation: "Me" vs. "We" and the Process of Relationship/Team
Building
Does the Medium
Become the Message?
First, let me clarify this "Medium"--"Motivation" connection.
Does sitting alone behind a computer hours on end posting to a bulletin board (or
being inundated with messages), passively watching a videoconference or being anonymously
protected by a screen name mask in a chat group (you never hear the phrase "chat
team") encourage a shortsighted or distracted, self-absorbed or superficial
"me"-ness, if not a "meanness?" For example, how often does
emailing replace calling or face-to-face discussion when there's awkward interpersonal
tension or a time crunch because it's "easier" or "more efficient"?
Or, when in conflict with a colleague or competitor, how frequently are emails transformed
into e-missiles? Invariably, it is civility that takes a hit. To draw on that media
guru and grandfather of the cyber-age, Marshall McLuhan: Is the medium too often
diluting, damaging or drowning the relationship- and team-building message?
Actually, like most profound changes or crises in a field, the telecommunication-cyber
revolution poses both "danger" and "opportunity" for buyer and
seller collaboration and for team building as a whole in the Hospitality Industry.
As in most aspects of life, the golden rule is achieving "dynamic balance":
an ability to blend flexibly high tech and high touch in our day-to-day operations!
Here are brief pros and cons lists of the "virtual" impact on teaming of
the medium still somewhat less traveled. Also under scrutiny is the related "Me"
vs. "We" tensions.
Virtual Impact on Teaming - Positive Aspects
1. Access, Efficiency
and Economics. In today's electronic world, so much information is available
for research and transmission. Targeted data enables a better and quicker determination
of who does and does not fit into the potential buyer-seller team partnership profile.
In addition, not just efficiency but also economics is involved, e.g., a whole department
can attend a videoconference for one fee, saving both time and money.
2. Global Network. Teams can be far-flung and diverse when casting a worldwide
web. Transcending geographical, cultural and ideational boundaries potentially means
both a more expansive project perspective as well as market specific implementation
of team goals and objectives. Writing for e-zines and newsletters increases one's
visibility around the globe.
3. Individual Expression. Wide ranging data gathering and local feedback
enhances the exploratory, creativity and productivity potential of individuals and
companies. With a well constructed and smartly marketed website, for example, an
array of collaborators, clients and consumers can be attracted to a product-service
vision and team. Cutting edge feedback and the potential for upgrading is ever-present.
In the early days of the environmental movement the slogan was: "Think Globally,
Act Locally." In today's telecommunication age, I like the expansively empowering,
individual and team mantra: "Think Locally, Interact Globally!"
4. Openness and Intimacy. Having run a "Shrink Rap and Group Chat"
(a stress support group) on AOL/Digital City for four years, the social/networking
bonds that can develop online over time no longer amaze me. The sense of safety
and varying degrees of anonymity often facilitate personal sharing. For some participants
there's less fear of criticism or rejection in an online mode; others feel free to
bravely assert their own minority viewpoint, even when unpopular.
And let's not overlook list serve bulletin boards that, in addition to individual
posting, encourage participants to cogitate on issues and questions posed by other
members and then share developed responses and resources. Is that an enlightened
"We" at the end of the cyber-"Me" tunnel?
Virtual Impact
on Teaming - Negative Potential
1. Saturation
and Addiction. One downside of increased access is information overload, e.g.,
being overwhelmed by scores of list serve emails and the challenge of sorting wheat
from chaff. I suspect most readers at some time have been transfixed by (if not
somewhat addicted to) the computer screen -- whether single-mindedly working on a
report or caught up in a video game. Warning: Isolation and procrastination, if
not paralysis, may lie ahead.
2. Distraction. While electronic conferencing often conveys valuable information,
what is the state of the message receiver? One industry exec posited being "only
80% there" during most videoconferences: a secretary invariably breaks in for
a signature or there's an important call. The challenge is establishing better learning
site-work space boundaries.
And speaking of distraction and boundaries, all cyberites are faced with privacy
concerns and invasion of time and space (spam) issues. Sometimes it's hard to sort
out the important message from the mess!
3. Creative Problem-Solving Barriers. Virtual teams, bulletin boards, webcasting
or video conferencing often lack the real thing, that is, the crux of teaming: there's
more spontaneous brainstorming when face-to-face. Rough ideas can be more readily
generated, grappled and played with and polished during the course of in-person team
meetings.
And while virtual teams may better allow for individual expression, still idiosyncratic
or innovative ideas must be workable within a team context. Flights of self-absorbed
fancy and fantasy are frequent fliers in cyberspace. Remember, there's often a fine
line between vision and hallucination.
4. Communication and Conflict Resolution Obstacles. As mentioned earlier,
dealing with interpersonal team issues primarily through email suggests avoidance
as a key coping strategy. And while emailing or posting can be freeing, it can also
fuel abrasive, insensitive or impatient messagingÖas well as misunderstandings.
When you can't see body language or hear voice intonation, message sent might not
be message received.
Closing
In an anytime/anywhere world, the goal of 21st century teaming must be high tech
and high touch. In unprecedented fashion, telecommunications and cyberspace are
bridging and forging uncommon perspectives, places and partnerships. At the same
time, there are both dangers and opportunities: we must find an optimal balance
between the creative-self-centered or solitary electronic "Me" and the
cohesive-conformist or too conservative face-to-face "We." The challenge,
of course, is integration -- from balancing cyberspace and air travel to blending
the best of the electronic and the real. Beware one-sidedly succumbing to the siren
sound and seeming "ease" of the virtual.
Telecommunication and cyberspace travel should further in-person connection: interviews,
social-networking events and various project team and committee meetings and conferences
will remain our industry's "bread and butter," to quote strategic consultant,
Jim Daggert (Back to Business," CONVENE, March 2002). It is human and
Hospitality nature to use all our senses to get to know each other; to stir up and
channel group chemistry; to mutually solve problems and resolve conflicts, to share
pain and triumphs; to evolve vital interdependence and basic trustÖto build relationships.
Especially after a year of 9/11 and a recessed economy, working and playing, sighing
and laughing together in virtual and real space-time becomes it's own reward...and
are words to help us...Practice Safe Stress!
Mark Gorkin, LICSW,
"The Stress Doc" -, is an internationally recognized speaker and syndicated
writer on stress, anger management, reorganizational change, team building and HUMOR!
The Doc was recently featured on CBS TV's Newspath segment -- Workplace Violence
-- and in Biography Magazine. He is America Online's "Online Psychohumorist"
- leading a weekly chat group for AOL/Digital City -- http://www.digitalcity.com/washington/stressdr. (Keyword: Stress Doc.) Check
out his USA Today Online "HotSite" - www.stressdoc.com. For more info, email stressdoc@aol.com or call 202-232-8662.
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