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Home / Our thinking / Managing conflict in virtual teams
Top tips for managing conflict in
virtual teams
16 Mar / 2016 | By Terence Brake
Smooth collaboration on virtual teams depends heavily on
recognizing the challenges of virtual distance, including
anticipating and preparing for potential conflict triggers.
What is virtual distance?
According to Prof. Karen Sobel-Lojeski, virtual distance is a
sense of psychological and emotional detachment generated
when most encounters and experiences are mediated by
screens on smart devices
Three types of virtual distance contribute to conflicts on
distributed teams:
Physical Distance: working in different locations, e.g. different
parts of a building or continents.
Operational Distance: working with different methods and
processes, workloads, and technologies.
Affinity Distance: working with others with whom we have no
relationship.
Below, | have taken the expanded version of Sobel-Lojeski’s
excellent framework and provided a tip for managing a conflict
trigger.
Physical Distance
Geography
Trigger: Proximity Bias: Virtual team leaders find it more
convenient often to rely on team members in close proximity -
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interactions are more frequent, relationships are easier to form
resulting in higher levels of trust.
Tip: Track team interactions: Monitor the time spent and
contacts made with all members of the team. Given the nature
of the team’s business, some members may need to be
contacted more than others, but be aware of marginalizing
those in other geographies.
Time
Trigger: Temporal Bias: Virtual team members often work
across multiple time zones. The time zone shared by the
leader and majority of team members sometimes becomes
the ‘default’ zone for planning and scheduling. Those in other
Zones might experience detrimental work-life balance causing
resentment and productivity loss.
Tip: Develop equitable communication plan: Rely more on
asynchronous technologies for communications across time
zones. When real-time meetings are necessary, make sure the
scheduling ‘pain’ (late nights/early mornings) is distributed
fairly.
Organization
Trigger: Loyalties: Cross-border virtual team members often
experience conflicting organizational priorities and loyalties
(e.g. functional, global/local); these are powerful conflict
triggers if not recognized and managed.
Tip: Demonstrate reciprocity: Make sure team members know
you are working for them as much as they are working for you.
Discuss with individuals how you can help them achieve their
professional goals even though they report directly elsewhere.
Operational Distance
Team Size
Trigger: Large size: Large virtual teams (e.g. thirty members)
can function well as long as there is good connectivity,
excellent information sharing, and shared key processes.
Large teams can, however, lose focus, have difficulties building
trust and commitment, and be prone to groupthink. Some
members of large teams may look to ‘hide’ and not contribute
their share, creating hostility and divisiveness.
Tip: Create sub-teams: If creation of a large team is
unavoidable identify logical ways in which sub-teams can be
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formed, e.g. interdependent tasks, specialties, experiences,
interests.
Communication
Trigger: Ambiguity: Ambiguity is a common cause of conflict
on virtual teams, e.g. ambiguity over roles and responsibilities.
Virtual teams sometimes work with ‘lean’ technologies having
fewer communication cues, ie. signals that convey how the
receiver is meant to interpret a message - facial expressions,
gestures, voice tone, and intonation.
Tip: Sharpen your senses: Pay continuous attention for signs
of misunderstanding, or confusion in verbal and written
communications, e.g. hesitations, irrelevant questions, or
unexpected word usage. Don't be afraid of over-
communicating - paraphrasing, summarizing, and periodically
reinforcing key messages and terminology.
Multitasking
Trigger: Partial attention: Multitasking is not a sin unless it is,
has a negative impact on team meetings. Some members
may need less involvement in a meeting, or only need to pay
attention at specific points.
Tip: Design better meetings: Establish norms for multitasking
during meetings, but also design more efficient meetings, e.g
limiting their number, reducing number of attendees, having
shorter duration, and creating more structured
agenda/process.
Technical Skill and Support
Trigger: Inconsistency: Significant variations in digital
collaboration skill levels among members or in technical
support can cause frustrations that intensify into conflict.
Tip: Establish parity: Provide training to team members as
needed. If local technical support is inconsistent or not
available, provide online support, e.g. a producer for virtual
meetings for troubleshooting problems.
Affinity Distance
Cultural Distance
Trigger: Exclusion: Team members working across cultures
can experience virtual ‘culture shock’. Variations in cultural
assumptions and styles result in different ways of thinking,
and doing. Differences can lead to hasty evaluations about
itpshww tmaworl.comiur-shirkingimanaging-conlct-vrbal-teamsanor Managing confit avira teams [TMA Werle
competence and trustworthiness resulting in marginalization
of some members. Negative perceptions damage
relationships and destroy the value that diversity can add, e.g.
more innovative ideas and local knowledge.
Tip: Encourage cross-cultural dialogue: Train the team in
cultural intelligence skills and knowledge. The training should
be more than an event; it needs to establish ongoing dialogue
and learning about cultural differences.
Interdependence
Trigger: Over-collaboration: Conflict can arise when a team
leader sees the continuous need for collaboration resulting in
diminishing returns; team members may not only turn on the
leader, but also on each other.
Tip: Pre-assess collaboration value: Any collaboration should
be qualified with a realistic pre-assessment of likely costs and
benefits. There are opportunity costs (what else people could
be doing with their time and resources), as well as delays when
politics becomes time-consuming.
Relationship Distance
Trigger: Team composition: Some team members might have
worked together before so there is a low relationship distance.
This can have a positive or negative effect. Familiarity can
facilitate smoother collaboration or prejudice members
against one another.
Tip: Focus on skills/attributes: When a team leader can choose
members, she should concentrate on recruiting those who can
work autonomously/ interdependently and tolerate ambiguity.
Familiarity should be secondary unless time is very short.
When a project is complex and prolonged, relationship
distance can be managed with periodic face-to-face meetings
that develop interpersonal ties.
Social Distance
Trigger: ‘Us vs. them: Hierarchical and status differences on a
virtual team can undermine team identity which increases
communication and coordination problems. They also inhibit
the development of a team ‘transactive memory’ i.e. knowing
where different knowledge is held and how to access it
efficiently.
Tip: Reinforce shared context: Establish and reinforce the
truism that members depend on each other for success.
Setting up shared norms early in areas like mutual support,
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open communication, information sharing, decision making,
and leadership can help avoid hierarchical conflict. The team
always shares one context — its goal.
For more on how to leverage virtual communication
technologies for increased business performance, see
our Digital Fluency curriculum here
Keep in touch with us for the all the latest news and insights
on getting results in today's workplace
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