Full Circle Associates

Elana Centor had a post the other day about corporate team building programs. One line just snagged me.

"'I learned a great deal about the people I worked with, but it didn't make our team stronger. We were dysfunctional before the trip, and we continued to be dysfunctional.'"

Ah, yes. This is what I tell people when the come to me, asking for help with distributed teams and groups. Why do we feel that simply going online will erase our pre-existing dysfunction? Just like 3 day motivational courses don't correct deeply seated organizational problems, using distributed collaboration tools doesn't fix our inability to cooperate.

So what do we do? There is no magic bullet, but here are a few things we might consider when we decide to drag, um, I mean BRING our groups online.

• Take account of our strengths and build on those as a starting point. Social networks, relationships and people who are people and information collectors are often the most visible starting asset. Get them involved.
  
• Acknowledge our weaknesses and challenges and make sure we don't trip up on those first, ruining any chance of a successful online experience.
  
• Build on existing patterns, tools and activities. Don't pile on all new work. Come on, get real!
  
• Speak the truth about control. Distributed work, when successful, tends to support the distribution of control, particularly informational control. Ideas and information tend to creep, crawl, leak and gush out of formerly controlled channels.
  
• Speak the truth about power. If a group is highly hierarchical and there is no challenging or speaking truth to power, don't even go towards distributed work. Distributed work can enable self organizing, potentially moving the action to the level where it can be most effective IF the organization allows it. Getting slapped down in this process will end this and probably end the online interaction.
  
• Figure out feedback loops. It is easy to feel alone in the process - designed for a group, experienced by an idividual. Don't leave folks to sink into their own puddle. Have fun stomping in the puddles together.
  

I'm sure there is much more. What do you think?

onlinecommunity, virtualteams, work