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developing your Virtual team � 241

have good people skills
“I think it is a [misconception] that people who are on a virtual team
don’t need to be people people—don’t need to have good people skills.
Really, the people skills are even more important because you’re not
seeing these people face to face, and you’re not getting visual or audi-
tory cues as to how they’re feeling or what is going on in their minds
that day. As a manager, the challenge is to be able to quickly evaluate
people on their team for the strengths, weaknesses, and capabilities.
Then, be able to establish rapport with [every] person very quickly,
because you may only have one face-to-face meeting or you may never
meet him face to face.” The ability to manage the people side of the
process is critical, because it doesn’t matter how good the technology
is if the people side doesn’t work. Ultimately, the people determine the
success or failure of the team.
The leader’s role has to be one of a generalist, and really being
a coach. Leaders are there to facilitate communication and to re-
move corporate or technology roadblocks. “The manager’s job is to
be checking in with people all the time,” says Kit. “Not to the point
of being annoying, but making sure they’ve got a good handle on
who their people are, both professionally and personally, so that you
know if someone has a sick mom at home and [he or she] might be
distracted. Those are the kinds of things you would notice right away
if you were in an office sitting in the cube right next to the person. You
might not notice it on a virtual team unless you are paying really close
attention. That’s why I say that managers of virtual teams have to be
really, really excellent people people.”

strategic thinking
The ability to take team objectives, goals, and tasks and to understand
how they support the overall corporate strategy and the bottom line
is essential. So too is the ability to communicate the vision to team
members. It doesn’t matter if you’re a middle manager, director, vice
president, or president, those things are absolutely necessary.
Leaders have to understand trends and what the real problem is,