Five Ways to Improve Communication in Virtual Teams

Frontiers |

N. Sharon Hill and Kathryn M. Bartol

If you think sophisticated communication technologies are the ticket to your virtual team’s success, think again. It’s not the tech that matters — it’s how people use it. New research reveals five strategies for conquering distance and improving communication and performance in dispersed teams. The same strategies can help colocated teams, which depend increasingly on virtual collaboration tools to get work done.

When Communication Should Be Formal

Antti Tenhiälä and Fabrizio Salvador

Formal communication channels, such as protocol-guided meetings, are often eschewed by today’s managers and employees, who prefer the ease of email and apps. But informal avenues can lead to oversights and inefficiencies that hurt performance. That’s the central finding of research from IE Business School on manufacturers of high-tech machinery. Fortunately, formal communication protocols can be designed to both maximize performance and overcome people’s resistance to adopting them.

How Leaders Face the Future of Work

Lynda Gratton

Some leaders have failed to realize that the daily lives of those who work in their organizations will inevitably be transformed over the coming decades. But it’s the responsibility of leaders to create clarity about the future of work. That means being engaged with creating a narrative about the future of jobs, actively championing the learning agenda, and role modeling work flexibility — for instance, by taking paternity leave or working from home.

Planning for the Future of Work

Gerald C. Kane

It’s not going to be enough to identify what jobs will be still be available to humans once computers expand their repertoire. We have to reimagine work altogether.