Recognising Critical Areas for Leading and Managing a Virtual Team

This memo discusses the challenges faced while leading and managing a virtual team and the importance of virtual teams. It highlights the need for clear communication, staff training, and planning. The memo also suggests ways to overcome these challenges and highlights the benefits of virtual teams. The subject is critical aspects of leading and managing a virtual team.

Running head: ASSESSMENT 2: PERSUASIVE MEMO
Assessment 2: Persuasive Memo
Part 1: Memo Format
Student’s name:
Name of the university:
Author’s note:

1ASSESSMENT 2: PERSUASIVE MEMO
Memorandum
To: The Marketing Director
From:
Date: 10th August 2018
Subject: Recognising critical areas that need to be addressed when leading and managing a
virtual team
With the rapid increase of communication technologies in business regarding global
operations, companies are able to do their work smoothly. Virtual team experiences a
different form of communication as the physical separation and never meeting face-to-face
can bring the unique issue for the employees. Our Sydney headquarter is developing new
marketing team located in New York, Mumbai, Beijing and Sydney. Therefore, the marketing
team will face the critical aspects of managing the virtual teams which will be in four
different time-zones. This context will state the critical aspects of leading and managing a
virtual team. The thesis statement of this memo is to explore the critical aspects of the virtual
team and the reason behind to support the virtual team. The first two sections will state the
challenges which can be faced during leading and managing the virtual team. In the third
section, supporting evidence of the importance of virtual team will be explained.
Within the organisation, communication is an important perspective to gain the business
objectives. When an organisation has multiple offices dispersed in different locations; the
team of employees gets perplexed as they have little time for face-to-face conversation. The
team understands the significance of communication and the importance of clear
communication among all the team members is paramount necessity towards the success of
the virtual team. Communication gets distracted for three reasons; language difficulties, the
absence of face-to-face communication and time and distance challenges. Within the
organisation, a large part of the communication is done through the non-verbal cues and the
virtual team is communicated through using the teleconferencing, Skype or emails. As stated
by Bell and Kozlowski (2015), the team members of the virtual team provide emphasis on
written words or spoken words as these are the sole conveyor of the communication. Virtual
teams of same organisation have the members from different countries and they have
different native language and expressions. Team members face difficulties in expressing their
communication in the second language. As suggested by Cardon (2014), communication

2ASSESSMENT 2: PERSUASIVE MEMO
must be simple and clear so that each of the team members gets to understand the meaning.
With different cultures in different countries comes with alternative communication styles
and values and attitudes get different. For instance, in Western countries, business
communication depends on data and facts; whereas, Asian culture depends on role play and
relationships.
In a virtual team, staff training is going to be an issue as the team members are scattered to
different places and there is no central location from where the team can works. The team
manager may not be able to spot the struggle faced by the team members as they are in
different locations (Hoch and Kozlowski 2014). The team members need to voice it out so
that the team managers can provide the necessary training to them. Training requirements in a
virtual team are larger than the technical requirement or the tasks to perform as this is
associated with the written and verbal communication (Townsend et al. 2018). Training
needs to be provided on understanding the diversity and cultural gap of the team members.
Training can be provided with an understanding of trust and rapport of the team members.
The team members belong to the different cultures and the wavelength of the team members
may not be matched.
Despite the fact; the virtual team can pose the different challenges, the virtual team helps the
company to grow in the international market. The authority needs to manage the issue with
high priority and the marketing manager can instruct in the right way as the local supervisor
of the virtual team. Planning is necessary for the better outcome of the virtual team as the
physical difference of the team members can be substituted by the tracking and reporting
mechanism using technologies (Mishra et al. 2014). Communication in virtual teams can be
managed through the modern telecommunication and online technologies. In recent time, the
organisation can use cloud-based software which can be merged with social media platforms
or Project Management Software can be used which can be set based on a real-time basis.
The range from email to video conferencing to teleconferencing can be used for the purpose
of the training of the employees in different locations. In addition, as stated by Gilson et al.
(2015), groupware applications are managed to provide help in virtual teams so that they can
collaborate effectively.
With the globalisation in the businesses, virtual team concept is needed with increasing
numbers of activities and projects. Before starting the new projects, it needs to have expertise
from each section of the organisation. The teams which are present across the globe; need to

3ASSESSMENT 2: PERSUASIVE MEMO
bring together through the advanced communication technologies. Yet many obstacles may
be there in leading the virtual team; however, the success of the virtual team is confirmed for
the cohesion of the team's ability and the utilisation of the technologies. Management needs
to control and lead to the formation of the virtual team.
Thank you,
Marketing Team Member
Email Id:
Contact Details:

4ASSESSMENT 2: PERSUASIVE MEMO
Reference List
Bell, B. S., and Kozlowski, S. W. 2015. A typology of virtual teams: Implications for
effective leadership. Group & Organization Management, 27(1), pp.14-49
Cardon, P. W. 2014. Business communication: Developing leaders for a networked world.
New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin
Gilson, L. L., Maynard, M. T., Jones Young, N. C., Vartiainen, M., and Hakonen, M. 2015.
Virtual teams research: 10 years, 10 themes, and 10 opportunities. Journal of
Management, 41(5), pp.1313-1337
Hoch, J. E. and Kozlowski, S. W. 2014. Leading virtual teams: Hierarchical leadership,
structural supports, and shared team leadership. Journal of applied psychology, 99(3), pp.390.
Mishra, K., Boynton, L. and Mishra, A., 2014. Driving employee engagement: The expanded
role of internal communications. International Journal of Business Communication, 51(2),
pp.183-202.
Townsend, A. M., DeMarie, S. M., and Hendrickson, A. R. 2018. Virtual teams: Technology
and the workplace of the future. Academy of Management Perspectives, 12(3), pp.17-29.