Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 352 pages
- Published by: Wiley
- Edition: 2nd Edition September 13, 2000
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0471388254
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0471388258
-
Book Dimensions:
9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
- Weighs: 1.3 pounds
Product Description
Praise for the First Edition of Virtual Teams
"If you want to see where organizational communications are going in the future, heed what these pioneers have written today." -Howard Rheingold, author, The Virtual Community, and founder, Electric Mind
"Lipnack and Stamps have written an important book for the twenty-first-century corporation." -Regis McKenna, The McKenna Group, author, Relationship Marketing
"This book provides a long overdue perspective on how to apply the discipline of real teams in the fast-moving, increasingly dispersed information age of the future." -Jon R. Katzenbach, author, The Wisdom of Teams
"For those who want to lead the movement, catch up with it, or simply know where it is going, this book is packed with useful information and interesting stories." -Dee W. Hock, founder and chairman emeritus, VISA
"Virtual Teams provides valuable insights into global teamwork and management through network technologies now available to all companies, large or small." -Jim Lynch, director, corporate quality, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Book Info
Leading experts in networked organizations, shows you how to effectively start, implement, and maintain virtual teams in your organization. The authors present the 90/10 Rule, which stresses how a virtual team's success is based 90% on the people involved and 10% on the technology.
Reader Reviews
The authors are convinced that, eventually, "virtual teams will become the natural way to work, nothing special. Virtual teams and networks -- effective, value-based, swiftly reconfiguring, cost-sensitive, and decentralized -- will profoundly reshape our shared world. As members of many virtual groups, we will contribute to these ephemeral webs of relationships that together weave our future." That day is already here for many people and I agree that virtual working relationships will soon be the rule rather than the exception. The authors correctly note that technology extends capabilities "but organizing to do things together is only human. The most profound change of the new millennium is in the way we're organized." Moreover, as more people connect online, "we increase our capacity for both independence and interdependence. Competition and cooperation both thrive in our new culture." However, there are perils to avoid because whatever goes wrong with in-the-same place teams can also go wrong with virtual teams -- only worse and, worse yet, faster and at a much greater cost. The authors organize their excellent material within 14 chapters whose individual titles indicate each chapter's perspective on virtual teams: Why, Networks, Teams, Trust, Place, Time, Purpose, people, Links, Launch, Navigate, Theory, Think, and Future. I agree that a virtual team "is a group of people who work interdependently with a shared purpose across space, time, and organization boundaries." Nonetheless, I still have some quibbles about the authors' sequence of subject matter (not with the content itself) and am still convinced that cooperation between and among members of virtual teams is even more difficult than it is between and among those within physical boundaries. Moreover, my own rather extensive experience with all manner of corporate clients suggests that the most formidable barriers are between two ears. If you have some serious human barriers in your own organization, I urge you to check out O'Dell and Grayson's immensely thoughtful and practical book, If Only We Knew What We Know. But please keep in mind that even if O'Dell, Grayson, Lipnack, and Stamps were retained to create virtual teams for your organization, unless and until everyone else involved buys into the enterprise, the results would be abysmal. Hence the importance of several points which Lipnack and Stamps make in the final chapter, notably the absolutely essential need for trust. "A presumption of trust enables a successful strategy of collaboration [enables everyone involved] to be better innovators, competitors, and survivors....If purpose is the glue, trust is the grease." I agree. Of course, no single volume such as this can provide all the right answers but Lipnack and Stamps raise most (if not all) of the most important questions. Their answers seem sensible and practical. Of course, decision-makers must decide what the nature, extent, and duration of a virtual relationship should be in their organization at any given time. The authors do provide an excellent source of information and insight which can help virtually (pun intended) any organization increase cooperation and collaboration across boundaries through the effective use of various technologies. Especially, in this age of accelerating globalization, most organizations need all the help they can get.
Comment | |
(Report this)
Search for books at
