Although I am a supporter of virtual working environments it is undeniable that working close to other managers has its benefits. I just read a post called "4 ways leaders can stay on top of the issues" from John Baldoni, heard from a company that was regrouping some of their senior managers into the same location, reviewing my post from yesterday "Going to the spot..."..., and was thinking about the proximity vs virtuality issue.
Everyday there are more companies that are sponsoring home-work, cutting travelling budgets, taking full advantage of Instant Messengers, VOIP and installing virtual meeting rooms with huge screens and cameras for videoconferencing.
The post from John Baldini starts pointing out that many managers don't leave their offices frequently enough which doesn't allow them to really understand what is going on with their companies. He suggest 4 ways leaders can stay on top of the issues:
Study up: this relates to the managers ability of going through the huge amount of information and being able to choose, select and frame it in a way it allows to understand the issues and root causes, ask good questions and make decisions.
Listen up: listen to employees, customers, stakeholders. Ask them the right questions and make them feel safe to make suggestions and recommendations. Very often managers don't ask the right people or just mishear what employees think or have to say.
Inspect up: this would be like going to the spot. Go and see by yourself what is happening and what the problem is.
Follow up: hold people accountable for the decisions and agreements everyone made and followup on it. If you don't you will loose the momentum, people will loose their focus and you won't be able to provide feedback as you move along the project.
Being close to employees, stakeholders or customers is clearly much easier if you need to go through these 4 ways, but can you be as effective being close as virtual?
It's probably the same except for "Inspect up" which may require travelling, but in any case it's also only a matter of distance. If you work at Headquarters and have a problem in a manufacturing plant, you may be able to go see it for yourself if you are some miles away, or may not if you are in a different country.
It may be a question of having the right local people and hold regular effective face 2 face business reviews with them to compensate with this.
My only additional recommendations is that, to succeed through a virtual environment, you ensure you develop a human relationship with your peers, employees, customers or stakeholders, as close as you can as you would do if you were very close and face 2 face. I'll write a post soon on how to start a job in a virtual environment
What are your thoughts?
