Virtual Performance: Harvesting the Power of Virtual Teams

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Virtual Performance: Harvesting the Power of Virtual Teams

by Jerry Manas, PMP

November 10, 2008


Ever wonder which common virtual team member behavior can lower a person’s IQ more than going without a night’s sleep--and even more than smoking marijuana?
 
“Huh?” you reply.
 
When colleagues Peg Aldridge--an innovation specialist at the Creating WE Institute--along with communication expert Nancy Ring and I began our research into what fosters virtual team performance, we never dreamt our work would relate to marijuana in any way. Yet, research funded by Hewlett-Packard and conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London shows that multitasking lowers a person’s IQ by a whopping 10 points, while losing a night’s sleep costs just an eight-point decline, and being high on marijuana results in a mere four point drop.
 
With this in mind… 
  • How many of us multitask during our virtual team meetings?
  • How does that impact our team’s ability to meet its performance goals?
The effect of multitasking is just one of many variables my colleagues and I are trying to uncover in our research of virtual teams and the accompanying survey.



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