Virtual Collaboration in Organizations: A Change Issue

If you want to build a wiki, don’t drum up people by sending them emails and adding them as users. Rather make them long for access to the important information your wiki contains. (Juliane Neumann, Radical Inclusion)

• People driving VC and KM projects are not the potential beneficiaries of the VC tools. VC and KM are categorized as “IT issues”, and the users are rarely involved in design and implementation of the collaboration tools.
• Knowledge and information are organizational currencies, and they are not given away for free. We share information when we get something in return, and knowledge can be a powerful asset in power play situations.
• Collaboration is a question of trust and loyalties, and these ties don’t often follow official organizational structures. People have contradicting loyalties as most organizations have implicit and explicit organizational structures. Also, organizational boundaries in collaboration are not that clear as people adhere to and trust individuals and groups outside of the organization.
• Collaboration is not encouraged. Few organizations have reward systems that encourage collaboration, and even fewer have a collaboration strategy.
• Effective physical collaboration is different from effective virtual collaboration. Most organizations try to translate traditional forms of collaboration, i.e. face-to-face meetings, into virtual collaboration. Thinking that a face-to-face meeting is a pinnacle of collaboration neglects to take into account the new and different opportunities that synchronous, near time, and asynchronous VC tools offer. Virtual meetings that mirror face-to-face meeting processes end up being frustrating experiences because of technical shortcomings and poor virtual process skills.
• General attitudes towards virtual collaboration are not favourable. VC is usually considered as a second-hand substitute for physical face-to-face meetings. Few people believe that they can be effective, efficient, and most of all, fun!

1. People do not resist change as a given. However, all people have concerns, purposes and circumstances that matter to them. If people feel that their issues are acknowledged and respected, they will support change.
2. Change has its boundaries and limits. Change is partly given to us, and everything is not negotiable. There will always be conditions that we need to accept and work around. Also, we have to respect that usually the entire organization will not change.
3. Problems become our friends little by little. We need to start small in the beginning of our change journey and improve the process along the way.
4. Everybody needs to become an innovator. Widen the circle of involvement as much as possible and get people to buy in. Identify or create containers where new thinking emerges and smart systems can multiply.
5. Multilevel communication about change is essential. Connect people to the content of the change and to each other by virtual and face-to-face means.

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