Virtual Bridges
The first step CIOs need to take to address this growing problem, Lojeski says, is to recognize that virtual distance exists and is harming the performance of teams. Virtual distance can have wide-ranging effects on customer satisfaction, the budget and on-time delivery of projects, innovative behavior, effective leadership, and trust between employees.

"When there are high levels of virtual distance, team members are not as willing to exchange ideas," Lojeski says. "They don't believe their team members' ideas are very helpful, and that inhibits a lot of the discussion on ways to solve problems."

Successful teams depend on people doing tasks outside their prescribed roles, such as being willing to mentor or help someone else. However, this type of behavior becomes significantly lower as virtual distance increases.

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Too often, companies regard virtual teams as a black-and-white issue: They think of teams as being either virtual or face-to-face with nothing in between. In reality, most teams have some virtual interaction. Even teams in the same building have at least some computer mediation, even if it's just e-mail or instant messaging.

To understand and address the situation, then, companies need to analyze virtual distance on a spectrum. "A lot of the research in this area has had conflicting results because they were not looking at it in the right way," says Richard R. Reilly, who co-authored the study. "It isn't black-or-white. You need to characterize how virtual a team is."

Most of the management theories and models now in use were developed in a time when face-to-face interactions were the norm, Lojeski says. "They don't take into account that employees are interacting through a machine. People are struggling with how to lead a virtual team that has members in India, China and the United States who never see each other because all of the things they learned in management training don't apply anymore."

Next Time: What CIOs Can Do About Virtual Distance

This article was originally published on CIO-insight.com.