Selling A Global Business: Teamwork Working Like Clockwork Round The Clock

If you are a business owner wanting to sell a business and combating a workforce spanning the globe, read on. As you look for ways in which boost the business productivity and valuation, take into account addressing issues you may have together with your international teams, whether internal or external.  When it comes time to sell a business, if these international teams are highly productive, the market can reward you with a better business valuation.

A virtual team is defined as “a group of people who interact through interdependent tasks guided by a common purpose.”  It crosses “space, time and organizational boundaries with links infused by webs of communication technologies.”, (Virtual Teams, by Lipnack and Stamps).   Here are a few fast tips for improving international virtual team performance. 

• Build trust

According to Patrick Lencioni’s The Trouble with Teamwork, the top team dysfunction is an absence of trust.  For virtual groups, trust lives at the duty not interpersonal level.  It is critical that trust is established through performance consistency and a speedy response to team members’ emails, requests for information and completing tasks.  Create a culture of trust by clearly defining roles, responsibilities and communication expectations, and hold the team accountable to them.   

• Set robust tips around communication

Inside the project team, establish communications guidelines and expectations around response times for voicemails and emails.  Build the sense of team and empower communication with a project roster or contact sheet with required information for each person. This includes project responsibility, back up contact, FedEx addresses, fax numbers, regular working hours, accessibility hours, special education and program proficiency, national holidays and vacations.  If possible, also list applicable personal info for example photos and hobbies to assist the team get to understand each other as individuals and not just digital work units.

Consider establishing a mechanism for info exchange, for example an internal web site or electronic bulletin board.  As several individuals in numerous time zones collaborate on documents, versions will quickly become fragmented and out of sync.  Time is lost making an attempt to consolidate and manage them.

• Have the first meeting face to face, if possible

This is the most effective case scenario, one that several of my customers cannot afford to attempt to do, unfortunately.  It is, however, the optimal approach to convey the project and team member relationships a strong start.  A sturdy second place recommendation is to have at least one meeting in person, even if it isn’t the primary one.  The fact for many of my clients, though, is that in-person meetings are not in the money or time budget.

• Have express meeting preparation and management

 It is a lot more troublesome to follow standard meeting processes over distant locations, cultures and time zones.  Take the time to state the meeting preparation expectations for the project.  Realize the most effective time zones for the team and switch between them.  For example, in a recent consumer engagement involving a US company expanding in an Asian market, we had meetings each Tuesday, however alternated between seven am and seven pm US CST. We were all equally inconvenienced, and that is the sole truthful manner to try and do it.

Repeat names throughout the meeting.  Since you can not see body language, proactively monitor meeting reactions and performance, and address problems promptly.

• Rotate meeting leadership and scribe roles

To push inclusion and participation, rotate leadership and scribe roles.  Rouse the team by raising your expectations of them.  Whoever takes the minutes should be the next meeting’s leader, since one makes you ready for the other.   

• Pay 70-80% of time with team members that are NOT co-located

It is simple to remain within the pattern you are already in:  building relationships, sharing data and spending time with those already in your location. International virtual team leadership needs you to go beyond your comfort zone and not simply reach out but to focus on people who you will not be able to simply communicate with.  Schedule one on one conversations for feedback and focused conversations.

• Assess team and leader skills, and style training to shut gaps.

With a team that is in your region, you may have a higher understanding of what the team’s skills are.  With a team in another location, special effort needs to be made to perceive the team’s skills, and where and the way to boost them.

• Acknowledge our humanity

We are not simply digital work bits.  We work, partially, to quench our wants as social creatures.  Build in social interaction time into the schedule.  You can, at the beginning of each meeting, when it is time to take attendance, ask every person to mention their name and something personal about themselves or good that has happened since the last meeting.   

• Increase recognition of labor well done

People don’t get enough feedback when working over a distance.  When somebody has done something well, don’t treat it as business as usual.  Spread the word, send thank’s and give public recognition.  At one company we worked at, meetings continually ended with participants volunteering verbal ‘roses.’  As an example, Juan may advice the project team, “I would like to present a ‘rose’ to Alana for her ideas on the price / benefit analysis.”  This is often a easy, robust and upbeat means to end the meetings.

And In Conclusion…

International virtual teams are our new reality.  While this allows prime talent to collaborate, it does need a special leadership talent and tool kit to succeed.  When selling a business you want to create a hum – within your headquarters and across the world.

I invite you to use these concepts throughout your journey to sell a business.

Marian Cook is a highly sought after business transition expert and speaker with over 25 years experience helping business owners design their best-life exit strategy, and improve their business performance and valuation.  She is the co-author of “Selling Your Business For More:  Maximizing Returns For You, Your Family and Your Business” (published by Macmillan).  If you are ready to sell a business and jump-start your business sale process, connect with Marian via her free tips, articles, checklists and blog at Business”>http://businesstransitionexperts.com”>Business Transition Experts.