If you are a business owner looking to sell a business and combating a workforce spanning the world, scan on. As you seek for ways in which boost the business productivity and valuation, contemplate addressing issues you will have with your international teams, whether internal or external.  When it comes time to sell a business, if these international groups are highly productive, the market can reward you with a higher business valuation.

A virtual team is defined as "a cluster 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 some quick tips for improving global virtual team performance. 

• Build trust

According to Patrick Lencioni’s The Trouble with Teamwork, the prime team dysfunction is an absence of trust.  For virtual teams, trust lives at the duty not interpersonal level.  It is essential that trust is gained through performance consistency and rapid response to team members’ emails, requests for information and finishing tasks.  Make a culture of trust by clearly defining roles, responsibilities and communication expectations, and hold the team accountable to them.   

• Set strong tips around communication

Within 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 data for each person. This includes project responsibility, secondary contact, FedEx addresses, fax numbers, normal operating hours, accessibility hours, special knowledge and program proficiency, national holidays and vacations.  If doable, also list appropriate personal information for example photos and hobbies to help the team get to know everyone as people and not simply digital work units.

Take into account establishing a mechanism for data exchange, like an internal website or electronic bulletin board.  As several workers in different time zones collaborate on documents, versions can quickly become fragmented and out of sync.  Time is lost trying to consolidate and manage them.

• Have the primary meeting face to face, if possible

This can be the best case scenario, one that several of my customers cannot afford to attempt and do, unfortunately.  It is, however, the optimal method to offer the project and team member relationships a strong start.  A strong second place idea is to have a minimum of one meeting in person, whether or not it isn’t the first one.  The fact for many of my clients, though, is that in-person conferences don not seem to be in the money or time budget.

• Have explicit meeting preparation and management

 It is a lot more troublesome to follow normal meeting processes over distant locations, cultures and time zones.  Take the time to state the meeting preparation guidelines for the project.  Find the most effective time zones for the team and alternate between them.  For example, in a recent consumer engagement involving a US company expanding in an Asian market, we had conferences every Tuesday, but alternated between seven am and 7 pm US CST. We were all equally inconvenienced, and that is the sole honest way to do it.

Repeat names during the meeting.  Since you will 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.  Awaken the team by raising your expectations of them.  Whoever takes the minutes should be the subsequent meeting’s leader, since one makes you ready for the other.   

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

It is simple to stay in the pattern you are already in:  building relationships, sharing information and spending time with those already in your location. International virtual team leadership requires you to travel beyond your comfort zone and not just reach out however to focus on those that you cannot easily communicate with.  Schedule one on one conversations for feedback and focused conversations.

• Assess team and leader skills, and design training to close gaps.

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

• Recognize our humanity

We are not just digital work bits.  We generally tend to work, in part, to satisfy our wants as social creatures.  Build in social interaction time into the schedule.  You will be ready to, at the start of each meeting, when it is time to take attendance, raise each person to say their name and one thing personal about themselves or good that occured since the last meeting.   

• Increase recognition of labor well done

People don’t get enough feedback when operating over a distance.  When someone has done something well, don’t treat it as business as usual.  Spread the word, send many thank’s and offer public recognition.  At one company we worked at, conferences continuously ended with participants volunteering verbal ‘roses.’  As an example, Juan may say to the project team, "I would like to give a ‘rose’ to Alana for her ideas on the price / profit analysis."  This is often a straightforward, robust and upbeat manner to finish the meetings.

And In Conclusion…

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

I invite you to use these ideas during 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.