Stories Instead of Recipes

Why Has Virtual Working Remained So Difficult?

I have reflected often on the questions:

• Why do so many people reject or dislike virtual working?

• Why do they struggle with it?

Is it because it is inherently incompatible with human nature, or is it only a question of time? Will people get used to it and adopt this new way of working and communicating, just as they adopted the use of cars or microwaves decades ago? Are we just considering patterns in the adoption of a new technology? This curiosity led me to undertake substantial, practical research into what needs to happen for virtual working and leadership to be truly successful. In this book I present my key findings.

Like it or not, virtual working has become essential in the last few years, prompted by ever-increasing globalisation, a growing care for the environment, a concern for a better quality of life, the need to cut costs and the desire to welcome into the corporate world Generation Y (people born in the 1980s who have grown up with all today's virtual media).

Virtual working truly is nothing new though. This way of working (mediated by communication technology) has been practised for at least twenty years, and a great deal has been written about the topic. But even after so many years, virtual working remains an unsatisfactory practice which at best is considered as 'second class'; something you do when you cannot travel.

For most people, virtual working is associated with something that is not real or is superficial. For the vast majority of managers I have come across in organisations, personal contact can only equate to face-to-face contact. I am constantly amazed when people say to each other: 'I look forward to meeting you personally' when they mean 'meeting you face-to-face', even though they have already been working together virtually for perhaps six months. I wonder what they have been doing all this time. Have they not developed some sense of each other at a personal level? If not, why is it l