Photo by Shishberg

The potential for increased productivity through global collaboration is immense and obvious to everyone. Technologies support rapid exchange of ideas, and global teams mean that work can be accomplished 24 hours a day, with work products ready for revision / improvement / response the moment employees begin their work day.  But what are the real impediments of reaching maximum benefit from a distributed workforce? And what can be practically done about leveraging people and time to actually accelerate productivity? People assume that productivity is maximized when teams are working 24 hours a day on a project. But is that always actually the case?

Data, ideas and products are exchanged more rapidly than ever before, but that does not necessarily result in employee creativity and innovation. The rate of information flow does not guarantee employee engagement. There are layers of complexity in human interaction that impact every facet of global business operations, and if businesses only address the obvious technical and logistical aspects of global collaboration, they may actually slow the speed of innovation, and reduce the potential to take full advantage of worldwide operations.

The apparent framework necessary for global collaboration includes:

• Clearly defined business goals
• Alignment of goals and priorities among international teams
• Coherent workflow strategy
• Deliberate strategy and training for global operations
• Technology implementation and coordination
• Work/time flexibility

These are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions to expand and enhance global capabilities. To truly capture the value of distributed teams, businesses should also address culture, both corporate and country, and the importance of individual relationships. This is critical when distance does not support the usual methods of building trust among colleagues.