Why executives shouldn’t discount their experience of managing a virtual team in an interview

Executive Interview Coaching founder Richard Elstone recently chatted with Branko Panich about the benefits of leading a virtual team and how to sell that experience in an executive interview setting.

Branko is an experienced Non-Executive Director, management consultant and technology executive with broad skills developed over 35-plus years of working for a range of global, blue-chip organisations. He has held various senior executive roles including CEO, CIO, and Managing Partner. In addition, Branko has had Non-Executive Director roles in a variety of commercial and community organisations.

Branko has a passion for building strong, diverse teams, including the virtual variety. He’s managed teams ranging from 10 to 400 employees. Here, Branko answers Richard’s questions about the merits of managing a virtual team, and how to showcase that experience in an executive interview.

Is managing a virtual team sometimes harder than managing a team directly?

Certainly, it’s often harder to manage virtual teams and to influence across a large organisation than when you have direct control of the people reporting to you. When you have direct control, you can set their focus, agenda, and KPIs.

With a virtual team, it may be a project you’re running and you’re overseeing lots of different people from different parts of the organisation. You might be bringing people in from outside the organisation as well.

Somehow, you have to bring these teams together, and create an outcome, where you don’t have that direct control. That is much more challenging! 

What’s your strategy in managing a large virtual team? 

Firstly, you need to create clarity around the vision. Helping all team members understand what you’re trying to achieve and why that’s a good thing for the organisation is important.

Secondly, it’s understanding where they’re coming from, what their objectives are and what they’re trying to achieve out of that project or that exercise. They might be trying to build particular skills or achieve certain outcomes. You need to align their objectives with the vision of what you’re trying to do.

What skills does managing a virtual team equip you with?

Influencing skills and people skills are very important in a virtual team. You need to be able to influence people who are not in your direct control, and still deliver outcomes.

Your ability to articulate and form a vision, and get people behind that vision, is important. Again, if you’re just influencing them, there’s no reason they have to buy in. Explaining the why is crucial.

Working in a virtual team, you often also develop mentoring skills. Everyone loses motivation at points in time. Your ability to coach and encourage them to give you the time you need on your project is vital. 

Will managing virtual teams help you manage direct teams?

Absolutely. If you can influence people who you don’t have control over to get things done, then working with your own team will be easier. Those habits you’ve built will be even more effective.

All those skills you build in leading virtual teams are absolutely relevant and useful in leading larger direct teams.

What are the benefits of hiring someone with the ability to manage a virtual team?

It’s a mandatory skill nowadays. With agile projects, people are coming together from all over the organisation.

Organisations are focused on building diverse teams, and being able to bring those diverse skills together into a virtual team is really valuable. We know that if you have people from different backgrounds and different thinking patterns, you’ll typically get a better result.

For an organisation, the benefits of hiring someone with the ability to manage a virtual team are that you’ll get better outcomes. Secondly, the employees will get more job satisfaction because they’re working on a range of different things with a range of different people, not just with their boss.

For the individual leading the virtual team, it’s satisfying leading lots of different groups of people and delivering an outcome.

Is experience leading virtual teams in voluntary organisations worthwhile?

In voluntary organisations, you have to build strong virtual teams and volunteer teams, where you have no control. You can’t fire people. You can’t motivate them through KPIs or bonuses, because they’re purely volunteers.

If you can learn to build the skills to lead teams in those environments by influencing, by setting a vision, by coaching people, it certainly helps you in your corporate career.

What advice would you give to a mid-career executive on how to develop those skills?

The first tip is to recognise that you may already have experience managing a virtual team, without even realising it. In a finance role, for example, you need to be talking to other people across the business to understand what’s happening in the field and know why the numbers are up or down. Hence, you technically have experience managing a virtual team.

Next, recognise and seize on opportunities to work with other people in other teams. Think about how you can work with other departments or individuals to achieve outcomes.

Lastly, reflect back on that experience. What worked, and what didn’t?

Looking to land your next executive role?

Executive Interview Coaching offers a range of services to help executives progress their career aspirations.

Through expert coaching, Richard can teach you how to showcase your strengths during the interview process, including any experience you have in managing a virtual team, and the skills that equipped you with.

To find out more, get in touch today.