Virtual Teams

Praise for the First Edition of Virtual Teams "If you want to see where organizational communications are going in the future, heed what these pioneers have written today." —Howard Rheingold, author, The Virtual Community, and founder, Electric Mind "Lipnack and Stamps have written an important book for the twenty-first-century corporation." —Regis McKenna, The McKenna Group, author, Relationship Marketing "This book provides a long overdue perspective on how to apply the discipline of real teams in the fast-moving, increasingly dispersed information age of the future." —Jon R. Katzenbach, author, The Wisdom of Teams "For those who want to lead the movement, catch up with it, or simply know where it is going, this book is packed with useful information and interesting stories." —Dee W. Hock, founder and chairman emeritus, VISA "Virtual Teams provides valuable insights into global teamwork and management through network technologies now available to all companies, large or small." —Jim Lynch, director, corporate quality, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

List of Illustrations xxi Introduction xxiii Chapter 1 Why 1 The Way to Work Shapeshifters 2 eSun 8 How It Feels 11 The Virtue of Virtual 15 Growth 22 Chapter 2 Networks 27 From Tribes to Networks It’s Official 27 The Networked Community 28 What’s Old, What’s New? 35 Network the Ages 40 Managing 43 The New 44 Personally Speaking 46 Chapter 3 Teams 47  Toward the Twenty-Second Century Our Company Never Closes 47 Team 101 55 Four Ages of Small 58 Crossing Boundaries 62 The People Boundary 66 Chapter 4 69 Trust Virtual Relationships Benefits 69 Two Paths, Two Societies 71 New Gold 78 Capital Across the Ages 82 Creating Social Capital 85 Chapter 5 93 Place Home Is Where the Site Is Sun’s Corporate DNA 93 Moving from Place to Place 102 Two Places 111 Chapter 6 115 Time The Virtual Pulse Dimensions 115 On the Wings of a Big Bid 115 Five Phases of Flight 123 Life Cycle 125 Together and Apart 130 Stretching Time 134 Chapter 7 137 Purpose Why We Work Turning Hierarchy on Its Side 137 Authority 145 Why Cooperate? 149 Discovering Purpose 152 Chapter 8 161 People On the Ice Together “All of Us Smarter than Any of Us” 162 Reinventing Government 164 Stress 169 Members 173 Leaders 175 Levels 180 Chapter 9 187 Links Being in Touch Connecting across Centuries 187 Circa 2086 189 Four Ages of Media 196 Atoms and Bits 202 Communicating 208 Chapter 10 211 Launch Do It Yourself Your Journey 212 Seven Steps 214 Play It Again, Sam 225 Chapter 11 227 Navigate Course Correction for Cyberspace The Virtual Team Room 228 Holding the Whole 234 Chapter 12 239 Theory A System Science of Virtual Teams The Periodic Table 240 Pattern Language for Virtual Teams 243 Systems 249 Smart Teams 253 Chapter 13 255 Think Reaching for Possibilities Together Mind 255 How Groups Think 260 Group Reality 265 A Place to Think 268 Learning 271 Chapter 14 273 Future Star Maker 273 Searching for Intelligence 275 At the Frontier 277 Islands of Trust 279 The Biological Internet 282 Notes 285 About the Authors 301 Index 303