Authors Release - The managers handbook for virtual teams

International business consultant Steven Zeisler and professional development coach Carolyn Soles released ìThe Manager’s Handbook for Virtual Teams: 24 Exercises to Take Your Team to High Performanceî on February 15. The Handbook is a powerful and urgently needed resource for managers and leaders of Virtual Teams - teams whose members are spread across geographical distances and time zones.

ìManagers of teams who are located in the same office have challenges enough in working at peak performance levels.î said co-author Carolyn Soles. ìSo when you add distances and different time zones, even experienced managers are grasping for ways to bring cohesion, collaboration and a stimulating environment to their team. They need help!î

ìThe Manager’s Handbook for Virtual Teamsî offers managers and team leaders 24 powerful team development exercises divided evenly into the four stages of a team development model first described by B. W. Tuckman. The four stages represent different progressions in the maturation of a team:

Forming - Start Up
Storming - Conflict
Norming - Straightening Out
Performing - Getting Great

ìIn our work with companies around the world, we realized that work loads on managers demand that they use both cost and time-effective tools that are powerful and practical. And that’s what we have in the Handbook.î said Steven Zeisler.

As a result, each exercise is laid out in a standard format that makes it easy for managers to use effectively:
Overview: Summary and Intent of the Exercise.
What: Instructions on how to do the Exercise.
So What: Instructions to extract Key Learnings and Insights from team members.
Now What: How to apply and reinforce Key Learnings in the future.

ìIn addition,î Soles continued, ìthe Handbook is available not as a printed book, but as a full-color Portable Document Format file so the manager always has it at his or her fingertips; on the laptop, on the desktop regardless of operating system - rather than on the bookshelf back at the office. Yet the manager has the flexibility to print out relevant pages, if needed.î

With more than 20 years of success in a wide variety of businesses, organizations and industries, the authors note the rapid changes in the marketplace and the upsurge of virtual teams in the past five years. ìUntil now there have been few resources - other than telecommunication technologies - to assist Virtual Teams.î Zeisler said. ìWhat was missing and what we have now provided are processes that can be used to help move a virtual team more effectively through its development stages and increase the likelihood for success and peak performance.

Soles is a professional development consultant, coach, and instructional designer who works with corporations and non-profits designing, developing and facilitating performance solutions and programs on leadership and management development, employee and team engagement strategies, and professional development. Zeisler is the director and founder of Zeisler Associates Inc., an international consulting and development firm that helps companies innovate faster and more successfully. Clients have included Fortune 500 companies, private firms, public institutions, city councils and universities on six continents.