The way a team decides to decide is one of the most important decisions it makes. In the excellent book, “Why Teams Don’t Work” the authors, Harvey Robbins and Michael Finley, identify seven key decision-making methods for teams.

Buy it now from:
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Robin Good comments on research by both Russell Research and Raindance Communications, Inc., showing that online meetings fail to engage anything like the full concentration of the participants who utilise their spare brainpower bandwidth to multi-task and do other things. We should have a prize for the person who has done the most unusual thing whilst "technically present" at an online meeting?

The Chicago Sun-Times reported a 52-minute delay in the Houston Astros versus San Diego Padres baseball game when a swarm of bees took over part of left field at Petco Park - it took a beekeeper to sort it all out.

UK Small companies more open to virtual working practices than big ones

According to Online Recruitment, “Big businesses are left behind as smaller firms pioneer the remote office”, May 31.

A survey of attitudes to teleworking in UK business, carried out by Mitel, finds somewhat surprisingly that small businesses (72%) are much more open to remote and flexible working practices than their larger counterparts (44%).

One might think that the larger companies more advanced IT and communications infrastructures might make them more amenable to teleworking?

However perhaps mindset may be more important than technology with the bigger companies preference for ‘command and control’ and “if you can’t see it you can manage it” holding them back in new working practices compared with a more ‘self-managed team’ approach popular with small entrepreneurial companies.