Friday, May 02, 2008

Questions for Covey: Communicating Potential

Stephen Covey, in May's Training magazine:
Questions for Covey: Communicating Potential

What are the challenges of leading a globally networked team?

"Obviously, the first challenge is a lack of face-to-face communication, where the transference of emotion takes place and a genuine liking and respect develops. That's why it's important to have such face-to-face meetings, at least annually, so people get to know each other in both informal and formal ways. Then put technology to work. Remember, however, that technology is a great servant but a bad master. Until the trust is high, it's difficult to communicate in shorthand and to really produce third-alternative solutions that harmonize the real cultural and political differences that exist around the world."

JMS: I think this concept applies to collaborative work at a distance (even if it is across campus), and to a certain extent applies to online education experiences. Must all online courses have an F2F component? No. But should any online course make a real effort to foster the "transference of emotion" that develops "respect" and "liking".

No comments: