Isn't it beautiful?

(Taget från min interna arbetsrelaterade blogg).

Today we had a technical rehearsal for a big virtual meeting - a meeting for managers all over the world that will take place on Friday this week.

Suddenly when we sat there trying to solve technical issues together it hit me "Wow, we are really good at this".

Here I am, in a conference room in Gothenburg, working together with 20 people from all over the world (China, United States, France). I have only met a few of them face-to-face, but we are all working together with one common ambition - to facilitate and run a first-class meeting for our managers. We are supporting each other working together as a true global team!

Thoughts like this don’t seem to strike me when I am the one leading the coordination. Then I am too busy talking to people on the communicator and making sure that everything runs smoothly in the room and on all sites.

Another thing that hit me today was the statement you often hear from people: “You have to meet each other face-to-face once before you can start working together in a virtual format; at least this is necessary to have an efficient virtual team". I claimed the same thing before, but I don’t agree any more.

Some of the people participating in today’s rehearsal were people from my team in North America. I have never met them. Still, it really feels like I know them. I have been working together with them for two and a half year and I feel more close to them than to some of the people I actually have met face-to-face. It is just a matter of attitude and openness. Now, when I’ve realized this it is so obvious!

Isn’t it beautiful?