Leading geographically-dispersed teams: asking for book recommendations and inviting people to do a themed Working Out Loud (WOL) Circle with me (Q1, 2019)

I am currently compiling my "Year of Reading 2019" book list.

One of the subjects I am looking to explore is virtual teams, employee engagement in those teams and collaboration.

Back in 2001, I read "Mastering Virtual Teams: Strategies, Tools, and Techniques That Succeed" (Deborah L. Duarte, Nancy Tennant Snyder) during a 5 day Internal Consultancy Skills course. It was a book I stumbled over in the training provider's library and borrowed during the course devouring it in 4 evening sittings. It is a very practical book with a number of supporting MS Word templates. I am aware that the tech and the tools have changed dramatically since then but the book is more about the organisational processes of managing global virtual teams with the tech being secondary.

The table of contents of that book is as follows:-

• PART ONE: UNDERSTANDING VIRTUAL TEAMS
• 1 Critical Success Factors 3
• 2 Crossing Technical Boundaries 25
• 3 Crossing Cultural Boundaries 54
• PART TWO: CREATING VIRTUAL TEAMS
• 4 Myths and Realities of Leading Virtual Teams 73
• 5 Starting a Virtual Team: Six Major Steps 92
• 6 Team Member Roles and Competencies 121
• 7 Building Trust in Virtual Teams 139
• PART THREE: MASTERING VIRTUAL TEAMS
• 8 Virtual Team Meetings 157
• 9 Virtual Team Dynamics 179
• 10 Working Adaptively 203

A more recent book that I am aware of, but not read, is "Remote: Office Not Required" (Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson). See book web site: https://basecamp.com/books/remote.

I am asking if you can recommend any similar more recent books in this subject area for me to consider for my list? All suggestions gratefully received.

I had no plans to suggest this but posting this request has also prompted me to ask whether anyone would be interested in participating in a themed virtual WOL Circle in this subject area?

Thinking out loud ... we could start Monday 7 January 2019 (Week 0) ending Monday 1 April (Week 12) for an hour each week between 19:00 and 20:00 GMT or a different slot on Monday evenings. Note that this avoids Easter (Friday 19 - Monday 22 April).

We could agree to do individual goals related to the subject or look to do a shared co-creation-type goal e.g. a Virtual Teams Playbook. As always, I am open to any and all suggestions.

The circle would run per the circle guides. I am happy to facilitate or let others facilitate (a good way to develop new skills!). I have access to Workplace by Facebook and would ideally want to use that as the circle collaboration platform and use Zoom for the calls. Both these services are free and I can set new users up in a Workplace community of learners including many who have done or are doing WOL Circles.

This would be my 5th WOL Circle and I am currently facilitating one of John (Stepper)'s pilot Working Out Loud Self-Care Circles.

Happy to take any questions.

Looking forward to your book recommendations and any expressions of interest in doing a WOL Circle with me.

I am mainly to be found on Twitter @srjf.