Is Your Company Ready to Go Virtual?

1. Are you comfortable with outsourcing?

I would outsource my bodily functions if I could.

I know my core competencies. The rest if on the table.

Keep your grubby mitts off my IT department!

2. How will customers react?

For all our customers know, we are already virtual.

Some education may be required, but our continued exceptional performance will prevail.

We will build a Potemkin village version of our office so no one will know we have left.

3. Does your location provide irreplaceable advantages?

I have no idea what the companies in this building do.

Our relationships with neighboring firms are sustainable without physical interaction.

We sell pocket protectors from the basement of a building at MIT.

4. Have you established efficient systems and practices? These are a crucial bulwark against chaos when employees are on their own.

We have developed, road-tested, and documented processes for all normal activites.

We have processes for most major functions. For some activities, we still wing it.

I am amazed we get out product out the door.

5. Are you prepared to devote more resources to employee development? Cross-training, mentoring, and the like are easier in an office.

We will invest in online training, virtual coaching, and outside education.

We will publish all job openings and push that information to staff. Employees desiring professional development must take the initiative.

Our people like to stay in the same jobs so they don't have to break in new business cards.

6. How high is turnover? It is tough to train and acclimate new hires outside the office.

My staff has been with me since the Nixon administration.

Keep a few, lose a few.

Is that my executive assistant or my VP?

7. Do you have appropriate metrics for measuring employee performance?

Every employee has clear goals, and we closely track deliverables.

People know their assignments and are encouraged to check in.

We will cross our fingers. If need be, we will ring laggards' doorbells and threaten their children and pets.

8. How is morale? If employees are unhappy, stewing in their home-based juices may deepen alienation.

This is one blissed-out group. They will love our company no matter what form it takes.

We have problems to iron out together before we try to work separately.

Why does everyone keep calling me Lord of the Flies?

9. Are you an effective communicator?

I carefully consider the language and format of my communications, make sure I reach our to everyone, and solicit feedback and questions.

I send e-mails as things occur to me and grab people in the halls.

So mighty is my brain that I form a through and —lo!—the masses obey.

10. Are you a person who needs people? If so, you may find virtual leadership lonely.

I like my employees, but the hallways conversations and office pop-ins can be distracting.

Calls, e-mails, and occassional get-togethers will suffice.

I am glad that is the last question. Now I can take my executive team across the street and discuss this quiz over drinks.