ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to understanding the cognitive nature of collaboration as relevant to virtual work. It introduces the gestalt paradigm as a leader’s toolbox for the communicative-relational dynamics of virtual work. The chapter presents a cognitive approach to understanding a key tool – videoconferencing – of virtual work within organizations. It deals with a checklist as an aid to focused reflection for leaders and teams using videoconferencing. Virtual organizations and distributed work have become common since the late twentieth century, and the trend appears to continue as more and more people collaborate towards a common goal, while separated in location, time and knowledge. Coordination parallels communication in the interdependence of decision-making and choice of actions between collaborators. In virtual work, the individual often works in isolation and outside a collocated chain of command and is, therefore, to some considerable degree autonomous, self-led.
