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Thanks to the ever-increasing deployment of virtual teams, the modern office is increasingly defined by time zones, rather than walls. According to a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 66 per cent of multinationals, not to mention almost half of all organizations, use virtual teams, which can boost productivity and employee flexibility while reducing the time and cost of travel. When it comes to brainstorming, project planning and setting goals, SHRM research suggests that virtual teams can be more effective than in-person teams. Virtual teams, however, are still considered inferior in some key areas. Traditional teams, for example, receive higher marks when it comes to developing trust, maintaining morale, monitoring performance and managing conflict. Furthermore, as the SHRM survey illustrated, virtual managers have a harder time monitoring individual and team performance and the absence of visual cues can make developing a shared understanding more difficult than in a physical meeting. Different time zones and cultural and technology barriers can also make collaboration more difficult. These challenges, of course, can be addressed by promoting strong leadership behaviours and training virtual teams in skills to build relationships and trust while implementing processes and systems that allow them to collaborate more effectively. Unfortunately, according to our own research, these things arent happening, at least not at most companies. Simply put, best practices arent being implemented (or even clearly defined) enough. In fact, research indicates that less than 20 per cent of virtual teams receive training on how to work effectively as a virtual team, leaving most virtual leaders and their team members operating in unproductive ways. As a result, one-quarter of virtual teams fail to meet expectations. To help better define the best practices that lead to success in a virtual setting, we studied 48 virtual teams across a range of industries. Our research included a survey of 427 virtual team members and leaders as well as data collected from 99 stakeholders familiar with the teams in our study, such as internal customers or team leaders managers. We also conducted an additional survey of 304 individuals who worked on separate virtual teams. We found several troubling statistics: When evaluated by third-party stakeholders, 27 per cent of the 48 teams studied had overall performance rated as adequate or below adequate When team members and leaders were asked to assess their own effectiveness, 17 per cent rated their own performance as adequate or less than adequate Twenty-five per cent of the 304 people surveyed said their teams were not fully effective