Near Virtual Disaster

Sara’s company just dramatically changed strategic direction. The new strategy required employees to practice many new skills and behaviors. The senior council of the company asked Sara to lead a virtual team to identify the new rewards and recognition program that would help reinforce these new skills and behaviors.

After Sara and the team had several virtual meetings, it became clear that this was going to be a difficult task and that there was no precedent for it. First, each department had its own rewards and recognition program, so understanding and removing these was going to be both difficult and unpopular. Second, setting up a company-wide program that all of the leaders would agree to was not going to be easy. Sara and her team realized that the quick project that they thought they were given was really a longer and more complex task. And the CEO wanted periodic updates on their progress.