Communication: The Key to Successful Cross-Cultural Teams Jackie's Two Cents on the Key Skills for Effective Cross-Cultural Communication:
Today’s economic paradigm has shifted, from "thinking globally and acting locally" to "acting globally and thinking locally." Results in most companies require high levels of collaboration among individuals in diverse functions. Developing teams of individuals who are smart, ambitious, and highly independent is a challenge. When the team is a virtual team with members in diverse locations, time zones, and cultures the challenge is compounded. Remote cross-cultural teams allow us to develop ideas across the business and pool expertise. People from culturally diverse backgrounds bring fresh ideas and new approaches to problem solving which utilized effectively can be a business advantage. The challenge however, is that they also bring different understanding and expectations regarding group dynamics and communication. A basic understanding of cultural diversity is crucial for effective communications. It’s to every team leader’s advantage to have a basic understanding of culture, workplace habits, language problems, communication and politeness styles, hierarchical interactions with superiors and subordinates of your team members. In the Harvard Business Review Case Study, "The Case of the Floundering Expatriate," Gordon Adler reminds us that when dealing with cross-cultural teams to "Remember that you are not dealing with one foreign culture; you are dealing with several. If you are aware of the different attitudes and styles, you might be able to navigate more effectively." Online exclusive: In order for one to "act globally" one must first be develop cultural adaptability and the willingness and ability to take a different perspective. To explain what I mean I will share my story learned and re-learned and enhanced over my career. Like many of you, I had demonstrated success as an individual contributor and as a manager when I was given my first multi-cultural team assignment. My task was to facilitate the acquisition of one of our suppliers in Mexico. I eagerly took on the assignment, thinking this would be a piece of cake. After all I’d just successfully completed the task which recommended the acquisition in the first place and was feeling very confident in my abilities. For the first time my team was spread across many US and Mexico locations as well two different cultures. My team members included: representatives from our Mexican Supplier, a Mexican attorney to facilitate the acquisition, and representatives from my companies legal, facilities, and process development organizations. Our first meeting was a conference call which I arranged after first contacting each team member by phone to introduce my self, talk about the team, outline our objectives and individual responsibilities and establish the date and time for the first conference call. Afterwards I sent a detailed agenda with objectives and deliverables via email to all team members. All of my actions thus far were straight by the book, proven to be successful for me before, so you can imagine my surprise when the first conference call was a total disaster. Not only did the contract Mexican lawyer who was to help facilitate the acquisition did not attend, many of the tasks assigned to the Mexican team members were not completed. Many of the US members were very aggressive during the call wanting do things their way and there was little or no input, often dead silence from the Mexican team members during the call. What went wrong you might ask! Looking back, I was able to see that I failed to communicate effectively. I did not know that the communication infrastructure in Mexico was not the same as in the US. Access to the internet outside of Mexico City was not readily available and was very expense. As such, the contract lawyer was traveling outside the City and did not see my follow-up email confirming the conference date and time. He assumed I knew about the internet difficulties and would follow-up with a second phone call to him. He did tell me about his travel plans during our previous call. I did not recognize his intent in sharing this information due to my lack of understanding of his communication style. In hindsight, I should have asked more questions to fully understand reasons why the information was being given and to confirm his understanding of the how and when we would follow-up with each other. There you have it, three misunderstandings with one team member. Unfortunately for me they did not stop here. I was not sensitive to the fact that English is a foreign language for many of the Mexican team members the extent to which it is understood and spoken varied widely amongst the team members. When I gave assignments over the phone, I most of what I said was lost in translation and not comprehended. This was compounded by my own communication style of talking very fast and of asking multiple questions at once. Often the second question went unheard as they were still focusing on the first one. There was also a cultural nuance of not letting the "boss" know that there were issues and the requested deadlines could not be met, so they just said what I wanted to hear. Being uncomfortable with their use of English also made it more difficult for the Mexican team members to speak up during meetings. During the introductory call I tried to combine too many items together due to the constraints caused by the differences in time zones. I often spoke in generalities simply sketching out what I wanted with little explanation or discussion on the parameters or objectives. In the end everyone was left to fill in the blanks for themselves in some instances, wrongly which resulted in wasted efforts and frustrations. Needless to say, I learned some valuable key cross-cultural communication skills from this experience. Seven Winning Skills for Communicating in Cross-Cultural Teams:
References and Recommended Reading The Case of the Floundering Expatriate, Gordon Adler, Harvard Business Review Case Study, Reprint 95401 The Discipline of Teams, JR Katzenbach and DK Smith, John Wiley Cross Cultural Communication: The Essential Guide to International Business, Gordon Bannon Cultural Intelligence, P Christopher Earley & Elaine Mosakowski, Harvard Business Review Best Practice, Reprint R0410J
The Localization Industry Standards Association:
|
