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2015-09-29 10:36:35
Tsedal Neeley
To succeed in the global economy today, more and more companies are relying on
a geographically dispersed workforce. They build teams that offer the best
functional expertise from around the world, combined with deep, local knowledge
of the most promising markets. They draw on the benefits of international
diversity, bringing together people from many cultures with varied work
experiences and different perspectives on strategic and organizational
challenges. All this helps multinational companies compete in the current
business environment.
But managers who actually lead global teams are up against stiff challenges.
Creating successful work groups is hard enough when everyone is local and
people share the same office space. But when team members come from different
countries and functional backgrounds and are working in different locations,
communication can rapidly deteriorate, misunderstanding can ensue, and
cooperation can degenerate into distrust.
Preventing this vicious dynamic from taking place has been a focus of my
research, teaching, and consulting for more than 15 years. I have conducted
dozens of studies and heard from countless executives and managers about
misunderstandings within the global teams they have joined or led, sometimes
with costly consequences. But I have also encountered teams that have produced
remarkable innovations, creating millions of dollars in value for their
customers and shareholders.
One basic difference between global teams that work and those that don t lies
in the level of social distance the degree of emotional connection among team
members. When people on a team all work in the same place, the level of social
distance is usually low. Even if they come from different backgrounds, people
can interact formally and informally, align, and build trust. They arrive at a
common understanding of what certain behaviors mean, and they feel close and
congenial, which fosters good teamwork. Coworkers who are geographically
separated, however, can t easily connect and align, so they experience high
levels of social distance and struggle to develop effective interactions.
Mitigating social distance therefore becomes the primary management challenge
for the global team leader.
To help in this task, I have developed and tested a framework for identifying
and successfully managing social distance. It is called the SPLIT framework,
reflecting its five components: structure, process, language, identity, and
technology each of which can be a source of social distance. In the following
pages I explain how each can lead to team dysfunction and describe how smart
leaders can fix problems that occur or prevent them from happening in the first
place.
Structure and the Perception of Power
In the context of global teams, the structural factors determining social
distance are the location and number of sites where team members are based and
the number of employees who work at each site.
The fundamental issue here is the perception of power. If most team members are
located in Germany, for instance, with two or three in the United States and in
South Africa, there may be a sense that the German members have more power.
This imbalance sets up a negative dynamic. People in the larger (majority)
group may feel resentment toward the minority group, believing that the latter
will try to get away with contributing less than its fair share. Meanwhile,
those in the minority group may believe that the majority is usurping what
little power and voice they have.
The situation is exacerbated when the leader is at the site with the most
people or the one closest to company headquarters: Team members at that site
tend to ignore the needs and contributions of their colleagues at other
locations. This dynamic can occur even when everyone is in the same country:
The five people working in, say, Beijing may have a strong allegiance to one
another and a habit of shutting out their two colleagues in Shanghai.
When geographically dispersed team members perceive a power imbalance, they
often come to feel that there are in-groups and out-groups. Consider the case
of a global marketing team for a U.S.-based multinational pharmaceutical
company. The leader and the core strategy group for the Americas worked in the
company s Boston-area headquarters. A smaller group in London and a single
individual in Moscow focused on the markets in Europe. Three other team
members, who split their time between Singapore and Tokyo, were responsible for
strategy in Asia. The way that each group perceived its situation is
illustrated in the exhibit below.
R1510D_NEELEY_DISPERSEDTEAM
To correct perceived power imbalances between different groups, a leader needs
to get three key messages across:
Who we are.
The team is a single entity, even though individual members may be very
different from one another. The leader should encourage sensitivity to
differences but look for ways to bridge them and build unity. Tariq, a
33-year-old rising star in a global firm, was assigned to lead a 68-person
division whose members hailed from 27 countries, spoke 18 languages, and ranged
in age from 22 to 61. During the two years before he took charge, the group s
performance had been in a precipitous decline and employee satisfaction had
plunged. Tariq saw that the team had fractured into subgroups according to
location and language. To bring people back together, he introduced a team
motto ( We are different yet one ), created opportunities for employees to talk
about their cultures, and instituted a zero-tolerance policy for displays of
cultural insensitivity.
What we do.
It s important to remind team members that they share a common purpose and to
direct their energy toward business-unit or corporate goals. The leader should
periodically highlight how everyone s work fits into the company s overall
strategy and advances its position in the market. For instance, during a weekly
conference call, a global team leader might review the group s performance
relative to company objectives. She might also discuss the level of collective
focus and sharpness the team needs in order to fend off competitors.
I am there for you.
Team members located far from the leader require frequent contact with him or
her. A brief phone call or eāmail can make all the difference in conveying that
their contributions matter. For instance, one manager in Dallas, Texas,
inherited a large group in India as part of an acquisition. He made it a point
to involve those employees in important decisions, contact them frequently to
discuss ongoing projects, and thank them for good work. He even called team
members personally to give them their birthdays off. His team appreciated his
attention and became more cohesive as a result.
Process and the Importance of Empathy
It almost goes without saying that empathy helps reduce social distance. If
colleagues can talk informally around a watercooler whether about work or about
personal matters they are more likely to develop an empathy that helps them
interact productively in more-formal contexts. Because geographically dispersed
team members lack regular face time, they are less likely to have a sense of
mutual understanding. To foster this, global team leaders need to make sure
they build the following deliberate moments into the process for meeting
virtually:
Feedback on routine interactions.
Members of global teams may unwittingly send the wrong signals with their
everyday behavior. Julie, a French chemical engineer, and her teammates in
Marseille checked and responded to eāmails only first thing in the morning, to
ensure an uninterrupted workday. They had no idea that this practice was
routinely adding an overnight delay to correspondence with their American
colleagues and contributing to mistrust. It was not until Julie visited the
team s offices in California that the French group realized there was a
problem. Of course, face-to-face visits are not the only way to acquire such
learning. Remote team members can also use the phone, eāmail, or even
videoconferencing to check in with one another and ask how the collaboration is
going. The point is that leaders and members of global teams must actively
elicit this kind of reflected knowledge, or awareness of how others see them.
Unstructured time.
Think back to your last face-to-face meeting. During the first few minutes
before the official discussion began, what was the atmosphere like? Were people
comparing notes on the weather, their kids, that new restaurant in town?
Unstructured communication like this is positive, because it allows for the
organic unfolding of processes that must occur in all business dealings sharing
knowledge, coordinating and monitoring interactions, and building
relationships. Even when people are spread all over the world, small talk is
still a powerful way to promote trust. So when planning your team s call-in
meetings, factor in five minutes for light conversation before business gets
under way. Especially during the first meetings, take the lead in initiating
informal discussions about work and nonwork matters that allow team members to
get to know their distant counterparts. In particular, encourage people to be
open about constraints they face outside the project, even if those aren t
directly linked to the matter at hand.
Time to disagree.
Leaders should encourage disagreement both about the team s tasks and about the
process by which the tasks get done. The challenge, of course, is to take the
heat out of the debate. Framing meetings as brainstorming opportunities lowers
the risk that people will feel pressed to choose between sides. Instead, they
will see an invitation to evaluate agenda items and contribute their ideas. As
the leader, model the act of questioning to get to the heart of things. Solicit
each team member s views on each topic you discuss, starting with those who
have the least status or experience with the group so that they don t feel
intimidated by others comments. This may initially seem like a waste of time,
but if you seek opinions up front, you may make better decisions and get buy-in
from more people.
A software developer in Istanbul kept silent in a team meeting in order to
avoid conflict, even though he questioned his colleagues design of a
particular feature. He had good reasons to oppose their decision, but his team
leader did not brook disagreement, and the developer did not want to damage his
own position. However, four weeks into the project, the team ran into the very
problems that the developer had seen coming.
Language and the Fluency Gap
Good communication among coworkers drives effective knowledge sharing, decision
making, coordination, and, ultimately, performance results (see also What s
Your Language Strategy? by Tsedal Neeley and Robert Steven Kaplan, HBR,
September 2014). But in global teams, varying levels of fluency with the chosen
common language are inevitable and likely to heighten social distance. The team
members who can communicate best in the organization s lingua franca (usually
English) often exert the most influence, while those who are less fluent often
become inhibited and withdraw. Mitigating these effects typically involves
insisting that all team members respect three rules for communicating in
meetings:
Dial down dominance.
Strong speakers must agree to slow down their speaking pace and use fewer
idioms, slang terms, and esoteric cultural references when addressing the
group. They should limit the number of comments they make within a set time
frame, depending on the pace of the meeting and the subject matter. They should
actively seek confirmation that they ve been understood, and they should
practice active listening by rephrasing others statements for clarification or
emphasis.
Rules of Engagement for Team Meetings
All team members should be guided by these three rules to ensure that influence
on decisions is not dictated by fluency in the company's lingua franca.
- Fluent speakers - dial down dominance
. slow down the pace and use familiar language (e.g, fewer idioms)
. refrain from dominating the conversation
. ask: 'do you understand what I am saying?'
. Listen actively
- Less fluent speakers - dial up engagement
. resist withdrawal or other avoidance behaviors
. refrain from reverting to your native language
. ask: 'do you understand what I am saying?'
. if you don't understand others, ask them to repeat or explain.
- Team leaders - balance for inclusion
. monitor participants and strive to balance their speaking and listening
. actively draw contributions from all team members
. solicit participation from less fluent speakers in particular
. be prepared to define and interpret content
Dial up engagement.
Less fluent speakers should monitor the frequency of their responses in
meetings to ensure that they are contributing. In some cases, it s even worth
asking them to set goals for the number of comments they make within a given
period. Don t let them use their own language and have a teammate translate,
because that can alienate others. As with fluent speakers, team members who are
less proficient in the language must always confirm that they have been
understood. Encourage them to routinely ask if others are following them.
Similarly, when listening, they should be empowered to say they have not
understood something. It can be tough for nonnative speakers to make this leap,
yet doing so keeps them from being marginalized.
Balance participation to ensure inclusion.
Getting commitments to good speaking behavior is the easy part; making the
behavior happen will require active management. Global team leaders must keep
track of who is and isn t contributing and deliberately solicit participation
from less fluent speakers. Sometimes it may also be necessary to get
dominant-language speakers to dial down to ensure that the proposals and
perspectives of less fluent speakers are heard.
The leader of a global team based in Dubai required all his reports to post the
three communication rules in their cubicles. Soon he noted that one heavily
accented European team member began contributing to discussions for the first
time since joining the group 17 months earlier. The rules had given this person
the license, opportunity, and responsibility to speak up. As a leader, you
could try the same tactics with your own team, distributing copies of the
exhibit Rules of Engagement for Team Meetings.
Identity and the Mismatch of Perceptions
Global teams work most smoothly when members get where their colleagues are
coming from. However, deciphering someone s identity and finding ways to relate
is far from simple. People define themselves in terms of a multitude of
variables age, gender, nationality, ethnicity, religion, occupation, political
ties, and so forth. And although behavior can be revealing, particular
behaviors may signify different things depending on the individual s identity.
For example, someone in North America who looks you squarely in the eye may
project confidence and honesty, but in other parts of the world, direct eye
contact might be perceived as rude or threatening. Misunderstandings such as
this are a major source of social distance and distrust, and global team
leaders have to raise everyone s awareness of them. This involves mutual
learning and teaching.
Learning from one another.
When adapting to a new cultural environment, a savvy leader will avoid making
assumptions about what behaviors mean. Take a step back, watch, and listen. In
America, someone who says, Yes, I can do this likely means she is willing and
able to do what you asked. In India, however, the same statement may simply
signal that she wants to try not that she s confident of success. Before
drawing conclusions, therefore, ask a lot of questions. In the example just
described, you might probe to see if the team member anticipates any challenges
or needs additional resources. Asking for this information may yield greater
insight into how the person truly feels about accomplishing the task.
The give-and-take of asking questions and providing answers establishes two-way
communication between the leader and team members. And if a leader regularly
solicits input, acting as a student rather than an expert with hidden
knowledge, he empowers others on the team, leading them to participate more
willingly and effectively. A non-Mandarin-speaking manager in China relied
heavily on his local staff during meetings with clients in order to better
understand clients perceptions of the interactions and to gauge the
appropriateness of his own behavior. His team members began to see themselves
as essential to the development of client relationships and felt valued, which
motivated them to perform at even higher levels.
In this model, everyone is a teacher and a learner, which enables people to
step out of their traditional roles. Team members take on more responsibility
for the development of the team as a whole. Leaders learn to see themselves as
unfinished and are thus more likely to adjust their style to reflect the team s
needs. They instruct but they also facilitate, helping team members to parse
their observations and understand one another s true identities.
A case in point.
Consider the experience of Daniel, the leader of a recently formed
multinational team spread over four continents. During a conference call, he
asked people to discuss a particular strategy for reaching a new market in a
challenging location. This was the first time he had raised a topic on which
there was a range of opinion.
Daniel observed that Theo, a member of the Israeli team, regularly interrupted
Angela, a member of the Buenos Aires team, and their ideas were at odds.
Although tempted to jump in and play referee, Daniel held back. To his
surprise, neither Theo nor Angela got frustrated. They went back and forth,
bolstering their positions by referencing typical business practices and
outcomes in their respective countries, but they stayed committed to reaching a
group consensus.
At the meeting s end, Daniel shared his observations with the team, addressing
not only the content of the discussion, but also the manner in which it took
place. Theo and Angela, he said, when you began to hash out your ideas, I
was concerned that both of you might have felt you weren t being heard or weren
t getting a chance to fully express your thoughts. But now you both seem
satisfied that you were able to make your arguments, articulate cultural
perspectives, and help us decide on our next steps. Is that true?
Theo and Angela affirmed Daniel s observations and provided an additional
contextual detail: Six months earlier they had worked together on another
project an experience that allowed them to establish their own style of
relating to each other. Their ability to acknowledge and navigate their
cultural differences was beneficial to everyone on the team. Not only did it
help move their work forward, but it showed that conflict does not have to
create social distance. And Daniel gained more information about Theo and
Angela, which would help him manage the team more effectively in the future.
Technology and the Connection Challenge
The modes of communication used by global teams must be carefully considered,
because the technologies can both reduce and increase social distance.
Videoconferencing, for instance, allows rich communication in which both
context and emotion can be perceived. Eāmail offers greater ease and efficiency
but lacks contextual cues. In making decisions about which technology to use, a
leader must ask the following:
Should communication be instant?
Teleconferencing and videoconferencing enable real-time (instant)
conversations. Eāmail and certain social media formats require users to wait
for the other party to respond. Choosing between instant and delayed forms of
communication can be especially challenging for global teams. For example, when
a team spans multiple time zones, a telephone call may not be convenient for
everyone. The Japanese team leader of a U.S.-based multinational put it this
way: I have three or four days per week when I have a conference call with
global executives. In most cases, it starts at 9:00 or 10:00 in the night. If
we can take the conference call in the daytime, it s much easier for me. But we
are in the Far East, and headquarters is in the United States, so we have to
make the best of it.
Instant technologies are valuable when leaders need to persuade others to adopt
their viewpoint. But if they simply want to share information, then delayed
methods such as eāmail are simpler, more efficient, and less disruptive to
people s lives. Leaders must also consider the team s interpersonal dynamics.
If the team has a history of conflict, technology choices that limit the
opportunities for real-time emotional exchanges may yield the best results.
In general, the evidence suggests that most companies overrely on delayed
communication. A recent Forrester survey of nearly 10,000 information workers
in 17 countries showed that 94% of employees report using eāmail, but only 33%
ever participate in desktop videoconferencing (with apps such as Skype and
Viber), and a mere 25% use room-based videoconferencing. These numbers will
surely change over time, as the tools evolve and users become more comfortable
with them, but leaders need to choose their format carefully: instant or
delayed.
Do I need to reinforce the message?
Savvy leaders will communicate through multiple platforms to ensure that
messages are understood and remembered. For example, if a manager
electronically assigns one of her team members a task by entering notes into a
daily work log, she may then follow up with a text or a face-to-face chat to
ensure that the team member saw the request and recognized its urgency.
Redundant communication is also effective for leaders who are concerned about
convincing others that their message is important. Greg, for instance, a
project manager in a medical devices organization, found that his team was
falling behind on the development of a product. He called an emergency meeting
to discuss the issues and explain new corporate protocols for releasing new
products, which he felt would bring the project back on track.
Team members will follow the leader s example in using communication
technology.
During this initial meeting, he listened to people s concerns and addressed
their questions in real time. Although he felt he had communicated his position
clearly and obtained the necessary verbal buy-in, he followed up the meeting by
sending a carefully drafted eāmail to all the attendees, reiterating the
agreed-upon changes and asking for everyone s electronic sign-off. This
redundant communication helped reinforce acceptance of his ideas and increased
the likelihood that his colleagues would actually implement the new protocols.
Am I leading by example?
Team members very quickly pick up on the leader s personal preferences
regarding communication technology. A leader who wants to encourage people to
videoconference should communicate this way herself. If she wants employees to
pick up the phone and speak to one another, she had better be a frequent user
of the phone. And if she wants team members to respond quickly to eāmails, she
needs to set the example.
Flexibility and appreciation for diversity are at the heart of managing a
global team. Leaders must expect problems and patterns to change or repeat
themselves as teams shift, disband, and regroup. But there is at least one
constant: To manage social distance effectively and maximize the talents and
engagement of team members, leaders must stay attentive to all five of the
SPLIT dimensions. Decisions about structure create opportunities for good
process, which can mitigate difficulties caused by language differences and
identity issues. If leaders act on these fronts, while marshaling technology to
improve communication among geographically dispersed colleagues, social
distance is sure to shrink, not expand. When that happens, teams can become
truly representative of the global village not just because of their
international makeup, but also because their members feel mutual trust and a
sense of kinship. They can then embrace and practice the kind of innovative,
respectful, and groundbreaking interactions that drive the best ideas forward.
A version of this article appeared in the October 2015 issue (pp.74 81) of
Harvard Business Review.
Tsedal Neeley (@tsedal) is an associate professor at Harvard Business School
and the founder of the consulting firm Global Matters.