Working in Global Teams

— Melanie Doulton

Do you work on a geographically dispersed team? Have you only “met” your colleagues over the phone or in a video confer­ence? Are time zones a primary concern when setting up meetings? Do you find yourself studying other cul­tures? Whether you want to optimize your virtual relationships or are just get­ting started in a virtual team environ­ment, you will find this article useful.

Virtual, global teams require us to use our communication skills in ways that were unimaginable twenty years ago. This article discusses ways to build suc­cessful working relationships in virtual environments.

What Is a Global Team?

A global team is usually a virtual team—a team that is geographically dis­persed with team members rarely get­ting an opportunity to meet face to face. Such teams often function in an on-site–offshore scenario, with team leads and managers in North America or Europe and team members in the Asia-Pacific region.

Real-Life Examples of Working in Global Teams

In 2005 I worked with some profes­sional peers on a survey that asked our colleagues to narrate particularly chal­lenging incidents peculiar to global teams. On the basis of their feedback, here are four illustrative incidents unique to global teams.

Case 1

Team members in India received the following request: “We want to run a test to determine how much bandwidth the AME program will use. Now that audio is integrated into period 1, we would like to run a simple test to get a ballpark figure. Any recommendations on how to conduct this test?”

The Indian team members ran some tests and sent estimated bandwidth fig­ures. They then replied that they would get back to the U.S. team members with the “ballpark figures.” The Indian team members did not realize that they had already provided that information, be­cause they did not understand the term ballpark figure.

Case 2

A manager in Europe described his software requirements and proposed a solution to his team in India. The team members had a better solution, but when asked their opinion of the proposal, they said the manager’s solution was OK, which meant that they did not think it was good. To the manager, OK meant “Yes, let’s go ahead.”

Although the team in India had a better solution, it did not know how to commu­nicate this to the manager. The team lead described the situation as follows:

“We had to finally muster up the cour­age to offend him, give up our modesty, and tell him that we did not like the con­cept. His reaction was surprisingly cool—he accepted it easily and told us that it would save both him and us a lot of time and effort if we just said things up front. According to him, work-related issues are never taken personally in Northern Europe. The lesson learned was to speak up for what you feel is right and don’t wor­ry about offending Westerners—remem­ber you are discussing a work-related issue and not making a personal comment.”

Case 3

A team was required to give a “guesstimate” for a project during a teleconference. The es­timate was then used as a baseline for future estimates.

In this case, during a conference call, the remote team was asked to provide rough estimates for a project. The esti­mates that the team provided were treat­ed as baselines to measure the team’s performance. Unfortunately, these un­realistic commitments led to impossible deadlines and dissatisfaction all around. The team learned to put off any arbi­trary requests for estimates by asking for the time needed to research and come up with realistic estimates.

Case 4

A team in India was asked by a team in the United States to use a new tool, a content management system. However, the team in India was not given any training or accurate instructions.

This case epitomizes situations in which teams have not worked through the trust issues that arise in any team, global or not. When the team in India was asked to use a new content manage­ment system without any training or in­structions on how to proceed, the team in India had to start from scratch and decided not to rely on its overseas coun­terparts. The result was that the team failed because of a lack of trust.

What Makes a Global Team Successful?

While working with several global teams over the last ten years, I’ve found four basic criteria to measure the suc­cess of a global team. These criteria, out­lined in Table 1, are fairly generic and can apply to all kinds of teams. However, for a global team, meeting these criteria is crucial.

To meet the criteria listed in Table 1, you must first build reliable communi­cation, which leads to strong relation­ships—and, ultimately, trust. All team members need to work through inher­ent differences in language, culture, and time. Speaking the same language doesn’t always mean that your team is communicating effectively, as illustrat­ed in the case of the “ballpark figure.” Cultural differences and similarities also matter a great deal. The goal is to build a common framework for understand­ing, on which you can build a successful relationship.

After effective communication is es­tablished, you can work on developing strong team relationships. As we all know from personal experience, this takes time and understanding.

The final aim is to build trust in the team. This goal is critical, and it takes the most time and energy. Building trust enables the team to accomplish the job at hand and makes success easier to achieve.

Critical Building Blocks for Success

Critical building blocks that can help your team succeed include techniques for adapting to time zones, understand­ing cultural contexts, communicating effectively, and building trust.

Adapting to Time Zones

Global teams deal with several time and distance issues. These teams have minimal (or no) face-to-face contact, which makes it difficult to develop the three-dimensional images of teammates that we take for granted in local teams.

Working with people around the globe also means fewer overlapping work hours. You need to take into ac­count time zone differences when de­ciding schedules. A very simple example of this is allowing an extra day or two for reviewers on other continents to pro­vide feedback.

On a global team, no matter how much you try to work around time zones, someone is always working ei­ther too early or too late in the day. This means that at any given time, someone in the meeting might not be perform­ing at 100 percent.

Finally, anyone who believes that having a global team allows you to de­liver work around the clock, around the globe, is mistaken. It is impossible to pick up where someone has left off on another continent. A tip: take time with your team; from the start, manage your expectations of what the team can achieve.

Understanding Cultures

Working on a global team usually means working on a cross-cultural team. Therefore, it becomes crucial to under­stand the cultures of your various team members. Most cultures are either high or low context, or high or low content.

Latin, Arabian, and Asian cultures (including India’s) are high context and low content, meaning they have the following general characteristics:

• A heavy reliance on relationships (that is, friends, family, colleagues, and peers)
• A communication style that always considers the context of an entire relationship
• A strong need for protocol and struc­ture, as shown by the tendency to fol­low stringent, meaningful traditions
• Slow and careful decision making, based more on relationship continu­ity than on strict business criteria

On the other hand, Scandinavian, Germanic, and North American cultures are usually low context, high content, with the following general characteristics:

• A higher dependence on facts, inde­pendent of source
• Contexts that are provided by the message itself (the content), and not by the messenger or the relationship involved
• A concise and straightforward com­munication style, which can mystify a person from a high-context and low-content culture
• A fast decision-making process that values efficiency over personal relationships

The kind of culture you live in direct­ly affects your work and social life. The Indian work culture usually involves re­spect for seniority and protocol. You will see “perceived juniors” being told what to do rather than being asked what needs to be done. Depending on the situation, asking questions is often considered rude or weak in a high-context culture. You will also find that high-context cultures are often socially conservative. What is normal in the United States, like hugging a friend who is a member of the opposite sex, for example, might be shocking in some parts of India. Remember to be sensitive. Communication is the key to working through cultural differences.

Communicating to the Max

How do you communicate effec­tively with a team spread over several time zones and with team members who speak different versions of the same language? We all have different accents, and some of us speak faster or slower than others. Is there any hope for understanding?

The following are several techniques to help develop effective communication:

• When starting a new project with a new team, hold a kick-off meeting in which all members introduce them­selves and state the jobs they are go­ing to do.
• Hold regular meetings throughout the project to ensure everyone is on the same page. Follow up conference calls with meeting minutes to ensure that everyone understands what they have committed to.
• Put it in writing, especially when work­ing on a new team in which everyone has different accents and uses differ­ent idioms and colloquialisms.

In addition to these techniques, try to understand everyone’s communi­cation style. For example, in a high-context culture such as India’s, people may tend to speak in the passive voice, whereas in North America, the active voice is preferred.

Global teams should use the various technologies available to communicate effectively. The trick is to use the right technology for the right communica­tion, such as the following:

• To communicate the details of a task, use e-mail.
• For more sensitive information, use a “live” medium, such as a phone or videoconference facility.
• Instant messaging is a great way to connect with your team; however, because it is a written, live medium, it has the potential to lock you into commitments that you might not be ready for. (That said, I’ve found in­stant messaging invaluable for catch­ing up with my team about general work-related issues.)
• SharePoint sites, team Web sites, and Web logs (blogs) help your team share information and pictures of events that might take place in one particular site. Sharing pictures is a great way for your team members to build three-dimensional images of each other, and along with video, it is the next best thing to actual physical presence and contact.

Communication can break down on any team. On a global team, the likeli­hood of miscommunication and mis­understanding is greater—and can be costly. Talk through misunderstandings and iron out any potential problems early and quickly. Most important, stay committed, don’t lose hope, and cel­ebrate every step your team takes in the right direction.

Building Trust

The aim is to build trust in your team so that the work gets done quickly, ef­ficiently, and with quality. That’s the ultimate goal for global teams, and it means being clear about requirements and commitments, being reliable and predictable, and encouraging the same behavior in every member of your team. After your relationships are fully developed and trust exists in the team, try working through any sensitive is­sues. Most global teams have at least a couple of virtual “elephants” in the room that may include issues such as job security in the United States, colo­nialism in India, how the East views the West, how the West views the East, and so on.

The best thing you can do for your team is to be open and honest—and to reward openness and honesty in your team.

(Republished from the May 2007 edition of Intercom, the STC magazine.)

Melanie Doulton is a member of the India Chapter STC. She has been working as a technical com­municator in multicultural, multilingual, virtual environments for more than a decade. She writes and presents frequently on topics related to technical communicators’ work en­vironments. Melanie is based in Pune, India, where she is the associate manager of an infor­mation development group at BMC Software.

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