Putting aside the (thankfully rare) need to stay awake and energized for an 11 p.m. presentation with an audience across the globe, I love the personal and professional rewards that come from working across borders and oceans. I’m constantly learning about the diverse characteristics that make this world special, and continuously improving and practicing my own cross-cultural skills. As our work at ComPsych becomes more and more international, our opportunities to learn and grow as individuals seem endless. I love it!
As with any relationship though, love is probably not quite enough to make global team dynamics successful. Communication matters too. My department leads global consulting projects and thousands of events for multinational audiences, so I thought I’d share what I have found to be the top three skills that help make international communication successful.
Limit Sports Jargon
Sports references are so common in the business world that we often don’t even realize we’re using them. Phrases like “We got blindsided by that price increase,” or “The new marketing campaign is a home run,” are spoken without second thought, but these references to sports that are popular in only a handful of nations are difficult for people who don’t live in those places. My partners from cricket-loving nations will know what I mean when I say, “It hit them for six when the client canceled the contract,” but my American colleagues are likely to be confused.
My advice: replace sports references with plain words: “We were very surprised by the price increase,” or “The new marketing campaign is a big success,” or “They were devastated when the client canceled the contract,” will give members of a diverse global team the best chance to easily understand the message.
Consider Power Dynamics
In some cultures, authority figures are typically deeply respected and rarely challenged. In other cultures, it’s common for people to speak up and voice dissent even in a room full of senior leaders. If a junior associate from that second kind of culture enters a meeting where the leader says, “Sit wherever you like,” she just might choose the head of the table. If she’s from that first kind of culture, she wouldn’t even consider it, and she might be shocked if a peer did so. When the leader starts the meeting with a question like “Who has ideas for how we should approach this project?” the room may stay totally silent if participants come from cultures that tend to defer to authority.
Now, you may be wondering: What are the cultures or countries where people are more likely to act one way or another as it relates to power dynamics? Sorry, I know the answer (and you might too!), but I’m not going to say it. That’s because while understanding different cultural norms is useful, it’s counterproductive to stereotype individuals based on where they’re from. While stereotypes often have some truth to them, there are so many exceptions that tailoring your communication based on a person’s country of origin is often unwise. Why, then, does considering power dynamics matter at all? Well, that’s a good lead-in to my number one tip, which is:
Be Humble!
Let’s imagine that you are sure you communicated some instructions very clearly, and people on your global team still failed to follow them correctly. You could get frustrated. You could form a negative opinion of them. Or you could ask yourself: Maybe cultural differences played a role here? Maybe I could have framed things differently, or done a better job checking for understanding, given the challenges of communicating on a global team?
For example, let’s imagine that you have what you know is the best idea to arrange seating for a big meeting. You could tell your global team that “It’s vital that we arrange the seating the way I drew it on this chart.” A humbler way to deliver the message would be “I realize that there may be different opinions about how to arrange seating for a meeting like this. For today, I am asking everyone to sit according to this chart I drew.” This framing allows you to state your position without devaluing perspectives that other cultures may bring to the conversation.
The truth is that none of us get this stuff right all the time. I literally wrote the training – one of our highest rated programs, I’m proud to say – on Communication Skills for a Global Team. Even as the author of that program, I often unintentionally violate some of the very principles I’ve worked so hard to teach others. But along with humility comes forgiveness, I hope.
Ultimately the most important thing is that we all do our best to communicate effectively and respectfully with one another, understanding we each may occasionally make missteps.
