Best practices for working with global teams

By Jabian Consulting

Every new time zone added to your team adds a new level of complexity to your project. To effectively deliver global projects, your organization will need to adapt some of your management techniques to address these new complexities. Three focus areas to concentrate on are cultural differences, scheduling challenges, and team member communications.

Cultural Differences:

What do you do when yes means no?

Despite a world of globalization, different cultures still operate according to very different social and business norms. For example, what happens when you ask a question in a culture where it would be considered inappropriate to give you a negative answer? You may like what you hear, but it won’t necessarily be reality. In some cultures, business relationships are very formal. In others, they are more familiar. Unless you’ve done your homework on a culture, it’s easy to send the wrong message without even knowing it.

That’s why cultural awareness is critical to the success of your overseas endeavors. It will enable your organization to adjust its management style to address each of the cultures on the project.

What key cultural considerations do you need to keep in mind?

• Business culture
• Business hierarchies
• Meeting etiquette
• Social culture
• Gift etiquette
• Business negotiating styles

There are many sources to obtain information on the international cultures of each team. Some of the most helpful sites include The World Factbook (on the CIA web site), Global Business Etiquette: A Guide to International Communication and Customs, and Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: How to Do Business in Sixty Countries. Once you’ve done your homework on the new culture, make sure you take the time to document and share this information with everyone on your international project teams.

Scheduling Challenges:

Pick a time when everyone can be on the same time.

When managing a project across multiple time zones it’s critical that you establish and publish core working hours. If the time zones are too challenging to have overlapping hours for the entire team, at least the project should identify overlapping schedules for the leadership team.

Use these overlap hours wisely. This is your opportunity to hold daily status meetings and work on collaborative deliverables. By setting core hours, you can minimize the amount of time each team will need to work “off hours”, and this can go a long way toward increasing employee satisfaction.

Will there occasionally be situations that require outsourcing partners to work the same hours as their client? Of course there will. However, if this turns into an ongoing pattern, then it will probably lead to decreased team morale and increased turnover. That’s why it’s so important to plan ahead and manage everyone’s time as wisely as possible.

Team Communications:

Put faces to the names.

You must find a way for your teams to put faces to the names. Ideally this means utilizing teleconferences or web cameras. It lets team members observe body language and responses in meetings.

If your organization does not have video capabilities, but you’re working with a lot of global partners, it’s worth making the investment – especially now that new technologies make online videoconferencing so much more easy and affordable.

If this simply is not possible, then you’ll need to look for other creative ways to put faces to the names. Send photos of clients and outsourcing teams to the entire team. Have everyone on the team try to match all the team member names to the pictures. This is a fun exercise that helps bring the team closer.

And remember…more communication is always better communication. Take every opportunity to connect with remote teams. It is almost impossible to over-communicate when teams are not co-located.

At a minimum, there should be daily communications between local and remote teams. Use this time to review status on open action items, discuss new risks, and ask new questions that have come up that day. This daily communication will serve the dual purpose of enhancing team relationships and keeping everyone up to speed on the project status. Be smart about these meetings since time may be limited. Make sure each session has a clear agenda, that content is relevant to everyone involved, and that detailed notes are kept for those who cannot attend.

Doing business globally opens a world of new challenges and opportunities. But if you take a diligent approach to managing cultural differences, scheduling challenges, and team member communications, you’ll be able to safely navigate your global relationships.