It’s not WHAT you say, it’s HOW you say it
Effective Communication for Global Teams
Do you work in a global team?
Do you notice that colleagues do things differently from other cultures?
Maybe their communication is very different? Or you feel as if you don’t know other team members very well?
Has a team member from another country quietly quit the company and you had no idea that they were unhappy?
Over the past year I have been approached by several organisations to deliver intercultural awareness training for cross-cultural virtual teams.
The bottom line is that communication is not aligned. And timelines are not happening on the same clock. Mistakes are made, deadlines are missed, having a hugely negative impact on team morale and global projects. Time is short, and cultural expectations are on autopilot.
So, what can we do to clear up these cultural misunderstandings?
Cross-cultural team-building training is an excellent way of tackling miscommunication and misalignment – through the nature of the topic, it provides a safe environment to clarify team roles and positions. Creating a safe space where people can talk about their experiences is so important, and only then can we break the stereotypes that still go unquestioned in many workplace scenarios and boost team performance.
If cross-border teams work well, then everybody wants to work for them, and employee retention is high! Productivity increases with employees working in different time zones and the “follow the sun” principle means you have things covered 24/7.
If they fail, it’s usually because communication has broken down and there has been an unconscious clash of egalitarian and hierarchical cultures with people not checking in on each other regularly. Teams are fragmented as zero time was spent at the beginning building rapport, explaining communication processes and too many cameras were switched off at virtual meetings (which means nobody dares ask for them to be switched on thereafter).
Less business travel is great for a company’s sustainability index, but there are no coffee machine moments to build trust after a day of cross-cultural project work. The truth is that we humans are all different and many of us are still finding the virtual space hard as body language is limited.
In effect virtual communication becomes heavily dependent on the words we use.
So, this is where “it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it” becomes more important!
Do you agree?
Cross-cultural Training is what you need
As an intercultural and global communication trainer I love working with global teams to get them back on track. Through living in and working with an array of cultures, I’ve seen a lot of good communication too, but it requires a bit of guidance and self-reflection amongst team members.
In my “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it” training we look at:
- Establishing greater awareness of your own personal and cultural values and biases
- Assessing your own communication style and attitudes to confrontation
- Becoming more aware of the other communication styles in the virtual space
- Aligning communication in your team with a common language
- Accumulating tips on how to provide support, influence others, handle conflict and reach consensus
- Creating a new team charter with an agreed blueprint of working together – communication processes, delivering and receiving feedback etc.
By making sure your company’s cross-cultural teams are aware of each other’s working and communication styles – then your message to the outside world will be much clearer, stronger, more creative and will glimmer with global vibes.
If you have a team that would benefit from this kind of cultural agility training, then please get in touch to discuss specific needs.
Format:
It is a 4-hour interactive training and suitable for multicultural or global teams of up to 15 participants.
It can also be delivered as a condensed 1-hour webinar for larger audiences.
Language of delivery is English. As an experienced language coach, I will ensure the level of English is aligned to participants.
Training can also be delivered in German.