Collected by bro ThanhTC – CEO
Many companies today rely on employees around the world, leveraging their diversity and local expertise to gain a competitive edge. However, geographically dispersed teams face a big challenge: Physical separation and cultural differences can create social distance, or a lack of emotional connection, that leads to misunderstandings and mistrust.
The SPLIT framework will help global team leaders manage effectively for mitigating social distance.
1. Structure
If a team is made up of groups with different views about their relative power, the leader should connect frequently with those who are farthest away and emphasize unity.
To correct perceived power imbalances between different groups, a leader needs to get three key messages across:
1.1. 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.
1.2. 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.
1.3. I am there for you
Team members located far from the leader require frequent contact with him or her. A brief phone call or e‑mail can make all the difference in conveying that their contributions matter.
2. Process and the Importance of Empathy
Meeting processes should allow for informal interactions that build empathy.
2.1. Feedback on routine interactions.
Face-to-face visits are not the only way to acquire such learning. Remote team members can also use the phone, e‑mail, 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.
2.2. Unstructured time
When planning your team’s call-in meetings, factor in five minutes for light conversation before business gets underway. 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.
2.3. Time to disagree
In framing meetings as brainstorming opportunities, leaders should encourage disagreement both about the team’s tasks and about the process by which the tasks get done. 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.
3. Language
Everyone, regardless of language fluency, should be empowered to speak up.
3.1. 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.
3.2. Dial-up engagement
Less fluent speakers should monitor the frequency of their responses in meetings to ensure that they are contributing. 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.
3.3. 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.
4. Identity
Team members must be active cultural learners and teachers to understand one another’s identity and avoid misinterpreting behaviors.
Learning from one another
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.
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.
5. Technology
When choosing between videoconferencing, e-mail, and other modes of communication, leaders should ask themselves if real-time conversation is desirable, if their message needs reinforcement, and if they are opting for the technology they want others to use.
Summary
In summary, understanding culture, showing empathy, behaving with savoir-faire, knowing when to emphasize, paying attention to gestures, having connectivity, having high management skills, knowing technology are all aspects required of a leader in global teamwork that the SPLIT framework mentioned about.
When all the above things happen, 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.
