Acing cross-cultural communication and building high performance teams

I’ve been lucky enough, to have been a part of, and, to have built high performance teams several times in my career.

After a particularly unexpected success, I remember being asked if it was a chance, a fluke, and I remember replying assuredly, that it’s a process, with a 100% success rate.

Problem statement

The team struggled in performing at par with their abilities or potential. No single solution was being effective at getting the best out of the team.

Why were typical standard management solutions failing?

People speak in different languages and have different motivations and styles of working.
The language conundrum applies even to team members speaking in the same perceived language, i.e. English, or Hindi.
Expectations of work, working style and communication are correlated, one impacting the other and there’s a whole world of interpretations that are applicable.

Approach

Getting the best out of a globally distributed team with varying styles of work and differing approaches to commonly used management styles, requires a different approach. I took two steps. One was self-improvement, the other was implementation of learnings from the self-improvement journey.

Step 1: Enhancing my knowledge

I cannot solve the problem unless I understand the problem.
I spent time living and working in 6 cities in India, which are culturally diverse, including religious diversity, language diversity and diversity in the expectations of work, while working in roles that ranged from a junior analyst to a CXO, leading organisations, teams to working as a freelancer, and an external vendor.
I spent time living and working in 6 countries outside India, which happen to be polar opposite case studies. Out of Canada, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Singapore, Dubai, Bahrain, one of them has the world’s second most strongest currency (BHD), several times stronger than the United States’ dollar and the United Kingdom’s sterling, and another’s currency (NGN) ranks 15th from the bottom in the global currency strength. The governance of each of these countries differs greatly and ranges from parliamentary democracy, presidential system, absolute monarchy and constitutional monarchy to unitary parliamentary republic. One of the country’s hottest summer temperature (20°C in Canada) is another country’s coldest winter temperature (20°C in Bahrain), which goes to show how something obvious in one ecosystem may be outlandish or alien in another.

Step 2: Building an sync, multi-modal driven team

Some team members are individual contributors and work in a self sufficient manner, while some team members work in a cohesive, dependent manner in a cluster.
Team members operate at different places within the spectrum from completely self-driven to completely externally driven.
Some require constant check-ins, some require occasional directions, some require constant instruction, and yet again in another difference, some require frequent hand-holding, so the style that gets the best out of everyone is an async, multimodal, multi channel communication leadership/ management style.

Challenges faced

Several challenges, all of which can be boiled down to a lack of exposure or limitation in knowledge. Overcoming them was possible through only through education, and often example-led demonstrations.

Blind spots

Almost always accidentally present, but blind spots are common for someone who has never stepped out of their language zone, culture zone, working style zone, or a lifetime peer group zone.
Religion is often a huge hidden blind spot which deeply impacts how team members see the world and expect communication and do work in the workplace.
Often when team members come up against their own blind spots, the tendency is to either avoid the conversation, reject the premise of the conversation or defend existing beliefs with a combative fervour, in the absence of an alternative way that allows them to handle uncertainty or new information.

Overcoming the limitations

In relatable language, subtly offering alternative pathways and speech patterns to handle new information or unknowns, when known facts or information do not suffice in face of the blind spots.
Transparent education sessions, when the team members are in an intake or a learning mode.
Creating situations where ideal examples of overcoming limitations can be demonstrated for a more effective learning.

Outcome

Long lasting, high-performing teams with a healthy outlook towards work, that enjoy their work, willingly take ownership of their tasks and deliver the best possible outputs in a positive-energy environment.

Team members going above and beyond, without needing to ask, achieving 100% project success.
Staying connected, despite project, or organisation changes, helping each other through things that may even be outside immediate work tasks.