In the past, managers and leaders often worked with teams who reported directly to them, sitting in the same office. But the world we work in, thanks to advances in technology, has changed. Does the following sound familiar? You have a young new team member who gets promoted to a managerial role during a reorganization. The new team she is responsible for leading includes the following:
- Two people (former peers) in the same office as she is
- Two people (whom she has never met face to face) working from home in different cities
- Three people (for whom English is a second language) working in foreign subsidiaries
Welcome to the dual world of virtual AND global!
Now it’s everybody!
Global work used to be the mandate of a few jet setters while leading virtual teams was the purview of a few executives with access to the videoconferencing room.
But then the world became more connected and more flat. Today everybody in the enterprise has to master the skills of working on teams that are both physically dispersed and culturally diverse.
So how did this come to pass?
It often goes unstated, but it’s worth asking: Why do we need to embrace virtual and global work?
The quick response is that it is critical in getting the work done in today’s business environment. Organizations need to take advantage of the global talent market, while the cost arbitrage means that relying only on local suppliers of products and services would make your enterprise uncompetitive. For decades now, companies have sought out efficiencies by organizing teams in matrix structures, which often means global functions are spread thinly around the globe.
While many employees report the frustrations and challenges of working both virtually and globally, few seem to figure out the best options for making this arrangement work in their favor.
A challenge left unmastered
And yet, despite decades of working behind computers, are we any better at managing our virtual relationships? Even though people of all levels in organizations are working globally, do they know how to do this well?
The first step in developing better skills is to be aware of the challenges in working virtually, globally, or both. Here is a quick summary of the top challenges:
The importance of being thoughtful
Today, in this new context, team members need to be savvy at avoiding the pitfalls that come with working virtually, but also have to be aware of difficulties in intercultural communication. This requires everyone to be more thoughtful in how they approach their work. When working virtually and globally, we need to pause and question our default ways of working.
For instance, the temptation to use email to fix everything is very strong and presents an appealing alternative to truly dealing with tangible communication barriers. Creativity is required to align people who are in different time zones, speak different languages, and yet need to accomplish a complex goal.
When it comes to working virtually and globally, here are some best practices to increase clarity and drive collaboration:
- Email is never going to be the answer to everything: Although it may be difficult to meet due to time zone differences, some questions and tasks are better achieved over a conference call than by emailing back and forth. Choose the right technology for the right task and learn to use them all, at the appropriate opportunity.
- Align on priorities: Do not allow valuable in-person or virtual meeting time to go wasted by not checking in that everyone knows what the next steps will look like and why those priorities might change.
- Learn what disagreement sounds like across cultures: Don’t expect everyone you are working with to express disagreement or hesitation in the same way. Check your assumptions.
- Pre-work for meetings can be a very useful tactic: Amazon famously makes meetings more effective by creating six-page “briefs” of the topics that need to be covered during the meeting, so everyone can read and understand the question in depth. This means that face-to-face time involves rich discussion and is not slowed down by clarifying questions or is held up by needing more information. If meeting time is scarce, make pre-work meaningful, concise, and mandatory.
- Avoid colloquialisms: These will not help you communicate with someone across a language barrier with a time zone delay. You might want to “table the discussion” and “put a pin in it” until you figure out “if that dog can hunt,” but saying it in that exact way will not “score you a home run” with a global team.
So, before you write that next email, schedule that next meeting (at 3:00 AM Tokyo time), or pick up the phone, remember to think carefully about how to bridge the gaps that exist and ask yourself if how you are working supports what you are working toward. The people who do best with working virtually and globally have a clear intentionality to their actions and their approach. This thoughtfulness in process, method, and collaboration is an absolute requirement to thriving in the modern age of work.