Managing Remote International Team: Key Communication Tactics
If you’re trying to manage a team working from home, there are a lot of factors against you. Especially when it’s an international team distributed across the globe. You need to take not only physical distance into account, but language barriers, cultural differences, and even time zones as well.My team, for example, is based in various locations across the U.S, Europe, and South America. People often ask me: how do I make sure that such a spread-out team gets their work done every single step of the way?The short answer is, I don’t. I just remember a simple rule on how to alleviate anxiety. I only control what I’m able to control. It doesn’t make sense for me to wake up at 3:00 a.m. just to make sure my German team started working, because I can only go back to sleep for an hour before having to check up on my UK team.
Trust is essential to managing teams from afar and that my team members trust me in turn.Applying basic management skills isn’t enough to prove a team’s efficiency. You must ensure that the emotional connection between team members is up to par. A remote team cannot maintain this connection without the manager’s guidance, as the social and physical distances are too vast. This is especially true in the modern world, where processes change so quickly that people have to use emotional intelligence and common sense to fill in the gaps that these processes can’t cover. Even if you consider yourself a natural at communication, you still need to implement a clear-cut communication strategy for your team. Prof. Tsedal Neely, professor of organizational behavior at Harvard Business School, recommends that you emphasize these essential messages to your team members:
Who We Are: What are the team’s major values? Which behaviors should be encouraged or discouraged? To bridge differences and build unity among team members, the leader should be sensitive to cultural differences. But at the same time, be careful not to put too much emphasis on these differences. Otherwise, people will divide themselves into smaller groups with similar values and not act as a single team.
What We Do: What is the team’s common goal? Team members working across different countries don’t have much visibility into each other’s work. The leader should consistently highlight how everyone’s work fits into the company’s overall strategy.
I’m There for You: Are you, as a leader, 100 percent approachable for your team? Do you make sure that your team members know how to effectively approach each other? For those in different time zones, asynchronous communication is key. Team members should trust that they will receive a reply in a timely manner and that their coworkers will inform them ahead of time about holidays and possible conflicts.
When taking inclusion into account to strengthen team dynamics, there are a few hurdles to jump. For example, if your team is supposed to speak English, but there are non-native speakers present, it’s essential to make sure everyone’s voice is heard. Encourage non-native speakers to participate in group discussions and try to help them define and interpret content. Once your team members start to open up, sensitive topics like religion and politics are bound to come up. Establish some ground rules to prevent these types of discussions from spiraling out of control. Remember to emphasize empathy and sensitivity as the team’s core values. Lastly, practice patience when using technology to communicate. There’s a learning curve for everyone, so don’t be discouraged if people aren’t rushing to create a team Wiki page or participate in break room conversation. Encourage your team members to branch out into different communication methods, but don’t dissuade them from their current ways either. It’s the leader’s responsibility to successfully pioneer technology use.
