How Can I Improve Communication in a Cross-Cultural Virtual Team?
Working in an intercultural environment is becoming increasingly common.
One of the results of such set-ups is an experience of more communication difficulties.
Different approaches to areas such as management, communication, time, meetings, conflict resolution and the sharing of information are all culturally relative.
When cultures come together and differ in their approaches, misunderstandings can and do occur. It is these that can often lead to poor team performance or morale.
The intercultural team is by no means a straightforward environment. People need to be aware and sensitive to the dynamics of the group. However, consider the extra challenges when this team is virtual.
By their very definition, virtual teams bring together people from different time zones, cultures, geographies and mindsets making it highly unlikely that much teamwork will happen face-to-face, if at all.
Consequently, communication takes on a whole new dimension making it even more of a challenge.
Building team trust is critical
Yet in the global virtual team trust is very difficult to achieve. Without spending much time together can a team really gel?
Some cultures such as the U.S. or Germany may find it easy, i.e. they come from cultures where the relationship is not crucial.
Other, more relationship-driven cultures such as the Middle East or South America, may however struggle to ever feel totally at ease working with someone they do not know on a personal level.
Cultures have different ways of communicating; some are comfortable expressing opinions and discussing things openly and directly; others look for more subtle ways of expressing themselves.
Some may have no issues raising delicate subjects in front of others; many cultures would not even contemplate doing so in an open arena. Some cultures use a lot of non-verbal communication such as body language and eye contact to convey meaning; others rely almost completely on the spoken word.
Some cultures are comfortable getting right down to business while others need a little time to make dialogue comfortable.
Working "blind", i.e. not being in each other's presence, increases the chances of misunderstandings.
Throw in the cultural complexities and managing this is twice as problematic. Team members who are quieter (whether due to cultural or personal leanings) will make less of a contribution on telephone conference calls.
Language proficiency will also play a significant role in the ability of people to contribute. Imagine how challenging it is for someone to join a spirited conversation on the telephone if they are either uncomfortable interrupting or not fluent in the language being used.
These are but a few of the many intercultural complexities that make virtual teams very challenging.
Here are our top 10 tips to ensure clear communication in virtual teams.
1. If possible it is beneficial to bring all team members together physically. This can be at the birth of the team or at regular intervals, for example at one annual get-together held in a neutral location.
2. The manager or team together should establish clear ground rules of engagement covering issues such as:
a. How meetings are to be structured
b. How decisions will be made
c. How written communications will be used
d. How responses should be processed or given
e. How conflicts will be resolved
f. Whether interrupting a speaker will be acceptable
3. Written agendas for team meetings are important to give structure; a Chair should always set an agenda which should be distributed well in advance also calling for any feedback or additions.
4. Clear, easy-to-understand objectives that are communicated frequently must be created and used as part of the structure of the team.
5. Carefully monitor how comfortable all team members are with the technology used in virtual meetings or communication. Support those that may be struggling.
6. Develop clear guidelines for email regarding formality and timeliness of response. Not everyone uses emails in the same way - standardise an approach for the team.
7. Solicit feedback from all participants constantly - communication channels must always be open.
8. Be careful not to always interpret silence as agreement or incomprehension. Understand the cultural differences in communication within the virtual team to get a better grasp on behaviours.
9. Follow-up meetings with written communication to be sure everyone understands. This helps avoid situations where people leave a meeting with different understandings.
10. Create an atmosphere that tolerates differences, leverages differences and respects alternative viewpoints. This will get the best out of your virtual team.
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