Assess the Benefits and Challenges of Leading a Diverse Team

ARTWORK Shannon Rankin, Basin (detail) Uncharted series, 2009, cut map on paper, full size 20" x 20"SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT ON THE NEW GLOBAL LEADER

Tsedal Neeley (@tsedal) is an associate professor at Harvard Business School and the founder of the consulting firm Global Matters.

Global Teams That Work A framework for bridging social distance by Tsedal Neeley

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TTO SUCCEED IN the global economy today, more and more companies are relying on a geographically dis-persed workforce. They build teams that offer the best functional expertise from around the world, combined with deep, local knowledge of the most promising markets. They draw on the benefits of in-ternational diversity, bringing together people from many cultures with varied work experiences and dif-ferent perspectives on strategic and organizational challenges. All this helps multinational companies compete in the current business environment.

But managers who actually lead global teams are up against stiff challenges. Creating successful work groups is hard enough when everyone is local and people share the same office space. But when team members come from different countries and functional backgrounds and are working in different locations, communication can rapidly deteriorate, misunderstanding can ensue, and cooperation can degenerate into distrust.

Preventing this vicious dynamic from taking place has been a focus of my research, teaching, and consulting for more than 15 years. I have con- ducted dozens of studies and heard from countless executives and managers about misunderstand- ings within the global teams they have joined or led, sometimes with costly consequences. But I have also encountered teams that have produced remarkable

innovations, creating millions of dollars in value for their customers and shareholders.

One basic difference between global teams that work and those that don’t lies in the level of social dis- tance—the degree of emotional connection among team members. When people on a team all work in the same place, the level of social distance is usually low. Even if they come from different backgrounds, people can interact formally and informally, align, and build trust. They arrive at a common under- standing of what certain behaviors mean, and they feel close and congenial, which fosters good team- work. Coworkers who are geographically separated, however, can’t easily connect and align, so they ex- perience high levels of social distance and struggle to develop effective interactions. Mitigating social dis- tance therefore becomes the primary management challenge for the global team leader.

To help in this task, I have developed and tested a framework for identifying and successfully manag- ing social distance. It is called the SPLIT framework, reflecting its five components: structure, process, language, identity, and technology—each of which can be a source of social distance. In the following pages I explain how each can lead to team dysfunc- tion and describe how smart leaders can fix prob- lems that occur—or prevent them from happening in the first place.

BOSTON 8 PEOPLE “We do the important work and have easy access to the boss.”

LONDON 5 PEOPLE “We represent the most challenging regions in terms of diversity and institutional hurdles. The Boston team really doesn’t understand our markets.”

SINGAPORE/TOKYO 3 PEOPLE  “Our opinions are often ignored. It’s so difficult to find a good time to exchange ideas, and even if we do manage to connect, we can’t get a word in edgewise.”

MOSCOW 1 PERSON “I am all on my own here and at the mercy of the Boston group. I need to make sure that the boss has my back.”

Views from a Dispersed Team The marketing team of a multinational pharmaceutical company had 17 members in different locations. Each group, depending on size and proximity to the leader in Boston, saw the power structure differently.

SPOTLIGHT ON THE NEW GLOBAL LEADER

Structure and the Perception of Power In the context of global teams, the structural fac- tors determining social distance are the location and number of sites where team members are based and the number of employees who work at each site.

The fundamental issue here is the perception of power. If most team members are located in Germany, for instance, with two or three in the United States and in South Africa, there may be a sense that the German members have more power. This imbalance sets up a negative dynamic. People in the larger (majority) group may feel resentment toward the minority group, believing that the latter will try to get away with contributing less than its fair share. Meanwhile, those in the minority group may believe that the majority is usurping what little power and voice they have.

The situation is exacerbated when the leader is at the site with the most people or the one closest to company headquarters: Team members at that site tend to ignore the needs and contributions of their colleagues at other locations. This dynamic can occur even when everyone is in the same country: The five people working in, say, Beijing may have a strong allegiance to one another and a habit of shutting out their two colleagues in Shanghai.

When geographically dispersed team members perceive a power imbalance, they often come to feel that there are in-groups and out-groups. Consider the case of a global marketing team for a U.S.-based multinational pharmaceutical company. The leader and the core strategy group for the Americas worked in the company’s Boston-area headquarters. A smaller group in London and a single individual in Moscow focused on the markets in Europe. Three other team members, who split their time be- tween Singapore and Tokyo, were responsible for strategy in Asia. The way that each group perceived

its situation is illustrated in the exhibit “Views from a Dispersed Team.”

To correct perceived power imbalances between different groups, a leader needs to get three key messages across:

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. Tariq, a 33-year-old rising star in a global firm, was assigned to lead a 68-person division whose members hailed from 27 countries, spoke 18 languages, and ranged in age from 22 to 61. During the two years before he took charge, the group’s performance had been in a precipitous de- cline and employee satisfaction had plunged. Tariq saw that the team had fractured into subgroups ac- cording to location and language. To bring people back together, he introduced a team motto (“We are different yet one”), created opportunities for employ- ees to talk about their cultures, and instituted a zero- tolerance policy for displays of cultural insensitivity.

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 corpo- rate goals. The leader should periodically highlight how everyone’s work fits into the company’s overall strategy and advances its position in the market. For instance, during a weekly conference call, a global team leader might review the group’s performance relative to company objectives. She might also dis- cuss the level of collective focus and sharpness the team needs in order to fend off competitors.

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 dif- ference in conveying that their contributions matter. For instance, one manager in Dallas, Texas, inherited

Idea in Brief THE PROBLEM When teams consist of people from different cultures working apart from one another in different locations, social distance—or a lack of emotional connection—can cause miscommunication, misunderstanding, and distrust.

THE SOLUTION The leaders of global teams can improve the workings of their groups by using the author’s SPLIT framework to identify and address five sources of social distance: structure, process, language, identity, and technology.

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people are spread all over the world, small talk is still a powerful way to promote trust. So when planning your team’s call-in meetings, factor in five minutes for light conversation before business gets under way. 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.

Time to disagree. Leaders should encourage disagreement both about the team’s tasks and about the process by which the tasks get done. The chal- lenge, of course, is to take the heat out of the debate. Framing meetings as brainstorming opportunities lowers the risk that people will feel pressed to choose between sides. Instead, they will see an invitation to evaluate agenda items and contribute their ideas. 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’ com- ments. 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.

A software developer in Istanbul kept silent in a team meeting in order to avoid conflict, even though he questioned his colleagues’ design of a particular feature. He had good reasons to oppose their deci- sion, but his team leader did not brook disagreement, and the developer did not want to damage his own position. However, four weeks into the project, the team ran into the very problems that the developer had seen coming.

Language and the Fluency Gap Good communication among coworkers drives ef- fective knowledge sharing, decision making, coor- dination, and, ultimately, performance results (see also “What’s Your Language Strategy?” by Tsedal Neeley and Robert Steven Kaplan, HBR, September 2014). But in global teams, varying levels of fluency with the chosen common language are inevitable— and likely to heighten social distance. The team members who can communicate best in the organi- zation’s lingua franca (usually English) often exert the most influence, while those who are less fluent often become inhibited and withdraw. Mitigating

a large group in India as part of an acquisition. He made it a point to involve those employees in impor- tant decisions, contact them frequently to discuss ongoing projects, and thank them for good work. He even called team members personally to give them their birthdays off. His team appreciated his attention and became more cohesive as a result.

Process and the Importance of Empathy It almost goes without saying that empathy helps reduce social distance. If colleagues can talk infor- mally around a watercooler—whether about work or about personal matters—they are more likely to de- velop an empathy that helps them interact produc- tively in more-formal contexts. Because geographi- cally dispersed team members lack regular face time, they are less likely to have a sense of mutual under- standing. To foster this, global team leaders need to make sure they build the following “deliberate moments” into the process for meeting virtually:

Feedback on routine interactions. Members of global teams may unwittingly send the wrong sig- nals with their everyday behavior. Julie, a French chemical engineer, and her teammates in Marseille checked and responded to e-mails only first thing in the morning, to ensure an uninterrupted workday. They had no idea that this practice was routinely adding an overnight delay to correspondence with their American colleagues and contributing to mis- trust. It was not until Julie visited the team’s offices in California that the French group realized there was a problem. Of course, 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.

Unstructured time. Think back to your last face-to-face meeting. During the first few minutes before the official discussion began, what was the atmosphere like? Were people comparing notes on the weather, their kids, that new restaurant in town? Unstructured communication like this is positive, because it allows for the organic unfolding of pro- cesses that must occur in all business dealings— sharing knowledge, coordinating and monitoring interactions, and building relationships. Even when

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must always confirm that they have been understood. Encourage them to routinely ask if others are fol- lowing them. Similarly, when listening, they should be empowered to say they have not understood something. It can be tough for nonnative speakers to make this leap, yet doing so keeps them from being marginalized.

Balance participation to ensure inclusion. Getting commitments to good speaking behavior is the easy part; making the behavior happen will re- quire active management. Global team leaders must keep track of who is and isn’t contributing and delib- erately 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.

The leader of a global team based in Dubai re- quired all his reports to post the three communica- tion rules in their cubicles. Soon he noted that one heavily accented European team member began con- tributing to discussions for the first time since joining the group 17 months earlier. The rules had given this person the license, opportunity, and responsibility to speak up. As a leader, you could try the same tac- tics with your own team, distributing copies of the exhibit “Rules of Engagement for Team Meetings.”

Identity and the Mismatch of Perceptions Global teams work most smoothly when mem- bers “get” where their colleagues are coming from. However, deciphering someone’s identity and find- ing ways to relate is far from simple. People define themselves in terms of a multitude of variables—age, gender, nationality, ethnicity, religion, occupation, political ties, and so forth. And although behavior can be revealing, particular behaviors may signify different things depending on the individual’s iden- tity. For example, someone in North America who looks you squarely in the eye may project confidence and honesty, but in other parts of the world, direct eye contact might be perceived as rude or threat- ening. Misunderstandings such as this are a major source of social distance and distrust, and global team leaders have to raise everyone’s awareness of them. This involves mutual learning and teaching.

Learning from one another. When adapting to a new cultural environment, a savvy leader will avoid making assumptions about what behaviors

these effects typically involves insisting that all team members respect three rules for communicating in meetings:

Dial down dominance. Strong speakers must agree to slow down their speaking pace and use fewer idioms, slang terms, and esoteric cultural ref- erences when addressing the group. They should limit the number of comments they make within a set time frame, depending on the pace of the meet- ing 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.

Dial up engagement. Less fluent speakers should monitor the frequency of their responses in meetings to ensure that they are contributing. In some cases, it’s even worth asking them to set goals for the number of comments they make within a given period. Don’t let them use their own lan- guage and have a teammate translate, because that can alienate others. As with fluent speakers, team members who are less proficient in the language

All team members should be guided by these three rules to ensure that influence on decisions is not dictated by fluency in the company’s lingua franca.

Rules of Engagement for Team Meetings

DIAL UP ENGAGEMENT

DIAL DOWN DOMINANCE

Resist withdrawal or other avoidance behaviors. Refrain from reverting to your native language. Ask: “Do you understand what I am saying?” If you don’t understand others, ask them to repeat or explain.

Slow down the pace and use familiar language (e.g., fewer idioms). Refrain from dominating the conversation. Ask: “Do you understand what I am saying?” Listen actively.

LESS FLUENT SPEAKERS

BALANCE FOR INCLUSION

Monitor participants and strive to balance their speaking and listening. Actively draw contributions from all team members. Solicit participation from less fluent speakers in particular. Be prepared to define and interpret content.

TEAM LEADERS

FLUENT SPEAKERS

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A case in point. Consider the experience of Daniel, the leader of a recently formed multinational team spread over four continents. During a confer‑ ence call, he asked people to discuss a particular strategy for reaching a new market in a challenging location. This was the first time he had raised a topic on which there was a range of opinion.

Daniel observed that Theo, a member of the Israeli team, regularly interrupted Angela, a mem‑ ber of the Buenos Aires team, and their ideas were at odds. Although tempted to jump in and play ref‑ eree, Daniel held back. To his surprise, neither Theo nor Angela got frustrated. They went back and forth, bolstering their positions by referencing typical business practices and outcomes in their respective countries, but they stayed committed to reaching a group consensus.

At the meeting’s end, Daniel shared his observa‑ tions with the team, addressing not only the content of the discussion, but also the manner in which it took place. “Theo and Angela,” he said, “when you began to hash out your ideas, I was concerned that both of you might have felt you weren’t being heard or weren’t getting a chance to fully express your thoughts. But now you both seem satisfied that you were able to make your arguments, articulate cul‑ tural perspectives, and help us decide on our next steps. Is that true?”

Theo and Angela affirmed Daniel’s observations and provided an additional contextual detail: Six months earlier they had worked together on another project—an experience that allowed them to estab‑ lish their own style of relating to each other. Their ability to acknowledge and navigate their cultural differences was beneficial to everyone on the team. Not only did it help move their work forward, but it showed that conflict does not have to create social distance. And Daniel gained more information about Theo and Angela, which would help him manage the team more effectively in the future.

Technology and the Connection Challenge The modes of communication used by global teams must be carefully considered, because the technolo‑ gies can both reduce and increase social distance. Videoconferencing, for instance, allows rich commu‑ nication in which both context and emotion can be perceived. E‑mail offers greater ease and efficiency but lacks contextual cues. In making decisions

mean. Take a step back, watch, and listen. In America, someone who says, “Yes, I can do this” likely means she is willing and able to do what you asked. In India, however, the same statement may simply signal that she wants to try—not that she’s confident of success. Before drawing conclusions, therefore, ask a lot of questions. In the example just described, you might probe to see if the team member anticipates any challenges or needs additional resources. Asking for this information may yield greater insight into how the person truly feels about accomplishing the task.

Team members quickly pick up on the leader’s preferences regarding communication technology, so set the example you want others to follow.

The give‑and‑take of asking questions and pro‑ viding answers establishes two‑way communica‑ tion 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. A non‑ Mandarin‑speaking manager in China relied heavily on his local staff during meetings with clients in or‑ der to better understand clients’ perceptions of the interactions and to gauge the appropriateness of his own behavior. His team members began to see themselves as essential to the development of client relationships and felt valued, which motivated them to perform at even higher levels.

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, help‑ ing team members to parse their observations and understand one another’s true identities.

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that their message is important. Greg, for instance, a project manager in a medical devices organization, found that his team was falling behind on the devel- opment of a product. He called an emergency meet- ing to discuss the issues and explain new corporate protocols for releasing new products, which he felt would bring the project back on track.

During this initial meeting, he listened to people’s concerns and addressed their questions in real time. Although he felt he had communicated his position clearly and obtained the necessary verbal buy-in, he followed up the meeting by sending a carefully drafted e-mail to all the attendees, reiterating the agreed-upon changes and asking for everyone’s electronic sign-off. This redundant communica- tion helped reinforce acceptance of his ideas and increased the likelihood that his colleagues would actually implement the new protocols.

Am I leading by example? Team members very quickly pick up on the leader’s personal preferences regarding communication technology. A leader who wants to encourage people to videoconference should communicate this way herself. If she wants employees to pick up the phone and speak to one an- other, she had better be a frequent user of the phone. And if she wants team members to respond quickly to e-mails, she needs to set the example.

FLEXIBILITY AND APPRECIATION for diversity are at the heart of managing a global team. Leaders must ex- pect problems and patterns to change or repeat them- selves as teams shift, disband, and regroup. But there is at least one constant: To manage social distance ef- fectively and maximize the talents and engagement of team members, leaders must stay attentive to all five of the SPLIT dimensions. Decisions about struc- ture create opportunities for good process, which can mitigate difficulties caused by language differences and identity issues. If leaders act on these fronts, while marshaling technology to improve communi- cation among geographically dispersed colleagues, social distance is sure to shrink, not expand. When that happens, teams can become truly representative of the “global village”—not just because of their in- ternational makeup, but also because their members feel mutual trust and a sense of kinship. They can then embrace and practice the kind of innovative, re- spectful, and groundbreaking interactions that drive the best ideas forward.

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about which technology to use, a leader must ask the following:

Should communication be instant? Teleconferencing and videoconferencing enable real-time (instant) conversations. E-mail and cer- tain social media formats require users to wait for the other party to respond. Choosing between in- stant and delayed forms of communication can be especially challenging for global teams. For exam- ple, when a team spans multiple time zones, a tele- phone call may not be convenient for everyone. The Japanese team leader of a U.S.-based multinational put it this way: “I have three or four days per week when I have a conference call with global executives. In most cases, it starts at 9:00 or 10:00 in the night. If we can take the conference call in the daytime, it’s much easier for me. But we are in the Far East, and headquarters is in the United States, so we have to make the best of it.”

Instant technologies are valuable when leaders need to persuade others to adopt their viewpoint. But if they simply want to share information, then delayed methods such as e-mail are simpler, more ef- ficient, and less disruptive to people’s lives. Leaders must also consider the team’s interpersonal dynam- ics. If the team has a history of conflict, technology choices that limit the opportunities for real-time emotional exchanges may yield the best results.

In general, the evidence suggests that most com- panies overrely on delayed communication. A recent Forrester survey of nearly 10,000 information work- ers in 17 countries showed that 94% of employees report using e-mail, but only 33% ever participate in desktop videoconferencing (with apps such as Skype and Viber), and a mere 25% use room-based video- conferencing. These numbers will surely change over time, as the tools evolve and users become more comfortable with them, but leaders need to choose their format carefully: instant or delayed.

Do I need to reinforce the message? Savvy leaders will communicate through multiple plat- forms to ensure that messages are understood and remembered. For example, if a manager electroni- cally assigns one of her team members a task by en- tering notes into a daily work log, she may then fol- low up with a text or a face-to-face chat to ensure that the team member saw the request and recognized its urgency.

Redundant communication is also effective for leaders who are concerned about convincing others

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