Leading a team globally presents challenges whatever your industry, whatever your location, whatever the team size and how experienced you as the team leader are. A lot of the challenges and issues are the same whether you have team members from only a few countries, one specific part of the world, or you cover the world.
What can you do culturally to ensure that the team is more successful?
One thing to consider is time.
I don’t mean time zones, although this is always worth doublechecking especially as some countries have more than one time zone, and some switch from summertime to wintertime. I think everyone has worked out time in the wrong direction and invited someone to a meeting at 3 a.m. Recently I invited six Indonesians to a Teams meeting and one of them gently pointed out that it was fine for them but would mean I was running the session in the middle of my night!
Depending on culture everyone has a different attitude to and understanding of time. There is a lot of theory and terminology for this, but let’s use an example.
Imagine that you are ending a meeting and asking everyone to feedback the information you need with a deadline, and you use the phrase:
“Can you send me the information by next Friday.”
So, in your mind you know when you want to receive all the information, and then when you are going to review/collate it. In other words, you have a personal deadline and so when you receive the information from different members of your team, you will react and think it is early, just on time, or late.
When you receive the information will depend on a number of factors – some in your control and some not. Let’s stay with timeframe.
From my experience training and coaching groups of people, I have often used an example and then asked the people in the group when their own personal deadline for sending the information is.
Let’s assume the business day is 9.00 to 17.00 and there are no time zones. These are how the answers varied -remember the request was 'by Friday'. (see image).
You as the team leader will have your preferred time and so will consider some of your team:
Early and sooner than you expected –positive.
Just in time arriving on your personal deadline – positive.
Arriving after your personal deadline and therefore late – negative.
In this example, all members of your team have worked hard and feel that they have delivered what you, as the team leader, need within the timeframe. Your view of the situation is not the same though.
The solution is to be very aware of how time varies culturally and also to be very careful with your request. In this example, the word ‘by’ has the potential to mislead. A better way would be to give a deadline and then explain when you are dealing with the information and if you need to present it at a specific time. This extra effort may save confusion and misunderstandings.
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