What I’ve learned from working with global teams
One of the blessings of virtual sessions being more mainstream these days is my ability to work with global teams.
Thanks to the difference in time zones, you’ll often find me leading sessions with these teams at 1 or 2 a.m. my time. Believe it or not, I look forward to waking up in the wee hours of the night. I always learn so much about leadership and culture, and it gives me the chance to see firsthand the incredible challenges and incredible advantages that come with being a globally dispersed team.
For example, I recently worked with a global team that was struggling to feel connected to one another. I felt so much empathy for this team: They wanted to spend more time together. But having a meeting in the morning for some people meant having one in the middle of the night for someone else. And moving that meeting to the afternoon meant it was now bedtime for another person. It was truly impossible to find a time that worked for everyone, and that meant someone (or a few people) would always be left out. It’s hard enough dealing with the challenges that come with being on a team when you all work in the same building. Could you imagine having to take into account wildly different time zones every time you scheduled a meeting?
In that same session, I also saw one of the biggest advantages of global teams in action: I watched them share different ideas of how to approach several challenges they wanted to solve. The diversity of thought and perspective in that meeting was something I had never witnessed before. People from different parts of the world, from completely different cultures, with totally different life experiences all came together to share their ideas. Talk about an inclusive conversation. How amazing to have so many viewpoints coming to the table and to watch those viewpoints be received with enthusiasm and curiosity.
I want to dedicate a post to global teams because I don’t think we talk about this topic in leadership enough. If you are on a global team, I hope this post makes you feel seen and provides you with some ideas for the challenges that you and your team may face. And if you aren’t, I hope it gives you some awareness you may not have had when you started reading.
Here we go—some of my coolest experiences with and learnings from working with global teams over the last few years:
Feedback: I remember the first time I did a feedback session with a global team. I realized that there was a new element I needed to consider: cultural norms when it comes to giving and receiving feedback. For example, in one culture, the norm could be blunt and direct feedback. In another, that approach could be totally offensive. And even then, people are unique. Just because someone is a part of a certain culture doesn’t mean they necessarily want to give or receive feedback in a particular way. Working with global teams on feedback has given me so much more awareness as a facilitator. I used to ignorantly think that my way of delivering feedback was pretty universal. It’s not. I’ve learned that when we get trapped in that way of thinking, we prevent ourselves from having effective feedback conversations, especially when we have these conversations across cultures. So instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach with feedback, I’ve learned to start with curiosity. In my feedback sessions, I typically begin with an exercise where people share their relationship to and history with feedback as well as their needs and preferences in communication. I recommend to the team that they keep this information in a shared document so that before they have a conversation with someone, they can review the document and know how best to reach the person they are meeting with. We also agree on a universal “social contract” for communication: While the style of feedback might shift depending on the conversation, we can agree that everyone will address feedback within 24 hours of observing something, for example. We may agree that the first time you work with someone new, you start a conversation about understanding communication expectations and needs. One of the advantages of working on a global team, I think, is that you get to constantly stretch your communication and feedback muscles. Some of the best communicators I have ever met are on global teams.
Identity Values: Once, I was hired to help a global team uncover their core values. It was one of the most challenging projects I’ve ever taken on because we had so much trouble determining a set of values that everyone across all regions could agree on. We reached consensus on some of the values, but others didn’t resonate with some of the regions. I remember one of the values that caused the most disagreement centered on having fun. One region strongly resonated with this value and fought hard for it to make the cut while other regions felt that “fun” didn’t describe them; it only described that particular region. What to do? We decided to choose three overarching values for the company that everyone agreed upon (fun was not one of them) and we called these “universal values.” After that, we empowered each region to create their own “identity values.” In other words, a set of unique values that made that region unique and different form the others. Each region proudly presented their identity values at an all-hands meeting (and yes, the one region chose “fun” as one of their identity values!). It was awesome to see the team become unified by three overarching values while still having the opportunity to celebrate the diversity that comes along with having teams all across the world
Productivity: One of the positives of working on a global team is that stuff gets done around the clock. And that can also lead to one of the biggest challenges: burnout. In our sessions, people often share that they feel they can’t truly turn their work off. When they’re sleeping, someone on the other side of the world is working, and not getting back to that person in a timely manner the next day could slow down progress for a whole day or more. I find that those on global teams tend to have more erratic work schedules, with early-morning or late-evening meetings, for example. One of the ways I’ve seen teams manage this natural tension is by aligning on communication expectations and honoring boundaries. I’m thinking of one team that agreed on response times that felt reasonable so that no one had to be on their email 24/7. It also led to a conversation about being more proactive when you need things from other people on the team and not waiting until the last minute, especially when you need something from someone in a completely different time zone than you.
Inclusion: I recently worked with a team that shared a story of a meeting icebreaker gone wrong. In this particular virtual meeting, the majority of the people in attendance were from one part of the world and two people were from another part. These two were also attending this meeting for the first time. The meeting began with an icebreaker where each person was asked to share an emoji in the chat to communicate how they were feeling that day. It was a common way for this particular meeting to start, so the chat started overflowing with emojis, many of which people thought were funny, and they started roaring with laughter. But the two members of the team who were from other parts of the world didn’t understand the humor in the emojis at all, and they found the experience really isolating. Later, they said that the exercise felt more like an ice-builder than an icebreaker. They committed to giving the meeting organizer feedback so that the next time they have a meeting with other regions, the organizer can be more inclusive.
Connection: As you can probably imagine, it’s very difficult for a global team to get together in person. That’s why it’s even more critical for them to focus on connecting in other ways. At the beginning of this blog, I talked about the challenge of different time zones and how hard it is to find times when everyone can meet. This topic comes up frequently in my sessions with global teams, and we’ve realized that while it’s not a problem that can be solved, it is a tension that can be managed better. I’m thinking about a team that recently committed to a monthly team connect call. They decided that because they don’t get to see each other a lot, even virtually, this connection call is really important to them. They have all committed to attending the call each month. They also decided that they would alternate time zones each month so that it was fair for everyone. If a team only ever accommodates one group, like the majority time zone, not only is it the opposite of inclusive, but it also means that some members of the team won’t have the chance to build those relationships. I’ve also noticed that the best global teams make their in-person time count. They leave plenty of time for organic conversations and hanging out to foster relationships while also having strategic conversations to discuss how to improve the team dynamic. Meetings that can happen over video happen over video, and time in-person is spent prioritizing connection.
I really admire global teams for their commitment to collaboration and connection, even with so many obstacles in between them. Working as a team is challenging even in the most ideal settings, but these teams prove that a little flexibility and consideration for each other goes a long way.
What are your experiences with working across time zones, cultures, or countries? I’d love to hear about your challenges and how you’ve overcome them in the comments!
I hope this gets you thinking about how you can make your team and workplace a more inclusive and welcoming place for all, no matter where you are in the world.
Big hugs,
