Diverse and Dispersed Teaming: What’s Next? Balancing productivity with authenticity A White Paper

Diverse and Dispersed Teaming 2 In today’s business world, borders of space and time around work processes, people management and knowledge transfer are disappearing. Multinational corporations are forced to not just cross, but also transcend, traditional socioeconomic and political boundaries in order to attract and retain people with the skills necessary to compete in the modern business environment, most recently termed the “gigabit age.”i There is a predictive requirement for change in already-functioning diverse and dispersed teams so that they can compete in a changing and fast-paced business world. While many professionals are based in one specific city, they interact regularly with colleagues and stakeholders from locations across the globe through different types of virtual communication platforms. In effect, these professionals are residents of the “global village,” as coined by the futurist and communication scholar Marshall McLuhan, who in 1967 envisioned an interconnected world in which space and time are irrelevant. Today, this notion of a global village is more applicable than ever. Residents of the global village have a deep commitment to, and passion about, creating an inclusive environment marked by diverse and dispersed team structures. These team structures embrace the concepts of open dataii and open-code source practices, such as those used by visionary investor and business leader Elon Musk with his Tesla design.iii What Does “Diverse And Dispersed” Mean? Diverse refers to teams comprised of persons from different national, organizational, functional, team, affinity group or individual backgrounds. Dispersed refers to colleagues regularly conducting business via means other than face-to-face communication, from holding teleconferences with partners on the other side of the world to instant messaging someone down the hall. Professionals often view this reality of diverse and dispersed teams and organizational structures as a handicap, a requirement of business today that must be tolerated but that they avoid as much as possible. Many actively resist the trend toward modern digital communication with such excuses as, “My camera isn’t working on my computer,” or “I don’t have time to talk to anyone outside of my team.” But the fact is, virtual teaming and communication are an inevitable part of business life now, and they will be in the future. If business leaders can alter their frame of reference to what business communication looks like now, and what it will continue to look like, and if they shift their thinking toward digital solutions to communication challenges and deliberately work on the skills necessary to be effective in the digital workplace, they can connect authentically at the human level while maximizing their efforts to achieve business goals. To achieve this, entrenched behaviors need to be addressed and team members inspired to dedicate their full enthusiasm and energy to building their work communities and maximizing their efforts.

©2014 TMC | A Berlitz Company. All rights reserved.

2

Diverse and Dispersed Teaming 3 The Challenges of a Dispersed Workforce How can culturally diverse and globally dispersed professionals harness the knowledge, skills and expertise necessary to make their companies agile in their approach to business systems and structures? How can they realize the power of their companies’ multifaceted, client-focused business models and globally distributed organizational structures? First, here’s a look at diverse and dispersed teaming around the world. Worldwide, the number of people on dispersed teams is growing. According to the International Data Corporationiv annual tracker, Japan has the highest mobile worker saturation, at 65 percent; followed by the Americas, at 22 percent; Asia (minus Japan), at 19 percent; and, lastly, Europe, at 12 percent. These data points illustrate that to fully engage the global workforce, employers must turn their attention to tapping into knowledge and expertise without being held back by boundaries of location or proximity. Illustratively, a research project by the Economist Intelligence Unit titled “Competing Across Borders”v found that cross-border collaboration leads to innovation. However, the most frequently cited disrupter of collaboration is the traditions unique to each culture that lead to misunderstandings and confusion, often lengthening project timelines and reducing productivity. The Economist study also found that 25 percent of global employees are expected to speak a language in business that is not their native tongue. While almost 1 billion people around the world speak English, the English being used in today’s business looks and sounds as diverse as the individuals using it. The newest term for this lingua franca based on English is “Globish,” which was coined by Robert McClum in his book of the same name. For example, in the Indian business sphere, people speak “hybrid English,” which combines British vernacular with an Indian accent and Hindi language-based sayings. Another challenge for many companies with flexible work arrangements is the issue of security and privacy of technology, namely Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) practices. The current digitally-enhanced, interconnected, always-on, knowledge age is foundationally supported by modern information and communication technology, most notably the Internet, which is now available everywhere thanks to “smart” mobile devices. Yet only 38 percent of multinational companies have an official policy on the technological devices employees use to communicate, access data and share information. Consider research done by Soonr, Inc.,vi which polled 1,000 US-based employees across industries with roles ranging from small business owner to marketing to IT. It found that over three-quarters of the respondents reported they either didn’t have or didn’t know if they had a BYOD policy in place. This 75 percent of respondents used whatever means they felt inclined to for data transfer and storage of sensitive corporate documents, with no organizational security measures in place, thereby leaving their intellectual property and knowledge base vulnerable. While the financial savings of asking employees to provide their own devices may be significant to companies, the risks are even more so, as

©2014 TMC | A Berlitz Company. All rights reserved.

3

Diverse and Dispersed Teaming 4 illustrated by data breaches at the highest levels in the US government and the backlash against those breaches from governments and industry around the world. Engaging a Dispersed Workforce Today, 47 percent of the global workforce has some kind of flexible work arrangement. This is good news, considering that virtual workers are found to have a more positive view of their jobs and organizations than their office-bound peers. As new technologies emerge – such as instant language translation, high-touch collaborative technologies and sophisticated video interfaces that simulate face-to-face meetings – more people will be able to work from outside the office with higher efficiency. But while virtual work is having a positive effect on job perception and satisfaction, worldwide employee engagement levels are a cause of concern. Employee engagement is defined as “an underlying psychological state in which employees feel a vested interest in their organization’s success, and are both willing and motivated to perform to levels that exceed the stated job requirements.”vii Disengagement, then, is an employee’s real or perceived desire to leave their position, or, even more damaging, stay in their position but be completely disengaged. Troublingly, according to Towers Watson,viiionly 35 percent of the global workforce is highly engaged. To attain engagement, leaders can enable and energize their teams and those around them by involving them in constructive conversations and helping them hone the skills they need to operate in a virtual and fast-paced work environment. Characteristics of High-Performance Multicultural Teams Experts have distinguished five characteristics of productive groups – cohesion, collaboration, consensus, cooperation and cultural competence – what are called the “five C’s” of high-performing teams. Cohesion results from rules and norms that govern teamwork and the way decisions are made. Collaboration results from team members participating creatively in planning, designing, developing, implementing and evaluating their work. Consensus results from team members committing to working through reservations about decisions before finalizing them; agreement does not mean giving in, but rather finding an optimal solution. Cooperation results from team members viewing conflict as an opportunity to explore differences and expand their understanding and respect of each other. And finally, cultural competence results from team members valuing cultural differences for the unique and diverse contributions made to total team output. Practicing the five C’s of high-performance teams will lead to: • • •

Visionary and participative leadership Shared responsibility and continuous collaboration Common purpose and consensus building

©2014 TMC | A Berlitz Company. All rights reserved.

4

Diverse and Dispersed Teaming 5 • • • • • • •

Commitment to valuing and leveraging differences and utilizing conflict constructively Highly interactive, communicative and respectful relationships Future-focused collaboration Goal- and achievement-driven work Responsiveness and flexibility Commitment to continuous learning Shared team culture

How To Get There Making sure team members at all levels of an organization are equipped with the skills to work and collaborate in a diverse and dispersed environment is essential to securing success. According to Oxford Economics,ix the most in-demand skills for dispersed team members over the next five to 10 years will include: 1) Digital Skills – Of all the technical capabilities, digital business skills are seen as most critical, especially in Asia, where more traditional technologies have been leapfrogged. Technically skilled workers specialize in the new forms of digital expression and marketing literacy, including the broad spectrum of social media. 2) Agile Thinking Skills – In today’s volatile, unpredictable, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world, the ability to prepare for multiple scenarios and make sense of complicated situations is essential. 3) Interpersonal and Communication Skills – The global corporate shift from topdown leadership to a more collaborative and fluid leadership style requires organizations to foster co-creativity and brainstorming skills in employees. This means being adept at relationship building and teaming, particularly in a virtual environment. 4) Global Operating Skills – Most important to this skill group is the ability to manage a diverse employee base. Chairman and CEO of General Electric, Jeff Immelt, contends that organizations will have to be able to advance from “glocalization” efforts, that is, tailoring global products and brands to local markets, to the concept of “reverse innovation,” in which innovation is led from emerging markets and brought back home to mature markets. First, digital skills. Social media is forever changing the face of learning, with 80 percent of corporate knowledge transfers taking place through on-the-job interactions in microsocial environments, which corporations either foster or which emerge outside of the corporate structure. Dissatisfaction among cohorts travels and can break a learning initiative. Even more damaging, client or customer dissatisfaction spreads easily and can quickly snowball into wide-reaching social statements. Digital social engagement allows for a constructionist approach that engages the customers, clients and learners in co-development of the outcome. Critical to creating a

©2014 TMC | A Berlitz Company. All rights reserved.

5

Diverse and Dispersed Teaming 6 constructionist approach is allowing the audience to engage with each other; process new information through prompting with questions, case studies and scenarios; and learning from each other’s situated discovery in their own experiences. To develop digital skills, training can focus on the thinking style of employees, specifically where they sit along the multi focus-single focus continuum of the Cultural Orientations Indicator® (COI®). When there is a deluge of information, a critical skill is to selectively focus attention for an extended period of time on one task. One way to put this into practice is to split a working hour into 40- and 20-minute chunks, during which 40 minutes are spent singly focusing on one task, and 20 are spent doing catch up on multiple activities. The second vital skill is agile thinking. In today’s volatile, unpredictable, complex and ambiguous world, being able to adapt, concentrate and respond quickly is essential. Culture plays a significant role in making the VUCA world a significant challenge to navigate. According to the Corporate Leadership Council’s “Global Leader”x study, which includes responses from 11,500 leaders at 35 organizations: “Lack of intercultural skills is a marked derailer to business,” but the good news is, “the difference between good and great intercultural skills isn’t significant.” In other words, it doesn’t take a high level of expertise to attain effective intercultural skills. The way people process information impacts how they make sense of chaos – that is, in terms of the COI®, whether they prefer a linear approach and analyze the situation step by step, or take a systemic approach and look at the system as a whole. The third vital skill is interpersonal and communication skills. To hone skills at the interpersonal level, the Constructive Conversation Model (below) allows inclusive leaders to engage in conversation by weaving together objectivity, emotional intelligence and clarity of expectations. 1) The first step in the Constructive Conversation Model is to notice and observe in a non-judgmental way and with non-judgmental language, by using such terms as, “I see,” “I notice,” and “I observe.” 2) The second step in the model is for a person to recognize how they feel and be able to state it and take responsibility for their emotions without blame, using such terms as, “I feel,” “I react with,” and “I get.” 3) The third step in the Constructive Conversation Model is for a person to state how they interpret the situation with a focus on how they make sense of what is happening, using such terms as, “I interpret this as,” “To me, this means,” and, “Based on my experience.”

©2014 TMC | A Berlitz Company. All rights reserved.

6

Diverse and Dispersed Teaming 7 4) The fourth step is to focus on the importance and significance of the situation and be able to articulate why it is important, using such terms as, “I would like to be,” “I do not want,” and “It is important to me that.” 5) The fifth and final step in the Constructive Conversation Model is the person voicing the change they would like to see, and being aware that they are making a specific and measurable request. This model supports the use of SMART goals – those that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. Skill building here can focus on developing relationship skills that allow colleagues to foster trust and goodwill among each other. In COI® terminology, taking a being focus to building trust and goodwill can act as the foundation for taking a doing focus, that is, executing of the task at hand. And finally, the fourth critical skill is global operating skills. Building global operating skills can focus on where a person sits on the control-constraint continuum on the COI®; that is, whether they believe they can change situations to fit their needs, or whether they believe in the power of external forces in determining their environmental and social surroundings. Global operating skills come in handy when companies have a shared-service model. Often, shared-service teams work remotely to maximize a follow-the-sun business schedule. However, multiple layers of complexity often get in the way of business running effectively. For example, there are often issues over responsibility sharing, matrix reporting, virtual communication, knowledge transfer, etc.

©2014 TMC | A Berlitz Company. All rights reserved.

7

Diverse and Dispersed Teaming 8 While geographic, functional and regional modes of organization are intended to bring flexibility and locality to the shared-service model, they may present overlap that can derail organizational objectives. For example, Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner had a multiregional and multinational sourcing model that was initially hailed as a fine example of efficiency and budget-friendliness. The 787 was comprised of 30 percent foreignmade or foreignsourced parts, compared to the 747, which was built with five percent foreign-made parts. But delays, quality issues and public scrutiny pulled the process apart, and the 787’s construction was deemed a “failed globalization model.” In order to achieve engagement and success among diverse and dispersed teams, business leaders must alter their frame of reference to what business communication looks like now and moving into the future. They must shift their thinking toward digital solutions to address knowledge deficits, communication depravation and ever-steepening learning curves regarding the newest technologies. And they must support their employees and teams to gain the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to be effective and competitive, while at the same time wrestling with the complexity of an often regionalized global organizational structure. The above-described four skills can help leaders increase the engagement levels of their diverse and dispersed employees, and can help the employees themselves operate better in a global, VUCA environment.

©2014 TMC | A Berlitz Company. All rights reserved.

8

Diverse and Dispersed Teaming 9 How To Initiate And Keep Diverse And Dispersed Teams Collaborating Intel, based on work by Morten Hansen titled “Collaboration,” engages users across three foundational needs – Know Me, Feed Me and Connect Me. Here’s a look at each of these needs and how they can be addressed: 1) Know Me Leaders are encouraged to engage team members in role-based collaboration that has a unique format, sequence and context. These collaboration sessions should include features that engage team members across multiple aptitudes, generations and cultural preferences. Leaders must set expectations from the start so that team members know what to anticipate and can envisage an outcome of the collaboration. The COI® can be used here so that team members can gain deeper insights into their own cultural preferences and review individual results, gap reports and group aggregate reports. 2) Feed Me The content of the collaboration sessions should also be delivered over the web so that it is available when and where the team members want to access it. It should take context into account and be up-to-date so that attendees can understand and easily find what they are looking for. Team leaders should provide micro-social environments that enable team members to share new ideas and information in bite-size chunks and preserve the content for others to learn from. All of this should be done while offering ample support for enhanced performance by actively managing, and providing resources and mentoring. The Cultural Navigator® supports this with unique content on 108 different countries, over 500 learning components and robust comparison features that allow individuals and groups to leverage their COI® results. 3) Connect Me Finally, leaders must build collaboration at all levels, both internal and external, by providing collective and social engagement that is topic-based, focused on information exchange, and that fosters a community of helping others. The Cultural Navigator® enables paired work, team collaboration and broader community engagement with a neutral, inclusive vocabulary to help describe and ultimately leverage different work-style preferences.

©2014 TMC | A Berlitz Company. All rights reserved.

9

Diverse and Dispersed Teaming 10 Managing the Impact of Technology It can seem like a daunting task to motivate diverse and dispersed teams. However, there are some key focal points for leaders that can help minimize the impact of technology dependence in global teams: 1) Leaders must walk the talk and display the knowledge, skills and behaviors expected of others. 2) Set clear goals and objectives, and make them known to team members. 3) Establish working agreements with team members. 4) Engage in active management. 5) Train team leaders. 6) Encourage innovation. 7) Focus on people, not simply the task to be accomplished. Conclusion The number of diverse team members who work in dispersed locations is growing fast. While this is a boon for creativity and follow-the-sun scheduling, diverse and dispersed teams represent complex linguistic and cultural challenges for leaders and team members alike. Leaders must take into account both virtual worker trends and possible roadblocks to employee engagement. They also must help employees grow the in-demand skills of the virtual age: digital skills, agile thinking skills, interpersonal and communication skills, and global operating skills. Leaders can respond to these demands and challenges by harnessing the tools available in the Cultural Navigator® to better “know, feed and connect” with their employees, and focus on building the foundation for high-performing, diverse and dispersed teams.

©2014 TMC | A Berlitz Company. All rights reserved.

10

Diverse and Dispersed Teaming 11

i

PewResearch, “Killer Apps In The Gigabit Age,” 2014, www.pewresearch.com. McKinsey and Company, “Open Data: Unlocking Innovation And Performance With Liquid Information,” 2013, www.mckinsey.com/mgi. iii Solomon, B, “Tesla Goes Open Source: Elon Musk Releases Patents To 'Good Faith' Use,” 2014, www.forbes.com. iv International Data Corporation, www.Idc.com. v Economist Intelligence Unit, “Competing Across Borders,” 2012, http://www.economistinsights.com/countries-trade-investment/analysis/competing-across-borders. vi Soonr, Inc. “The Changing Dynamics Of Mobility In The Workplace,” 2014, www.soonr.com. vii Mercer, “Engaging Employees To Drive Global Business Success: Insights From Mercer’s What’s Working™ Research,” 2007, https://www.mmc.com/knowledgecenter/Engaging_Employees_To_Drive_Business.pdf viii Towers Watson, “Global Workforce Study,” 2012, http://www.towerswatson.com/Insights/ICTypes/Survey-Research-Results/2012/07/2012-Towers-Watson-Global-Workforce-Study. ix Oxford Economics, “Global Talent,” 2012, www.oxfordeconomics.com. x Corporate Leadership Council Corporate Executive Board, “The Global Leader,” 2011, www.clc.org. ii

Lead Author: Lynne E. Putz, MA, SPHR

Published by: TMC | A Berlitz Company 7 Roszel Road Princeton, New Jersey 08540 USA Tel: +1.609.759.5482 Web: http://www.tmcorp.com http://explore.culturalnavigator.com/ Email: [email protected]

©2014 TMC. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. ©2014 TMC | A Berlitz Company. All rights reserved.

11