Exploring culture and technology: Day 3
by Christine Martell on July 23, 2008
in Diversity & Intercultural
It’s all about the people skills
Our class at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication was a half day today. Good thing, I think many of us needed the time to process all we are learning.
We started out talking about the most common challenges for global virtual teams.
- difference in time orientation
- difference in problem solving approach
- difference in decision placement in org
- who gets to participate?
- differing degrees of formality
- differing expectations of leadership behavior
The person who is key is the leader. But not just any leader. A leader with some tech skill certainly, but more important, one who has collaborative leadership skills. The competitive advantage is gained through collaborative advantage. How can we truly leverage the diversity on our teams?
Trust is a decision
We spent quite a bit of time talking about trust. How to gain it and lose it virtually, across cultures, and virtually across cultures. How can you help a team build both swift trust and deeper trust?
Virtual teams are totally dependent on trust, but technology doesn’t really support it. Research has shown these things build trust:
Swift trust
- competence demonstrated
- cooperation, mutual support— offers of help
- open with each other about issues
- reliability
Deepening trust
- accessibility over time, have presence
- compatibility
- predictable
- caring as individuals
- safety ( I can say things and it won’t come back to haunt me, what is said in meeting, stays in meeting)
- inclusion
Technical challenge of the day!
Now I’m pretty sure there is an inverse relationship between the amount of time you have to accomplish a task and the number of challenges that arise. I recorded a really great podcast interview with our class instructor Terry Brake. Only it was the first time I did it without my technical guru co-host. So I managed to record my questions, but none of Terry’s answers. Not so interesting! I’ll try again, now that I have determined what I was doing wrong. If Terry is willing and we can find the time.
See also:
Christine, are you familiar with the distinction some have made between cognitive trust and emotional trust? Cognitive trust seems to fit most of the points under swift trust. This is the trust that a person’s work and competency in completing the work is something you can count on. It appears to me that Emotional Trust is similar to the points you have on deepening trust. This is that you can rely on someone in with deeper psychological ties and is based on a feeling of trust at an emotional level (e.g. you like them, you have a bond that goes beyond the task).
Personally, I feel I can work with someone that I don’t trust emotionally, but I do trust cognitively (I know they’ll get the work done) in a virtual environment. In fact, I could really like someone and trust them emotionally, but without the feeling that they will come through in their tasks (especially virtually), I would rather not work with them. This is different in the office as I feel there is a lot more political positioning when sharing space and it is important for someone to “have my back”. However, I know some of my students from other cultures need to have the emotional trust before they can work with someone, regardless of the format (in office or virtual) while others would rather not have the personal bond in any environment because they feel exposed.
Virginia,
I think there is a parallel between the types of trust. We certainly had the variety of opinions about this in the room. Terry (our faculty) talked about research showing that teams that had social connections, or did social things in addition had better performance over time. I assume that would be due to emotional trust?
Christine, dontcha just hate it when technology refuses to play nice? I really appreciate you sharing what you’ve learned in the session (from someone who would have loved to attend but could not!). And thank you for persevering to capture Terry’s answers for us!
Shari
Shari,
I feel like a technical neophyte. I just cannot believe how many times I have had trouble, I thought I was fairly savvy. But as Terry keeps reminding us, the technology is just a small part. Way more is the way we just charge ahead, assuming things will work, without establishing roles, plans etc for how we will work together. And simple things like a technology check before we run off to our corners to try to use it.
Today I was more successful with recording. SO, we should have a podcast to share soon.
Chrisitine,
I met you on 7/23/08 at the SIETAR meeting for the SIIC folks!
I’m completely wiped out from almost 4 weeks of interning, but
I was instantly energized by reading your blog.
I would like to join in this dialogue, but unfortunately, I can’t say
anything remotely interesting until I can catch up on some sleep.
Thank you and everyone else for contributing your insights.
Valli Murphy
Valli,
It was a pleasure to meet you at SIETAR at SIIC. The re-entry can be intense! Hope to hear more from you, and about the work you do when things settle down a bit. I find it takes me about as long as the session to recover afterward- so you may have a while to go