Purpose of this course: To communicate clearly and effectively with colleagues abroad, spanning different geographic locations, cultures and styles.
Why? Globalization has unprecedented benefits, but also presents some serious challenges. This course will help you o skillfully manage difference to achieve whatever the team commits to.
Distance Learning option: Arrange “Cross-Cultural Collaboration for Effective Teamwork” as a webinar
Description: Coordination is just acting together, harmoniously, in a concerted manner. By contrast, collaboration takes advantages of differences and gets to a whole new level … key to true innovation, working jointly toward synergies and mutual benefit. When the work deserves it, done skillfully, it can become “coliberation.”
Collaboration takes time, and beware: Collaboration can also waste time, undermine performance, destroy value, … frustrate and annoy. Knowing when to ensure that collaboration partners have the authority and mutual accountability to ensure that collaboration is productive, know which differences to honor and respect (accept), which ones to “bridge” … allows participants to confidently work together across timezones, native languages, and perspectives or world views … to mutual benefit.
What Participants Will Learn
Using the program facilitator’s decades of experience working globally, and applying the latest neuroscience to business communication and learning, participants will build on existing strengths to discover:
- How do you now communicate with colleagues abroad? What’s working, what isn’t?
- Identify trustworthy collaboration partners more quickly
Result: Better allocation of time, less wasted time, less trial and error. - Partnerships and teamwork: Importance of establishing a strong, shared vision and goals within a connected culture
Ensure that members of the team build rapport and trust-based relationship with both local and distant team members. Rapport is something we all do naturally, but can be increased. - Understand what culture is and the role it plays at work
- When to leverage diversity and differences and how to collaborate vs. when to work separately (honor a difference without the need to collaborate or work together)
Wisely invest in collaboration only when the situation deserves it. - Dealing with timezones and collaboration technology platforms like Zoom
- Advanced: Know which differences to address and bridge, which to accept
Strengthen your resolve to collaborate across not just cultural, timezone and language differences, but also departmental or organizational silos, counter-incentives, unwilling partners, skill gaps, attitudinal chasms.
Global teams demand special attention to differences in culture, communication barriers and style differences among the team members. A lack of cultural awareness in a multicultural environment can create a sense of division among workers. Workers can develop cliques that make it hard to create a sense of teamwork and unity. Instead the us versus them mentality that can develop from a lack of respect for differences can divide workers. These include knowing what cultural differences exist within the team and taking steps to invite all team members to put their shared vision and priorities ahead of interpersonal challenges. The key is learning how to use differences to the team’s advantage, which varies in different situations. Examples and practice exercises accelerate learning.
- Learn the 7 C’s of effective collaboration
- Three types of barriers that get in the way of collaboration with others
- Being assertive without being obnoxious: How can you move things forward quickly without stepping on toes
- When NOT to collaboration
- Requests and Agreements — The “language of agreement” to head toward the integrity of being one’s word, making agreements clear and unambiguous and avoiding power struggles
- Holding accountable to agreements — the gentle art of confrontation (speaking directly to an issue or problem) without causing defensiveness
- Creative ways of dealing with differences, handling resistance and negativity in others
- Practice applying six strategies to break down barriers, foster cooperation, collaboration, and synergy
Course Length
2 – 16 hours total classroom time.
Delivery options: (a) 1-4 short modules modules (best for distance learning), or
(b) 1-2 day intensive (6-8 classroom hours per session).
