3 Tools to Communicate Globally

Here are 3 tools you can use to speed up results within your #global team, build relationships, improve sales and enhance your confidence and overall executive presence. (These are covered in detail in the Next Gen Global Leadership Course.)

?Communication Contracts

Working globally comes with no pre-established rules. It’s like an international airport where norms are out the window. I’m writing this from Sydney airport where at 9am on a Tuesday a group of well-dressed women are drinking overpriced beers next to grown adults on the floor, napping. Kids are running circles around a pilot on a travelator. He controls 500K kg of an A380 double decker jet but is powerless here. I’m staring at all of them while typing this, like a lunatic.

The same chaos exists when global remote teams form. It's necessary to set the rules where none exist. Using a Communication Contract will help frame conversations and help quickly find common ground on invisible working style obstacles.

How do you like to communicate? The tech part of the answer is easy but nonetheless important to define. Text, email, phone, chat, ticktock, AI Bots pretending to be you, etc. What tech gets used and when? For quick chats, maybe it makes sense to use whatsapp BUT when there is a disagreement, it is better to get on a phone call. Do we agree to video calls and if so, when? If time zones are a factor, maybe you don’t want to see me buried in my airport floor nest giving the evil eye to those kids who are still playing on the travelator.

Communication Contracts also include defining and better understanding different working styles. How are we going to agree to communicate? What is your communication style? Is it direct, indirect? How do you give feedback? How do you like to disagree? How do you work through problems? These answers vary considerably, so talk it out with your colleagues sooner rather than later. A common breakdown in remote teams is happens when conflicting communication styles do not get acknowledged and teammates start avoiding each other and holding back important information. Great global leaders know how to avoid these scenarios. Do these travelator kids even have parents??

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Ultimate Active Listening

This is where you, the listener, plays the entire conversation back to make sure they’ve heard everything correctly.

Try and keep it as brief as possible, ideally summarizing what was said in only a few sentences. And then – this is critical – confirm everyone understands correctly.

Here’s an example:

“So to summarize what I just heard, you said we are on target for getting this project done by the due date of next Friday. You walked me through your next steps, and we agreed to touch base next Wed to make sure everything is still on schedule. You said the biggest risk is if a team member gets called away on an emergency, but if this happens, you will reach out to me that same day and we can decide how to handle it. Did I miss anything or Is there anything else you’d like to add?”

This may sound like overkill, but Ultimate Active Listening is designed to confirm that everyone is aligned and clear on what was discussed and the next steps. It is especially useful in remote teams where it is harder to informally check in on progress or where there may be language difficulties.

Use Ultimate Active Listening at the end of each call as a way to drive clarity, prevent misunderstandings and confirm next steps. It may add an extra minute to a call, but it can save massive amounts of time, stress and effort in the future.

Calibrated Storytelling

Here’s a story: I’m sick of hearing about storytelling. The end.

Well, too bad, me, because this tool may be the most important of them all. When building the Global Leadership Program (a great way to invest any remaining L&D budget for this year because users can access the content for 12 months), I took the most popular, and useful, communication and leadership frameworks and ran them through a cross-cultural lens. How did they hold up across different working styles? Join the course to find out.

Here's an example: Many coaching frameworks assume a low level of hierarchy where a subordinate is comfortable speaking up in front of their boss. The same goes for having difficult conversations. The models don’t work as well in many parts of the world.

Here is where Calibrated Storytelling comes in. Stories soften situations. Let me clarify that. Calibrated stories soften situations. It has to be the right story at the right time. If done incorrectly, it can make situations worse, which is one outcome of poor storytelling courses.

A great way to adjust communication styles across cultures is to blend stories into conversations.

Ronald Regan used this skill during his Cold War negotiations with the Soviets. When tensions ran high, he would interject a light-hearted story to bring the boil in the room down to a simmer. His timing during these moments was extraordinary.

Calibrated stories can help show empathy, comprehension, establish credibility, persuade and strengthen relationships.

Learn business storytelling telling frameworks and stockpile your stories so they are ready for deployment when needed.

Ok, off to find breakfast….or maybe join those women for an airport morning beer

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For those of you who do not know me, I build sales pipelines and develop?leadership training programs?that help companies increase business across regions and?prepare next-gen leaders?for tomorrow's global threats and?#hybridwork?opportunities. My courses and coaching are both live and digital.

I wrote a book about the lessons learned, good, bad and ugly, when expanding into foreign markets called?The Accidental Business Nomad: A Survival Guide for Working Across a Shrinking Planet.??It makes fun of the hyper-growth expectations over the last few decades and won the 2021 Axiom Business Book Award and has been translated into traditional Chinese.

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