Goldcrest Partners can help your global teams align, collaborate and perform together to achieve your business. We can also work with your global leaders to help them develop the skills necessary to excel in a global role.
Optimising Teamwork
Global teams are, by definition, dispersed across multiple time zones and where cultural differences between team members can be pronounced. Understanding the impact of these differences and how to leverage them is a specialist set of skills.
Maximising Global Working
At Goldcrest Partners we believe that there are 3 useful things to consider when thinking about how to maximise the effectiveness of Global Working:
Connection
The need to belong is part of the human condition. When people are co-located, social groups form naturally, especially when they have a shared culture. Affinity to a group enhances discretionary effort and collaborative behaviours. To achieve this, global leaders must be deliberate and purposeful in building a cohesive team dynamic – one that creates social glue, connectivity and allows for healthy conflict.
While collaborative online tools have improved greatly in recent years and should be exploited to the fullest, in-person events remain beneficial. This is particularly true when forming a new senior team or taking on a significant opportunity or challenge. Given face-to-face events are costly and infrequent they should be designed for maximum impact.
Context
Co-located teams benefit significantly from the constant informal exchange of information – ‘water cooler chat’. Global leaders must provide clear, frequent and meaningful team communications that reinforce a shared vision and effectively maintain alignment. Global leaders must also work with peers and other business units to ensure that dispersed team members remain effectively connected to and supported by the broader organisation.
For communications to land as intended and produce the desired response, global leaders must recognise and accommodate the cultural norms and expectations of the entire team.
Control
The effectiveness of global teams is greatly enhanced when the logistical challenges (of time and distance) are minimised by creating a high-trust environment through appropriate delegation, supporting local autonomy and empowerment. Failure to delegate decision rights effectively results in inefficient and low-trust teams and ultimately frustrated, disengaged team members. Where Head office approval is an appropriate measure, the decision process must be swift and transparent.
How global leaders respond to occasional (non-systemic) issues is also critical. Individual issues should be treated as learning opportunities – can we improve our systems, processes, or training? — not as an excuse to reduce or remove delegated authorities.
Global Working Case Studies
Global Working Insights
