The New Nomad

Virtual Teams Across Cultures: Small Talk to Cultural Competence with Theresa Hollema | TNN41

January 31, 2022 Andrew Jernigan and Allen Koski Episode 41
The New Nomad
Virtual Teams Across Cultures: Small Talk to Cultural Competence with Theresa Hollema | TNN41
Show Notes Transcript

Globalization has become part of the modern world, but many are yet to understand how it affects their lives. Communicating with other people thousands of miles away is a breeze. You can even find out about events happening around the world from the comfort of your home. All you need is an internet connection. Theresa Hollema, author of the book Virtual Teams Across Cultures: Create Successful Teams Around the World, would agree that distance is not a barrier anymore.

In this episode of The New Nomad, our hosts Andrew Jernigan and Allen Koski, together with Theresa,  talked about the pros and cons of having a globally located team. They discussed the strategies to build camaraderie within the team and how to make every workday more fun with activities created for a culturally diverse team. This episode is extremely helpful for everyone working remotely to understand the challenges and create workarounds for a more fun and productive team environment. Truly worth listening to!

[1:55] What are you grateful for?

[4:51] The role of technology in globally located teams

[13:59] Overcoming our unconscious biases

[23:43] Diversity could lead to creativity

[26:21] Being vulnerable and making the human connection

[32:13] We all make mistakes


GUEST BIO:

Theresa Hollema is the author of “Virtual Teams Across Cultures: Create Successful Teams Around the World” and speak, write and blog about current developments in the field. As a consultant, trainer, facilitator, and team coach, she focuses on supporting leaders and teams to develop cultural competence, improve team collaboration and succeed virtually.

Theresa sees value in the science-practice link and her approach is to translate concepts and models based on research into practical business solutions. Her work can take different forms depending on your needs: team development programs, corporate academy programs, custom-designed workshops, online team support, speaking engagements. The impact of the work leads to improvements in innovation, leadership, performance, and team collaboration.


Theresa Hollema Links:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/theresasigillitohollema
Website: interact-global.net
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Theresa-Sigillito-Hollema/e/B08BKQZJ1Z%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share


Follow Insured Nomads at:

Instagram: @insurednomads

www.insurednomads.com





Allen  

Hello and welcome again to The New Nomad podcast. Theresa Hollema will join us today, virtual teams across cultures. We're gonna have some really interesting conversation on unconscious bias, nonverbal. We're gonna learn a lot today. And you know, I know many of you out there in the audience, now they manage teams across cultures, but you're a member of teams across culture. And today, we're going to have a great conversation how to make that easier. And I think one of the things that I've learned recently working with Andrew, is we also have teams in the Philippines, and the United Kingdom, and Germany, across the United States. And on our team calls, we start with something unique and different to draw people out, and have everybody engaged in the conversation. Andrew, I'm going to turn it over to you because you you instituted this and I think it's tremendous. And it's a way that the team has gotten to know each other much better. It's all yours.


Andrew  

Well, you know, it's, we're faced with so many challenges, all of us are. And we come in with a task we're working on, we come in with different personal issues that we're walking through. Everyone comes with different filters from work environments, that they've experienced, personalities that didn't allow for you humaneness or vulnerability or kindness, even in the workplace. And, you know, just to set the tone in a good mood, I experienced this in a different, different workplace. And it to me, it's so important to express gratitude. So we start our meetings with what are you grateful for? And that may have a variance to the question, it may be a bit more specific, or someone that you need to express gratitude to because gratefulness is one of the key values in our company. And it's, it has provoked a, a dialogue and topics that really we wouldn't have hit on previously. And let us see the different sides of of those who are, you know, from Canada, or from Germany, or from different places that, that we may not see on a normal basis, the Dutch, the different ones to say, you know, thankful that getting married, or you know, and didn't know it, yet, we didn't know it, or, you know, the cat, the dog, the family member, the person who stepped up during a funeral process that, you know, they weren't aware that they had those skills. So that's, that's, you know, I'm grateful for this team that we lead around the world and but going beyond that, to something of depth, has provided a lot of value with our globally distributed team. I look forward to what Theresa brings into this today. How about you, Allen? 


Allen  

Yeah, I mean, back to the conversation about gratefulness, it's also creates deeper bonds. But I think it also grounds us in the fact that people have other priorities in their life at a given time. And if you have that conversation, and you realize, while I was asking for this particular project to be completed, the person may have lost the loved one, a great friend, and there's, they're hurting. And this is not the right time for certain things. I mean, and obviously, when you're in an office environment, you know, people walk from desk to desk, but this, this is kind of a way of keeping that going. And I'm going to bring Theresa into the conversation. Because Theresa, you know so much about the subject, you know, the issues about bringing people together in this virtual environment, at least we can see each other now, and I'll add an added piece a couple years ago, this could have been a call and you wouldn't have any imagery. So we wouldn't be able to even see the nonverbal stuff, which we only see a tiny bit of. So I'd love to turn over to you and what you've seen that's changed in the last few years, but also some of your ideas and what we talked about this morning about managing teams, across cultures.


Theresa  

Well, thank you very much for inviting me to be here and discussing this topic with you virtual teams across cultures. Because, as you maybe recognize, and a lot of people recognizes that this is going to be happening more and more. I've been a cultural consultant for 15 years and I've been focusing on the virtual aspect for seven years. So way before the pandemic because we've had global teams, we've had multinationals that have wanted people to to work across locations for whatever strategic reasons that they had. So, I have been focused on this topic for many, many years. And, and it will increase. And the reason it will increase are a couple first off, that technology is improving. Allen, you said, we couldn't have done this a couple years ago, by seeing each other, we had this octopus telephone thing on our desk, and we were all talking around it. But now the technology is amazing that we can really see each other had have emotions being shown and nodding and things like that. So the technology is continuing to improve. 


Theresa  

Second is we can do this, the pandemic has shown that it does work. A lot of us knew that before the pandemic, but that pandemic has reinforced that. And then finally, the planet is in code red, we cannot travel as much as we did before. It's just becoming, you know, very difficult for many, many reasons. So, but we still want to collaborate and we have global issues that we need to face. So I'm, this is a hot topic, the important topic, in fact, and many people are working virtually in teams like yours, I really would like to comment on your team for a moment and the ritual that you have. Because when you are co located you have huge benefit of walls of location of a canteen of sight and sound that you can touch and you can see each other and, and you feel belonging in that space. And yet, when we're working virtually, we still need to have that feeling of belonging. But we don't have the walls, maybe we have a shared plant, everybody has the same plant on their desk, which helps. But I really liked the ritual that you all are implementing about gratitude, because it's a value of the company. And so I hope to have a repetition of our values. Even though we're far away, we still have something that connects us together, shared goals, shared values, shared rituals, whatever that may be as well. So I'm I like what you, you're the ritual that you have. 


Theresa  

And if I may say one more reason I like the ritual that you have is that your teams are all in different locations. And that means that they are probably coming from different cultures as well, and different ways of working. And I believe it is through the team that we have an opportunity to learn about each other's culture. And by asking a question of what are you grateful for, it can open up a dialogue about something that's very local, that you that you're going to be learning through that question. So I think those kinds of icebreaker questions can be really powerful. For instance, I worked with another team and we asked the question, What did you want to be when you were 10 years old? You know, just a icebreaker question. And we learned about the cultures and the childhood of each country because of asking that kind of a question. So those are very powerful, as as far as helping the team to know each other better.


Allen  

You touched upon some of that I think is is kind of interesting is obviously we have different cultures, and we have a conversation. And sometimes which is unfocused small talk, I don't think is as well accepted. Because different cultures love small talk. Maybe I'm in that category, and others feel uncomfortable with it. But what I like about instituting kind of in you, you use the word ritual, or a curated type of process, I feel that the people that are involved in that across different cultures, first are not surprised, but secondly seem to take very favourably to that. So maybe your comment about more of a ritualistic discussion versus the the American love of small talk.


Theresa  

Well, yes, I mean, if depending on who's on the team, and the American love of small talk can sometimes be very small compared to what other cultures would like to talk, right? We like to say, two or three minutes, and then we're done. Let's move on. Whereas others say wait a minute, that's just not enough. I want to get to know you better. And by the way, I don't want to get to know you better just in a meeting. Let's have a conversation one on one or one on two, where we can, the purpose of the meeting is to get to know each other. So there are different ways of connecting and different different expectations of how much we have to know each other in order to get work done. And the reason we're doing that is to build trust to build relationship so that I know what makes you tick beyond just what tasks you have on your list.


Andrew  

So Teresa, you you wrote a book Virtual Teams Across Cultures:

 Create Successful Teams Around the World. Why What brought that on? And what are some of the the nuggets if someone doesn't go out and download that or add it to their audible which I hope everyone listening does, but what what are some of the reasons behind that work and the the insights that you felt necessary to share?


Theresa  

So, I, as I mentioned, I have, I have a business background and 15 years ago, I became a cultural consultant, and then focusing on teams and then focusing on virtual work. So these and leadership of those teams, so global virtual work has been my, my focus area for many, many years. And what I noticed when I was deciding to write a book was that there are many books on cultural diversity, models, and people writing about country specific things. And there are many books on working virtually working remotely, but very few books that bring those together. And for me, working in multinationals is what I saw people doing that they were working and leading multicultural virtual teams. So I believe they went together. But I was curious how they go together. So I decided to tap into three sources to write my book. The first was my own consulting practice, I have many clients that are multinationals. And so I was observing and listening to stories and seeing what was happening. The second source was academic research, because I am very interested in the science practice link. And there are many things happening in academia that we don't know in the business community that we could really benefit from. So models and ideas and research that they've done. And it's not just research they do with MBA students that they pay five heroes to not at all, in fact, they're doing more and more research, what they call "in the wild", meaning at companies and long, long term studies that they are really talking to people who are actually working. So are very much focused on those, then translated it into applications. And then my third source were interviews with business leaders and business teams. So I could really find out what's happening and tap in tie the, the research and the practice together. And so my book is filled with stories and examples that hopefully people can relate to. And so that's why I wrote the book, and I'm getting a positive, positive reaction to it as well, people are reading it and recognizing it in themselves as well. I recognize Of course, that not everyone likes to take the time to write read a book, and it takes time. And I'm always, to be honest, as a first time writer, surprise, anyone besides my mother is reading my book. But luckily they are. But I'm also writing many blogs. So short, shorter access to some of these topics, I have excerpts from the book that you can download from my website. And I've also started creating some YouTube videos of sort of micro learning so that people can get the information. I'm just interested in getting the concepts out there and some practices so that people can access it in their the way that they prefer.


Allen  

I was really interested in your conversations and studies on unconscious bias, because obviously, unconscious says it all we don't really understand it. And until it's pointed out to you, usually by a third party, but also to people in work environments, you might even find it in your performance review or your feedback from your your boss or somebody who takes you aside. And that's not the time you typically want to learn about it. You want to learn and and have your biases understood, so then you don't reflect them in a negative way. Could you talk a little bit about a couple examples, perhaps of the unconscious biases that that people tend to miss sometimes and maybe ways whether they find a person to talk to like yourself and have a discussion, because I think that hinders a lot of people not only in careers, but in life when they keep blundering in and really don't look at themselves closely.


Theresa  

And that is the topic I love to take some time to dive into my own unconscious biases. So I put that as a priority, because we all have them. But becoming more aware of them helps us to engage with the world in a different way to engage with people in a different way that hopefully tries to overcome those biases. And then global virtual teams, they are there for sure. So one example, is called proximity bias, that we think more favourably about the person themselves or about the ideas that they have for people that are nearby, compared to those that are far away. So my colleague close by is what a great idea they had and I'm more supportive and I and giving them a better performance review and all these other proximity biases that we need to be aware of. And by the way, that's one that's going to show up probably maybe in the hybrid that we're starting to see happening as companies go back to the office. So we need to be aware of that one. 


Theresa  

Another one, which I found some really nice research is called majority-minority bias. And this I think happens in a virtual team, a multicultural virtual team. In this story, in this research, they had two Dutch people, one German and one person from China. And who had the most information? Well, in this exercise, the two Dutch had the most information, because they are the majority, two people together. But interestingly, the German had also a lot of information, because from a cultural point of view, relative to everyone else, the German was culturally close to the two Dutch. So they were sharing information with each other. The person who had the least information was the Chinese colleague. But what was interesting was the Chinese colleague was sharing information with the Dutch and the German, but it wasn't going back. And that we call majority-minority bias and information is hugely important, especially on a virtual team, where information is how we connect with each other. And therefore, leaders and teams need to be very aware of this bias. And I saw this in action. I was working with Swedish, a team, which was in Sweden, and in India, and the headquarters were in Sweden, they had to engage with a consultant, and the, and then something happened with the consultant. The Swede said, Let's not tell the Indian team, we don't want to upset them. So already, we're holding back on information because of some majority, you know, close, small minority. But in fact, one of them said, no, no, no, we need to tell them about this. She did. And this Indian said, Okay, fine. Now that we know we can deal with it, but that holding back information, because of them over there, and I see over here happens, and we need to be very aware of it. It's an unconscious bias. So those are two examples. But there are many, many more.


Andrew  

So Teresa, you know, it's one of those things where we love to hear from your perspectives, some overlooked aspects, whether it's a person place experience, or a book or podcast even. So what do you what can you share with us that you feel like that the listeners would just appreciate knowing about?


Theresa  

Well, going back to this unconscious bias idea, one of the things I do for my own practice is I listen to a podcast called and it's called Stories of Unconscious Bias. And it's really interesting, unfortunately, I forgot the name of the podcast person, but I highly recommend it. I also have signed up for some newsletters from people who are different than me. So for instance, from an India, a business woman in India, and Africa, African American woman who is now living in Sweden, and they are so generous to say, share their stories and newsletter form so that I can become aware of what of their perspective and, and also start to look at my own bias. So I highly recommend that people get out of their own bubble and start to investigate if they can, and understand the experiences of other people as well. 


Allen  

So Teresa, when I travelled overseas for years, I would go down to the library grabbed the book, written by somebody like Cultural Norms in the Middle East, let's say. And one of the most enlightening books I noticed one day was Cultural Norms in the United States. He was written for people coming in, and I and I took the book home and I read it and like, you know what, there's, there's a lot of little nuggets in here that when you read it as if you're an outsider, coming to the United States, as me as an American, I learned, and it really helped me kind of understand a little bit of how we're perceived, because obviously, some to some folks perception is a reality. But I looked at it and I read so many things. I said, No, I don't necessarily like that. But I agree that that's a common thread that culturally comes through through me and try to change that. So maybe a couple of also tips on how do people really look in the mirror? You know, you know, obviously, you don't have a great podcast, listen to that is a third party but are there a couple ways you know, other than I grab Andrew's head or let's let's have a real conversation about the two of us, what are we visited, they were being somebody else at some other location. And it's always great to have a mentor or a friend or somebody you I really care about, you have that conversation turns out, but I'd love some of your ideas to power through unconscious bias.


Theresa  

So what you're actually referencing in a, in a deeper way, if I may say Allen is developing cultural competence, to be able to work virtually, and to be able to work globally, and one of those ways is understanding yourself as well. But I would like to take a step back, because what my position is that cultural diversity shows up in a virtual team. In AI. In my book, I explained in three ways, I say, within the team, between the locations, and outside the team. And within the team is the cultural diversity that we have been talking about for years, the the way we make decisions, the way we communicate, the expectations of relationship can be very different, depending on the cultures that we come from. And that shows up in the virtual team as well. So what's interesting is, we still need to develop cultural competence, the ability to work with others, but we have to do it while we're sitting in our own countries, because travel has been decreased dramatically. We can no longer go and to Italy, and eat the food and meet the people and see the architecture and feel the essence of the country. No, I have to work with my Italian colleague while I'm sitting here in the Netherlands, in fact. And so how do I do that? How do I get to know them and, and understand their culture? So one of the part of the cultural nurse developing cultural competence is understanding your own cultural influences as you were being raised. And one of those aspects is reading about your own culture, from another person's point of view, like you just recommended those a-ha moments. 


Theresa  

But I'd like to my position is that when we are working virtually, the best place to develop cultural competence is in the virtual team. There's such a great opportunity there. Because like your team, people are coming from other places, they're coming from the Philippines. So UK, the US, Germany, you said, if all of you are learning on your own, you, you you might be going away from each other. But there's such a great opportunity. And by the way, if you're learning on your own, you might be even using stereotypes instead of what's really happening in the team. So for me, that's the place therefore, how do you do it? Well, you go more than just the tasks and the checklists that we have you put learning cultural diversity as a priority. Perhaps bringing in a facilitator to at least start the conversation and start understanding the concept of culture. And then helping people to find the words to to find each other and explain their own cultures, then starting to have practices like the one you recommend you already have with your team. But also, for instance, once a month, a different person, tell us about their country, or putting putting it as a priority, before each meeting, finding out what's happening at each location to say, what are the latest lists, celebrating holidays together, just making it a priority. And there's a reason to do that. Because the beauty of a multicultural or multi location virtual team is the multi locations. The fact that each person is in a different location, that means they have different networks, they have different information sources, they have different education, they have different things that are happening locally. And that information, if shared, could lead towards creativity. The problem in quotes, if I may say is that we communicate differently, we make decisions differently, we have different expectations, that culture part of it. And so no longer going after that and no longer treating it missed, like missed, but really saying well, what how do you like to work? How do I like to work? Let's let's figure this out together, can help the team go a long way towards really being much better than if they were actually co located. The potential is there.


Allen  

what I take away from this is you're creating a feeling of belonging. And it's hard to do until you put some of these processes in place. And I remember a Gallup survey, many years back that people that have a good friend at work, are more likely to enjoy their job and enjoy the company they're with and less likely to leave and, obviously, be less presenteeism, and more you know, and I think one of the things that I know Andrew and I always we struggle with is when everybody's in different locations, you want them to have their feeling of belonging, but also have somebody that they can probably call and have a friend at work, even if that friend at work is in another state, another country, another continent, but they at least know who You know, they they know enough that they can pick up the phone and say, you know, that was a really interesting point you made the other day. Love to explore that deeper. I know, Andrew, we have those type of conversations, often. Your thoughts on that, Andrew, because you've done a great job building a team along those same lines.


Andrew  

Yeah, as far as we have researched the software even to bring collaboration, community, camaraderie, I find those are so lacking, you know, just to be able to log in and say, Okay, I just found the ones who play chess, you know, and I found a bulletin board that tells me that I have a colleague's birthday coming up. Like, that's not adequate enough to pay hundreds per month to, to give someone a very two dimensional view into someone's world. And there's, I know, there's a lot of work that needs to be poured into this, as companies are more and more remote, even if the people are in their own city. Not going to the to the break room. It was a challenge when we were in the same break room, to get people to actually have conversations. And to get beyond Oh, you drink your coffee, black. There's something more personal. 


Andrew  

So of course, as we look at the changes that must be made, as the world is shifting faster and faster into hybrid and remote scenarios, how do we become vulnerable? How do we share that the hard things about the work environment that we dislike? How do we share that things are happening at home that are troubling? How do we share that I'm having a bad day, and there's actually freedom to say that to say, you know, I'm in pain and so I'm not at my best. And so, there's a there's a lot that must be done in this in this regard. And, you know, as I was picturing, I think in images many times and as I was picturing what you what you were saying earlier, Theresa, I thought on one of these next interactions with our globally distributed team, you know, even get painting a word picture of what's outside the building we're working in. What does it look like? You know, for me, there's a small stream, a little park with a bench where I take calls a lot of times, and there's a train that comes by right there. So I have to mute it if I'm thinking about an advance or I may be walking down the down the road, just because it's a quiet road. But then there are others that are in an urban setting. Or they're in a home with kids and dogs and they're sitting on the balcony just because that's the only place that somewhat quiet. So painting that picture so that we can we who can't go knock on their door and visit them and take them take them a box of doughnuts are our dinner. You know, we need to see into someone's world and we can empathize and understand a little bit more.


Theresa  

Yeah, I think what you both are saying is very powerful. And very important as we continue to figure out what how to make this work and it's beyond the software. So Andrew, you're spot on. It's, it's about making human connection. And, and being vulnerable with each other, which needs a layer of trust. We have to know each other well enough to trust each other as well. Interestingly, the concept of belonging has two aspects to it. One is that I feel like I belong to the team, the team is connected. And we are a team. So we have a team goals. And we have, you know, team, maybe a team purpose. And we feel like we are doing this together. There's an interdependence there as well. But there's also then if I feel like I belong, there's also the aspect that I'm valued for my uniqueness. So you know, and those seems to be a dilemma, but we need both in order to feel belong. And part of that uniqueness is where I am, what I'm doing the culture that are from the things I see out my window, and absolutely sharing my uniqueness as a way to build trust and build connection. Like you're just saying, Andrew is, is very powerful for teams. What I see that most teams are doing is not this, right? They're going to the first meeting and they're saying let's start talking about our roles, responsibilities. What we're going to do next meeting, we're going to talk about tasks. I agree we need to know our roles and responsibilities and why we're here those are critical to get started with but so is building that human element as well as getting to know each other as people and not just as an email address. So I completely agree with your post.


Allen  

That's that's good because that for us. It kind of makes us feel good about what we've been working on. Yes, Theresa. Yep.


Theresa  

Yeah, I just want to say one more thing is many leaders as well. And teams think of the team as the meeting. So we meet once a week, and that's our team. And, and a meeting is a moment where the team comes together. But that's not the team, the team is all the interactions that they have in between, for instance, coffees, one on one or one on two, or sub sub-work together. So in interdependence, we need to work together on this. And through that working together, we get to know each other more as well. So it's, it's all those interactions that need to be considered as we're building the team. So as


Allen  

we learned much today, I assume people can catch up with you at Theresa@interact- global.net. Perhaps I'd like could you share with folks quickly on how people could get in touch with you learn more, perhaps have you facilitate, get your book, etc.


Theresa  

Thank you. Yes. So the book is on Amazon, and all online bookstores. So that should be easy available ebook, or paperback. I'm on LinkedIn. And I'm very happy to link with people. And I put a lot of blogs and articles on LinkedIn as well. So that if people want just little nuggets, instead of the full book, it's there as well. I do workshops, I work with people in multinationals or I work with teams. So I'm very happy to have a conversation with what is happening at anyone's situation. And I'm on Twitter, and I have a website, as you mentioned, where there's a lot of information as well, and they can easily contact me. So I am available. So I'm looking forward to contacting with.


Allen  

Andrew, you know, you made some great points, I would love you to have your your final thoughts on what I think, you know, you've done a great job managing virtual teams across culture you've been across different cultures, in your experience, final thoughts.


Andrew  

You know, I think one of my takeaways is that you have to understand yourself, you have to understand your weaknesses. You have to be conscious of the mistakes you make. And be willing to adjust as this as you grow. Because we have to be nonstop students. And I think that's more common for me because I realised daily, I made another mistake. And as we learn about ourselves, the mistakes we make and how to recover and what was done wrong, we're able to do right the next time. So that personal consciousness along with cross cultural competence, we're able to advance and do things more effectively.


Allen  

But you know, Andrew, you touched upon something that we could have a whole nother podcast on is people that are big enough to be able to admit that they make mistakes and learn from it are the people that you really want to surround yourself with. And that's it. That's an extreme talent because there are there are folks out there that tend to never admit that they've ever made a mistake or or don't progress. And 


Andrew  

I thought you're gonna say a whole episode on all my mistakes. 


Allen  

Oh, no, not that would be a short episode. Certainly would be common because we both when we make mistakes, they tend to be funny doozies that we learned from them and we smile, a move on. There isn't anything that can't be fixed, typically. Thanks. So thank you for joining us today. Theresa. We had a great episode today. Please continue to tell others about this podcast. We love to explore. We want people to travel feel comfortable, different cultures, different virtual settings. Thanks again, and travel safely, travel well. Cheers.