Building a Culture of Trust: Strategies for Fearless Team Dynamics

Posted on 16. March 202416. March 2024 by Tania Pellegrini

Have you ever found yourself in a meeting room where you really want to speak up and say what’s on your mind, but instead of blurting it out you decide it’s safer and wiser to keep it locked up inside? Or maybe you’ve noticed a colleague holding back a valuable idea. This is the face of fear in the corporate environment and it has more power than we’d like to admit. In this post I’d like to look at creating fearless team dynamics.

What separates high performing teams from the rest is the presence of trust. When there is fear instead of trust, team members conceal weaknesses and mistakes. However, before looking at creating a culture of trust and a culture of fearless team dynamics, let’s look at fear.

What do individuals fear in corporate organisations?

There are several reasons why individuals might feel afraid in an organisation.

Fear of loss of reputation, position or job security
Fear of judgment (from peers and senior management)
Fear of failure (what happens if…)
Fear of being ridiculed by peers

With this feeling of fear, individuals hesitate to ask for help. Consequently, they jump to conclusions about others’ intentions, hold grudges, and dread meetings. subsequently, they have difficulty making decisions, miss deadlines, deliver mediocre work, and lack focus and clear objectives.

All in all, fear hinders teamwork and overall team performance. As team leaders, we need to learn to transform fear into trust. To create fearless team dynamics we need to convey the understanding that individuals can speak up and share their ideas without fearing consequences.

How to build trust in cognitively diverse teams

Amy Edmondson’s concept of psychological safety shows how individuals thrive in environments where they can voice their unique perspectives without fear of retribution.

Teaming is the art of communicating and coordinating with people across boundaries of all kinds – expertise, status, and distance, to name the most important. But whether you’re teaming with new colleagues all the time or working in a stable team, effective teamwork happens best in a psychologically safe workplace.”
Amy Edmondosn, “The Fearless Organisation”

Her research illuminates the path from fear to trust through showing respect and openness or as some say, transparency. I’d like to focus on those two factors for this post because neither is simple in teams that have cognitive diversity.

Showing respect around the world

The way you show respect around the globe, can differ greatly. In every situation that we face, we need to remember that we judge implicitly according to our normality. So if your understanding of showing respect is shaking someone’s hand when you greet them and perhaps in a team meeting you tell them bluntly that you disagree with their idea, that is your normality.

We need to keep in mind that our normality is just that. It is normal to us, but that does not mean that our team members also believe that is the correct way of showing respect to someone. Their cultural backgrounds and experiences will determine what they view as showing respect.

If your colleagues do it differently, you might misunderstand them or you perhaps judge them harshly. Once we start judging people, we start jumping to conclusions and there goes psychological safety and trust out the window.

The software engineer and the head of marketing

Imagine that on our very diverse team we have a 23 year old Dutch software engineer and a 48 year old Mexican Head of Marketing. The way we demonstrate respect to them will differ according to their normality. How do they view respect? Only then can we reciprocate correctly.

Perhaps the Dutch software engineer has been brought up in an environment where respect is shown by telling an individual (irrespective of their role) straight up, directly, what they think. Even if it’s something that can sound negative such as a disagreement.

The way we show respect can vary, and we usually show respect according to how we see respect.

Try that same technique with the Mexican Head of Marketing. Imagine if he has been brought up in an environment where social status depends heavily on seniority and age. Imagine you’re in a team meeting, and you’re two levels beneath him in the organisation. If you transfer a negative comment about something he has said or done, bluntly, you could make him lose face, lose respect for you and likely not want to work with you again.

Transparency

What about the element of transparency? As leaders, we are expected to encourage transparent communication if we endevour to have psychological safety on our team. Yet, transparent communication is also an element that is very cultural.

Imagine you have a colleague who likes black and white communication. This colleague is content to say, “No, I don’t think that your idea will work” to your face. In a team situation where black and white communication is appreciated, that type of transparency would work. But what if you have a colleague who was brought up in a society where the mere sound of the word, “No”, or any form of disagreement can appear to be a high level of disrespect and a sign of breaking a harmonious relationship? How do you expect that colleague to say exactly what is on their mind in a team meeting?

It is up to you to help them. You need to modify your communication, in a way to have them tell you what is on their mind. It’s up to you to formulate the correct questions. Consider questions that do not seem intimidating or that are very open. This technique allows enough space for the person to tell you what is really challenging them.

We mustn’t jump to the assumption that our colleagues’ passport determines their communication techniques. It is our passport, profession, religion, age and also the society we were brought up, amongst other factors, that influence our communication.

Creating fearless team dynamics

In conclusion, the journey from fear to trust within cognitively diverse teams is vital for fostering an environment where every member can thrive. Fear, stemming from various sources such as the fear of judgment, failure, or loss, can severely hinder teamwork and overall performance. However, by prioritizing the cultivation of trust, leaders can unlock the full potential of their teams.

Central to this transformation is the establishment of psychological safety. This concept emphasizes creating an environment where individuals feel safe to voice their perspectives without fear of repercussion. Yet, achieving this requires a deep understanding of cultural nuances in communication and respect.

Respect, a cornerstone of trust-building, manifests differently across cultures. What may be perceived as respectful communication in one cultural context could be viewed as disrespectful in another. Similarly, transparency, another key element, needs to be tailored to accommodate diverse communication styles. Leaders must navigate these differences sensitively, ensuring that all team members feel empowered to express themselves.

By embracing cultural differences and fostering an environment where every voice is valued, teams can transcend fear and unlock their collective potential to thrive.

Thriving Teams? “It’s not about comfort and happiness.”

Posted on 12. January 202412. January 2024 by Tania Pellegrini

In a recent podcast by The Economist¹, Amy Edmondson, author of “The Fearless Organisation” stated that there is a misconception that psychological safety equates to happiness and comfort in a team.

Psychological safety is not the absence of stress and it’s not job security, it is the absence of interpersonal fear.
Amy Edmondson

What is Psychological Safety?

Psychological safety is the belief that individuals feel safe for interpersonal risk-taking. It gives team members the space to speak up and state their opinion or to make errors. Consequently, they can admit to having made the error without having to hide what was really done.

Consequently, psychological safety is prevalent in teams where individuals have mutual respect and trust. Generally, most of us want to be liked and want to be seen as competent at fulfilling our tasks. However, if there is fear of being laughed at when we state our thoughts, we prefer to keep quiet.

If psychological safety is absent in a team culture, usually there is negative prejudging amongst colleagues. This influences individuals to not be authentic and to have to hide their true thoughts and ideas.

Innovation Creates Growth

A psychologically safe environment encourages team members to share new ideas without fear of judgment, leading to increased innovation. Generally, when team members feel safe, they are more likely to take risks. They then learn from failures, and use setbacks as opportunities for growth.

In effect, it creates team spirit and collaboration. Basically, individuals listen to one another and support one another by asking for help and giving help where necessary.

In turn, it creates a team culture that allows for growth and high performance.

Open Communication

Trust, collaboration and innovation open the room for constructive feedback which fosters open communication. This in turn helps team members learn and grow collaboratively.

Google conducted a study called Project Aristotle to identify the key factors that make a successful team. As a result, the study found that the most important factor in predicting a team’s effectiveness was the presence of psychological safety.

The Leader’s Role

Team leaders play a crucial role in building this safe environment. Chiefly, it is the leaders who need to consciously give each individual the time and space in each meeting to express themselves and to ensure that feedback is given when learning is necessary.

Think about how you react when bad news is expressed. Do you get angry, show your frustrations or raise your voice to the person sharing the bad news?

Consider instead, to reward the person who admits to having made a mistake. Explain to them how they can learn from it and share their learnings with the others on the team.

Building Trust in Culturally Diverse Teams

Multicultural teams can often find it more challenging to build psychological safety. Culture influences the way we build trust and give feedback. Similarly, it also impacts whether it is acceptable to give one’s personal opinion in a public setting.

Leaders of multicultural teams need to first be aware of what cultural values might be impacting each individual on the team before they can consider the best approach to encouraging psychological safety.

For example, imagine you are leading a team where one individual has been brought up to always show that they are confident and need to be in the spotlight. On the same team, you have an individual who has grown up to learn that showing you are better than your colleagues is a loss of face. How would you encourage the latter person to speak up?

To conclude

We have seen briefly that psychological safety is not about comfort and happiness, it is a key factor in creating a team culture where individuals are encouraged to express their opinions, take risks and make mistakes all without the fear of being mocked, laughed at, or retributed.

Remember that a team culture reflects what is encouraged, reinforced and rewarded within the group.

What can you do to help build psychological safety in your team?

The Economist Podcast, Boss Class 4, Inside The Yellow Line ↩︎

How to elevate team morale and collaboration with Cultural Intelligence

Posted on 12. December 202312. December 2023 by Tania Pellegrini

You can elevate team morale and foster effective communication through cultural intelligence.

Individuals in culturally diverse teams can often have very diverse communication preferences. These might range from direct and assertive to more indirect and diplomatic approaches. Despite some teammates preferring give feedback on the spot, irrespective of who is present, others prefer to do it in a roundabout way, perhaps over a cup of coffee in the team break area. The former can offend team members who are not accustomed to it and the latter can confuse those who see communication more as black and white without any grey areas.

Cultural Intelligence can help elevate team morale and foster effective communication

Effective communication fosters a collaborative environment and creates harmony by allowing team members to express themselves in their preferred manner rather than in the manner that the majority of the team feel is acceptable.

In culturally diverse teams, sometimes team members lack awareness of teammates’ values, assuming that everyone communicates the same way, that feedback should be given exactly the same and that all emails should be written according to one format.

However, we all have different problem-solving skills and the way we speak and write is highly connected to how we think, see the world, create relationships and problem solve.

If we overlook these diverse communication styles and assume that all team members communicate the same way, we can fall into misalignment and miss our objectives. Let’s look at a brief case study.

Case Study: The Project Deadline Dilemma

Background: In a dynamic marketing agency, a team of creative professionals was tasked with delivering a high-stakes project with a tight deadline. The team comprised individuals with diverse roles, including designers, writers, and project managers.

The Misalignment: The project manager, Alex, was known for their direct and succinct communication style. They believed in concise updates and straightforward instructions to keep the project on track. On the other hand, Sarah, the lead designer, had a more collaborative and big picture approach. She preferred detailed discussions to ensure a thorough understanding of the creative aspects of the project.

As the project progressed, communication challenges started to emerge. Alex assumed that brief updates, including emails made up of bullet points, were sufficient for everyone. Sarah, on the other hand, felt left out of crucial decision-making processes. She struggled to join all the dots without the big picture elements she needed to problem-solve. Moreover, the lack of detailed communication, for her, led to misunderstandings about the creative direction, and deadlines began to slip.

Alex not only did not elevate team morale, they created exclusion, lack of collaboration and undermined team spirit.

Consequences of not using cultural intelligence

1. Missed Milestones: Due to the misalignment in communication styles, the team missed several project milestones, impacting the overall timeline.

2. Frustration and Tension: Team members, especially Sarah, became frustrated due to the perceived lack of involvement in decision-making. This tension started affecting team dynamics.

3. Quality Compromises: The final deliverables did not meet the expected quality standards because of the miscommunication on creative elements.

Resolution: Recognising the misalignment, the team decided to hold a workshop that was not related to work objectives but rather to discuss their cultural values which in turn impacted their communication.

Cultural Intelligence helps us understand the differing values of our teammates, highlighting what communication techniques they prefer. This in turn leads to improved collaboration, on time delivery and elevates team morale.

“Culturally-diverse teams: How to nurture them to psychological safety”

Posted on 11. December 202311. December 2023 by Tania Pellegrini

What are the key indicators of a thriving team? What does it feel like to lead and be a team member of a flourishing team? These questions go beyond meeting targets and deadlines; they delve into the heart of a team’s success.

In the dynamic landscape of today’s workplaces, where cultural intelligence, diversity, and psychological safety play pivotal roles, understanding the pulse of your team is more crucial than ever.

In this article we explore three indicators that signify not just a productive team but a truly thriving one. An environment where cultural intelligence is cultivated, diversity is celebrated, and psychological safety is the cornerstone of success. An environment therefore where a leader and their team members together, create a culture where each member feels they can be themselves and are accepted for who they are.

With each indicator we will give you a strategy to help create that success indicator in your team.

A thriving team is the backbone of any successful organisation. It’s not just about meeting deadlines; it’s about creating a collaborative and positive environment that fosters creativity, productivity, and employee satisfaction. Let’s look at three key indicators.

Key Indicator 1: Effective Communication

Strategy 1: Style-Shifting for more effective communication in culturally diverse teams

“A culture of silence is a dangerous culture.” Effective communication is the cornerstone of a thriving team, and the ability to style-shift plays a pivotal role. Style-shifting involves adapting communication styles to resonate with diverse team members.

In a multicultural team, varying communication preferences and cultural nuances can influence understanding. Leaders must be adept at recognising these differences and adjusting their communication approach accordingly.

Consider a scenario where a manager, Sarah, oversees a team with members from various cultural backgrounds. One team member, Ahmed, values direct communication, while another, Mei, appreciates a more indirect and nuanced approach.

Recognising these differences, Sarah employs style-shifting techniques in her communication. In team meetings, she ensures clear and concise directives for Ahmed, while providing additional context and allowing space for discussion with Mei.

By adapting her communication style to each team member’s preferences, Sarah not only fosters understanding but also creates an inclusive environment where diverse voices are heard.

Key indicator 2: High Level Engagement

Strategy 2: Style-shift to motivate culturally diverse teams

Motivating a culturally diverse team requires a nuanced understanding of individual and collective motivations. Different cultures may place distinct values on teamwork, individual contributions, or recognition. Leaders need to identify and leverage these cultural dynamics by style-shifting to create an environment that resonates with every team member.

High-level engagement goes beyond task assignments; it involves understanding personal and cultural motivators. It acknowledges diverse perspectives, and fosters an inclusive atmosphere where everyone feels heard and valued.

In this culturally diverse team, Sarah delves deeper into understanding individual motivations. She learns that Ahmed finds motivation in personal recognition for his achievements, whereas Mei values contributions that benefit the team as a whole.

Sarah, recognising these differences, tailors her motivational approach. She publicly acknowledges Ahmed’s accomplishments, highlighting his individual contributions. Whereas with Mei, she focuses on the collective achievements of the team. By acknowledging and catering to diverse motivations, Sarah ensures that each member feels valued and motivated in their unique way.

Key Indictor 3: Resilience

Strategy 3: Style-shift to inspire you team in the face of uncertainty

Resilience is a critical trait for any team, and inspiring resilience in a diverse group requires strategic leadership. Cultural diversity often brings varied perspectives on adversity and coping mechanisms. Leaders can inspire resilience by acknowledging and respecting diverse approaches to challenges.

An example would be to encourage open dialogue about overcoming setbacks. Perhaps share stories of triumph over adversity, and promote a culture where failure is seen as an opportunity for growth. By fostering resilience in a diverse group, leaders empower their teams to adapt, learn, and thrive in the face of uncertainty.

In a challenging project, the team faces unexpected setbacks. Sarah takes this opportunity to style shift and inspire resilience within the culturally diverse group. She organises a team discussion where members, draw from their varied cultural backgrounds and share stories of overcoming adversity.

Ahmed for example, discusses how his cultural upbringing taught him the importance of perseverance, while Mei shares insights from her culture’s approach to collaborative problem-solving.

Through this exchange, the team gains a deeper understanding of each other and learns to appreciate diverse perspectives on resilience. This dialogue fosters a culture of resilience, where the team collectively faces challenges with a newfound strength drawn from their cultural diversity.

Effective communication, high-level engagement and resilience

In summary, effective communication, high-level engagement, and resilience are vital components of a thriving team. Style-shifting enables leaders to communicate with clarity and understanding. Recognising individual motivations within a cultural framework helps build engagement.

Finally, inspiring resilience in a diverse group requires embracing and learning from the varied perspectives on overcoming challenges. Using this approach enhances team dynamics and promotes a workplace culture that celebrates diversity and harnesses its strengths.

How to create engagement in your global team using inclusive feedback

Posted on 25. February 20201. December 2021 by Tania Pellegrini

How often are you asked by your colleagues, “Could you take a look at my presentation and tell me what you think?” This seems like a harmless task. So you take a look and say, “It looks good, maybe just change the blue border around the graph to green.”

Hmmm. What do you think has just been understood by Lila, the colleague who asked for your opinion? Inclusion is not about treating everybody equally, it is about treating each and every individual according to what gives them a feeling of belonging.

a) She thinks she´s done a great job and will just change the blue border to green, or

b) She thinks you hate the whole presentation and she will be up all night to rewrite it all.

Feedback is hard enough when we are dealing with people who have a similar mindset to ours. We´re usually a little uncomfortable telling somebody that the work they have done is not quite what was expected. When we give feedback to people who were brought up in a similar environment to ours, we are usually aware of the best way to do it. We pick up on small patterns of behaviour that are are part of the culture we grow up in. As we grow up, we see, listen and copy how people act and react to what we say and how we say it; be it at school from friends and teachers and then when we join the work-force our colleagues and managers use patterns that we recognise and we copy knowing it works.

However, it is all too easy to make unknown errors working in culturally diverse teams and assuming that just because we work for the same company and are aware of the corporate culture, that we are comfortable using the same communication techniques.

If you´ve been brought up in north-western Europe where one of the most important values is often honesty and equality, then feedback can be to the point and direct. You know that the person you´re talking to will likely appreciate your honesty and not take any offence in what you say. Therefore, with our above sample, Lila will literally only go and change the blue line to a green line and then feel her presentation is complete.

However, if Lila happened to grow up in, let´s say, Far East Asia or Latin America, where generally society values relationship-building and saving Face more that telling the “absolute truth”, then she might have understood that her presentation was indeed not good at all and needed to be redone, completely. In these societies generally feedback is given in a far more indirect manner, using techniques such as not mentioning what was not done well. So the fact that the person above only mentioned the colour of the line around the graph and nothing else, could be interpreted to mean that everything that was not mentioned was not to be re-worked.

Let´s look at the above example again and see how the feedback can be treated if Lila really is from a culture where trust is created through relationship-building and face-saving is important. Ideally you create an environment where a discussion can take place rather than just give your opinion:

Firstly, always give feedback one-on-one, never in public

2. Rather than give your opinion, ask the other person what they think about the work they have just done; “So Lila, how do you feel the presentation looks?

3. If Lila says she likes it, (and yet you think there are still some adjustments to be made) then perhaps ask, “If you had to give it a score from 1-10, what score would you give it?” Lila replies, “I´d give it an 8”. “So,” you reply, “how can we bring it from 8 to 9?” and that is where the feedback discussion begins.

Being culturally savvy means learning to read communication patterns that are different to the ones you were brought up with and knowing when to change your communication techniques (verbal and non-verbal) according to the cultural background of the team member you are facing. If you work in a multicultural team, that could mean either changing your communication with every person on the team or deciding with the team openly and up front which communication techniques will be used to express such thoughts. That would be “creating the team culture” a method of behaviour and communication that everyone on the team is happy with.

When do culturally diverse teams become high performing?

Posted on 13. December 20163. December 2021 by Tania Pellegrini

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

When do culturally diverse teams become high performing teams? Usually not immediately. Sometimes we need to slow-down in order to move faster.

Gender is only one factor of diversity

Gender is one factors of culturally diverse global teams. Men and women do have different ways of viewing the world, of living life and of doing business in general, but it is just one of the factors. Focusing on gender difference alone when striving for diversity does not create high-performing teams.

A 26-year-old male Brazilian software engineer who grew up on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro has a fairly different perspective of the world compared to a 55-year-old female Swiss marketing manager who grew up in the centre of Zurich. But is it’s not their gender alone that creates the filter through which they view the world. In global, project-based teams where organisations bring culturally diverse people together (virtually) so that they can gain on creativity, capitalise on less travel expenses and spend less on expatriate assignments, this culturally diverse combination is very common.

Creating trust in culturally diverse teams differs

Try searching, ‘high performing teams’, and usually the results will come up with a list of attributes that includes trust, dealing with conflict, open communication, giving feedback and valuing diversity. The first item on that list needs to be valuing diversity. The way we deal with the previous listed factors differs widely whether we are in Mumbai, Frankfurt, Rio de Janeiro or Shanghai.

Building trust with a Chinese colleague requires a different skill-set to building trust with a colleague from Hamburg. Giving feedback to a Brazilian requires very different competencies to giving feedback to a Swiss colleague. Only once we understand what the different cultural values of our colleagues are can be begin to value them and only then can we begin to contemplate how to build trust with them or how to deal with conflict in the team.

Let’s look at an example. We’ll take our two colleagues above, the software engineer from Rio and the marketing manager from Zurich. What cultural values could these two team members have that might be causing them not to see eye-to-eye?

Destiny and Time

Firstly, let’s start with their relationship to destiny and time. We’ll insert the competency of giving feedback, just to give the example a bit more depth. These are components that every ‘high-performing’ team member in any project-based team is expected to deal with daily.

Generally, a German-speaking Swiss usually feels that they are the master of their own destiny. They will wake up in the morning and plan out their day hour-by-hour (well actually, let’s face it, if you’ve ever worked with the Swiss, you know it’s closer to nano-minute by nano-minute planning), and ensure that they do everything possible within that day to reach the objectives they have set themselves.

That is to say, they won’t have any qualms about telling you that they can only speak to you on the phone for 11 more minutes because in 12 minutes they need to make another phone call. This same person is also not reluctant to give her boss some feedback at her upcoming performance evaluation telling him that his delegation skills are not great and that’s why she’s had a difficult year.

Direct speech

Speaking directly and telling the truth, no matter how difficult it might be to hear, is what a German speaking Swiss generally feels is the best policy. Planning has always been an important attribute in Switzerland. Switzerland is a country of very little natural resources with only about ten percent of its land being arable due to all its lakes, mountains and rivers. Therefore, human capital is its prime resource and in the “pre-freezer age”, parent needed to plan well ahead to be able to feed their young.

‘Let’s make sure we harvest all the fruit by mid-October so that we can preserve it for the winter and continue to feed our children.’

That is what a Swiss person would usually call a healthy relationship to time.

Now let’s look at our Brazilian software engineer. Our engineer generally believes that fate will ensure whether or not the container of goods expected to be delivered on Thursday afternoon actually arrives then or not. Brazil is such a plentiful nation where twelve months a year you can go out and harvest fruit or find scurrying animals in the forest who can provide food.

The forest doesn’t freeze over so there isn’t that much need to plan far in advance. Life will work itself out. Plus let’s not forget the very unstable economy that the Brazilians have had to deal with this last century. In the 1990s they had inflation percentages of 3 to 4 digits.

‘Whatever I have in my pockets today won’t be worth anything tomorrow, so why save it, how can I possibly plan for tomorrow? I live for today and God willing, things will go well.’

That went very well, thanks be to God!

A couple of years ago around a dinner table following a tedious and arduous seminar, a Brazilian colleague of mine remarked with a big smile on her face, ‘That went well, thanks be to God.’ The non-Brazilian colleague sitting with us told her quite abruptly, ‘It had nothing to do with God, we planned well.’ That did not go down very well.

‘Leave it to Batman’

Filipinos tend to use the term ‘Bahala Na’, ‘What will be will be’, or more traditionally, ‘Leave it to God’. Recently a Filipino in one of my workshops told me that young Filipinos today have started to give the credit to Batman, ‘Bahala na si Batman’ (leave it up to Batman). ‘Sure, Mum, I’ll be home by midnight…, if Batman wills it’.

And when it comes to giving negative feedback, well, let’s say that the Brazilians are generally far more indirect than the German-speaking Swiss at expressing negative opinions. Brazilians tend to want to save face, theirs and the people they are speaking to. Speaking indirectly keeps the harmony, the good relationship and ensures nobody is offended. That doesn’t mean they don’t give feedback, but it means you need to learn to understand it when they give it.

When you ask for feedback in culturally diverse teams you need to know how to understand it

I recollect a number of times while working in Brazil, where I had asked my team members to read over some documents to let me know if any errors had been made. Over a two-year span and many long documents, my Brazilian colleagues had not mentioned a single word to change. My French colleagues having read the same documents later on made a million amendments… What I hadn’t understood was the Brazilian way of giving feedback.

Conclusion – ask questions

So what happens when a Swiss person is working on a project team with a Brazilian or a Filipino? How can they give feedback that will not be taken as face-losing criticism? How do they deal with conflict and build trust and accountability?

So, if you ask, “Is the delivery arriving on Thursday?” and the answer is related to fate, make sure you ask many open-ended questions to figure out what the real challenges are that the team might be facing.

A ‘Culturally Diverse High Performing Team’ needs to understand what the cultural values of its team members are and only then can each member start to see each situation through the perspective of the other team members. And only then can the team envisage creating its own ‘third culture’ or team charter to which it will function.