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.

Why strive for Cultural Intelligence in today’s global world?

Posted on 25. November 202125. November 2021 by Tania Pellegrini

A colleague of mine was in Thailand a few years back on a business trip. On her last day, her final meeting ran a little longer than planned. She was panicking slightly that she would miss her flight home and as she finally slipped into the back seat of the taxi, she asked the driver, “How long until we reach the airport?” The driver timidly answered with his polite Thai smile, “Sorry Ma’am, do you need to wash your hands?”

I remember laughing very heartily when I first heard this story.

Cultural Intelligence is the skill of interpreting cultural patterns and then adapting our communication to be more effective.

How can such a simple sentence be interpreted so differently to what was really intended? My colleague was really nervous that she was going to miss her return flight to the Netherlands, but the Thai taxi driver thought she needed to use a restroom. In some countries the word “toilet” can seem vulgar and therefore it isn't used. Even restroom was obviously not a word this taxi driver was confident using. So he kindly asked her if she needed to wash her hands, when in fact my colleague just wanted to know how long it would take to reach the airport.

Leading in business with Cultural Intelligence

So what does this have to do with cultural intelligence? If cultural intelligence (CQ) is the skill of interpreting cultural patterns and learning to adapt our communication skills accordingly, then this is a perfect example.

If we were brought up in a society that expects good communication to be clear and transparent, in a business meeting when we ask a simple question such as, “Will the delivery arrive on Thursday?” we expect a simple answer. "Yes it will"or "No I don’t think it will because… " But that “yes/no” answer is a pattern used by societies where it is considered acceptable behaviour to speak directly and actually it is also acceptable to use negative terms without creating discomfort or creating loss of face.

However, if we are dealing with somebody brought up in a culture where a direct, "no" can be considered rude or aggressive that “no” might never come and we are expected to learn a different pattern of communication. Imagine being in Qatar, Japan or Brazil. If you ask that such a “yes / no” question questions to a business associate whom you don't know well, it is likely that you will often receive an answer that could appear (in your ears) to mean "yes". You would need to spend quite some time interpreting what that, "yes" really means. So the first cultural intelligence skill here is to recognise the communication pattern and the second skill is adapting our communication to find out what the real meaning of the sentence could be.

4 steps to developing CQ

Cultural Intelligence allows us to learn the communication and behavioural patterns of certain societies and then apply different communication techniques accordingly.

There are 4 steps to developing Cultural Intelligence

Step 1: Drive

How driven (or motivated) are you to modify and adapt your communication to reach your goals? This is a question that only you can answer. How important is it to you that that delivery arrive on Thursday and what are you willing to do to find out the true answer?

Step 2: Knowledge

What do I know about the other culture? What do you know about that person’s cultural upbringing that can help you determine what their communication pattern means?

Let's go back to that simple question, "Will the delivery arrive on Thursday?" Is the person you are speaking to from a face-saving, indirect speaking culture where the word, “no” is not often spoken? Or have they spent most of their careers working in multicultural environments and ,“I’m trying my hardest” actually could mean that the delivery might arrive?

The pattern is just that; a pattern. It is not obvious (and certainly not a pattern) if only used once. The pattern becomes more obvious when several people of the same group use the same pattern. It can take several trials and discussions before you realise what the communication pattern is.

Step 3: Strategy

Once you have understood the communication pattern you are only half way there. You still have not worked out if the delivery is arriving on Thursday. This is where cultural self-awareness comes in. Ask yourself: "How do I usually communicate in such a situation? What do I need to do to figure out if the delivery is running late, lost somewhere, if the cargo truck has had an accident or if they are expecting me to pay off the customs officials to get the cargo into the country?"

In step three you create your strategy. This could sometimes be as simple as just asking an open question, for example, "What are the chances that the delivery arrive on time or what are the challenges that we are facing right now?" Or it could be a longer strategy. Do you need to leave the "group" meeting and invite your associate to drink a cup of tea maybe a beer in a trust-binding one-on-one discussion to be told what is really going on with the delivery?

Step 4: Put it into action

Whatever your strategy ends up being, step 4 is where you put it into action. This is where we sometimes have to come out of our comfort zone to learn what we are really capable of. If you are uncomfortable in this kind of "trust" creating one-on-one meeting, plan it out carefully.

Step 4 needs to be tried, analysed and tried again until it works and until you start to feel more comfortable. After each new action, ask yourself three questions:

How dit feel?
How did the other person react?
Would I do it again the same way or should I change something?

Only at this point do we really start to develop cultural intelligence.

How to reach full impact in your global calls

Posted on 14. November 20216. September 2024 by Tania Pellegrini

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

The first step to reaching full impact in your global calls in this age of less travel and more home-office, is to use cultural intelligence. Our business world seems to shrink day by day. When you look at your agenda in the morning it likely says:

07:30 am meeting with Japan
11:00 am with Switzerland
6:00 pm with the USA

We have conversations and discuss business strategies, on a daily basis, with people all over the globe. Yet, do we modify the way we describe our thoughts and strategies depending on whether we are speaking to a North American rather than a Korean? Have we learnt how to create a strong business relationship with a Finn, a Qatari and a Brazilian?

Today, more than ever before, our daily activities require us to be ever so alert about very different mindsets. If you want to reach full impact in your global calls, you need to switch off autopilot and consciously prepare your meetings in advance, according to the mindset of the people you are expecting to deal with. One way to do that is to use Cultura Intelligence.

What is Cultural Intelligence?

Cultural Intelligence is the skill of being able to interpret unspoken codes of culture and then switch our communication styles accordingly, so that we become more effective with the person with whom we’re dealing and therefore reach our goals

There are two parts to that statement above. Firstly, we need to learn to read the “unspoken codes”. That might entail understanding when a “yes” means a “no”; how to know whether the question being asked is used to display interest or displeasure, or perhaps knowing when a smile or a laugh is hiding loss of face or embarrassment.

The second part of the statement refers to modifying our communication. Without that adaptation, we often struggle in really reaching the impact we were hoping for. If you are successful in reading the unspoken code but persist on using the same communication and behaviour you started with, it becomes much harder to reach your goals.

Let’s look at an example of how to use cultural intelligence.

Asia-Pacific Conference call

Julie works for a multinational organisation in Western Europe where each colleague is responsible for a different world region. She has recently started a new role as Head of Asia Pacific. Once a month, Julie has a conference call with the managers and teams in her region, Australia, Vietnam, Japan, etc. It’s her responsibility during each call to learn what the best practices are from each team.

Julie prepares her meetings meticulously, practising the exact questions she will ask the group and then how she will distribute the information afterwards. What Julie hasn’t prepared, is how to understand the unspoken codes that the various cultural norms might influence.

Julie comes out of her first few meetings feeling as though she has not achieved what she wanted. Her goal is to supply her manager with the best practices from the region. The Australian team supplied her one and she may have received one or two other results. However, she is missing quite a few, namely, the Japanese best practices, and Japan is an important market for her.

Julie wonders to herself, why is it that she can rarely get the information she needs from the Japanese market?

Cultural intelligence can help you decipher the unspoken codes

Why is Julie not effective in communicating her request to the Japanese team? Let’s look at how Julie can use Cultural Intelligence (CQ) to figure our what she needs to do.

Step 1 of CQ is Drive. Is Julie driven? Yes, she is. She is motivated to modify her communication and behaviour to reach her goals.

Step 2 of CQ is Knowledge. This is a very important aspect. What does Julie know about the Japanese culture? Well, Julie has learnt through reading up on Japan, that Japanese people are usually collectivist, or group-oriented. This could mean that a colleague is not willing to show or share their personal opinion. They would usually rather express the opinion of the team. Therefore in Julie’s case, the Japanese team likely need to have a team meeting after each call to discuss what they have heard in the meeting and then be able to give their opinion on the subject as a team at a later date.

Lack of knowledge about cultural norms and values can lead us to false negative judgments

It is usually easier to read the unspoken codes if we have acquired an understanding of the different cultural values of the people we are dealing with. Without that knowledge we are often prone to rely on our biases and start judging our counterparts negatively. In this case, Julie might erringly think that the Japanese team members are not speaking up because they are not experienced enough or don’t understand her or that they are just plain shy.

Step 3 of CQ is Strategy. Once Julie feels she knows why the team is not speaking up, she then needs to create a strategy that will allow the Japanese team to display all their knowledge and talk about their best practices. There may be several different ways of doing this and each individual should determine what would work best for them.

Step 4 of CQ is Putting the strategy into Action. Once the strategy has been decided, put the thoughts into action and see what happens. The action can be verbal or non-verbal. It could be a different manner of asking questions or a distinct approach to writing emails. It might be as simple as transforming the method of building trust with the team.

I don’t have enough hours in the day to go through all of that

Well, yes, it can seem a little long-winded, but what happens if you don’t take the time to think through your strategy? Are you prepared to risk missing your desired goals and not reaching full impact in your global conference calls?

Realign your global remote teams to create a powerful team culture

Posted on 21. January 202129. November 2021 by Tania Pellegrini

Are you ready for the next step? The start of a new year brings new-found energy with it. Now is an ideal moment to realign remote global teams to create a powerful and inclusive team culture. Bring your team communication to the next level in 2021 by building on what the team recently experienced. Although studies show that working from home can be beneficial for both the employee and the company, there are several challenges. "The main challenges that arise are communication, knowledge sharing, socialisation, performance evaluation and security."

Let's not get intimidated by the word "Culture". In our case, it means, "the way things are done around here". It is a set of accepted ways of behaving, communicating and getting things done that everybody on the team is comfortable with. When the team creates its own culture, each individual feels valued, included, engaged and is therefore more productive.

A strong team culture generates motivation, team-spirit, good communication and knowledge sharing. This in turn builds trust and helps the team deliver its goals. A thriving team culture is one that allows each team member to speak up and give their point of view on what their preferred communication style is.

The powerful team culture communication meeting

Bring the team together (officially) to discuss their team culture. Individuals have had the festive season to ponder over and informally discuss what they enjoyed and what they didn't enjoy about working from home. Use this as a catalyst.

Let's start with communication. An easy way to start the discussion right now it to ask about how productive or not the last six to eight months have been for each individual. Firstly, ask them to consider at what stage, and using which medium, they felt the communication flowed best? When you have good communication flow, creative ideas spill out.

Were they most productive over the phone, during a team zoom session, in one-on-ones, when the kids were in bed, or over a virtual coffee chat? Which communication means make them apprehensive and therefore less productive? Was it long-winded emails or short-handed WhatsApp messages? Individuals will talk plainly about what is best for them, as a result, you leverage on each individual's ideal situation. If you know that "John" is most creative spurting out quick WhatsApps then use it to help him shine and also share the best ideas.

remote team coffee breakSocialisation and trust create a strong team culture

When we socialise with our teammates, we learn more about them as people and not just as business colleagues. This creates trust, which in turn helps us and them to open up and share our ideas more freely. Socialisation is one of the areas that remote teams suffer the most in general and especially during lockdown moments. Socialising does not come naturally when individuals are sitting in front of their laptop feeling cut off from the world. Socialisation has to be consciously worked at on remote teams.

You could consider spending a few minutes at the beginning of team meetings running an ice breaker. Think about creating informal situations for colleagues to chat and meet even if it needs to be virtual. Virtual "aperos" work wonders. Socialisation and therefore trust create team spirit and allow each individual to feel valued.

Knowledge sharing and the dreaded 9pm conference call

If your multicultural team members sit in offices around the globe, it's vital to bring up the topic of time zones. Joining two-hour conference calls, three times a week at 9pm, after a long day of work is not sustainable and it is not very motivational. On top of that, if the participants are passive listeners rather than colleagues who need to actively speak, it becomes even worse.

the dreaded 9pm conference call

Therefore an important topic to discuss is always related to what time of the day these calls should be made. Ask the team at what time of the day they feel they are most productive. If the weekly facilitator is comfortable skipping dinner with the kids for a meeting, that doesn't mean everybody is. Too often, the accepted time zone for such meetings is where headquarters are based. For a motivation boost, consider rotating the meeting facilitator each week. This can be particularly engaging for the facilitator, and what's more, it allows individuals who are not very forthcoming to show a different side of themselves.

A team is made up of individuals

It's vital in such a "team culture creation session", to ensure everybody gets a chance to speak up. If you have a culturally diverse team, with members who perhaps come from hierarchical or collectivist cultures, you may have colleagues who are unwilling to speak up in such a public gathering. There are a number of ways to help them speak up. Tell them in advance what will be expected of them in such a meeting. Let them know that they will be expected to participate vocally. That will give them a chance to prepare something and not feel put on the spot when it occurs. Rotating the facilitator gives every team member a chance to speak up. As a result, it will also give the team a very different perspective each time on what is considered important and who prioritises what.

Keep the powerful team culture alive - write a team charter

Whatever the team decides as the best way to proceed, write it somewhere so you can look back at it occasionally. Choose four or five topics that are the most consequential during the discussion. These should be topics in which the team finds consensus. Use these topics to write the team charter. Most importantly, keep the discussion alive as time passes and as pressure increases. It's easy to stick to "good intentions" when we are not under pressure. However, when tension increases, we tend to fall back on what is the "normal" way of behaving for us. What is normal for one individual, may not be what was discussed as the best way for the team to move forward.

Remember, if culture is, "the way things are done around here," then it needs to be accepted by the whole team to allow each individual to feel included, valued and engaged.