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SPOTLIGHT ON THE NEW GLOBAL LEADER

Global Teams yo
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That Work
A framework for bridging social distance
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by Tsedal Neeley
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 SPOTLIGHT ON THE NEW GLOBAL LEADER

SPOTLIGHT ARTWORK Shannon Rankin, Basin (detail)

Uncharted series, 2009, cut map on paper, full size 20" x 20"

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Tsedal Neeley (@tsedal)

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is an associate professor at
Harvard Business School
and the founder of the
consulting firm Global
Matters.

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Global Teams
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A framework for bridging social distance
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by Tsedal Neeley
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October 2015 Harvard Business Review 3

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 T
SPOTLIGHT ON THE NEW GLOBAL LEADER

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TO SUCCEED IN the global economy today, more and innovations, creating millions of dollars in value for
more companies are relying on a geographically dis- their customers and shareholders.
persed workforce. They build teams that offer the One basic difference between global teams that

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best functional expertise from around the world, work and those that don’t lies in the level of social dis-
combined with deep, local knowledge of the most tance—the degree of emotional connection among
promising markets. They draw on the benefits of in- team members. When people on a team all work in
ternational diversity, bringing together people from the same place, the level of social distance is usually
many cultures with varied work experiences and dif- low. Even if they come from different backgrounds,
ferent perspectives on strategic and organizational people can interact formally and informally, align,
challenges. All this helps multinational companies and build trust. They arrive at a common under-
compete in the current business environment. standing of what certain behaviors mean, and they

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But managers who actually lead global teams feel close and congenial, which fosters good team-
are up against stiff challenges. Creating successful work. Coworkers who are geographically separated,
work groups is hard enough when everyone is local however, can’t easily connect and align, so they ex-
and people share the same office space. But when perience high levels of social distance and struggle to
team members come from different countries and develop effective interactions. Mitigating social dis-
functional backgrounds and are working in different tance therefore becomes the primary management
locations, communication can rapidly deteriorate, challenge for the global team leader.
misunderstanding can ensue, and cooperation can To help in this task, I have developed and tested a
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degenerate into distrust. framework for identifying and successfully manag-
Preventing this vicious dynamic from taking ing social distance. It is called the SPLIT framework,
place has been a focus of my research, teaching, reflecting its five components: structure, process,
and consulting for more than 15 years. I have con- language, identity, and technology—each of which
ducted dozens of studies and heard from countless can be a source of social distance. In the following
executives and managers about misunderstand- pages I explain how each can lead to team dysfunc-
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ings within the global teams they have joined or led, tion and describe how smart leaders can fix prob-
sometimes with costly consequences. But I have also lems that occur—or prevent them from happening
encountered teams that have produced remarkable in the first place.

Views from a Dispersed Team

The marketing team of a multinational pharmaceutical company had 17
members in different locations. Each group, depending on size and proximity
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to the leader in Boston, saw the power structure differently.

MOSCOW 1 PERSON SINGAPORE/TOKYO 3 PEOPLE  LONDON 5 PEOPLE BOSTON 8 PEOPLE
“I am all on my own here “Our opinions are often ignored. “We represent the most “We do the important
and at the mercy of the It’s so difficult to find a good time to challenging regions in terms work and have easy
Boston group. I need to exchange ideas, and even if we do of diversity and institutional access to the boss.”
make sure that the boss manage to connect, we can’t get a hurdles. The Boston team
has my back.” word in edgewise.” really doesn’t understand
our markets.”
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Idea in Brief

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THE PROBLEM THE SOLUTION
When teams consist of The leaders of global teams can
people from different cultures improve the workings of their
working apart from one groups by using the author’s
another in different locations, SPLIT framework to identify
social distance—or a lack of and address five sources of

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emotional connection—can social distance: structure,
cause miscommunication, process, language, identity,
misunderstanding, and distrust. and technology.

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Structure and the Perception of Power its situation is illustrated in the exhibit “Views from
In the context of global teams, the structural fac- a Dispersed Team.”
tors determining social distance are the location and To correct perceived power imbalances between
number of sites where team members are based and different groups, a leader needs to get three key
the number of employees who work at each site. messages across:
The fundamental issue here is the perception Who we are. The team is a single entity, even
of power. If most team members are located in though individual members may be very different
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Germany, for instance, with two or three in the from one another. The leader should encourage
United States and in South Africa, there may be a sensitivity to differences but look for ways to bridge
sense that the German members have more power. them and build unity. Tariq, a 33-year-old rising star
This imbalance sets up a negative dynamic. People in a global firm, was assigned to lead a 68-person
in the larger (majority) group may feel resentment division whose members hailed from 27 countries,
toward the minority group, believing that the latter spoke 18 languages, and ranged in age from 22 to
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will try to get away with contributing less than its 61. During the two years before he took charge, the
fair share. Meanwhile, those in the minority group group’s performance had been in a precipitous de-
may believe that the majority is usurping what little cline and employee satisfaction had plunged. Tariq
power and voice they have. saw that the team had fractured into subgroups ac-
The situation is exacerbated when the leader is at cording to location and language. To bring people
the site with the most people or the one closest to back together, he introduced a team motto (“We are
company headquarters: Team members at that site different yet one”), created opportunities for employ-
tend to ignore the needs and contributions of their ees to talk about their cultures, and instituted a zero-
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colleagues at other locations. This dynamic can tolerance policy for displays of cultural insensitivity.
occur even when everyone is in the same country: What we do. It’s important to remind team
The five people working in, say, Beijing may have members that they share a common purpose and to
a strong allegiance to one another and a habit of direct their energy toward business-unit or corpo-
shutting out their two colleagues in Shanghai. rate goals. The leader should periodically highlight
When geographically dispersed team members how everyone’s work fits into the company’s overall
perceive a power imbalance, they often come to feel strategy and advances its position in the market. For
that there are in-groups and out-groups. Consider instance, during a weekly conference call, a global
the case of a global marketing team for a U.S.-based team leader might review the group’s performance
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multinational pharmaceutical company. The leader relative to company objectives. She might also dis-
and the core strategy group for the Americas worked cuss the level of collective focus and sharpness the
in the company’s Boston-area headquarters. A team needs in order to fend off competitors.
smaller group in London and a single individual in I am there for you. Team members located far
Moscow focused on the markets in Europe. Three from the leader require frequent contact with him or
other team members, who split their time be- her. A brief phone call or e‑mail can make all the dif-
tween Singapore and Tokyo, were responsible for ference in conveying that their contributions matter.
strategy in Asia. The way that each group perceived For instance, one manager in Dallas, Texas, inherited

COPYRIGHT © 2015 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. October 2015 Harvard Business Review 5
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copyright. [email protected] or 617.783.7860
 SPOTLIGHT ON THE NEW GLOBAL LEADER

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a large group in India as part of an acquisition. He people are spread all over the world, small talk is still
made it a point to involve those employees in impor- a powerful way to promote trust. So when planning
tant decisions, contact them frequently to discuss your team’s call-in meetings, factor in five minutes

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ongoing projects, and thank them for good work. for light conversation before business gets under
He even called team members personally to give way. Especially during the first meetings, take the
them their birthdays off. His team appreciated his lead in initiating informal discussions about work
attention and became more cohesive as a result. and nonwork matters that allow team members to
get to know their distant counterparts. In particular,
Process and the encourage people to be open about constraints they
Importance of Empathy face outside the project, even if those aren’t directly
It almost goes without saying that empathy helps linked to the matter at hand.

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reduce social distance. If colleagues can talk infor- Time to disagree. Leaders should encourage
mally around a watercooler—whether about work or disagreement both about the team’s tasks and about
about personal matters—they are more likely to de- the process by which the tasks get done. The chal-
velop an empathy that helps them interact produc- lenge, of course, is to take the heat out of the debate.
tively in more-formal contexts. Because geographi- Framing meetings as brainstorming opportunities
cally dispersed team members lack regular face time, lowers the risk that people will feel pressed to choose
they are less likely to have a sense of mutual under- between sides. Instead, they will see an invitation to
standing. To foster this, global team leaders need evaluate agenda items and contribute their ideas. As
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to make sure they build the following “deliberate the leader, model the act of questioning to get to the
moments” into the process for meeting virtually: heart of things. Solicit each team member’s views
Feedback on routine interactions. Members on each topic you discuss, starting with those who
of global teams may unwittingly send the wrong sig- have the least status or experience with the group
nals with their everyday behavior. Julie, a French so that they don’t feel intimidated by others’ com-
chemical engineer, and her teammates in Marseille ments. This may initially seem like a waste of time,
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checked and responded to e‑mails only first thing in but if you seek opinions up front, you may make
the morning, to ensure an uninterrupted workday. better decisions and get buy-in from more people.
They had no idea that this practice was routinely A software developer in Istanbul kept silent in a
adding an overnight delay to correspondence with team meeting in order to avoid conflict, even though
their American colleagues and contributing to mis- he questioned his colleagues’ design of a particular
trust. It was not until Julie visited the team’s offices feature. He had good reasons to oppose their deci-
in California that the French group realized there sion, but his team leader did not brook disagreement,
was a problem. Of course, face-to-face visits are not and the developer did not want to damage his own
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the only way to acquire such learning. Remote team position. However, four weeks into the project, the
members can also use the phone, e‑mail, or even team ran into the very problems that the developer
videoconferencing to check in with one another had seen coming.
and ask how the collaboration is going. The point
is that leaders and members of global teams must Language and the Fluency Gap
actively elicit this kind of “reflected knowledge,” or Good communication among coworkers drives ef-
awareness of how others see them. fective knowledge sharing, decision making, coor-
Unstructured time. Think back to your last dination, and, ultimately, performance results (see
face-to-face meeting. During the first few minutes also “What’s Your Language Strategy?” by Tsedal
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before the official discussion began, what was the Neeley and Robert Steven Kaplan, HBR, September
atmosphere like? Were people comparing notes on 2014). But in global teams, varying levels of fluency
the weather, their kids, that new restaurant in town? with the chosen common language are inevitable—
Unstructured communication like this is positive, and likely to heighten social distance. The team
because it allows for the organic unfolding of pro- members who can communicate best in the organi-
cesses that must occur in all business dealings— zation’s lingua franca (usually English) often exert
sharing knowledge, coordinating and monitoring the most influence, while those who are less fluent
interactions, and building relationships. Even when often become inhibited and withdraw. Mitigating

6 Harvard Business Review October 2015

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Rules of Engagement for Team Meetings

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All team members should be guided by these three rules to
ensure that influence on decisions is not dictated by fluency
in the company’s lingua franca.
must always confirm that they have been understood.
FLUENT SPEAKERS Encourage them to routinely ask if others are fol-
lowing them. Similarly, when listening, they should
Slow down the pace and use familiar

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language (e.g., fewer idioms). be empowered to say they have not understood
DIAL DOWN something. It can be tough for nonnative speakers
Refrain from dominating the conversation.
DOMINANCE to make this leap, yet doing so keeps them from
Ask: “Do you understand what I am saying?”
being marginalized.
Listen actively.
Balance participation to ensure inclusion.
Getting commitments to good speaking behavior is
the easy part; making the behavior happen will re-
LESS FLUENT quire active management. Global team leaders must
SPEAKERS Resist withdrawal or other

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avoidance behaviors. keep track of who is and isn’t contributing and delib-
Refrain from reverting to your erately solicit participation from less fluent speakers.
DIAL UP native language. Sometimes it may also be necessary to get dominant-
ENGAGEMENT
Ask: “Do you understand what I am saying?” language speakers to dial down to ensure that the
If you don’t understand others, proposals and perspectives of less fluent speakers
ask them to repeat or explain. are heard.
The leader of a global team based in Dubai re-
TEAM LEADERS quired all his reports to post the three communica-
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Monitor participants and strive to
balance their speaking and listening. tion rules in their cubicles. Soon he noted that one
heavily accented European team member began con-
Actively draw contributions from
BALANCE FOR all team members. tributing to discussions for the first time since joining
INCLUSION the group 17 months earlier. The rules had given this
Solicit participation from less fluent
speakers in particular. person the license, opportunity, and responsibility
Be prepared to define and interpret content. to speak up. As a leader, you could try the same tac-
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tics with your own team, distributing copies of the

exhibit “Rules of Engagement for Team Meetings.”

these effects typically involves insisting that all team Identity and the
members respect three rules for communicating in Mismatch of Perceptions
meetings: Global teams work most smoothly when mem-
Dial down dominance. Strong speakers must bers “get” where their colleagues are coming from.
agree to slow down their speaking pace and use However, deciphering someone’s identity and find-
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fewer idioms, slang terms, and esoteric cultural ref- ing ways to relate is far from simple. People define
erences when addressing the group. They should themselves in terms of a multitude of variables—age,
limit the number of comments they make within a gender, nationality, ethnicity, religion, occupation,
set time frame, depending on the pace of the meet- political ties, and so forth. And although behavior
ing and the subject matter. They should actively seek can be revealing, particular behaviors may signify
confirmation that they’ve been understood, and different things depending on the individual’s iden-
they should practice active listening by rephrasing tity. For example, someone in North America who
others’ statements for clarification or emphasis. looks you squarely in the eye may project confidence
Dial up engagement. Less fluent speakers and honesty, but in other parts of the world, direct
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should monitor the frequency of their responses in eye contact might be perceived as rude or threat-
meetings to ensure that they are contributing. In ening. Misunderstandings such as this are a major
some cases, it’s even worth asking them to set goals source of social distance and distrust, and global
for the number of comments they make within team leaders have to raise everyone’s awareness of
a given period. Don’t let them use their own lan- them. This involves mutual learning and teaching.
guage and have a teammate translate, because that Learning from one another. When adapting
can alienate others. As with fluent speakers, team to a new cultural environment, a savvy leader will
members who are less proficient in the language avoid making assumptions about what behaviors

October 2015 Harvard Business Review 7

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 SPOTLIGHT ON THE NEW GLOBAL LEADER

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mean. Take a step back, watch, and listen. In America, A case in point. Consider the experience of
someone who says, “Yes, I can do this” likely means Daniel, the leader of a recently formed multinational
she is willing and able to do what you asked. In India, team spread over four continents. During a confer-

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however, the same statement may simply signal that ence call, he asked people to discuss a particular
she wants to try—not that she’s confident of success. strategy for reaching a new market in a challenging
Before drawing conclusions, therefore, ask a lot of location. This was the first time he had raised a topic
questions. In the example just described, you might on which there was a range of opinion.
probe to see if the team member anticipates any Daniel observed that Theo, a member of the
challenges or needs additional resources. Asking for Israeli team, regularly interrupted Angela, a mem-
this information may yield greater insight into how ber of the Buenos Aires team, and their ideas were
the person truly feels about accomplishing the task. at odds. Although tempted to jump in and play ref-

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eree, Daniel held back. To his surprise, neither Theo
nor Angela got frustrated. They went back and forth,
bolstering their positions by referencing typical
Team members quickly pick business practices and outcomes in their respective
countries, but they stayed committed to reaching a
up on the leader’s preferences group consensus.
At the meeting’s end, Daniel shared his observa-
regarding communication tions with the team, addressing not only the content
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of the discussion, but also the manner in which it
technology, so set the example took place. “Theo and Angela,” he said, “when you
began to hash out your ideas, I was concerned that
you want others to follow. both of you might have felt you weren’t being heard
or weren’t getting a chance to fully express your
thoughts. But now you both seem satisfied that you
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were able to make your arguments, articulate cul-

The give-and-take of asking questions and pro- tural perspectives, and help us decide on our next
viding answers establishes two-way communica- steps. Is that true?”
tion between the leader and team members. And if Theo and Angela affirmed Daniel’s observations
a leader regularly solicits input, acting as a student and provided an additional contextual detail: Six
rather than an expert with hidden knowledge, he months earlier they had worked together on another
empowers others on the team, leading them to project—an experience that allowed them to estab-
participate more willingly and effectively. A non- lish their own style of relating to each other. Their
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Mandarin-speaking manager in China relied heavily ability to acknowledge and navigate their cultural
on his local staff during meetings with clients in or- differences was beneficial to everyone on the team.
der to better understand clients’ perceptions of the Not only did it help move their work forward, but it
interactions and to gauge the appropriateness of showed that conflict does not have to create social
his own behavior. His team members began to see distance. And Daniel gained more information about
themselves as essential to the development of client Theo and Angela, which would help him manage the
relationships and felt valued, which motivated them team more effectively in the future.
to perform at even higher levels.
In this model, everyone is a teacher and a learner, Technology and the
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which enables people to step out of their traditional Connection Challenge

roles. Team members take on more responsibility The modes of communication used by global teams
for the development of the team as a whole. Leaders must be carefully considered, because the technolo-
learn to see themselves as unfinished and are thus gies can both reduce and increase social distance.
more likely to adjust their style to reflect the team’s Videoconferencing, for instance, allows rich commu-
needs. They instruct but they also facilitate, help- nication in which both context and emotion can be
ing team members to parse their observations and perceived. E‑mail offers greater ease and efficiency
understand one another’s true identities. but lacks contextual cues. In making decisions

8 Harvard Business Review October 2015

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 FOR ARTICLE REPRINTS CALL 800-988-0886 OR 617-783-7500, OR VISIT HBR.ORG

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about which technology to use, a leader must ask that their message is important. Greg, for instance, a
the following: project manager in a medical devices organization,
Should communication be instant? found that his team was falling behind on the devel-

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Teleconferencing and videoconferencing enable opment of a product. He called an emergency meet-
real-time (instant) conversations. E‑mail and cer- ing to discuss the issues and explain new corporate
tain social media formats require users to wait for protocols for releasing new products, which he felt
the other party to respond. Choosing between in- would bring the project back on track.
stant and delayed forms of communication can be During this initial meeting, he listened to people’s
especially challenging for global teams. For exam- concerns and addressed their questions in real time.
ple, when a team spans multiple time zones, a tele- Although he felt he had communicated his position
phone call may not be convenient for everyone. The clearly and obtained the necessary verbal buy-in,

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Japanese team leader of a U.S.-based multinational he followed up the meeting by sending a carefully
put it this way: “I have three or four days per week drafted e‑mail to all the attendees, reiterating the
when I have a conference call with global executives. agreed-upon changes and asking for everyone’s
In most cases, it starts at 9:00 or 10:00 in the night. If electronic sign-off. This redundant communica-
we can take the conference call in the daytime, it’s tion helped reinforce acceptance of his ideas and
much easier for me. But we are in the Far East, and increased the likelihood that his colleagues would
headquarters is in the United States, so we have to actually implement the new protocols.
make the best of it.” Am I leading by example? Team members very
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Instant technologies are valuable when leaders quickly pick up on the leader’s personal preferences
need to persuade others to adopt their viewpoint. regarding communication technology. A leader
But if they simply want to share information, then who wants to encourage people to videoconference
delayed methods such as e‑mail are simpler, more ef- should communicate this way herself. If she wants
ficient, and less disruptive to people’s lives. Leaders employees to pick up the phone and speak to one an-
must also consider the team’s interpersonal dynam- other, she had better be a frequent user of the phone.
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ics. If the team has a history of conflict, technology And if she wants team members to respond quickly
choices that limit the opportunities for real-time to e‑mails, she needs to set the example.
emotional exchanges may yield the best results.
In general, the evidence suggests that most com- FLEXIBILITY AND APPRECIATION for diversity are at the
panies overrely on delayed communication. A recent heart of managing a global team. Leaders must ex-
Forrester survey of nearly 10,000 information work- pect problems and patterns to change or repeat them-
ers in 17 countries showed that 94% of employees selves as teams shift, disband, and regroup. But there
report using e‑mail, but only 33% ever participate in is at least one constant: To manage social distance ef-
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desktop videoconferencing (with apps such as Skype fectively and maximize the talents and engagement
and Viber), and a mere 25% use room-based video- of team members, leaders must stay attentive to all
conferencing. These numbers will surely change five of the SPLIT dimensions. Decisions about struc-
over time, as the tools evolve and users become ture create opportunities for good process, which can
more comfortable with them, but leaders need to mitigate difficulties caused by language differences
choose their format carefully: instant or delayed. and identity issues. If leaders act on these fronts,
Do I need to reinforce the message? Savvy while marshaling technology to improve communi-
leaders will communicate through multiple plat- cation among geographically dispersed colleagues,
forms to ensure that messages are understood and social distance is sure to shrink, not expand. When
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remembered. For example, if a manager electroni- that happens, teams can become truly representative
cally assigns one of her team members a task by en- of the “global village”—not just because of their in-
tering notes into a daily work log, she may then fol- ternational makeup, but also because their members
low up with a text or a face-to-face chat to ensure that feel mutual trust and a sense of kinship. They can
the team member saw the request and recognized then embrace and practice the kind of innovative, re-
its urgency. spectful, and groundbreaking interactions that drive
Redundant communication is also effective for the best ideas forward. 
leaders who are concerned about convincing others HBR Reprint R1510D

October 2015 Harvard Business Review 9

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copyright. [email protected] or 617.783.7860