Introduction

When Meera Sapra joined the Indian multinational technology company Zoho, working remotely out of New Delhi, she quickly discovered that working 2184 km away from the main headquarters in Chennai and with colleagues in the USA in different time zones meant she had to evolve and adapt to make it work.¹ Not only was Meera working with teams across different time zones, but she was also working with people from different continents and different countries. Meera noted, ‘What could get in the way though, are cultural differences.' She observed that it can be challenging for people from different cultures and languages to work together, especially if they are not physically in the same location.

Meera also explained that for many Asian countries that are high-context cultures, ‘communication is about maintaining harmony and not causing offence'. Many Asian people may be unable to say, ‘I don't understand this', or ‘I cannot do this', or ‘I would need more time to do this'. Meera pointed out that her way to prevent miscommunication due to cultural differences was to follow up with chat messages summarizing the action items. Meera also shared that after many interactions with her colleagues from South India, she was able to get over the stereotype of ‘all South Indians are introverts' that persists in India.

Cross-cultural hybrid teams are made of people from different national backgrounds, native languages, and cultures who have a flexible work structure where some people work remotely and some work in an office. In a business environment, companies must make sure that their employees work together effectively, even when people have very different cultural backgrounds, upbringing, and social norms. Employees need to learn subtle differences in communication in order to work well together.

Renowned American anthropologist Edward Twitchell Hall developed the concepts of high and low context cultures; he explained:

In high-context cultures like China, when a manager assigns a task to subordinates and asks if they can complete it, the employee is more likely to say ‘yes' even when they don't understand or if they know that they can't complete the task. It can feel too uncomfortable to say ‘no' even though that's what they really mean. Likewise, if a Chinese employee says ‘yes' and agrees with the positive feedback they receive at work, they may be perceived as arrogant and will not leave a good impression on other Chinese colleagues. American author and professor at INSEAD Business School Erin Meyer points out that when conflicts and misunderstandings happen in cross-cultural teams, they are often caused by different cultural attitudes toward authority and towards decision-making. Meyer explains that Japanese people, for example, are hierarchical in their views toward authority, and they defer to the boss and wait for instructions rather than take the initiative.

However, even if cross-cultural hybrid teams can cause some challenges due to cultural differences in communication and due to asynchronous communication, they also present many benefits to the organization. Multicultural teams have more empathy, respect, and understanding for their colleagues and customers. This is because people themselves come from a different cultural background, so they understand first-hand the need to be more empathetic with someone whose native language is not English and whose cultural background is not the one where the company is headquartered. Cross-cultural teams are also more respectful to employees and customers from different backgrounds because of their own lived experiences, which have shown them that different cultures have different norms and values.

Multicultural teams are also much more creative than teams comprising people from the same cultural background. This is because each person in the cross-cultural team looks at a problem from a very different perspective, which brings creative thinking to the team and ultimately more innovation. Each team member looks at a problem through their own lens and perspective, which comes from their distinct cultural background. This enriches discussions and offers new and different perspectives to business challenges.

Multicultural teams are also polyglot by nature, and they open up new avenues to market the company products and services. Having team members speak different languages brings local knowledge of different customer segments, which is a valuable resource to sell and market products and services. This allows the company to reach new markets, to deliver a better customer service and better customer experience, and to provide better customer support to new regions.

Multicultural teams also solve problems faster and better than homogeneous teams. Many studies have demonstrated that very diverse teams were able to solve problems faster and with fewer mistakes because they are more prepared to discuss, being used to working with different cultures, and they make fewer mistakes due to the extra preparation they bring to the table. Ultimately, cross-cultural teams generate more revenue from innovation.

In a global economy, where hybrid cross-cultural teams have become the norm, it has become more important than ever to learn how to develop effective communication and collaboration for multicultural teams working in a virtual environment. The following sections will explore how to unify cross cultural hybrid teams through cultural awareness so that team members can work effectively together. Managers play a key role in setting the foundations of a successful cross-cultural hybrid team and they need to learn and implement the fundamental principles of building and retaining a successful multicultural team in a virtual environment.

Promote Psychological Safety and Inclusion

In February 2016, a research paper was published by five academic researchers from Bar Ilan University, the University of California, Carnegie Mellon University, and Israel Institute of Technology, titled ‘Psychological Safety and Collective Intelligence in Multicultural Globally Dispersed Teams'.² The study examined what multicultural teams that are geographically dispersed need to do to work effectively despite all the challenges. The study found that ‘teams' effective performance depends on interaction between two factors: psychological safety and collective intelligence'. The study observed three independent samples of MBA students, located at different business schools (USA, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East). The participants were randomly assigned to culturally diverse and globally dispersed virtual teams to work on a proposal for establishing a new business in a foreign country.³ The research found that team members' global identity facilitates team psychological safety, and consequently, team performance. It found that ​​information sharing enables the effect of team members' global identity on psychological safety; it also found that socio-emotional content sharing in the kick-off meeting (specifically self-disclosure) has a positive impact on establishing psychological safety.

Outside of academic research, university-led studies, and laboratory analysis, real-life businesses have also discovered the incredible benefits of psychological safety to build a successful team. One of the most successful businesses in the world, Google, conducted a two-year study on its employees to find out what makes a great team. After two years of conducting over 200 interviews with employees, analysing more than 250 attributes, and observing 180+ teams, Google identified what makes teams successful. Google found that psychological safety was by far the most important dynamic of a successful team. Google found that employees on teams with higher psychological safety were less likely to leave the organization, more likely to harness the power of diverse ideas from their co-workers, generate more revenue, and are rated as effective twice as often by executives.⁴

Psychological safety appears to be the secret to unifying teams and making them work better together. So what exactly is psychological safety? And what does a team with psychological safety look like? According to William A. Kahn, psychological safety is being able to show and employ oneself without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status, or career. William A. Kahn is professor of organizational behaviour at Boston University's Questrom School of Business and is often regarded as the father of employee engagement.

Edmondson adds: ‘It describes a team climate characterized by interpersonal trust and mutual respect in which people are comfortable being themselves'. Teams that are psychologically safe can easily admit that they have made a mistake. Team members have no shame sharing failures, errors, and mistakes with their peers because they know it will not be used against them. Team members acknowledge that they don't have to know everything. In psychologically safe teams, employees know that they might not understand everything, and they can ask basic questions; they understand that it is acceptable to have some gaps. Employees in psychologically safe teams value everyone's opinions and inputs equally. Employees are empowered to speak up, share their ideas, and contribute to the conversations equally, regardless of their seniority level in the organization.

In a multicultural team where team members come from different countries and cultures (and time zones), it can be especially challenging to create psychological safety due to the cultural differences and styles of communication. Israeli employees and Dutch employees are more comfortable with giving direct negative feedback in front of a group and they regard this as normal communication. Chinese and Indian employees prioritize group harmony and show respect to their managers, and therefore, would not usually speak up in groups where their manager is present or would not challenge a decision even if they disagree. Many cultures in Western countries usually refrain from providing negative feedback for fear of hurting someone's feelings, a concept that author Kim Scott defines as ‘Ruinous Empathy.' Scott explains that Ruinous Empathy is ‘nice but ultimately unhelpful or even damaging. It's what happens when you care about someone personally but fail to challenge them directly.' Speaking up, contributing to the decisions and conversations, and challenging the status quo can be challenging for employees from countries and cultures where it is not widely accepted to do so, especially in the presence of a group of people and with someone in a position of authority such as a manager or team leader.

So it's important to establish a few guidelines for international hybrid teams so that they can benefit from a culture of psychological safety and team members can speak up safely together. Below are some strategies that you can use to promote psychological safety in your international hybrid team:

• Set the tone and lead the way

Leaders hold a position of power, influence, and authority. What they communicate, how they communicate, and who they communicate with get picked up even more in a hybrid work environment, especially when teams are more global. Over the years of consulting with organizations, I have noticed that when leaders set the tone and embody the behaviours that they preach, their teams tend to perform better than the rest, and this is especially true in a highly distributed, highly international team. Some of the key attributes and behaviours of these leaders include being vulnerable and modelling that it is acceptable to make mistakes, frequently asking people for their thoughts (this includes asking all the people in their team, not the same people all the time), publicly saying thank you to people sharing opinions, and using a direct and respectful style of communication. In addition, some of the most successful leaders also challenge assumptions, commit fully once decisions are made, and respond positively to challenges. One of the organizations I was consulting had recently appointed a new vice president of sales, based in London, to lead their international team in Europe and Asia. When he joined, he quickly noticed that the international team meetings were dominated by the European team and the Asian team remained quiet. He started asking people in the Asian team for their opinion frequently, by calling people out and asking what they thought. He listened, took notes, and always made a point to thank them for their contributions. Over a period of time, he even changed the date and time of the international team meeting, so it worked better for the team in Asia and also changed the format and agenda to accommodate requests from the team in Asia. Gradually, he noticed that the team in Asia started contributing more and sharing ideas without being prompted. When leaders proactively ​​ ask employees to share their thoughts (especially those from cultures traditionally more hierarchical) and thanking employees for their contributions, they set the tone for what kind of communication is expected and promote psychological safety, especially in a highly international and distributed team.

• Share positive examples

  At first, team members may struggle with the idea of speaking up often, saying they don't understand something, or even challenging the status quo. This is especially true if the team is very international, and some team members come from cultures where preserving the harmony of the group is seen as the most important element of working together. In a hybrid work environment, managers have to be very intentional about creating psychological safety, and sharing positive examples will help.

Talk about Google's Project Aristotle and explain how Google teams who had the most psychological safety performed the best. Explain that when Google employees have a safe space to take risks and make mistakes without fear or repercussions, they become the most productive teams in the organization. Share that the reason why Google named its project ‘Aristotle' is because of the philosopher's famous quotation: ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.' Talk about how Amazon's top leadership focuses on creating psychological safety to be successful. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was personally responsible for this, as his office name plate famously said, ‘Tell me even more candidly'.⁵ The more examples you can share of successful companies adopting psychological safety as their modus operandi, the more you will convince all your team members to adopt this way of working together.

• Help people connect

  If your team is mostly working remotely and rarely meets in person, chances are that team members have not had many opportunities to build rapport. Building rapport and camaraderie can be especially challenging if team members are in different countries, working in different time zones. However, in order to build psychological safety in a team, there must be a foundation of trust which is built on knowing each other.

Managers should focus on helping their team members connect with each other and build rapport. Team leaders should facilitate conversations that are focused on building connections, rapport, and camaraderie between team members. Host a meeting to discuss everyone's hobbies, favourite holiday destinations, and interests outside of work. Create a Slack channel for your team to discuss personal news and hobbies, start an Employee Resource Group about common interests in your team, and ask people if they want to join a book club about their favourite topics. Creating a space for your team members to share their personal interests will help your people connect and create more psychological safety in your hybrid team.

• Be vigilant and watch out for harmful comments

This is especially true in a virtual work environment where it takes longer to build trust and distance makes it harder to build rapport. Being a manager in a hybrid team is a balancing act, but the rewards of building a psychologically safe team are significant. Managers should pay extra attention to seemingly harmless comments from team members such as ‘You should already know this, we already talked about it last week', ‘You should be familiar with that process since you have been here six months', ‘She made a mistake and that's why we did not succeed at that project, it's her fault', or ‘We already discussed that and decided what to do, so there is no need to debate it anymore'.

These apparently innocent comments set the tone that not knowing something or asking questions is not well received, and it creates a fear of speaking up and a fear-based culture where people are more likely to remain quiet, not share ideas, and not challenge decisions for fear of being criticized for doing so. Team leaders, managers, and the leadership team should push back on harmful comments such as, ‘Everybody knows this!' and ‘You should remember that because we talked about it already', and instead, they should emphasize that we always welcome all types of questions and comments because that's how we grow as a team.

Promoting psychological safety and inclusion in a highly international, highly distributed team can be challenging, but it has its rewards. It helps create a speak-up culture where everyone feels safe enough to share their ideas, bring creative solutions to the table, and it fosters innovation.

Create a Cross-Cultural Awareness Programme

N. Radhakrishnan, Industry Consultant in Global Business Services at IBM based in India, had been working hard to close a contract from a Dutch client, with not much success. The Dutch prospect had a choice of four vendors at the time, and IBM was just one of them. N. Radhakrishnan had attended IBM's training programme on understanding cultural differences, and he had learnt that the Dutch enjoy waterfront views because it reminds them of their home country. So when his prospect sent a team from the Netherlands to India, he took the opportunity to invite them to a waterfront restaurant for dinner. N. Radhakrishnan did get the contract, due to his choice of the waterfront restaurant.⁶

Hamsanandhi Seshan, Director of Communications and Global Delivery at IBM, was on a flight to Germany when he read up on German cultural traits. He found out that Germans are ‘culturally more inclined to risk taking' and she shared that with them. However, she learnt that they have a very linear method of thinking, and she thinks more in a random manner herself.⁷ Technology giant IBM is well-known for offering training programmes to its employees about cultural norms of nations, including one which is called ‘country navigator'. The programme tells IBM employees if certain nations are more task- versus relationship-oriented, if the country's communication is more direct or indirect, etc. IBM's cross-cultural awareness programme helps workers to find out about the cultural characteristics of the country they will be working with and to find out how they match up with their own cultural characteristics, which facilitates better communication and collaboration.

But it's not only the technology giants of this world who understand the importance of cross-cultural awareness programmes; airplane manufacturer Boeing also embraces initiatives to raise awareness about cultural diversity. Boeing uses ‘GlobeSmart', which is an online resource for employees to learn about cultural norms of countries they will be working with. Boeing hosts cultural talks in a ‘lunch and learn' format as well as diversity summits two times a year. Boeing's executives can also take part in a programme called ‘passport series' to learn about cultural diversity.⁸

Cross-cultural awareness programmes, also called cross-cultural training, is a practice aimed at increasing people's understanding of other cultures and improving their ability to deal with people from different cultures so that they can perform well in a highly diverse cultural environment.

Ultimately, they help employees in highly multicultural teams to work better together. A famous quote perfectly explains what cross-cultural awareness does: ‘If you do not intentionally include, you unintentionally exclude.' A lack of cross-cultural awareness leads to unintentional hurts and microaggressions, unconscious bias, favouritism, and acts of exclusion towards people who are from a different background.

Cross-cultural awareness programmes add many powerful benefits to international teams, especially those working in a hybrid environment where opportunities to spend time together are rare. One surprising benefit is that employees actually learn about themselves. They become aware, sometimes for the first time, of their own cultural norms, which they may have taken for granted and now understand are linked to their own cultural background. This helps employees become more open to working with people from a different culture than their own, through exposure to their own culture norms. Cultural training also builds team trust and confidence because when people are exposed to different cultures as a team, they are better equipped to have conversations together. These types of awareness programmes also help reduce hidden bias and stereotypes that employees may hold because they shed light on the different norms that exist within each culture and help employees realize some of their own unconscious biases. These awareness programmes help teams become more open to new ideas and perspectives, which in turn helps them become more innovative. Employees suddenly realize that other perspectives and points of view exist outside of their own, and they become more open to new approaches. In addition, teams that join cross-cultural awareness programmes improve their listening and interpersonal skills because they become more sensitive to other people's backgrounds and they become more aware of differences, which creates more interest in other cultures and naturally makes them more likely to listen. Finally, cultural diversity training helps everyone really focus on what they have in common rather than what they don't share, because it helps employees realize that they actually share a common desire to succeed as a team, a common desire to learn and grow together, and to communicate well.

In a hybrid work environment, cross-cultural awareness programmes should be managed with particular attention because there are fewer informal opportunities for employees to meet and build rapport. Here are some effective strategies that you can use to create a cross-cultural awareness programme in your international, hybrid team:

• Plan for success

  Before you start implementing any cross-cultural awareness programme, pause and consider how much your team is already going through. Chances are that your team is already trying to navigate how to work well together in a hybrid work environment, what communication channels to use, where to share all the information, and how to communicate well despite the time zone differences. If you approach your team members with another new programme to embrace, they might just push back and not buy into it due to other conflicting priorities. What's more, many studies have shown that mandatory training doesn’t work as effectively as optional training, because when people feel they have no choice, they are not emotionally attached to it. On the other hand, when training is made optional to attend, those who actually join it feel much more emotionally invested in it because they made a choice to attend and, as a result, they are more likely to embrace it and be committed to it. In other words, find a way to get your team excited about a cross-cultural awareness programme so that they are interested, and they fully embrace it.

  A great way to do this is to ask your team what they would like to learn about each other's cultures. You can make it fun and ask your team to choose what they want to focus on. The important thing is to let them guide you so that they feel involved in this programme. Make sure to also ‘sell' it to them; share examples of successful teams that have embraced cultural diversity awareness and have become twice as productive as a result. Show your team studies and research papers about teams with a high level of cultural awareness and how this has made their innovation and performance better. Explain why you believe that cultural awareness in your team will help everyone better understand each other and communicate in a hybrid work environment. Consider leveraging existing channels and regular meetings to facilitate this cultural awareness programme. For instance, if you already have a weekly team meeting every Monday, consider using that time to invite a keynote speaker to talk about cultural awareness; or if you already have a Slack channel about diversity and inclusion, leverage it to discuss cultural awareness training. If your team has a weekly newsletter, use that to discuss the benefits of cross-cultural awareness programmes. Whatever channel you use to communicate about it, leverage existing communication channels to get maximum exposure and avoid spamming your busy team.

• Use storytelling

Telling stories is a powerful way to communicate about values and beliefs because stories are universal, and they transcend cultures and individual backgrounds. Stories also engage people because they connect with emotions.

Tell a tale of a team that you knew that used to celebrate cultural holidays and as a result unified its team members. Many education programmes use storytelling as a tool to connect learners with new material. Research by Northeastern University in Boston that studied the effect of story on our attention span revealed that participants who were given more story elements in their scenarios generated more brainwave activity than those who received bare-fact scenarios. This activity reflected their heightened attention to the task.⁹ Stories have the capacity to capture our attention in ways that simple fact sharing and data sharing don't. Think about the last time you got lost in a movie at the cinema; your capacity to connect with the story allowed you to be fully engaged in the experience, much more so than if you had been reading a research paper with facts and figures. Stories are also much easier to remember than data. Listening to a story can teach us a valuable lesson and can make us take action. When we hear stories with a bad outcome, we are more likely to take action to avoid that outcome. Ultimately, stories are powerful tools to make us change our mind and our behaviour. If you are committed to changing your team's understanding of cultural differences, consider telling stories, asking your team members to share stories, and inviting great storytellers such as keynote speakers to talk about cultural awareness. Leveraging storytelling as a tool to increase cultural awareness in your team is a powerful way to create a successful cross-cultural awareness programme in a highly distributed team.

• Prioritize culturally aware communication

  If your time is limited and you have to limit the scope of your cultural awareness programme, prioritize cultural awareness in communication. Good communication is at the core of a unified team, so make sure that each of your team members truly understand what it means to communicate with awareness of the cultural differences that exist in your team. At a very basic level, culturally aware communication is when one understands that the person they are interacting with may come from a different cultural background where communication norms wildly differ from their own. Language barriers may cause a non-native English speaker to misunderstand informal ways of saying things, expressions, or inside jokes. For example, when I worked with an American software vendor whose teams were often scattered across the US, the UK, and the rest of Europe, the European team, whose English was their second language, often didn’t understand certain expressions used by their American counterparts, which led to misunderstandings, delays in responding, and frustrations on the part of all parties. By simply becoming more aware of these local colloquialisms and expressions, the US team replaced these informal ways of speaking with more standards ways of speaking and the communication significantly improved.

  Raise awareness about differences in communication styles. For instance, many cultures in Asia prioritize harmony and hierarchy over individualism and sharing the best ideas. This can translate into team members not speaking up when someone senior is in the same meeting or keeping quiet when asked to challenge a decision or share their ideas. On the other hand, certain cultures such as those in the Netherlands or in Israel have a very direct communication style, where employees will share feedback directly, including negative feedback, even in front of a group. If employees from these two very different cultures are in the same team, and if they are not aware of the cultural differences, it may translate into misunderstandings, frustrations, and even an inability to work together. If you focus on raising awareness about differences in cultural tones and communication styles, you will empower your team members to understand cultural differences in communication styles so they can adjust accordingly.

• Understanding that learning is a journey

  As human beings, we all have unconscious biases, and we all communicate differently based on the culture we were raised in. A key step in creating an efficient cross-cultural awareness programme is to set the expectations with your team members that understanding cultural differences is a journey, not a destination. If you are truly able to articulate that practising and learning about understanding cultural differences is more important than being perfect, you will set your team up for success. Most people do not engage in cultural awareness programmes for fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. By setting the tone that we are all in this together and you are all here to learn, you will attract more interest and get more engagement from your team members.

Implementing cross-cultural awareness training is a key step in unifying international hybrid teams because it helps people learn about themselves and become more trusting of each other, builds confidence, reduces unconscious bias, and opens up new perspectives. By planning for success and leveraging existing communication channels such as team meetings and newsletters, leveraging storytelling to connect with your team and drive change, prioritizing culturally aware communication such as language barriers and communication style differences, and by understanding that learning is a journey and not a destination, you will be able to embrace cross cultural awareness programmes and set your international team up for success, despite time zone differences and cultural differences.

Consider Language Fluency and National Communication Norms

US tech giant Google has long been known for its success as an organization, which is largely due to its strong organizational culture. A big part of the company culture is based on sharing positive employee feedback. Google's performance review form asks managers to list all the things employees did really well. Once this has been done, Google asks managers to ‘list one thing this person could do to have a bigger impact'. When the US tech giant opened its first offices in France, it was confronted with the French culture of giving feedback, which focuses a lot more on criticism and a lot less on praise! A French manager recalls, ‘The first time I used the Google form to give a performance review, I was confused. Where was the section to talk about problem areas?' What did this employee do really well? The positive wording sounded over the top. The French Manager at Google recollects, ‘After five years at Google France, I can tell you we are now a group of French people who give negative feedback in a very un-French way.'¹⁰

French cosmetics brand L'Oréal also learnt about international communication challenges when it expanded in other countries. Open debates and differences of opinions have always been an important part of the company culture. One L'Oréal manager shared, ‘At L'Oréal we believe the more we debate openly and the more strongly we disagree in meetings, the closer we get to excellence, the more we generate creativity, and the more we reduce risk.'¹¹ However, in some cultures, this communication style clashes directly with the preferences for group harmony. A Mexican employee commented: ‘In Mexican culture, open disagreement is considered rude, disrespectful, and too aggressive.' Another employee from Indonesia explained: ‘To an Indonesian person, confrontation in a group setting is extremely negative, because it makes the other person lose face. So it's something that we try strongly to avoid in any open manner.'¹²

One British technology company I consulted with shared with me a story of a cultural misunderstanding with a Dutch employee. The Dutch employee had joined the UK company a few months ago and had delivered a presentation to her manager, who was British. The manager had said that the presentation was ‘fine', so the Dutch employee was pleased with the feedback she received and went on with her day. When she learnt that her manager had been complaining about her presentation to other colleagues, she could not possibly understand why, since she heard her manager say that her presentation was fine. When we sat down to discuss the situation, we uncovered that this was due to cultural differences. The Dutch are typically open and very direct when giving feedback, including negative feedback. However, the British are much more subtle and focus on being polite when giving feedback, and much of the communication happens implicitly - people need to ‘read between the lines' to understand what is actually being communicated.

Another US software vendor that I consulted with was struggling with communication with their Chinese office. The US company, which was headquartered in Jersey City, near New York City, had opened offices in China to help with software development, design, and back-office activities. However, the marketing team based in the US and in Europe started complaining about the design team in China. One marketing manager in the US complained that ‘the Chinese designers are not creative at all, they keep asking for more information about the design brief and they don't make any decisions by themselves, which keeps delaying our projects and we are always late!' On the other hand, the Chinese designers claimed that ‘the US marketing team never gives enough direction regarding the project, they don't give clear guidelines so we don't know what is expected of us'. What happened is that the US culture is based on individual contribution, innovation, and equality; whereas in Chinese culture, hierarchy is very important and individual contributors expect to receive step-by-step instructions about their task. In addition, English was the second language of the Chinese team and, as a result, their lack of fluency in English sometimes resulted in some miscommunication and misunderstandings.

National communication norms can have a big impact on how a business operates with international teams who work virtually, because they can differ widely from country to country. Teams that take the time to learn and understand different cultural norms are more likely to succeed in business as they improve their communication internally and externally.

Language fluency or language proficiency is the ability of a person to use language with a level of accuracy to understand and speak it like a native speaker. One can be called ‘fluent' in a language when they can confidently and accurately express themselves in a language. In business, language fluency is vital in creating good communication, and employees whose native language is not English may sometimes struggle to understand some expressions in English language, second degree concepts, idioms, inside jokes, and other implicit messages when native English speakers interact with them. Common English idioms such as ‘ice breaker', ‘crying over spilled milk', ‘a dime a dozen', ‘spilling the beans', ‘beating around the bush', ‘taking a rain check', or ‘wrapping your head around' might confuse non-native English speakers and might block the communication if they are too shy to ask what the meaning of this idiom is.

There are many incredible benefits to intercultural awareness in an organization. Cultural awareness helps people understand their own culture and understand how to adjust their communication style according to their counterpart's culture. For example, if someone comes from a country where direct feedback is the norm and they interact with someone whose culture prioritizes group harmony, they will be able to adjust their communication style accordingly. Cultural awareness in a very international team helps build rapport because everyone becomes more aware of their colleagues' cultural backgrounds and becomes more understanding. As a result, there is more trust in the team and more psychological safety, meaning that employees feel safe to speak up and share their ideas without fear of being judged or criticized. Cultural awareness also helps teams become more successful in dealing with prospects, clients, and vendors because they are more sensitive to their cultural backgrounds and are more able to adjust their communication style with them to achieve better business relationships. Finally, cultural awareness training helps reduce implicit bias and stereotypes, which helps improve relationships, communication, and collaboration in the long term.

So how do you pay attention to language fluency and national communication norms in a hybrid team? Below are a few simple strategies that you can use to consider language proficiency and cultural communication norms in a highly distributed team:

• Consider language training for your team

  Language training may not sound like something that your team needs at first sight; however, if your team is international with many employees living in different countries and different continents, chances are that some of your employees might not understand all the idioms, expressions, and ways of saying things that are used by your native English speakers. Language training can improve understanding on the part of all the non-native English speakers in your team, and can help boost employee confidence, especially if they are not used to speaking English in a business environment. Perhaps they have learnt English at school and have used it scarcely, and now they don't feel confident using it at work. According to the software company Rosetta Stone, 70% of business users surveyed said that language training has made them more confident.¹³ Language training also helps non-native English speakers be more productive and perform better because they can better communicate with their English-speaking colleagues. Among employees who participated in company-sponsored language training, 71% say their job performance has improved as a result.¹⁴ Language training also helps non-native English speakers feel more engaged at work because they are better able to feel part of the conversation and part of the team as a result of feeling more confident speaking English.

• Use simple language and repeat yourself

  As the manager or team leader of an international team, your role is to set the tone for what behaviour is expected in your team, especially in a hybrid team environment where employees look up to their manager to understand what behaviour is expected of them. When you use simple language to express yourself at work, and you repeat yourself often, you establish the rule implicitly and other team members are more likely to do so as well.

Instead of saying, ‘the ball is in your court', say ‘it is now up to you to make a decision or take the next move'. Instead of saying: ‘I am sitting on the fence', say ‘I am not sure what to do'. Instead of saying ‘it is a no-brainer', say ‘it is really obvious'. In your emails and in your team presentations, pay attention to the language you use and prioritize language and words that are straightforward and uncomplicated. Many business presentations are complex and use jargon, abbreviations, and technical language that is often unnecessary and confusing. Choosing simple language will help convey your message better in an international team. You might also consider using visuals that are universally understood in your presentations. These can include infographics, charts, pictures, or any other visual that conveys your message in an easy way. Do not be afraid to repeat yourself. In a hybrid team, sharing information via multiple channels can make it overwhelming and drown important information in noise; when people repeat themselves often, they ensure that their message will reach its audience better. This is especially true in a very international team, whose native language might not be English and who might struggle to understand what you are communicating. Remember that the best leaders are really ‘chief reminder officers' because they understand the importance of reminding their team of what is really important.

• Discuss cultural differences and show respect

One of the technology companies that I consulted for had a Monday morning weekly call with the entire region to start the week, and the tradition was that whoever was presenting that day had to start the conversation by discussing an interesting fact about the country they came from. Sometimes the host would talk about a famous cultural holiday in their country and the meaning behind it, sometimes the host would talk about a tradition typical in their country, or even talk about a typical way to greet people in their country. The rest of the team really enjoyed these stories because it educated them about different norms and traditions that their colleagues were used to. As a result, that team reported better communication, increased productivity, and created a better rapport over a period of time. Another company that I worked with used to celebrate all the national holidays of the countries that their employees came from! They celebrated Bastille Day on July 14th in honour of their French employees, they celebrated Guy Fawkes Night on November 5th for their British employees, and they celebrated Liberation Day on April 25th for their Italian employees. Usually, most employees liked these celebrations because it was a good opportunity to get together, order some food from the country in question, and spend some time together whilst learning about their colleague's country history and culture. These simple celebrations also reinforced that not everyone came from the same country and the same culture, and it made everyone more aware of cultural differences.

One of the companies I worked with had a team in China and their English was not as good as native speakers. Initially, that led to some jokes, but one leader stepped in and explained that in the company, we celebrate different cultures and languages, and we are proud of having people from different countries. By setting the tone, the team started showing more respect towards each other. When managers draw a line and do not tolerate jokes about language skills, they become role models for the rest of the team and create a more united environment.

Taking into account language fluency and national communication norms is vital when trying to develop a successful team in a hybrid work environment. It helps employees better understand their own culture and adjust their communication style, it helps build rapport between colleagues from different cultures, and it helps reduce stereotypes and improve relationships. By considering language training for your team, using simple language, avoiding jargon and not repeating yourself, and by discussing cultural differences and showing respect, you can help your hybrid team become more aware of language differences and national communication norms, which will help unify your international team in a hybrid work environment.

Address Conflict Immediately

A few years ago, a large US software vendor contacted me to help them address some issues they were having with their ‘international team'. The company was headquartered in the San Francisco area and had been growing massively over the past few years, which led them to opening offices in Europe and in Asia. However, as the team grew so fast, they started noticing some friction between their employees in headquarters and their employees based outside of their headquarters, in what they called ‘Team International'. In particular, the team based in San Francisco complained that their colleagues in China were not participating in meetings, didn’t make decisions, and were stopping them from delivering on their projects. The managers in China reported that their US colleagues kept changing their mind, were not clear on their expectations, and didn’t provide enough clarity and guidelines on the projects where they needed support. In addition, the Chinese team complained that their US colleagues were often talking over each other in meetings and interrupting one another, making it difficult for them to understand who was driving the conversation and what was being said. As a result, that team often delivered projects late, the managers on both sides were frustrated, and the tone in communication was getting accusatory and very negative.

Conflicts caused by cultural differences are not new and have been disrupting businesses for centuries. On 7 May 1998, German automotive giant Daimler-Benz AG signed a historic merger agreement with American automotive leader Chrysler Corporation. This famous deal was often referred to as the ‘merger of equals' at the time. Sadly, the merger became known as a ‘fiasco', and the merger, which was initially valued at $35bn, ended up being valued at just $7.4bn nine years later. Many business analysts pointed out that ‘discordant company cultures' were the cause of the conflicts inside the organization. In particular, there were sharp differences in the level of formality, approach on topics such as salary and expenses, and in communication styles between the German and American teams. Reports say that the German culture became the dominant one, and Chrysler employees left the organization. A German DaimlerChrysler board member talked about differing behavioural habits and attitudes that annoyed both teams.¹⁵ The board member also revealed that the American colleagues showed ‘a complete lack of understanding of German values, methods and working culture'. According to him, American teams found that the Germans ‘shook hands too much, were often too intense and followed rigid manuals and rule books'. He also shared that Americans were frustrated with the German's habits of sharing ‘constructive criticism'. Germans would take long holidays, which irritated their American colleagues, especially in times of difficulty.

Cultural conflicts can also arise between teams from the same country but from different cultural backgrounds. In 2005, American Telecommunications company Sprint Corporation based in Kansas acquired its competitor Nextel, another American Telecommunications company based in Northern Virginia, in a historic deal reaching $35bn. However, just three years later, the merger had lost 80% of its value! Most business analysts blame the culture clash between the two companies for the failure of the union. Nextel company culture was known as entrepreneurial, while Sprint was known as a formal and bureaucratic organization. An article written by Gigaom said that ‘Some Nextel employees say they feel the aggressive, entrepreneurial style that spurred its early growth has been stamped out by Sprint's more bureaucratic approach.' In 2007, The Washington Post wrote about the Sprint/Nextel merger fiasco in these words: ‘The cultural clash, meanwhile, continues to be an issue at the company'. The newspaper also wrote about the more traditional and ‘buttoned-down' way of running the company at Sprint, which clashed with the entrepreneurial culture at Nextel.¹⁶

There are many examples of conflicts in teams that are due to a clash of culture, as described above. So what exactly are workplace conflicts caused by cultural differences in teams, and what are the risks of not addressing them? Cultural conflicts in teams can take place when people from very different cultural backgrounds work together, especially if they hold very different views on hierarchy and values, and especially when they have not received any training or development programmes on cross-cultural awareness, unconscious bias, and diversity and inclusion. Cross-cultural conflicts can arise when employees with widely different ethnic or cultural backgrounds work closely together as part of the same team because they may operate with very different communication styles, have different work ethics, and value very different things. When the team is subject to a crisis in the organization, a tight deadline, or some stress, those conflicts caused by different cultures can escalate. It goes without saying that cultural conflicts at work are very undesirable; cross cultural conflict is very divisive and hinders collaboration and productivity. Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Roy Y. J. Chua studied how cultural disharmony undermines workplace creativity. Chua wrote a case study about a Chinese luxury apparel company that had employees from China, Hong Kong, Germany, and France working together. Chua noticed some tensions and miscommunication based on cultural differences.¹⁷ Chua coined the term ‘ambient cultural disharmony' to describe the work climate caused by cultural tensions. Chua explains: ‘A lot of times when we study cultural conflict, it's about people directly involved in conflict,' says Chua. ‘The key word here is “ambient”, looking at the effect that cultural conflicts can have on an observer. That flows more through the perceptions we have about other cultures.' In a series of experiments that Chua ran, he found that participants who have more people in their social networks from different cultures who disliked each other performed worse on tests about connecting disparate ideas across cultures. He found that ambient cultural disharmony decreased creativity. Chua also found in his previous research that awareness of our own cultural biases can help improve creativity in multicultural situations.

As suggested by Chua, cultural conflicts should be addressed by managers as soon as possible to avoid escalations. There are many risks to the business caused by unaddressed cultural conflicts. Unaddressed cultural conflicts significantly decrease productivity. This can be explained because cultural conflicts can cause employees to leave organizations, causing higher employee turnover rates for organizations that do not address cultural conflicts. Companies with a healthy corporate culture report, on average, a turnover rate of just 13.9% compared to 48.4% at companies with a poor culture, according to a study by Columbia University.¹⁸ Unaddressed cultural conflicts also create divided teams and unhealthy confrontations at work. When cultural conflicts are unresolved, like in the case of the Daimler/Chrysler merger, the different parties remain opponents. The animosity between parties impacts meetings, projects, and the overall productivity of the business unit. Divided teams with unresolved cultural conflicts are unable to collaborate effectively. What's worse is that unresolved cultural conflicts in teams can cause escalations. This is because feelings of animosity that are not addressed become stronger and are more likely to escalate when the team experiences more stress, deadlines, and pressure than usual. Finally, unresolved cultural conflicts lead to a bad reputation of the team and its manager in the organization. When teams are unable to resolve cultural conflicts at work, the rest of the organization will associate that team with a lack of management and with a bad reputation.

Therefore, successful teams proactively deal with cultural conflicts when they arise. In a hybrid work environment, there are a few strategies that you can use to address cultural conflicts immediately as soon as they arise:

• Document the conflict and gather the facts

  One of the first steps to addressing conflicts in a hybrid team is to methodically document the conflict and gather the facts. You might consider contacting each team member involved in the conflict and have a conversation individually to gather information about the issue. The goal here is simply to gather information so that you have as much objective data as possible about the issue. Explain to your team members what you have observed about the situation and ask open questions. As you document the conflict, be sure to be consistent with all the parties involved. Share the same message with everyone, explain that your intent is simply to gather the facts, and use the same statement each time you meet with parties to gather information. Ensure that you always ask open questions in order to let all parties come to you with as much information as possible. For example, you can ask employees what has been happening for them, or what they think the next steps of the resolution should be, or who they think should be involved in the resolution. The key when documenting the conflict is to know your intention, which is to find the facts and to act as an objective facilitator or conflict mediator.

• Acknowledge and discuss conflict openly

  In a remote or hybrid work setting, many conflicts happen because long-standing issues have been unresolved due to managers not noticing them and/or not addressing them. The most successful hybrid teams have managers who acknowledge conflicts and discuss them openly with their teams to resolve them proactively. When team leaders take the first step to resolve the conflict, they take a proactive approach towards conflict resolution, which, in itself, is half the battle already won. Use regular team meetings to discuss any issue that needs to be addressed. Once you have acknowledged and discussed existing tensions in the team, make sure you also celebrate team success to set the tone and encourage teamwork and collaboration. You might also discuss team conflicts online on a Slack channel if many of your team members work remotely and in a different time zone, so that you can discuss the issue quicker than waiting to arrange a meeting. Ask everyone for their input to solve the issue and reinforce that the intent is to solve the problem, not to point fingers.

• Set ground rules and act as a role model

  An important strategy to address conflict at work is to set clear ground rules and to embrace these rules by acting as a role model. These rules can include some of the following statements:

  • Treat all your co-workers with respect and fairness, including those from different backgrounds, cultures, and with different languages.
  • Listen to your colleagues' views including if they are different from yours; when your view differs from your colleagues, say it and explain why.
  • When in doubt, ensure that you are aligned with your colleagues before moving forward on a project; when you do or say something wrong, apologize.
  • Participate in open and constructive dialogue; pick your battles.

  These are just a few examples of ground rules that you should share with your team members about your approach to conflict and conflict prevention. Of course, there are more ground rules that you can share with your team, and you should feel free to share as many (or as little) as you wish, but the main point is to set some ground rules and share them to prevent conflicts in your team. Modelling these rules will reinforce them and send the message that you walk the walk yourself. If you say to your team: ‘When you do or say something wrong, apologize', but you never apologize yourself when you make a mistake, chances are that your team won't apologize either when they do something wrong. On the other hand, if you tell your team: ‘When your view differs from your colleagues, say it and explain why', and you always share openly your different views during team meetings and explain your reasoning, your team is more likely to emulate your behaviour and to challenge their colleagues' opinions in meetings, explaining why they disagree. Great role models do good things outside of the job as well, meaning that they continue to act as positive role models outside of their nine-to-five shifts.

• Track productivity and pay attention to small details

  One of the most effective strategies to address conflict is to track the productivity of your team and to pay attention to small details. This is because workplace conflicts cause stress and disruption, damage relationships, affect employee morale, and can even impact customer service. As a result, when conflict arises, your team productivity plummets. By monitoring your team's productivity closely and paying attention to your team's key performance indicators, you will be able to react quickly and check if any conflict has arisen and impacted your team's collaboration. In a hybrid work environment, this includes paying attention to who remains quiet in meetings the entire time, noticing if someone who used to come to the office often suddenly avoids the office and works from home all the time, paying attention to any change in the dynamic of your team meetings, and noticing the tone of the emails in your team. By paying attention to your team interactions, and by monitoring your team productivity closely, you will be able to prevent conflicts before they arise or address them as soon as they arise, avoiding escalations.

  In a highly international environment, where people from different cultures work together, conflicts can arise and they can linger more in a virtual setting. If unaddressed, workplace conflicts due to a culture clash can damage the business, as in the case of the Daimler/Chrysler merger, where the American teams and the German teams simply could not continue to work together and caused major disruption in the organization. By taking proactive steps to address conflict immediately in a hybrid work environment, managers can help unify their cross-cultural hybrid teams and attract, develop, and retain a successful team. Simple strategies including documenting the conflict and gathering the facts, acknowledging and discussing conflicts openly, setting ground rules and acting as a role model, and tracking productivity and paying attention to small details can significantly help address conflict effectively in a virtual work environment.

Encourage Team-Building Activities and Build Rapport

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, when most employees had to shift to remote-work virtually overnight, Seattle-based sales and marketing technology company Highspot experienced a boom in after-hours team-building activities, such as virtual happy hours. Jennifer Palecki, Vice President of People for Highspot, recalls: ‘before the pandemic, all Highspot employees came together for an hour-long lunch every Friday'.¹⁹ During the pandemic, Highspot employees started doing the same virtually, because the company ‘keeps that time sacred'. What's even more remarkable is that out of the 500 employees working at the company, 350 to 400 of them attend it each time! Palecki shares another way that the company encourages team-building activities to build connections in a virtual world: each week, company executives dedicate two hours to be available virtually to any employee who wants to have a one-to-one chat. As Palecki comments: ‘it emulates hallway conversations.'

Highspot is not the only company that embraced team-building activities during the Covid-19 pandemic. Online retail company Zappos had always built its company culture on intentional team-building activities, so when the pandemic happened, the company had to find ways to build rapport in a hybrid work environment. Zappos built a ‘fun-gineering' team to build fun and rapport virtually. The online retailer started hosting 90-minute virtual events that any employee could sign up for. The fun-gineering team even added a physical dimension by sending a gift box to each participant. These virtual events have proved very popular and get quickly booked by employees. One particularly fun virtual team-building event hosted by Zappos is called the ‘Worst Cooks' event. The company ships ingredients to employees who want to take part and asks participants to cook a meal and share videos, which are then shared company-wide.

Many companies have embraced team-building activities for virtual teams during the Covid-19 pandemic. From technology companies to online retailers, many businesses have invested in activities that build rapport and connection in a virtual world. Virtual team-building activities are activities that build connections, rapport, and trust between employees, that are conducted in a virtual environment. They can include group games, contests, or exercises and can take place on virtual platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or other. Virtual team building, also known as online team building, brings unity to virtual teams by building psychological safety among team members who might not be able to build rapport otherwise.

There are many significant benefits to virtual team-building activities in the organization. During the Covid-19 pandemic, many organizations turned to virtual team building as a way to connect their employees who felt more isolated and more disconnected from their peers due to remote and hybrid work. The benefits of virtual team-building activities have been remarkable, as per the survey by Team Building Hub shared in 2022: Team Building Hub conducted a research study with professionals dedicated to virtual team building and found that 63% of leaders felt team communication improved after participating in team-building activities, and 61% of leaders felt team morale improved.²⁰ The study also revealed that 55% of leaders feel team culture would improve if their company invested more in team building, and most importantly, 73% of employees wish their company would invest more in team building. The Team Building Hub survey found that at companies investing less than $25 per month per person in team building, 58% of employees feel that morale is ‘ok', ‘bad', or ‘very bad'.

At companies investing more than $25 per month per person in team building, only 25% of employees feel that morale is ‘ok', ‘bad', or ‘very bad'. The research is clear: investing in team building drastically improves employee morale, team culture, and communication, especially in virtual teams. Team-building activities help connect remote and hybrid teams; this is because it helps build stronger relationships. When people work together from different locations, different countries, and different cultures, taking the time to organize team-building activities will help them build stronger relationships outside of work which, in turn, will have a big impact on how people interact moving forward. Team-building activities also help boost motivation and employee engagement. This is because when a group of people complete a challenge together, they are able to bond and to become more engaged with one another; it also adds an element of fun that often gets lost in the day-to-day work, so it brings a very welcome element of enjoyment and entertainment to the team dynamics. Team-building activities also boost team collaboration and productivity, because employees trust each other more, better understand each other, and are more effective in their communication afterwards. Because of a greater sense of trust and psychological safety brought in by team-building activities, teams become more creative and innovative. When the group comes together around quizzes, games, and contests, the people build a greater sense of safety and feel more secure to speak their mind freely without fear of being criticized or judged. This leads to more ideas being shared, more creativity in the team and even more innovation.

In an interview for Forbes magazine, Jenny Gottstein, director of games at The Go Game, a new interactive and creative approach to team building, reveals why leading companies such as Uber, Facebook, Salesforce, and Johnson & Johnson invest heavily in team building activities.²¹ Gottstein explains: ‘The best way to engage employees is to build a culture of trust. Nothing is more isolating and damaging than a fear of taking risks or voicing one's opinion.' The team-building expert explains that effective team-building activities foster a culture of trust. Gottstein also explains how team building turns workers into company advocates, which helps attract and retain top talent.

In a hybrid work environment, it can be more challenging to implement team-building activities that will unify international hybrid teams; the most effective types of team-building activities happen face-to-face, which might not always be possible in a virtual work environment when colleagues are geographically dispersed over different countries or even continents. However, it is possible to leverage team-building activities in a hybrid work environment; below are some of the most effective ways to implement team building in hybrid teams that I have observed:

• Hold regular non-work-related chats

  In a hybrid team, where some employees have never met face-to-face with their co-workers, it can be particularly challenging to build rapport in a natural way. A 2020 survey by Aetna International found that 40% of employers say they're concerned that a lack of social interaction among colleagues will have a long-term negative impact on some employees' mental health.²² Social interaction between colleagues, especially in a non-work-related context, significantly improves employees' well-being, engagement, and sense of belonging. The now famous Harvard Study of Adult Development studied the lives of 724 men for 79 years, to uncover the secret to success, happiness, and a good life. The study found that relationships have a significant impact on people's health, happiness, and quality of life. It also found that the quality of relationships matters more than quantity.²³ When managers facilitate group conversations that are non-work-related, they help their team members to build rapport, to strengthen their relationships, and to become more socially connected and happier. In a virtual world, this can be done by hosting weekly chats to talk about the weekend ahead for example. You can host a Friday ‘weekend plans' Zoom call to talk about your team members' plans for the weekend. If possible, you can make it more inviting by sending each of your team members a voucher to order their lunch at their desk, so that people can share a virtual lunch together and talk about their hobbies, their families, or their interests outside of work. By hosting weekly chats over Zoom that are non-work-related, you will help your team members build rapport and unify your team through socializing. You can also host bi-weekly chats if weekly feels too much for your team. Ask your team members what day of the week and what time works best for them; think about ways to encourage participations – you can make it a company-wide tradition so that all teams use the same time to socialize, etc.

• Host annual trips to exciting locations

  If your team is fully remote, or even if your team is hybrid, chances are that they are not very close to each other and have not had a chance to build strong relationships by sharing lunch, coffees, and office banter. By facilitating a face-to-face gathering for your entire team in an exotic location, you will be able to foster very strong relationships in your team that would not otherwise be possible. Annie McKee, author of How to Be Happy at Work, explained that ‘one of the ways we can make ourselves happy and feel more fulfilled in our workplaces is to build friendships with the people that work with us, work for us and even with our boss'.²⁴ It sounds obvious and simple; however, in order to build friendships at work in a virtual world, the most effective strategy is to host a team event in an exciting location. Start with an annual trip and build on this. During that team retreat, schedule some team-bonding activities and some free time for people to plan their own schedules as well.

  UK Investment company Connection Capital has embraced annual team retreats and it's proven so beneficial for the team that the company has been doing it every year. In a press release, Connection Capital explained: ‘We think it's important to remove them from the settings of their day-to-day business and give them the opportunity to hear from other entrepreneurs and inspirational speakers. We find this distance helps create perspective with which to look back and think about the future plans for their business.'²⁵ The UK investment firm usually hosts their annual retreat over a two-day period, inviting keynote speakers to share inspiring stories, hosting some workshop sessions and dinners, and some fun activities such as rounds of golf, wine tasting sessions, and a coffee tasting class. They also include some executive coaching sessions as well as some business-related activities. Essentially, hosting annual trips in exotic locations help the team become more unified, especially if they work in a virtual work setting most of the time.

• Incorporate cultural awareness in your team-building plan

  If your team works primarily virtually, with very few opportunities to meet face-to-face, it is very likely that the level of camaraderie and rapport between team members is not very high, and if you have team members from different cultural backgrounds, your team is probably experiencing some miscommunication and frictions due to a lack of cultural awareness of each other's backgrounds. By incorporating a cultural awareness element into your team-building strategy, you will increase the level of cultural awareness, which will help your international team come together as ‘one team'. For example, you can celebrate traditional holidays, national days, and food from the countries where some of your team members are from. You can do some team-building activities focused on selling or marketing to a new country or a new continent; you can host a cooking class focusing on a cuisine from the area where some of your team members live; you can ask each team member to share a presentation on the norms, cultural standards, and habits of the country they are from, and how they differ from the country your company is headquartered in, for example. The main goal is to bring an element of cultural awareness into your team-building activities, so that your team becomes more aware of some of the subtle cultural differences that exist and therefore are more mindful of these in their communication moving forward.

Encouraging team-building activities and building rapport in a team in a hybrid work environment might seem challenging because of the physical distance between employees, the lack of opportunities for casual conversations, and the increased feeling of isolation and disconnection that's more prevalent in a virtual work environment. However, research shows that 73% of employees wish their company would invest more in team building, and this appetite for team-building activities is even more prominent in virtual teams, who have even fewer opportunities to build rapport through casual conversations, lunches, and coffee breaks.

Employees are also more likely to stay in organizations and teams when they feel a stronger sense of belonging and a team spirit, which is vital in a hybrid work setting. As Patrick Lencioni famously said: ‘Teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.'

Conclusion

Many studies have been conducted on the effect of cross-cultural differences on team performance, productivity, and collaboration. These studies demonstrate the many benefits of working with international colleagues; from improved performance due to innovation and creativity, to a more open-minded approach to challenges and opportunities, to flexibility and agility. An international, diverse team simply performs better. However, managing a highly international team, which is often the case for organizations that operate in a hybrid work model, can also present some challenges. In particular, when these highly international teams operate in a virtual work environment (through hybrid work or through remote work), it can be difficult for managers and team leaders to unify their team around a shared language, shared communication, and with a good rapport. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the need to unify multicultural teams in a way that is scalable. The forced remote-work revolution that took place during the Covid-19 pandemic pushed leaders to find new ways to unify their international teams in a virtual work environment.

Leaders of international hybrid teams are starting to promote psychological safety and inclusion. Companies like Google have studied the link between psychological safety in teams and performance and are embracing strategies to build psychological safety in their teams. Leaders are starting to set the tone and lead the way to show what psychological safety looks like in hybrid work. Leaders like Jeff Bezos at Amazon are often used as examples of successful teams with psychological safety, with his famous ‘Tell me even more candidly' sign on his office door. Team leaders today also help their people connect to build a layer of trust that allows more honest conversations and healthy conflicts; the best leaders constantly watch out for harmful comments that may destroy the level of psychological safety and trust in their team; managers who follow these guidelines are able to promote high levels of psychological safety and inclusion in their hybrid teams, which in turn unifies their team.

In addition to promoting trust, the best leaders also build strategic cross-cultural awareness programmes to unify their hybrid teams. Leading technology firms such as IBM have been embracing training programmes about cultural norms of nations, including their famous ‘country navigator' programme, for years; more companies have been following them since the shift to remote and hybrid work, to allow their employees to better understand cultural differences and communication styles, especially in hybrid work. Airplane manufacturing leader Boeing also implemented initiatives to raise awareness about cultural diversity, with their ‘GlobeSmart' programme, which is an online resource for employees to learn about cultural norms of different countries. The most successful companies plan for success by integrating their cultural awareness programmes into their existing communication channels. Some team leaders also use storytelling to increase cultural awareness in their hybrid teams, and some practise culturally aware communication by removing jargon and colloquialisms from their everyday language.

More companies are also reconsidering language fluency in their hybrid team to unify their employees in a hybrid work environment. An increasing number of organizations are investing in language training to boost confidence in non-native English speakers and improve communication between members of different cultures. Many team leaders are becoming ‘chief reminder officers', repeating themselves to ensure that their message is well understood by every member of their teams. More international companies are also discussing cultural diversity and emphasize showing respect to everyone; as a result, hybrid teams become more aware of language differences and national communication norms, which help unify them in a highly distributed work environment.

As teams become more hybrid and hire employees from different countries and different continents, conflicts can arise due to cultural differences and norms, so companies are also addressing conflicts to build unified teams in a hybrid work environment. Some of the best leaders use simple steps to proactively address tensions in their hybrid teams, including documenting the conflict and gathering the facts, acknowledging and discussing the conflict openly, setting ground rules and acting as a role model, and tracking productivity and paying attention to small details.

Finally, more organizations are discovering the power of team-building activities for hybrid teams and are investing in it to unify their people in a virtual work environment. Successful companies like Highspot and Zappos are investing people and resources in team building, in particular since the shift to remote work. These companies are holding regular non-work-related chats for their teams with great success and attendance from their employees. Other companies are hosting annual trips to exciting locations, such as investment company Connection Capital; some organizations are incorporating cultural awareness in their team-building plans and celebrate important national holidays and cultural events as a team. As a result, employees working in hybrid teams are more likely to stay in organizations and teams when they feel a stronger sense of belonging and team spirit.

As the workplace is experiencing the third revolution since the Covid-19 pandemic, and since the adoption of hybrid work, the need for unity amongst remote employees from different cultures has never been greater. An increasing number of employees are feeling isolated and disconnected from the group, with a lack of belonging and sometimes a feeling that their native communication style and cultural norms are not accepted or celebrated by their peers, a withdrawal from conversations and from sharing ideas, some misunderstandings, tensions and conflicts, and a sense of exclusion. An increasing number of leading organizations including Google, IBM, Boeing, Highspot, and Zappos are investing in strategies to increase unity in their hybrid teams; they focus more on promoting psychological safety, improving cross-cultural awareness, considering language fluency, addressing conflicts when they arise, and encouraging team building. As a result, these companies are maintaining their positions as market leaders in their fields, and their employees' Net Promoter Scores are amongst the best in the market. As the greatest basketball player in the history of the sport, Michael Jordan, said: ‘Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.' This could not be more true in a hybrid team, where the need for teamwork and unity is greater than ever before.