I've studied intercultural communication while I was already working with remote teams. The both funny and pathetic thing is that I initially perceived it as something very natural that didn't really need much attention. I must sincerely admit that I was wrong. It's not all black and white in intercultural teams. After completing my MBA, I've come to the conclusion that despite being a third culture child, I was full of bias towards other cultures. I would judge other people's behaviours based on my personal beliefs and stereotypes. Today, after having worked with numerous global, distributed teams I am absolutely positive that intercultural communication as a skill shouldn't be optional but mandatory for all team members.

Hiring and firing global talent

I was once consulting a remote-first company in the e-commerce industry. The customer support team was spread across the US, UK and India. Their manager reached out to me asking how we can improve progress tracking as he was unhappy with the performance of some team members. He said the following to me: "Nadia, I feel like the guy in India doesn't express any proactivity. I feel like he's so much different from the rest of the team. If this doesn't change, I'll have to fire him". The context of the situation was that most team members were very open, talkative and they sometimes even challenged processes. This resulted in important changes that they've been implementing. For me that conversation was a moment to dig deeper into cultural aspects of the team. I already knew that Indian people tend to have an indirect and polite communication style. They usually want to avoid confrontation or conflict and that's exactly what was happening with our team member. Americans seem to be quite the opposite. They are very direct as they're willing to get "straight to the point". When I've started evaluating our Indian team member's performance I noticed that it was impeccable. Should the manager fire someone due to communication differences? Of course not! He ought to re-design his thinking and engage all team members to collaborate effectively based on everyone's strengths.

I've also had a pleasure of working with many global companies when it comes to talent strategies. I often heard the following words: "People from that area won't be a cultural fit". Well, a cultural fit doesn't mean that we should be hiring people that are just like us. It's total nonsense. It limits our ability to grow and learn from each other. If we claim to embrace the goods of the world being a global village, we should do it to the full. It's not about outsourcing manufacturing processes due to low labor costs but connecting people to meet and succeed together.

Remote teams are diverse by default

Companies that embrace diversity observe not only increased innovation but also higher revenue. Yes, that's true! The Boston Consulting Group has researched that topic so don't even dare questioning the above statement! I don't think I should explain how diversity is connected with remote working and hiring people internationally, right? When a company is willing to be successful (what a no brainer!) and it's planning global growth associated with a talent acquisition strategy, they simply shouldn't miss the intercultural impact.