In one of the previous articles, I talked about the importance of having trust in the team and what damage a lack of it can cause. Also, I touched a bit the topic of how we can build trust in the tech team, by providing the list of exercises from the book “The five dysfunctions of a team”. Today using another great book “The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business” I would like to go deeper into how different cultures define trust and how it can impact the way how we should build trust in the multicultural team.
Task-based and relationship-based trust
According to Erin Meyer, different cultures build trustful relationships either through business-related activities, either through more personal connections.
For example, in the USA, trust is built based on confidence in one’s skills, reliability and consistency. To built trust, you need to demonstrate that you are capable of performing your job, and another party can rely on you in tasks. Personal relationships are not that important. Moreover, everyone is trying to make sure that they don’t affect and influence the business.
By contrast, in countries like China or Brazil, business is personal. The foundation for trust there is emotional closeness and friendship. When people know each other personally on a deep level, spend time and share things like friends do, they can trust each other.
The trusting scale
Below you can find the trusting scale from the book. There you can see how task vs relationship-oriented different countries are.
It’s important to note here the farthest left of task-oriented societies as a location of the USA. The majority of business literature is written by American authors. And in general, the USA has a great impact on the business shape of the whole world. But it is essential to acknowledge that even with this impact, we can’t remove the cultural difference aspect from how people behave. It means that while working in a multicultural environment, it’s important to take this difference into account. While doing this, we can realise that by just applying the practices of team and trust-building which are common among western USA influenced word, we possibly will not achieve results we want.
As an example, the ice-breaking exercises so popular there will not bring you benefits in Asian word. Personal relationships there requires much more time, patience and dedication. Hence let’s consider some strategies of building trust across different cultures.
Strategies of building trust in the multicultural team.
I moved to the Netherlands from the country located on the right side of the relationship-based scale and started to work in the company with 46 different nationalities. Both the Netherlands (where I started to work) and the USA (which shaped a lot the business environment) are extremely task-based. And as I was prepared for this, I made a big mistake of not taking into account the whole variety of nationalities I worked with. From my first day at work, I set myself up to behave in a very professional manner, dedicate my time to work, prove my reliability by fulfilling commitments, and just went home after work. So I excluded the critical part of establishing close personal relationships with my peers.
The general rule is no matter where and with whom you work, developing personal relationships is always a good idea. Since it’s not coming naturally to every one of us, here are some options on where to start.
Common interests
Common interests are always a good starting point to connect to people. I can be something more related to your work, hobby or personal life. If your colleague is an open-source contributor, conference speaker or some framework/technology fan, you can share this passion with this person. Also, you can try to find common hobbies, or even connect based on having kids. If you work with someone who has different background and interests, try to learn something about the culture of this person, by asking her/his favourite movie or band, watching it and discussing it together.
Common challenges
Nothing is getting people so close together as a common enemy, or a common problem to solve. Let’s say if you are both expats in a foreign country, dealing together with specifics of a new place can be a great support to both of you and bring you closer.
Shared meals
Use the lunchtime as an opportunity of one-on-one deeper connection with your peers. Invite the person you want to connect to for lunch, be open and be curious. Here I would like to recommend another book “Never it alone” and remind you that you build trust not with a chit-chat, but with being open and vulnerable.
“I believe that every conversation you have is an invitation to risk revealing the real you.”
Keith Ferrazzi, Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time
Drink together and let it go
If you are coming from a task-oriented society, you can perceive team buildings and after-work drinks as still the place where you need to maintain your professional composure. But when you go to a bar with people from relationship-based societies, you better join the crowd and be like with your best friends – have fun and be your-party-self. In Japan, the advice would be even to “drink until you fall down”. It’s important to keep in mind that in that countries trust on a personal level equals to friendship. It can’t be friendship until you drop you professional mask.
Relationship-based hosting task-based
Above we considered specifics of establishing trust with relationship-oriented people, and what if you are relationship-oriented who hosts or need to connect to task-oriented? You need to remember that the level of trust is defined by your dedication, commitment and reliability. And though some level of personal connection is important, people could be not prepared for long after-work drinks, 2 hours lunches and consider it as an energy-consuming waste of time. In this case, the advice would be to reduce this time and focus of productive time together.
In conclusion, I would like to remind you that “Business is a human enterprise, driven and determined by people.” Everything is based on relationships, and relationships are based on trust.