3 Tips to Building International Teams

Building a multi-market team and business is no easy task - in fact, there’s a lot stacked against you. Besides the distance between employees, you also have to contend with language barriers, multiple time zones and cultural differences. Every global company’s competitive advantage depends entirely on its ability to coordinate critical resources and information that’s spread across different geographical locations.

There are myriad mechanisms that global corporations can use to integrate dispersed operations, the most effective tool being the global business team: a cross of cultures, nationalities, businesses and functions which come together to coordinate a part of the multinational operation on a global scale.

So what are the keys to scaling success?

Communicating internationally

Strong communication is essential when building an international team. And thanks to the transformation of technology, this isn’t as difficult as it used to be. While phone and email are still options, these days it’s more likely for colleagues to speak on social platforms such as WeChat, YouKu, Skype, WhatsApp and Google Hangout. No matter how you get in touch with team members, you should always plan weekly conference calls or schedule webinars to ensure you are aligned. Technology should be viewed as a complement to, not a substitute for, team meetings. Expedia moved its chief talent officer from Seattle to Paris to allow more face time with teams which signals their belief in human contact. Face-to-face interaction is extremely important as it helps foster familiarity and trust — not easily established through virtual meetings.

Working together

Misalignment of individual team goals can be catastrophic, and global business teams face additional challenges such as differences in geography, market needs, language and culture. To ensure operations run smoothly, you need to have a clearly defined structure with an established brand goal, clear expectations and a contingency plan if there is a world disaster. Just Eat is a great example of a brand who has done this well. Although Just Eat has a somewhat centralised approached, they allow all markets a degree of autonomy by encouraging each country to create its own marketing strategy based on local insights. All marketing regional plans map to the centralised goal and vision.

Building trust in international teams

Finally, you have to establish trust among your global team members. Trust is critical to the success of any global business team, encouraging cooperation and minimising unproductive behavior. If nurtured correctly, the result can yield significant synergies and produce highly impactful results. What’s the best way to gain trust from your employees? Make an effort to establish personal connections – in turn, you’ll have a more productive workforce and, more importantly, you will begin to understand why your team makes the decisions they do. Annual face-to-face meetings, frequently communicating with team members and designing a system to measure their performance will all contribute to the smooth-running of an international organisation.

In today's technology first, always on world, having multi-market global teams will become increasingly common. The good news? Strong communications and defined business goals across markets will attract diverse global talent. But in order to leverage the benefits of diversity – namely driving innovation – trust must be at the heart of an organisation. This is cultivated by a great leader – one that is willing to take risks and not follow rules, one that is willing to get uncomfortable but who ultimately trusts – and therefore empowers – employees. And who understands that this looks different from office to office, region to region. That’s the not-so-secret secret to scaling internationally – trust.