E-mail, Web conferencing and shared virtual workspace applications can shrink the distance between workers based a world away from each other. However technology, even the kind that reduces the chasm between remote workers, won't replace the need for face-to-face meetings.
In fact, new technology actually may increase the demand for in-person meetings. With the ability to send large documents immediately via e-mail or to jointly contribute to a project on a shared Web site, workers are tackling a greater number of projects across large distances. “It means much more work can be done internationally that you couldn't do before when you had to send documents by mail,” says Ben Gomes-Casseres, a professor at the Brandeis International Business School, Waltham, Mass., USA. “Paradoxically, technology makes global projects so much more feasible that now we have many more global projects; therefore people probably need to travel more.”
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Project managers are learning that there is a delicate balance between using technology and in-person meetings when working with an international team.
Smart project managers are learning when such a meeting can pay off by making collaboration more efficient, using technology for the best results.
While many experts agree that face-to-face meetings are almost always fruitful, the expense of such meetings can limit how often they're possible.
Technology and in-person meetings both are necessary tools in managing remote relationships. Today's leading managers must understand when to use technology to help further the project and when an old-fashioned meeting will pay off. While there are no steadfast rules, smart project managers have learned a lot about that delicate balance.
In the Flesh
Face-to-face meetings often are extremely important, says Laraine Kaminsky, executive vice president of business development for Graybridge Malkam, an Ottawa, Ontario, Canada-based company that offers cross-cultural training. “People talk about the expense of bringing everyone together,” she says. “Sometimes it's less expensive than the project failing.”
“In New York they're talking fast, and there's silence on the other end, which they take as, ‘OK, I understand,’, and keep going. I was lucky to be able to bridge both sides without offending either.”
—Gloria Gleave
Some corporations have learned to support in-person meetings with a manager exchange: Each manager will visit the other's office for a few weeks or even months in an effort to understand how their overseas partners work. For example, Gloria Gleave, now an independent project manager, worked for Reuters, based in London, U.K., selling trading equipment to large financial organizations. She spent six months in Reuters' Bangkok, Thailand, office. While there, she learned an immense amount about how her colleagues in Bangkok work.
One point she learned involved regular teleconferences between the New York and Bangkok offices. The managers in New York speak quickly, at times too fast for the Thai workers to understand. “In New York they're talking fast, and there's silence on the other end, which they take as, ‘OK, I understand,’ and keep going,” Ms. Gleave says.
In fact, silence meant just the opposite. The Thai workers wouldn't ask the New York managers, who in many cases were older and more experienced, to slow down or repeat themselves. “A Thai would feel very uncomfortable doing this because it's disrespectful,” she says.
Ms. Gleave acted as go-between, explaining the true meaning of silence to the managers in New York and encouraging the Thai workers to ask the New Yorkers to slow down or repeat themselves. “I was lucky to be able to bridge both sides without offending either,” Ms. Gleave says.
To help ensure that both sides understood topics such as milestones and the scope of a project as discussed during the teleconference, the meetings always were followed up with written minutes that were e-mailed to each of the attendees or posted on the corporate intranet.
Ultimately, the observations and suggestions Ms. Gleave made based on her time in Bangkok led to a more efficient working relationship between the two offices.
Culture Quotient
In addition to planning visits aimed at better cultural understanding, some companies have pinpointed certain situations that always require a visit. For example, research firm IDC, in Framingham, Mass., USA, offers various kinds of training to its analysts who are scattered around the globe. The company has used different types of technology to avoid international travel, but hasn't found anything to replace face-to-face training. “We've used Web conferencing, video conferencing and audio conferencing, and we've found it's better for the remote participant than no training at all, but not by much,” says Mark Levitt, research vice president for collaborative computing and an analyst educator for IDC.
neutral territory
In the late 1990s, Joe Arimond managed an international team of public relations professionals for Motorola, Arlington Heights, Ill., USA. Team members worked from London, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Beijing, and he was based in the headquarters outside of Chicago.
Nearly a year after he started working with the team, he noticed that Kallen An, the manager in China, seemed reluctant to approach members of the press in Beijing who were not Chinese. Via phone and through regular written progress reports, Mr. Arimond tried to encourage Ms. An to reach out to the foreign press.
During those conversations, however, he treaded lightly, always conscious of the Chinese culture. “It would be totally improper to come out and be directly critical of someone [in China] because they put great value in saving face and maintaining a high level of respect for one another,” Mr. Arimond says.
After his attempts at encouraging contact with the foreign journalists proved futile, Mr. Arimond devised a plan where he would visit all the international offices and his international colleagues would visit Motorola headquarters. He hoped that the exercise would allow him to better understand the cultures of his teammates and allow them to see how the public relations office at headquarters worked.
The exchange with Ms. An failed to encourage her to work with the foreign press, but Mr. Arimond still deemed it a success. “I learned a tremendous amount about the culture simply by going out to eat with them at a restaurant,” he says.
In addition, when his Chinese colleague returned to China from her visit to Chicago, Ms. An wrote the best public relations plan that she ever produced.
“I learned a tremendous amount about the culture simply by going out to eat with them at a restaurant.”
—JOE ARIMOND, MOTOROLA, ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, ILL., USA
But Mr. Arimond still was determined to figure out how to encourage her to work with the foreign press. He learned by talking to journalists while he was in Beijing that it was common for writers from other countries to be excluded from press events. He found that often Chinese public relations managers feel that the foreign journalists ask difficult questions. “It goes against the PR person's grain and culture to put their client or company executive in a compromising or tough position,” he says.
He devised another plan. This time, he asked Ms. An to travel with some Motorola executives from the Beijing office along with some Chinese journalists to a major trade show in France. There, on neutral ground, he helped her arrange interviews between the Chinese Motorola executives and journalists from the United States and other countries. He then helped her arrange interviews for the Chinese journalists with Motorola executives based in Chicago who also were in France for the trade show.
The plan worked perfectly. The Chinese executives found that the foreign journalists did ask tough questions but nothing they couldn't handle. When Ms. An returned to China, she was more comfortable contacting the foreign press.
Mr. Arimond feels that no technology could have solved this problem the way that in-person experiences could. “E-mail does a lot of great things but it doesn't fill the communications void entirely,” he says. “I don't know that there will ever be a substitute for face-to-face communications.”
The conferencing solutions didn't allow participants to feel involved in the training, he says. In addition, the time difference—especially in Asia—made it difficult to schedule trainings, which could last six hours.
Using conferencing technology for training would have been very ineffective for most Asians, Mr. Levitt says. “Face-to-face in Asian cultures is much more important,” he says. “They [Asians] wouldn't consider a training where all you have is a voice or a small video.”
Ultimately, IDC decided to send trainers to five or six countries within a region. “So we pay for one person to do a lot of traveling rather than the impossibility of sending 100 analysts here for training,” Mr. Levitt says.
Money Matters
When budgets are too tight to allow exchanges or visits, some project managers instead hire an expert to help get the most out of the technology that replaces the face-to-face meetings. Helen Cooke, an independent project management consultant based in Chicago, Ill., USA, has gone so far as to hire a process communications specialist to sit in on teleconferences, for example. The specialist can spot potential misunderstandings and suggest that the participants further discuss an issue to make sure that both sides fully understood expectations.
Managers also have learned that technology must be used in a culturally sensitive way to avoid offenses that could otherwise lead to the necessity for a face-to-face meeting to get a project back on track.
People around the globe have much different e-mail styles, says Ms. Kaminsky, who was born in South Africa, lived in England and now resides in Canada. “The North American way of e-mail communication is very direct and abrupt and in no way kind on relationships,” she says. “In countries where people are much more relationship-focused than task-focused, you'd be wise to build the relationship than to just introduce the task.”
Many Asian countries highly value relationships, so Ms. Kaminsky recommends that the first time Americans e-mail a Chinese counterpart, for example, the Americans should introduce themselves, comment on what time they typically leave work to go pick up their children from school, and ask about their Chinese colleague's family. “All the research shows that if you build the relationship, it is much easier to get the task done,” she says.
Richard Lau, national director of reservation technology for global reservations, sales and customer sales for Marriott International, Washington, D.C., USA, agrees: “If you don't [build the relationship] we find that it becomes, not strained, but harder to get things done,” he says. While some Americans feel impatient with spending the time to small talk on the phone or via e-mail, Mr. Lau finds it pays off. “If you invest that 10 minutes, you have a better quality of call, and it's often shorter because people are more focused on it,” he says.
Ms. Cooke finds that small talk at the beginning of conference calls with partners in Australia and India is quite useful in breaking down barriers and reminding everyone on a call that people are spread across different continents. Such small talk is less essential for her in face-to-face meetings. “When you're face to face, you can read body language, so you know if you have an understanding and rapport—there's no need to verbalize some things,” Ms. Cooke says. “You have the freedom to focus on the tasks, goals and objectives.” PM
Nancy Gohring is a Seattle, Wash., USA-based freelance writer who contributes regularly to The Seattle Times and occasionally to The New York Times.