I work with leaders from around the world as a coach, trainer and facilitator. I have had the pleasure of working with both global leaders in China from different parts of the world as well as coaching top-level Chinese executives who work with global teams here and abroad.  Through the years I have made a few conclusions to help these leaders adapt and integrate with their global teams quickly and effectively.  The one I repeat most, regardless of a leader’s nationality, is to add facilitation skills to their leadership tool kit.

Global leaders rarely face a work-flow like figure A, that kind of work flow generally doesn’t need a globalized team effort because it can be mapped out and executed without deviation figure A’s work flow can be completely localized and requires little or no facilitation:

Global leaders find they do not face clear goals and that their work process is unlikely to be straight line.  To be successful they need access to both creativity and idea exploration from team members. Because goals are fuzzy and work processes moving lines for global leaders find relying on communication skills that were most effective at home are not guarantees for success globally.

In their native cultural environment global leaders have a style and skill set that has taken them far enough to be considered “global.”  They have likely mastered the ability to work with in the realm of figure A, ironically it is often reliance on this same skill set that actually hinders many leaders attempting integrate with global teams.

This problem might be better explained with a real world dialogue I had recently with the Marketing Director of a Global 100 company attempting a turn around in China.

Me: Since you arrived to turn things around in China how would you describe meetings here with your team?

Director: Well people don’t talk very much and I rarely get creative input from my subordinates’ subordinates.  My style is to ask a lot of questions but I don’t get many answers.  It’s frustrating since in our situation it would be better if we had more creative ideas being generated.

Me: So what do you think will create a change to the way things are going?  How can you get people to be more involved when you ask questions?

Director:  Currently I am asking more questions until they begin to get used to my asking questions and I guess I have to adjust to only getting the creative feedback from my subordinates.

I’d like to say that this is the exception rather than the rule, but overwhelmingly I find leaders with limited global leadership experience do MORE of what worked for them at home in hopes of conditioning their team to their style.  What they do less of (at least initially) is adapt a model that works more effectively globally. 

Global leaders are also facing a challenge from technology.  In the case above as I later walked down the hallways of his office I saw a familiar sight in meeting rooms there:

Do you see what’s happening here?  It’s happening around the world right now.  Teams are conditioning themselves to limit creativity and exploration to hit a growing number of fuzzy goals.  Ironically the technology that is supposed to improve communication is making it worse, we’ll explore how later on…

What the leader in the case above was hoping for was to have a meaningful dialogue that generated more ideas.  He ran into at least two barriers the first was the limitation of this own tool kit and the second was a team conditioned to communicating through power point and excel charts.  These two conditions limit three styles of thinking necessary for good group communication:

1.       Divergent thinking – Your team can add scope to their discussion by bringing out a range of ideas.  Standard techniques include mind-mapping, brainstorming etc. to get more ideas out. 

2.      Emergent thinking – Add depth to an idea with emergent thinking, provide greater analysis and consideration to make sure ideas have been given full consideration.

3.       Convergent thinking – Execution matters. How to take a fully developed idea and put it into action is the goal for convergent thinking.   Good convergent thinking processes ensure higher buy-in levels from everyone involved.

“Great,” you may be thinking, “I can summarize this by asking questions like ‘do you have any ideas?’ at the start of a meeting or ‘would anyone like to add anything?’ at the mid or end point.”  In a sense you would be right.  Global leaders have undoubtedly noticed those kinds of questions generate a different kind of quantity of response in different locations and rarely provide the quality they are hoping for when they starting asking questions. 

Divergent Thinking:

Think back to meetings like from our earlier photo, we run into a certain kind of problem when we let a projector and power point guide our meetings.  Meetings guided by power point feel prepared, because they are, and they create a feeling that there is a “right answer.”  This makes asking for ideas and suggestions less powerful because your audience may run a full range of emotions but some of those feelings will include resignation, anger, boredom, or polite expectation of the answer you have on the next slide.

Other than turn off your projector what can you do about it?  Well here are a few simple suggestions:

Suggestion 1:  Replace your power point with post-its. 

During a recent leadership team facilitation to identify the behaviors of a diverse yet inclusive leadership team the group of global leaders wanted to have a group decision rather than a decision passed by HR or one top manager.  We could have opened the session by asking an open question like, “what are the behaviors of an effective and diverse team?”  We could have also had a slide with the key answers we wanted to reinforce waiting to show them.  Instead we turned off the power point and gave each person his or her own post-it note pad.

We then asked them to identify the behaviors of an effective team by writing at least three qualities on their post-its and drawing a picture as a team of five with their results.  After sharing pictures we asked them to add any specific behaviors or qualities these teams might also show if they were “diverse and inclusive” while staying effective.  We suddenly had a lot of answers to begin to work with and many more than if we had prepared “best answers.”

Suggestion 2:  1-2-Many

Do you ever find that one or two voices dominate your brainstorming?  One simple technique you can combine with your post it notes is 1-2-Many.  A simple technique is to give everyone a chance to come out with his or her own ideas.  Then pair him or her up with a partner and have them see if they can add any ideas after sharing with each other.  Then move the pairs together into a larger group to combine their ideas and see if new ideas come up.  This creates a few results; not the least of which is that you have a lot of ideas that you can explore with emergent thinking, the other often over looked result is creating an advocate for individual ideas makes it less likely to over look some of your quieter team member’s ideas.

Suggestion 3: Moving Bodies à Moving Minds

Finally get people out of their seats.  Staring at power points creates complacency and sitting in chairs adds to the temptation to stare at smart phones and laptops.  After their initial brainstorm have them stand up and talk with their partner and then come together as a group in different locations in the room.  Global leaders who want to engage with team members despite their rank may find this is a useful technique to meet team members who might otherwise be geographically located at the far end of offices or meeting rooms.  Consider also mixing team members into different discussion groups to get a cross pollination of ideas that may be missing otherwise.

At the end of your Divergent Thinking Process you should see all those ideas you have been looking for and possibly more. 

Emergent Thinking

If divergent thinking seeks to get all of the ideas out so you can begin to examine a problem then emergent thinking is your chance to fully explore the most interesting ideas you have come out with.  Some traditional emergent thinking practices include SWOT analysis, Pro’s and Con’s lists and numerous risk analysis tools.  Below are a few suggestions that can help get everyone involved and invoke the unofficial rule of  “Moving Bodies à Moving Minds:”

1.  Cluster your ideas to make them more manageable: 

If you have done a divergent thinking activity you likely have come up with a lot of ideas.  You probably would be best served finding a way to cluster these into key groups.  Another word for this that facilitators use is “Affinity Mapping.”  This can literally be thought of as group ideas together that are similar.  You can do this a few ways but with groups new to facilitation start off easy.  The simplest way is for you to create the groupings either in advance or from your interpretation of the results.   Given enough time it may be more meaningful to have the groups make their own affinity groupings.  Going back to the example of diverse and effective teams a few of the affinity cluster looked fell under titles like:

2. Vote for Ideas That are Actionable/Interesting

Not all teams are democratic but a vote can often help focus ideas and allow for greater discussion.  Two ways to vote can be using adhesive multicolor dots or adhesive strips.  Your ideas will take on a heat index showing which ideas resonate the most or are viewed as the most feasible. 

When using dots I recommend picking three colors and giving them a point value, for example red dot = 3 points, blue dot = 2 points, yellow dot = 1 point, then give each participant 1 of each color and have them vote for the idea that is most appealing.  If you have ideas posted around the room, possibly as a result from affinity mapping, you may have someone introduce the ideas or appeal for votes.  If you want to vote for two or more conditions, for example most feasible and also most exciting, chose new colors or use a different adhesive.  Find some sample results below: 

3.  Dig Deep – Examine the key ideas for additional findings

As noted before there are many different analytical tools out there for teams to explore the best-fit ideas during an emergent thinking phase.  If you are interested in giving the Moving Bodies à Moving Minds equation a try for larger groups look into the recently popular World Café.  This activity gets teams moving around asking questions, writing suggestions, and finalizing ideas.

For smaller groups I personally recommend a Revolver/ Turntable discussion.   This gets teams exploring ideas from two or more sides and also has many different techniques to keep it from being repetitive.  There is no one BEST technique to provide analysis but a good leader or facilitator will want to spend the time here to explore and get the most of their team’s analytical skills before beginning a convergent thinking process.

Convergent Thinking

Some leaders may already be pleased to see their teams actively pulling out ideas and analyzing those ideas, while other leaders might (rightfully) point out that all the discussion has little to no value without some concrete actions coming out of all this moving around and sticking up post its and voting.  No one action planning process is going to fit every situation so I have outlined a few suggestions on helping your team choose when and how to act.

1. Create an X Y axis and reduce choices

During the diversity discussions in Beijing we wanted to take the ideas that had been most popular and refine the decisions down to the ones likely to implement and that team members had the most control over.  We knew that some actions had to take root immediately and that some would need a little bit more time and that all of them needed to come out of the team and not from leadership forcing the implementation.   They picked over the highest vote getting ideas and on the XY axis (Cartesian Plane) arranged them according to complexity to execute and time needed to create a change in behavior.  They had a quick pick on how to start making change happen.

Note let’s make this chart on Friday during training and take a picture 

2.  Figure out Who, How, and When

Getting the specifics of action plans can a challenge at times.  This simple activity should get teams thinking about specifics.  Be sure to encourage specifics as the facilitator, throw out broad generalities as they come up.  As the leader/facilitator set up a simple chart with three columns “Who, How, When” and a column and row for each action they had identified on the XY axis.  Teams then break down who is responsible for overseeing key actions, how they can get them started and when they would start/finish these initiatives.  It is always fun and interesting to see some post-it make it all the way to this stage from an early divergent activity. 

Give teams a few more minutes to flesh out their goals and have them share them back with other teams to see if they take any other inspiration from each other before having them finalize their outgoing actions. 

Thinking and Communicating Globally

Global leaders understand that it is not effective to expect others to adapt to a leader’s style.  Global leaders adapt and when possible they integrate different models into their toolbox.  For Global leaders it should be unacceptable to label one culture or nationality more or less creative or able to communicate.  As more leaders face fuzzy goals and changing working styles and conditions in our increasingly global working world it is my hope the thoughts outlined above spark an interest in maximizing flexibility by using facilitation tools to help global teams communicate better.

John is an APEC speaker, adjunct professor and one of China's leading experts in cross cultural solutions. Over the past 14 years he has worked from supervisor to executive level leaders from every corner of the world working in greater China and Asia to be more effective and inclusive in a multi-cultural business environment. He is certified in 12 industry standard cross cultural tools including assessments and training courses covering all major academic and business settings. His signature workshop on Diversity and Inclusion has been highly praised by fortune 100 companies, embassies and consulates across Asia.

John brings a wealth of knowledge to his clients through his rich multi-cultural background having lived and worked in nine countries. He was was born in Singapore, raised in a US diplomatic family and grew up in Asia, the US and the Middle East. John studied intercultural solutions in the US and Europe and is fluent in three languages including English, Mandarin and Italian.