Imagine you are leading a team of executives who don't speak the same language fluently. How do you lead them towards success?
While the projects are getting diverse and your team may consists employees from different regions with different culture, background, why not at times there are members in your own team who support your customers for countries where you both don't speak the same language.
Another example is, If you are located abroad leading local clients you may have to manage local employees.
Either your team members speak or don't speak the same language. Communication is key to build and lead teams. Paving a way and setting clear expectations show them what success looks like. This keeps the team members motivated and achieve strong results.
Well, I had the amazing opportunity to manage diverse teams across different regions across Asia pacific, Greater china & Japan, interestingly I had team members who were supporting Japan operations and they don't utter the same language as I do.
So here is my learnings and my top 5 tips on setting expectations and managing employees who do not speak the same tongue
Recruit a Team Leader or supervisor who can understand the language as you do: Investing on this resource is vital so the team lead is able to pass your message to team members and solve the communication barrier. Definitely there are Pros & Cons but ofcourse, you need to prepare and ensure the team leader to avoid passing any incorrect messages.
Keep your written communications Bilingual: If, you as a manager can speak only English don't send the emails or written communications only in English as these communications will be left out and may not be read. Instead invest time to translate your emails in the language your teams can understand and send it, this way it eases the pressure of your team, includes your strategy, targets etc.
Learn the culture of your teams and their language: when your team members see the efforts you put to communicate in their language it cultivates trust, eases their pressure off and makes them closer to you. In a way they will open up and come to you for suggestions and callout their challenges.
Explain your organizational targets and keep it simple: Share the organization targets consistently and keep them updated on the achievements. Sharing them the targets makes them understand and their importance to the organization.
Be aware of the local cultural nuances and their interests
Tip: if you have a dedicated business HR connect and involve them to understand the pulse of your team, ofcourse arrange skip level meetings to listen to your teams concerns and work on them to solve them timely manner.
Conclusion
It is definitely frustrating managing members who don't understand or speak the same language as you do, it definitely takes time and being patient helps you to calm down and work on the long terms goals of yours and the organization.
Have you had the experience of managing similar teams, please share your experience and solutions you put in place to solve the day to day problems.
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