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[Note: “Mum’s the word” is a popular English idiom. Urban Dictionary defines it to mean, “to keep quiet about something.”]

A meaningful way to build relationships

In Nov. 2014, a grand jury decision in the U.S. court system has stirred emotion and debate nationwide in an ongoing domestic dialogue about race. For many, «sensitive» issues like these are «off limits» for informal workplace discussion. However, diplomatically engaging with international colleagues about important matters of probable national interest is a practical and meaningful way to build relationship.

Review the news

Online news media is an easy way to stay current on international events. To what news media updates can you subscribe that provide weekly, country-specific updates for the country(ies) where your colleagues work and live? As we know and sometimes need reminding, the news is not just a series of stories and sound bytes, but actual events that touch the people with whom you work in ways that may likely affect them both outside and inside the workplace. Learn a part of their story by knowing something about the context within which your colleagues operate on a daily basis.

Offer the topic for conversation

On your next conference call with a colleauge in a different country, try offering a more substantive topic for conversation after catching up on the weather! Be sure to ask «open» questions (generally starting with, «How,» «Why,» or «What do you think about…?»). As one of a series of recent articles, for instance, DiversityInc, a U.S. publication that focuses on the business benefits of workplace diversity, published the article, «How Ferguson Impacts Your Employees with Black Children.» While recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, U.S. may be outside of your own radar—or even the awareness of those within the U.S.—the ongoing events in the case may very well be on the minds of your colleagues. Beyond Ferguson, other significant local situations may be top of mind for your colleauges around the world—the Ebola outbreak in West Africa; the recent Scottish Independence Referendum in the UK; the Turkish President’s comments this week on women’s equality. Your colleagues do not have to fit a specific color, socioeconomic, nationality or gender criteria in order to be affected by issues of national relevance. Connecting on the matter briefly—or not so briefly—on your next work call may be welcome and bridge mutual trust in a way that exchanging weather forecasts cannot.

Of course, such matters should be treated with care, diplomacy and deference to those living the realities of various local situations.

Act on the Information

What will you do with the information that you have gathered in the kind of exchange mentioned above? Here are a few suggestions:

 

  • Reflect

Reflection does not tend to receive credit as a legitimate act, but we know that giving intention to our thoughts and feelings helps process them for leanring and doing better in the future. Contemplating your responses to the information that you learn about your colleagues in more personal workplace conversations—including your own assumptions, surprise, discomfort, empathy, etc.—is one way to honor and absorb what has been shared with you.

 

  • Return with your thoughts

Revisiting the conversation on another day with your colleague is a chance to check in and acknowledge the meaning of your previous conversation. Before sharing your thoughts, tell your colleague your intentions in following up with your impressions. Building authentic relationships with your colleagues abroad is not an event, but a series of exchanges that evolve over time.

 

  • Connect differently, more effectively
Depending on what your colleague may or may not have shared, ask whether there are ways that you might connect differently in order to work better together—or, suggest an idea. For instance, you may decide together to become thought partners on increasing inclusion practices in your diverse workplace; suggest postponing a non-urgent meeting to relieve a colleague during an emotionally full week; or, ask how to ally with workplace minorities who may feel affected inside your work environments by current events occurring nationally.

 

¡Será un placer entrar en contacto con usted!

The above article was included in the Nov. 2014 intercultures e-newsletter.

Photo credit title picture: Getty Images.