Taking on my first fully global communication role this spring, I had a number of grandiose delusions about the impending changes to my lifestyle—business class travel, experiencing the culinary and cultural charms of Southeast Asia, and allowing my work life to imbue me with even-greater sense of self importance than my previous state, which many of my friends and peers found insufferable to begin with.
But as the first few months have unfolded, the global communications has proven more “extra ordinary” than “extraordinary”. Rather than on an exotic business trip, my encounters with my overseas peers have been through innumerable teleconferences and video conferences, and at a live conference held at an exclusive…local airport hotel.
I have not found this disappointing—indeed, I’ve found it refreshing, the only r irritation having been to arise from a pre-dawn conference call with staff at a site in the
What has been refreshing is that I have found the mechanics, process and approaches for effective communication to be adaptable to different cultures and environments, with their adaptability dependent on the extent to which messages resonate and local contexts, values and power relationships are understood. Nothing glamorous about that—just good old fashioned comms strategy, played out over many more time zones.
