The human spirit cannot be quantified but it can be remarkably productive. Discussions about distributed workforces and global teams are incomplete without talking about the human spirit.
Current themes on global teaming revolve around workers in different geographies with different time zones, splitting high and low value work at lower rates. It creates a cold, number-of-widgets perspective around human effort and undermines the potential of a high functioning, truly human organization.
As of writing I’m listening to Bob Marley and sitting with the reality that reggae isn’t American. It was a Jamaican-African import that today has become a cherished musical category with celebrated annual festivals in every major American city. The incense that clouds these festivities is lovely, by the way. No one would dare think of Bob Marley’s music as foreign or ‘outsourced.’ It stirred the soul and weaved itself into the our musical lexicon that spans international boundaries.
That’s the difference: true global talent acquisition isn’t a function of shopping international markets — its not transactional — instead, it’s opening ourselves to realizing the truest and most comprehensive version of the human experience from … anywhere.
And that’s what building a global team is all about. It’s high time leaders are called out and corrected. To quote Bob Marley, it’s time to “little darlin, stir it up.” A new view of the global tribe is needed.
We know and can agree on the beauty and value of having the right people in business: a mix of abilities and drive organized around a common mission. Doing this right drives us beyond our short-term whims and desires toward incredible and longer-term output.
And not the cold, number-of-widgets kind of productivity. Rather, an output with purpose and feeling. Still true: compensation and functions are important. But they’re table steaks. What’s missing is an honest view about the commonality of humanity, that is the seeking of a better tomorrow and the cost it takes (our effort).
Why?
Because the output that spirit can achieve is far more powerful than the human-as-a-widget version.
It’s the kind that goes beyond workplace security, striking higher at building something a-la-Maslow’s self actualization, the highest of psychological need.
The how-to-build-a-business literature and speaker circuit is sorely missing this version of work. Even a well-meaning attempts, as various writers and speakers have tried with “culture,” fall significantly short.
For all our planning and smarts, modern views about hours, rate, and geography provide a sterile picture of our potential to fulfill a rewarding journey of doing precisely what we leaders demand: hard things together.
Hanoi Lunar New Year
Nothing brought this point home to me like visiting our team in Asia. These are people who we care for deeply and felt we knew. Afterall, we’ve worked with them for five years so we thought it fitting to visit them ahead of tax season. Our goal was simple: get our team away from home and together for a few days.
So it was that Daniela, my business partner, and I booked last-minute middle seats, tucked in the back of a packed 15+ hour flight to visit our team members flying from the Philippines and Saigon to Hanoi, Vietnam right before the Lunar New Year.
I could go on about the ambiance, the bright red and gold decor, the feasts of food, and the traditional dress that people dawned as they took selfies in the street. Or how the city hits your nostrils first, before your eyes can even begin to process what the hell is this place.
But what stands out most looking back was the way each team member beamed with pride. Company leadership was in their time zone, doing a version of the summit we asked them to join virtually back in the US, to make space for what they may have felt was missing: meaningful celebration of their work.
Lunar New Year, or as some call it Tet, for many is similar to the period between Christmas and New Year. It’s a week where shops, offices, and tourism take a break for family time. People fly back from their newly adopted work cities to return to their family’s hometowns. The never-ending bustle of city and work life comes to a grinding halt (and as our e-commerce clients remind me me, so too their inventory shipments).
Leading up to the break, businesses in Asia do celebrations, parties, and big dinners. Since we give our Asia team that week off, which coincides with the kick off of tax season, Daniela and I decided it would might be an effective way to strategize before the shutdown. Two days of planning and training mixed with cultural festivities and dinners in between. We wanted a taste of pre-Tet at our “APAC Summit.”
We had two asks of them:
(1) be physically and mentally present for the full program (that requires clearing work and calendars and for the parents on the team, making arrangements to be there for all days); and
(2) to present a Strength-Weakness-Opportunities-and-Threats (SWOT) analysis on their role.
We have the same requirements of staff when we do our annual summits for our North America team. Different hemispheres of the world with the same goal: to bond, build empathy, and establish ownership of the role and future.
The results were shocking, in a good way. We get so used to bad surprises as business leaders, I’m reminded how important it is to cherish moments where expectations are exceeded the other way.
We expected some contribution and semi-feigned enthusiasm. What we got was TOTAL ownership. They owned everything from itinerary, including airport pickup, to developing the V2 process we’d use for the upcoming tax season. Exercises that I expected to take 45-minutes were CRUSHED in ten minutes. They had visions of their own. I had to keep myself from blurting out my surprise with their talent lest I seam that I underestimated, or worse, underappreciated them. And we learned that our quietest team members, were perhaps our fiercest; lions among the meek indeed!
It was an invaluable lesson that ambition, determination and the yearn for building a better life presents itself differently in different environments. In Asia, staff are taught to be loyal followers, efficient executers of leaderships’ orders.
In the US we say, ‘the squeaky wheel gets the grease.’ In Asia, as they would remind us at PwC, the phrase more commonly shared is ‘the tallest grass gets the cut.’
But that is not the total truth, it simply the accepted default. Fail to ask the right questions or give autonomy without a proper goal, and you’ll get compliance. It took being there to see that.
What Daniela and I learned on that trip was, asking a different question, How will you create what’s next … can unleash a new element, that is, the human spirit. It’s something we would have missed sitting on the other side of the world. These are not your passive yes-men and women. No, they are fierce warriors who have much more to give and are willing to do the work along side us.
Our message back was simple. This is your practice, your work world, so make it the place you want to grow in and you’ll be RICHLY rewarded. Yes, we talk about money when it comes to growth, and we’re clear that it comes with higher expectations, accountability and CONTRIBUTION.
Tribes of Contributors
In a conversation now dominated by dreams of building multi-million or billion-dollar companies with an army of AI, I suggest that the dominant strategy is still building with tribes of human contributors. Those who can believe they hold ownership in their tribe, and conversely, that their tribe holds ownership in them. From braving high seas to finding riches across the world, to manipulating the laws of nature to land on the moon, the stories we remember are those of imperfect-yet-determined HUMANS who braved known and unknown dangers for a better tomorrow.
the stories we remember are those of imperfect-yet-determined people willing to brave known and unknown dangers for a better tomorrow.
The human spirit cannot be manipulated, only directed.
And directed towards a mutual end, we have consistently proven that those who can inspire that spirit can go much further, even in spite of hardship, than any one person can go it alone.
Building a global tribe captures the essence of what it means to build around the human spirit. Spanning beyond a common language and cultural norms; what it requires is digging deep into what is common among us — the determination of soul. What is shared between a good company and tribe is simple: good-hearted people of anywhere with belief in themselves and their peers (and in today’s context, an internet connection) to do HARD things.
Spirit is the human touch so sorely lacking in talks about distributed workforces and “global centers of excellence” among other euphemisms for (or explicit references to)“outsourcing.”
Instead, I suggest we as leaders drive to the why behind the blood, sweat and tears that pour into the mission. And the commonality of struggle that will take us there. A vision for a better life cannot be divided between geographies. From Buenos Aires to Hanoi, this vision is universal to the human spirit.
As a leader, you’re corralling and cajoling something beautiful, creating and striving for the better tomorrow that’s not here yet. That takes a courage and insight into the human spirit. Unbridled yet determined to make better … yes, business.
As a leader you’re doing far more than providing a job, you’re providing a means to socio-economic mobility never before achievable and a part of something far more meaningful than the hum-drum of X.
In short, stop calling it outsourcing. It’s bigger than that. It’s the future of work, or how we express our spirit. It’s building a tribe.
From Spirit to Strategy: Landing the Plane on Global Tribing
Human spirit alchemy — that is, harnessing the power of a global team across borders and cultural norms — requires three simple practices.
Avoid separating work as “High” and “Low” value
In recent years, the accounting ivory tower has touted taking “low value” work to cheaper geographies so that you, the stateside value creator, can do “higher value work.” This high/low value divide creates separate classes of workers. That won’t work in today’s interconnected, highly competitive job market; especially not if the aim is motivating people to strive beyond their job description.
People work harder when they feel they’re part of the inner rung of the value creation. Admin work, or staff level work is essential to the mission and seeing it that way allows you, the leader, to demand the most at every level.
Instead, define roles with above-baseline expectations (if you’re wondering what is the baseline, start there) and bigger goals, showing how junior levels can move up a ladder that has them in leadership. It doesn’t have to be C-suite leadership. You can organize teams so that leaders take greater ownership of parts of the process.
Design Culture for Contribution, Not Completion
I owe credit to my friend Rom Lakritz who recommends establishing contribution as a key growth area at every level. This runs counter to “fly on the wall thinking” so pervasive in corporate culture. The sit-and-learn-through-osmosis style is easier, but not effective.
Goals must be evident and communicated — at the macro level, translated to each role with baseline and reach.
The goal must be …
valuable to the company as well as to the contributor individually. This has shifted the mindset from get the work done to how can this process be better? That was the beauty of the SWOT analysis we conducted as we encouraged staff to think about flipping weaknesses to strengths and threats into opportunities. They owned the goal, and how they expect to get there. Our job is to make it clear how they’re getting closer to it, and reward progress along the way.
This also requires that as leaders you empower staff with context specific to their role. If it’s data entry, what’s the base line? What are common blockers limiting us to that baseline. And once we realize how to break down those barriers, let’s consider, what’s a kick a** production level, and then turn it on its head, how can you use additional team members and technology to 2X, 3X+ that goal. That builds the thinking that ‘The goal moves and grows with me, and so will my rewards.’
Build The F* Out of Culture Like a Tribe, Not Like a Factory
When you get buy in as a tribe, you acknowledge two things: first, there’s a (better) future together and second, we don’t have to stay here (we get to go somewhere else).
Building together reminds us we do not have to go it alone. Alone, we are weighted by our own personal limitations. Left unchecked, our emotions can be tyrants and negotiating them can be a full time job. With others, we can feed off encouragement when we are down, be brought back to reality when too jubilant. We lift each other up, sometimes unknowingly. We humble each other when our arrogance is left unbridled. Together, we get different points of view on the same goal that stretch our perspectives. We grow faster: there are those who are better than us who we can imitate until their skill becomes uniquely ours.
Our growth gives way to mentorship: as we move up the skill and value ladder we bring up our juniors to learn these same skills, creating a culture of “together we will find a way.”
As we build capacity and trust in the tribe, we learn to see beyond our village. We don’t need to stay here because we can go farther together. The tribe elders, those who have seen the fruits of their labor and care for the planted, guide the next chapter, and give us a vision we sometimes cannot see ourselves. Those who believe the tribe serves their needs and that the tribes direction will better serve their hopes for tomorrow stay. Those who choose to venture elsewhere leave. And the cycle repeats itself. But what is consistent is an alignment of a future as one. A tribe believes and dreams together. This dynamic makes for a culture that re-enforces the flywheel of the tribe, built with trust and strengthened with progress.
I remember reading Peter Drucker’s quote, culture trumps strategy. But I was missing a critical piece of the puzzle. Building like a tribe puts that all together.
