Having a team geographically spread across continents is always a difficult challenge. One that has many advantages, but still a challenge. In order to conquer this challenge there is no replacement for good old human interaction, which means frequent visits among the teams.
This week I am visiting our New York office again. Both Rick and I have written in the past about our experiences with these visits and the importance of face to face meetings.
I was thinking about it this morning during my daily run and how the roles have reversed for me this week. Normally, my interactions with my team in Israel are so easy. Just walk up to the person you want to talk with, and talk. Problems are solved before they even arise.
But this week, I had a simple question for one of my developers, and I had to e-mail it (it was already late in Israel, so she wasn’t around). The next morning I got a very detailed e-mail that obviously required a lot more than the 10 seconds it would have taken to respond in a face to face conversation. I got the answer I needed, but at what price and effort?
On the other hand, questions that have been lingering for a few weeks have suddenly been resolved in minutes here. Casual corridor talks and being able to physically sit in a meeting (and not on the other side of the phone, barely hearing what everyone is saying), have kept some issues from even showing up in the first place.
This all reminds me of when we first started SharedBook, and how we paid close attention to working well together with a team that was separated not only geographically but also culturally. We held cross cultural workshops both in Israel and in New York right from the beginning. The person who lead the workshops, also wrote an interesting book about this: Border Crossings: American Interactions With Israelis which I recommend wholeheartedly.
I feel lucky that most of the issues that we deal with on a daily basis have to do with the physical separation of our offices, and not necessarily the cultural differences. We must be doing something right! J
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