International Communication

Turn right at the hot dog stand…

7 August 2011

I was hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with a col­league recently where we were dis­cuss­ing dir­ec­tions from an air­port arrivals gate to the city shuttle bus, which, in a little detail was to turn right at the hot dog stand then left a few meters later, exit through the glass doors and look for the shuttle bus. […]

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Making first contact across international projects

26 February 2011

Some­thing which comes up quite fre­quently in dis­cus­sions I have with col­leagues, par­tic­u­larly those new to work­ing in vir­tual teams, is whether there is a pro­tocol for estab­lish­ing con­tact at the start of par­ti­cip­a­tion in a new pro­ject. I have dis­cussed this with a num­ber of col­leagues and given it quite a bit of thought […]

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Overcoming communication silos in international projects

11 December 2010

Within com­mu­nic­a­tions in inter­na­tional pro­jects, one often over­looked facet which can be eas­ily addressed, requires com­plex and com­mit­ted effort and can cause sub­stan­tial dam­age if handled badly is the man­age­ment of bar­ri­ers affect­ing com­mu­nic­a­tions between the vari­ous inter­na­tional parties. One of the biggest influ­ences on a pro­jects abil­ity to develop and main­tain an effect­ive inter-office […]

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Providing ongoing assistance in the development of international communications skills

4 December 2010

In an earlier post I dis­cussed the dif­fer­ent levels of sup­port and train­ing offered by organ­isa­tions to their people when deploy­ing them onto inter­na­tional pro­jects, either as ex-pat’s or as home office based per­son­nel work­ing as with inter­na­tional offices. Many organ­isa­tions, in my exper­i­ence and obser­va­tion, will give their per­son­nel some level of induc­tion and […]

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Understanding the need to develop international communicators

31 October 2010

So, a ques­tion which comes up from time to time is, just where are the future inter­na­tional pro­ject com­mu­nic­at­ors com­ing from? where are they devel­op­ing right now? and, how can their devel­op­ment be sup­por­ted and facil­it­ated so that there are enough of them avail­able for future pro­jects? Firstly, as an optim­ist, let me say that […]

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Comparing communication mediums in cross cultural team communication

15 August 2010

There are a num­ber of dif­fer­ent com­mu­nic­a­tion tech­no­lo­gies avail­able to the mod­ern pro­ject man­ager to inter­face with and coördin­ate their inter­na­tional pro­ject teams, ran­ging from stand­ard email com­mu­nic­a­tions, whether they be one to one or used to broad­cast mes­sages to the entire team, use of the tele­phone, again either for a one on one conversation, […]

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Tips for survival in the deep end of international project communications

18 July 2010

Prob­ably the most com­mon way inter­na­tional pro­jects develop their com­mu­nic­a­tions plans is through the simple trial and error of start­ing a pro­ject with an inter­na­tional, vir­tual team com­pon­ent with no dif­fer­ent com­mu­nic­a­tions plan­ning than would occur in a single coun­try, co loc­ated team meth­od­o­logy. All of this means that those respons­ible for deliv­er­ing the project […]

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Company’s options to support international project communication skills

10 July 2010

There are, it seems to me, three basic ways company’s develop inter­na­tional com­mu­nic­a­tions skills in their employ­ees, all three of which have ana­lo­gies with learn­ing to swim, these basic options are; To throw the employ­ees in at the deep end.  This seems like a pretty bru­tal descrip­tion though to be fair, many employ­ees also choose […]

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Finding the right motivation to succeed in international communications

5 June 2010

I seem to have had a few con­ver­sa­tions with col­leagues recently on the need for per­sonal motiv­a­tion as a driv­ing force to suc­ceed in inter­na­tional com­mu­nic­a­tions. By motiv­a­tion I am refer­ring to the type of psy­cho­lo­gical drivers the indi­vidual needs to have the per­sonal desire and drive to really want to learn and under­stand their […]

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Self awareness as a contributor to successful communications

1 June 2010

In a recent con­ver­sa­tion with a col­league, the topic of self aware­ness in pro­ject per­son­nel in gen­eral and as a major con­trib­utor to the devel­op­ment of suc­cess­ful and effect­ive inter­cul­tural com­mu­nic­at­ors spe­cific­ally came up. Dur­ing the dis­cus­sion I came to real­ise just how effect­ive and indeed essen­tial it is for any­one who wishes to become effective […]

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