Working across cultural boundaries
By Henry
In reflecting on my experience so far, the most rewarding and most challenging aspect of our remote consulting work has been working across cultural boundaries with our client.
My inbox keeps filling up with helpful travel tips and suggestions from various airlines for the trip to Brazil that never happened. I was looking forward to this trip for months, and had done meticulous planning and research to maximize my time in Brazil. When the news about the cancellation of our trip came out last week, I was devastated.
Still, as I sit here in Boston with ever more dire news hitting my newsfeed every day, part of me is glad that I did not have to travel to Brazil under such a foreboding cloud of uncertainty. If the trip had gone forward, I knew that I would have been worried about my friends and family back home, and I would not have been able to experience Brazil to the fullest extent possible.
Our team and the client both found solace in focusing on the day to day work of their organization, and provided us with great feedback on our recommendations during our interim presentation, provided over video-conferencing software. Even though we should have been in Rio this week, presenting in person, our client shared our sentiments that now was not the best time to visit Brazil.
In reflecting on my experience so far, the most rewarding and most challenging aspect of our remote consulting work has been working across cultural boundaries with our client. For someone who is usually quite confident and comfortable interacting with many different stakeholders, I sometimes had trouble translating those skills to a non-native English speaking situation. Our team had to work overtime to adjust to this, and to develop a more culturally competent communications strategy.
Ultimately, despite the initial barriers we faced, I feel as though we have been successful in building a strong relationship with our clients, which translated to greater receptivity towards our initial presentation and hopefully a set of clear next steps to increase the organization’s impact. I hope to get a chance to meet them in person on a future trip to Brazil.