When I was assigned to lead a cross-border integration program as a stretch assignment for a global company, I embraced it as an opportunity to lead with courage, collaboration and conviction across international borders. This transformation project provided me with perspectives that I might not have realized without experimentation.
What started as a technical implementation became a very personal experience, helping me develop empathy, patience and resilience. Integration doesn’t only involve the integration of systems and processes, but also people and their mindsets. Attitudes toward change vary between different organizations and teams, and my role involved helping people across various groups to embrace change and move forward.
Building the foundation of trust and collaboration
Trust is the key factor in any process that involves change. Change is introduced in phases — it certainly doesn’t happen overnight! — and would require deep collaboration with all the stakeholders involved. Collaboration is essential, as we need to understand and align to various perspectives and agree on a unified approach. Trust is built through action and consistent results through delivery.
We built trust with our stakeholders by going above and beyond our responsibilities and providing them with suggestions on how we could deliver more results in less time, as the entities were not fully prepared for the change and were unaware of the scope and depth of the project.
The human side of transformation
With the onset of AI, almost all IT processes are being automated, and the focus on human skills to meet the needs of compliance expectations has become minimal. However, integration projects such as this require a lot of expert consultation and handholding to deliver results on time. You need to possess high levels of energy to meet the needs of the organization as you work across different time zones.
It also requires a great deal of flexibility. Sometimes, scope changes are introduced, which can result in not being able to meet the original deadlines. You need endurance to handle such situations effectively, as the situation might require convincing multiple parties or senior management on a new timeline. All of these will involve extraordinary coordination skills to deliver maximum value across all entities.
Moments of growth
In large-scale transformation projects, internal alignment plays a key role, as differences in opinions might impact stakeholder coordination and create confusion. Fully aligned teams can adapt to changing requirements faster and respond more effectively. Building a culture of collaboration — instead of chasing deliverables — will help in the sustained growth of the project.
What happens, for instance, if the framework or adaptation model changes because of evolving regulatory expectations during the middle of the program, which might then increase the workload? In moments like this, careful consideration of any one team member’s (or entire team’s) workload and sensitivity to their timeline expectations is crucial. Driving teams with unrealistic expectations will only serve to frustrate them. It certainly won’t deliver value. We overcame such situations by providing adequate support and making informed decisions aimed at driving growth.
Finding common ground across borders
Cross-border programs often face invisible barriers such as language, culture, skills, regularities and time zone differences. Finding common ground to break these barriers will drive progress effectively. You can even use diversity to your advantage. When we take the time to comprehend each other’s priorities and recognize the differences, we can make significant progress. It’s much easier to build trust and relationships. Each decision becomes a decision made from collaboration and understanding instead of top-down standards enforced on teams to follow.
In a global setting, adherence to governance needs to meet audit requirements and requires sufficient guidance. It’s a common problem we tackled by crowdsourcing our ideas and sharing documentation across teams to enable us to deliver results consistently across the company.
Insights gained during the journey
As the program wraps up, certain lessons will remain with me forever, which I will strive to apply to future endeavors:
1. Alignment is not a one-time activity
Continuous alignment is critical for multi-year projects that involve a variety of stakeholders. It’s not a one-time activity. Reinforcement of methodology, expectations and goals helps you to remain focused on the finish line and won’t create uncertainty along the way. We conducted weekly sync meetings and on-site workshops quarterly to improve communication and enable continuous alignment feedback loops.
2. Communication is critical
Silence and assumptions are the biggest derailers in projects that involve heavy stakeholder engagement. You have to ensure all stakeholders are kept informed regularly by agreeing on a comms frequency and medium. Regular workshops, informal check-ins and chat forums helped us collaborate and resolve dependencies and blockers on time.
Clear guidelines on individual roles and responsibilities are also essential to ensure alignment and to drive progress. Mutual respect on role boundaries will help you avoid conflicts during the project lifecycle.
3. Short wins help build momentum
Integration projects often span a period of one or two years, and there is a high chance of losing momentum in that amount of time.
Kotter’s 8-step change model includes “generate short-term wins” as a key phase. Wins are “the molecules of results” — they validate the effort, build confidence and silence critics.
So, we designed the project with several phases and significant milestones to measure progress and outcomes. We celebrated each milestone by adding it to the newsletter in the “Achievement of the Week” section. This encouraged teams to pursue the goal and move forward with clarity and confidence.
4. Culture is architecture too
“Culture is not a barrier to overcome, but a bridge to understanding.”
Providing attention to cultural signals during discussions — such as language choices in meetings, how people interact with each other and how supported they feel — will significantly improve the success of the program. You need to make every effort to ensure everyone involved feels more inclusive. Respecting one’s culture will take us a step closer to building relationships.
5. Resistance is data
Expect resistance when adapting new tools, processes and governance frameworks. Most people fear losing control of what’s worked for them in the past, or the data silos they’re used to. We embraced that resistance and assured them of the advantages of choosing one approach over another, articulating the long-term benefits clearly. This helped us to transform resistance into active input.
6. Leadership is more about legacy
In global programs, enforcement of processes and delivery doesn’t count as effective leadership. The goal is not to be indispensable but to leave behind clarity that others can follow with confidence.
When teams began to self-organize, adapting to processes with additional new ideas, I realized I had succeeded, which is the essence of transformational leadership.
A shared understanding
Learning in these types of global projects can happen in two ways: during the implementation and in hindsight.
If I were to start over, one thing I would always start with is the alignment phase. Quite often, we lose track of the alignment, leading to misunderstanding and waste of time, which could be avoided with better alignment loops.
It’s also essential to spend more time on the discovery and understanding of the system rather than jumping into technical implementation. There might be hidden information yet to be discovered from the system that might avoid scope refinement in the future.
As John Kotter mentioned, “Global success depends not on a single standard, but on shared understanding.”
Effective communication is essential for bridging the gaps and avoiding potential problems that arise due to assumptions and a lack of understanding. Real transformation begins when people across borders and backgrounds choose to believe in the same future.
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