In this series of posts, I’d like to talk about practical challenges I faced during my years of working with a multi-shoring team. The challenges can be anything from little cultural difference to best practices for bridging the communication gap across teams on both side of the Pacific. Did you experience the same or different challenges? Did you find a different approach to solve it? I’d love to hear from you.
I’ll start out with something light for this first post. It was a rainy Monday morning in January, 2007 and I was a bit tired from the long flight I took the day earlier from the US to China. I am from San Diego, CA and was very excited to start my first day working one-on-one with the team in China. I have always believed in the economic advantage of leveraging a global work force. I had many discussions with my boss about his vision. I felt I am 100% ready to help my company realizes all the cost savings and benefits of multi-shoring. In short, I was ready for any and all challenges.
My office arranged to have a colleague meet me where I stayed and walked with me to the office. My company has a floor in an office building. I quickly settled into my desk, plugged in my laptop and ignored the hundred or so email messages waiting for me in my inbox. I walked over to the office admin person who had been helping me with all of my questions. I asked her “Do you know where I can get a cup of coffee?” She responded: “No Coffee”. Together with that short, concise response was a look on her face to tell me that my request was an unusual one. She then went on to explain that we have different kinds of tea in the office that I can choose from.
I went back to my desk and my mind started to wander. I wasn’t sure how I could survive a day with jet lag, rainy weather and No Coffee! I had prepared myself for many different kinds of challenges I might face but not this. Right before this assignment, I was in Vancouver, Canada for 18 months and we had a Starbucks coffee shop in our office building lobby. Our Denver office also has a Starbuck on the ground floor. Well, the fine office admin managed to find a couple of instant coffee packets around lunch and I survived my first few days on those. I then discovered a Starbuck coffee shop in another part of the city. It takes a 30 minutes taxi ride but I was happy to make the trip every weekend to get my coffee.
It has been more than 3 years. Today there are quite a few western style coffee shops opened around our office in China. There is even a Starbucks just a few blocks away. I however will never forget the “No Coffee” moment. It helps remind me to expect the unexpected on assignments like this.
My next post will be about challenges related to communication and the best way to bridge the communication gap. Email me or post in the comment section about past/current communication challenges with multi shoring teams.
Even though I have worked with Binh before, I did not notice Binh is also a great story teller. I think you should come up with a book to tell the stories about your crossing pacific life.