During my talk on collaboration at Intranets 2012 in Sydney last week, one of the attendees asked this question (and it was the second time in two months that I’d heard the same question – different people, but the same two cultures):

“In my firm, we are working with people in Asia. We’ve just rolled out a new collaboration product, and while our Australian offices have picked it up, the Asians have not. What can we do to make them use it?”

I replied: “In scoping out the new collaboration product, have you had representation from the Asian offices? Have they been involved in the planning work?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Were they Asian?” I asked.

“No, the lady was an Australian.”

I think that’s the problem—and no disrespect meant to the Australians. If you want to collaborate effectively across cultures, you need real representation from the different offices. That will involve time, travel, and senior management commitment. People from different cultures have different ways of collaborating, and if these aren’t brought into the conversation early, and treated with the appropriate respect, then collaboration initiative is going to be viewed as the new form of imperialism. In the case above, the Asians probably said: “This is the Australian’s trying to impose a way of working on us. We’re not going to take part.”

Just because we have the technology to work collaboratively across the globe doesn’t automagically mean that people will do so. The technology is easy. The people stuff is hard, especially across cultures.

I didn’t say it during my talk, but I did tell Martin over dinner that night that what I should have said to the lady who asked the question was this:

“Go and live in Asia for 18 months. Work alongside the people. Live amongst them. Learn about their culture, what makes them tick, and what works / doesn’t work for them. And then ask me your question again.”

But I doubt she’d have to.