AI-Assisted Content Reuse

In 2011, I wrote a grad school paper called Barriers to Trust in Global Teams. In 2025, AI helped me dust it off and turn dry, academic research into a fresh, relevant blog post. ChatGPT generated a new first draft in seconds. Then I refreshed a few citations, made some edits, and wove in stories from the years of experience I’ve gained since.

It’s a good example of how AI can be a true collaborator, speeding up the writing process without replacing the writer. And from an SEO standpoint, it shows how AI-assisted content can still support EEAT when humans bring the expertise, experience, and heart.

How to Build Trust—and Real Collaboration—on Global Teams

Leading a team across borders and time zones opens up opportunities you don’t always find with a co-located crew—diverse perspectives, around-the-clock momentum, and access to a deep global talent pool. But it also brings added complexity, which can strip away the glue that holds teams together: Trust.

Without trust, even the most talented and well-intentioned people can end up talking past each other, second-guessing decisions, withholding feedback, duplicating work, or quietly disengaging. So, how do you build and protect trust when your team is spread across the globe?

Back in 2011, I wrote a research synthesis paper on building trust in global teams—and I've spent many of the years since putting what I learned to the test as both a contributor and a leader. I can tell you the challenges are real, but so are the rewards when you prioritize trust and human connection. What follows is a mix of what the research says and what I've seen firsthand working on global teams for the past 15+ years.

Why Trust Is Essential for Global Teams

A team that trusts one another communicates better, solves problems faster, and stays focused on shared goals. But physical distance adds layers of complexity. Work can start to feel impersonal when teammates are spread across countries, cultures, and time zones. Communication styles clash, people misunderstand one another, and simple tasks turn into slow-motion chaos in your inbox.

When your team is wasting time navigating a minefield of miscommunication and misplaced assumptions, their trust in each other, in you, and in themselves can flatline.

That's why leading a global or remote team takes extra effort. You have to actively build and protect the trust that holds everything together. When you get that right, your team isn't just productive—they can be unstoppable.

But before we dive into how to build that kind of trust, let's talk about what gets in the way.

Common Challenges That Erode Trust

Language Barriers

Sure, this one sounds obvious, but the subtle ways language creates friction catch teams off guard. Even when your team shares a common language, slight differences in style or phrasing can cause confusion. And sometimes, a tiny misunderstanding can snowball before it's discovered.

Case in point: A U.S.-based company with teams in both the U.S. and India discovered that, despite speaking English on both sides, they were interpreting common project terms—like “next week” or “ASAP”—very differently. For the U.S. team, “next week” implied early in the upcoming week; for the Indian team, it generally meant after seven days. These subtle mismatches in expectations led to frequent delays, rework, and growing mistrust. It was a sneaky language problem—not about fluency, but about meaning shaped by cultural norms and assumptions. Once the team aligned on shared definitions, communication improved and the team locked in on deadlines.¹

Cultural Differences

Every culture has its own approach to work, deadlines, communication, and hierarchy. If these differences go unspoken, they can wreak havoc.

That happened on one of my global teams with colleagues from the U.S. and Israel. The Israeli team culture relished debate as a sign your head was in the game—if you didn't push back or offer a counterpoint, you weren't really thinking critically. But to some American team members, that constant back-and-forth felt nitpicky or combative. What one group saw as a sign of engagement, the other saw as conflict.

There was zero trust, and you could cut the tension with a knife. However, things got easier once we named the cultural dynamics at play and discussed how each side approached feedback. Our conversations became more productive, and mutual respect grew. It was a valuable reminder: when communication isn't clicking, the issue may not be attitude or intent—you might have different ways of showing you care about the work.

Physical Distance and Isolation

This one hardly needs an introduction in our post-pandemic era. We've all felt the toll that isolation can take. And we understand it's not really the physical distance that causes problems—it’s the loss of connection.

37signals, the company behind tools like Basecamp and HEY, recognized this way before the pandemic. As a pioneer in remote work, they built their culture around connection: clear communication, asynchronous collaboration, and a respectful pace of work. The systems they built emphasized trust, not control, and their teams have thrived for decades without ever sharing an office.²

One of the most successful remote teams I led completed three major website redesigns using only what we had: Microsoft Teams, Wrike, Figma, and Airtable. We tracked progress in Wrike, collaborated in Figma, chatted about minutiae over Teams, and managed our backlog in Airtable. And those projects kept moving 24/7—because we trusted each other to keep pushing things forward.

That around-the-clock progress is one of the biggest advantages of a global team. If we caught an error on the Hong Kong site at the end of our workday, it could be fixed before we logged on the next morning. That became the rhythm: one person would wrap up for the day, pass the baton, and someone across the globe would pick it up. It only worked because we trusted each other to carry it forward.

How to Build Trust on a Global Team

1. Get Face-to-Face (Even Virtually)

Even a single in-person meeting can go a long way toward helping your team feel like they truly get each other. There’s something powerful about sharing a meal or putting on ugly bowling shoes together—those experiences create a connection that’s hard to replicate online.

But when travel budgets are tight (and they usually are), video meetings are your next best bet to help your team build familiarity and empathy. Seeing faces, body language, reactions—even just a smile or a nod—makes communication more natural and relationships more human.

That doesn’t mean every call needs to be a video call. We can’t all be camera-ready 24/7. But the more you see each other’s faces, the more connected your team will feel.³

2. Make Team Building a Priority

Trust deepens when people connect beyond the task list. On a remote team, you have to be intentional—and a little creative—about making that happen.

I’ve hosted virtual bridal showers, quiz shows, costume contests, you name it. They weren’t just fun. They strengthened our team’s connective tissue. Some of us had only met in person once or twice, if at all, but we felt genuinely close—and it showed in our work.

If you can swing it, even one team-building activity in person can reinforce your connection. In fact, a rare in-person gathering with my team in Mexico helped us gel as a team while teaching me something I’ll never forget.

We booked an escape room. When we walked in, the room was staged to look like the aftermath of a car crashing into a science lab, and the facilitator handcuffed me to a rail before leaving the room. (Don’t worry—it was all part of the fun.) We had to race against the clock to figure out what happened, who did it, and why. When the pressure kicked in, everyone (except for me) instinctively switched to Spanish. Everyone was fluent in English, but when the stakes were high, speaking their native language freed up the mental bandwidth they needed to focus and solve the case. They were in the zone, and the teamwork was firing on all cylinders. At some point they freed me from my handcuffs, but I still couldn’t keep up with them.

It was the kind of experience that only happens in person—and it changed the way I think about collaborating with multilingual teams, leading me to my next point.

3. Invest in Language and Cultural Training

When we left the escape room, I immediately downloaded DuoLingo. I started brushing up on my Spanish and urged my team to stop switching to English just because I was there—even if I couldn’t understand every word. It made a huge difference. Teammates who stayed quiet during English conversations contributed more freely and confidently in their own language. It helped them collaborate more meaningfully, and it helped me become a better listener. Plus, someone was always willing to recap for me.

Giving people space to communicate in the way that feels most natural isn’t just nice—it improves the personal connections that trust thrives on.

Language and culture shape how we express disagreement, ask for help, give feedback, or accept criticism. Supporting your team with tools and training to navigate language and cultural differences is one of the best things you can do to build empathy and trust.

Remember the cultural disconnect I described earlier between my U.S. and Israeli teammates? That didn’t just fix itself. A day of cultural training brought our differing communication styles to light and gave us all important context we didn’t have before. Afterward, we could see each other’s intent more clearly and respond with less defensiveness. That really helped the flow of communication, which brings us to our next point.

4. Communicate Freely and Transparently

Regular check-ins and open lines of communication build psychological safety. I’m not talking about formal status updates. I’m talking about making sure people feel seen, heard, and confident that they’re focused on the right things. When people feel safe speaking up, they flag issues sooner, contribute more, and stay engaged.

I made it a point to hold weekly one-on-ones with every member of my team in Mexico so they had a consistent, dedicated space to speak up instead of waiting for the next big meeting. I also welcomed direct chats on Teams anytime anyone needed an answer from me. Even though I was in a different country, I never wanted to be the kind of manager who felt distant or unapproachable. My rule was simple: if something’s in your way, don’t wait—ping me or whoever can help clear the blocker, and keep moving.

Remote team members can lose oodles of time waiting for the next formal opportunity to speak up. Keeping the virtual door open for a quick chat anytime helps people stay unblocked and feel supported.

5. Model Accountability and Follow Through

Set clear expectations. Do what you say you’ll do. Hold others to the same standard. That earns trust in every culture.

During a high-stakes project, I promised stakeholders we’d deliver a website preview by Friday. Midweek, a key deliverable was falling behind, and a newer team member was clearly struggling. Instead of patching it up myself, I checked in, offered support, and reinforced expectations. We split the task, documented everything together, and delivered on time. Now that teammate knew I had their back—and that we always follow through. That trust we built through that experience paid off the next time we hit a crunch.

Final Thoughts: Trust Is the True Currency of Global Teams

Strong global teams don’t happen by accident. They’re built intentionally by focusing on trust. That trust is earned through clear communication, cultural awareness, and follow-through.

Whether you’re managing a remote group project or leading a global department, trust is your foundation. Nurture it. Protect it. Everything else builds from there.