Judo of international team work

George is working on a very important deal with colleagues sitting 1500 miles away in another country. One day he came to me totally frustrated. He showed me the email he got from the supporting team and said, "I don't think they understand how important this project is. Maybe they just don't give it a shxxx."
I took a look at the email from that far away colleague and thought, it was a short response and it could be read in different ways. My intuitive response is, there could be some misunderstandings. I grabbed the phone, gave that colleague a call and proved that it was a misunderstanding.
Most of us use English as business language when we are working in an international environment. We take it for granted that we understand what we hear and read in this common language. However most likely, English is not the native language the team members have. I have been working since many years with Japanese, Chinese, Korean, German, Singaporean and so an. We communicate daily with an acquired language and very different cultural backgrounds. Misunderstandings of the emotional nuance happen almost every day and sometimes contribute to the success or failure of a collaboration project.
Here are some suggestions to make the international team work:

• Don't take it for granted that we understand fully each other just because we communicate in one common language. Assume first that misunderstanding could happen.
• The leader should create a positive and trustful working environment.
• Talk to each other by phone when there's a doubt.

If nothing could be done above, create a buffer for the impact. This would be nevertheless the last resort. It's not a rocket science to encourage a more tolerant, open and collaborative environment. However it does need to start from the top.