There are five ways in which social distance gets created and you have to manage each differently. To begin with, team structure—the physical configuration of the global team, how many people are in what location, not to mention where the leader is. Then there are the processes that you use for managing team interactions—without carefully managing communication, team interactions can end up as a dialogue of the deaf. Language is a third source: all teams have a common language but when some people are more fluent than others, it creates social distance between members. The fourth source is identity. The ways in which global team members define themselves (through culture, religion, and gender, for instance) affect team dynamics and mutual trust and require careful management. Finally, you have to be savvy about how you use communications technology. We often assume that mediating technologies like email or instant messaging or Skype or conference calls are neutral and benign. But the way we use them can decisively shape relationships among global teams.
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