One of the primary reasons that trust can be difficult to establish, particularly in cross-cultural teams is the barriers to communication. When barriers exist, common goals that should otherwise be consistent across an enterprise can be confusing, misleading, or misinterpreted. When goals are not consistent, motives, drivers, incentives and tasks can be divergent from one another, and from other segments of an organization. When goals are not aligned, or consistent, there can be no way for trust to be established. “I trust that we are working towards the same goal” or other rhetorical messages can’t be established within teams or across organizations. Communication is key to ensuring that this trust has a foundation and alignment within team direction is consistent.Going deeper, differences in communication style, not just translation, can be barriers to establishing trust. The way corrective actions or feedback loops are incorporated into organizational processes can be completely disregarded as insulting when in fact they are intended to make the team better. When the same mistakes are repeated, the ensuing lack of trust can become rampant and a spiraling death circle can happen. As a bridge to combat these challenges, establishing consistent norms and personal bonds can alleviate tension, and also bring calm into situations that can become escalated or conflicted. Cross-cultural teams have more than just communication differences that can be barriers to establishing trust. Different cultures can have unique perspectives on urgency, attentiveness and availability which can result in diluting the level of trust. As found in one of the linked articles regarding working with remote teams, an easy way to combat this is to place more things in writing than in spoken words. This can set clear, impartial expectations that are not easily misinterpreted; assuming that emotional writing styles are not rampant. Another easy way is to incorporate video communication so that physical reactions and emotions can be observed, and then incorporated into responses, or provide queues into how messages can be delivered. Finally, which should be consistent regardless of cross-cultures is establishing clear action items and next steps as takeaways from discussions, ensuring that everyone on the team is on the same page with ‘what to do next’.Building trust is imperative to the success of any organization, one that has multiple cultures or not. It is the foundation for goals to be achieved at scale, and for businesses to be profitable. Without trust, there is little that can be achieved efficiently, and without efficiency there is little chance for sustained growth; as brute force can only get you so far when building and managing businesses. When organizations attempt to work without trust, it’s essentially the wild west, with sheriffs, vigilantes and bandits all competing for the same turf at the same time. It can be a challenge to establish acceptable behavior, consistent goals, and efficient processes, all of which are imperative to the success of an organizations enterprise. Trust is one of the few things that must remain consistent and clear across all levels of an organization, from the boardroom to the stock room, regardless of cultural differences, and even more so when there are.