A Cup of Chai in India

At audibene, I owned CRO for our Asian markets. Part of that job took me to India for two weeks, to work with and train the local team.

I arrived ready for the hard parts I expected: different customer behavior, different data, a different way of working.

What I remember most is a cup of chai.

One of my colleagues there spoke almost no English. We could barely exchange a full sentence. Yet every single day, he came to my desk with a cup of hot Indian milk tea, put it down, smiled and went back to work.

We never had a real conversation. We did not need one. By the end of the two weeks, I trusted that team, and I think they trusted me. The training worked because the relationship worked first.

I have worked with many teams in many countries since then. The lesson has held every time.

We tend to think international work is about language, frameworks and time zones. Those matter. But teams do not cooperate because they share a vocabulary. They cooperate because they feel seen.

The lesson: The hardest skill in international work is not language. It is the small, human gestures that tell people you are on the same side.