A quiz on arcane facts about Bollywood and cricket might seem an unusual way to start a teleconference between workers in the US and India. But the game, used by US insurer MetLife when training its Indian IT team in new processes, has proved powerful in breaking down cultural barriers and building trust.

“We heard them laughing and joking with each other about the questions,” says Janet Conn, who led the virtual training at MetLife and now works at technology company Cisco. As an American unversed in cricket and Bollywood minutiae, she consulted Indian contacts to make sure the questions were suitably challenging.

“In India, people are less likely to jump in and ask questions than in the US, and we wanted them to feel comfortable enough to begin to speak up and give us the feedback needed for successful collaboration,” she says. The questions sparked the Indian workers’ curiosity.