Manage a Cross-Cultural Team
A prime concern in managing a
cross-cultural team is to find a unified thread to tie across all the distinct
personalities.
1. Get to Know Each Team Member
It is essential for the team
leader to take the time and get to know each team member. Learn about their
story and journey. This will help you analyse individual skills and leverage
the knowledge to help the group.
You might uncover specialized skills that can be beneficial to everyone and also understand the personality
of the member at the same time.
2. Adopt Flexibility
Scheduling and decision
making are two key workplace values that greatly vary across cultures. Assessing
these values can go a long way to understand the priorities of your team
members. For example, different cultures priorities either flexibility or a
linear time construct to finish a task.
3. Promote Open Communication
Give every team member a chance
to voice their opinions. An open communication line is essential for greater
efficiency. Otherwise, team members feel under-appreciated and
dominated by either the management or the dominant players in the group.
When attempting to reach a
consensus through virtual meetings, plan ahead and ensure to send the agenda
well in advance to actively solicit each team member’s opinions.
4. Encourage Team Building Activities
When a mix of cultures is
trying to come together in a team, organizations should make every effort to
create opportunities for casual interactions. Happy hours, team outings, lunch
and learn, birthday parties, pantry banter, etc. help employees to bond
with each other despite their differences.
Encourage team members to
interact during their downtime and through social events.
5. Listen Actively
Don’t let faulty assumptions
and biases to govern your decision making. For instance, the Mumbai team is
never responsive, the Singapore members don’t take directions well or the
Chennai team wastes many hours in the morning waiting for the Dubai office to
wake up.
These types of biases can
eradicate trust and prevent collaboration. Instead,
a leader should pause and attempt to understand why certain locations or
members of a team operate differently. If you overlook the local
cultures, considerations, needs that impact each team member, it can lead to
unnecessary friction.
Ask questions, listen to your
team members and develop the flexibility to manage across different cultures.
Listen and enquire more to learn different ways to motivate and mobilise groups
with different thought processes.
6. Create a Structure for Success
When you have a multicultural
team, you are bound to have different work styles. This doesn’t mean everybody
should go haywire and work according to their own methodology. It is up
to the leader to establish clear norms and help the members to adhere.
Rather than imposing a style,
leaders should take the necessary steps to explain the importance of certain
norms and train the members to partake in these efforts. When establishing the
norms, try to implement practices from multiple cultures to create uniformity.
7. Address Conflict Immediately
If a conflict ensues regardless
of your efforts, make sure to address it promptly before it is too late. Understand
different cultural perspectives at play and try to resolve the conflict by
taking the middle path. A leader should serve as a cultural bridge to
connect different members of the team.
8. Create a Cross-Cultural Awareness Program
You can teach your members how
to interact with others in different regions and countries effectively.
Training and awareness can include sessions on greetings, business etiquette
and dining customs. This will help to dissolve the tension and educate
members on the prevalent cultural styles of other team members.
This will also enable you to
identify and embrace cultural differences rather than ignoring them altogether.
Organisations will be able to create resilient global teams and better
relationships with clients, customers across the globe.
9. Develop a Team Identity and Clearly Define Roles and
Responsibility of Members
In a team, it’s important that
all members understand the common goal. Having a shared goal and a common
purpose will give your team an identity that can bring them together. At the
same time, clearly outline the expectations of each team member and let
everyone know that their contribution matters.
Break down the common goal into
actionable steps that define each member’s role and responsibilities. This way,
everyone will collaborate and work together without stepping on each other’s
territory.
10. Build Great Rapport and Trust
Building work relations and
trust cannot happen overnight. Take the steps to slowly build an environment
for collaboration. Respect individual differences and understand them to build
unity in a culturally diverse team.
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