"In a gentle way you can shake the world." -Mahatma Gandhi
Managing Cross-Cultural Issues
Managing a culturally diverse team can be challenging if we are not prepared. In order to have a productive, innovative, task-focused, positive work environment, we might also need to be culturally competent. Maintaining a balance between all of these things is doable if we keep in mind the following:
1. Structure teams for success. This starts by creating initial conditions that set up the team for success. Agreeing upon a common goal and reiterating a clear direction for which the team is working avoids confusion and creates minimal distraction. As a manager, it is important to structure teams in a way that can bring out each employee’s strengths, creating an advantageous and strong workplace.
2. Understand the cross-cultural makeup of your team. By understanding who your employees are, you can learn what languages they speak, the traditions they have, and the backgrounds they come from. This is important because people from other cultures communicate, manage projects, and simply work differently.
3. Set very clear norms and stick to them. Setting clear norms provides the team with clear direction for tasks, without any confusion about employee responsibilities. It is said that multicultural team members benefit from knowing what type of information they will receive and when (maintaining regular meeting schedules, email updates, video conferences, etc).
4. Find ways to build personal bonds. When busy in the workplace, it is easy to forget about personal relationships within the workplace. A stronger team can sometimes mean that team building happens outside the workplace over a dinner or some other social activity. Learning about employees outside of office hours shows that the staff cares and values them as individuals.
5. When conflict arises, address it immediately. Conflict in the workplace is inevitable, maybe even more frequently when working with a team of individuals coming from other cultures. When there is tension in the workplace, it is important to confront the situation directly and learn about the source of the problem. Sometimes it is up to the team and individual employees to keep the manager in the loop about conflict in the workplace. It is important for the manager to be aware of these tensions and to address them as soon as it’s noticed.
information adapted from: https://hbr.org/2016/06/how-to-build-trust-on-your-cross-cultural-team