(Illustration from RiverRhee's training on Good Practices for Effective Teams)
Leading culturally diverse global teams
The challenges of properly supporting, involving and engaging team members become even more acute if you are not able to see and work with people on a day-to-day basis.
Alexander Garrett's article “Working beyond borders”, in the Winter issue of Project (the APM’s journal) has some great tips on avoiding “cultural gaffes” and “unconscious expectations” which may result from working in global teams.
As the author points out, behavioural norms can differ significantly from one country to another. They can affect expectations for how people participate in team meetings in such ways as:
- How much material to prepare for review and reflection in advance vs. more open-ended approaches to discussion
- How much people put themselves forward and are comfortable about expressing their ideas and opinions vs. waiting to be asked or preferring to do so in private
- How comfortable people are about making decisions without consulting others outside the meeting
Global team meetings are generally conducted by phone or video conferences which bring added challenges for ensuring that everyone is engaged, and picking up cues from tone and body language.
Tips from this article include:
- Learn as much as you can about the cultural norms for the countries that your team members come from
- Take time to build an understanding of each team member on a one-to-one basis
- Establish team working practices that will optimise the ability of each member of the team to fully participate outside and within team meetings
- Find other ways to facilitate informal communication if face-to-face meetings are really not an option.
See: Working in "far flung" or global teams - revisited
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