Archive for the ‘Cross-cultural’ Category

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Virtual Success: Challenges and Opportunities

May 21, 2012

People in companies around the world think, act, work, learn and lead differently, based for the most part on their culture. Culture both consciously and unconsciously shapes values, perceptions and behaviors, as well as setting systematic guidelines for how we should conduct business.

Last week we took a look at how we can combine different components of culture to move virtual teams forward. This week we will explore how you can effectively manage cultural differences from a practical viewpoint that will allow everyone to benefit from cultural diversity.

By its very nature, the make-up of virtual teams is diverse. This is good – it allows you to maximize different perspectives and, hopefully, leverage the differences to gain new insights and fresh perspectives. However, there are factors that need to be managed if a virtual team is to not only survive, but thrive, within the complexities of a virtual team environment. Here are some common challenges you may have as a leader in creating synergy within your virtual team:

  • Leveraging the differences in cultural norms of team members
  • Understanding how different people manifest their cultural norms
  • Influencing the different functional, professional and alternative subcultures
  • Being empathetic to the functional and geographic dispersion of team members
  • Managing the the perception of status differences within the team
  • Leveraging culturally different leadership styles
  • Controlling differing expectations regarding key processes and procedures

These challenges need to be managed throughout the lifecycle of the team. The sooner they are acknowledged and worked on, the more efficiently the team will be able to deliver results.

Despite these challenges, there are also unifying factors that can connect a virtual team with their diverse team members. Virtual integration can occur based on common agreement as to accepted principles and processes and mechanisms such as shared vision and values.

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Posted in Leadership, Team Building, Value Creation, Cross-cultural, Multicultural Teams, alignment, Virtual Teams | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Virtual Success: Leveraging Cultural Diversity

May 6, 2012

Did you know that an estimated 70% of international ventures fail due to poor cross-cultural interactions?  When individuals from different cultural backgrounds or environments don’t understand each other, it will inevitably lead to failed projects and suboptimal results.  Culture forms the way we think and act – across all spectrums – often causing members of virtual teams to perceive reality very differently across boundaries and borders.

Although cultural diversity has high potential for negative outcomes, it also has enormous potential for growth and renewal that will facilitate extraordinary results. Always keep in the forefront of your mind that your virtual teams likely have more talent and potential than other types of teams by the sheer force of their diversity – the question is, will they be able to leverage that diversity for individual, team and corporate success?

The answer is a resounding YES… if you can leverage that diversity to create synergy. Synergy will create a sense of joint purpose fueled by the knowledge that everyone brings unique experience and perspective to the team that is essential for success. As a leader, it is critical that you have the tools and perseverance to tap into the diversity of your teams to create an environment that facilitates success.

Virtual teams have the capacity to generate significant power for the overall organization. The collective experience and knowledge of a team from various backgrounds and cultures promotes the emergence of new and different ideas and perspectives, enables the rapid development of new products and services, and ensures the balance between local and global… just to name a few of the many benefits. However, in order to actualize the power of virtual teams, you need to invest in cultural integration from 4 critical angles:

1.    Cross-Cultural Assessments

Cross-cultural assessments will provide insight as to how to best interact and leverage specific members of your dispersed team – but more importantly, it will provide each member of the team with insight as to their specific cultural norms and preferences and allow them to better identify other cross-cultural angles. Once individual assessments are done, you may want to consider a team assessment to allow the virtual team to discover how they can best leverage one another for mutual and organizational benefit.

2.    Cross-Cultural Principles and Theories

Cross-cultural principles and theories will provide team members with a mechanism to not only understand that we all see things differently, but also to understand that cultural values have an enormous impact on attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. It is not enough to simply tell your teams about culture, it is critical that they begin to gain a deeper understanding of why they are different from their colleagues.

3.    Cross-Cultural Orientations

Cross-cultural Orientations will provide your team members with a way to understand their own cultural norms and their colleagues’ cultural norms. Once they can begin to understand specific components of culture that they see differently than their colleagues, they will gain the ability to begin building bridges between cultures.

4.    Cross-Cultural Intelligence

Cross-cultural Intelligence will provide your virtual teams with a toolbox that contains a reliable method for evaluating almost any cultural situation – national, functional, or organizational – very quickly. They will obtain a reliable method to prepare for interactions with their colleagues and clients on the spot – or use the same toolbox to prepare in advance for almost any situation that has a cultural context.

One or another of these tools is not enough to equip your teams for their best chance at success. What few realize, is that these tools build upon one another to enable organizational success across boundaries and borders. An assessment may provide insight, but it will not tell you what to do with that insight…cross-cultural principles and theories may provide a foundation from which to go forward, but they will not help your team members begin to understand their colleagues… and while cultural orientations may provide inherent understanding of behaviors and perspectives, they will not provide a proven process from which to interact. Each step is necessary – and each step builds on the last. As you seek to deploy this process, identify a partner that has a very specific skill sets and experience in each of the four areas above in order to enable your teams for virtual success.

Give your virtual teams the advantage – equipped them with the four critical angles of cultural integration.

Has your organization strategically invested in cultural integration?

Please engage the discussion and let us know how you achieve cultural integration. Always feel free to contact me at Sheri.Mackey@LuminosityGlobal.com or by visiting our website at www.LuminosityGlobal.com. Check back next week, when we will discuss how you can manage cultural differences in a way that will allow your virtual teams to benefit from cultural diversity.

Posted in Cross-cultural, Global Leadership, Multicultural Teams, Strategic Planning, Team Building, Virtual Teams | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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Virtual Success: The Charter & Mission Statement

April 15, 2012

While a vision develops a picture of where the team is going and creates a shared sense of going somewhere specific together, your team charter will help you to more effectively collaborate across boundaries and borders, set expectations, design performance management systems and provide a mechanism for evaluating your virtual teams. However, the charter is not the end of the process. The charter is the launch point for creating useful dialogue that will ultimately facilitate the team creating it’s mission statement – the coming together of the virtual team’s vision and charter.

The vision, charter and mission are critical for all teams, however when leading virtual teams they become vital to your success. Because you work with teams that do not work in a shared physical environment with cues acquired through daily interactions, it is critical that your charter provide explicit guidance on overall expectations.

The formation of a charter is the most effective when developed by the team, creating a joint focus and buy-in to the overall contents of the charter.  Work diligently with your virtual teams to develop each area of the charter. Similar to how the vision provides a desired destination in living color for your virtual teams, the charter will provide a clear road map to guide them toward that final destination. In addition, by working through the components of the charter together, the team will be focused on their joint objectives and common path. It provides a significant opportunity for you, as their leader, to help your dispersed teams come to a common purpose, ensuring everyone has a shared understanding of where they are going and how they will get there as a team.

The formation of the charter creates a graphic, detailed picture of the vision – clarifying roles, boundaries and communications processes.  The most important aspects of the charter are:

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Posted in alignment, Communication, Cross-cultural, Global, Multicultural Teams, Virtual Teams | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments »

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Virtual Success: Creating Virtual Vision

April 10, 2012

The power of virtual teams to respond quickly to corporate challenges, pooling both broad and deep expertise, has become an important key to corporate success. However, to get the most from the vast experience, knowledge and perspective of dispersed team members, you need to use the strength of a vision to bring the team together, leveraging the opportunity to ensure that every person fully understands and embraces their purpose and the role they (as well as those of their team mates) play in organizational success.

In an environment where team members do not have the luxury of interacting face to face, creating a living, breathing shared vision is the solid foundation on which to build a sound structure.  A “virtual” vision serves several purposes:  1) It forces the team to collaborate to evaluate its fundamental attributes and characteristics as a dispersed unit 2) It establishes boundaries that guide strategy and 3) the vision establishes implicit expectations and standards of performance.

A vision for dispersed teams will also:

  • Provide focus and energy for overcoming traditional corporate cultures that promote a “HQ is best” mentality
  • Encourage people to shift from a nationalistic or functional culture to a global perspective
  • Compel new ways of thinking and acting… as a global entity
  • Provide a roadmap to keep the virtual team on course when tempted to regress toward old habits
  • Create a powerful commitment to inspire team members to commit to accomplishing things that matter deeply to them – the vision becomes personal and creates a “third” culture.
  • Facilitate change, promoting the acceptance of collaborative thinking.

When creating a vision for a virtual team, consider some key factors:

 

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Posted in Cross-cultural, Global Leadership, Strategy, Value Creation, Virtual Teams, Vision | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

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Virtual Success: Leading Well

March 29, 2012

In order for virtual teams to succeed, organizational leadership must establish a culture that values teamwork, communication, learning and capitalizing on geographical and functional diversity. The key to developing an organizational culture that supports virtual teams is that everyone across the organization is encouraged and enabled to embrace change and be open to virtual teams right from the start.  This starts with senior leadership support and sponsorship – without it,  virtual teams are DOA (Dead on Arrival). It is critical that virtual teams are positioned at the highest levels as vital, value-add resources that provide sustainable competitive advantage for the corporation.

From an organizational perspective, you need to encourage four aspects of leadership that are known to positively impact virtual team performance:

  1. Facilitating open communications
  2. Establishing clear expectations
  3. Allocating resources
  4. Leveraging cultural diversity

Not so different from co-located teams, but considerably more complex in virtual environments. In order to be successful, you will need to enable virtual leaders with the autonomy to get things done and the authority to impact organizational change.

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Posted in Communication, Cross-cultural, Global Leadership, Leadership, Multicultural Teams, Strategic Planning, Value Creation, Virtual Teams | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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Virtual Success: Teams and People Policies

March 26, 2012

Human Resource policies have a critical impact on virtual team success. They need to support geographically dispersed teams by integrating and aligning them to recognize, support and reward the people who lead and work in virtual environments. Here are a few ideas to think about when preparing to shift your organizational culture to support virtual teams:

Securing Systems Support

When a virtual team is formed, you, as a virtual leader, and HR (along with IT) need to partner to consider the technologies teams will need to be successful. Options must be assessed, justified, approved by HR and made available to all virtual team members. Coordinate with Human Resources to ensure training on how and when to use these communication technologies is provided to every team member.

One of the most important things you can do for your virtual teams is to ensure that they have the technical support they need for working remotely.  Never forget that IT should be supporting the business – not the other way around. HR policies should dictate that every team member has equal and immediate access to systems, technologies, training and support. As the leader of geographically dispersed teams, you need to partner with HR and IT to make sure formal standards are set for technology, ensuring everyone has the same access to hardware and software applications, as well as intranet and internet connections. If there are tools and technologies that your teams need to be successful, but HR policy doesn’t support what you need, inquire into the business justification for the omission. Build your business case and/or identify alternatives. Do the research to find out how to alter HR policies and initiate meetings with HR and IT to discuss how to get your teams what they need.

Once you have established what you need and have developed the formal standards and budgets necessary, make sure you negotiate the full support of your Information Systems Group. It is essential that they are fully prepared and equipped to support your teams as they work across boundaries and borders.

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Posted in alignment, Communication, Cross-cultural, Development, Education, Leadership, Virtual Teams | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments »

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Virtual Success

March 21, 2012

Today, in many organizations, a significant amount of work is done virtually. Even in the most provincial and domestic firms, it is rare to find all team members in a single location. Companies frequently choose people from across various global locations to work virtually in an effort to save both time and money.

The business justification for you to create virtual teams is strong: they leverage expertise and vertical integration across the organization to make resources readily available, as well as increase the overall speed and agility of the organization. In addition, virtual teams draw talent quickly from various functions, locations and cultures. They reduce the disruption to people’s lives because travel becomes less of a necessity and team members can both broaden and deepen their perspectives (and their careers) by working across boundaries and borders on a variety of projects and tasks.

As a leader of virtual teams, your main goal should be to leverage your human capital to its utmost – as quickly as possible.  Beware: How you choose to manage this process may be the difference between success and failure.

Despite the potential advantages of creating virtual teams, a dispersed environment will fundamentally change how your teams operate and adds to the overall complexity of the environment. Virtual teams are more complex than traditional teams for two key reasons:

  1. They cross boundaries related to time, distance (geography), culture and/or function
  2. They communicate and collaborate using technology

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Posted in Communication, Cross-cultural, Global Leadership, Multicultural Teams, Strategy, Virtual Teams | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Leadership Lessons From Istanbul

September 22, 2011

As those of you who read my posts frequently know, I travel internationally a lot! This past summer I had the opportunity to return to Turkey to speak at a conference and meet with clients in Istanbul. I returned to a city with an ever-evolving modern character that is still, at its core, bound by tradition. As I was observing the frenzy of activity going on around me in the only city in the world that resides on two continents,  I began to think (once again) about how there are unique leadership lessons inherent in every environment. If  we pay close attention, there is also learning inherent in each of these environments. It is easy to overlook the reminders that abound and think to yourself, “what can I learn from a country that has been riddled with unrest, struggles with human rights issues and is in a constant state of flux?” Yes, these things are true… but it does not negate the fact that there are some important reminders (lessons) that impact how we interact with people as leaders and how our views, as leaders, affect those around us. I have found that often, a change in scenery offers a valuable change in perspective.  Here are just a few of the things that came to my mind as I experienced one of the most amazing cities in the world:

  1. Business and personal relationships do not have to be mutually exclusive…

Living and visiting countries all over the world on a regular basis throughout most of my life, I remain very aware of how unique one location is from another. However, it also reminds me that despite the differences, there are some core foundations that we could all stand to remember. In our western culture, we tend to believe that work and life are separate. However in Istanbul, where East meets West, business and personal relationships are heavily intertwined.  The diversity and complexity of individuals is shaped not only by their culture, but through relationships that are consistently valued and continually evolve throughout a lifetime. As I attended client meetings that were focused solely on getting know one another, I was reminded how Turkish people usually only do business with people they know, like and respect.  In Turkey, business will only materialize if effective personal relationships are built. This is not only important in the moment, but throughout a lifetime. Later, as I made a visit to the world famous Spice Bazaar, I was reminded once again how relationships can thread through our lives-  as both people and leaders – as I stopped to chat with a shopkeeper and was invited in not just for a sale, but to build a relationship. We chatted for twenty minutes, shared some delicious apple tea (a hospitality must in Turkey), and exchanged contact information. On my next visit will I stop in and purchase from Iskandar? Of course, but I will also recommend this particular shopkeeper to anyone I know visiting Istanbul!  As leaders, it seems to me that we could be infinitely more effective if we slowed down (both in our personal and professional lives), borrowed a card from the Turkish playbook, and took the time to get to know our colleagues on a more personal level – facilitating an extensive and priceless network of not only colleagues, but friends, that will benefit us for a lifetime.

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Posted in Communication, Cross-cultural, Culture, Education, Global, International, Leadership, Leadership Lessons From Istanbul, Lessons From Abroad Series, Mentoring, Networking, Value Creation | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

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Global Culture: Who’s The Barbarian?

September 16, 2011

Both the ancient Romans and Greeks called all foreigners “Barbarians”. The North Africans call their mountain people “Berbers”, Arabic for Barbar. The Europeans, until the late 19th century, called everything in North Africa “Barbaria”. The word “barbarian” refers to the uncultured, or those with unrefined communication skills – both explicit and implicit. The way we express ourselves is predetermined by our differing cultures (even if we often do speak the same language). How we communicate ultimately determines how we are viewed as global leaders. Damaging miscommunications can (and do) happen frequently when working across cultures, but they can be avoided if we apply some cultural intelligence to our diverse interactions – in particular, understanding the differences between high and low context communications and leveraging both for personal and organizational gain.

High Context cultures communicate meaning not only with words, but with voice, tone, body language, facial expressions, eye contact, speech patterns, and the use of silence. Words play a relatively small part in the overall meaning of the communication, and the context conveys the bulk of the information. People in high-context cultures, such as Asia and South America, tend to take time getting to know one another, providing for an understanding of the broader context of a conversation. This results in knowledge of what to expect, what signals to look for, and how to interpret subtle signs or expressions – fewer words need to be said.

Low Context cultures are expecting explicit communications. People want detailed background information before making a decision, however they are generally unaware of subtle nonverbal signals going on around them. Documents and contracts are not taken seriously unless written or signed – details must be provided. For example, in the United States and Germany (both low-context cultures), contracts with numerous explicit clauses are a normal way to conduct business and the written word is taken quite literally. In low-context cultures, expect detailed documentation – thorough job descriptions, detailed accounting, and lengthy business planning documents. The devil is in the detail.

When communications become challenging, it can be tempting to access your “barbarian-reflex”, especially when messaging becomes unclear. But, as you can imagine, it is completely ineffective to view your colleagues, staff, or even clients as “foreign” or “unrefined” simply because they do not communicate as you do. If you are motivated to communicate effectively on a global, multi-cultural level, you will need to invest in building trust – the more you come to know someone, the less you tend to look upon him or her as a “barbarian”.

If your purpose is to ensure your colleagues and staff reliably implement to your specifications across the globe, the strategy you choose will vary depending on the cultural orientations you are working across. In those high-context cultures, your strategy will need to be relationship and trust based and may not be explicit – more soft-skills based and time intensive.  In low-context cultures the purpose of communication is to transfer information and your strategy will need to be explicit, efficient, and detailed in order to ensure the correct implementation. A sound strategic approach that is rooted in cultural orientation will be imperative to your overall success in the global organization.

As a global leader, everything you do conveys a message. Leveraging high-context and low-context cultures means relying on both implicit and explicit communication – carefully ensuring that what you say (low-context) is always mirrored by what you do (high-context). When there is alignment, you automatically build trust across all cultures  and your strategic approach becomes less diverse by nature – your message becomes stronger, and you can more readily achieve your global organizational goals, exceeding everyone’s expectations.

Please feel free to contact me at Sheri.Mackey@LuminosityGlobal.com or by visiting our website atwww.LuminosityGlobal.com. Be sure and check in next Thursday as we begin a series on Leadership Lessons From Around The World!

Posted in alignment, Communication, Cross-cultural, Culture, Global, Global Culture Series, Global Leadership, International, Leadership, Multicultural Teams, Multinational, Strategy, Team Building, Value Creation, Who's The Barbarian? | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Global Culture: Did You Know You May Have Hidden Treasure?

September 1, 2011

Globalization and rapidly changing technology continue to sweep the world. Organizations working across international and cultural boundaries face significant challenges as they seek to reach and maintain market leadership – however, inherent in those challenges are often unrealized opportunities. One such opportunity, Multicultural teams, offers a wealth of leverage to the discerning global leader. Our research repeatedly identifies the following advantages when multicultural teams are leveraged effectively:

-       Global economies of scale and scope are realized

-       Effective global learning & knowledge transfer takes place

-       Global strategic capabilities are enhanced

-       More innovative products and services are developed

-       Better understanding of customers across multiple geographies is achieved

-       Strong cultural intelligence fostering competitive advantage is accomplished

In today’s complex global marketplace, success depends on a company’s ability to work effectively across different geographical locations and cultures in order to drive innovation and capture market share. Leaders must go beyond motivating people from very different cultural backgrounds, experiences and leadership styles – they must create an environment that facilitates multicultural teams to collaborate effectively across boundaries and borders. There is simply no better better way to understand and strategically exploit the global marketplace.

The truth is that most organizations under-utilize their multicultural teams as strategic assets. When properly developed, such teams contribute significantly to the growth and success of the organization and to its bottom line. In fact, multicultural teams are one of the most consistent sources of competitive advantage for any organization who deploys them – they are effectively the bridge between the workplace and the marketplace.

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Posted in alignment, Communication, Cross-cultural, Culture, Development, Global, Global Culture Series, Global Leadership, Innovation, International, Leadership, Multicultural Teams, Multinational, Planning, Potential, Resources, Strategic Planning, Strategy, Team Building, Uncategorized, Value Creation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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