As a Tem Leader, what could you do to help a multi-national team work more effectively than a domestic team? What major problems might occur and how might you best handle them?
Cross cultural conversations have become the basic pillars of the global business success or failures. At workplace, it’s a key ingredient for a successful leadership that a leader must hold self awareness and he must belief in providing employees a free platform so that they can sit together and understand each other. Global firms face cultural diversity within the firm and outside the firm. In order to work effectively every team member must use cross cultural skills. If I would be a team leader and my team members belong to different cultures, and nationalities I would use the known styles of leadership and motivation in order to motivate team members. I would go for democratic style of leadership and goal motivation strategy which allows leader to make decision according to the situation along with the discussion of employees. Researches have proven that motivation and political free environment empowers the team to work more effectively. A leader must have respect for each culture and tries to create free and fair environment at workplace, office or in building. Cross cultural interaction within the team also enables employee to contribute his best in organization’s success and effectiveness for which he is engaged for. Los Angeles city sheds light on generality of domestic multiculturalism and its good and worst effects on workplace. In a domestic team a leader deals with employees of same cultural so there is a more room to communicate effectively without keeping the cultural differences in mind. On the other hand, a leader faces lots of problem like cultural issues, beliefs, concepts, thoughts, work approaches etc while dealing with multinational team.
Communication problems, stereotyping, decreased effectiveness are the problems which usually occur in multinational team. All these above mentioned problems can be handled effectively by using latest communication tools like timely reports, newsletters and memorandums to avoid misunderstandings during the work. In multinational teams a misunderstanding, inaccuracy and inefficiency can be solved by using denotative meanings of phrases and words. Ask for feedback or response from the team after every meeting. Multinational team’s effectiveness can be improved by understanding their basic needs and priorities and motivate them by utilizing same understanding keeping in mind their esteem needs. In domestic teams people belong to the same region and they posses’ almost same concepts so it’s relatively easy to handle while in multinational team all problems can be solved by using known decision making strategies i.e. task related selection, recognizing differences, vision establishment, creating mutual respect and giving feedback and to implement such strategies and policies which keep an eye on every individuals priority and self actualization needs. Task related selection also helps in managing individuals of different nationals. In order to maximize team effectiveness I would select individual according to his ability and task requirement. For multinational team effectiveness leader must ignore cultural differences.
Imagine you have just asked to lead a globally distance multicultural marketing team? How would you convene and run your first three meeting? What strategies you might employ to maximize team are chances of success giving the unique challenges facing multicultural teams that in which members are not co-located?
If I would have asked to lead globally distance multicultural marketing team than I would surely use latest technologies i.e. I. Phone, WebEx meeting software, Skype etc. for communicating with my team. As, in long distance team workers are not co-located so there are high chances of occurring misunderstandings, misconceptions etc. for that purpose I would use Web ex meeting and web video softwares for video conferencing meeting plus I would invite all related persons in a single meeting in order to give them a platform to discuss the whole task freely. Long distance team success highly depends on how well multinationals and diversity is managed. Team effectiveness can be increased if a leader understands all major differences and team members’ priorities in order to motivate them for the achievement of the task. I would minimize the risk of failure by using video conferencing and working hours desktop share option in order to keep check and balance on my team. Software which provides call with video conferencing helps a lot in assigning task to a multicultural team. These strategies and policies surely help in achieving the required goal. My first three meetings would be totally dependent on creating a healthy relationship between a leader and his co-workers. I would also emphasize on developing smooth and politic free environment between co-workers and I would personally analyze each employee separately in order to grasp his understandings and thoughts about the job and task.
I would also implement the strategies which specifically designed keeping an eye on why team members are participating in team’s task, I would restrict them to fulfill the commitment and as a reward I would grant them promotions and bonuses. It’s really important to grasp employee’s attention towards the job by motivating him according to his preferences as there are high chances of failures as employees do not work on a single platform. Online web messenger and web meeting softwares gives you a platform to build strong and healthy relationship among all co-workers, they also help in monitoring co-workers by providing desktop sharing facility. Rewards and recognition supply on success of the team motivates employee to contribute better than before. Coordination by a central leadership for the assistance of groups to achieve the desired goals and objectives plays a pivotal role in the team’s success. Team must recognize the difference of same cultural work scope and multicultural work scope. Leader must know the weaknesses and strengths of his employees as it makes easy to understand each employee according to his mental status. All above techniques helps in organizing the team effectively and efficiently.
List of References
Adler, (2009), Managing Multi cultural Teams, Chapter 5.