After reading "Managing Multicultural eam" I realized the difficulties of working with people from different cultures. Some difficulties are obvious like language barriers and accents, but it is the subtle differences that are the hardest to overcome while working in a group with people of different cultures. The differences can harm the team causing both relational conflict and task conflict. The one story in the article shows this where a Bank Manager of Mexican heritage thought he was being humble with the customers but instead of himself coming off as humble, the customers thought he did not know what he was talking about.
It takes a lot of effort to get over the cultural walls. Managers are usually appointed to try and keep these teams or group of people on track of the common goal. The Managers job is very tough and involves a good amount of work, but hopefully if the team is permanent then eventually his job will fade away or at least become easier and the team can function successfully without the need for a manager. The article gave some strategies that were used successfully in the field. Those strategies are Adaption, Structural intervention, Managerial Intervention, and Exit. All of the strategies seem successful when a situation arrises.
I agree with what you are saying about multicultural teams. I think that what could be helpful to all teams even ones that contain the same cultural values is training or skills in studying other cultures at least on a business level. If everyone who was involved in business was required to do studies about other cultures' business practices it might be easier when they come together. Then they wouldnt have to waste the extra time figuring out what each culture found acceptable or not.
ReplyDeleteI found the same exact thing interesting. You never realize how difficult communicating with people from other cultures is until you hear some horror stories. My uncle works with people from other countries and he is constantly complaining about the problems of miscommunication. He told me that a lot of times he and his coworkers shoot 20 or more emails back and forth to decide something that could have been settled in a simple phone call.
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