Living in the United States, and even more specifically, New York City it’s pretty safe to say that there’s daily interaction with many different types of people which leads to a greater probability of cultural synergy and how that effects team within different organizations. What is Synergy? Well most people may not initially know what to make of it and many leaders may not know how to best implement it. “Synergy is a cooperative or combined action, and occurs when diverse or disparate individuals or groups collaborate for a common cause.” (Moran, Abramson, & Moran. 2014, p. 266). It’s difficult enough to implement synergy in a group of people from the same background, imagine what’s it’s like to implement it within a group of people form difficult cultures.
When looking at leadership from a global perspective, it would appear obvious that there could be a clash cultures even though teams are trying to reach the same goal, which would essentially cause these organizations to look into the importance of Cultural Synergy. It doesn’t just take knowing what culture someone is from, but actually understanding their culture to be able to improve on communication, build rapport, and understand where their ideas and thoughts come from. A global company must not only understand the culture of their employees, but the culture in which countries they are doing business in.
In order to introduce any type of cultural synergy, these corporations would have to have a global mindset which would involve research, training, and actual field experience in these countries. Once these foundational best practices are set, overtime each employee would have a global mindset and recognize the value added.
Whether you work for a small or large company, if a recognized global mindset isn’t quite practiced yet, it’s important as an individual to notice these cultural differences within your teams and try to understand them and work within these differences to be successful together and provide cultural synergy.
References:
Moran, R.T., Moran, S. V., & Abramson, N. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences: Ninth Edition. New York, NY: Routledge.