I was reading through a couple chapters in Managing Cultural Differences, a couple review, but also some skipping around due to interest. I stumbled on a section in one of the later chapters, exploring virtual teams from a global standpoint. My interest immediately was peaked given the current circumstances we all face and the reality that globally diverse teams is the norm. Before diving into the text and sharing a couple points that I found useful and interesting, I thought I would give a little background on why this caught my attention.
At moment, most of us are stuck at home and furthermore, some are having to explore a new work life of doing everything remotely. This is not a huge change for me, my position has always been home based but with lots of travel. With business impacted, my company made the choice early that we should catch up on internal training and projects that was outstanding. This is where things have gotten interesting, I have personally participated on more global based teams formed for these projects then I can remember. Interesting timing, a lot of the concepts that we have covered in this course have been on my mind as I engage with these teams.
One of the very first challenges I recognized had more to do with the leadership rather than the diverse individuals on the team. One of the first teams I was put on, and still working with, has had very poor leadership. There are two directors from different country’s trying to lead a rather complex initiative. I found an older article from 2010 on Forbes that list the following points that global leaders need: (Staff, 2010)
- You must lead differently
- You must arrive at decisions differently
- You must build trust differently
- You must communicate differently.
I bring up these points because this article was written ten years ago now on Forbes. Today these are still very valuable and even 10 years later are still a challenge to achieve. The very first point is fundamental, leading a global, virtual team means that you can’t approach like you would your local teams. Not only are you dealing with the challenges that virtual teams bring, you are working with individuals that have different values, behaviors, and approaches to business. If we walk away from this course with anything, we should have a grasp that different cultures approach business differently.
Bring this back around to the section I read that was specifically exploring the virtual team aspect I found following very helpful: (Moran, Abramson, & Moran, 2014)
- It is hard to follow what is happening during a virtual meeting.
- People don’t get feedback when working over a distance
- People forget who is attending the meeting
- It is harder to build a team when we are not face-to-face
- It is tough to sort out email communications
- It is harder to reach agreement over a distance
- Small empathetic gestures go a long way with those who usually suffer the most with time-zone differences.
A bunch of these probably seem like common sense but I can attest to a couple of these that happened is the recent past. I specifically remember one, two-hour virtual meeting, with members from three countries that I attended. We took the time to do introductions and explain our roles in the beginning. About fifty minutes in, two members started to talk about how they need to pull me in, and it would have been really helpful if I was invited to this call… Worse, I had done a bunch of talking before this point. I only bring this up, not to fault them, but these are the challenges that we face with the global world we live in. Worse, almost all business is being conducted remotely at the moment which as just magnified these challenges.
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences Ninth Edistion. Oxford: Routledge.
Staff, F. (2010, August 19). The Four Keys To Success With Virtual Teams. Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/2010/08/19/virtual-teams-meetings-leadership-managing-cooperation.html#4b2a12e530cc
Excellent post! In general it is important to be up to date with technology especially since using Zoom and other web based forms of communication will be the norm for a while. This pandemic has shown the full power of technology and proven that things we were told were impossible are in fact possible. Presidential candiate Kamala Harris became very controversial because of her truancy laws that led to parents being arrested (Finnegan and Mason, 2019). With so many students learning virtually we have seen that the internet could have used as an alternative for students who could not get to school. Many of the parents impacted by those truancy laws were low-income people who struggle balancing their work life and managing their child getting to school. Also, many jobs that we have been told had to be performed on site are being done from home which means single parents, pregnant women, and people with disabilities could’ve been had better job opportunities. There are so many lessons that should be applied after this pandemic is over.
Resources
Finnegan, Michael and Melanie Mason (2019) “Kamala Harris regrets California truancy law that led to arrest of some parents” retrieved from http://www.latimes.com
Nicely put! I can definitely relate with having problems among online group members especially in my other courses. For my last two group projects, I’ve had the largest amount of issues I’ve ever faced because of current members. There has been large amounts of miscommunication, students sending work in at the last minute, students deleting everyone’s lines for the entire assignment, and even mishaps where students were taking over other people’s parts. I’ve worked through it all.
When trying to determine what characteristics every team member should have, I have two characteristics to suggest. In a past Psych 424 blog, I wrote about these specific characteristics. Members need to have effective communication, which in turn will help with the superior functioning of the overall team (Kramer, 2019; Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2005). Having this effective communication will help in setting and reaching one’s goals (Kramer, 2019). In additional to the effective communication comes honesty. Honesty is the best policy. “Being honest with teammates about things that might not work will help them with improving themselves for the team by understanding their weaknesses and strengths” (Kramer, 2019; Yost & Tucker, 2000). Leading others further from the truth will only weaken a teammates relationship. Instead, always be honest and speak from the heart.
References
Kramer, J. (2019, February 26). 3 Characteristics of a strong team member. Retrieved from https://sites.psu.edu/aspsy/2019/02/26/3-characteristics-of-a-strong-team-member/
Schneider, F.W., Gruman, J.A., & Coutts, L.A. (2005). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
This was a well-timed article topic. In every industry, we are learning new, alternative ways to continue working as organizations. Virtual Teams are a new normal during the COVID-19 Outbreak, and could become an industry standard for companies looking to eliminate office space. In certain industries, the days of physically being present in an office space could be behind us.
The Forbes reference in this article was, and continues to be accurate. With Virtual Learning, our school has been challenged because teachers attempt to teach their students the same way they would in-person. The workloads have been high, and the student frustration has been very high in a time when the last thing families need is stress at home. We have been challenged to lead our students differently, which has also challenged our reasoning for why we teach the way we do in-person. Out of a situation which caused pain, suffering, and massive innovation in several industries, I believe K-12 Education has inadvertently discovered flaws in the system, and are now in a position to better prepare for the future of learning; both in-person and virtually.
This post is even more applicable now given how many people are forced to work from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Within a global environment, companies always need to develop strategies to perform well and communicate effectively where intercultural coexistence plays a part in organizational life (Schmidmeier, Takahashi, & Bueno, 2020). Now though, since so many conferences and global strategic meetings have been cancelled to combat Covid-19, it is even more important to develop intercultural competence as it relates to virtual communication.
Differences in perception of intent can occur when communicating with members of another culture (Moran, Abrambson & Moran, 2014). Therefore, in order to correctly convey messaging, these differences need to be carefully considered when creating communication strategies (Moran, Abrambson & Moran, 2014). A study found that communication is the cornerstone of successful intercultural competence (Schmidmeier, Takahashi, & Bueno, 2020). Some behaviors associated with successful intercultural communication are clear and frank communication, accuracy and the use of constant feedback (Schmidmeier, Takahashi, & Bueno, 2020). Therefore, when engaging with a global team virtually, one should strive for clarity and straightforward messaging. They should also provide constant feedback, summarize intent and check in often to ensure all parties are on the same page.
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences (9th ed.). Oxford: Routledge.
Schmidmeier, J., Takahashi, A. R. W., & Bueno, J. M. (2020). Group intercultural competence: Adjusting and validating its concept and development process. Revista De Administração Contemporânea, 24(2), 151-166. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1590/1982-7849rac2020190021
I liked your post and can relate; I am involved with a multinational team, consisting of members from France, China, and the United States. We have had opportunities to kick off the project, which is to align all regions to use the same design practices, with a face-to-face meeting. Still, the majority of our interactions have been electronic. I have found the U.S. approach to tackling problems and making decisions seem to be overpowering when used with my Chinese counterparts to the point they seem to shut down. The French team members, on the other hand, will argue for the sake of arguing, it wasn’t until chapter 14 of Managing Cultural Differences (2020) that I realized this was a cultural trait. Don’t get me wrong I appreciate the challenge it is how we will ensure we are making the best decisions for all regions. But it left me concerned that we weren’t receiving enough input from our Chinese team members. I found what appears to work is asking individuals directly what their thoughts are, and when someone provides feedback, I thank them for the helpful insight and take the time to consider their opinion.
One of the most useful tips I have found is to practice active listening, to periodically check your understanding by summarizing in your own words what has been said in the discussion (HBR Press, 2016).
References
Harvard Business Review Press. (2016). Leading virtual teams: Hold people accountable, build trust, encourage collaboration. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press.
Hello,
What interested me most is your listing of attributes that Forbes encouraged, and the fact that your job used the downtime to be productive with things that normally would have been put away for another time. I see that you mentioned that the company you work for made the choice to catch up on internal training and projects. In dealing with this delicate time when it comes to work and such, it seems to be a very good investment for a company to institute training for those in crucial positions to be familiar with the online environment in regards to the company. As you have mentioned, leadership has been rough especially in the situation you experienced with both leaders being from two different countries, and of course, not everyone knows how to navigate how to be a good leader without actually being in a physical space. According to Moran, Abramson, and Moran (2014), “whether one is concerned with intercultural training, education, or development, all employees should learn about the influence of culture and be effective cross-cultural communicators if they are to work with minorities within their own society or with foreigners encountered at home or abroad.” I personally take this to mean that in going along with your post, leadership training and even general training should include a subset of points to consider, as most companies nowadays are international in some form, be them communicative, actively making products internationally, or importing and exporting goods internationally.
Thank you for your thoughts on this subject, it is very relevant considering the situation we are all experiencing.
References
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing cultural differences. Oxford: Routledge.
I enjoyed reading your post and I agree that things must be done differently when communicating virtually with different groups of people around the world. I feel like communication is difficult even when emailing co-workers or clients. Because emails can be misread or taken out of context. Face to face interactions can be difficult too, but at least with face to face you can read peoples body language and see their face expression. Learning to communicate effectively and knowing your audience can lead to a successful outcome. We covered the importance of culture and diversity and how those differences can affect an organization. In lesson two it talks about Hofstede’s Dimensions of Culture. Which consist of “six cultural dimensions: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, long-term/short-term orientation, and indulgence/restraint” (University, 2020). These six dimensions were designed to help people work together with those of different cultures and diversities. You might find the list to be helpful. The link is in the references if you would like to refer to it!
References
University, P. S. (2020). Hofstede’s Dimensions of Culture. Retrieved from Lesson 02: Introduction to Culture: https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2041071/modules/items/27977825