Performance and effectiveness in teams can be challenged by decision making and cooperation if the organizational processes are not clearly known and understood by each individual. Although team members are willing to cooperate and work together, they might unintentionally encounter some difficulties due to the lack of understanding of those processes. These issues can be even more challenging if the members of the team are located in distant geographical areas.

Let’s observe why is important for multicultural teams to have clear organizational processes and which global leader’s competencies can make it happen.

The decision-making process and cooperation among team members will greatly be affected if there’s no clear understanding of the organization’s mission, vision, key metrics, and reward systems.

For multicultural teams, an extra layer of complexity is added, especially if they are located in distant geographical locations. Then, how can we assure that organizational processes are not challenging multicultural team success?

In order to avoid such pitfalls, the team will need to establish effective methods for shared learning and discover various ways of making decisions. These methods are particularly critical for virtual and remote teams.

“ Leading diverse teams is increasingly becoming an important skill in the international marketplace today. —DR. LIANA C. SáENZ

There is no doubt that diversity among team members can help improve the success level of a project, as well as productivity and effectiveness. But, it’s critical for all members to consider their varied resources and perspectives.

To successfully lead a multicultural team, especially virtual or remote teams, you will require competencies that are beyond the usual leadership skills and technical knowledge. For instance, a global leader must be able, among others, to:

• Adjust his/her leadership style,
• Listen without stereotypes,
• Develop strategies towards bridging the differences,
• Define and prioritize goals aligning organizational processes,
• Identify the team’s challenges and environmental conditions,
• Create contingency plans,

To help with the team processes, it is important for leaders to set process expectations. And although a team will work together to attain a specific goal, each person should know their specific role in that team. This can help avoid role confusion among members. By having a clear understanding of their specific roles and expectations from their performance, team members can develop cohesiveness and become a well-functioning unit.

In the end, when leading effectively, global teams when lead effectively utilizing the correct team processes will bring unique perspectives and unparalleled innovation to organizational challenges in today’s globalized world.

The team process is one of the 7 elements that have proven to be a key factor when working with multicultural teams. Find more about the Global Team Effectiveness Model ®. If you and your team are ready to improve their performance and effectiveness we can help you!

The post HOW TEAM PROCESSES AFFECT YOUR MULTICULTURAL TEAM appeared first on LEADINFORCE - Blog.

People from different cultures might react in diverse ways to conflict when it occurs within a team. Some team members will reduce their reactions to the use of silent treatment, yet others might choose to fight back. Such reactions to some extent will depend on an individual’s personality but also are conditioned by their cultural spectrum and backgrounds.

Let’s observe why conflict isn’t always a bad thing, the key abilities need it to manage conflict and the elements that can help lessen conflicts within a multicultural team.

Effective conflict resolution between coworkers requires an understanding of how each member perceives what caused the conflict. Moreover, when dealing with different cultures, national traditions, personalities, cultural awareness, and others, it is more challenging to maintain smooth relations among team members.

Teams are formed for various reasons, terms, and goals. Regardless of their purpose and continuance, most teams will experience an evolutionary process which begins from their creation and culminates in the attainment of shared goals. During each formation step, conflicts will normally arise, and this isn’t always a bad thing.

In a multicultural team, diversity brings about a special level of conflict and complexity for team members. Do you have an effective way of dealing with conflict among your team members?

Some of the key abilities that a team needs to implement and utilized to manage conflict include:

• Sharing mutual interest
• Practicing Active Listening
• Relationship building between members
• Adopting a problem-Solving attitude
• Conflict resolution strategies

When conflict is used effectively, it can help stimulate critical thinking among team members, which is a factor that increases productivity. It can help uncover potential objections, improve decision-making, and bring down tensions that usually bring low morale and discontent, which allows a team to be effective.

“ When conflict is used effectively, it can help stimulate critical thinking among team members. —DR. LIANA C. SáENZ

There is no doubt that diversity among team members can help improve the success level of a project, as well as productivity and effectiveness. But, it’s critical for all members to consider their varied resources and perspectives.

To make the process more manageable for those in leadership positions, there are several elements to understand and keep in mind when creating strategies that can help lessen conflicts within a multicultural team.

• First, it is important that you have effective communication strategies. Group members should learn to recognize the differences in how each member interacts. And they should refrain from judging each other’s competence on the basis of language skills.
• Team members should be allowed to express disagreements in a constructive manner. Likewise, organizations should have a clearly understood path of escalation for those issues that members aren’t able to resolve on their own.
• Multicultural teams tend to have contrasting ways of doing their work. For instance, some cultures like a slow-paced style which focuses on mutual agreement between team members, and there are those cultures that are more focused on quick and efficient problem-solving style.
• Systems, procedures, and clear standards of what the members are to achieve helps them realize the correct approach expected of them. Bring members of a team to the same page to help them minimize conflict.
• Team members may not have the same level of leadership. Thus, when disagreements occur, intervening in all of them could lead to over-dependence on the company’s leadership, which reduces growth opportunities at different levels of the organization.

Having a safe environment, easy to understand and interact, have many benefits, especially in conflict resolution. Team members will learn to respect their differences, collaborate better with each other, stick to group norms, and share a common goal, which will finally lead them to promote unity in a team.

Conflict resolution is one of the 7 elements that have proven to be a key factor when working with multicultural teams. Find more about the Global Team Effectiveness Model ®. If you and your team are ready to improve their performance and effectiveness we can help you!

The post CONFLICT RESOLUTION HELPING MULTICULTURAL TEAMS PERFORMANCE AND EFFECTIVENESS appeared first on LEADINFORCE - Blog.

Due to the globalization of the workforce today, you’ll find that many multinational organizations have teams working from different time zones, countries, and even continents. As well as many entrepreneurs and startups that utilize outsourcing as a way to grow so they can continue to focus on the core business processes. Thus, now days running a team become a different endeavor than it was some years back.

Let’s evaluate why the fundamentals of the team are critical and how we can improve them to have a safe environment, and improve the team’s collaboration, performance, and effectiveness in a globalized world.

It can be challenging when leading multicultural teams. As in every team, a lack of a clear understanding of common goals and strategies can equally affect the team’s overall performance. But even more so on teams that are geographically distant can be harmful. As well as the development of a team culture based on the organization’s vision can greatly influence effectiveness as well as the performance of the team.

How can you leverage the team’s foundations to foster successful teamwork?

Through inclusion and diversity, as well as encouraging active participation among members, you can help foster high levels of trust in your team. In turn, members will work towards supporting their team leader and their vision.

Therefore, it is vital to improving the fundamentals of the team and in this process, it is important to recognize that:

1. Team members need to understand their set goals and have a clear vision.
2. It is crucial for a team to create a strategy and plan that reflects its purpose, vision, and mission.
3. Having a well-defined leadership role can help establish a structure for each team member. Team leaders and managers should establish common goals for their teams and clarify roles and responsibilities expected from each team member.
4. Based on its structure as well as other factors affecting collaboration, each team will need its governing set of rules and standards.
5. Team members need to develop their Cultural Awareness to understand their own culture, the culture of their colleagues, and the team and organization culture as well to foster cultural success.

“ Creating a culture and norms that are team-specific significantly improves collaboration, performance, and effectiveness. —DR. LIANA C. SáENZ

As a team works towards common project goals and objectives, they will perform different tasks as part of the planned action processes. Thus, when it comes to supporting team members to be successful, there are never too many details. Clarity of roles can help address the performance of the whole team. It defines the expectations of each task and for each member. This will also serve to let everyone know their contributions to the whole matter.

To improve the fundamentals of your team, consider having standard operating procedures for:

• Email replies,
• The frequency of team meetings and agendas,
• Frequent document and email that promotes clear communication,
• Coordinating the flow of different member activities and team reporting structure,
• Breaking down your shared goals into smaller actionable steps,
• Measuring progress towards a goal supported by graphics and flowcharts,
• Tracking available resources at the work environment to guarantee that what is needed is available,
• Create an atmosphere of camaraderie among team members to support others to perform their tasks,
• Outline each member’s function and responsibilities to help reduce the chance of misunderstandings.

Furthermore, the development of a team identity finding commonalities between the group members will encourage your team to bond in a social context. It’s possible that there are teammates with the same taste in music, movies, or TV shows. Others might bond over hobbies or through sharing information about their children and families. One thing is for sure, personal connections in a multicultural team make it easier for members to work together.

Having a safe environment, easy to understand and interact, have many benefits. Team members will learn to respect their differences, collaborate better with each other, stick to group norms, and share a common goal, which will finally lead them to promote unity in a team.

Team foundations are one of the 7 elements that have proven to be a key factor when working with multicultural teams. Find more about the Global Team Effectiveness Model ®. If you and your team are ready to improve their performance and effectiveness we can help you!

The post TEAM FOUNDATIONS: THE BASIC FOR MULTICULTURAL TEAM’S SUCCESS appeared first on LEADINFORCE - Blog.

In any organization, team members differ in beliefs and behaviors. However, the team’s agreement and consent it’s an essential element of any organizational strategy. Diversity and inclusion can improve teams’ ability to have better agreements and consent, as well as a better understanding of the customers they serve.

Let’s observe the importance of inclusion and diversity in multicultural teams and how we can build global leadership strategies that promote them in our teams.

In multicultural teams, member participation, creativity, discussions process, and decision-making do influence the success level of any project and organization.

Thus, promoting inclusion and diversity in a team will allow its members to:

1. Develop awareness of different communication and thinking styles to facilitate the discussion process.
2. Learn to take advantage of diverse backgrounds and skill participation to increase the effectiveness of a team.
3. Share their experiences to be able to create something far greater than what each would have achieved on its own.

Similarly, not promoting diversity and inclusion can challenge teams in many ways. At the end of the day, if team members fail to stand for the larger community, the results of the team’s efforts can become biased and limited.

Here are some examples of these challenges:

• People with strong hierarchical cultures tend to expect they’d be treated differently in accordance with their position in the organization chart. Thus, the failure of cultural awareness among some members in honoring such expectations could cause humiliation and even loss of credibility and esteem in a team member.
• Team members might disagree on how much data and analysis they’ll need when making decisions. For some cultures, a bold thinking style may be considered as being proactive, while in other cultures it may be seen as being an ill-thought-out action plan.

“ Diversity and inclusion in any organization can help members improve their teams and better understand the customers. —DR. LIANA C. SáENZ

Multicultural teams are the lifeblood of a successful organization. Therefore, cultural awareness in a team needs to be a priority at an individual level as well as at a team level to foster cultural success.

When a company has a workforce made up of people with different experiences, skills, and backgrounds it means that the generated ideas won’t be homogeneous, they’ll be more creative and innovative.

On the other hand, when organizations support multicultural teams, or teams located in distant geographical areas, or teams with specific demographic members, this can directly influence employee engagement and retention.

One of the best examples in this area is Google Inc. a famous global company known for an excellent organizational culture that drives a strong competitive advantage. This company has received the “Best Company Culture” Award for many reasons, but the most powerful one: Diversity and inclusion.

So then if we agree that team members perform at the highest potential when their beliefs, comfort, and orientation, are considered. We should, therefore, strive to make sure they have the freedom to work in ways that bring out their strengths.

Inclusion is more about incorporation than merely accommodating someone. Therefore, those in leadership positions in an organization should build global leadership strategies that promote inclusion and diversity, such as:

• Practice active listening with the desire to understand and connect with others, especially those from different cultural contexts.
• Try blending different approaches, work-styles, and needs into a cohesive process that truly empowers your team.
• Consider leveling the playing field within the members of each team to provide equal opportunities
• Address unconscious bias within members of each team as well at the organizational level.

All in all the benefits of inclusion and diversity are evident, and they go hand-in-hand. When your workforce is happier, their creativity, productivity, and effectiveness levels are higher. This translates to the business being more innovative and successful; furthermore, the best talent from around the globe will be pulled in to work there.

Cultural diversity is one of the 7 elements that have proven to be a key factor when working with multicultural teams. Find more about the Global Team Effectiveness Model ®. If you and your team are ready to improve their performance, we can help you!

The post INCLUSION AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY TAKING TEAMS TO THE NEXT LEVEL appeared first on LEADINFORCE - Blog.

Team meetings are an all-important part of developing a strategy for a team. In general, they are an essential part when building a team and to reach the team’s objectives. Meetings offer the opportunity for team members to come together, show work progress, provide support to each other, and execute organizational strategies.

By holding tactical meetings, you can help improve the overall performance of multicultural and virtual teams as well as the productivity at the individual level. Why tactical team meetings are so important for your organization?

Before any explanation on the important areas for successful tactical meetings, let’s keep in mind why, as a rule, holding team meetings in your organizations are essential:

• They provide a safe environment for information sharing,
• They give a platform for leaders to develop teamwork skills,
• They offer space for giving and receiving feedback,
• They help create bonds and supportive relationship among employees,
• They are an opportunity to hold open communication forums,
• They are the foundation of all organizations strategies.

Meetings are fundamental to task management and team development. Yet, when there’s a lack of leadership, not enough preparation, or when virtual and multicultural meeting’s best practices aren’t very well implemented meetings can easily fail. As a result, the team’s productivity and effectiveness are immediately impacted.

How can we guarantee a successful tactical team meeting? The main areas are:

• Preparation before the meeting,
• Facilitating meetings,
• Implementation steps from meetings.

Working with teams can be on occasion a challenge; even more multicultural and virtual teams bring that extra layer of complexity due to its nature. In this environment, a team may be working on a common goal but from different cultural angles. It’s, therefore, crucial to prepare including a clear vision and purpose fostering an environment of productivity and unity towards a goal.

Needless to say call for a meeting without an agenda it’s unproductive. Letting the team members know the agenda beforehand guides them towards results, elevates their sense of commitment, and help them to be ready in advance with the technology needed. Even more, if team member roles are a fundamental part of this agenda, they can feel that they are an essential part of the team.

To speed up results and enhance efficiency on the task at hand, meeting facilitation is the game changer if handled it correctly. On the other hand, if is not conducted properly can have a negative impact on the team’s effectiveness. Meeting facilitators don’t have to be experts or have all the skills to be able to facilitate. Yet, in multicultural and virtual environments facilitators face the challenge of grasping different styles of communication and work styles. Thus, it’s critical for a facilitator to have cultural awareness training and a basic knowledge of team member’s cultural backgrounds.

“ Virtual facilitation meeting skills for today’s business professionals, and entrepreneurs is essential. —DR. LIANA C. SáENZ

Besides the frequent e-mails and phone calls, in today’s globalized world virtual meetings are the most effective tool that business partners and colleagues use to exchange and share information, cooperate, and make all-important business decisions. Therefore, developing virtual facilitation meeting skills,  to increase productivity, execute the best practices, strategies, and virtual team collaboration is an imperative skill for today’s meeting facilitators, business professionals, and entrepreneurs as well.

The implementation of any agreements during the meeting is what will take your team and your organization to the next level. A way to facilitate this process is starting with the end in mind. What are the outcomes that you are looking to reach as a result of a team meeting? Working with your team to find the best answers for this question and find out who will be taking action and how after the meeting is the goal.

Team Meetings is one of the 7 elements that have proven to be a key factor when working with multicultural teams. Find more about the Global Team Effectiveness Model ®. If you and your team are ready to improve their performance and effectiveness we can help you!

The post THE 7 ELEMENTS OF MULTICULTURAL TEAM SUCCESS VIII: TEAM MEETING appeared first on LEADINFORCE - Blog.

Today, new marketplaces have opened up thanks to the internet as well as modern technology. That allows us to set up our businesses around the world, in new geographic or virtual locations.

Day by day becomes easy to work with virtual teams as it is in working face-to-face, thus virtual communication has increasingly turn into the new norm. Are virtual communications supporting your team performance?

There are many advantages of virtual communications. I can mention a few, such as convenience, time-saving, cut cost, flexibility, and productivity increase among others.

As the business environment continues to expand, today’s workplaces have rapidly become vast, due to virtual communications. In today’s globalized world if organizations aspire to be up-to-date and reach their goals, they need to have strategies in place to bridge virtual communication challenges.

“ Virtual communication has increasingly turned into the new norm in every organization. —DR. LIANA C. SáENZ

In general, here are some simple tips that you’ll need to keep in mind as you interact and communicate virtually with other members in your organization to support multicultural team’s performance:

• Have some basic knowledge of member’s cultural backgrounds,
• Be open-minded with others ideas and expressions,
• Practice active listening,
• Take note of your nonverbal communication,
• Keep courtesy and goodwill in all interactions,
• Maintain simple and clear language,
• The follow-up to make sure others fully understands what you’ve said.
• Set up an environment that allows asking questions and clarifying of any doubts.

So, any company with a diverse workforce or planning to conduct global business needs to understand the importance of virtual communication. In addition, team members need to engage in understanding how different cultures communicate, speak, and recognize the world around them.

Since many companies are embracing working with virtual and multicultural teams, we must bear in mind that diversity helps to create more opportunities for an organization than challenges. That said strong emphasis should be put on developing cultural awareness among employees and ways of encouraging the development of these opportunities.

Virtual communication is one of the 7 elements that have proven to be a key factor when working with multicultural teams. Find more about the Global Team Effectiveness Model ®. If you and your team are ready to improve their performance and effectiveness we can help you!

The post THE 7 ELEMENTS OF MULTICULTURAL TEAM SUCCESS VII: VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION appeared first on LEADINFORCE - Blog.

Organizations are increasingly adopting multicultural team-based strategies for work productivity and management of projects. Thus it’s imperative that teams understand and use effective processes that will lead to improved team performance.

Further, when multicultural teams are unresponsive to customers and other teams in the organizations, they become unproductive and ineffective. And this will not improve results on goals they’ve set as a team. So, what strategies do you use to enhance a multicultural team performance?

Before you start building a multicultural team, you’ll need to acquire the necessary global leadership skills. And this doesn’t imply asserting authority, but rather trying to promote trust through understanding of diversity, cultural awareness, transparency, and honesty. In particular, for global organizations, leaders are not able to show up in different places at once, however, if team members trust their leaders they’ll work more effectively even if you’re not close by.

In addition, understanding the areas of diversity that team members bring to the table are an opportunity to come up with new methods, ideas, and tactics; increase awareness of responsibilities and goals at an individual and team level; and help team members develop accountability so they can respond to external changes in a timely manner. In so doing, your team will achieve its set performance goals; receive positive feedback from its customers and from coworkers. This way you’ll be giving your company a competitive edge.

“ Before you start building a multicultural team you’ll need to acquire the necessary global leadership skills. —DR. LIANA C. SáENZ.

Something vital in the performance of teams is that leaders should also provide support on transition processes between assignments and projects. This will help reflect the team’s effectiveness on previous accomplishments and so help prepare for future needs. Let’s remember that the transition processes will involve:

• Defining and prioritizing team goals
• Clarifying tasks, resources, and environmental conditions
• Identifying and evaluating challenges,
• Creating action as well as back-up plans.

On the other hand, making diversity a crucial part of the organizational recruiting process can broaden the talent pool for prospective employees. In today’s competitive international job market, it’s essential that you show that your business invests in nurturing inclusiveness and multicultural environment. This way you’ll make your company more attractive to the right candidates.

Globally oriented businesses and teams have many challenges, but also many advantages. Global teams can improve their service range as well as provide a variety of services and products, by leveraging the experience and skills of their international team members. They can increase problem-solving capacity and translate to greater team productivity.

Diversity may bring about healthy competition, therefore can positively push a team into achieving their best. The healthy competition atmosphere in global teams could promote the optimization of business processes for enhanced efficiency.

Team process is one of the 7 elements that have proven to be a key factor when working with multicultural teams. Find more about the Global Team Effectiveness Model ®. If you and your team are ready to improve their performance and effectiveness we can help you!

The post THE 7 ELEMENTS OF MULTICULTURAL TEAM SUCCESS VI: TEAM PERFORMANCE appeared first on LEADINFORCE - Blog.

Decision making and cooperation can become a challenged within a team if the organizational processes are not clearly known and understood by each individual. Although team members are willing to cooperate and work together, they might unintentionally encounter some difficulties due to the lack of understanding of those processes.

For multicultural teams, an extra layer of complexity is added, especially if they are located in distant geographical locations. Then, how can we assure that organizational processes are not challenging multicultural team success?

The decision-making process and cooperation among team members will greatly be affected if there’s no clear understanding of the organization’s mission, vision, key metrics, and reward systems for the different stakeholders, in particular.

In order to avoid such pitfalls, the team will need to establish effective methods for shared learning and discover various ways of making decisions. These methods are particularly critical for virtual and remote teams.

“ Leading diverse teams is increasingly becoming an important skill in the international marketplace today. —DR. LIANA C. SáENZ.

To successfully lead a multicultural team, especially virtual or remote teams, you will require competencies that are beyond the usual leadership skills and technical knowledge. For instance, a global leader must be able, among others, to:

• Adjust his/her leadership style,
• Listen without stereotypes,
• Develop strategies towards bridging the differences,
• Define and prioritize goals aligning organizational processes,
• Identify the team’s challenges and environmental conditions,
• Create contingency plans.

To help with the team processes, it is important for leaders to set process expectations. And although a team will work together to attain a specific goal, each person should know their specific role in that team. This can help avoid role confusion among members. By having a clear understanding of their specific roles, team members can develop cohesiveness and become a well-functioning unit.

In the end, when leading effectively, global teams will bring unique perspectives and unparalleled innovation to organizational challenges in today’s globalized world.

Team process is one of the 7 elements that have proven to be a key factor when working with multicultural teams. Find more about the Global Team Effectiveness Model ®. If you and your team are ready to improve their performance and effectiveness we can help you!

The post THE 7 ELEMENTS OF MULTICULTURAL TEAM SUCCESS V: TEAM PROCESS appeared first on LEADINFORCE - Blog.

People from different cultures might react in diverse ways to conflict when it occurs within a team. Some will reduce their reactions to the use of a silent treatment, yet others might choose to fight back. Such reactions to some extent will depend on an individual’s personality but also are conditioned by their cultural spectrum and backgrounds.

This diversity brings about a different level of conflict and complexity for team members. Do you have an effective way of dealing with conflict among your team members?

Effective conflict resolution between coworkers requires an understanding of how each member perceives what caused the conflict. Moreover, when dealing with different cultures, national traditions, personalities, cultural awareness, and others, it is more challenging to maintain smooth relations among team members.

Multicultural teams are formed for various reasons as well as for short-term tasks or better yet long-term goals. Regardless of their purpose and continuance, most teams will experience an evolutionary process which begins from their creation and culminates in the attainment of shared goals. During each formation step, conflicts will normally arise, and this isn’t always a bad thing.

Yet, here are some of the key skills that a team needs to implement and utilized to manage conflict. These include.

• Sharing mutual interest
• Practicing active Listening
• Relationship building between members
• Adopting a problem-Solving attitude
• Conflict resolution strategies

When conflict is used effectively, it can help stimulate critical thinking among team members, which is a factor that increases productivity. It can help uncover potential objections, improve decision-making, and bring down tensions that usually bring low morale and discontent, what allows a team to be effective.

“ When conflict is used effectively, it can help stimulate critical thinking among team members. —DR. LIANA C. SáENZ.

There is no doubt that diversity among team members can help improve the success level of a project, as well as productivity and effectiveness. But, it’s critical for all members to consider their varied resources and perspectives.

To make the process more manageable for those in leadership positions, there are several elements to understand and keep in mind when creating strategies which can help lessen conflicts within a multicultural team.

• To reduce and resolve conflicts among team members, it is important that you have effective communication strategies. Group members should learn to recognize the differences in how each member interacts. And they should refrain from judging each other’s competence on the basis of language skills.
• Further, to benefit from conflict resolution, team members should be allowed to express disagreements in a constructive manner. Likewise, organizations should have a clearly understood path of escalation for those issues that members aren’t able to resolve on their own.
• Multicultural teams tend to have contrasting ways of doing their work. For instance, some cultures like a slow-paced style which focuses on mutual agreement between team members, and there are those cultures that are more focused on quick and efficient problem-solving style.
• Systems, procedures, and clear standards of what the members are to achieve helps them realize the correct approach expected of them. Which bring members of the team to the same page helping them to minimize conflict.
• Team members may not have the same level of leadership. Thus, when disagreements occur, intervening in all of them could lead to over-dependence on the company’s leadership, which reduces growth opportunities at different levels of the organization.

Having an environment safe, easy to understand and interact, have many benefits, especially in conflict resolution. Team members will learn to respect their differences, collaborate better with each other, stick to group norms, and share a common goal, what will finally lead them to promote unity in a team.

Conflict resolution is one of the 7 elements that have proven to be a key factor when working with multicultural teams. Find more about the Global Team Effectiveness Model ®. If you and your team are ready to improve their performance and effectiveness we can help you!

The post THE 7 ELEMENTS OF MULTICULTURAL TEAM SUCCESS IV: CONFLICT RESOLUTION appeared first on LEADINFORCE - Blog.

Due to the globalization of the workforce today, you’ll find that many organizations have teams working from different time zones, countries, and even continents. And this has made running a team become a different endeavor these days than it was some years back.

It can be challenging when leading multicultural teams. As in every team, a lack of clear understanding of common goals and strategies can equally affect the team’s overall performance. But even more so on teams that are geographically distant can be harmful. As well as the development of a team culture based on the organization’s vision can greatly influence effectiveness as well as the performance of the team.

How can you leverage the team’s foundations to foster successful teamwork?

Through inclusion and diversity, as well as encouraging active participation among members, you can help foster high levels of trust in your team. In turn, members will work towards supporting their team leader and their vision. Therefore, it is vital to improving the fundamentals of the team and in this process, it is important to recognize that:

1. Team members need to understand their set goal and have a clear vision.
2. It is crucial for a team to create a strategy and have a plan that reflects its purpose, vision, and mission.
3. Having a well-defined leadership role can help establish a structure for each team member. Team leaders and managers should establish common goals for their teams and clarify roles and responsibilities expected from each team member.
4. Based on its structure as well as other factors affecting collaboration, each team will need its governing set of rules and standards.
5. Team members need to develop their cultural awareness to understand their own culture, the culture of their colleagues, and the team and organization culture as well to foster cultural success.

“ Creating a culture and norms that are team specific significantly improves collaboration, performance, and effectiveness. —DR. LIANA C. SáENZ.

As a team works towards common project goals and objectives, they will perform different tasks as part of the planned action processes. Thus, when it comes to supporting team members to be successful, there are never too many details. Clarity of roles can help address the performance of the whole team. It defines the expectations of each task and for each member. This will also serve to let everyone know their contributions to the whole matters.

To improve the fundamentals of your team, consider having standard operating procedures for:

• Email replies,
• The frequency of team meetings and agendas,
• Frequent document and email that promote clear communication,
• Coordinating the flow of different member activities and team reporting structure,
• Breaking down your shared goals into smaller actionable steps,
• Measuring progress towards a goal supported by graphics and flowcharts,
• Tracking available resources at the work environment to guarantee that what is needed is available,
• Create an atmosphere of camaraderie among team members to support others to perform their tasks,
• Outline each member’s function and responsibilities to help reduce the chance of misunderstandings.

Furthermore, the development of a team identity finding commonalities between the group members will encourage your team to bond in a social context. It’s possible that there are teammates with the same taste in music, movies, or TV shows. Others might bond over hobbies or through sharing information about their children and families. One thing is for sure, personal connections in a multicultural team make it easier for members to work together.

Having an environment safe, easy to understand and interact, have many benefits. Team members will learn to respect their differences, collaborate better with each other, stick to group norms, and share a common goal, what will finally lead them to promote unity in a team.

Team foundations are one of the 7 elements that have proven to be a key factor when working with multicultural teams. Find more about the Global Team Effectiveness Model ®. If you and your team are ready to improve their performance and effectiveness we can help you!

The post THE 7 ELEMENTS OF MULTICULTURAL TEAM SUCCESS III: TEAM FOUNDATIONS appeared first on LEADINFORCE - Blog.