Managing Multicultural Teams
Harvard Business Review
Multicultural teams generate frustrating management dilemmas. Cultural differences can create
substantial obstacles to effective teamwork: these may be subtle and difficult to recognise until
significant damage has already been done.
The challenge: managing multicultural teams effectively by recognising underlying cultural causes
of conflict, and to intervene in ways that both get the team back on track and empower its
members to deal with future challenges themselves.
Challenges
I. Direct vs Indirect Communication
The differences between direct and indirect communication can cause serious damage to relationships
when team projects run into problems. Communication challenges create barriers to effective teamwork
by reducing information sharing, creating interpersonal conflict, or both.
II. Trouble with Accents and Fluency
Although the language of international business is English, misunderstandings or deep frustration may
occur because of nonnative speakers accents, lack of fluency, or problems with translation or usage.
These may also influence perceptions of status or competence. Non-fluent team members may well be
the most expert on the team, but their difficulty communicating knowledge makes it hard for the team to
recognise and utilise their expertise. If teammates become frustrated or impatient with a lack of fluency,
interpersonal conflicts can arise. Nonnative speakers may become less motivated to contribute, or
anxious about their performance evaluations and future career prospects. The organisation as a whole
pays a greater price: Its investment in a multicultural team fails to pay off.
III. Differing attitudes toward Hierarchy and Authority
Teams have a rather flat structure. But team members from some cultures, in which people are treated
differently according to their status in an organisation, are uncomfortable on flat teams. If they defer to
higher-status team members, their behaviour will be seen as appropriate when most of the team comes
from a hierarchical culture; but they may damage their stature and credibility—and even face
humiliation—if most of the team comes from an egalitarian culture.
IV. Conflicting norms for Decision Making
How quickly decisions should be made and how much analysis is required beforehand. Learn to adjust
to and even respect another approach to decision making.
Strategies
1. Adaption
Acknowledging cultural gaps openly and working around them.
This strategy works when team members are willing to acknowledge and name the cultural differences
and take responsibility for figuring out how to live with them. It is usually the best approach to a problem
as it involves less managerial time than other strategies, and because team members participate in
solving the problem themselves - they learn from the process. With this mindset, team members can
become creative. They learn from the experience.
2. Structural Intervention
Changing the shape of the team.
Reorganisation designed to reduce interpersonal friction or to remove a source of conflict for one or
more groups. This approach can be effective when obvious subgroups demarcate the team (hierarchy vs
egalitarian) or if team members are proud, defensive, threatened to negative stereotypes of one another.
3. Managerial Intervention
Setting norms early or bringing in a higher-level manager.
When a managers behaves like a judge, making a final decision without team involvement, neither the
manager nor the team gains much insight into why the team has stalemated. But it is possible for team
members to use managerial intervention effectively to sort out problems. This process is efficient to set
norms early in a team's life and can start out with effective processes.
4. Exit
Removing a team member when other options have failed.
Project based teams, often have people leaving the team if they can't manage a challenge. In short-term
situations, unhappy team members often just waited out the project. When teams were permanent,
Harvard Business Review
Multicultural teams generate frustrating management dilemmas. Cultural differences can create
substantial obstacles to effective teamwork: these may be subtle and difficult to recognise until
significant damage has already been done.
The challenge: managing multicultural teams effectively by recognising underlying cultural causes
of conflict, and to intervene in ways that both get the team back on track and empower its
members to deal with future challenges themselves.
Challenges
I. Direct vs Indirect Communication
The differences between direct and indirect communication can cause serious damage to relationships
when team projects run into problems. Communication challenges create barriers to effective teamwork
by reducing information sharing, creating interpersonal conflict, or both.
II. Trouble with Accents and Fluency
Although the language of international business is English, misunderstandings or deep frustration may
occur because of nonnative speakers accents, lack of fluency, or problems with translation or usage.
These may also influence perceptions of status or competence. Non-fluent team members may well be
the most expert on the team, but their difficulty communicating knowledge makes it hard for the team to
recognise and utilise their expertise. If teammates become frustrated or impatient with a lack of fluency,
interpersonal conflicts can arise. Nonnative speakers may become less motivated to contribute, or
anxious about their performance evaluations and future career prospects. The organisation as a whole
pays a greater price: Its investment in a multicultural team fails to pay off.
III. Differing attitudes toward Hierarchy and Authority
Teams have a rather flat structure. But team members from some cultures, in which people are treated
differently according to their status in an organisation, are uncomfortable on flat teams. If they defer to
higher-status team members, their behaviour will be seen as appropriate when most of the team comes
from a hierarchical culture; but they may damage their stature and credibility—and even face
humiliation—if most of the team comes from an egalitarian culture.
IV. Conflicting norms for Decision Making
How quickly decisions should be made and how much analysis is required beforehand. Learn to adjust
to and even respect another approach to decision making.
Strategies
1. Adaption
Acknowledging cultural gaps openly and working around them.
This strategy works when team members are willing to acknowledge and name the cultural differences
and take responsibility for figuring out how to live with them. It is usually the best approach to a problem
as it involves less managerial time than other strategies, and because team members participate in
solving the problem themselves - they learn from the process. With this mindset, team members can
become creative. They learn from the experience.
2. Structural Intervention
Changing the shape of the team.
Reorganisation designed to reduce interpersonal friction or to remove a source of conflict for one or
more groups. This approach can be effective when obvious subgroups demarcate the team (hierarchy vs
egalitarian) or if team members are proud, defensive, threatened to negative stereotypes of one another.
3. Managerial Intervention
Setting norms early or bringing in a higher-level manager.
When a managers behaves like a judge, making a final decision without team involvement, neither the
manager nor the team gains much insight into why the team has stalemated. But it is possible for team
members to use managerial intervention effectively to sort out problems. This process is efficient to set
norms early in a team's life and can start out with effective processes.
4. Exit
Removing a team member when other options have failed.
Project based teams, often have people leaving the team if they can't manage a challenge. In short-term
situations, unhappy team members often just waited out the project. When teams were permanent,
