Cross-cultural Collaboration

I take exception to the aphorism, ‘There’s no ‘I’ in team.’  

The reality is that it’s just not true. There is most definitely several ‘Is’ in every team. And teams fail, when we overlook them. 

Greater than the sum of the parts 

Every team is a group of individuals and if you ignore that individual dimension, collaboration isn’t possible, never mind cross-cultural collaboration. After all, we’re not drones or clones. We have personalities, ambitions, and – believe it or not – life outside of work! If a team is going to collaborate effectively, we must find a way to unite the different values, beliefs and needs of each member. 

Cross-cultural collaboration 

This is very easy to demonstrate.  

Imagine that Sam and Alex have to collaborate for the first time on a new project. Sam is a risk-avoider. For them, robust processes, contingencies and extremely careful and thorough planning are the key to success. Alex, however, is a risk-taker. For them, it’s all about the future. Experimentation, trial and error and sometimes a blind jump of faith is what’s needed.  

Now suppose that Sam and Alex communicate in a different way, approach relationship building differently and a different work/life balance… 

If Alex and Sam are going to work together, they either need to find a solution to their fundamental conflict, or one or both of them will need to find a new job! 

And that’s because cross-cultural collaboration is the source of frustration, anger, confusion and underperformance if you ignore the individual.  

Effective teams – effective organizations 

And teams are the foundation of any business.  

We get our sense of achievement, purpose, belonging, comfort from the team. Team collaboration is the only way an organization can hope to survive in this complex world. And despite our familiarity with a global marketplace, cross-cultural collaboration is often overlooked.  

Do you know of many teams in large organizations that are not cross-cultural teams? Because we have increasingly added to the complexity of the way we work by adding national and linguistic dimensions to the mix within our teams.  

Even a stable team, based in a small town in any country your business operates in, probably contains at least three nationalities, two (or more genders), a wide range of ages, educations, beliefs and politics. Culture is a product of all of these factors – and many more, even though we tend to focus most on the national aspect. 

In our little example, Alex is in Brazil and Sam is in Singapore. The time zone difference is not nearly the most significant barrier to collaboration that they face! 

What Alex and Sam need is cultural intelligence: attitude, awareness, knowledge and skills. 

Attitude:  

The firstly need to understand that both want to collaborate. Their different styles are not a personal affront, but a natural cultural phenomenon. Taking an attitude of openness to cultural difference de-personalizes the conflict and makes room to do something about it. 

Accepting this attitude is the first step towards effective cross-cultural collaboration. 

Awareness: 

Secondly, they both need to understand the nature of that difference.  

Being self- and other-aware means that you can plan for the specific situations when the differences may be a problem – or an advantage! This is where a tool such as Worldprism and Worldprism Teams is essential. Creating individual and team cultural profiles highlights strengths and weaknesses of the team and provides a foundation for action. 

Knowledge: 

Sam and Alex need to know what it means to have different cultural perspectives. Looking at their profiles, Sam realizes that actually the biggest difference is between a Linear style – a structure, focused approach to problem solving and Alex’s Circular style, which is less structured but incorporates a much wider view. They both recognize that the two areas complement each other. Previously, Sam’s narrow focus infuriated Alex who felt they were overlooking key data; and Alex considered Sam’s digressions a waste of time.  

The Worldprism profiles allowed each of them to incorporate the two different styles into the way discussions started. 

Skills: 

Knowledge must lead to behavior change – in this case building in cultural intelligence into how we interact with each other. And it’s not a just a simple case of adopting another person’s approach – as we’ve already mentioned, different styles can complement each other.  

Cross-cultural collaborative strategies 

One way of evaluating the options is to use ABCDE: 

A: Adapt – one person changes their style towards the other. It’s harder to do, and less likely to happen in high-pressure moments. It also doesn’t necessarily allow for power dynamics. 

B: Blend – a conscious decision from the team to find a compromise, somewhere between the two different styles. This is an equitable, inclusive solution that involves an intentional effort from everyone, but it also has downsides: everyone is uncomfortable and it negates the power of difference. 

C: Co-create – the team sits down and agrees a new, third way. That may incorporate any of the ABCDE strategies or a new way. It’s saying that we, as a team, must create a new cultural style that works for us. This is probably the most successful and impactful adaptive strategy, but it takes time to embed and may not be agile enough for periods of intense change or pressure. 

D: Deny. Ignore the differences. Just get on with things. It’s a high risk strategy – the potential for conflict, miscommunication, offence and resentment is high. But in some situations, it’s the quickest option – in an emergency, let’s not worry about cultural differences, let’s just act in the best way to address the situation. 

E: Enforce – One person, usually the team leader, makes a unilateral decision that this is the way the team will work. Everyone must adopt this approach and conform. It’s another high-risk option that must be used carefully and thinking about the potential fall-out. 

Shared team expectations 

If you don’t account for individuals in your team, you’ll lay the groundwork for chaos and conflict. Each individual will fight against the shared expectations. In any collaboration, start by understanding each person and what they bring. Be intentional and active in acknowledging the differences and addressing them. If you invest a little time at the start, you’ll notice the huge impact on performance, productivity and collaboration.  

And always spell ‘team’ with an ‘I’!