Understanding the backgrounds of each team member can assist managers in the molding of an effective and collaborative work group.

In a recent survey completed of 70 global teams, only 18% considered their team performance highly successful and achieving business goals¹. As technology and globalization continue to transform the workplace, people from many different cultural backgrounds are beginning to work together². Developing teams to understand and appreciate differences while motivating employees in a virtual environment is a new challenge many managers are now facing³. ff14 gil for sale Global leaders are now identifying a new subset of skills and talents required to effectively lead teams as organizations leverage team members from around the globe⁴. Air Jordan 11 Donna

Understanding the importance of trust in a virtual cross cultural environment

The concept and meaning of “team” varies significantly across cultures and organizations; therefore it is imperative to note that behaviors and communication styles will likely vary as well. Establishing a ‘we-feeling’ and commitment are the first steps in collaboration⁵. New Balance 009 hombre Within some countries around the world trust is an earned respect not easily given; therefore establishing a trusting relationship virtually requires careful precision and finesse to ensure the relationship is built upon mutual trust and respect. Järvenpää and Leidner (1998) studied the concept of “swift” trust, noting that this type of trust is very fragile and temporal in nature. They further noted global virtual teams do not build trust, but import trust from more familiar settings and place a high value on timely responses with regard to communication⁵. LUNARGLIDE 8

Download the full version including Jennifer Merrell’s reviews of Argonaut (2015) and Denyse Perry’s Roadmap to authentic communication

Overcoming the barriers language creates

Zofi (2012) speaks to the importance of overcoming intercultural disconnect using five cross cultural communication strategies which can be easily remembered using the acronym LEARN. Saint Joseph’s Hawks

• Listen
• Effectively Communicate
• Avoid Ambiguity
• Respect Differences
• No Judgment

Understanding the limits of technology

Technology, while great at connecting people around the world, creates additional challenges for people to notice and pick up on many nonverbal behavioral cues. NIKE AIR ZOOM STRUCTURE 20 Even with the recent introduction of video conferencing, subtle nonverbal cues often go unnoticed⁶. In recent years, the use of technology and globalization have been accused of homogenizing particular ways of working and studying to align more with Western behaviors. Some question if this protocol is ethical to ignore local cultural preferences to achieve collaboration on a higher level as it can later manifest as a cause of communication problems⁵.

Motivating and training cross cultural virtual teams

Motivational and training aspects of a manager’s role can be further complicated by the degree of differences in employee cultures. nike roshe two hombre What acts as a motivator within one culture is likely to have a different impact within another; this also holds true for employee development and the educational approach needed to properly train staff to use new technologies, which will assist in the continuation of cross cultural projects. Asics Gel Kayano Evo Homme To offset these challenges facing today’s global marketplace, many organizations are introducing balanced training programs to ensure team members achieve a healthy balance of intercultural skill development and technological development to further develop leadership potential in a high performance, high cooperation workplace⁶.

Intercultural competence and virtual teamworking skills training

Along with these balanced training programs, many organizations are finding it helpful to regularly review established ways of working that all team members agree to, ensuring all team rules continue to remain relevant. Todd Gurley Jerseys Investing time in staff development opportunities to showcase cross cultural differences to improve team members’ understandings of each other has also been shown to help build trust and respect within groups, and when possible, a rotation of team meeting locations which can allow colleagues to show off their culture¹. Working with a company striving to build strong virtual cross cultural teams will require forward thinking analysis of each individual team member. Air Jordan 7 (VII) Understanding the backgrounds of each team member can assist managers in the molding of an effective and collaborative work group.

Innovative ideas and products often begin in domestic places:  Laura Ashley’s attic flat, Apple in a garage, Harry Potter in a café. Whether myth or reality, there is some truth in our case at Argonaut. The idea of Argonaut came in a kitchen. In fact it was the kitchen of a renovated 17th century house in the middle of London.

Your business location is likely to be an office space in a city or a plant at the edge of an urban area, not a domestic setting. So how to offer a global welcome mat where you are? At Argonaut, we’ve been receiving guests of all cultures for many years and learned a few tricks for making international visitors welcome.

Welcome to the Argonaut offices

The old kitchen in the basement of the house is now the heart of the Argonaut offices with a front room where our daily work in cross cultural consultancy takes place, and a larger, adjoining room with chairs and sofas for client conversations and meetings.  As this is an old London house, there are several levels, and meeting rooms continue on the first and second floors.  Fireplaces were the providers of warmth in the centuries past and remain in working condition for added character and warmth.

Our offices have a history.  The houses on Kensington Square were built and inhabited at the time that King William III and Queen Mary II moved to Kensington Palace (across the street in Kensington Gardens) in 1689.  People who attended or served the court stayed in the Kensington Square houses.

Our current visitors represent a cross-section of a global society– an impressive cohort of diverse professions and cultures: HR managers, cross-cultural consultants and coaches, CEOs, international marketing professors, authors, editors, trainers, directors from many European, Asian, North and South American and African countries. These are clients and colleagues who have a shared commitment to the development of cross-cultural competence at every organizational level: individual, team, corporate.

As our offices are in an old house, what special characteristics make it a ‘come to’ place for clients and colleagues?

Top six ways to make your international visitors feel welcome

A location that’s easy to find

• Central location, convenient to public transportation and nearby landmarks
• Provide maps, local transport information, instructions for what to tell a taxi driver in harder-to-find locations
• List of local shops and services needed by visitors such as places of worship and places to buy local transport tickets, food, gifts, local and international food.
• Suggestions for local sights which take no longer than 1, 2, 3 hours

Reception and Greetings

• Reception staff informed about the name and cultural background of visitors in advance
• Introductions and tours with information about roles and seniority of people in the organisation
• Wifi information

Facilities

• Kitchens with clear signage or personal instructions about who can use it and how things work
• Accessible toilets and signs about how to use the items there, if there are any unusual aspects

Ambience

• A variety of spaces for meetings with differing levels of formality
• Conversational spaces with soft furniture, separate spaces for private talks, meeting rooms for formal discussions

Items to engage visitors in ‘small talk’

• Paintings, decorative items, interesting artefacts with an international theme or personal story, ideally with a connection to your current guest
• Personal items including family pictures, cards, books, team photos.

A cross-cultural approach

• Being sensitive to differing food requirements, both cultural and individual:, for example vegetarian diets; establishing the most appropriate time to meet during Ramadan or any religious holiday requirements or requests.
• Being aware of seating arrangements: who should have the most ‘prominent’ position if that is a consideration? Getting the right level of formality.
• Finding the right balance between small talk and getting down to business. Personal backgrounds and office history are openers for our client conversations. We move quickly or more slowly to the substance of the meeting depending on the questions and conversation that follow.
• Flexibility:  professional hospitality means listening and watching for a visitor’s body language as well verbal language. Is he/she comfortable sitting, standing, with a table, without? With doors open, shut?

What has worked for you, and what would you add to this list?

The fact is that Germans are less worried about privacy, because they trust that their strict laws are correctly enforced. While 44% of Germans are worried about online privacy, 90% or more of Indians, Brazilians and Spanish are worried, according to research by ComRes

Attitudes to privacy in different cultures

Privacy is seen differently in “old internet” countries, where online access has long been widespread compared to “new internet” countries, where mass internet access is more recent. Factors such as young v old and familiarity with online data breaches also play a part in shaping attitudes to privacy.

But there is also a cultural angle to online privacy. Those deeply-held and slow-to-change cultural characteristics are influencing attitudes in fast-developing internet privacy questions too.

Individuality and collectivism

In cultures like the USA, individuals expect to take responsibility for protecting their own privacy rather than see it as mainly a government or institutional responsibility. At individual level, Americans may exercise strict discipline towards privacy, with 93% of American adults saying that being in control of who can get information about them is important, according to ComRes. There is a correlation with societal levels of trust in big companies. Respect for those institutions is higher in Brazil, India and Spain, but on the other hand lower in skeptical UK, Australia, France and South Korea.

Enforcement of privacy regulations

While laws on privacy may be converging, there remains a wide divergence in how well the data protection laws are enforced. Individuals and institutions take the data protection obligations very seriously in Australia, for example, but in other regions the regulations are more loosely applied.

South Korea tried to implement a “real names policy” whereby internet portal users would have to show their real names online. The plan was based on the idea that citizens would behave well online in order to maintain face, associated with their real name. The policy eventually collapsed because of concerns about security, but the experiment was interesting. There have been trends away from anonymity in many countries, but enforcement of real names policies is unlikely to succeed in cultures like the Netherlands or USA where ideas are separated from the people expressing them and anonymous speech is a very relevant part of public dialogue.

Motivations to share personal data

On the surface, it seems like everyone is sharing personal information in a similar way on the big social networks of their own societies: Facebook, WeChat, vKontakte and so on. Usage levels and even some behaviour seems to follow global norms. However, more recent research shows that the motivations of users who share personal data online are very different. In some cultures, openness to strangers is less familiar, while networking outside the in-group can be a strong motivator in other cultures.

Online privacy can be at least as complex as traditional ideas about privacy. We need to navigate the same landscape of sensitivity and taboo as we do in our offline lives. When the Russian-owned search engine Yandex began offering services in Turkey, it found that it had the opposite problem compared to Google. It had blurred the faces of Turks appearing in its Streetview-equivalent service literally to protect the face of Turkish people, but in so doing had broken the taboo never to mess up the face of Ataturk, founder of the modern Turkish nation, who appears in statue-form in photos of towns and villages up and down the country.

Being smart about privacy in other cultures

We’re discovering that the youngest generation of digital natives are not really loose in their attitudes to privacy. They are smarter. They have very precise ideas about what should be shared and where.

Similarly, cultures are developing their own culture-specific approaches to privacy. They are applying existing cultural beliefs in the new era of data protection. Check with a friendly native or an expert before you post and tag pictures of your contacts from other cultures. The attitude in foreign cultures to sharing data may be not what you expect in your own culture based on age or profession.