When Teams Collide

Managing the International Team Successfully

Richard Lewis

• Publisher: Nicholas Brealey International
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781904838357
• eBook ISBN:
  9781904838371
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: International Business
• Index: Business

International teams are rapidly becoming the central operating mode for global enterprises. They are often agile and perceptive, know local markets better than HQ does, lead innovation and exploratory ventures, and are more culturally aware than their parent company. But how much autonomy should they be allowed? How can we get things done with colleagues who have different worldviews? How can we strike a balance between core values and the necessary diversity - and is diversity within the team a strength or a hindrance? What is the role of the team leader in all of this? How do you establish team trust? How important is team humor? Who decides the team s ethics? What misunderstandings can arise in a virtual team, lacking face-to-face contact? In answering these and other questions, Richard D. Lewis draws on 30 years experience mediating with hundreds of international teams in two dozen countries. Generously illustrated with explanatory diagrams, When Teams Collide analyses profiles of 24 different nationalities and suggests how they should be led for best results. Commenting on vital considerations of leadership, team trust, ethics and humor, the author also evaluates the relationship between teams and HQ. Applying the cultural concepts in the bestselling When Cultures Collide specifically to team leadership, this is a wide-ranging and compelling account of how to handle what is a difficult and sensitive task.

1
Categorizing Cultures

Human behavior, in social and business life alike, varies significantly around the world and is subject to a substantial number of influences – genetic, political, economic, and religious are just some of them. The discovery in 2001 that all human genes are remarkably alike (we share 99.9 percent of our genes with others) led to genetic determinism taking a back seat in its significance for behavior. Similarly, the failure of the theories of economic determinism (Marxism among them) to become reality in the last decades of the twentieth century left a clear field for the acceptance of cultural determinism as the primary and dominant crucible for molding our conduct.

Diversity and compatibility

The collective program or agenda for our behavior is set by our cultural group through the influence of parents, teachers, peers, and societal preferences and restraints, aided and abetted by written and unwritten rules and regulations. Often, but not always, the cultural group is synonymous with a nation-state, so we may talk about French or German or Japanese culture. As there are significant variations of behavior within the borders of some countries (for instance Bavarians and Prussians, Milanese and Sicilians), there exist more cultural groups than nation-states. Strictly speaking, there are 200–300 national or regional mindsets, commanding general uniformity of allegiance from their adherents. That is to say, most Scots are usually content to display the well-known characteristics of the northern British, while New Yorkers revel in their distinctive brand of Americanness.

These cultural programs are the repositories of rich diversity, yet, like genetic species, they are more homogeneous than one would expect. Increased international contact, especially in the field of commerce, has familiarized business people with the customs and communication styles of trading partners, of staff in overseas subsidiaries, and of colleagues in international teams. They have noted that they get on better with some than with others. Often they learn to adapt sufficiently to the preferences of the other party. In effect, they adopt a cultural stance that facilitates understanding and empathy. Few people are able to change their behavior at will to react to someone else’s worldview, but regular contact with a variety of nationalities soon makes one realize that they fall into three broad categories, as outlined in the Introduction:

Those in the linear-active group follow linear agendas, planning ahead step by step, completing action chains, and achieving clearly defined goals with some precision.

Those in the multi-active group enjoy doing many things at once, are warm, loquacious, emotional, and impulsive, and are very concerned with relationships.

Those in the reactive group are introvert, respect-oriented listeners who are accommodating, courteous, and amenable to consensus and compromise.

In general, nationalities within a particular category understand and tolerate one another fairly readily. There may be some national friction (for instance between Japanese and Koreans or Hungarians and Slovaks), but a common categorical wavelength facilitates intercourse. The corollary of this is that people from different categories often frustrate and annoy each other. This is most common between linear-active and multi-active people (Nordic abhorrence of Latin gesticulations or verbosity, for example). People in the reactive category tend to have less confrontation with the other two groups (because they react and accommodate by instinct), but they too have their own silent agenda that can be quite judgmental.

The good news is that no human being belongs solely to one category. The most linear Swiss or German will have some multi-active emotion or excitability buried somewhere below the disciplined exterior. Japanese – ne plus ultra reactives – are seduced by linear thinking in their manufacturing processes and financial dealings. Multi-active Italians from Milan will tell you how Germanic they can be (or would like to be). Impassive, reactive Koreans can explode into rage (like Turks) at the drop of a hat. One’s individual traits may also contradict the norms of national programming. Emperor Meiji was an unusually charismatic Japanese; Winston Churchill belied the British stiff upper lip tradition by weeping frequently in public.

These deviations – or aberrations – are good news because they indicate that human beings are fundamentally open to a diversity of persuasions and beliefs. Table 1.1 overleaf, showing linear-active, multi-active, and reactive variations, demonstrates that traits are strung out along three different axes, implying possible rapprochements to different mindsets. While one-category characteristics may be prevalent with some nationalities (linear Swiss, multi-active Brazilians, reactive Vietnamese), this does not mean that they cannot benefit from insight into other mindsets. For instance Indians, naturally loquacious and emotional, not only have eastern wisdom and courtesy, but supplement these qualities with a good understanding of the west.

Members of international teams have great advantages in developing inter-category synergy and promoting and cultivating compatibility. Their contacts are multicultural, frequent, and varied. They are not walled in, either physically or mentally, by the parochial constraints of an ever-present HQ. They flit around, acquire versatility and adaptability, and qualify as cosmopolitan.

If they are perceptive, their horizons widen quickly. Europeans begin to see some of the things that Japanese see, though they were mysterious before. Self-awareness heightens all round.

The table of linear-active, multi-active, and reactive characteristics can be used as an assessment tool of your own cultural traits. If you select a trait from each horizontal trio and give yourself a score of one for each, you will arrive at three separate column totals of linear, multi-active, and reactive qualities. A score of, for instance, 10-6-8 could then be plotted inside the triangle in Figure 1.1. Based on more than 25,000 tests, this is a kind of triangular “league table” showing the relative placements of major countries in terms of their degree of linearity, multi-activity, or reactivity. If two or more nations are bracketed together, such as France and Poland, it does not mean that the two cultures are completely similar. What it does mean is that French and Polish people are roughly the same in their linear-active or multi-active traits. At the top of the diagram where eight multi-active cultures are located, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia are on the right-hand side, as they have large Indian populations that give them reactive tendencies. The ones on the left reflect more their Latin character. Americans and Australians are more extrovert than British; Danes are more talkative than other Nordics; Finns have several Asian traits; Singapore and Hong Kong are more westernized (= linear-active) than Japan or China. Koreans and Thais are the most excitable of the East Asians; India is midway, combining multi-active loquacity with Oriental courtesy; laid-back Canada and bicultural Belgium are the other cultures in median positions. Geographical proximities and climatic similarities are visibly influential in determining cultural categories.

LINEAR-ACTIVE	MULTI-ACTIVE	REACTIVE
Talks and listens in equal degrees	Talks most of the time	Listens most of the time
Rarely interrupts	Often interrupts	Never interrupts
Confronts with facts	Confronts emotionally	Never confronts
Dislikes losing face	Has a good story	Must not lose face
Uses official channels	Seeks out key person	Uses network
Follows linear agenda	Diverges frequently from agenda	Follows circular agenda
Frank, direct	Indirect, manipulative	Indirect, courteous
Truth before diplomacy	Diplomatic, creative truth	Diplomacy before truth
Limited body language	Lots of body language	Hardly any body language
Cool	Excitable	Inscrutable
Promotes product	Promotes personal relationships	Promotes inter-company harmony
Completes action chains	Completes human transactions	Harmonizes by action at appropriate times
Partly conceals feelings	Displays feelings	Conceals feelings
Speech is for information	Speech is for opinions	Speech is to promote harmony
Punctual, time dominated	Relaxed about time	Focuses on doing things in the correct order
Has individual goals	Has intimate-circle goals	Has company goals
Task oriented	People oriented	Very people oriented
Does one thing at a time	Does several things at once	Reacts to partner’s action
Respects facts and figures	Respects oratory, expressiveness, charisma	Respects age, wisdom, experience
Plans ahead step by step	Plans grand outline	Reacts to others’ plans
Defines problems and solves in quick sequence	Goes for all-embracing solutions	Prefers gradualist solutions
Separates business and personal life	Intertwines business and social	Links business and social
Bad orders can be discussed	Bad orders should be circumvented	An order is an order
Admits own mistakes	Finds an excuse	Hides, cov...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 Categorizing Cultures
• 2 Organizing the Team
• 3 Speaking the Language
• 4 Leading the Team
• 5 Team Members’ Profiles
• 6 Speech Styles and Meeting Procedures
• 7 Communicating in English
• 8 Team Humor
• 9 Decision Making
• 10 Behaving Ethically
• 11 Trust in the Team
• Appendix: Cultural Spectacles
• Bibliography
• Index
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author