Japan, a typical response to direct Multicultural teams often generate frustrating confrontation is to isolate the norm violator. management dilemmas. Cultural differences can create substantial obstacles to effective Trouble with accents and fluency. teamworkbut these may be subtle and difficult to recognize until significant damage Although the language of international has already been done. The challenge in business is English, misunderstandings or managing multicultural teams effectively is deep frustration may occur because of to recognize underlying cultural causes of nonnative speakers accents, lack of fluency, conflict, and to intervene in ways that both or problems with translation or usage. These get the team back on track and empower its may also influence perceptions of status or members to deal with future challenges competence. No fluent team members may themselves. The good news is that cultural well be the most expert on the team, but their challenges are manageable if managers and difficulty communicating knowledge makes team members choose the right strategy and it hard for the team to recognize and utilize avoid imposing single-culture-based their expertise. If teammates become approaches on multicultural situations. frustrated or impatient with a lack of fluency, interpersonal conflicts can arise. Nonnative The Challenges speakers may become less motivated to contribute, or anxious about their People tend to assume that challenges on performance evaluations and future career multicultural teams arise from differing styles prospects. of communication. But this is only one of the four categories that can create barriers to a Differing attitudes toward hierarchy and teams ultimate success. These categories are authority. direct versus indirect communication; trouble with accents and fluency; differing attitudes A challenge inherent in multicultural toward hierarchy and authority; and teamwork is that by design, teams have a conflicting norms for decision making. rather flat structure. But team members from some cultures, in which people are treated Direct versus indirect communication. differently according to their status in an organization, are uncomfortable on flat In cross-cultural negotiations, the non- teams. Westerner can understand the direct communications of the Westerner, but the Conflicting norms for decision making. Westerner has difficulty understanding the indirect communications of the non- Cultures differ enormously when it comes to Westerner. The differences between direct decision makingparticularly, how quickly and indirect communication can cause decisions should be made and how much serious damage to relationships when team analysis is required beforehand. Not projects run into problems. Communication surprisingly, U.S. managers like to make challenges create barriers to effective decisions very quickly and with relatively teamwork by reducing information sharing,
little analysis by comparison with managers 3. managerial intervention (setting norms
from other countries. early or bringing in a higher-level manager), Four Strategies 4. exit (removing a team member when The most successful teams and managers other options have failed). used four strategies for dealing with these challenges: There is no one right way to deal with a particular kind of multicultural problem; 1. adaptation (acknowledging cultural gaps identifying the type of challenge is only the openly and working around them) first step. The more crucial step is assessing the circumstancesor enabling situational 2. structural intervention (changing the conditionsunder which the team is shape of the team) working.