Working In Multicultural Teams

Multicultural and multinational teams have become an important strategic and structural element of organizational work in our globalized world today. These teams are demonstrating their importance from the factory floors to the boardrooms of contemporary organizations. The emergence of multicultural teams is evident across a variety of organizations in the private, public, and civil society sectors. These developments have led to an increasing interest in the theory and practice of multicultural teams. Management educational and training programs are giving increasing attention to these developments. At the same time, there is emerging interest in research about and study of multicultural teams. This book emerged from our teaching, research, and consulting with multic- tural and diverse teams in multiple sectors over the last several years. In particular, we have developed and refined our ideas about the concepts in this book from teaching an advanced course called Effective Multicultural Teams in the Graduate Program at the School for International Training (SIT) in Vermont. We have learned from the rich background of students who are from, and have worked in, six con- nents, and who are, or plan to be, working in the public, educational, not-for-profit, and for-profit sectors. Additionally, we have engaged with a variety of teams through our consulting and training, providing consultation to teams in a variety of sectors and continents as they struggled to become more effective.

Measureable, data driven outcomes are not the only indicators of success in today’s multicultural and globalized workforce. How employees interact with their colleagues and customers is also a significant factor in their career development. Luciara Nardon draws on her extensive research and international experience to guide employees and managers through the ambiguous and uncertain waters of today’s multicultural workplace. Each intercultural encounter is unique, involving different people, contexts, dynamics, and actions which general cultural protocols are unable to address. In Working in a Multicultural World, Nardon offers a comprehensive framework for understanding intercultural interactions and developing skills for successful intercultural situations. Numerous examples and exercises, including how to reconcile personal beliefs of equality with a hierarchical workplace and how to respond to perceived aggressiveness in business negotiations, enable employees and managers to embark on reflective processes that will springboard their intercultural competence. Working in a Multicultural World is an accessibly written and valuable resource for all professionals in today’s workplace as well as students and travelers interested in intercultural relations.

Leading culturally diverse teams is a complex challenge that requires knowing how to help team members grow in particular qualities and acquire specific skills related to multicultural teamwork. Leading Multicultural Teams integrates insights from the Bible, team theory, leadership, and intercultural studies to explain how to meet this challenge.

Multicultural Teams outperform other teams when you need creativity, commitment and buy in - but only if they are designed and managed well. This book will explain how to design and manage your multicultural team well, and how to create and sustain a learn-from-differences environment. Dr. Robin gives practical suggestions from research on how to design your team and then explains how you can leverage diverse perspectives within the team to maximize creative problem solving. These include: A clear, motivating focus that requires team members to engage in a conversation about why the mission is important strategically to the organization and personally to them; An understanding of how important designing the team well is, while knowing how to make the right intervention into the group process at the right time; Metrics that measure output, learning and satisfaction; The right degree of empowerment and the right type of team given your task and members; And the use of interlocking skills that maximize learning within the team. Every team leader's skills toolbox should include transformational listening, using names with ideas, and motivating others. The multicultural team management skills toolbox must also include the ability to give culturally-appropriate feedback, minority influence strategies, and attention to both process and output solutions to balance direct and indirect cultural styles.

When it was first published in 2001, Negotiating Globally quickly became the basic reference for managers who needed to learn how to negotiate successfully across boundaries of national culture. This thoroughly revised and expanded second edition preserves the structure of the acclaimed first edition and improves upon it, making it even easier to learn how to navigate national culture when negotiating deals, resolving disputes, and making decisions in teams. Rather than offering country-specific protocol and customs, Negotiating Globally provides a general framework to help negotiators anticipate and manage cultural differences. This new edition incorporates the lessons of the latest research with new emphasis on executing a negotiation strategy and negotiating conflict in multicultural teams. The well-received chapter on “Government At and Around the Table” has been expanded and updated with new examples that span the globe. In this comprehensive resource, Jeanne M. Brett describes how to develop a negotiation planning document and shows how to execute the plan. She provides a model that explains how the cultural environment affects negotiators’ interests, priorities, and strategies. She provides benchmarks for distinguishing good deals from poor ones and good negotiators from poor ones. The book explains how resolving disputes is different from making deals and how negotiation strategy can be used in multicultural teams. Negotiating Globally challenges negotiators to expand their repertoire of strategies so that they will be able to close deals, resolve disputes, and get teams to make decisions.

"A person who works in a multicultural team becomes a witness and a leader...It can be really hard work, and it is important to walk into a team with a humble attitude of serving God and each other."Multicultural teams are becoming more common both in the business world and the Christian world. We increasingly work with people from other cultures--and despite our best intentions, we find this can be difficult and uncomfortable. We can disagree over how decisions are made, what the leader should do, how the team should work...and an unexpected explosion can destroy our team.As challenging as they may be, as Christians we are compelled to work well within multicultural teams. An effective multicultural team can bear witness to the fact that Jesus has the power to overcome cultural differences and national boundaries. When we form such a team, we take a deliberate step towards God's goal of bringing together a great multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language. What does this look like? How do Bible-based multicultural teams work in practice? This book aims to look at the most common issues that face multicultural teams, and help equip team members and leaders to address them, including: dealing with team changes, choosing team members, preparing one's team, communication styles, effective team meetings and conflict resolution.

'Managing Cultural Diversity in Technical Professions' provides managers of technical professionals with clear and tested strategies to improve communication and increase productivity among culturally diverse technical professionals, teams, and departments. Dr. Laroche outlines the differences in education and training, career expectations, communication styles, and management expectations in countries around the world. He explains cross-cultural concepts and presents his case for the importance of cross-cultural competence supported by hard data, including charts, tables, and readily accessible schematics. You'll benefit from the author's experience and expertise as a manager and consultant in this area, illustrated by numerous anecdotes, critical incidents, and mini case studies, centered around two central themes: * Most technical professionals do not recognize the impact of cultural differences in their work * Cross-cultural issues lead to a significant under-utilization of talent and affect productivity negatively 'Managing Cultural Diversity in Technical Professions' offers proven tactics for improving your personal effectiveness and the efficiency of your multicultural teams, breaking the communication barrier in the multicultural workplace.

Biblical Multicultural Teams speaks to the heart of cultural misunderstanding- our childhood upbringing. Sheryl Takagi Silzer is able in this work to provide both an honest look at her own cross-cultural experience and an astute academic understanding of cross-cultural communication. We all work and function in a multicultural world. The advice and wisdom in Biblical Multicultural Teams will thus enable you to take a hard look at assumptions and attitudes found in your team and to work on submitting them to biblical standards of interaction.Sign up for the WCIU Press newsletter to be notified about new books from this author and more! http: //eepurl.com/rB15L