From Conflict to Cooperation: Building Stronger Cross Cultural Teams

How to build stronger cross-cultural teams

It is challenging to manage a culturally diverse team. Here are 10 tips for you to maximize your group’s talent, communication skills and ability to collaborate.

1. Acknowledge and respect cultural differences

The first step is acknowledging the elephant in the room: addressing the existence of diverse cultural backgrounds within the team and the necessity of navigating those differences to optimize team performance. Cultural diversity can manifest itself in different ways: Language, culture, disability, behavioral differences due to norms and values and different meanings attached to words, ideas or actions. So, it’s essential to learn what those differences are because one’s cultural background informs how we interact with others. [Read related: 6 Ways Businesses Benefit From Cultural Competence]

Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimension model is useful for understanding cultural differences. The model highlights six dimensions of value perspectives between national cultures:

• Power distance
• Individualism vs. collectivism
• Masculinity vs. femininity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Long-term orientation vs. short-term orientation
• Indulgence vs. restraint  

This model provides a great starting point for understanding what drives people from different cultures and how we can adapt our working and communication styles to work better in a cross-cultural team.

Jennifer Pawlewicz, a business outreach specialist on the development and dissemination team for EARN, states that cross-cultural teams can “increase problem-solving abilities, enhance empathy and strengthen team resilience.”

One way to encourage this understanding of cultural diversity is to discuss cultural differences in a team meeting where everyone can share their cultural background and expectations about communication and working style. You can informally do this through activities, such as icebreakers. Select activities where team members know more about each other by asking questions and sharing their backgrounds.

2. Establish norms for the team

The next step is establishing team norms once cultural differences and everyone’s expectations are laid out. The key is to get everyone to contribute to forming the norms. Getting their buy-in strengthens the norms and ensures everyone feels committed to living up to them.  

Depending on its makeup and other factors that affect collaboration, each team will need its own set of rules and norms. For example, consider issues, such as standard operating procedures for timeliness of email replies, email/document templates to ensure clear communication, frequency of team meetings and the structure of team reporting. Building norms specific to your team enhances collaboration and improves workplace performance.

Once team norms have been established, check in with your team regularly to see their effectiveness. Be flexible when amending any norms that need to be fixed. Something that may sound good in theory may not work in practice. Listening to your team’s feedback can improve performance.

3. Develop a team identity and outline roles and responsibilities

Everyone must know what they’re working toward in any team, but it is doubly important in a cross-cultural team. Having a shared goal and a common vision of how to achieve it gives your team an identity that can unite them and promote teamwork.

Break down your common goal into actionable steps and outline each individual’s role and responsibilities. This action step reduces the chance of misunderstandings and lets everyone know that their contribution matters. Clarity of each team member’s contribution makes it easier to address team performance. In addition, it sets expectations for what needs to be done, by whom and when.

Developing a team identity also entails finding commonalities between team members. Encourage your team to get to know each other in a social context. Some teammates may share the same taste in movies, music or TV shows. Some may bond over hobbies or share information about their families and children. Personal connections within the team make it easier to work together.

4. Overcommunicate

Overcommunicating is a good thing on a culturally diverse team. We often take for granted that our colleagues completely understand what we say because they have the same frame of reference or cultural background. But if you’re interacting with team members of different ethnicities, nationalities or backgrounds, something acceptable in your culture could cause a misunderstanding.

Those of us who are native English speakers tend to assume that someone who speaks English can understand us perfectly. Unfortunately, this may not always be the case. Someone who learned English as a second (or third) language, even though they are proficient in the language, may get different nuances, expressions or subtext.

The inability to deduce tone or body language can cause misunderstandings when it comes to electronic communication. The solution? Err on the side of overcommunicating and be careful with word choice. Use simple language when communicating and check that the other party fully understands what you said. Then, ask them to rephrase to confirm their understanding. It’s also crucial to cultivate an environment where asking questions and clarifying doubts is OK.

>> Learn more: International Business Etiquette From Around the World

Minimize any information gaps in your cross-cultural team. Everyone should be on the same page so the team can achieve its goal. Giving everyone the bigger picture and the information they need to do their part successfully will reduce conflict and team dysfunction.

Don’t underestimate the value of patience and courtesy. Remind your team that each person’s cultural background informs his behavior and communication style in different ways. Treating each other with kindness and giving your teammates the benefit of the doubt can make working in a cross-cultural environment much more pleasant.

5. Build rapport and trust

Building trust takes time. When done right, the tips outlined above can help bond your team and form the basis of trust between team members. Create an environment where your team feels safe so they can collaborate better. Respecting differences, following through on group norms and having a common goal help build unity within a team. 

“You should first start with trust in yourself and having trust in your team,” said Shaylae Duprís, human resources consultant and founder of Blu Prospects Consulting. “Trust and respect have to be at the foundation and be at the forefront. Creating an environment of inclusivity can enable individuals to thrive in the workplace. Seeing, hearing and appreciating your team will help build the foundation of a strong cultural team.” 

Face-to-face interaction is especially crucial for cross-border or remote teams where employees spend most of their time separate from their team members. While there are ways to ensure that your cross-cultural team can work efficiently even when they’re located in different parts of the world, nothing beats some face time.

Real-life interaction provides nuances, such as tone of voice, eye contact and body language, making communication easier. Plus, it’s helpful to see the person you’ve been communicating with via email is an actual person. If in-person meetings are impossible, try occasional online meetings on Zoom or GoToMeeting.

If you have more time or budget, consider organizing a team-building session or retreat. Having a shared experience helps to connect people. Moreover, you can use the review section of the activities to gather feedback on how communication can be improved, better cooperation can be harnessed or if cultural differences affected how the activity played out.

6. Appreciate diverse gender roles

Depending on the culture, men and women can carry diverse gender roles. While some cultures may be progressive and champion women leaders, others may still follow a more traditional approach in which men are expected to manage a team. [Read related: 5 Feminine Traits That Make Leaders Great]

In more traditional societies, women may not seek leadership roles, be afraid of speaking up and cover up mistakes in fear of losing their jobs. Women in leadership roles may also have a difficult time asking for days off for personal reasons including maternity leave in fear of being passed over for future promotions. Men can also have difficulty taking time off for paternity leave, thriving under a woman leader and feeling alienated for having different hobbies than their co-workers. It’s vital that managers can support gender equality and educate employees so that all team members can feel safe and heard.

7. Leadership should reflect a diversified workforce

Leadership should reflect the diversity within your workforce. So, fill high-level positions with various races, ages, genders and education credentials. Take this a step further and fill leadership roles with candidates who also have experience in cross-cultural team management.

8. Take constructive criticism seriously

Different cultures deal with conflict differently. If you have constructive criticism for an individual or a team, be professional and respectful. Be direct with your intentions and consider your audience when speaking to employees, choosing your language precisely. You can also consider consulting a mediator to manage conflict in the workplace.

9. Working remotely has its pros and cons

Diversifying a remote workforce can make good business sense. However, collaborating with a global team remotely can come with its own set of challenges.

With different time zones, geographic locations and cultural holidays, deciding on universal time off and scheduling meetings can be difficult. Always pay attention to religious and national holidays your employees may celebrate. Use a cloud-based calendar that all workers can access for observed holidays to plan project deadlines and company-wide meetings. If you prepare for moments when you may have fewer workers, you can better manage your expectations, recognize and celebrate multiple cultures and decrease turnover.

10. Invest in comprehensive DEI training

Facilitating continued learning in the workplace can help all employees feel included and valued. While diversity can boost creativity and problem-solving, it can only do so if you continuously focus on unity and not division.

While baseline DEI training is readily available, going beyond a one-day module can help your company employees bond on a deeper level. Investing time in improving communication can help unify goals, get feedback from all employees (even the quiet ones) and increase empathy.

Businesses are in an essential position to educate and inform all employees including those who are underrepresented to break down systemic barriers. By investing in comprehensive training, businesses can help positively shape society not only at work but also in the personal relationships of their employees.

The benefits of strong cross-cultural teams

Strong cross-cultural teams can create a positive work environment that meets goals, instills trust and ensures value in each employee. With businesses investing in remote employees internationally, the benefits of developing a global team far outweigh the hurdles. Specifically, they can help you:

Attract and retain top employees

All industries feel the pressure to retain employees. However, the pandemic shifted worker priorities, forcing businesses to make the job and company more enticing to ensure longevity.

By prioritizing diversity, companies are more likely to attract and retain top talent. Potential employees are actively looking for employers who value diversity and appreciate flexibility and inclusivity in the workplace. [Read related: Tips to Motivate Your Employees]

Boost creativity

Having a diverse workforce can help your team solve problems more quickly. Multiple cultures solve challenges differently and having an open mind can produce creative solutions and collaborative innovation.

An episode of the Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast produced by Stanford Graduate School of Business explores topics from Associate Professor Adina Sterling’s class and lab. Sterling states that “when people from different backgrounds, that have different ideas come together, what research has shown is that they tend to outperform, from a creativity and an innovation standpoint, groups that are more homogenous.”

Create high engagement

Employees who work for a company that values diversity appreciate the organization’s priorities and are more likely to be motivated to be engaged and have a consistent business productivity rate. 

Allowing for “disability inclusion into cross-cultural teams can help all members feel seen, represented and heard,” said Pawlewicz. “This can lead to better team performance, innovation and broader thinking.”

Enhance positive brand reputation

Once the word gets out that you have provided employees with a diversity-friendly work environment, you can access higher-quality job candidates, industry growth opportunities and even increased revenue.

Gain a competitive edge

A diverse workforce can give your company a competitive edge when venturing into a new market. Employees familiar with local laws or how to adapt a product in a new territory can decrease the amount of time and money you need to expand.

Make fewer marketing mistakes

Targeted marketing in a global world is no easy task. Each country and culture has different values, translations and sensitivities. By having a diverse workforce, you can limit the number of marketing mistakes. For example, running a marketing campaign in the United Kingdom can be vastly different than executing a United States campaign. Having a native U.K. employee who understands local culture and slang collaborate on the project can give insight into whether the subject matter and taglines would be culturally accepted.

Michael Henman contributed to this article.